Chapter Twenty Four
Going Home

I was just finishing up brushing out my tail when a steward knocked gently on my cabin door.

"I thought you might like some breakfast, Your Highness," the steward said when I opened the door.

There was a carafe of coffee, a toasted cinnamon-raisin bagel so fresh it was still steaming, maple yogurt, and fresh fruit on his little cart. "Oh, bless you!" I said. "That is exactly what I need right now."

"You're very welcome, ma'am. If there is anything else you'd like, just use the speaking tube," he pointed to a little brass pipe that ended in a slight flair, like the mouth of a trumpet, on the bulkhead of my cabin. "Ask for the galley."

Adventure was all well and good, but civilization was wonderful!

I savored my breakfast to the last bite as I watched the several pegasi guards change their respective watches. One flew out to where the pegasus from the night watch was keeping pace with Sunbeam, and they flew together for a couple of minutes; exchanging orders and news, I assumed. The now off-duty guard flew back to the airship, making a sweeping bank. A quick glide around the big starboard lateral fin later, and he disappeared from my view into the flight deck below.

When I'd finished eating, I refilled my coffee mug, stirring in sugar and cream as I opened my cabin door. I wanted to find a large surface to spread out my work; my cabin was well equipped, but very small nonetheless.

I tried the saloon first, but saw through the round port in the door that Luna, Sessi, and the two changeling drones we had brought along were inside, deep in conversation. Luna willingly sitting down in the same room with changelings? The world was changing, no doubt about it.

I reversed course and headed forward to the main cabin. The main feature of the cabin was a large table where crew and passengers usually took their meals, if not eating in their own cabins. I entered to find the doctor who had treated me after my magic-fueled meltdown with her own paperwork spread out at one end of the table.

"Good morning, Dr. Feverfew," I called to her. "No, don't get up. I'm here for the same reason you are, apparently." I put down my mug, notebooks, quills and journal on the other end of the big slab of wood.

"We have a little more than an hour and a half to work here, Your Highness," she explained. "That's when the crew takes their first meal."

"That's fine, I'll probably need a break by then, anyway."

She nodded and went back to her own work.

It only took a few minutes to return the pages and cover of the journal to strength and flexibility, but the binding was decayed beyond repair, so I had to deal with loose sheets. I used my quill to number them as I read, so that I could put them back in order if need be.

The reason for Sharphoof's rebellion was soon explained. Her expedition had discovered the cornucopia and were able to use it, but they never understood how it worked. The food that it produced for the members of the expedition allowed them to stay in the city for many months longer than they had planned. At first, they thought that they had made a wondrous discovery that would change all of Equestria. Then, when they uncovered documents that revealed Celestia knew about the cornucopia, they wondered why she hadn't shared such a bounty of riches with her subjects.

And slowly, day-by-day, Professor Sharphoof's quillwork changed. It decayed.

Soon, the speculation in her journal was as to why Celestia was deliberately denying her ponies the wealth that was free for the taking. The members of the expedition began to believe that the propaganda of the ancient unicorns must have some basis in fact, and that Celestia might be a tyrant behind a mask of kindness. Many months spent in the presence of the dark crystal had given its poisonous influence time to work on their minds, and slowly their suspicions and speculations took on the strident certainty of unthinking fanaticism.

Fueled by utter certainty, and the belief that their wild speculations were self-evident truths, they returned to Canterlot, determined to expose Celestia's evil plans.

The rebellion, such as it was, lasted all of an afternoon. They were academics, not soldiers, and when they attacked the palace guard, it brought a swift end to their crusade. The High Court took into account their states of mind at the time—even offering to moderate their sentences if they would submit to mind-healing magics. They refused. To alter a pony's mind against their will has always been a cultural taboo, even from the earliest days of the kingdom, and so their choice was imprisonment or banishment.

They chose to return to the city in the desert. I couldn't imagine why anypony would willingly choose a life that meant they would never see a field of green grass again, but it was clear that they were still under the influence of the crystal.

They were archaeologists, not engineers. When they discovered the trove of technical books, they couldn't use or even understand most of them. But Sombra's book, they understood.

The mind-altering properties of the crystal evidently continued to erode Sharphoof's sanity in a horrible feedback loop, and by the end of the journal, the text was barely legible. There were long sections of paranoid ramblings about the need to hide and preserve the "truth", about the assassination teams that Celestia had surely sent to prevent them from freeing all ponies from the solar tyranny, and about the generations to come that would treat the journal as a holy book once the world was back under the rightful domination of the unicorn tribe. It was probably the same effect that had driven the ancient unicorn magicians to hide their secrets in encoded sculptures. The truth had to survive, no matter what might happen to them personally.

The last entry detailed Sharphoof's mad plan to change the crystal's limiter to allow transport of entire ponies—to kidnap engineers and convince or compel them to build a new crystal engine in a location closer to Canterlot—close enough to bring an end to Celestia's reign. That explained why they had cataloged and crated up all the books: They never intended to remain in the desert city. They were on a holy crusade.

With the poison built into their greatest creation, the ancient unicorns caused the downfall of their own civilization. But worse than that, the evil lived on, claiming more lives, long after the city had fallen to ruins. When Sharphoof had reached out to free the crystal from its constraints... well, I hoped that she had been so insane by then that her death had been a mercy.

"Your Highness? Are you in pain?"

I blinked and looked up at the doctor standing by my side. I hadn't realized until then that I had been crying. "No, I'm alright," I said, as I sniffed and wiped my eyes. I waved a hoof at the loose pages spread across the table. "Just a very sad story. An old, stupid tragedy that didn't need to happen."

"If you would like to come to sick bay I could—"

"No, really," I assured her. "I'm fine." I teleported my papers and quills back to my cabin, and stood up. I left the mug where it was; The coffee had gone cold.

"Your Highness," the doctor said in the sort of gentle/stern tone that doctors everywhere use on uncooperative patients. "According to your friends, before you blasted a crater in the desert with your skull, you were channeling so much magical energy that you lit up like a small sun. You were throwing off streams of pure force from your wings and hooves as well as your horn that pretty much annihilated anything they touched. Why you are not now a princess-shaped lump of charcoal is a mystery that I am completely unable to fathom. So, if you won't be sensible and go back to bed for a month, will you at least promise me to try to take things easy?"

"I'll try," I said, smiling sheepishly as I was reminded once again of how lucky I was to even be alive.

Dr. Feverfew didn't smile in return. "Thank you, Your Highness." She pushed her glasses back up her nose and went back to her paperwork.

I rushed out of the main cabin and went forward, not really heading anywhere. When I saw the unicorn guard in mirror-bright armor outside the door to the observation lounge, I knew that Celestia must be inside. The guard clicked his rear hooves together and saluted smartly; reminders that Sunbeam, despite all her sumptuous luxuries, was still indeed a military ship. The guard moved to one side to allow me to enter the lounge and opened the door for me.

I didn't really want to see Celestia right then, but I thought it would look silly if I just turned around and left, so I went in. She was surrounded with her own paperwork, sorted into several neat piles on the deck around her. She looked up, a welcoming smile on her face—and then the smile disappeared, to be replaced with a look of concern.

She moved the papers aside and placed a large cushion next to her, opening one wing in a beckoning gesture. "Come here, Twilight. Tell me what's wrong."

She didn't ask me if I was sick or hurting. One look, and she knew that what was wrong with me wasn't physical.

With a comforting wing wrapped around me, she let me babble for a while, directing my rambling with a few soft-spoken questions from time to time, until I started to run down.

"So many poor ponies have suffered for no good reason... and the changelings, too! It isn't fair!"

I don't know exactly what sort of reply I expected from Celestia but it certainly wasn't what I got.

"You are a princess of the realm, now, Twilight," she said in a serious tone of voice, "You cannot afford a naïve view of the world." She rose and walked forward until she was gazing through the big, curved windows at the land slipping by beneath us. "It is our duty to see the world with unclouded eyes. Our actions must be guided only by what is real, not what is expected, desired, or hoped for."

I followed her and looked down. The countryside below was dry but much less arid than the desert behind us. The were copses of oak and cottonwood scattered along the watercourses. I estimated our position and speed almost by reflex. I calculated that we would make landfall at Canterlot sometime in the early evening.

"Then... it's our duty as rulers to be strong for those who cannot be strong for themselves; to bear the burdens that our subjects hardly even know exist?" I asked after a minute or two.

Celestia nodded slightly. "Yes, but that is only a small part of it. The greatest and most difficult part, is to make sure that life is fair. As fair as it can be. The world is uncaring and unjust by nature. Kindness, loyalty, honesty..." She broke off and gave me a tiny grin. "Well, I'm sure you know the rest of the list. All of that, and more, comes from us. The world will only be as good as we make it. It is not an easy task.

"A beautiful rose seems like such a simple thing," Celestia continued, still looking at the countryside below, "but it is the culmination of a long, long process—as any good gardener will tell you. So much goes into producing the best roses, and all of it must be done again and again... all building anew, each year. Siting, nourishing, watering, protecting from parasites, and pruning. All necessary. A lapse of attention, a period of neglect, and years of work will slip away."

My wings suddenly felt a lot heavier.

"You have the strength, you have the intelligence, and you have the courage in you, Twilight Sparkle. With your scientific knowledge, you uncovered and destroyed a terribly dangerous artifact that I was only able to avoid and suppress for a few centuries. With the will to dedicate your life to the task, you will make Equestria bloom as it never has before."

Epilogue
Judgment

"She steals them all before I can get my share!" the saffron-colored mare insisted.

"Then y'all oughta get up earlier, lazybones!" the aqua blue mare replied.

"It ain't laziness! Sizzleberries don't ripen before noon! That marmalade you make isn't a patch on mine!"

I lifted a hoof to interrupt them before things could degenerate further and cleared my throat. "I think I understand the problem, and I believe that there are a few possible solutions. Since the sizzleberry patch is on crown lands, I could grant the harvest rights to the highest bidder in a blind auction... or I could divide the patch into two equal parts... or I could hold a contest to see which of you produces the best marmalade and award the patch to the winner... or you two could merge your businesses and save a lot on expenses and capital costs." I paused to let the options sink in.

Finally one of them spoke up. "Which one are y'all gonna chose, princess?"

"Oh heavens! I'm not going to choose..." Pause for effect. "...you two are going to make the decision."

"Huh?"

"Beg pardon?"

"Both of you are going to come back to court at this time next week and let me know which solution you've agreed on. You don't have to pick one of mine... anything sensible is fine, as long as you both agree."

They looked at each other doubtfully. "Uhm..." the saffron mare asked, hesitantly. "What if we can't agree?"

"Well," I said quietly, smiling and leaning forward on the dais so that they had to bend their necks back to look up at me. "Then I will be very unhappy."

Before they could quite get up the courage to ask me to clarify, I had thanked them for presenting their concerns before the court and granted them permission to depart. I'd shown them the possibilities for cooperation or competition and provided them with a common enemy. I gave them about an eighty-five percent chance of coming back to me with a decent compromise.

"Anything else this morning, Periwinkle?" I asked my secretary.

"No ma'am," she replied. "Lunch with your friends is scheduled for twelve-thirty, so you have almost an hour of free time before then."

I went down to the lawn where lunch was being set out under a sunshade. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were already there, so I got a good chance to catch up with them before we sat down to eat. I told them about the two farm ponies that had come to court that morning.

"Why didn't you just lay down the law on them, Twilight?" Rainbow Dash asked. "You know what would work best, right?"

"Because one or the other or both of them would have been resentful against the other," I replied. "They may not come up with the most efficient solution, but they will come up with the solution that makes them both happiest... or least unhappy, anyway."

"They're still gonna be a mite resentful of you for pushin' them into it, sugarcube," Applejack observed. "They'll each think they coulda got a better deal if you decided in their favor."

"I know, but that's fine with me." I shrugged. "It's just part of being a princess."

Applejack and Rainbow Dash started to debate who had the best hoofball team that year, and I let my thoughts wander. I wondered if there would ever be a statue carved of me trampling poor, oppressed ponies underhoof. Given the half-solar, half-lunar style of ruling I was developing, I decided that it was almost inevitable.

And I was okay with that.

Author's Notes:

The sequel: The Luna Cypher

Thanks again for all of the superb editing help from Gogito, and thanks to PresentPerfect for the print edition editing! Speaking of that...
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For those of you that would like to try your hand at cracking (or just using) the sun code, here's the cover without Little Princess Kick-Ass in the way:

And here's the solution and the key: