I’m here for a delivery of sorts,” Celestia replies with her motherly smile. She steps to the side, revealing Applebaum and Totem. Both are clad in their heavy winter gear, dirtied and with bits out of place. Totem looks comically overburdened compared to Applebaum, enough to spark a touch of concern for the young stallion, but he bears it with a rugged determination that sets hearts racing.

“Thanks for the ride,” Applebaum says with a touch of sheepishness, unable to meet her dam’s stern gaze. Her legs shake as she scampers toward her sire, though her fear of Applejack turning him against her prove unfounded.

“Welcome home!” Doug grins as he hooks his hands under her forelegs, and lifts her up, sending her soaring nearly into the ceiling. She squeals in delight, even if it’s not as high as he used to get her, gleefully wrapping her legs around him when he catches her in a great big hug.

She beams at Celestia from over his shoulder, breathless, forgetting her worries for a moment. “We, uh, we really appreciate it.”

“It was my pleasure.” Celestia grins as she approaches her stallion, eyes twinkling as what starts as a fond nuzzle turns to a long, passionate kiss. She pulls away with a regretful sigh, careful not to monopolize her stallion too much, especially with her herdmates quelling their desires to match her nuzzle for nuzzle. She takes a place on the opposite end of the table, as far in the corner and out of the way as she can wedge herself. A package, labeled ‘Emergency Breakfast Cake’, levitates from the pantry along with a deftly wielded knife and fork.

“And what were ya doin’ that called for a ride from a Princess?” Applejack demands from her filly as Doug sets her down.

Applebaum’s ears fold against her head. She hoped to avoid this, or at least it being so confrontational. “We - uh, that is, me, Totem,” she points at the colt, who gives a hearty wave as he eyes the food from the doorway, “Radiant Hope, and Tempest Shadow - climbed to the top of Mount Everhoof.”

“Really?” Rainbow Dash interrupts with a heaping helping of disbelief. “I thought nopegasus could even get close to that mountain!”

“Legends have it that no-pony is able to,” Twilight Sparkle adds. “I’m quite impressed you made it!”

“The winds were really bad,” Applebaum admits as she reluctantly approaches her dam. “But we pushed past and found this cave at the peak. It was protected by a spell, but we broke through and found Grogar’s bell. Gettin’ out proved a mite, um, difficult.” She sinks lower, pleading with her eyes, thinking back to the conversation she overheard on the train. But voicing how much she wants to be out adventuring - even if it is dangerous - would only serve to ignite her dam’s protective instincts.

“Difficult how?” Applejack demands.

“It, um.” Applebaum stalls, trying to figure the best way to phrase her trial in a way that couldn’t be construed as a lie while minimizing the chance of confining her permanently to her dam’s watchful gaze. “Ah saved Totem from the roof collapsing, and then we dug ourselves out.”

Applejack stares at Applebaum, chewing on her tongue for several long seconds. Nopony dares intrude on whatever thoughts are racing through her mind, and she eventually turns to Celestia. “Is that why you were there?” she inquires, uncharacteristic of how any of them normally address the alicorn.

“Initially?” Celestia replies, the glow around her horn fading to give the earth pony her full attention. Before she can elaborate, Applebaum cuts in.

“She wasn’t there for us, specifically.” Applebaum grins, hoping her enthusiasm covers for the grime encrusted on her gear. “But to, um, investigate what happened to her vault.”

“Correct,” Celestia confirms as Applejack glances at her. “The artifact Radiant Hope and Tempest Shadow obtained, Grogar’s Bewitching Bell, contains within it a powerful magic. However, without the spell giving them full access to the range of its abilities, it-”

One of the cookbooks that lines the wall intrudes into the conversation with a deep, luscious voice. “This spell?”

Celestia regards the row of books with naked hostility, one of them decidedly out of place by being twice as wide, tall, and thick as the others. “Discord…”

“What?” The ancient, gold-embossed tome flops out of line. The ornate lock clinks open with the scream of a pony falling from a great height; a paper draconequus unfolds from the pages like a three dimensional foal’s book, holding the same stylized bell that appears on the cover except in tarnished green rather than gold. “I have a lot of free time, what with my ‘reformation’, so I spent some of it on studying magic that traps, ensnares, or otherwise depletes a creature of her magic.” He winks, slithering up a serpentine smile. “You know, just in case?”

Celestia’s eyes narrow.

“Oh, come on!” Discord waves his paper claw and paw around as he paces from one end of the page to the other. “You know how uncharacteristic it is for me to confine myself? My entire shtick is acting outside the box!” He zaps miniature bolts of electricity in every direction, making little ‘pew pew!’ noises, but they dissipate upon hitting an invisible wall around the edges of the tome.

Celestia snorts in disbelief.

“Really?” Discord scoffs. “You don’t seriously think I’d actually help somepony use a relic of ancient, order-inducing magic?” He sticks his tongue out, drops the bell like it is radioactive and wipes green dust off his claw and paw with a look of pure disgust.

“Do ya deny it?” Applejack asks straightforwardly.

Discord snaps his newly cleaned claws. Lemon and Meringue appear next to him, barely fitting on the large tome’s pages; they look completely nonplussed at the sudden change in surroundings. Lemon goes so far as to give everypony a friendly wave. “These two are the only ponies I would give such guidance to, and only to further chaos, thank you very much. Besides, I came here to watch the fireworks, not to be harangued by some honesty-hawking hooligan.”

With a whirl of his claws the tome spins like Tank’s torticopter, the two fillies gleeful to be along for the ride. He stops on top of the other cookbooks, sits down with a large ‘harumph’, legs dangling off the edge, and scarfs down on popcorn while chucking peanuts at the nearest alicorn.

Celestia ignores the tiny projectiles bouncing off her face and mane. “It is my belief that Radiant Hope, a powerful healer in her own right, will utilize Grogar’s Bell to restore Tempest Shadow’s broken horn.”

“You couldn’t have, Ah dunno, told ‘em about the bell?” Applejack huffs. “Or better yet, gave it to ‘em? Seems like that would’a cleared up a whole bunch’a headaches. An’ not needed ta send mah filly on some horn-brained adventure!”

“Would you appreciate it,” Celestia asks of the apple farmer, “if I planted, cared for, and harvested all your apple trees?”

“Err,” Applejack hedges, pawing at the floor nervously. She didn’t think Celestia would fire back so viscerally. “Well, no. Ah mean, Ah wouldn’t mind a vacation. Maybe. For a week, or a day…”

Doug coughs, and it sounds suspiciously like ‘ten minutes, tops’, earning himself a glare from his lead mare.

“Ah’d appreciate it,” Applejack growls at her stallion, “if’n ya backed me up instead’a joinin’ the peanut gallery.”

“My shovel is yours to command,” Doug replies with a melodramatic bow as he gets up to go to the fridge. He waves Totem over, the young stallion glad to get a glass and plate of his own. He pulls a large slice of ham out of the fridge for himself, bombastically asking, “And if they had died!?”

Applejack rolls her eyes, the others fidgeting uncomfortably, but Celestia takes the question with full sincerity.

“Then I would have returned their remains, so you might see them one last time.” A bright smile isn’t quite enough to dispel the gloom generated by the question, but it certainly helps. “And celebrate the life they had, short as it might have been.”

While the others gain pensive looks, Applejack retains her harsh focus on Celestia. “Ah get where you’re goin’ with this, but it ain’t between doin’ everythin’ an’ doin’ nothin’. Sometimes, somepony just needs a helpin’ hoof.”

“The difficulty lies,” Celestia counters, though gently, “in discerning when your help will be to their ultimate benefit. I do not believe that encouraging ponies to act recklessly or without proper preparation by minimizing the potential consequences is the correct course of action. No more would I encourage suffering so acts of compassion might abound. Rather, I believe in everypony assessing their own life, learning their own lessons, and growing in Harmony in their own way.”

“And ya’ve got centuries of experience,” Applejack exclaims exasperatedly. “So of course ya know the best course of action. ‘Scuse me for steppin’ a hoof outta line.” She bows her head with a frustrated snort.

“You have a kind, generous heart,” Celestia compliments. Her horn flares, gently tilting the earth pony’s head to meet her encouraging gaze. “Cherish that, as you cherish those around you. Do not let yourself become jaded, focusing only on the worst outcomes. Though I suppose it is the height of hubris to believe that others share one's own shortcomings.”

Applejack finds her smile quickly returning, even as Discord groans in the background. “Ah-Ah’ll try, Princess.”

“Um,” Applebaum starts. “W-what ya were sayin’ is true and all.” She hunkers down, not wanting to contradict the ruler or her dam, but neither willing to withhold anything that might be important. Celestia cocks her head curiously. “It’s, just… It wasn’t just about Tempest’s horn.”

Worry creases the long, graceful features, her worst-case scenarios apparently not taking enough into consideration. “No?”

Applebaum shakes her head, wavering under the inquisitive stare. She has rarely found herself the focus of the alicorn, and finds it disconcerting to be so thoroughly analyzed. “Ah think… Um, Ah know she had Sombra’s horn with her.”

Celestia’s eyes slowly grow wider as her pupils shrink to pinpricks.

“Yesss…” Discord whimpers orgasmically as the fallen peanuts snap pictures of the distraught alicorn.

“I let them go…” Celestia whispers, staring off into the distance. The everpresent flow of her mane subsides, limply resting against her barrel.

Shivers run down everycreature’s back as the atmosphere in the room chills. Nopony wants to speak, especially as Celestia sinks further into despair.

“How bad is this?” Doug asks first, cold and calculating. “We beat Sombra once, right?”

“By himself,” Twilight Sparkle answers, Celestia still lost in thought. “In a weakened, half-wild state.”

“So we beat him again!” Rainbow Dash shadow boxes a few jabs, weaving back and forth and interspersing uppercuts against her imagined opponent.

“We’re talking about King Sombra returning.” Twilight Sparkle shudders. “As in, an actual possibility of him coming back to Equus. And at his full power, not as some… necromantic construct.”

Doug frowns, rubbing at his forehead with growing intensity. “Can Grogar’s power do that? Revenants and liches, not mere shades and skeletons?”

“There isn’t a lot of information regarding Grogar the Necromancer,” Twilight admits with growing concern over Celestia’s despondent condition. “I haven’t read through everything in the Canterlot restricted section, but the storybooks depict him as creating monsters capable of terrorizing the land.”

“Ah’m gettin’ lost in the muck,” Applejack admits, scratching at her hat with a befuddled expression. “Can’t we just, ya know, nip this sucker in the bud? Find Hope and Tempest before they, um, restore Sombra or whatever?”

“If we can find them.” Twilight Sparkle frowns. “They could be anywhere. Radiant Hope had some haven she retreated to, in which she spent the time when the Crystal Empire was banished.” She glances at the ample provisions Totem still carries, a hoof rubbing at her chin as she calculates.

“Hey,” Doug says as he slips next to Celestia, running his hand through her silken mane. “What’s Twilight always saying? Everything is going to be just fine?”

Celestia’s eyes close, the light of a smile breaking through her gloom, as Discord and the other ponies - including Twilight - groan.

Next Chapter: Ch. 118 - Combat Focus, Part Three Estimated time remaining: 13 Hours, 22 Minutes