Dinner in Canterlot had come and gone, and so too had Twilight and the two sisters from their spot in the library. After having a healthy meal (during which Celestia was happy to see that Luna and Twilight weren’t looking awkwardly at each other as often as before), Celestia found herself once again paging through the journal until she found where they’d left off.

“I can’t imagine what being in Gale’s position must’ve been like,” Twilight said, looking at her notes. She’d spent most of dinner asking questions, writing the answers down into her notes, and then rewriting her notes in a neater, but no less lengthy format. “Going through that whole ritual while Equestria was judging you? And having to say it to you and Princess Luna?”

“To be fair, young Gale did enjoy spending time in our company,” Luna remarked. With the sun beginning to set and shadows overtaking the library, the alicorn of the night had merely become a dark silhouette with piercing teal eyes staring out from her nest of shadows, cushions, and library books. “She was not intimidated by us, and actively sought out our company when she was idle.” A pause. “At least, when she was not creating trouble by attempting to escape on a grand adventure of sorts regarding whatever fancy held her attention for the week.”

Celestia chuckled and shifted her forehooves. “Gale had her father’s spirit, but none of the discipline,” she said. “She wanted to see the world, and found the life of royalty boring and dull. She very often attempted to escape from Everfree to go on some adventure, usually stealing Hurricane’s sword in the process, and causing a general ruckus wherever she went. Most of her adventures ended with Pathfinder recovering her before she absconded too far, and then afterwards, Tempest.”

“And let us not forget the wonderful company she travelled with,” Luna added, with an endearing bite of sarcasm in her voice. At Twilight’s confused expression, she elaborated. “Gale had a particular knack for locating and stringing along... shall we say ‘interesting’ individuals. The necromancer was one of particular note. Gale found him on a journey to visit River Rock shortly after her Affirmation, and he followed her back to Everfree.”

Twilight’s quill blurred to write down all of the history straight from the horses’ mouths. “Hold on,” she said when her quill got to a particular name, “the necromancer? As in, Mortal Coil? The Father of Necromancy?”

“I doubt you need to qualify it,” Celestia said calmly. “For obvious reasons, there’s never been another pony with that name. He gravitated toward Gale on one of her adventures, and the attraction was mutual. She inspired him to move to Everfree when she returned, and he ended up staying with her.” She paused and pursed her lips in thought. “His… unique outlook on the world could be trying at times, but he genuinely cared for Gale, and I was happy enough about that.”

Luna chuckled. “‘Unique outlook’? Tia, I believe the phrase thou art looking for is ‘enormous ego’.”

Twilight blinked. “Ego?” She looked through her notes. “Most accounts of Mortal Coil list him as a particularly humble figure.”

There was a brief second of silence as the younger princess processed what had been said, before a sudden outburst of high-pitched laughter caught Twilight by surprise. “Humble? Coil’s ego was so large it had its own gravitational field. If We had desired, We could have fashioned it into another planet in the night sky.”

Even Celestia’s lip twitched at the metaphor. “Yes, well, many of Coil’s biographies were written long after the fact, by ponies who didn’t know him,” she said. “They tried to portray him as a true leader of his school, and not somepony who had a unique ability to talk himself into trouble as often as he talked himself out of it. As such, a certain amount of embellishment is to be expected. And by ‘certain’, I mean ‘a lot’.” Sighing, she stopped paging through the journal at a specific point. “But regardless, he’s only a minor character in this story. If you really want to know more about him, I have the original copies of his autobiographies somewhere in the castle archives. Many of the biographies that exist of him now are second-hoof interpretations of his character, and as such, they play to how he perceived himself. You might find these to be more… enlightening, if a bit biased.”

“Okay,” Twilight said, tearing a few pages out of her notebook and setting them aside. “We can come back to that later. What happens next?”

“Well, for a long time, Everfree knew peace,” Celestia said, her eyes skimming over the journal. “The rebels had all been put down, and the city was prosperous. But it wouldn’t last long. Two years after Gale’s Affirmation, death would once again shake the city.”

And so, taking a deep breath, Celestia began to read.

Everfree city had almost doubled in size in seventeen years. While the core of Equestria’s capital hadn’t changed much, the borders had steadily pushed outwards, until the city itself straddled the Maressissippi, with the old districts on one side and the glistening new districts on the other. Here, buildings fought and jockeyed for space, and with the help of skysteel from Cloudsdale’s forges, climbed to new and impressive heights.

Under their shadows, life thrived. The old market district had relocated from the west bank to the east bank and been rebranded the commercial district, and the first small manufactories began to crop up on the fringes of the city. Ponies of all races mingled, socialized, and blended together into one nationality. On the west bank, south of the towering Everfree Castle, the barren scar that once divided a city into two nations was unrecognizable due to the stalls and vendors lining it from the river to the hills. Seventeen years of divine rule under the very goddesses themselves had all but wiped out the festering blight inflicted by five years of callous indifference.

At high noon, the city was abuzz with activity. Ponies left their homes and their businesses to grab lunch and take a break from a hard day’s work, and many began to flow down to the river. The steady stream of traffic made it easy for ponies to slide in and out with the flow, entering and exiting as they pleased from the many side streets and alleys. And so nopony paid any attention to the two hooded figures darting out of the crowd and into a shadowed alley between two tall, white buildings on the east bank of the city.

The two figures galloped deeper into the alley once they hit shadows, then quickly slid behind a stack of crates. There they huddled in the shadows, mouths parted to draw light, panting breath, and the folds of their hoods shifting as their concealed ears twitched, trying to pick up any sounds out of the ordinary bustle of ponies. After a minute, they both breathed sighs of relief, and tossed their hoods back with red and blue magic.

Red magic faded from the purple horn of a unicorn mare. Gale’s magenta eyes surveyed the length of alley left in front of her, then began to climb up, checking the windowsills of the buildings on either side. Wiping a little sweat off of her horn, she smiled and turned to the unicorn by her side. “Think we lost him?”

“I have a better chance of taking your sister to a ball,” the stallion remarked. He bore a coat almost snow white in its purity, topped with the palest blue mane imaginable, from which an impressively tightly coiled horn protruded. His eyes matched his mane, if only a shade or two more saturated with color, and his muzzle was framed with something resembling a half-frown, half-smile. He was the first pony Gale had ever met that leant some credence to her mother’s warnings about making the same face for too long, and no matter what he did, that smug half-smile always seemed to rest on his muzzle.

Gale sighed and leaned back against the crates. “There’s no way he could’ve tracked us through the middle of the commercial district at the peak of lunch hour.”

“You know he’s a better scout than he lets on,” the stallion grumbled. He checked the map contained in the folds of a black jacket, twisting and turning it in his pale magic until he finally got it oriented properly. “If we cut through the fisheries, we should be able to hitch a ride on a supply ship out to the west. That should buy us some time, especially if he thinks we’re heading north like last time.”

“Awesome.” Gale jumped to her hooves and pulled her hood back over her head. “We should get moving; the crowds are gonna thin out soon.”

“If they haven’t already.” The stallion likewise stood up and brushed shoulders with Gale. They began to trot down the alleyway, taking care to keep their hooves from echoing off the buildings around them. “Few ponies move faster than an Equestrian who smells food.”

Gale’s hoof connected with the stallion’s face, causing him to stumble to the tune of a quiet slap filling the alleyway. “Careful, Morty, I’m an Equestrian.”

“And a very pretty one at that,” Morty mumbled, wincing as he rubbed his cheek. “Don’t ever change.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“Because I’m happy with getting hit in the face by something that doesn’t hurt.” When Gale tried to hit him again, he deflected it with a bit of telekinesis. “That was number two out of five. Do you really want to use number three so soon?”

“I should use three and four on your face right now,” Gale muttered.

“I’ll save you the trouble.”

Both unicorns jumped at the third voice ringing out from above them, and craned their necks. Gale saw a pegasus perched on a clothesline between two windows, pale blue in color with a white mane. He was thin but handsome, with a little untrimmed hair around his chin and muzzle making a goatee that she knew mares went crazy over. Glistening skysteel armor covered his chest and shoulders, and the two twisted feathers of a centurion’s insignia decorated his pauldrons.

Morty, on the other hoof, saw a watermelon for all of a second before it broke over his face.

Gale sighed as Morty spluttered and tried to wipe the sticky juice out of his coat and jacket. The wheels of the clothesline made a little groan as the pegasus leaned forward and spread his wings, ultimately fluttering to a stop in front of the two unicorns. Gale’s magic took hold of her cloak, and balling it up, tossed it at the pegasus’ outstretched hoof. “Fine, Tempest, you got us.”

“Just like the last four times,” Tempest remarked, tucking the cloak into the crook of his foreleg.

Gale rolled her eyes. “Five times ago we got to Red Crossing before you found us.”

“Yes, that’s because you left at four in the morning, while I was still sleeping.” Tempest shook his head. “Gale, when are you ever going to give up on these silly games? Your mom is getting tired of you not being around for important meetings, my mom is getting tired of sending one of her best scouts out to find you every time, and I’m getting tired of wasting my time to go looking for you guys.”

“But being a princess is boring,” Gale whined, stomping her hoof on the ground. “All I do is spend hours in Parliament, or practice rhetoric with Mom, or get really dressed up to go to boring formal parties where I’m surrounded by boring suitors trying to bed me. Dad won’t let me join the Legion, and Typhoon won’t ever take me on her missions to the coloniae, so I’m really running out of options to entertain myself with!”

Tempest snickered. “What, Morty isn’t good enough anymore?” At Gale’s sputtering cough, he smiled and brushed a hoof across his breastplate. “You know, I could teach him a few things if you want. You learn a thing or two when you’re dating a mare with Nimban parents. Oh, and don’t get me started on the things Baron Whiteheart’s daughter is into. I thought I’d seen it all.” He shuddered, rattling the wingblades against his armor for emphasis.

A wadded-up ball of watermelon splattered against Tempest’s cheek, making him flinch. “I don’t need ‘advice’ from a stallion-whore, Tempest,” Morty retorted, smirking, moving protectively to Gale’s side. “Some stallions take pride in holding down a mare for more than a few weeks at a time.”

“‘Holding down a mare’?” Tempest smirked and walked a step closer. “If anything, Mortal, I’d say Gale’s the top.”

“You know better than to call me that,” Morty spat back. “‘Morty’ or ‘Coil’.”

“Oh my Celestia, will you two jerk each other off somewhere else?” Gale moaned, banging her horn against the wall. Tempest and Morty shot each other dirty glares, which promptly disappeared when Gale sighed and turned back to Tempest. “Fine, let’s go.”

She didn’t wait for the two stallions to respond before shouldering past them, back in the direction she came. Morty and Tempest glared at each other behind her back before abruptly grinning at each other.

“So, you doing anything later?” Tempest asked.

Morty pursed his lips, then shook his head. “No, my marefriend is going to be under armed guard.” He shrugged as the two began to walk after her. “And we had such plans, too.”

“Shame,” Tempest remarked, winking. “Want to get drinks later?”

“Eh, why not, I could use a half-mug. Maybe a full one.”

Tempest sighed and shook his head. “You’re such a lightweight, Morty,” he remarked, punching the unicorn’s shoulder. He held out a wing to let Morty enter the streets, nodding to him. Morty scoffed, and as he passed, whipped his tail at Tempest’s face as payback. But when his tail passed through thin air, he looked back over his shoulder.

Tempest was already gone, leaving just a blue feather twirling in his wake.

Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.

The tinny sound of metal striking stone reverberated throughout the halls of the castle as a single mare marched towards the throne room. Head held high and face covered in small cuts and scars, Typhoon’s stern expression was enough to get any of the castle staff to scurry out of her way. The skysteel plates of her segmented armor rattled against her body, and the glittering display they made on the castle walls when the light hit them was as beautiful as it was dizzying.

Older, wiser, and more cunning, Commander Typhoon ran a tight ship that had very systematically identified and obliterated cells of unrest and rebellion that had survived Abaddon’s death in the raid on the castle seventeen years ago. Under her rule, Legion enrollment had nearly doubled, and she targeted threats to Equestria with a ruthless efficiency that had instilled peace in the country through a combination of respect and fear. Equestria was as safe as it had ever been, and the tact through which she commanded the Legion ensured it stayed that way.

Of course, that safety had come at a price, one that Typhoon had paid personally. Numerous scars from buffalo horns and manticore claws decorated her coat, especially her neck and face, and the stress of office was already turning her mane gray. While the pigments in her feathers remained vibrant, as they were the one thing about pegasi that refused to yield to the march of time, the feathers themselves had adopted slight twists and frays that were impossible for Typhoon to preen out. All of that, however, paled in comparison to what supported Typhoon’s right foreleg: a block of skysteel the same shape and size of a hoof, attached to the fetlock and shrouded in a frosty sheen, which bled vapor like smoke wherever she went.

It was this faux hoof that announced Typhoon’s presence wherever she went, and the mare found she rather liked the effect. Soldiers would already be saluting as she rounded corners, and service staff would pull to the sides and let her pass. And, when it came to dealing with the other two members of the Triumvirate, the sound was usually enough to give her stepmother an excuse to cut off whatever ramble Puddinghead happened to be in the middle of as Typhoon arrived.

Which is precisely what happened as Typhoon approached the doors to the war room and pushed them open. Gathered around the table were Puddinghead and Queen Platinum, with Puddinghead standing on his seat like he was getting to an exciting part of some story, and Platinum looking infinitely thankful that Typhoon was finally here. Typhoon bowed her head, then marched into the room with the clink of her steel hoof, shutting the door behind her.

“There you are, Typhoon,” Platinum remarked, leaning forward onto the table. “We were wondering what was taking you so long.”

“Briefing with Praetor Rain took longer than I anticipated,” Typhoon said. She grabbed the back of a chair between the feathers of her wing and slid it away from the table, coming to a rest opposite Platinum, with Puddinghead on her right. She sighed and rested her left foreleg on the table to support her head, while leaving the right hanging limply at her side. Since losing the hoof four years ago, she’d swiftly grown out of using the frigid prosthetic for that purpose.

Platinum nodded. “Another colonia?”

“Another colonia.” Typhoon’s left wing extended, and she pulled a scroll out of the space between feathers and armor. “Near the gorge. Same deal as usual.”

Chancellor Puddinghead’s ears flattened against his skull. “That’s the fifth this year.”

“One a month,” Platinum remarked. “No trace?”

Typhoon shook her head. “Just like all the others. No signs of fighting. No bodies, no messages, and no survivors. They’re all just…” she waved her metal hoof in circles.“Gone. Vanished without a trace.”

“But that just doesn’t make sense.” Platinum’s blue eyes fell to the map of the known world in front of them, where blue flags and red crosses decorated the fringes of Equestria’s western and southern borders. “These ponies aren’t just up and vanishing on their own. This has to be the work of something.”

“But you heard Tyty,” Puddinghead said, earning a well-practiced eye roll and headshake from Typhoon, “It’s almost like they are just leaving on their own. There’s no bad guys, and it doesn’t look like there was any fighting. Besides, if something bad was happening, surely a messenger would say something, right? These colony things are established near Legion forts, after all.”

“And that’s the other thing; the Legion garrisons are all unharmed.” Typhoon pointed to the small blocks next to the blue flags and red crosses. “Each garrison is less than a dozen miles away from its corresponding settlement, and yet they never notice any signs of unrest or danger. And the legionaries on patrol when the settlements vanish disappear too.”

Platinum crossed her forelegs and leaned back in her chair. “But where are they all going?”

“I’ve been posting additional legions in the area,” Typhoon said, nudging a few pegasus models from the center of Equestria towards the west and south. “I have them flying patrols at all times of day. But even then, there’s still too much ground to cover. And sometimes, almost as soon as a legion leaves a colony, it disappears. So far, the six legions in the area haven’t been able to catch anything, and they’re leaving our northern border spread thin.”

“Is that really such a bad thing, though?” Platinum asked, making eye contact with Typhoon. “You know how incredibly paranoid the Union has become lately. I’m sure you remember the incident the necromancer caused last year when Queen Jade went on a mad hunt to bring him back, threatening the sovereignty of our borders. I’m still not entirely sure how we resolved that problem without coming to open conflict.”

“Which is why we need more troops near the north,” Typhoon insisted, placing her forehooves on the table and standing straight. “Jade is a madmare, and if she decides that attacking Equestria is somehow going to bring Smart Cookie back to her, then she will do it. And as much as we all hated Wintershimmer, his voice was one of the few that actually steadied her hoof. Now that he’s dead, she’s surrounded by council ponies who just want to earn favors by siding with whatever she wants.”

“You are definitely your father’s daughter,” Platinum remarked. Sighing, she leaned forward and massaged her temples. “Queen Jade’s paranoia could see us moving legions to the north as trying to provoke her, and like you said, she’s become a madmare. I don’t know what she would do. It’s something we can’t risk. Besides,” she said, gesturing to the map, “our northern colonies haven’t been hit. So she’s not the threat we need to worry about.”

“But how do we catch something that we can’t see?” Puddinghead remarked, his face lying on the table as he stared into the distance with a vacant expression. “If soldiers can’t stop it, and entire armies can’t find it, then what do we do?”

Typhoon tapped her prosthetic against the table, leaving little ice crystals behind as she did so. “We need the mages’ help,” she said. “A warning spell, some sort of ward, we need it to catch one of these disappearances in action. I believe Diadem’s been doing a lot of research in alarms and that sort of field.”

“I’ll ask Star Swirl about it later,” Platinum said. Her chair groaned as she stood up, and she nodded to the other two present. “If this pattern keeps up, we have another month until the next disappearance. We need to make something happen before then.”

“And soon,” Puddinghead added, likewise prying his face off of the table and sliding his chair away. “Ponies are afraid to settle on the borders. If this keeps up, our borders are gonna shrink again, and then we’ll have thousands and thousands and thousands of ponies fighting for the itty-bitty space left around Everfree and Platinum’s Landing! And let me tell you, having your friends and family close by is fun, but food shortages aren’t.”

Typhoon nodded. “And pushing our borders further from our capital is the only way to secure it against outside threats. If these disappearances keep up, they could begin making their way further inland. I don’t think I need to explain how quickly that could become a problem.”

“So we are agreed?” Platinum said as the three moved towards the door. “This issue is becoming our top priority?”

“Affirmative.”

“Yuppee!!”

“Good.” Her magic pulled open the door, letting the other two go before her. “Then let’s do something about it.”

In the courtyard of Everfree Castle, Hurricane stood beneath the crisp sun of late spring. Around him, the rhododendrons were in full bloom and swayed in the gentle breeze of the quiet day, and the fountain nearby created a comforting melody to accompany the songs of birds. It was a perfect spot for meditation, and one of Hurricane’s favorites in the castle. After all, this was where Platinum proposed to him, in a roundabout, political fashion.

The aging pegasus’ muzzle was streaked with gray, and his mane had begun to thin out. Where once full muscles enveloped his skeleton, now the flesh was beginning to wrinkle, and the withering muscles underneath left little question that the living legend was in his decline. Even his wings, once strong, rested a few degrees out of line against his sides, old wounds from a duel between father and daughter, many years ago.

But none of that mattered to Hurricane as he meditated. He stood in an open patch of ground behind the rhododendrons, secluded from the rest of the courtyard, with his sword in his teeth. His eyes were closed, and his ears twitched to the light winds and the songs of the birds. The buzzing of insects in the trees picked up between gusts, and along with it, Hurricane began to move.

His steps were deliberate, slow, and wide. Eyes closed the entire time, the pegasus moved from motion to motion, training his sword from one invisible foe to the next as he fought in slow motion. Instead of the furious intensity of a fight, it much closer resembled a dance, allowing the stallion to stretch his muscles to their full length in controlled, toned motions.

In, hold, out, hold. Hurricane controlled his breathing with mechanic precision, only inhaling whenever his hooves moved, and exhaling during his swings. The elaborate sword waltz normally took a bit over an hour, but today he stopped after only a few minutes, and when he did, Hurricane delayed a moment before opening his eyes. “Yes?”

Behind him, Celestia moved out of the shadow of a swaying elm. Her pearly coat glistened in the sunlight, and her hooves walked a confident line towards Hurricane. “I hope I’m not interrupting your exercise.”

“Mareus’ ‘Gladius Carmina’,” Hurricane responded. He turned around and sheathed Procellarum at his side. “It was a daily ritual for him and his soldiers when he reorganized the Legion of the Cirran Republic. It keeps the body fresh and the mind sharp. And you did, but it’s quite alright,” he added with a respectful bow. “I do it more out of habit than any real need for practice now.”

Celestia angled the crest of her wing out, and Hurricane made his way to her side. Together, the two ponies walked the path in the courtyard, enjoying the simple energy of spring. “You practice often?” Celestia asked after a few minutes of treasured silence.

“I don’t fight anymore, and I’m too old to do hard exercise,” Hurricane said. “The Carmina is one of the few things I can do to stay in shape, and it doesn’t hurt my joints all that much.” He clamped his mouth shut, and his eyes wandered across the courtyard.

It didn’t escape Celestia’s attention. “You seem frustrated.”

Hurricane didn’t respond right away. “Maybe,” he eventually admitted. “This isn’t how I imagined spending the twilight years of my life. Watching my body wither away into nothing while the world moves on around me…” He sighed and shook his head. “I should be happy that I can spend the last of my days in peace, but it’s hard to not be needed anymore.”

“If not this, then how did you imagine your career ending?” Celestia asked, turning a concerned look in Hurricane’s direction. “Seventeen years ago, you wanted this. You didn’t want to be a part of the Legion anymore. How else did you see it ending?”

“With my death,” Hurricane responded, his bluntness putting a slight falter in Celestia’s steps. “I always thought I’d die in the call of duty, but it never happened. And then when I saw an out… I was scared, and I took it. It was a moment of weakness.”

To Hurricane’s surprise, Celestia laughed. Not a brash, mocking noise, but the sound a mother would make when her foals are upset over something trivial. “Are you really having regrets seventeen years later, Hurricane?” she asked, a soft smile on her muzzle. “You’re sixty-three. Forgive me for saying it, but you’re too old to worry about whether you did enough in your prime. In my opinion, you did much more than anypony could’ve expected of you. Relax; enjoy the comfort of old age. There’s a certain peace to be found when your life’s work is finally complete, and you have the rest of your years to simply admire it. I’m sure you’ve felt it.” She brushed Hurricane’s wing with her own. “Don’t let an old body leave you an old soul, pining for the days of youth.”

Together the two ponies returned to the castle’s long and grand halls. Like the courtyard, a delicate breeze moved along the stone corridors, facilitated by the plethora of open windows in every hallway and in every room. Almost immediately, they ran into Luna and Star Swirl approaching from the other direction, although the pair wasn’t alone; by their sides were four thestrals, each paying rapt attention to some direction around their mistress. Upon seeing Celestia, Luna nodded, and the four ponies and four thestrals converged in the center of the hall.

“Sister,” Luna greeted. “Hurricane,” she added with a second nod. “Pleasure running into you.”

“Yourself as well, my Lady,” Hurricane replied, bowing on stiff joints. Then he nodded to Star Swirl. “Archmage.”

“I would bow, but I’m a little old for that,” Star Swirl responded, chuckling. “You lose a lot of your flexibility when you’re a year past a century.”

Hurricane grunted a sympathetic response and regarded the unicorn before him. Whereas Hurricane thought his own body was slipping away from him, Star Swirl already had three hooves in the grave, and the fourth wasn’t far behind. Though his beard was as full and long as ever, his face was emaciated, and most of the olive coloration of his coat was in various stages of gray. His neck could barely support the weight attached to it, and his knotted knees were twisted at odd angles. Cracked hooves supported the frail stallion, who likely weighed less than Hurricane. And Hurricane had hollow bones.

“We were just returning from the courtyard,” Celestia said to Luna.

“And we were just going there,” Luna said. The ghost of a smirk pulled at her lips. “If only our timing were to align slightly better.”

“If only,” Celestia said. Her eyes narrowed at the thestrals surrounding them. “Four? Why so many?”

“The Guard has been expanding rapidly as of late,” Luna said with a shrug. “They now number forty, and there simply isn’t enough Everfree for them all to cover. So I do what I can to relieve their boredom.”

“I would have thought letting them roam Everfree was enough,” Hurricane muttered, drawing Luna’s attention. He met her with a steady gaze and a shrug. “From what Typhoon tells me, the citizenry are unnerved by their presence, to say the least.”

Luna scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Give them time. They’ll grow used to their presence sooner rather than later.”

“You know as well as I do that—coincidentally or not—ponies are attributing the rising string of murders and crime to them,” Hurricane responded. “I don’t blame them. Ponies with fangs and bat wings are likely to give any civilian nightmares for weeks.”

“Then perhaps they should be more imaginative.” Luna stuck her nose into the air. “Eventually they will realize that they’re placed for their protection.” Without waiting for a response, she nodded to Celestia, then swiftly set off for the courtyard, with Star Swirl giving an apologetic shrug of his arthritic shoulders as he passed.

Celestia shook her head as she watched her sister go. “She’s always so quick to deride criticism,” Celestia murmured. “One day it’s going to haunt her.”

Sighing, she turned back to Hurricane. “Parliament is going to be starting soon, and I plan on being in attendance. We can speak again at dinner.”

Hurricane bowed. “Of course.” Smirking, he shook his head. “That’s the one thing I’m most grateful for, now that I’m retired. Parliament was a pain in the flank.”

Celestia chuckled. “They’re a lovely bunch.” Then, waving her wing, she set off down the halls. “Until next time.”

The pegasus watched her go, then turned around and began his own sojourn down the castle halls. His hooves took him towards the small study he’d set up for himself, with a window overlooking the river. He hung his sword up on a weapon rack on the wall and sat down behind his chair, with papers strewn across the desk in front of him.

He eyed the papers curiously, and noted that many were crumpled.

He took a deep breath, and frowned at the smell.

After a moment’s delay, he snuffed out the flames burning at his wingtips, instead choosing to stand up, grab his sword, sling it over his shoulder, and march out of his office.

“Mobius, have mercy on those kids.”

In the tall, spiraling towers of Everfree Castle, Clover the Clever made her rounds through the different workshops and studies. The outer ring of the tower had been subdivided into six large rooms, each one housing a hedge mage and a chosen apprentice, and it was here that the foundation of Equestria’s magical arts flourished and nurtured the next generation. Now that Star Swirl was over a hundred years old, both Clover and Diadem had taken on a larger role in preparing Equestria for the future of arcane theory. Now, select young unicorns from across the country were chosen to study in Everfree, in turn creating a growing pool of skilled mages that would be swiftly appointed as archmagi to the numerous developing cities throughout the Equestrian countryside.

In the center of the tower, the single large, circular room served as the private study of Everfree’s archmage and her apprentice. After ensuring that the mages had all they needed to teach their lessons for the day, Clover retreated to this study, bolting the door behind her. It was more of a safety measure than a deterrent; there had been too many close calls with young apprentices barging in to ask Clover a question while she or Diadem were performing complicated and dangerous experiments.

“Ah, Clover, there you are,” came a mare’s deep and proud voice—one unfamiliar to Everfree’s archmage. “You’ve come just in time to see my moment of triumph.”

Clover looked over her shoulder, then gasped and jumped back in shock. Standing across from her was a tall alicorn mare, with an aqua coat and mane filled with curls from ears to shoulders. Her horn was long enough that it nearly scraped the ceiling, and beautiful aqua wings with long feathers that bled into teal tips graced the mare’s slender form, ending near a familiar six-pointed star on her flanks.

“D… D-Diadem?” Clover spluttered, knocking over a chair as she backed up. “What—?”

“Oh, Clover, don’t be so surprised,” the alicorn responded, shaking her head as if she were addressing a child. “I think we all knew this was coming eventually. After all, how could a young unicorn like myself possess so much raw power if I wasn’t destined for something… greater?”

Diadem walked the floor, wings fidgeting at her sides. “Who knew that the Grimoire possessed so many secrets?” she said, pointing a wing towards the book, albeit rather awkwardly, as if she weren’t used to using another pair of appendages. “The pieces were all there. It just took somepony with enough brilliance and, shall we say, ambition to put them together.

“And now that I have,” she continued, pivoting to face Clover and grinning through perfect teeth, “I think it’s time that I ruled Equestria. So, are you with me, or against me?”

Clover remained stock-still, speechless, in the back of the room, with her eyes glued to Diadem’s much longer face.

“Tch…” The corner of Diadem’s muzzle twitched, and soon it spread over her entire face, like a ripple on a pond. “Tch… heh… hehehe…”

Then she began to laugh in a voice very unlike the haughty one she’d been using earlier. Her legs buckled underneath her, and she rolled onto her back, laughing wildly. Her long limbs flailed in the air as she giggled and snorted, and when she was finally done, she rolled onto her hooves, albeit rather awkwardly, like a newborn fawn standing for the first time. “Oh, Clover, that was great! You should’ve seen the look on your face!”

Clover blinked. Then she blinked again. “Wha…?” she finally managed. She rubbed her eyes, vigorously shook her head, then squinted at Diadem. “How?”

“Star Swirl’s Omniomorphic Spell!” Diadem exclaimed, bouncing towards Clover in a motion that was rather unfitting for such a regal body. “I finally mastered it!”

It took a moment for the news to sink in, but when it did, Clover’s muzzle twisted into a beaming smile. “You did?! Wow! That’s amazing!” She rushed forward to give Diadem a hug, straining to reach up to the taller alicorn mare. “Nopony except for Star Swirl himself has ever mastered the spell! Even I have a hard time trying to cast it!” She took a step back and admired Diadem’s faux alicorn from horn to hoof. “How does it feel?”

Diadem looked up at her horn, then craned her neck to get a better look at the wings at her sides. She extended them in a few jerky motions and gave them a hoofful of rough flaps. “Wings are weird,” she said, fluttering them a few more times. “They don’t actually function. The spell doesn’t give me alicorn magic, so I don’t have the magic to fly. And I’m pretty sure I’m a weaker caster in this form. All it did was double the length of my horn, and thus double my casting time.”

She pivoted on her forehooves and turned towards a mirror at the side of the room, making faces and poses as she did so. “It feels good, though. Just… weird. Being tall is weird.” She took a step forward, and her horn caught a supporting arch running across the ceiling, making her squawk in pain and rub the tip. “And painful.”

A blinding flash of light filled the room, making Clover wince and cover her eyes. When she opened them again, Diadem had reverted into a normal unicorn. Now in her early thirties, the aqua unicorn had grown into a beautiful and lively mare, with a flowing, shoulder-length mane, and a tail with a delicate twist in it. Resting around the base of the very pronounced horn adorning her head was a silver piece of jewelry, a diadem, like the mare’s namesake. Made out of the purest silver in Equestria and inlaid with numerous sapphires, quartz, and blue diamonds, it was absolutely one of a kind, and an instantly recognizable symbol of the mare who wore it.

Clover smiled and wrapped Diadem in a shoulder hug now that they were the same size again. “I’m sure Star Swirl will be impressed,” she said, nuzzling the younger mare. “We should show him after dinner.”

“Yeah, speaking of which, I’m starving,” Diadem said, rubbing her stomach. “Give me a second to clean things up.”

She scampered over to the table with the youthful energy that so impressed Clover when they met for the first time, all those years ago. Her magic swept books and notes to their rightful places at her desk, and she disassembled a tower of diamonds filled with mana and threw them in a chest—also filled with dozens of small, charged gemstones. She paused at an ancient, open book on the table just long enough to scribble some notes into its pages and close it. A burst of magic put the Tourmaline Grimoire back where it belonged, in a triple-locked chest in the center of the room.

As Diadem nodded and finished packing things away, Clover took a step back and sighed. Diadem’s ear twitched in the green mare’s direction, and she raised an eyebrow. “Clover? Something wrong?”

“Oh, nothing,” Clover said, waving a hoof. “It’s just… sometimes it feels strange to see you doing all these things on your own. It’s easy to forget that you’re not my apprentice anymore.”

Diadem gave Clover a sympathetic smile. “Maybe not in title, but I’m still learning things from you all the time. I’ll still be more or less your apprentice until I’m archmage myself.” She turned back to her work, scratching a few more notes onto the pages. “But I understand. Getting old sucks.”

Clover scoffed and rolled her eyes. “I’m not that old.”

“I don’t know, forty-seven seems up there to me.” Diadem chuckled.

“You…” Clover muttered, shaking her head and turning around. She was not old. Just… experienced. That was all.

Behind her, Diadem snickered and began following her to the door. Clover unbolted and opened it, then stepped outside. Diadem followed a moment later, and propped the door open, so that the mages and apprentices in the tower would know that it was safe to enter. Turning to Clover, she gestured with her hoof. “Age before beauty.”

“Your student becomes an alicorn for a day and she already thinks she’s better than you,” Clover muttered, shaking her head, and earning a small chuckle from Diadem. “Come on, let’s eat.”

“We can find a nice warm spot in the sun for your joints.”

“Diadem, I can and will kick your flank down these steps if you keep that up.”

“At least I won’t need to use Star Swirl’s spell to replace my hips.”

Diadem swiftly found out that Clover was a mare of her word.

Night fell on Everfree, peaceful, serene, and quiet. Like many nights before it, ponies began concluding their business as the golden wash of twilight filled the city. By the time the first thin blanket of dusk covered it, they were safely inside their homes. Ponies didn’t venture from safety in the middle of the night, unless the moon was full and bright in the sky.

Part of the reasoning fell on the crime in the city. While the rebellion was officially declared ‘subdued’ years ago, lingering malcontent still brewed in pockets of the city, especially where the slums had once been separated by the Choke. In broad daylight, many attributed it to surviving rebels still trying to accomplish their goals, nearly two decades later. At night, they whispered to each other that it was something else: the shadows in the night sky, the figures trotting along rooftops, with leathery wings, or sharp horns, or clawed hooves, and fangs that glistened with the light of the moon.

But far away from those worries, Star Swirl wandered the halls of Everfree Castle with small wheezes and an arthritic limp. Even now, several minutes removed from the mages’ tower, he still bore a proud smile on his face. When he heard that Diadem had finally mastered his Omniomorphic Spell, he had to go see the young mage for himself. The journey up and back down from the tower on century-old joints had been well worth the pain.

Panting lightly from the effort, Star Swirl finally stopped in front of the door to his private chambers. His magic, strong despite the frailty of his mortal shell, easily dug out his keys and unlocked the door. He limped inside, feeling the fresh air through the open window on his skin, and shut the door behind him. Now that he was sure he wouldn’t chance upon anypony else, he let the grimace show on his face, and he barely made it to his bed before he collapsed and clutched at his palpitating heart.

It was several long and agonizing minutes before it finally slowed down to a feeble but steady pulse. The heart was one thing the Omniomorphic Spell couldn’t replace, and Star Swirl knew his was going to expire sometime in the near future.

Eventually, the archmage rolled out of bed. After stooping to collect his breath, he looked towards the far end of his room, where the open window looked out over Everfree. From this vantage point, he could see the numerous twinkling candles and streetlights in the city below him, and in the skies above, the even brighter twinkling lights of the numerous stars and planets and galaxies. The universe filled the sky like fireflies in the dark, or glowing lights in the inky black canvas of infinity—a canvas Star Swirl often enjoyed viewing and mapping. His magic dragged a telescope out of the corner, and he set it up to get a clear view of the northern lights through the open window.

An open window that he was certain he’d left closed when he left earlier that morning.

A ruffling of fabric behind him caught the attention of Star Swirl’s nearly hairless ears. The archmage took his time looking over his shoulders, and when he did, he saw a thestral of almost obsidian coloration standing behind him. The stallion’s prominently curved horn seemed to slice at the very air itself, and he simply stood behind Star Swirl, watching him, expressionless.

Star Swirl was unfazed, and simply went back to looking out of his telescope. “You’re Eldest, aren’t you.”

An observation, not a question, but one the thestral answered anyway. “I am,” he said, padded hooves silently making their way across the room. Star Swirl didn’t even notice the thestral had moved until he looked away from his telescope to take some notes; the Night Guard’s leader was the embodiment of living shadow.

Star Swirl’s golden magic fiddled with the nobs of the telescope, and he went back to looking at the sky. “A beautiful thing, your Mistress’ night is,” he said as he adjusted the telescope from one location in the sky to another. “An infinite expanse, filled with more treasures than any of us could possibly imagine. All of it beyond our comprehension.” A quill scratched across a sheet of parchment, making carefully detailed observations of the night sky. “And yet still we try to make sense of it all.”

Eldest’s slitted eyes watched Star Swirl work. Fangs briefly appeared between leathery lips, then disappeared just as quickly. He didn’t make a sound.

The archmage sighed and regarded his notes. “Perhaps that’s the beauty of the cosmos,” he continued, idly mumbling to himself. “Its beauty is in its mystery. And the more we try to understand, the less beautiful it becomes.” He regarded Eldest for a moment. “What do you think?”

“Ponies want to understand because they’re entranced by what they don’t know,” the thestral responded, looking out the window. “They’re entranced and confused. And, perhaps most of all, they’re afraid of what they don’t understand—what they can’t see beneath the surface.”

Star Swirl’s eyes narrowed. “What brings you to my quarters?”

“Do we really have to be afraid of what we don’t understand?” Eldest continued, ignoring Star Swirl. “Do we really need to turn over every stone in the graveyard to make sure the bodies haven’t moved?” Slitted eyes fell on Star Swirl. “Do we really have to fear what lurks among us, hiding in the shadows, waiting for its moment to strike?”

A flash of white. A splash of red. A wheeze, then a thud.

“Hmmmm…” Eldest licked his lips, pulling copper from the hairs of his muzzle. “Yes… yes, you do.”

A flurry of shadows, disappearing into the night.