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Just a short lil' chapter to tide you guys over while I get some stuff done off-screen ...

CHAPTER 67

Twilight wasn’t entirely sure what she was supposed to be feeling as she watched Shining Armor carry Cadence away, his wife cunningly restrained with silk ropes, ropes that Twilight still wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know where Trixie had been stashing them or how Trixie knew how to bind a Pony in such a way as to immobilize them entirely and still make it look like mere decorations.

To the casual observer, it would merely seem like Shining Armor was carrying his sleeping wife, who was in turn covered by a large, heavy woollen blanket, out of the library on his broad back with some ornamental ribbons tied around her limbs that poked out from under the blanket. To anypony unlucky enough to have seen the prep-work, Cadence was restrained by an impossibly-long length of thin, smooth silk rope that criss-crossed across Cadence’s body in way that uncomfortably reminded Twilight of a scene from one of Spike’s confiscated Neighponese comics.

The fact that Spike and Trixie had hoof-bumped after the deed was done only deepened Twilight’s concerns. That Shining had offered advice to the pair during the process of immobilizing her fellow princess turned her stomach as her subconscious unhelpfully threw up imagery explaining why Shining might know how to bind his wife.

Shining Armor had been fully supportive of Twilight and Luna’s relationship, which had done wonders for helping Twilight feel a little bit safer and calmer within her own home, even going so far as to give them a list of ponies they could go to for support if the pressure ‘got too much’, including relationship councillors, Throne-sympathetic business ponies whose establishments would cater to the Princesses’ needs discreetly and Royalist nobles, including a name that had made Twilight’s eyebrows nearly merge with her mane in surprise.

Now there’s a name I didn’t think I would ever see recommended as a positive. But … it has been years since we last met, and he does have a lot of … issues to deal with. The purple Alicorn sighed and rubbed her hoof over the name in question, a small smile spreading across her face.

Most of Canterlot forgot that Princess Cadence wasn’t the first Royal to spend time under the roof of Night Light and Twilight Velvet, even if the first had only become a member of Equestria’s royalty retroactively.

“Seriously? Blueblood?” Luna scoffed, eying the paper with equal amounts of concern and disbelief. “He’s only on my sister’s ‘side’ because half of Canterlot would roast him alive without her patronage.”

“He wasn’t always such a foppish dandy. Back when Blueblood’s sister went, uhm, missing, and he was disowned by his father for publicly calling Bluebone out on his Tribalist attitudes during a public press conference about a spate of missing fillies and mares in Canterlot, my father took Blueblood into our family’s care as a ward.” Stepping away from the windowsill and wishing Shining and the Crystal Guards, but specifically not Flash, luck as they navigated the horde of reporters camped outside of the Ponyville Library, Twilight closed the blinds and turned her full attention to Luna. “He was very sad and lonely, he didn’t really trust anypony much, but considering the Guard thought his own father was behind the disappearances, including Blueblood’s own sister …”

“Mmmph. I remember my sister speaking of it in passing, but I honestly was not paying attention as I thought this ‘Blueblood’ was just another sycophant hovering around my sister, and the instant I learned he had any blood relation to Princess Platinum’s line I lost all interest entirely.” The larger Alicorn grunted and tried to find a more comfortable on Twilight’s writing chair, not having much luck due to being entirely too large for the furniture. “Although I will admit I have noticed he sees my sister in private quite often and my sister seems quite happy to receive him.”

“Whatever issues we may have with his personality these days, Blueblood is personally responsible for several charities that deal with and help fund legal representation under-represented minorities seeking the aid of the Courts in Canterlot, and he’s pretty famous for holding charity balls and auctions. That gives him some … positive influence, I guess? It’s why Rarity thought he was some sort of prince charming and thought seducing him at the Grand Galloping Gala that one time was her shoe-in to joining the Nobility.”

“Speaking of Rarity, my Thestrals report that your friend is doing better than we expected, with Moonbeam acting as Rarity’s confidant and Nurse Redheart’s … unusual methods forcing her to continue to interact with the world and denying Rarity the opportunity to withdraw into her shell and brood. Although I suspect Rarity might not consider Redheart’s less than delicate approach, if Moonbeam’s report is accurate, as a positive. Something about being shaved bald?”

“…” Twilight turned and gave Luna a stunned look as she imagined that particular scenario, and shuddered. There were no ear-muffs made on the planet that would save Redheart from the outraged screeching even mentioning such a thing within Rarity’s hearing, and it would have probably required at least knocking the Fashionista back into unconsciousness to finish the task without both nurse and patient ending up in the emergency room afterwards.

Rarity did practice Tai Chi to maintain her figure and help calm herself down after a hard day’s work, and she did hold her own in the infrequent fights that popped up on the Bearers’ adventures … And now I’ve made myself sad. Rarity’s no longer a Bearer and I’m stuck with Generosity rattling around in my head being a giant stone dick, if I might add. Twilight ‘shouted’ that part of her thoughts into the back of her own mind, and was rewarded with a flash of outrage from the Rogue Element before Magic came surging back in again, throwing a flash of it’s own back at Twilight of mingled amusement and contrition, before Magic pushed Generosity back into whatever corner of Twilight’s mind that had been partitioned without her noticing so many years ago. Yet I’m certain our friendship will endure. We’ve survived worse, and we’ll get through this, although I suspect not without more than our fair share of lumps. Luna’s insistence on the Royal Psychologist coming to Ponyville is probably one of the better things to happen to the girls and myself since Faust only knows what other baggage they might be carrying around just waiting to sink us like that iceberg that took down the Titanic.

My siblings assure me the other Bearers have nothing quite so severe as what happened to Lady Rarity awaiting them, I assure you, Pillar. but it would be wise for the remaining Bearers to be brought back to the task before us, namely shielding you through the remainder of your Ascension.

No, they are my friends, and I will not allow them to … allow them … YOU CAN TALK?

Technically, we always could, but we were bound by ancient laws to not speak directly to the Bearers if they were not Immortals. While you are not technically an Immortal yet, it is only a matter of time and I believe the Powers and the Mother of Stone will forgive this small transgression in light of my sibling’s … crimes.

“Twilight, you’re looking perturbed. As in ‘I require the mother of all hugs’-levels of perturbed.” Luna muttered, giving Twilight a searching look.

“Uh, Magic just started talking to me …” The purple Alicorn said in a shocked tone, which in turn caused Luna to jump to her hooves and advance on Twilight.

“Tell it to include me in the conversation. And don’t let it tell you otherwise, I was it’s former Bearer, and I know damn well the Elements can create a network to link several minds together if it needs to, and it bloody well needs to right now.”

Please tell the Dreamer I will initiate the contact as soon as she allows me access. Her mental defences are … significantly more complex than before.

“Magic says your mind is too heavily protected for it to penetrate, you need to make an opening for it.”

“I have spent the better part of a thousand years fortifying my mind to hold back the Nightmare Spirit, and now I am being asked to … fine. We shall have answers for Generosity’s betrayal of it’s duties and the fellowship with the other Elements, and I wish to be involved directly so as to be able to inform my sister correctly on what has occurred.” Sighing heavily after several seconds of tense silence, Luna gave Twilight a wan smile. “Also, despite your great skill at dictation, I doubt you will want to face the Element of Magic alone.”

“Yeah, kind of alarmed about having to deal with the sneaky little pervert that’s been living between my ears for the past three years without some sort of emotional backup.”

I have little interest in the disgusting biological necessities of you fleshies, and even less in your pointless ruttings with the Dreamer, although I will admit watching your neurons sparking when you are deep in thought is always fascinating.

“Okay, it just called me a ‘fleshy’ and it confirmed it’s been watching us … snuggling.” Twilight muttered, going bright pink from the shame.

“Oh, oh, we are so telling the Mother of Stones when we see her that the Elements are not just lax in their duties, but have degenerated into racist voyeurs too.” The Lunar Princess squealed with delight, clopping her hooves together as a manically gleeful smile spread across her face.

Bitch.

“And I am not repeating that.”

“Give me a minute to tease some of my astral wards apart just enough to allow Magic to establish a connection, Twilight, and you won’t have to.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Celestia paced back and forth at Sunset’s side, a task made far more difficult considering the Cell of Ultimate Confinement wasn’t truly made with a being of her size in mind, and for all the impressive control and phenomenal resistances her Regalia provided, it wasn’t the most flexible thing to wear in a confined space.

Sunset had spoken of the Coven, a force that Celestia had spent a considerable amount of time and energy erasing from history to prevent the stupidly ambitious from attempting to repeat the blasphemous sorcery that had turned a group of cannibalistic misandrist blood-witches into a force of highly-infectious mortal Fiends that had threatened to plunge the world into a lust-fueled extinction event. There would have been no way for Sunset to have even learned of the Coven’s existence, or even the fact that their descendants now lived on as the Succuponies in one of the lower levels of Tartarus itself unless they had directly contacted Sunset in some fashion, which added a disturbing level of credence to her former student’s claims.

Adding to the disturbing wrinkle in Celestia’s plans was that Sunset also claimed the Coven was attempting to invade Equestria from a different world, rather than trying, unlike so many who were sentenced or banished to the Prison-Plane, to break out of their cells directly or convince the Mortals to summon them out of Tartarus. Starswirl the Bearded, ever unflappable and smugly confident, had emerged from the other side of the portal, shaking, pale-faced and demanding a blood-oath from Celestia and Luna that neither of them would ever set hoof through the portal.

It had been that oath, and the grim wondering of whatever was on the other side of that portal that could send even her ancient and curmudgeonly teacher into such a panic, that had convinced Celestia that if Sunset had crossed over, then she must have been slain by the occupants.

To hear from Twilight that her former student had not only been forced to live alone in a foreign world, to try and infiltrate a highly advanced society with alien customs simply to survive, a society possessing a very comprehensive and complex records system that made simply inserting a brand new member into that society all but impossible to do without somebody becoming aware of the ruse sooner or later and an species-wide unhealthy obsession with excessive violence as a form of entertainment had dealt a blow to Celestia’s heart that still twinged as she stared down at the sleeping, bloodied face of her former student.

And yet there had been no writing in the Journal. I wonder if Sunset merely believed the Journal was the key to unlocking the Portal, or if … Celestia’s heart twinged again as she touched on an idea that was as loathsome as it was heart-breaking.

What if Sunset had been waiting for Celestia to contact her first, to check up on her wayward student who must have just up and disappeared after their fight and taken such a powerful relic with her in the process. As the days dragged on into weeks, into months, trapped in a world with barely any magic and having to adapt to life amongst the savage creatures who lived there, Sunset would have been unaware that her teacher had mourned her as dead and instead come to believe she truly had been abandoned in every sense of the word.

“Sunset …” Celestia whimpered, trailing a hoof along Sunset’s cheek, and feeling the twinge turn into a full blown wrench as the sleeping mare leaned into the contact for several moments, her features smoothing into calm relaxation before crying out in her sleep and pulling away, Sunset’s hide singed and blistered from where even that short amount of contact with Celestia’s armored hooves had burnt her.

Celestia could only hold Sunset safely in her hooves if she divested herself of her armor. And if Celestia did that, then she might become vulnerable to whatever Succuponi magic still infested her student, and would also make a lie out of all the promises of sanctuary and vigilance that Celestia had made to the world yesterday. To do the right thing by a pony close to her heart would result in betraying the trust of the world that looked to her as an example of what they should strive towards.

This is just like Luna … but I refuse to allow it to happen again! With Twilight, Luna and Cadence at my side, we can save Sunset, and if the rest of the nations of Equis decide to take umbrage at my focus, then perhaps it is time for me to remind them who is truly the ‘world power’ in this situation.

“Your Radiance.” Simultaneously relieved to be taken out of her depressing spiral of self-recrimination and ashamed that she’d been so lost in her own thoughts, Celestia turned to give the speaker, one of the recently-returned Fourth Circle Magi, an apologetic look … and tried desperately not to giggle as she saw the two burly Thestrals on either side of the open door giving dire looks at the skinny mage, who was turning red for some reason and refusing to meet Celestia’s gaze.

“My apologies, Guards, Magi, I was … distracted by my poor Sunset’s concerns. What need do you have of the Solar Throne?” Celestia threw the beleaguered Magi a life-line in the formal, ritual question, and the young Magi grabbed onto it in earnest.

“My apologies, your Radiance, I did not mean to intrude but my master, Bleak Mountain, wishes to speak to you in regards to the replacement spellwork you wish placed around the castle.”

“Ah, he will want me to key them to my magical frequency. This should take several hours, but Guards, please, if Sunset wakes up, make certain she knows I have taken what she has said to heart and am working on a countermeasure.” Celestia sighed and nodded, thanking the Thestrals as she left the room for their vigilance and then following the flustered Magi through the corridors. Rosebush was right about having to replace our entire magical security system, at least. Over two dozen subversion enchantments slipped into the network and designed to allow an intruder to move through the castle without tripping a single alarm, and hundreds of scrying charms that would broadcast my every movement woven into the castle’s network by other nations in less than a day the moment the castle’s sorcerous defences were compromised, and all of the intrustions we have found have been back-tracked to our allies! I shudder to think of what magical sabotage the Gryphons, Seaponies and Deer might have attempted that we have yet to find.

Yet the risk is well worth the cost. The Changeling Queen who invaded, now suing for peace and has given me the names and locations of her sisters, as well as warning of an invasion from across the Badlands by the ones who created her. A threat we never even dreamed of has been detected long before it could become a disaster, and many of the other nations are, no doubt, simply treating me as they would any other world leader, although I wonder how many of them are sweating buckets right now at the knowledge we found their attempted sabotage within a day and tracked it all back to their doorsteps?

Or at least, Celestia hoped it would be worth the cost. Chrysalis was magically bound to tell the truth, by both Celestia herself and Bleak Mountain, who one of the strongest and most talented sorcerers the world had seen, but there were always work-around to a truth-geas, even with the significant limitations the blood-pact the Changeling Queen had forced on both herself and the ponies of Equestria weighing her down.

But the truly disturbing thought about the Changelings was that they had apparently been in her country for at least sixty years, and whatever threat lurked on the far side of the Badlands, the place where the last of Celestia’s sub-species of ponykind still lingered, according to Discord, had had all that time to build up their forces in preparation for an invasion.

Casting her mind back even as her body mechanically followed the Magi, Celestia turned the conversation over and over, inspecting the memory for any hint of duplicity on the Changeling Queen’s behalf.

“So we will be facing another generation of Changelings?” Celestia had asked, sharing a cup of tea with the convalescing Queen while Discord and Candy Apple had taken off with the foals, or rather, Discord had run off with the foals, all four of them laughing, and Candy Apple was giving chase with a murderous look on her face.

“No, definitely not. The Empress decreed us a flawed generation and sought to wipe all Changelings out of existence, and the Empress has never attempted to fix a flawed generation. Whatever type of creature she produces next will be as different from us as we are from the older generations, and it will take decades for them to establish themselves and even then, there is no guarantee the new generation will be able to breed true, survive contact with the older Generations or be successful enough that the Empress considers useful enough to keep around.” Chrysalis had replied, sipping at her tea delicately, even as the cup clattered slightly as the badly weakened Changeling set the cup back down on the tray balanced on her lap. Her injuries might have been identified, but it did not change the fact that Chrysalis was still horribly injured and would likely remain physically crippled for months at least.

“How … how many generations are there? How many different species are there?” Celestia probed, both fascinated and horrified at the concept of a leader who could not only fleshcraft on such a scale, but possessed the callousness to create such a Darwinian society.

“I know of twelve generations that survived long enough to become an established species in their own right, but only seven still remained when my sisters and I came into existence, making us the ‘eighth’ generation. Each generation is produced with a specific function, a unique purpose in the Empress’s army, and if they fail to uphold that, or possess some other fatal flaw, the older generations will turn on them and annihilate the species from Queen down to Larvae to make room for a new variation for the Empress’s army.” Chrysalis had sighed and leaned back into her pillow, eyes narrowing in anger. “Our role was infiltration and sabotage, to integrate into your society and create weaknesses, to create and exploit vulnerabilities in your military and industry. However, because my generation survived off of psychic energy that we gained through harvesting the emotions of others, our role in the Homeland was that of farmers more often than not, raising the ‘livestock’ and tending to their needs, while the older generations ate the flesh instead.”

“What were the livestock. The way you said that word seemed to suggest something other than the normal fare of carnivorous species.”

“Do you really want me to answer that, Celestia?” Chrysalis’s eyes had opened and locked onto Celestia’s, filled with some strange mixture of regret, anger and … and a deep sorrow?

“I must know.” Celestia had said in return, dreading the answer. Livestock that had emotions could only mean sentient life …

“Ponies, Celestia. A few packs of Diamond Dogs that strayed too far from civilised lands, a colony of Minotaurs descended from slaves taken during their civil war several centuries ago, even a passel of Orcs, but by far the largest number of livestock were Ponies. We kept them safe, stopping the older Generations from stealing the herds out of their fields before the allotted time and preventing the extinction of the species like what had nearly happened shortly before our Generation was born, but our success in those endeavours was due as much to the Empress’s threats of retaliation for their poaching as our Hives defences.” Chrysalis’s voice took on a strained, anguished tone as she spoke. “The livestock knew, of course, their ultimate fate, how could they not when since time beyond memory the older Generations of the Empress’s army had shattered their civilisation and hunted the survivors for food, but under our care, they had a semblance of life, of civilisation. They could raise their children, love each other and enjoy what little time they had because they knew the Changelings would care for them, farm their food, build them shelters, defend them from harm and ensure sure those whose time it was would go to the Culling at peace.”

“The Culling?” Celestia had whispered, both a question and a plea.

“We would use our cocoons to entrap the livestock selected to fulfil the older Queens’ quota, which is how we learned our cocoons could open up the consciousness of non-Changelings to the Hive Mind, and then use our special gift to send them into a pleasant delusion where their fondest dreams were realized, and in the process preserve them until such time as they could be … used by the older Queens’ Hives. We made certain that the delusion would last as long as possible even when removed from the cocoon to try and save the livestock unnecessary suffering, which did not please the older Queens, many of whom preferred their prey screaming for mercy rather than giggling in their sleep.”

Celestia shuddered at the memory and pulled her consciousness back to her immediate surroundings as her Magi escort led her up from the dungeons and towards the less-populated portion of Canterlot Castle, where Bleak Mountain and his Magi dwelled and kept stock of the dangerous magical relics that were unearthed and stored in the safety of Canterlot’s vaults. For all the cruelty and gleeful taunting Chrysalis engaged in when there was an audience, when it was just the two of them, Celestia found herself in the company of a fragile, broken being haunted by the choices she had made and the consequences of those choices. A state of being Celestia herself was all too familiar with.

But if Chrysalis and the other Changeling Queens fled into exile to escape the attempted genocide of their species … then what happened to the ‘livestock’ that lost the protection of the Changeling Hives?"