Twilight walked along the well-worn hallways of the palace. She paused for a second and truly took in the details the builders had carved into the walls. All over were markings of the two royal sisters. Twilight realized that even though the palace was nearing sixteen years old, she never really paused to admire the love the builders had poured into it.

Memorials of Celestia were all over the place, imagery of her sister Luna joined her. Together they were Yin and Yang, light and dark, sunrise and sunset. Twilight noted that there were even a few of her. It seemed as if the builders and sculptors truly put their heart and soul into this place.

It pained her to see them some days. Celestia had been Twilight’s mentor most of her life. Her loss… her death was a pain that always haunted Twilight, all because she lost herself in grief. No, that was not quite true. It was because of that thing… that revenant.

Once upon a time Nightmare Moon was the scariest thing she could think of. She was the one thing that would haunt the dreams of every little filly that lived. If Twilight knew the truth back then, if she knew then what she knew now, she would have laughed at those legends.

Gods, Titans, and revenants, they all existed. They and Luna know what else was out there. Her and her friends had fought and defeated them all. In her grief, Rainbow had even killed a God.

In Twilight’s grief when Rainbow died in front of her, she had killed the Grim Reaper.

Of course, that was before they had even got together. That time felt like another life, a life before… before all of this; if that event would happen again, if she were once again faced with that fate? Twilight shook her head to clear that thought. Rainbow meant everything to her; she could not imagine a life without her. She would not imagine a life without her.

Looking at the memorials on the wall of the two alicorn sisters, Twilight smiled as she realized a certain truth. Rainbow was her Yang, she was Twilight’s other half, the half that she was missing. Rainbow was what Twilight was not. She was daring, bold, and hardheaded, she was the do first and ask questions later kind of mare. Twilight was calm, cool, and collected. She would analyze everything before doing anything. They were two sides of the same coin. Two spots on opposite ends of the same spectrum.

Over the years, they had moved towards each other, Rainbow began taking on more of Twilight’s qualities. The mare learned to slow down, to take her time, to think. Not always, of course, but she was getting better. Twilight smiled as she realized that she also took on some of Rainbow’s qualities. She learned to enjoy life, to dive in headfirst, sometimes anyway.

Truly, their relationship made them each a better pony.

Thoughts of Rainbow made her long for the mare. Twilight’s frown turned upside down when she realized she knew just where Rainbow would be.

Twilight teleported on top of the palace, she closed her eyes and felt the wind blow through her mane. The cool breeze flowed through every fiber of her fur, caressing her skin and relaxing her just like a gentle massage. The warmth of the sun shone down on her, augmenting the breeze just enough so it was not too cold, but not too hot. In a word, it was perfect.

There was not a thing she would change about that moment. Well, almost nothing, but that would soon be corrected. Twilight shot a magical signal up in the sky, it left her horn with all the force of a cannon going off. The magic she sent shot up in the air as it traveled at several times the speed of sound before detonating.

The magical explosion Twilight let loose came into being three miles above the palace. For hundreds of miles away, every pony could see a magical symbol above Celestia’s Palace, one that took on the shape of Twilight’s cutie mark.

An eye blink later, Twilight was suddenly in the sky. She felt a set of hooves wrapped around her, holding her in place as the two ponies shot through the air. She opened her eyes to see a set of magenta eyes staring at her, and a cyan-blue muzzle smiling down at her. Twilight smiled back at the mare she so loved. “What took you?” Twilight asked her beloved.

“Sorry if I kept you waiting, egghead,” Rainbow said jokingly.

“I forgive you, this time.”

“I wasn’t expecting you three to be done so soon. Let me guess, Ana?”

“Ana,” Twilight nodded. They both knew the young mare’s hurt at Taz not asking her to go with him to the Crusading King. Honestly, Twilight was a little worried. Ana liked Taz, a lot.

Maybe too much?

She shook her head to clear it of that disturbing thought. “Yeah, she just left, couldn’t concentrate on the lessons. I’m sure Ataxia is taking care of her now. I canceled the lessons and let Starlight go early.”

Rainbow nearly dropped Twilight at that comment. “You… canceled... lessons?”

“Well there’s no point in just teaching one of them. What did you mean by that?” Twilight asked with her brow crossed.

“Oh nothing,” Rainbow smiled. “I’m surprised you didn’t just go to the library.”

“I was heading there actually, but then I wanted to spend time with you.”

“I beat books? Sweet!”

“Now I’m starting to think I may have made a mistake.”

“Ahh, c’mon!”

“Don’t ever change, Rainbow,” Twilight said with a smile as she raised her muzzle up to her wife’s. Rainbow reciprocated and met her halfway between. She lost herself in that kiss. The feel of Twilight’s lips pressed against her. The taste of lilacs in her mouth as their tongues met like life-long friends.

Had Rainbow thought about it, she would have agreed with that analogy, well once someone told her what analogy meant anyway. After they broke apart, Rainbow landed on a cloud and let Twilight get her bearings. The alicorn looked around, she took in the beauty of the land as far as her eye could see.

They looked down at a perfect reflection of Canterlot Mountain in the crystal-clear waters of the lake below. To the south, they could see fish jumping up stream in Night River. Lavish green foliage sprouted from the banks. Plants that never should have been able to exist in that location thrived.

A clear sign as any in Twilight’s book: Even though the darkest night, the light will shine and bring new life.

Twilight smiled as she realized that was something Zecora might have said.

A thought occurred to her, “You know Rainbow; I’ve been wondering why you still do this.”

“Do what?” Rainbow asked before Twilight had an opportunity to finish speaking.

“Why you still fly, It’s not exercise for you. You’re not burning calories flapping wings made of magic. Logically, there’s no reason for you to fly as much as you do. I mean, regardless how out of shape you become no one can hope to beat you in a race. Well, a fair race anyway,” Twilight laughed at her own joke. Rainbow just sat there and let her finish.

“I think I know,” Twilight smiled as she looked her wife in the eye. Rainbow’s eyes perfectly reflected the landscape behind her. Twilight felt like she was drowning in those eyes. The magenta glow of them sought to swallow her whole.

She let it.

“It’s the view, isn’t it? It’s so… it’s so…” Twilight never got to finish that sentence. Rainbow interrupted her by pressing their lips together, cutting of the risk of Twilight ever spilling her secret. The alicorn fell on her back, allowing, just this one time, Rainbow to be on top.

She felt every inch of the smaller pegasus. Over the years, Twilight’s growth had put her on par with Luna in terms of sheer size. Rainbow stayed the same size though. Neither of them cared all that much about it. Well, save for when Twilight would ask her if she wanted a piggyback ride.

She had only done that one time though, okay maybe twice, and that was just to get a laugh from Taz.

Twilight loved the feeling of the smaller pegasus on her. She got to feel every inch of the smaller mare, every fiber of her hair, every gram she weighed, all of it. Rainbow pulled her head up and looked her in the eye.

Twilight simply smiled back. She lightly bopped the pegasus on the noise. “Don’t worry Rainbow, I won’t tell anyone your secret.”

“You better not, Mistress Sparklebutt,” Rainbow said with a small grin.

Twilight responded by wrapping her large wings around her wife and squeezing her. “I’ll remember that tonight.”

Rainbow gulped, but it was just for play. She knew Twilight would do nothing that would actually hurt her.

Of course, hurt was a relative term here. The two had figured out a long, long time ago, as long as you had trust, nothing else really mattered. Rainbow trusted that Twilight would never do anything to really hurt her. In fact, there was no one Rainbow trusted more than Twilight, and she knew that the reverse was just as true.

Rainbow shut her eyes as the cool air blew by. She was not tired per se, but they had a full days’ worth of work and meetings. Besides, she never needed an excuse to take a catnap.

The fact she was on her favorite bed? That was just a bonus. Twilight laid a hoof on the nip on Rainbow’s neck. She left it there as the pegasus drifted off to sleep. She knew, logically, that this would put them behind. Twilight would let her sleep a lot longer then she should. They would be late and several nobles would be pissed about waiting.

Yet, at that moment, she did not care. She was laying on a fluffy cloud in perfect weather. The sights and sounds around her soothed her, relaxing her in a way unlike she had known in quite some time. Her wife was falling asleep on her chest. Twilight could feel her warmth, her weight; she could see everything there was to see.

The cute way Rainbow’s face scrunched up, the relaxing of her taunt muscles in her legs and barrel, and even the way she lightly snored. All of it, Twilight took in every detail she possibly could.

In her eighty-one years of life on this planet, Twilight had many memories, some good, others not so much. Yet, of everything that had happened. Instances like these would live forever in her mind. She would never forget a single detail of these moments.

Nothing was going on, nothing was happening, yet she knew without a shred of doubt that she would remember this time forever.

………………………………………..

Empress Princess Aurora Flash had a thought. One that no one could ever know she had at this moment, one that if her subjects – or Luna forbid, her husband – ever knew, it would change the way she was viewed the entire empire over.

She had a bad thought, it was a horrible thought, a thought that she never should have ever had in a million years.

She really, really, really wanted to kill this diamond dog.

She did not know why, but everything about him was offensive, everything he did, every breath he took she took as a personal insult.

‘How dare you breath my air?!’

‘Don’t you dare touch my table!’

‘Why are your feet touching my floor?’

These thoughts and a hundred others played through her head. She wanted… she needed to hurt this dog. She just had no bucking idea why. He was just a normal diamond dog, over for a simple race-relations brunch. Yet… yet she wanted him hurt.

Facts did not really matter; the knowledge that he had done nothing wrong did little to change her feelings on the subject. Aurora considered for the hundredth time telling her husband to get his spear, or better yet, just getting it herself.

Contrary to her inward thoughts, Aurora managed to keep it from showing outwardly. She smiled and nodded at the comments the dog would send her way. She managed to give a faux chuckle at jokes her husband would throw out. She even managed to accomplish a little small talk.

Icarus saw through all of it. He knew his wife like no other. The emperor knew that something was wrong, that something was amiss. Her body language gave it away. Icarus was more than familiar with such tells, having personally experienced his fair share over the years.

“Ibizan Collie, it’s been wonderful having you here, but I’m afraid I forgot an important meeting today. I’m going to have to call it early.”

Ibizan stared at the emperor with a shocked expression on his face. He quickly regained his composure. “Then let me say thank you Emperor Icarus, Empress Aurora, it’s been a pleasure.”

His breath almost drove Aurora over the edge. “That’s Empress Princess Aurora,” Aurora corrected him with a not-so-friendly tone in her voice.

“Forgive me, Empress Princess Aurora.” Ibizan got up from his seat and bowed low to the two rulers of the Griffin Empire. He walked around the table and shook Icarus’s claw. He went to kiss Aurora’s hoof when Icarus politely directed him to the door at the other end of the table. Distracting the diamond dog from the death glare she had been giving him.

“Allow me to walk you out.” Icarus said with a smile as the two left the room.

Aurora felt like a huge weight lifted from the room. She immediately wanted this entire room scrubbed from top to bottom, whatever it took to get the memory of that diamond dog out of her mind.

She logically knew that there was no point. No matter how much they scrubbed every surface of the room, she would always remember that ‘thing’ being in here. She shivered at that thought.

‘Maybe I should just have the room burned; we can rebuild it as something else.’ Despite herself, that thought made her smile. She was smiling as thoughts of all the other uses she could put this space to flashed through her mind. She thought about mounting a few diamond dog heads on plaques in the room

She failed to notice the first two pokes at her side. It was not until the third time a claw poked her in the stomach that she even became aware of it. Fuming, she turned and went to chew the flank off whoever would dare interrupt such enjoyable thoughts.

“Mom.” The voice came out like a squeak. Immediately, Aurora’s dark thoughts were gone, in front of her was a little hippogriff colt, her son, Dayspring.

Her heart broke at that little face. She saw the one thing written in it that she never thought she would ever see. Her son was afraid, worse, he was afraid of her. That fear was leading him to cry.

She swooped up the brown hippogriff with her hooves, and lightly stroked his blue feathers. “Shh, it’s ok little one. Mommy’s sorry.”

“You… you scared me,” Dayspring cried.

“I know, I didn’t mean too.” Those words were a dagger stabbed repeatedly into her heart. She had not meant to scare her son like that; she did not even know why she did it.

“I’m so sorry,” Aurora said again and again, trying desperately to undo her mistake. To make it have not occurred.

“Hey Day, why don’t you go play with Vela.” The voice came from across the room. Aurora turned to see her husband walk towards them. There was a knowing smile on his beak. “Mommy and I need to talk for a minute.”

“Can we… can we play after?” Dayspring asked meekly.

“Sure son, we can go flying when we’re done.”

The little hippogriff smiled. Climbing down from his mom’s lap – a task made harder by the fact that Aurora did not want to let him go – he ran up and hugged his father before running off to find his older sister.

Aurora watched him leave with tears in her eyes. She looked down at the table and her half-eaten meal.

“What was that about?”

“I don’t know, something about that diamond dog, it… it….”

“Oh I couldn’t care a buck less about him, if anything I’m grateful to be done with that. I was talking about Dayspring. You’ve never been that way to our kids before.”

Aurora glanced up, for the first time she looked her husband in the eye. There was love there, but also something else. Something she had not expected to see, concern. He was afraid, not of her, or what this would do with their relations with the dogs. He was afraid that something was wrong, that she might do something that could not be undone.

The tears started again, Aurora began crying over her actions. The look on her son’s face flashed in her mind, over and over, like a broken record. She knew that face would haunt her for some time. “Something’s wrong with me!” she cried out the words.

“You sure you weren’t just tired? Dogs are hard to deal with even on a good day,” Icarus laughed a little, a laugh that died in his throat when he looked Aurora in the eyes. A face as beautiful as hers, it should never have tears on it.

Yet there they were. He felt it then, the loss, the pain she felt. It was weighing on her, dragging her down. Something had happened to her and it pained her more so than anything else she had ever experienced.

He cleared the gap between them and pressed her head to his chest. Wrapping his wing around her, he held her tightly. Icarus was trying desperately to transfer her pain to him. He could handle the worst pain the universe threw at him. In his time, he had wings and limbs cut off, burns, breaks, concussions, and he was even placed in a full-body cast.

None of that was as painful as seeing his wife right then. He could handle his own pain. Her being in pain? That was another story altogether.

“Let’s go to Canterlot.”

“Really?” Aurora asked, her tears falling freely into his coat.

“Really. Whatever happened, I’m sure your mom can figure it out.”

She returned his hug for all her worth. In truth, she was scared, more-so than she could ever remember being. The events of her life were tragic, yet this time it was not some outside force that freighted her, this time she was frightened of herself.

…………………………….

Luna moved through the remains of Appleloosa. The ghost town was silent, unmoving, and dead. A decade and a half ago Lord Tirek killed every single pony here in an effort to get more power. It was all for naught, Princess Shimmering Night and Ataxia put a stop to his evil once and for all.

“Had you listened to me back in the day sister, this never would have happened,” Luna hated fighting with her sister’s memories. She argued a millennia ago that when dealing with such creatures there should be a ‘finality’ to their solution when it was all said and done. Celestia had disagreed, and won.

Luna was still not sure how Celestia always managed to win those arguments. She could not completely fault her sister’s methods; they did work for over a thousand years. It was hard to argue with results like that.

Then again, maybe it had more to do with luck? Maybe what happened to her was simply a result of that well having run dry. Celestia had always taken risks, some small, others huge. Her death… was that just a result of having taken one too many risks? Of having rolled the dice one too many times?

Luna could not say. She shook such thoughts off. It would not do her any good to think about her sister right now. Not while she was on a hunt.

Over thirteen years ago, she had lost her horn, for a time anyway. During that time, Luna had been unable to perform her duty of lowering and raising the moon. As such, Princess Shimmering Night took command of that heavenly body.

There was just one thing no pony had been counting on. One thing even Luna did not suspect. She enjoyed having no responsibilities. When Twilight fixed her horn, Luna let Night stay in charge of lowering and raising the moon. She still walked in pony’s dreams. However, she left the moon and the night court to Princess Night.

Luna elected to take over Ataxia’s job. At least until she decided she wanted it back.

That had been thirteen years ago. Ataxia would simply deflect whenever anypony would bring it up, or change the subject. They all settled into their new jobs without issue. In all honestly, Luna preferred it this way, she had all the joy, yet none of the responsibility.

As she walked around the town, she sent out a magical wave. A sonar pulse looking for anything that lived, anything that might be alive, that might be hiding here.

She got a hit. The creature, Luna had no idea just what she was hunting. This one was slippery, one of the few last remaining Tartarus escapees. They had all been this way lately. They had to be. The hunts had been very successful over the years. The ones left knew they were being hunted, they knew that they did not stand a chance against Equestria’s greatest defenders, so they hid.

Luna only knew about this one by chance, a wandering traveler reported a strange occurrence in the ghost town of Appleloosa, something that should not have been there. He ran of course, not wanting to incur the wrath of whatever was hiding here.

It was more than enough for Luna to go investigate. She made all haste to Appleloosa and began scanning for the creature.

As she rounded the corner, Luna came face to face with a being she had not seen in over a thousand years. A sphinx.

A sphinx is a creature with a body of a cat and wings of a great bird. Looking at it, Luna could see that the sphinx’s wings were larger than her’s. Its golden fur and great brown wings only added to its overall presence. While Luna was physically bigger than the creature, the sphinx more than made up for it in sheer subsistence.

Luna smiled at it. She was sure that most ponies would run from it as soon as they saw it, not her. She had faced down the worst creatures imaginable, even going face to face with a Titan. To her, this sphinx was just one more threat, one that she would deal with.

“Peace, Princess Luna,” The sphinx’s voice was soothing; the type a mother would give her young.

“Am I supposed to spare your life because you know my name?” Luna asked.

“No,” the sphinx smiled as it spoke. “My life is in no danger here as I pose no threat; I’ve only come to talk to you.”

Luna, taken aback by that, gave a curt response. “Creature, I’ve no desire to talk to the likes of you,” she began powering an energy blast with her horn.

“Now, now, is that what your sister would’ve wanted you to do?” The sphinx smiled.

That gave Luna pause. She quickly shook it off and went to attack. Her blast shot out of her horn, but it was too slow to land on its target. The sphinx flew up and landed on a nearby rooftop. “You’ve no desire to hear what I have to say?”

“Lies and slander do not interest me,” Luna fired again; each shot came closer and closer to hitting their target. However, the sphinx had a cat’s reflexes. She landed nearby Luna with a smile on her face.

“Princess Luna, your time on the moon made you miss so much. Do you not know that a sphinx cannot tell a lie?”

That made her pause; she had remembered something about that, something from a long, long time ago. She somehow knew that what the creature had said was true.

Luna sat back. “So you just want to talk? Then what? Go terrorize more ponies?”

The sphinx laughed. “I’ve never terrorized anyone.”

“Then why were you locked in Tartarus?”

“That was your sisters doing; I know the answer to any question asked of me. It is my nature, however, to get this knowledge the asker has to answer three riddles. If they fail? Well, then I get to eat,” the sphinx said with a smile.

“She locked you in Tartarus because you ate ponies,” Luna said with a disgusted look on her face. “Why should I not kill you again?”

The sphinx frowned at her. “I’ve never hunted anyone, those who approach me are told the risks, yet in their arrogance they seek my knowledge anyway.”

“You’ve eaten ponies.”

“I told them the risks, they chose their fate.”

Luna smiled. “If you know the answer to any question asked, try this one on for a second. Am I going to kill you?”

The sphinx frowned as it heard the question. It raised its wings and formed a magical barrier around itself as Luna lowered her horn and shot out a blast of energy. The two forces met with the barrier proving to be a little less effective against the energy shot than the sphinx would have liked. She could already see cracks beginning to form in the energy shield.

“Fine Luna, you don’t want to talk, I’ll leave you with my message anyway.”

“Silence creature!” Luna poured even more energy into her blast. The sphinx released the energy shield in a blast wave. Temporarily stopping all the energy Luna shot out at her but the action left her defenseless. However, her goal was not to defend, but to escape.

She left her message on the wind.

Luna feverishly scanned in every direction for her signature; she cast every spell she knew looking for wherever the creature went. There was no sign of the sphinx. Every scan came up with nothing, every trace she ran proved fruitless. After another hour of searching, Luna had no choice but to admit defeat. She did not know where the creature went, but if it ever turned up again she would not waste her time talking with it.

Despite her best attempts to do otherwise, Luna found that she was unable to get the creature’s riddle out of her head.

Her flight home found her mind replaying it over and over again in her head.

……………………………………………….

“Did it work?”

“What do you think? I told you I’m not strong enough to change minds from a distance, yet you ran your mouth and made me think it was a good idea to try.”

“So you failed,” Timespire said matter-of-factly.

“We failed,” Mindsink corrected. ”We’re in trouble, Timespire.”

“We? You mean you failed, you’re in trouble,” Timespire countered his brother’s acquisition that he was somehow responsible for their failure. They both knew that their older brother could forgive a lot: Betrayal, backstabbing, and murder? These things were fine, expected even. Failure? That was unforgivable.

“What, you think for a second I won’t rat your ass out?” Mindsink glared at his brother.

“I didn’t fail,” Timespire countered.

“Yeah, but it was your idea, and if you think for a second that I’m not going to point as much blame as I can on you, you’re dumber than you look.”

Taken aback by that, Timespire merely snarled at his brother’s words. He knew, logically, that Mindsink was right. It had been his idea after all. Use the diplomatic meeting between the Griffin Empire and the diamond dogs to start a full-scale war.

Mindsink told him it would not work. He told him that for his power to be effective he had to be close to his target, close enough to look his victim in the eyes. Timespire had denied that. He was the one that said it would work just fine at range. That instead of changing memories, Mindsink could simply plant a suggestion from far away.

It failed. Aurora did not kill the diamond dog; she did not start a war between them and the Griffin Empire.

If that were not bad enough, now she was going to the center of power for these ponies, she would soon be in Princess Twilight’s company. From there it did not take a genius to know what would occur.

They would be found out; Twilight would know that someone tried to implant a suggestion in her daughter’s mind. Worst-case scenario: They just ruined all the plans their brother put into play.

“What are you two doing?”

They both looked up. A large red unicorn walked into the room. The very air seemed to part in front of him, afraid to come into contact with his frame. His very presence seemed oppressive, almost as if reality itself wanted to reject his presence. He was an anathema to the world. He was a being that never should have existed, reality tried to set it right.

Reality never stood a chance. In terms of raw power, he had more, more than any being ever should.

Timespire and Mindsink both lowered their heads in subservience to him. It took him less than a second to size up that they were hiding something. He looked at Mindsink and spoke, “What did you do?”

“It wasn’t my idea, it was Timesp-“

“He lies!” Timespire shouted.

The older brother just glared at Timespire, in a flash of his horn; claws suddenly reach up from the ground. They wrapped around the earth pony with a strength that such limbs should not have possessed, they sought to pull him INTO the floor.

The floor was made of obsidian, its construction was sound, and it would not bend regardless how much pressure someone to it. The claws were magical, created by a being that defied existence with his very presence, they would not break.

Timespire’s bones were just that, weaker than either the claws or the floor, they did give. The pressure of the claws and floor forced on white earth pony squeezed him alive. Bones snapped as the pressure increased exponentially, seeking to drag him through a solid structure.

He screamed and screamed as pain became him, organs pulped in his body. Until, just as quickly as it started, the pressure was gone. The claws stopped, disappearing back into the ether.

Timespire looked up, fresh blood running from his nose, eyes, and ears. His older brother just glared at him. “I do believe I was talking to Mindsink; try not to interrupt. I might not be in such a good mood next time.”

Looking back at Mindsink, he said one word, “Continue.”

Mindsink gulped and looked down at the floor. “We… I tried to instigate a war between the Griffin Empire and the diamond dogs. I… I failed.”

“What did you do?” Mindsink looked into his brother’s face. His expression was unreadable, unknowing.

Mindsink gulped as he proceeded to recant his tail from beginning to end, he said everything, everything that had happened, in every detail. There was no exaggeration, no shifting of blame, not now.

When it was over, the pegasus found that he could not look his brother in the eye. It had been a gamble; if he succeeded, he would have had the lion’s share of the credit. It had not succeeded; it failed in the worst way possible.

He now had the lion’s share of the blame.

When the tale was told in full, Mindsink did not look up. He did not want to see the look of anger in his brother’s eyes.

What happened next shocked him. He heard the last sound he ever expected to hear, laughter. Looking up, he saw that his older brother was laughing. “I think I can work with this.” There was a grin on his face as he said the words.

Mindsink felt a weight lifting from his shoulders at that, whatever was going on in his older brother’s mind he had no idea. Nor did he want to know.

Some things were better off not known.

The red unicorn turned and went to leave. Plans began forming in his head as he considered this new development. Mindsink felt a wave of relief wash over him as his brother only had three more steps to take before he left the room.

That relief died in Mindsink’s throat as at one more step, the unicorn stopped. “Oh, about your punishment.”

Timespire found that even he could not stomach watching the torture Mindsink suffered at their older brother’s magic.

Author's Notes:

Who doesn't love a good riddle?