“Welcome back to Twilight Manor, your highness. We had almost lost hope that you would return, and have had to subsist on mere stories of your many exploits.” A garish blue and yellow unicorn mare spoke in an unusually deep voice. “And I see that you have brought your accomplices with you, have they come to see the GLORY of House Twilight, or are they here for more personal reasons.”

Twilight sighed, “Cut it with the dramatic voice, Spark, I made it abundantly clear why I didn't want to return. I am only here because I don't want your father plotting my murder. Anyways, if you wanted to hear from me so badly why didn't you ever come to Ponyville? It wasn't a long trip, even before the teleportation circle was installed.”

“Oh, yes, yes. I remember that fateful day, when the foul Princess Celestia finally managed to turn you against against us. Against your family.”

Twilight snarled and aggressively stalked towards his cousin, “Princess Celestia saved me! She stopped me from becoming a psychotic monster, she stopped me from being my mother.”

“Okay, okay, okay. Point taken, I shouldn't have brought it up.” Twilight Spark backpedalled, speaking in a more natural higher voice. “On the subject of my dear father, do you have any idea where you sent my parents, father isn't usually gone this long when Lady Velvet sends him on his little missions.”

Twilight paused, “Uhhh, I don't, actually, know. I wasn't exactly thinking straight at the time, your mother had just explicitly threatened my little sister's life. Hopefully it's somewhere suitably unpleasant.”

---

Frost trudged through the swamp, the fetid water up to his barrel.

“Oh, what a wretched place, I have never seen so much filth in one place, and the smell. Oh Frost, why don't you use your special Twilight magic to get out of this.”

Unfortunately, he also had his wife standing on his back; even worse the mare just wouldn't shut up. “The spell that sent us here was deliberately discordant, if I tried teleporting now, before the backlash wears off, we'd end up smeared across a couple square kilometres.” He said for the seventeenth time in his trademark monotone, silently wishing that his nephew had actually done the deed.

“Oh, this is just awful.” Blazing Passion said for the thirty-seventh time.

No, he reminded himself, it was better to have her with him. If worst came to worst, she would help him stave off starvation for at least a couple weeks. He just had to avoid loosing his mind to her incessant whining in the mean time.

---

“Well if they don't pop up in the next couple months, you probably teleported them to the centre of the sun or the bottom of the ocean or something.” Spark shrugged, “It happens.”

Applejack gasped, “Why are ye talking yer parents in that way?”

Spark scoffed, “It's not like they had anything to do with raising me. Probably for the best as neither has a nurturing bone in their body.”

“But they're yer family.”

“So?”

“SO?! Yer family is yer family.”

“Your circular logic is impeccable.” Spark drawled.

Twilight sighed, “We're getting side-tracked, what's been planned.”

“Uh, not a whole lot, Lady Velvet is holed up in her cave and has the hunt planned for five days from now, shortly followed by the feast. Outside that, big sis has gotten the aurametric spectrometer up and running for you to get your signature read.”

Twilight rolled his eyes, “So my mother demanded I come yesterday, for a feast that isn't until next week?”

Spark shrugged, “It's Lady Velvet the Mad, it could be anything from a deliberate snub, to a prank to a legitimate mistake. We don't try to understand her thought processes; that way madness lies.”

“But you're all mad anywa ...” Shadow fell to the ground spasming, lightning magic arcing from her coat.

“Spark, please don't electrocute my guards.”

Spark pouted, “But she totally deserves it.”

“G-g-g-go b-b-buck y-y-yourself.”

“Spark ...” Twilight said, lighting her horn in warning.

“Okay, fine.” Spark cut off the spell.

Rainbow leaned close to Twilight, “Sooo Twilight. What's an 'aurametric spectrometer', I've never heard of them.”

“Oh, it's a device that reads the magical fields in an object, or in this case a pony. It can give you a reading on power, alignment, active magical effects and many other magical eccentricities, like magical illnesses or disorders.”

“Wait, so there is a machine that tells you all that with a press of the button? I thought ponies had to spend years in meditation and introspection to figure such things out.”

“Not for a very long time they haven't. It's not like Old Equestria where such a thing was viewed as a right of passage.” Twilight gave a look at Rainbow, what the mare didn't know was starting to become more suspicious than what she did, she seemed to have a surprisingly robust knowledge on many subjects, including some very obscure and archaic topics, but seemed to be missing some very basic common knowledge, “Aurametric Spectrometers have existed for just over 300 years, and for many hundreds of years prior there were spells that worked similarly, albeit less precise. In fact, the Orders Stalwart managed to piece together much more rudimentary versions of such spells in the middle of the Dark Age as we didn't have the time for such introspection, and that's well over a millennium ago.” Twilight paused, “Not that we shared them with anyone else.”

“Huh, wow.”

“So Spark, can I trust you to make sure nothing happens to the girls?”

“Sure, sure, Sparkles, I will just give them my Spark patented tour of the Manor. I promise, no dangerousness.”

“Okay, I'm trusting you Spark, don't make me regret it.”

“Yeah, yeah, protect them or my life will be forfeit, blah, blah, blah.” Spark paused. “Oh and Aura wanted Spike for scanning too, although she didn't say why.”

“Okay, follow me, Spike.”

Spike silently made to follow Twilight.

“You're not very talkative right now.”

Spike glared at the stallion.

“Ah, the 'silent treatment', wonderful. Well, let's get going.” Twilight started trotting off, “Oh, and Spark, 'dangerousness' isn't a real word.”

“And yet you understood it perfectly well.” Spark yelled at the retreating stallion, she turned to the five mares taking on her original deeper voice, “Welcome, welcome, one and all, to Spark's tour of Twilight Manor, the most wonderfullest tour of this ancient place. Now, the Twilight Manor is the ancestral home, and seat of power, of House Twilight, formerly known as the Stalwart of Twilight. It was built near the beginning of the middle Dark Age by the Stalwart of Brokenstone, which means that the manor is approximately 1400 years old, give or take about fifty years, making it the oldest continuously inhabited building in Equestria by a large margin.”

Rarity raised a hoof.

“Yes, you have a question?”

“You talk like you don't know how old it is, how is it you don't know it's exact age? ”

“Ah, yes, good catch. The problem is that it's actually incredibly difficult to date events that happened in the Dark Age, the banishing of Nightmare Moon and the absence of Princess Celestia meant that diurnal cycle was erratic and irregular, a single day or night could last anywhere from a couple hours to upwards of several weeks. And without the ponypower required for the changing of the seasons ... well, without seasons, you don't have years. Honestly the only reason we even have a coherent, semi-accurate timeline is due to the hard work of our genealogists.”

“If there were no seasons, how'd ponies farm?”

Spark grimaced, “With great difficulty, it was not uncommon for a crop to fail due to drought, heat, darkness or frost. And a failed crop usually resulted in many ponies – sometimes entire towns – starving to death. Only those who managed to find a less sensitive food source, like we did with the Everfree Forest, had any measure of food security.” Spark sighed, “It was a grim time.”

There was a brief pause.

“Well that's enough of that dark talk ... right now we are standing the Manor's primary portal room.” Spark gestured around at the rather spartan square stone room, unadorned except for the large teleportation circle in it's centre and a robust steel door in the far wall. “This is the primary method that us Twilights use to enter and exit the Manor. While this is not the only such room in the Manor, the number and location of other teleportation circles is classified as “need to know” and thus will not be a part of this tour. Now please follow me into the entrance hall.” Spark started trotting to the door.

Four mares followed Spark closely leaving Rainbow looking at the ceiling.

“Are those murder holes?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny any defensive measures built into the manor. I can merely state that Twilight Manor has never been successfully captured, despite many attempts to do so. All of which ended poorly for the attackers.”

“I was under the impression that only Twilights are capable of using your teleportation circles.” Rainbow stated as she examined a series of small holes set at the base of the walls, poison gas or just ventilation?

“That's true.” Spark stated curtly.

“And you feel the need for so many traps?” Rainbow asked examining a third set of holes, these ones charred black. They have flamethrowers built into the walls, too. Twilight wasn't lying about them being paranoid.

“I can neither confirm nor deny any defensive measures built into the manor.” Spark repeated, sounding annoyed. She lit her horn and the heavy door opened, not making a sound. “Come.”

The five mares followed her into a grand hallway hewn from solid stone; so long that they could barely see the end, empty except for the three star banners of House Twilight that were hung every couple metres.

“Standing here, you are standing directly below the peak of the Pillar of Twilight, the highest mountain in the known world. Right here you likely deeper in the Earth than you have ever been before, yet we are still well above sea level.”

“I ain't heard of no 'Pillar of Twilight' before.”

“You should have, considering that it's the mountain that the hive of scum and villainy you call your capital is built on.”

“Pardon?”

“Canterlot, just a couple kilometres behind you is Canterlot.”

Rarity piped up, “I believe that the mountain Canterlot is built on is called 'Mount Canterhorn'.”

“Correction,” Spark snarled, “Ponies pretend it's called that stupid name because they refuse to recognize that it's Twilight ancestral land that they built their precious capital on. Land that was leased to Celestia for a noble title, because apparently only the nobility have rights in this damnable country.”

Rarity was taken aback, “What?!”

“They murdered Starfall, they enslaved Skyhaven, they 'disappeared' Brokenstone, We alone remain.” Spark sighed, “And of course, you know nothing of any of it, for the cowards hide from their own cowardice just as much as they hide from their duty. Listen closely as I tell you of the history that has been hidden from you, a tale of strife, of survival against all odds, of triumph and of wretched betrayal.”

---

Twilight knocked on the closed door to the lab,

“Ah, Sparkle, Spike come on in, I just got finished setting everything up.” The door opened, seemingly on it's own.

The alicorn and the dragon walked into the lab where Aura was tinkering with a large expensive looking machine.

“Shadow, Umbra, don't think I can't see you there, the two of you can wait outside.”

“But, why?” Shadow whined before turning to her sister and whispering, “How does she keep seeing us?”

“Doctor patient confidentiality, and I can hear you too, Shadow.”

“But you're not a doctor.”

Aura rolled her eyes, “Am I not?” before slamming and locking the door. She turned Twilight “So, Sparkle, I figured that with your recent change, you're likely going to want to do a complete aurametric survey so I got Borla here set up for you.”

“Borla?”

“That's her name, beautiful machine, one of a kind and state of the art. Took quite a few bits to aquire her for the manor.”

“Uh, huh.”

“Now I already took the liberty of obtaining your last scans from the house archives.”

“Wait, you shouldn't even have those, they're supposed to be under seal in the Royal Archives.”

Aura raised an eyebrow, “And you think that means we wouldn't have access to them?”

Twilight sighed, “Mother stole them, didn't she.”

“Within a week; you had just spontaneously become an alicorn. We didn't even know that was possible. The entire house was going mad trying to find out how you managed it; we still haven't figured it out.”

“And none of you thought to ask me?”

“Well ... Considering your disposition towards the House and the fact you had just became an alicorn ...”

“You were afraid of me?”

“The existing precedent for alicorns is either ' singlehoofedly moving celestial objects' and/or 'mind control'”

“Mind control?” Twilight pause, “Aura, Cadence does not have 'mind control powers'.”

“Then how did that filthy monogamist steal my Shining Armour?”

“Your Shining Armour? I'm sorry, but my big brother wasn't yours. He never showed the slightest interest in you.” Then again, he didn't show interest in Cadence either. I didn't even know they were dating until their wedding.

“So you're saying I didn't try hard enough?”

Twilight winced, “No, Aura, quite the opposite, if anything you came on too strong.”

“What, I'm romantic, unlike you mister virgin.”

“Aura, in no world is galloping at a stallion who you're not in a relationship with screaming 'I love you, give me your foals' actually romantic, nor is chaining yourself to his bed after he shows you no interest. It's desperate and more than a little bit creepy.”

“But that's how it works in the books.”

Twilight was taken aback “... Oh buck no. You actually read that trash my mother makes. That garbage has no correlation with reality.” Honestly it explains a concerning amount about Aura. “And you're the one who's a virgin, not me.” Why did I say that?

Aura examined Twilight for a second, “Not even a week, and you've already scored.”

Twilight sighed, then grimaced. “How do you know I didn't loose my virginity as a mare, huh? I was a perfectly attractive mare.” Extremely attractive actually, although she hadn't know it at the time, getting an erection from my own image has to be the strangest confidence boost ever.

Aura laughed, “You're funny Sparkle. So who was it? Pink, Purple, Yellow, Orange or Blue? It's all of them isn't it. So was it individually or all of them at the same time. Please tell me it's the orgy.”

Twilight growled, “It's none of your bucking business, that's what it is. There was no bucking orgy. And those aren't my friend's names. You should honestly quit those trashfires my mother calls literature, they're clearly ailing your mind.”

“'The lord doth protest too much'” Aura smirked, “So which one is your favorite?”

“And this conversation is officially over, did you call me here to get my scans done, or just to pester me about things that are clearly none of your business?” Twilight snarled, “And it was a combination of the Elements of Harmony, Starswirl's Unfinished Spell and friendship magic that made me an alicorn.”

Aura pouted for a second, “So, it's not replicable?”

“Not without the Elements it isn't. And even then, it would only work on their chosen bearers.”

“Unfortunate ... well let's get you ready for your scans.”

---

“So, when Celestia banished the monstrous Nightmare Moon, all of Equestria rejoiced, for they believed that with the end of the war their troubles would finally be over. But little did they know, that the war was only the start of it, the start of the Dark Age.” Spark paused, “For without her Moon Princess, Equestria was left adrift, unable to control the passing of days. While ponies were initially pleased by the unending day that had become the new normal, it wasn't long before problems started to appear. Without the darkness of the night and the cooling influence of the moon the land rapidly warmed, soon the heat was of the height of summer despite it being the depth of winter just several hundred hours earlier. Even worse, the crops had started to die, scorched by the unrelenting power of the sun. It was at this point that the remaining loyal Lunar unicorn houses decided to intervene. They put together a group of hundreds of their most powerful mages in an attempt to resume their ancient duties and raise the moon ...”

Spark, gave a deep look to the five mares, “... But it was all for naught, for each one of them was struck dead in an instant by a jealous Nightmare. Soon it was dangerous to even stand in the daylight. Ponies were forced to hide where the light couldn't touch them, in cellars and caves, under wards and in the Everfree forest, rationing their ever dwindling food supplies. Then suddenly, after the rivers dried up and when the oceans started to boil, it was night.”

“What about Princess Celestia? Shouldn't she have been able to control the moon, like she did before Princess Luna returned?”

“Not at that time she couldn't, in fact it was Princess Celestia managing to gain control of the moon that marked the end of the Dark Age. That's actually the origin of the Summer Sun Celebration. To be honest, we don't know how she even did it, by all rights it should not have been possible. A unicorn's magic has inherent limitations that are – as far as we are aware – completely impossible to overcome. For example, as a lightning aligned unicorn I'm completely incapable of casting even the smallest earth magic spell; even levitating pebbles is hard for me to do as the innate magic in them rebels against my spells. We have no reason to believe such restrictions go away for alicorns, if anything they increase.”

Spark took a breath, “So once again ponies celebrated, and once again the celebration was premature. The folly of the Nightmare was revealed, as eternal night was no kinder to the land than eternal day was. The water that had been evaporated during the day returned, first as an unending torrential rain that washed over the sun-baked land as floods, then as sleet that chilled to the bone, then as hail and finally as a frigid wind that covered everything it touched in a solid layer of ice nearly a metre thick. And then, right as ponies could take no more, it was day again. Thus it continued, with day and night passing to the other erratically and without warning, and while never did they last as long as the First Day or the Long Night, drought and flood and frost and fire became a constant threat.”

“Ah, still don't get how ponies fed themselves, ain't nopony who can farm in those conditions.”

“Most ponies didn't, it's estimated that ninety percent of Equestria's population didn't make it to the end of the Long Night, and most of those are believed to have died from starvation. It was a truly bleak time.”

There was a brief silence.

“And desperation brings out the worst in some ponies, many starving ponies descended to banditry, some even became cannibals. And then there were the external threats; Griffon tribe's, caribou raiding parties, more than a couple rogue dragons, and stranger accursed beings – vampires and other fiends – all come to slake their hunger – and other desires – on soft pony flesh.” Spark laughed darkly.

“They ate ponies?” A horrified Rarity asked.

Spark smirked, “Yup, but we weren't left without any way to fight back, the nobility of Old Equestria maintained standing armies even during peacetime, and those armies had only swollen during the civil war. But those armies were disorganized, confused and had a rigid command structure that was unsuitable for the situation. This lead to a number of prominent noble houses – along with many other military and paramilitary organizations – to form the Order Stalwart, a chivalric order whose sole responsibility was the protection of the common ponies from those who would prey on them; this marked the end of the early Dark Age. The Order Stalwart would then go on to build fortresses all across central Equestria, one of which being this very Manor.” Spark paused, “Although the specific tunnel we are travelling down was dug later, the year 679 specifically, as they never had a reason to dig quite this far into the mountain before that.”

“A tunnel that you are able to collapse?” Rainbow guessed idly, earning a baleful glare from Spark.

“But while a major turning point, the establishment of the Order Stalwart did not mean that the time of strife was over. Our enemies numbered more than the stars and it would be a good 300 years – approximately – of constant war until we managed to deal with the majority of the threats. And about a hundred years after that – a hundred years of good governance by the remaining Orders Stalwart – the Dark Age ended with Celestia's return and the first summer solstice of modernity. And shortly after that, other noble houses started appearing, Platinum, Hurricane, Sunfire and dozens others besides. At first we were ecstatic, after all we had thought that they had all gone extinct, but here they were alive and well.”

Spark sighed, “But that feeling was not mutual, if anything they seemed offended that we had even managed to survive. Before we even knew they had returned, they had declared every noble house that had remained in Equestria – our very ancestors – extinct and replaced them with their second daughters and loyal lapdogs, the 'new' houses.” Spark closed her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks,

“And they weren't satisfied with just destroying our birthright and rendering us commoners, no they just could not abide our existence. First, Sunfire – damn their ashes – pretending to treat with the Stalwart of Starfall, under guest right, murdered them in the dead of night. Unfortunately for them, the Orders Stalwart has already learned our lesson about letting our enemies take our fortresses and the murderers died in the violent collapse of the Castle Starfall's wards.” Spark smirked viciously.

“Of course, they learned from that. A short time later and Hurricane did something – presumably some hideously illegal mind magic – to Skyhaven and forced them to cut all ties with their fellow Orders Stalwart, and appropriated The Skyhaven as their own, renaming it 'Cloudsdale', 'the first cloud city of New Equestria' they called it. Bastards.”

Rainbow was taken aback, “You mean House Hurricane? As in the descendants of Captain Hurricane?”

Spark rolled her eyes, “No I'm talking about the other ancient 'noble' pegasus House Hurricane.”

Rarity spoke up, “Now, while this has all been fascinating, it seems a little far-fetched. How could a pegasus house possibly do such a thing, it's not like they can do magic?”

Spark snarled, “They got one of their vassals to do it – they do have a couple minor unicorn houses as vassals – or they hired a dark mage or they have a dark artifact, I don't know, it's not like we can ask them. They're older than Equestria, they have resources we don't. But they did it, I'm not lying..”

Rarity gasped, “What, no, I would never accuse you of lying.”

“No, you'll just heavily imply it. I know your kind, you never speak your mind always twisting your biting words to speak in implications and euphemism because you like to pretend you're oh so virtuous. You will find very little tolerance for such a practice here, so if you can't speak frankly, don't speak at all.”

“Just because our magic is different than yours, that doesn't mean it's not magic.” Rainbow added.

“Now, any other questions?”

The five mares shook their heads.

“Okay, good. Now where was I.” Spark paused for a bit, “After the Stalwart of Skyhaven were stolen, the Stalwart of Brokenstone disappeared, leaving no trace. We still have no idea who wiped them out, we don't even know how they were murdered. One day they were there, and the next ... The Rock of Brokenstone was rubble. Thus all of our closest allies were gone, the only other remaining Orders Stalwart were too far away for us to know them, not that they lasted much longer, not after the Stalwart of Whisperingwood organized most of the surviving Orders Stalwart into open revolt. A revolt Twilight didn't even know was happening until years after it had been defeated with overwhelming force.”

“Thus started the Hundred Years of Silence, one hundred years of hiding, one hundred years of preparing, one hundred years of fearing, one hundred years of waiting. All for when the nobility would come to finish their job and annihilate us. When we would fight to the last pony, against an army a thousand times our size. When we would make the traitors bleed and choke and die for every hall and every room they took.” Spark took a couple deep breaths to calm down.

“But it never came, I don't know if they forgot about us, or if they learned of some our fortifications and realized that it would cost more than they were willing to spend, but we were left completely unmolested. And then she showed up, Princess Celestia, she showed up ... not to thank us for protecting her ponies, or to sympathize for our losses. No she came to us for a discussion on land rights, she wanted to build a city on our mountain. We wanted – oh, so badly – to tell her to 'go buck herself' – although in less diplomatic words than that – some of us even wanted to attack her, but luckily the Lady Commander Twinkle Star was wiser than most of the Order. She gave Celestia permission to build her city and an indefinite land lease in return for a noble title and a formal recognition of our ownership of the Pillar of Twilight. Unfortunately, she refused to recognize our ownership of the Everfree Forest, as that was apparently 'Crown Land', but that was recently returned to us via Prince Sparkle so we're willing to let that slight go.”

“Oh, we're here.” Spark stopped at another solid steel door, opening it with her magic. “Welcome to Twilight Manor, properly this time.”

---

A dark figure was hunched over a scrying pool, watching the newcomers without their knowledge, “Myesssss, we have company, Vexiquin, we do.” She spoke to the stuffed bobcat she was petting.

The taxidermy said nothing.

“Yes, my dear Vexiquin, we must test them, to see if worthy they are, yes.”

There was no response.

“Eh, he he he he. Like how you think my dear Vexiquin I do. Hunting, go I must. My dear, stay you here.”

'Vexiquin' the bobcat did nothing.

“Return, soon will I.”

---

“Huh, that's weird.” Aura looked at the output of the Aurametric spectrometer.

“Uh, Aura, what's weird?” Twilight was concerned.

“Your base mana signature is very odd.”

“Odd, how? Is it bad?”

“I don't actually know, It doesn't seem pathological, it's too harmonious for that, but I've never seen a reading anything like this from a pony before. Have you done anything that could have changed your base magic?”

“I don't know, I turned into a stallion?”

Aura rolled her eyes, “A pony's base mana, unlike most creatures, doesn't change depending on sex. You know that as well as I.”

“I became an alicorn?”

“Yes and we have your scans. This is more recent than that.”

“Then my only other idea it's a side effect of the backlash that made me a stallion.”

“That is technically possible, but infinitesimal in probability.” Aura said slowly, “Magical backlash is inherently chaotic, and every example of backlash effecting a pony's base mana resulted in them becoming a hideous monstrosity of flesh and teeth and eyes, if they even survived.”

Twilight shrugged, “It made my soul into that of a stallion, so anything is possible.”

“And you think backlash did all of that?”

“I can think of no other possible way the spell I cast, 'When you remove the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.'”

Aura snorted, “And the problem with deductive reasoning is that you can never properly account for every possibility. Just because you can't think of a way for something to happen, that doesn't mean it's impossible.”

“But it is impossible, auramancy spells just don't transform ponies, especially not maintenance auramancy spells.”

“Huh, auramancy did this? That makes some sense, after all auramancy is the manipulation of existing magical fields. It's even possible, albeit rare, for auramancy to mimic other schools by interacting with persistent magical effects from those schools.”

“Except that there's no magical effect that could explain a mare to stallion transformation. Quite the opposite actually, as the prevalent magic wants to turn stallions into mares and no amount of auramancy will ever turn magic against it's purpose.”

“'The prevalent magic wants to turn stallions into mares'?”

“Apparently, ponies really wanted daughters back in Old Equestria. It's actually the reason why there are so many more mares than stallion”

“'Back in Old Equestria'? Just how prevalent was the practice that we're still feeling it's effects at least 1500 years later?!”

“I don't know, but prevalent enough that ponykind almost went extinct, at least according to the Princesses.”

“They managed to make it bucking supercritical?! Here I thought that supercritical spell interference was a purely hypothetical situation, because nopony would actually be bucking stupid enough to actually do it. But no, the bucking incompetents actually did it, and on their own bucking children?! It's a wonder they were even able to breathe, with their sub-zero IQs. Why, I wish the mentally deficient fools were still alive so I could strangle them. Or maybe I would flay them instead ...” Aura trailed off seething in rage.

...

“Uh, Aura, are you okay?”

Aura sighed, “I just lost my last remaining belief in ponykind.” She rolled her eyes, “How did they manage to avert it anyways.”

“I don't know exactly, Princess Celestia didn't say and Princess Luna was deliberately vague, but it seemed to be bad.”

”So I guess, this has something to do with why you haven't turned yourself back?”

“It's High Treason to try.”

Aura nodded, “Makes sense, if the residue is still around, then it can't be very far from criticality, even a small push might make it supercritical again, and I doubt it would be able to be adverted again, magic is a living force, it learns and changes in response to stimuli. It's why making any kind of self sustaining magical effect is so dangerous and why super-critical magical interference is an abomination to every competent mage.”

Twilight sighed, “I guess ... It's just frustrating. I was born and raised as a mare, being a stallion is so different.”

Aura smirked, “What, not used to having a cock?”

“What, no, that's not it. The bank asked me for my cosigner, me. An alicorn prince and the lord of the entire town, I literally own the the land that the bank is built on. And mares have been throwing themselves at me asking for studding rights. Also, there was one mare who asked me to abdicate my position, and I'm not sure if it's even legally possible for an alicorn to abdicate.”

Aura made a face of utter disgust at the mention of studding, “And you made sure that they were suitably chastised for that disgusting insult.”

“What, for asking for studding? No; they didn't know. I just told them no.”

Aura made a dark chuckle, “That won't help, those degenerates don't take no for an answer, especially not from a stallion. The only thing they understand is force. I should know, there were so many of those parasites pursuing my Shining, that chastising them became a full time job. And I was successful in protecting his purity from those harlots, at least until that 'Princess Mi Amore Cadenza' stole his heart and mind.”

Twilight sighed, there was so, so much to unpack there, “Uh, Aura, what exactly do you mean by 'pursuing'?”

“Potions, drugs, magic, coercion or simple force.”

“You're telling me mares raped my brother?”

Aura rolled her eyes. “No, I'm telling you they attempted too, we made sure they were unsuccessful. It took a while for the stupid mares to figure out that just because he wasn't born of a noble house, that didn't mean he didn't have the protection of one.”

“That's horrible ... no that's Evil.”

Aura shrugged, “And that's Equestria, the best you can do is protect those you care about.”

“But rape is illegal.”

“It is?”

“I've been there when Princess Celestia has executed rapists.”

“And how many of those rapists were mares?”

Twilight paused thinking back to it, “... none of them, Why?”

“Have you ever read the legal definition of 'rape'?”

“No?”

“Because by modern Equestrian law, 'rape' is forcibly putting your penis in another pony's orifice. And last time I checked, mares don't usually have penises.”

“But just because it's not considered rape, that doesn't mean it's legal.”

“Sure, it's technically 'illegal', but laws enforced by fines are really only laws for the poor.”

“It's just a fine?!” Twilight was horrified.

“Yep, a fine of twice the studding cost of the stallion, or five hundred bits if the stallion doesn't have an 'active studding contract'. And that's for a mare who successfully forces herself on a stallion, there is no fine for the unsuccessful, the only justice can be done extra-legally. Luckily, the law at least looks the other way when ponies make up for it's deficiencies in that area.”

“Five hundred bits?! I spend more than that in an average shopping trip.”

“The judge who originally set that figure outright stated that it was deliberately low in order to punish the family for not making their son do his duty.” Aura hissed out the last word with hatred. “So because of that forcing yourself on a stallion without a 'contract' is the most economically viable way for a mare to have sex. The bucking degenerates really hate stallions who refuse to be prostitutes, and families who refuse to force them to be, so they take the liberty to make them such retroactively. It's up to us to make it nonviable to do such to our stallions in other ways.” Aura sighed, “If we had the power, we would wipe the slate clean and remake the country in a way that isn't so utterly vile.”

Twilight was silent in shock.

Aura closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face “I'm sorry to tell you this. I truly wish it weren't true. But I swear on my life that we will do everything in our power to prevent it from happening to you.”

“I can defend myself.” Twilight said, offended.

“It is not an insult to your capabilities, but everypony is flawed, everypony makes mistakes and everypony lets their guard down. Maybe you can defend yourself from their insidious assaults, maybe your status will protect you or maybe our name will. But I know better than to trust in maybes. After all, Shining is the most powerful abjuration specialist born in centuries and he needed almost a dozen ponies to keep him safe.”

---

Despite entering the Manor proper, they had yet to enter a proper room, instead following Spark through a complex maze of halls, the mare speaking without pause about about the many inane details of the history of these halls. She had none of the fire that she had earlier, instead speaking in the subdued tone of mare reading from a script, likely memorized. And such a script would likely be carefully curated to exclude any actionable military intelligence if Rainbow's reading of the mare was correct, as well as an unknown number of other sensitive topics that she had no idea how to guess at.

It was all horribly boring, and Rainbow had more interesting things to focus on. Like how not a single hall they had passed through was missing the murder holes in the ceiling, or the fetlock high holes that she had determined to be ventilation. That had made itself clear to her sensitive feathers as soon as she got her wings close to the holes. It was pretty obvious in retrospect, they were, as Spark explained, deep underground, and ponies needed air to live. That said, Rainbow had her money that they didn't have a use in the defence of the manor, if not poison gas – which she still thought likely – then at least it was likely they could just turn the ventilation off in parts of the manor. After all, as flight school had hammered into her, hypoxia is deadly, and ground bound ponies were even more vulnerable to it than pegasi.

Honestly with just control of the ventilation and the massive stone doors – much like the ones that would close behind Daring Do as the room would start filling with sand/water/snakes/spiders/centipedes/stingrays/bees/flesh-eating cabbages – any invading army would likely be stopped dead instantly, and be dead in hours.

“Oh, so these are little Sparkles' mare friends ...” Said an orange mare whose mane appeared to be on fire.

“What are you doing here Flare, shouldn't you be off playing with your explosives?”

“What? A mare can't be interested in meeting her cousin's friends?”

Spark sighed, “Well, you five, here's my idiot sister, Twilight Flare ...”

“I'll burn you”

“... I don't know why she's here to meet us, but I would keep your distance if you don't want to spontaneously combust.”

Flare rolled her eyes, “Only if they irritate me.”

Rarity moved forward, raining a hoof to shake, “It is a pleasure to meet you Lady Flare, I am Rarity, proprietor of Carousel Boutique. And these are my friends, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and ...” Rarity looked around “...where is Pinkie Pie?”

Flare examined the offered hoof with a strange expression.

Spark looked around desperately for the missing mare, catching view of her sneaking up behind Flare holding a bucket of ... Oh buck no, she thought before disappearing in a crackle of electricity ...

... reappearing between the two mares and taking a bucket of water to the face.

Flare turned and glared at the pink mare, “Know this, assassin, my sister has saved your life this day, not mine, for I am no longer vulnerable to such foul poison. Good bye.” The mare disappeared in a bust of flame.

...

“Well that was rude.” Rarity scowled.

Spark, sighed. “The thing about my sister you have to understand is that she has tread further on the path of the elementalist than any of us. Sacrificing a portion of her equinity and rewriting her Ego in the language of Fire; she has truly become a Creature of Fire. She does not act or respond like a 'normal' pony,” She glared at the pink pony still holding the empty bucket. “And attempting to put out her mane is incredibly foolish.”

“But she was on fire!”

“No, she is Fire. Such a thing can be considered attempted murder, even if it's unlikely to kill her. And she has killed ponies for doing what you attempted.”

Pinkie's eyes widened. “What!?”

“Just, please don't act so impulsively, very few ponies here are what you would consider 'normal', and the last thing I want to do is explain to Sparkles why one or more of his friends got themselves dead.”

The four mares followed Spark.

Wait where is Applejack? Rainbow thought ...

... It's not my problem. The mare put a hoof to her forehead, wait, what was I thinking about? She suddenly had a slight headache, keep your wits with you, my bearer, something odd is going on.

---

“Hunting, hunting, hunting. Hunting, yes me fun ...” Sang a figure softly to herself, stalking down the hall, dragging a burlap sack

Shadow glanced at the figure “Wait, I think I saw ...”

“No.” Umbra cut her off.

“She's right ...”

“No.”

“But she's dragging ...”

“No.”

“What?”

“You saw nothing, Shadow.” Umbra stared into her sister's eyes.

“Fine, I saw nothing.”

“Good.”

---

“Well, your Earth Pony and Pegasus magic are pretty normal, inherently strong, but untrained. Not surprising considering the circumstances, what with you being a new alicorn.”

“So no change?”

“Of course there's been a change, your magic is stronger and better integrated now.”

Twilight rolled his eyes, “You know what I mean, Aura.”

“But now that you mention it, there hasn't been much progress on the training front, don't you have Earth Ponies and Pegasi in your friend group. What would Princess Celestia think of you neglecting half of your magical heritage like this.”

“I've been busy.”

“Not too busy to mess around with strange auramancy spells.”

“Buck off, Aura.” Twilight said without heat.

---

Applejack woke with a nasty headache, “What, where am I!” She tried to get up, only to find that she had been restrained. “What's going on?!”

“Your struggles futile, Applerack, they are. Those binding, ten times your strength, hold, they can.” Said a voice from the shadows, stilted and awkward in cadence.

Applejack's struggling redoubled, “Who are yeh, and what do yah want with me?!”

A deranged cackle came from behind, “Slow of learning, is she, my dear, Vexiquin.” A shadowed hodded figure moved into Applejack's vision holding a miserable looking stuffed cat. “But, question, to me, they belong, Papalblack. Answers, your roll, are they.”

“Mah name is Applejack. And stop speaking nonsense.”

“It is? No, no, no. Packball, one question is this: what interest have you with Prince Twilight Sparkle, First of that Name, Duke of Everfree, Heir to House Twilight, hmmm?”

“Wha? Twilight? He's just mah friend.”

There was a smash as the mare threw the stuffed cat, knocking over something outside of Applejack's vision, “Lies!” The mare snarled moving forward, into the light “You desire him, I know you do!”

She looks a lot like Twilight. “Yer, his mother, aren't yeh. Ah, ain't a whorse, an' I definately ain't a poacher. Why don't yeh let me out and we can talk about this like civilized mares.”

“'Civilized mares'?!” The mare snarled, “Nay, nay, nay. Lucky for consideration, even, you are. First ...” There was a pair of snaps as the mare put on odd ribbed gloves, “... examined, must you, be.”

“Examined? Wha' do yah mean?”

The mare grabbed Applejack's jaw with strength atypical of a unicorn and stared into her mouth.”

Applejack's snarled and started struggling, “When ah get out of here, Ah'm goin'a buck you into next week.”

“Lewd,” the mare chuckled, “Remember, not, but you.”

---

The five mares finally entered a room that wasn't just a stone hallway, “Welcome to Lounge number 5, the best view in the manor.” Spark trotted up to the large window taking up the entire far wall. “Looking down you can see the great Everfree Forest, our historic hunting grounds. We owe our very existence to the forest, for even in the most inhospitable weather, the chaotic magic of the forest meant that life was always growing and spreading. It provided for us when the the earth couldn't. In fact, the Stalwart of Brokenstone, Starfall and Skyhaven also built their fortresses on the border of the forest, for that exact reason. Their geographic closeness meaning that they were the only other orders we had any significant relations with.”

“If you look up you can see the bottom of the Twilight Manor Skyport, the sixteenth largest skyport in Equestria and responsible for aproximately seventy percent of House Twilight's and twelve percent of all of Canterlot's imports. If you didn't already know, airships account for a majority of Equestria's trade capacity. And this is especially true of Canterlot, who – like Equestria's cloud cities - imports the vast majority of it's commodities via airship.”

“What about trains?”

“Canterlot only has one train line, which was built relatively recently, and is only used for passengers. By and large, trains are only used to transport goods to and from towns that are too small to have a proper skyport. Like Ponyville,” Spark leaned in close to the glass, “And on the subject of Ponyville, if you look to the far right you can just make out the outskirts of the town. Ponyville is the only town in the newly established Duchy of Everyfree, now ruled by Prince Twilight Sparkle, my cousin, ending the centuries old land dispute between House Twilight and Princess Celestia. Ponyville is an odd town being very close to both Canterlot and Cloudsdale but being considered a frontier town due to it being built in on the border of the Everfree forest. Ponyville is, of course, most well known for being inhabited by so called 'involuntary celibates', mares who are so deprived of sexual contact that they've been driven to the greatest extremes of degeneracy ...”

“Spark.”

“Yes?”

“We're from Ponyville.”

“Yes, a terribly unfortunate coincidence, there are no less than seven 'Ponyvilles' in Equestria, terribly generic name. But this one gives the others all a bad name.”

“No, we're from that Ponyville.”

“Wait, you mean ...” The mare's eyes widened, “... that means ...” she gasped, “.. this means that the Electro-Chastizer 9000 project needs to be accelerated ...” The mare thrust her left forehoof into the air, “Don't worry Sparkles, I'll protect your virginity!” she yelled before disappearing in a flash of lightning.

Rainbow scoffed, “A bit late for that.” Wait, why did I say that? She asked herself, Because you're staking your claim, my bearer, you fleshy types have a concerning propensity for denial.

A scandalized Rarity and a confused looking Applejack glared at the Pegasus. “How, gauche.”

Applejack looked around, “Wait, where are we?”

“Lounge number 5 my dear, weren't you paying attentio...”

Rainbow looked around at the three mares in the room, something wasn't right. Fluttershy was here, so was Pinkie Pie and Applejack. Wait where's Rari ... IT'S NOT MY PROBLEM. She grit her teeth as she was almost overwhelmed by pain, her last thoughts lost. It's not normal to loose your thoughts like that, my bearer, I fear mental magic is being inflicted on you.

---

“Your, dhampir magic seems normal ... maybe?”

“It seems, 'normal, maybe', that's really helpful.”

“I mean, we don't exactly have a lot to go on, your last scans completely neglected it. Which isn't surprising since it operates at an unusual frequency, higher than Pegasus magic but lower than Unicorn, not a frequency range anypony's likely to check unless they know about it already.” She paused, “Probably for the best, I wouldn't want to explain to Princess Celestia why there's an unstable chaotic blob of shadow and blood magic shoved haphazardly into your matrix, and I doubt you would either. Although honestly, we don't understand it all that well, it's not like we have an abundance of data, we didn't have anything nearly as precise as Borla back in the Dark Age, and even if we did, the vampires had a habit of exploding when we tried to capture them. So we're trying to piece things together after the fact using a rather diluted magical inheritance. If not for CIV, we wouldn't even know a quarter as much as we do.”

Twilight gulped, “'Unstable', 'chaotic', 'shoved' and 'haphazardly' are not words you want hear describing your magical matrix, especially not when it's shortly followed by 'exploding'.”

Aura shrugged, “Whoever or whatever was responsible for the creation of the vampires, it was not natural, it was not harmonious, and it had little concern for the longevity of it's creations. Mortal beings aren't meant to exist without a soul and shoving a mass of magic in the empty hole where it once was is the definition of a hack-job. Although I shouldn't really judge that harshly as I don't have the faintest clue how it was done in the first place.”

“Aura, you can absolutely judge it harshly, whatever did it murdered ponies, turned them into soulless abominations and released them as a scourge upon ponykind.”

“Touche.” Aura paused and looked at the readings again, “If it makes you feel better, your dhampir magic is a lot more harmonious than CIV's is.”

“No, it does not help to know that my little sister has an even more chaotic 'unstable chaotic blob of shadow and blood magic shoved haphazardly into [her] matrix'”

“Oh that, eh heh heh,” Aura awkwardly rubbed a hoof through her mane, “I don't think it's that much of a problem, there isn't a single case of a Twilight exploding, or otherwise suffering significant adverse effects from the dhampir magic. We believe that the entire exploding thing had more to do with a vampire's lack of a soul than the magic that was shoved in it's place, it's believed that hole would suck in any ambient magic around the vampires, 'nature abhors a vacuum' and whatnot. And if that ambient magic interferes destructively with the magic the vampire already had ... well, pop goes the vampire ~” Aura sang the last line. “We believe that's why they lived so closely together despite so clearly hating each other so, so much; they literally couldn't survive anywhere that wasn't saturated in their own magic.” Aura sighed, “If we had known that at the time, exterminating them would have been trivial, and so much bloodshed could have been adverted.”

“'If wishes were unicorns, we'd have a kingdom.'” Twilight sighed, “So CIV is fine?”

“I wouldn't say she's fine, she's your mother's daughter after all – albeit, not nearly as bad as you were – and she's, uh, bitey ...” Aura trailed off, “But she's physically and magically healthy, if that's what you're asking.”

“Uh, yeah that's relieving.”

---

“'Rarity, calls you, they. Bah, more common mare, never a, have seen, I”

Rarity woke rudely to the disjointed, disorienting diction of a mare she could not see. “What, where am I? What do you want.”

“Always as, stupid mares, stupid questions, ask.” There was a soft chuckle, “No, no, no, The questions, ask I.”

“What?! Let me go, you brute. You won't get away with this.”

The mare laughed, “Lies, lies, lies, stupid mares, lie, lie, lie ~” She sang disonantly.

“HELP, SOMEPONY HELP. A CRAZY BRUTE OF A MARE HAS ...” Suddenly her voice went silent.

“Hmph, Loud, stupid mare, is.”

Rarity started shivering in fear.

“No question, guess I, needed are. Knows everything, I. Stupid mare, stupid mare, is. Common, but thinks princess. Not princess, stupid mare, never princess, but not understand. Never understand. Stupid mare, stupid mare, is. Nothing more, need I.”

---

There was an awkward silence as the four mares wondered what to do, their guide had disappeared.

...

There was a crack of thunder as Twilight Spark reappeared, “Oh, you trixie mares. You almost got me. Got me all panicked about Sparkles, so that I almost left you to your own degenerate devices. But, no, Sparkle is currently safe, the Electro-Chastizer 9000 can wait for a little bit. But you, I'm on to you, and I'm not letting you out of my sight again. So you won't get to touch the soft delicious stallions in the manor.”

Applejack looked at the mare in confusion, “Now, ah'm sure that ah've missed something, but what the buck is goin' on!”

Rainbow felt a small niggle in the back of her head, “Uh, Spark here thinks we're a bunch of sexual deviants, or something, because we live in Ponyville.”

“What, I ain't no whorse. Ah'm a good upstanding mare, an' Ah won't tolerate some uppity filly slanderin' me.” Applejack got in Spark's face.

Spark took a step back, “Eh, what about I continue the tour.”

Before Spark could start a lost looking Rarity stared at Spark, “Wait, didn't you leave? How are you still here?”

Rainbow didn't hear the response as she caught a glimpse of a strange hooded mare stuffing an unconscious Pinkie Pie in a burlap sack, Somepony's kidnapping Pin ... IT'S NOT MY PROBLEM

Unseen and unheard by the other mares Rainbow fell to the ground, screaming in pain.

She pulled herself unsteadily to her feet, she couldn't remember what she had just been thinking about, but she could remember that she had forgotten it. Somethings BUCKING with my MIND, she snarled mentally, Did I not just say that?

---

“Wew, impressive. I've never seen a unicorn with such pure arcane magic; yours was always very pure, but this is on another level. Why, I'd say you're probably the purist arcane unicorn since bucking Starswirl the Bearded himself.”

Twilight was silent for a second, “Wait, what did you just say?”

“I said 'you're probably the purist arcane unicorn since Starswirl the Bearded' ...”

“The spell actually worked.” Twilight cut her off.

There was a brief pause.

“I'm sorry, please enlighten me, which spell are you talking about?”

“The auramancy spell, the one that turned me into a stallion.”

“Ah, and since a spell can't both work and backfire at the same time, the transformation has to be the result of the spell working as normal, if not as expected.” Aura smirked.

“But that's impossible, auramancy spells don't do that.”

“'When you remove the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.' Who knows it might actually be a disjunction spell.”

Twilight rolled her eyes, “Disjunction spells don't exist, it's a school of magic that's exclusive to the Elements of Harmony”

“Shut up, let me be smug.”

Twilight rolled his eyes and lit his horn.

There was an appreciable build in power until a book appeared in a bright flash.

“Wait, did you just teleport that all the way from Ponyville?!”

Twilight ignored Aura and opened the book to the spell he had recently been studying.

“Absolutely bucking ridiculous,” Aura looked at the cover of the book, “Wait, the spell that did this to you was a Starswirl the Bearded spell?! How can you talk about things being impossible with a bucking Starswirl the Bearded spell?! The stallion singlehandedly invented no less than seven fields of spellcasting, including – if I may remind you – spell cryptography. Which he used to make every single one of his spells as difficult to use – and study – as possible. How can you even be certain that it's even an auramancy spell, I know for certain that one of his spells is an evocation spell that's designed to look like a divination spell, rest in pieces to the poor bastards who sacrificed themselves to figure that out.”

“Hm,”

Aura moved behind Twilight and looked at the spell, “Now Sparkle, not that I'm an expert in auramancy – oh wait, that's exactly what I am, it is my specialty – but I have never seen an auramancy spell that uses an iso-causal spacetime metric before, in fact such things only seem to appear in aethermancy spells, which, just so happens to be the other school I'm an expert in.”

“So is every Twilight,” Twilight deadpanned, “Our entire House is fundamentally built on the school of aethermancy, ever since Aurora solved Starswirl's teleportation spell” He paused, finally recognizing the first part of Aura's statement, “Wait, an iso-causal spacetime metric, where?”

“Uh, it's split up into seven different parts and placed equidistantly around the outer circle here, I only recognized it because I'm working on reverse engineering another one of his spells – to not much luck I might add – and he used a similar obfuscation method in that spell, it's the only part I've managed to decode, how can a dead stallion be so infuriating?”

Twilight tilted his head ... “Now that you've pointed it out, I can see it. But this makes even less sense. Aethermancy is the school of time and space, if I found myself on another continent or if I became a filly, I would understand. But I became a stallion, I have never been a stallion before this.”

Aura's eyes widened, “'I set sail upon the sea of possibilities, and from them plucked that which had never been, and thus made it so.'”

Twilight let out a gasp, “You're talking about reality bending.”

“Yeah, I feel ridiculous even suggesting it, but if anypony could manage it, it's bucking Starswirl the Bearded. Although I have no idea why he would make a spell that turns it's caster into a stallion, even if the stallion was undeniably odd.”

Twilight paused, “Aura, do you have any aurametric scans from adult male non-ponies?”

“Yes, from both griffon drakes and male dragons. Why?”

“You have scans from dragons?” Twilight paused, “No, nevermind, can you get one of them out?”

“Uh I actually have the dragon scans right here, they're why I wanted Spike here, House Draconis finally actually responded to our diplomatic overtures.” She looked at the silent dragonling pouting in a chair in the corner. “Quiet one isn't he?”

“House Draconis? Huh.” The half-dragon house was notoriously isolationist, usually refusing to have anything to do with anyone from outside the Borderlands between Equestria and the Dragonlands. “And don't mind Spike; he's just being contrary right now, he'll get over it eventually. So could you compare my base mana to the base mana of the male dragon?”

“Uh, sure, but why?”

“Just do it.”

Aura levitated two papers over in front of her, “And what am I looking for?”

“Any similarities.”

“Sparkle, all living things have many similarities in their base mana, even ponies and dragons.”

“Similarities that are not shared with most ponies.”

“Okay ... I am even more confused now.” She levitated a third piece of paper to in front of her and her horn brightened, “Huh ...”

“You found similarities.”

“Yes, a concerningly large number of them in fact, you're not secretly a dragon are you?”

“No Aura, I'm not secretly a dragon.” Twilight said patronizingly.

“Then why ... ?” She waved her hooves a the three papers

“Aura, you know how ponies are the only known species whose base mana isn't differentiated by sex?”

“Yes?”

“What if it's not supposed to be like that?”

“Oh.”

Here's chapter 19. And it's my longest chapter yet, almost 10 000 words in fact. Sorry about taking so long, I haven't had much time to write since I moved this summer, but this fic is officially not dead or on hiatus.

Lots of exposition in this chapter, and quite a few answers to existing questions. If you miss anything in the technobabble (magibabble?) between Twilight and Aura please comment, I like answering questions.