The warmth.

The light.

The very stillness of the centuries-undisturbed air.

It all followed her.

With every step.

Every breath forward.

The very elements of the room converged upon her, shifting into a reverent singularity that marched in cadence to her lead. Left behind in the diminishing vacuum, he tentatively crept with tiny steps from the base of the stone spiral staircase.

Dust-coated tranquility retreated down the narrow corridor as the spiraling stairs lifted in synchronized rhythm into the ceiling. Dancing zephyrs of grit peeled away between the rotted stone walls, leaving Devon behind in a darkening nest of permeating silence. With the final hollow thump of masonry locking into place above him, a cold wind prickled and buffeted against his tail.

A sharp pain jabbed at the side of his face. “Hee-yck.” His ear popped, signaling the fleeting departure of air rushing away. Realizing there was no way back from where he stood, the charcoal unicorn quickly shifted his gaze across the wall, scanning each feature and crevice for any hint of a mechanism to lower the stairs once more.

He tilted his glance back down the corridor. “Listen, if we do have to go back, maybe we should...” The words echoed with unregarded abandon off the walls, dissipating into asphyxiated gasps of their former tones. “M’lady?”

Rounding the corner down the corridor, he watched as the Princess of the Night paced away from him in determined step. With her absence, the cobalt shadows and flickers of stray luminance faded with a soft sigh of vacating breeze, coaxing him to follow. As he set his hooves into motion, each step’s sharp impact resonating a dozen times off the confining walls, not a single fiber of cobalt light remained. Not a single photon from Princess Luna’s glowing mane and tail dared venture back through the corridor.

Everything followed the Princess; pushing forward. The air. The light. Warmth. Even the walls seemed to disappear, following along with her.

The walls.

Light didn’t even stick to the walls. Devon had never been in this kind of darkness before. Even hiding in closets as a colt, or the dark winter nights out in his foalhood home in the country, there was at least a glimmer; the frame of a door or a gentle ember of a nightlight. But enclosed in this hallway, there was no single mote of light, nothing to draw a point of reference to. Devon stumbled backwards, his balance crumbling. Disoriented, dragging a hoof along the ground to keep some futile sense of direction, he could feel the intricate etchings carved into the masonry beneath him as he attempted to keep pace with the Princess.

In the absence of sound, the absence of vision, the charcoal unicorn felt a rustle against his shoulder like a stray sheet of draping fabric brushed against him. Unable to see the floor, his hooves resonated with a strange softness, like plodding methodically across aged wooden floorboards, his fetlocks resting gingerly to make no sound. His muscles’ reflexes weighed him down, as to not disrupt whomever could be just below them.

Through the darkness, his ears twitched. A voice... but so muffled and distant he didn’t know if the words were coming from beyond the stone walls or from within his own imagination. Or his memory.

A blunt thud dug deep as he clipped his shoulder into a rotted wooden support, knocking him into a spin. Reaching out again, he felt for the wall to regain his balance, only to feel an uncomfortable vacancy of existence where he swore the corridor’s stone encasement once was. Reflex and momentum flung him forward, casting all four hooves into a desperate skitter across the slick floor, every limb trying to fasten into place to readjust his weight upward.

Not even knowing where upward was anymore.

Leaning now against his right hooves, he started backing up. His legs again clamored across the floor, hoping for his flank to nudge into something, but only got a spin of disoriented confusion as no cold kiss of stone greeted his backside.

Like the walls themselves had disappeared. Like they followed the exodus of luminance, air, and the determined Moon Princess.

Moments before he resigned to pitching over completely, the unicorn twisted around into a panicked dash, hoping the floor wouldn’t go next. He collided cheek-first into something soft, but unyielding.

“Oof!” a sharp royal voice nickered with a scolding tone. “Wouldst thou give heed to where thy hooves tread?” Steadying himself, Devon leveled into a functioning canter just before a flare of cobalt light burst forth, illuminating the passage in a dim but usable light. With a few blinks, Devon’s orange eyes adjusted, the black veil before him transforming first into a reassuring semicircle of dancing blue.

A narrow-eyed glare loomed backwards at him. With an inward groan, Devon withered, seeking the guiding aura of the Princess’ mane and tail to keep him from falling flat on his face. “Erf...sorry, m’lady, I lost my balance and...” before he could carry out his apology, the cobalt illumination drifted away, deeper into the hallway.

“H-hey wait up!” Devon stammered, hastening to keep pace with the light. With a burst of speed, he trot alongside her. Cast in the dim blue light, Luna wore an expression of intent resolve. Somehow the bleak and fleeting light highlighted her features far more than the bright torches and Equestria sun ever could. Devon shook his head, banishing the unworthy thoughts from his head as his attention drew back to the wider situation.

“Um...Princess Luna, do you know...” The unicorn slowed, scoping the twisting corners of the cobalt-lit corridor, “quite where we are?”

“Aye,” came a curt, blunt reply.

“Oh...ehm...” Devon mumbled, “well...where is that, if I might ask...”

“A chamber,” Came another brisk reply. “Far older and grander than the archive that thou doth attend.” Luna’s eyes didn’t even flinch towards the unicorn. “Were it not for thy dunderheadedness, we would have entered quietly and not have bestirred such calamaty.”

“Me? But I didn’t-”

“Enough! ‘Tis thine own fault! We know better than to wantonly jab at cobblestone and rune!”

“But...but...” Devon murmured, his argument losing steam even before it left his mouth. Didn’t matter anyway. “Well, we’re in the same mess.” Well, mess being subjective to his own perspective, the subtle flinch of an eyelid suggested the Princess felt contrary. Devon rearranged his words, hoping for a more...mutual form of communication. “So...” Don’t say something stupid, don’t say something stupid, don’t say something stupid. “How we get out?” Terrible, Devon.

“Hyurrghfff...” Despite a long exasperated sigh, no tangible reply formulated with the full exhalation of the Princess’ lungs. “Fff...” A waving halo of cobalt drifted further down the corridor, and simply kept disappearing down another flight of stairs.

Stumbling to maintain pace, Devon’s voice took on a small tinge of worry and genuine concern. “Er...you do know how to get out of here, right?”

“Thou doth truly wish to...” The Princess began, “Urghfff!” but promptly resumed her previous angle of dissertation. The light moved on, bending around a corner to temporarily wrap him in black again.

“Hee-yack.” His ears popped with the sudden absence of musty air, and he immediately darted forward; not even feeling for the walls.

“Tis but one escape known to Us.” The voice was just as lost as the light that Devon ran to keep up with. As he rounded the final bend of staircase, the unicorn came up short as the Princess’ tail loomed large again, before a grand set of dusty double doors.

“Not quite the easy exit...” Devon murmured, scanning the surroundings with a long swivel of his neck.

Dust and shadow clung to every surface in the room as the Princess’ lit horn cast angular and disjointed shadows into abstract projections on the walls. The flickering and swaying light shone along the telltale edges of engraved markings, designs, and drawings, but never sticking long enough to be decipherable with Luna’s quick pace. Each step and movement caused a small whirl of fine particles to whip into the air and swirl wildly, brought to motion for the first time in countless years.

Slowly, their eyes adjusted and murky shadows transformed into distinct shapes. The chamber before them was simple and sturdy, free of extravagant embellishments. Despite the darkness, both could tell the room was long, echoes of hoofbeats coming from deep in the murk. As they crept deeper and deeper into the chamber, the pair only encountered the occasional table or chair, laid out perfectly straight, as if it were cleaned up for the night and simply left unattended for centuries.

At the far end of the chamber lay an elaborate stone archway, clearly framing for a door, but where one might expect great planks of wood lay only solid stone, covered in elaborate sigils and lines of text. Central to the motif was a deep recess in the slab surrounded by an assortment of swirling lines and old text. The designs weaved and nestled in a comforting nest around the alcove in the slab, pointing towards the shining beacon housed within it. Shimmering with a ravenous hunger for luminance, a hunger dissident to the frigid dark stone around it, an amber jewel glowed in multicolored caustics of cyan and orange from Luna’s aura.

An apple.

Despite the centuries of neglect and the thick down of dust cloaked over it, even meager light from Luna’s horn caused it to sparkle in a radiant display. Striding ahead of Devon, Luna stood boldly in front of the slab, an expectant and irritated scrunch across her face.

“We bid thee OPEN!” Luna barked at the stone slab, blowing the layer of dust off in a single explosive pulse of verbal might. She spoke to it as if it were needlessly delaying her, or that she had no time to trifle. “We have come seeking thy deepest chamber, so thou shalt open forthwith!”

The stone responded with a nonplussed solidity, as stones are wont to behave.

“We are Luna, Princess of Canterlot, and Lady of the Moon Herself! Thy impertanance grates upon Our nerves! We have not the time to indulge thy japes. Again, we beseech thee: OPEN!”

“Is that actually going to work?” Devon cautiously inquired, his voice a whisper compared to the verbal ballistics of the Princess. Sheepishly, he took a step back.

“Nay,” Luna huffed, her head and wings folding downward. “We had hoped that it might, though t’would seem we are befouled by yon slab.” She slammed a hoof down, staring down the glimmering apple defiantly existing before her. “Dumb slab!”

“M’lady,” Devon took half a step forward, “Maybe we should-”

“-By the itch of one-thousand nettles press’d into a camel’s spine!” Devon took half a step back at the sudden exclamation, and barely heard her mutter: “It hath been far, far too long since last I came here.” Luna shook her head, peering along the edges of the slab in an agitated desperation. “We recall that one thing of import must be used to unbar this portal, but We fail to recall the specificity of the key.”

“Well,” the charcoal unicorn cleared his throat from the newly agitated dust storm, putting on as brave a tone as he could, “there’s gotta be some kind of way through this, right? Maybe something was left behind that might help?” As if on queue, his hoof depressed into one of the engraved pieces of masonry adorning the floor. With his weight pressing it down, it descended with a shallow pane of shadow cresting from the cobalt glow cast across its sibling panels.

Click.

A finger of dust poked down from the ceiling above the slab, the amber apple flickered its reflecting light signifying the slightest shift. Luna ducked reflexively as another sound of straining mechanical contraptions spun and whirred behind the dark corridor walls.

He let a few seconds of stillness pass, the creaking echoes of ancient machinery dissipating back into the deaf tone of the silent room. “Of course,” Devon proclaimed proudly, running his hoof along all the other pressure plates along the floor’s edge. “This whole room, it’s just one gigantic combination lock.” Curiously, Devon found a couple similarly gilded stones jutting above the tile. With just the slightest pressure, they hid away into the shallow recesses of shadow. “If we just press all these a lot,” Devon nudged a few more panels down, the hidden mechanisms around the slab unsettling it even more, “we’ll figure out a way to-”

“-Hold thy stance, Bookkeeper!” Luna implored through a grit whisper. “These chambers before us are fragile and much weathered, disturb them no-”

Click.

Another rumbling of gears and grinding ropes interrupted her.

“Do not touch the plates!”

“Aw, heh, sorry,” Devon apologized, taking a step back away from the weight panels. “Didn’t mean to-” Another flurry of gears and the sound of dropping wooden panels thud in muffled tones through the walls as Devon’s hind legs sunk simultaneously into two different panels.

Click.

“Oh, whoops, they’re just...sorry let me just...” He readjusted, his front hooves dropping again through the floor, summoning even more low grumbles and groans to unsettle the dust from the walls.

Click.

Luna hoisted her shoulders back, rolling her eyes in an irritated groan. “Would you cease this-” Her words cut off again from a smattering of clanking and shifting mechanisms thumping through the walls.

“Sorry, m’lady, let me just walk back over-”

Luna immediately turned. “Halt!” A semi-circle of dust surged towards Devon along the ground, lapping against his legs. The shrill ring of absent sound stood ground between them, disrupted subtly by the residual pop of turning machinery or the Princess’ heavy exhales. “Thou...shalt...not...move!”

“Yes m’lady.”

“Anywhere!”

“Yes m’lady!” Devon locked his hooves squarely in position, his body shuddering from the continuous impulses his mind told his body to remain in place.

The Princess turned, focussing back to the door. “I must say,” she nudged a fetlock against her chin, “upon mine unagèd dock, the syntax of these markings betwixt old and ancient doth lie. I have never-”

Click.

“-Oh by graces of the rhinos’ crash, sir!”

“Not moving!”

“Thou didst move!” the Princess turned an impatient visage of sincerest hostility in his direction. “Distinctly have We heard another of thy floor plates acquiesce to thine inevitable bumbling!”

“See this!” Devon motioned at his feet with a swing of his neck. “This is me,” wobbling his knees, keeping his hooves in place, “Not...bumbling...anywhere!”

“Thou hadst best be flailing in thine attempts to deceive us, Bookkeeper!” Luna tilted her neck to full extent, holding her head up as high as possible while pacing slowly towards the floor-locked unicorn. “Pray tell, confess thou art a deceiver!” Her voice elevated, kicking airy sheets of musty grime into the air with each syllable. “Art thou a deceiver?! Please!” Her hooves stopped, holding firmly in close proximity to his own. “For I’d rather believeth thee simply a liar, a deceiver, than a...a...”

Devon suppressed the impulse to step back, the previous decree overriding his own instinct to retreat from the advancing Princess. “Th-than a w-what?”

Luna’s eyes narrowed. “Than a bloviating...” Her shoulders tensed. “...Im-becilic...” Neck descended. “Mentally insignificant bastion of cantankerous obliquity!” While Devon remained locked in place. “For at least then thou wouldst be upon the precipice of salvation! Granted thou ought be rendered capable of-”

Click.

“-...” Luna’s voice snapped into a high creak as her throat forced itself into a silencing pinch.

It took every neuron, fiber, tissue, and cell within Devon’s motionless frame to choke down the surging exclamation of told you so, and find a way to maintain his unwavering composure while kicking the offending impulse into submission.

“Just...” The Princess’ voice immediately calmed. “I’m s-so...sor-”

“Apology accepted.” Told you so. “Err, I...” No wait! “I mean...” Shoot.

She grumbled lightly under her breath, pacing away from him. “Just, hrrgh, I implore thee...” She breathed in deep, her eyes slightly pulsing with her inner struggle to regain her composure. Exhaling quickly, she poured out the much rehearsed request she’d used many times before with the Canterlot Palace’s own caretakers. “I must inquire humbly for thine assistance.” She exhaled, extending a hoof out to him. Her eyes softened, the agitated countenance fading into a familiar featureless grace. “We... we require... a little help remembering is all.”

Click.

Devon glanced out, his eyes trying to interpret the sporadic body language of the Princess. Her voice now gentle, calming, and inviting. Her hoof, just a couple seconds gripping the front lines of her verbal assault, now reaching out in a gesture of openness. “So...” Really? A gesture of openness? “Can I-?”

“-Yes.” Luna tilted her head aside, diverting her focus away from him. “Yes, approach.”

“Okay,” Devon breathed in, tentatively taking a step forward, approaching the Princess.

“Many thanks upon thee.” Luna said, extending her other foreleg outwards toward the shimmering apple in the wall as she started to say “... Our memories, they hath not quite-” only to feel a charcoal shoulder nestle firmly into her foreleg and slide into her collar. “Uhh, bookkeeper, thou art doing what, pray tell?”

“Err, I...you...” Devon choked on his breath, stopping his fetlock halfway into returning the perceived gesture for a hug. “You said approach.”

“The wall.”

Click.

“Ah.” He slid back, solidly planting each hoof with cautioned steps. “Yes, so...what about this wall? What are we, you know,” He coughed, and in his return to usual composure, rotated his head back towards the runes and engravings surrounding the alcove housing the amber colored apple. “What are we looking for?” Trying to shake off the misguided symbol of spontaneous affection like it never happened. “Looking for exactly...that is?”

Even though it totally, totally did.

Click.

Another heavy breath escaped the Princess, her royal demure crumbling beneath the weight of the charcoal unicorn’s presence. “We fear that things be as unfortunate as we initially feared,” Luna mused.

“These designs?” How would she know anything about these old engravings? Might she have been present when they were carved? “What’s so unfortunate?”

Click.

A cobalt hoof motioned towards him. “Thou. Surely, I fear thou art no deceiver,” she sighed. “That we know for certain. ‘Twas the latter.”

Click.

Click.

Click...Click.

Another pile of glassy debris lifted from the floor, shimmering like a bulbous snowflake catching the fleeting edges of intruding orange light from the afternoon sun. A wisping twirl of ashen dust and razored musk shred across her face in a callous slap, but she coughed it aside with demure poise. With another dismissive wave of her mane, she cast off the errant flecks of shimmering detritus, setting the magically encased burden upon the growing mound behind her in an opalescent aura of telekinesis.

Scrunch.

“‘Scuses, me m’ladys, Pr’ncess Celest’ya,” a brown-coated earth pony slowly approached her with his head bowed below his bulky shoulders. “It’s mighty grates’ful’s n’ all th’t y’wants to help, but we’s told’s ya’s, we gots this.”

The pearl-coated alicorn smiled, and in a subtly royal heave, lifted her head once more to elevate another aura of splintered glass. “And I too am grateful to have such...” Not even the slightest grunt as she regally pulled all her force into her horn. “...Such hard workers as you.” Her voice softened, the aura disposing its contents in a shattering cascade.

Scrunch.

The Princess giggled, keeping her tone elevated and stoic. “But like I said, it’s not everyday a train just comes smashing through the roof in the middle of a council meeting, so...” Hardly breaking her flow of words, her horn illuminated again, “...I’ll just assume royal duty mandates my services to the cleanup effort, just to be safe.”

“Well, okays umm...” The earth pony shuffled his feet, and cleared his throat. “Ah, well’n that side o’th’coin, y’see...”

Scrunch.

“Side of the coin?” The Princess of the Sun immediately picked up on the trepidation in his tone. “About what side of the coin do you mean?”

“Ah. Abou’s tha’ train, sees...” His eyes drifted aside, scanning the empty chambers before him. “Well’s, I’ve checked ‘n checked wid’da boys ‘n...y’see m’lady Celest’ya, thatta whole luggage car,” he scratched a hoof behind his ear, looking away with clenched teeth. “Likes...all’uv it...” He pulled his lips together glancing up to the Princess. “It’s...it’s kinda...th’whole train car, it’s gone sort of...”

“Missing?!” A black stomping hoof pierced through the distant expanse of the council chamber. “She’s missing?!” Jangle, jangle. “How?!” A deep throaty voice echoed from the opposite end of the dust-filled hall. “How on Equestria does a five-haunch tall glowing blue alicorn Princess just suddenly go missing?!”

Celestia’s eyes widened, and quickly peered away from the construction stallion before her. From the sudden ruckus rippling on the other end of the hallowed chamber, she immediately recognized an unfavorable prognosis on the whereabouts of her panicked sister. She briskly took to the air, sending a flurry of tiny glass particles into a dancing halo beneath her, and landed firmly behind Stormblade. The officer nickered in agitation, not even noticing the Princess behind him, pacing angrily in and out of the intruding late afternoon light sneaking in through the broken ceiling.

“We searched every building on the palace grounds,” a cyan pegasus attempted to plead with him. “Told every shop owner, as per Second Captain Stormblade’s orders, to look out for-”

“Incompetence!” the black-coated earth pony rattled and stomped on the floor, “She’s five haunches tall and glows in the dark!”

“Yessir, bu-”

“-Private Jetlag, do I need to hoof-knit a wool sweater for every earth-shatteringly simple task I give to you?!” He knocked a hoof against his chest. “Crochet a message on it? A little ‘Hello I’m looking for the Princess, don’t give me sweets’ emblem on the front?” Stormblade started fiddling his hooves together, pretending to knit an imaginary token of further humiliation at Jetstream’s behalf. “Maybe a matching pair of socks to go with that stupid, stupid rainbow hair of your’s?!”

Celestia’s eyes furrowed, and she slowed her quiet advance towards the raving officer.

Jetstream snuck a glance out the windows at the front of the chamber. “Sir, we insisted the citizens to keep an eye out for her, and to look out, Second Captain Stormblade, sir.”

“I decree that they not just look out,” Stormblade dropped his front hoof into the other, a sharp clap reverberated across the scattered glass in a shrill chime. “But tell them that by my martial demand they actively seek out the Princess as per the orders of sec-” his face suddenly wrenched inward before his brows arched in a menacing grimace. “And it’s Captain Stormblade, Jetlag!”

Another armored pegasus dropped down beside the dark earth pony. “The perimeter is set and ready to deploy for patrols, Second Capt-”

“-Captain!” Another stomp on the chamber floor cast a wave of clattering glass into the air. “I am Captain Stormblade! Captain Stormblade of Captain Stormblade’s The Royal Pegasus Guard of CAPTAIN Stormblade!”

Sensing that tensions were reaching a critical point, Celestia nudged her head in beside the royal officer, hoping to offer some of her own soothing insight to defuse the situation. “My esteemed pupil, dearest Stormblade, I think that-”

He flinched, swinging his neck to face the intrusive heckler. “That’s esteemed Captain-!” His muzzle smooshed right into her’s with a deflated high-pitched honk. “Fweeep!” With all hooves spinning wildly in schizophrenic orbits around one another, he tipped, lurched, and jangled onto the marble floor. “My apologies, your royalest highness! I hadn’t...I didn’t...”

A warm smile came forth from her candor. “It’s quite alright...” How that grin shimmered. “...Captain Stormblade,” her eyes peered to the officer pulling himself off the debris laden floor. “You said something about my sister Luna going missing?”

“Oh, yes Your Highness, I...” He hesitated on his wording, “...I...err, my, uhh, not I but...the Royal Pegasus Guard of...of...” He stuttered again, attempting to play it off by brushing grains of shattered glass off his shoulders. “They lost track of Luna in the Canterlot Archive.”

Celestia giggled, seeing right through him. “Not you?” Over a thousand years of royal alicorn rule, and doesn’t even get mad when a high ranking officer attempts to pass of their own failures upon others. “It was they?” She wasn’t born yesterday. “...Not you?” Nor last century.

Stormblade paused, contemplating just where the pearl-coated ruler was coming from. Eh, only one of two options here. Door number one. “Yes, they lost her, Your Highness.”

Oooh. “Well.” Too bad. “In that case...” she tilted her head back in a pleased smile, “please do pass on this royal decree to your men, Captain Stormblade.” Should’ve gone door number selfless. “An emergency decree straight from Princess Celestia herself.” Over a rule of a thousand plus years, of course she’d have a few tricks for handling those so eager to throw his own entourage under the carriage. “A stern message regarding...their inability to locate Luna.” The next part, she knew, was going to lighten her afternoon substantially.

“Ha ha, yes m’lady,” Stormblade righted himself with a prideful chuckle, ready to forward the baleful diatribe she had ready to lambaste those peons’ collective failures. “How do you wish for me to...discipline them better?”

She loved this part. “You tell them that Celestia appreciates all of their hard work, for giving all their extra time for my sister,” she paused to suppress the delighted chuckles bubbling within her royal pearlescent frame. "And to take the rest of the day off!"

“By-hi-kkfkt!” There’s the face! How much she loved doing that. "But, m'lady Princess Celestia, they...!" Seeing his jaw sink like that, almost unhinged, it’s the kind of satisfaction that comes so naturally when reminding those in a position of taking responsibility...to actually take responsibility.

"Oh, and since you have the rest of the afternoon and probably this evening without having to tend to the boring, tumultuous work of having to watch over such diligent ponies, you now have all of the rest of your shift to help us all clean up this mess!"

"Ah, ahh...oh...”

“And since you were so eager to declare, what was it, something...something...” Celestia looked at the floor, kicking a small rock back and forth with her right foreleg, “...Ah. By ‘Martial Demand of Captain Stormblade of Captain Stormblade’s The Royal Pegasus Guard of Captain Stormblade’...” She paused, letting it sink in. “That it seems you’ll be pulling an extended shift, seeing as you went ahead and decreed martial law without my consent, but hey, it’s your first week, I’ll grant it anyway.”

“Fyeee...” Stormblade’s breath jumped ship, pouring into a defeated whimper. “Yes, yes, of course,” he managed with the last of his fleeing exhale. He sighed in pained resignation, feigning a reverent smile towards the pearl-coated ruler. "Of course, your highness, Princess Celestia."

"Thank you for your kindness, and double thanks for taking such initiative Captain!" the Princess laughed again, turning and pacing back to her own debris pile.

She lowered her head with a mischievous grin beside the brown construction stallion, his own mouth agape at seeing the Princess so fluidly commit a top ranking officer of the Royal Canterlot Guard to an extended shift at custodial duty. "And that," she murmured in a low hum to him, "is why I insist on sticking around.” Her horn lit up, wrapping a telekinetic envelope around another scoop of shimmering glass. “ Because if I'm doing it, everyone does it, and nopony weasels out of what Canterlot demands from them."

Scrunch.

"Hyeh-heh's rights Princess, but I's, umm...I dunno's y'highness." The stallion turned to walk alongside the Princess, his body facing away from Stormblade. "He's kind'uv'a...how's t'puts it nicely...sorta kinda probably's not helpful’s guy, likes, if he wants t'help, he's can go finds the missing train car thats was ‘ere’s earli’uhr."

"Oh, I insist," Celestia eloquently decreed, turning back to glance at him over her shoulder. "It's not to get him to help you." She put a hoof around the stallion's shoulder, guiding him away to lengthen the gap between Stormblade any everypony else in the council chamber. "It's to get him to help himself. I think we need to give him a moment to cool down and think before acting the way he does."

Scrunch.

"Your highness!" Stormblade's yell carried in a defeated echo across the dusty air. "What about Luna, m'lady Princess Celestia!"

"Oh she'll turn up eventually!" Celestia raised a hoof beside her mouth to yell back at him. "You know her, she tends to just disappear without explanation for long periods of time, it's how she always was!"

“But, m’lady, your highness!”

“And always with the labels, Captain Stormblade!” Celestia smiled wide, glancing back towards the ornately decorated officer. “You can just call me Princess, or Celestia. Everything else is just labels.” She narrowed her eyes, and lowered her voice into a solemn tone. “It’s not about the labels we carry, Captain Stormblade,” Celestia extended her wings in a relaxed stretch, catching the mango rays of piercing afternoon right against them into a shimmering gold halo. “It’s what we do to fulfill that label.”

The Princess of the Sun slowly refolded her wings with a graceful turn back to her own mound of collecting glass and shattered timbers. She hoped he got the idea, and that maybe something made its way into his head. Maybe the Second Captain would realize that it’s not about the flash or the flair of having a title, but it’s about what kind of leverage one gets to help others with when they achieve that title.

She hoped.

As the caretaker, giver, and sole recipient of responsibility for summoning sunlight to Equestria, Celestia’s own responsibilities with her title were numerous, and doubtlessly important. But the importance of such responsibility are not organized by the hierarchy of its recipients, absolutely not. For even the Princess of the Sun knew that some of the most important, the most urgent responsibilities we are obliged to are obliged by all.

And right now, besides lowering the sun for the evening, the council chambers were just a complete wreck. She didn’t need to leave it to construction workers, janitors, or groundskeepers, no. It’s a task important enough for her to help out with, as should all. Right?

Of course.

Or so her idealistic mind went.

Another aura of pearled magic hovered a dripping heap of glass above her.

Scoop.

If it’s good enough for her to pitch in, then who would say no to that? Who would dare say no when Celestia herself is willing to pitch in, right?

Scrunch.

Even the most stalwartly opposed to menial peasant labor, like the extravagantly uniformed officer on the other end of the chamber floor, couldn’t find the gall to refuse a chore too important for the Princess of the Sun to pass up.

Scoop.

She looked onto the construction stallion, seeing him lift up a shovel with his teeth to scrape aside a path through more of the fallen ceiling’s cataclysmic aftermath. He couldn’t step away from this, even if he wanted to. No day off for him, no ‘mess too large’ for him to handle. He would know more about feeling the weight of a situation far more than...

Scrunch.

Jangle, jangle. “So, guys! Guys?! Do I just...with my hooves...” Stormblade’s echoes felt further distant as he yelled towards the expanse of no ears tuned in on him. “Do I at least get a broom?!”

Scoop.

Yeah. That’s why she was there. It’s what all princesses knew. All princesses would face a calamity head on; all princesses would know to stand beside their subjects in dire times to remind them of what they’re all obliged to do. All princesses would stay, and unless something far greater was afoot, they wouldn’t run off into...

Into...

Scrunch.

“Well, we ‘preciate ya for the help, Princess,” the construction pony called.

A flash of sudden realization shot across her face, her nose scrunching like it had been backhanded by an invisible diamond dog. "Wait...” She quickly lurched towards the brown construction stallion. “What did you say happened to the train car?"

“Here? But why?”

An erratic orange telekinesis scraped the battered and beaten luggage car down a winding snow-frosted alpine path. She stumbled across the narrow walk, keeping her weight shifted to her left side to ensure she fall towards the wall of solid rock instead of a wall of solid five hundred haunch fall. Tired, breathing heavily, and not knowing why she was lugging around the gigantic vehicle with her now wavering magic, she stopped a second for the feeling to return to her legs. They still prickled and tensed in the vestigial memory of an immeasurable expanse of time encased in stone, the nerves still not fully aware of their own freedom just yet.

Or maybe it was just the cold. The sun was descending uncomfortably close to the horizon, the nearby snow-capped mountains alreading casting a biting shadow of frigid air over her.

With a ground-thumping crash, she rested the luggage car against the cliff, gently letting it slide with a metallic screech to rest. Comfortable that it was nestled firmly, she sunk her head with a relieved punch of exhaled breath. It was ridiculous. So far away from the city, and given no reason in particular to follow the instinctive drive tugging her along. She glanced behind her, seeing the precariously narrow trails winding behind.

The voices urged her to chase the very train she threw away. To use the confusion and chaos to steal it right back, leaving Discord behind, leaving the message behind fluttering around the draconequus’ horn. At the time, Gina didn’t mind. She was growing attached to the near-obliterated luggage car. She even tried to name it Jerry, but the voices told her not to act so crazy.

The hoofpaths around the cliffs of Canterlot were carved by the very first citizens of Equestria. Centuries of climbing disorientedly angular paths did not leave many open spaces for many ponies, let alone train cars. Every bend and corner drew Gina’s attention away from her magic and back to the icy path that wound ever downard.

“Nope. Don’t get it.” She argued under her breath, stomping a hoof on the ground. “It’s just...” She grimaced, and righting herself on her hooves again, she illuminated her horn once again. “You’re yet to drive me wrong, though.” A pained lurching of metal shook a quilt of snow from the path before her, the train car dislodging free from its resting spot in the rocks with a hollow pop of echoing iron.

Gina shimmied on a narrow lip of rock no wider than a hoof, stray snow and ice threatening to cascade her down into a cacophony of jagged rocks and spires. This route would be fraught with enough peril to a unicorn focusing solely on it, but with every step, Gina had to adjust her head and re-focus her magic in a controlled strain. She had never had to use her magic at such a stretch, and to do it flush against a cliff no less. Giggling as unstable as her footing slithered out of Gina’s lungs as she made the final steps past the lip of rock and to the mouth of a long-forgotten cave.

“It’s just that, why this cave?” she asked to the air in front of her. “Why do you want to be here, Jerry?” she added, turning her head to the train car, wreathed in her magic. “I mean, don’cha wanna be with your old train friends or someth-” Her question was interrupted by a sudden shake of her head, her argument cut with a sporadic jolt of inner perception dogging within. “Okay! I’m doing it, see?!” With a heave that shore chimneys and bunting from the roof of the car, Gina pressed the car into the cavern mouth. As gravity and ice took over, Gina gawped as the sounds of scraping metal disappeared suddenly. Where normally a crash would be heard, she heard the gut-wrenching sound of collapsing stone and twisting metal, disappearing suddenly downard.

“And I...go there and what?” She half-grimaced, half-contorted in disbelieving laughter. “Wait inside the car, and then, well, what happens afterwards...?”

Gina cocked an ear upwards to the sky, then turned her gaze back to the mouth of the cave. A small giggle rippled out of her throat as her brain struggled to comprehend unseen orders. Part of her mind wailed and scrambled to dissaude her from it, but compared to the chorus of voices that fought for primacy in her mind, that whimper of reason was barely a whisper.

“She is down there?!”

Gina snickered. Then laughed. Peals of her wild adulations echoed off of the Canterlot cliffs followed by the faint rickety slam of a metal train door. Shrouded in pitch black, Gina settled on a makeshift chair of old clothes.

You’re yet to drive me wrong, though.

As instructed, she waited.

Click, click, click.

Luna twirled, quickly swiveling her head to scan all the pressure plates along the cavern floor. “Thou pressed...how many?!”

Click, click, click.

“I don’t know!” Devon complained, wildly flailing a hoof before him at the assortment of mechanisms he had trampled over. “I can’t even see them and you want me to count?!!”

Click, click, click, click.

“We hereby proclaim, by the festering masses of hoof fungus, yon clockwork is growing faster.” Luna stepped back, her vision sweeping frantically along the ceiling, trying to determine what was happening behind the masonry, tracking the winding trails of dust kicking up all over the room. She briskly trot towards the charcoal unicorn, standing squarely in front of him.“Bookkeeper, guess!”

“Guess?!”

“How many hast thou pressed?!” Luna looked down, directing the cobalt light from her horn towards the floor. Surrounding both herself and the charcoal unicorn, a large red painted circle orbited perfectly around them. With another red circle. And a big white X centered perfectly between their front hooves.

A circle of red paint.

A white X.

A target.

They were standing right on top of a bullseye.

Devon’s eyes darted to all corners of the chamber. “Well, if I had to guess...!”

Click-click-click-cli-CSHHNKTKT!...

...

“...All of them?”

...Fpt-ft-ft-ft!

“Down!” Luna’s warning sent Devon’s muzzle down to the dusty stone only a blink before a solid barrage of needle sharp darts burst from a slit in the masonry, shattering against the wall with dusty explosions of splintered wood.

“Luna!”

“Impudent foal!” Luna hooked a foreleg around Devon, forcing his head, neck, shoulders, and hips into a forward tumble to the floor. She pressed him against a rock column. “These plates are not the lock!”

A giant swinging axe dislodged from the ceiling, cleaving menacingly through the swirling embers with a clean slice. Devon tumbled sideways as the silver blade swung through the rock he was taking shelter behind.

“...They are traps!”

Another volley of metallic needles shimmered and rang in a murderous song as a second hail storm of darts rained towards them, impacting in a fast approaching wave of stabbing encroachment. Devon braced, curling along the ground...

Fw-w-w-we-ee-eeng...!

As a swarm of buzzing shurikens took flight from the opposite wall, each one diverting and blocking the incoming darts with astronomically improbable precision and fortune.

“Lun-AAAA!” Devon squealed as the tile beneath him ramped violently upward, catapulting him in an flailing pirouette towards the ceiling as the same ceiling dropped towards him, dozens of protruding oak spikes eager to become acquainted with the wide-eyed unicorn.

“We do not care!” Luna bellowed back as her wings swept outward, catching herself and spiralling down away from the falling ceiling only to pull sharply upwards as vents burst from the ground tiles to disgorge a gout of fire that came within a breath of washing over the Princess. Tucking hard to the side, Luna threw herself towards the only patch of ground that was not bursting with fire and landed with a heavy head-over-flank tumble. Luna had a moment to survey the mechanical chaos at work as deathtraps fired from all sides of the room, but her observation was cut short when a heavy object landed on her back.

“Ghoof!” the object grunted as it rolled off of her into an upside down splat next to the Princess. Narrowing her eyes, Luna was not terribly surprised to find a pair of orange eyes and askew glasses with an expression that was equal parts bewilderment and apology. All around them, guillotines sliced the air with whistling rings of metal. A high pitched whine fumed beneath her nose, the telltale stench of embers and brimstone jetted against her face.

With a quick extension of her wings, she flung Devon away in a succession of airborne somersaults. “Take heed! The floor-” But before she could finish her warning, a plume of glowing orange erupted in her peripheral vision, prompting her to make a rapid dive to the side. Feeling the singeing bite of fire against her fetlocks, she spun away with a single drop of her wings, propelling toward the flailing unicorn beside her.

More jets of fire spat out all around her, the whine of heated passages and nooks filling the air. The Princess arched her back, and with a quick retraction of her wings, torpedoed forward, narrowly skimming against a radial blade protruding from the wall. In a clumsy thud, the charcoal unicorn landed precariously on a stack of pipes still smoldering from their recent outbursts of blazing vitriol.

Landing beside him, Luna looked as he murmured an incomprehensible slur before his legs promptly gave up any attempt to hold him up steady. She tried getting underneath him, but could only sneak a single hoof under his ribs before he stumbled aside, bringing her down into a pin.

“Hyrrruck!” She protested, trying to pry it free. “Hyk! Eyyk! Grrrnn-nn-ck-k!” The charcoal body shifted, once again attempting to pull himself up, but only managing to scuff the floor with spinning hooves. “Get off!” She jabbed a hoof into his spine, slamming it deep into his pelt. “Get off!”

Around her, pendulums and levers wielded all sorts of blades, saws, spikes, and weapons of wonton shock and awe. Were it any other situation, it would be an amazing, enthralling display of mechanical wizardry, especially given the age of the room. But it was all icy panic to the two ponies flailing on the floor.

The pipes beneath them shook, clamoring together in a rapidly ascending succession of clanging metal and whistling steam.

“Get OFF!”

The distant glow of rushing fire glowed from the floor, promising a very quick and turbulent demise. However, a surging torrent of spinning white spray blindsided across her.

F-bwoooooo-nnnnnsssh....

A cold sweep of sudden pressure smashed against the Princess’ back, sending gravity sideways. She and Devon flopped forward into each other, tumbling along the ground before slowing into a suspended hang, gravity now seeming to combat itself in determining up from down. She attempted to breathe in, only to feel the encompassing embrace of water all around her.

Opening her eyes, a dirty cyan hue surrounded her, choking the room in a murky haze. Orange bursts popped along the floor beneath her, fleets of bubbles reaching desperately towards the surface of the flooding interior.

Clamoring to swim, Luna swung her hooves and wings instinctively, but her feathers only worked to drag her down. She spun, kicked, and waved all her limbs hoping for some sort of tangible result. After holding her hoof skybound for a few seconds between kicks, she felt the definitive grip of another fetlock wrapping around her’s.

A sudden rush of hot air lapped against her face as she burst through the turbulent water’s surface, her starry mane drifting lazily behind her. She glanced up, only to see a sideways pair of orange eyes peering back. “Come on,” Devon insisted, laying flat on the edge of the flooding pit. “I got you, I’ll pull you out.”

The Princess pulled her head back, letting the words settle. “Thou hast...” Oh, no no no, she’d gotten through far worse on her own. “We appreciate thy fond gesture, Bookkeeper, but...” A thousand years on the moon? What’s a little water other than a refreshing reprieve, right? “...But, I shall endure. I...we could have...” Of course. “We may have extracted ourselves, but thou hast still our favor.”

“I...” You’re welcome? “Glad to...” Forget it. “I think we’re safe here,” Devon groaned as he rolled around and righted his head.

A relieved smile began sprouting on his lips, but before Luna could clamp her hooves over his mouth or simply smite him with a blast of her voice, the lower walls of the chamber rumbled. Hidden panels twisted open at ground level and for a breathless moment, an ominous silence fell upon them. As the dust from the shifting floor settled, Luna spotted movement creeping through the descending plume.

“By Celestia’s mane...” Luna managed to utter moments before a skittering carpet of spiders, snakes, stone lobsters and scarab beetles rushed out of the opening panel. “Crawl! Crawl!”

“What?!” Devon bleated, head turned the wrong way as the Princess rolled away and started scooting and scrabbling across the floor in a very un-princessly fashion. “Crawl into the...Why are we...ACK! SPIDERS!” he screamed, tail flailing behind him as he worked into a full speed scoot alongside Luna, flicking a nibbling lobster away. “Getitoff! Getitoff!” the unicorn bleated, hooves dragging him past a gout of flame that drove the swarm back momentarily. “What the heck do we do now?!”

“Foremost,” Luna wailed as Devon tried to scramble over the same fallen rubble as she was, “Get thy blundersome hooves off of us! We standeth moments from incineration, pulverization, and verminization, all of which fall to thy fault, methinks, and thou presume to join us?! Methinks we shall fare better as two separate targets!” Just as Luna motioned her hooves to gesture Devon back into the swarm of flames and teeth, the room shifted again, setting off another cascade of rolling gears and groaning ropes as new machinery kicked to life.

Devon reeled in disbelief. “Oh come ON!”

The tile beneath Devon and Luna shunted up and to the side, tossing the pair in an undignified heap sideways just as the spikes on the ceiling descended at a new speed. In concert, the churning eddies of water behind them surged in intensity, threatening to overtake them.

Mrwrr-rl-rl-RL-RL!

A boulder rolled behind him, kicking up a lengthy tail of gushing debris that blinded him. He shut his eyes, coughing to get the intruding flecks and pebbles out of his nose, when suddenly, a cobalt blur dove from the plumes of thick brown smoke. Feeling his whole body dragging across the rough masonry beneath him, he grit his teeth, experiencing every protruding rock, shard, splinter, and nook that smacked ferociously against his backside.

Mrwr-RL-RL!

When another boulder rolled in from the opposite side, pulverizing the the adjacent tiles before him into multicolored sprinkles of their former selves. Marching feverishly across them, a line of large gnarled spiders advanced towards them. Devon felt the impulse to run, but upon turning, saw an equally daunting mess of blades, saws, and nails promising all sorts of misfortune upon those dumb enough to gamble any sort of proximity. He hunkered down, keeping his shoulders firm against a grounded column.

Leading a spiraling tail of sparkling embers, a multicolored blaze came swinging down. Seeing the intensely blazing object coming at him, he twirled, flopping flat on his back. The fiery trap graced against the tip of his nose, a tote on a rope of all things, and within it the warm sugary smell of...pastries?

Tracking the burning tote on a rope, he watched as it arced high into the roof, then reaching its peak, beginning its descent back to the floor. The tote opened, and a succession of flaming cupcakes rained out like delicious comets of immolating punishment. Upon contact, they erupted, casting a thick line of white, blue, yellow, and pink flames dancing intensely into a menacing wall between them and the marching platoon of hoof-sized spiders.

A thundering crack and boom exploded above them. Large fissures formed divided across the ceiling, breaking apart the masonry and rotted wooden supports into abstract sculptures of twisted chaos. Sheets and curtains of thick dirt and dust poured onto the floor, casting the whole cavern into a soupy fire-hued miasma. The center of the ceiling dipped, sinking like a slowly descending droplet of water, the massive rocks and supports drooping in a liquid surrender.

“Luna,” Devon hiccuped, scooting along his flank beside the Princess. “If we don’t get through this, I just want you to know...” He breathed in deep, “I always kinda had a-”

A cobalt hoof pressed against his lips.

Devon smiled, a tear forming at his eye.

Luna recoiled, tilting her head and angling her eyes into an irritated scowl. “I would have thee silent!”

“Wait, huh?”

“Now?!” Luna slammed a hoof into his shoulder. “Thou wouldst act as a paragon of vexation now?!”

Krak-kBWOOOM!

In a single slab of mutually assured destruction, the ceiling flung itself with homicidal determination towards the two ponies. A tremendous cushion of compressed air knocked Devon to the ground before a deafening explosion of cataclysmic magnitude overwhelmed his senses. In a jolt of blurred vision, the world blinked into an echoing blackness.

A tumbling coda of crackling and breaking rocks permeated through the darkness. Silence started creeping in deathly patience, the physical bonds of the world seeming to slip through the unicorn’s hooftips in a gentle sliding caress of cold-

KREENCH-K-KT!

A sharp blast of grinding metallic weight burst above him, a tumbling solo of screeching steel grinded with a high-pitched scream that rang through Devon’s ears in what had the be the most ostentatious assurance he was not dead. The tinny whine of sliding metal reverberated through the giant rock slab resting precariously just a half-haunch over his muzzle, before finally coming to a slow rest.

Aside from a few thumps and distant metallic bangs from the other end of the collapsed ceiling, a haunting silence once more descended to them.

In the darkness, the air peeled away in retreat. “Hee-yck.” The charcoal unicorn winced as his ears popped.

“Bookkeeper?” A soft voice ascended, hardly audible from its initial gentility. “Bookkeeper?!” A clamoring of hooves rustled from a few haunches away. A ribbon of cobalt light suddenly peeked across the ground, casting strangely angled shadows across the hazardously low and crumbling ceiling, and the circle of red paint at the charcoal unicorn’s hooves. He glanced up, seeing the Princess lying low beside a painted white X on the floor, peering the opposite direction. “Bookkeeper?! Art thou with us?!”

A circle of red paint.

A white X.

A target.

They were right on top of the target!

But how were they even alive? The whole ceiling, and whatever many metric tonnes of solid rock above it came straight down upon them! Devon observed the surroundings of the destroyed room. The ceiling wrapped like a dome, dropping flat onto the periphery of the floor but angled upward in a bubble shape. Holding up the center of the bubble, two boulders maintained a solid grasp, the trap projectile’s now a saving makeshift column keeping inevitable tragedy a dependable but discomforting few haunches above.

“Art thou well?!” Her voice quivered, the horn darting quickly with the full range of her swinging neck. “Bookkeeper?!”

“Yes, m’lady.”

The Princess clenched her teeth, dropping her head back slowly. “Confound it.”

“Glad to see you’re okay, too.” Devon scooted himself forward, facing Luna as she peered over her shoulder. “So,” he huffed, throwing a philosophical gaze around the scene of ruination, “what the heck was that all about?!”

“‘Tis,” Luna began. “‘Tis a fairly persuasive testament that thou shalt ignore us at thy own peril!”

Amongst the diminishing chaos of the room, a small flop of movement caught Devon’s eye. Notably, at least to the unicorn at that time, it was not part of a lingering trap or some explosion that had yet to go off, but an unfamiliar leather saddlebag. The brass buckles danced in the wavering cobalt light, its dull metallic flecks of chipped chrome capturing faint licks of the surrounding illumination as if begging for attention.

On the front of the saddlebag, a lone jewel adorned the front flap.

“Doth thou now comprehend? Doth thou now understand that thou must heed my command in the future?”

An amber engraving of an apple.

Stepping carefully, he negotiated the slipshod piles of rubble and fallen stonework, weaving around columns until he stopped short of the bag flopping subtly along the shaking floor. Fighting off a hacking, dust-induced cough, Devon bit into the saddlebag and hefted it back towards one of the intact tables.

“And perhaps, Bookkeeper, thou shalt refrain from poking around the- Fie, what now are you doing...”

The unicorn lowered his gaze to drink in the contents of the saddlebag and let out a sigh that did nothing to hide his disappointment. “I don’t even think it is that important,” he finally added. He had seen scrolls like this before, all too many times. Unicorns of the past, it seemed, were very proud of every advance in magic they made, and their scrolls were their self-styled legacy to history. Usually, they contained about one line of magical insight, and another fifty of elaborate self-congratulation all capped off with expensive wax seals. History was full of them, and the archive was their home. Some things never change.

With only the dispiriting light from Luna’s distant horn to guide him, Devon sifted through the unusual box, each revelation giving him more questions instead of an answer. Exasperated, he tossed yet another scroll loaded with words of magic aside, his frustration showing in the abrupt tumble of the scroll hitting the floor. There was no getting through that door, and no way back, all of this wealth of history was meaningless without a way to escape.

“For this satchel to have such a guard, surely it must bear value, Bookkeeper!” Luna’s voice followed the fall of the scroll moments after it crinkled to the ground. “If thou doth abandon thy purpose now...”

“I’m doing my best, Princess,” Devon sighed, “I’m not quitting just yet, I’m just...gyagh.” But Luna was right, the saddlebag could not have been a coincidence, it was hidden too well. Delving in again, he reached the folds at the bottom of the bag and found a single stack of papers and something... metallic?

“Quick, bring that light over here,” Devon said, his own efforts to catch the feeble, distant rays of Luna’s horn not helping him. “I think I found something.” As Luna’s glow returned to the box, Devon beheld a book, ragged and worn with a silver chain draped across its cover. Unlike the tomes and scrolls piled in the top of the bag, this was clearly used regularly, bereft of the formal trappings and seals of the self-conscious unicorn wizard.

Emblazoned across the cover was the image of a hummingbird, the stitching and dye still brilliant and striking even after so many years of neglect.

Carefully, the charcoal unicorn pulled open the cover. A steel band pressed the covers shut. Devon navigated a hooftip along the narrow chromatic chain, the ornate craftsmanship looping around the cover leading to a dangling ornament hanging off the side. The adornment shone with a peculiar clarity, like it had been completely unscathed by an immeasurable passing of time.

A pendant.

Lone and dazzling.

Cut with a surgical attention to detail to resemble a quill, each fiber of the single silver feather meticulously notched into place.

Unlatching the quill pendant from the edges of the book, the chain straightened and dropped to the stone floor with a glittery rattle. His eyes followed the sparkle for a moment before drawing back to the text. Squinting, Devon read slowly.

“Journal of GB, Royal Canterlot Scribe of-”

Devon stopped.

Royal Canterlot Scribe?

The charcoal unicorn was familiar with the practice of scribes and archivists existing in Canterlot, and playing a very pivotal role in the happenings and construction of the very city. But never before had he heard about a cavern deep beneath the streets of Canterlot designed expressly to pulverize whomever happened to wander into it.

“Really, Royal Canterlot Scribe?!” He read it again. “What the hay, that’s...no way...” Devon’s eyes read the name over and over again. Everything that happened in Canterlot was documented, documented again and documented a third time. It was notarized, which itself was notarized, which itself was sent to committee and subjected to three approval processes before they could notarize the notarizing of the nota-

“-All that for the record of a mere scribe?!” Luna groused, pulling her shoulder in a disinterested sway from the tome. “Come.”

“No no, wait,” Devon opened the pages. Excitedly, he ran up to the Princess with the pages extended, holding it out to her face. He swiveled around, setting his shoulder beside hers, holding out the faded pages in front of her face.

“Sir, my pardons, what dost thou showest me?”

“Oh, nothing,” Devon quickly laughed, “just need your horn for the light.”

“Wha-” The Princess dropped her head in an agitated dismissal of royal Canterlot patience. “But truly thou hath one upon thine own head...”

“Shh, important stuff here” Devon lowered his nose into the book and read the first entry.

“Sir, do not shush at us! We have not time for thine extensive tomes of...” Luna took a cursory glance at the scrawled page before her, picking randomly whatever words jumped out at her. Another exasperated exhalation of frustration erupted forth. “Architectural, engineering, documentation...”

“Fine, fine,” Devon pulled the book closer to himself, rifling to the first page with a hooftip.

“Wait,” Luna peered down at him with sudden curiosity. “Thou turnest pages with...thy-”

“Ah, look, here we go! Some history!” Devon lifted the book back into the light from the Princess’ cobalt luminance.

“And...canst thou even...” She breathed in deep, a single narrowed eyelid clenching the side of her eye as it snuck a quizzical glance at the charcoal unicorn’s horn. “Surely, thou hath the ability to illuminate thine own...thy...?”

He extended the pages flat before him, using a hoof to flatten the edges down. “Oh don’t you worry, I can read this pretty quick. I’ll just sum up all the important parts when I’m done.”

Day 1

We have begun excavating the Archive. It is a small wonder that I have been selected by order from the Princesses of Day and Night! It is a fair step up, but still unusual. Before, my future the same fortune-telling wagon that father and his father rode. Were it not a laughable concept, I would go so far as to say fate was involved in this assignment for this new city of Canterlot.

I should not waste words. As the scribe, it is my duty to record it. I shall detail and catalog everything to prepare this site for the royal family. If this nation is to become great, it needs a place for its secrets.

“This must be nearly...” Devon spoke slowly, his mind struggling to fill that gap of time. In all his experience, this site was nothing more than the Canterlot Archive, as old as Canterlot itself, or near enough. To imagine a time when it was just an idea on paper, to see the notes of her creator thrilled him. History got no more tangible than this. He delved deeper into the journal and picked another entry.

Year 2, Day 1

Happy anniversary, architects.

To me, every day has been an eternity, but today is when the toil bears fruit. Princesses Celestia and Luna have just concluded their visit and, with their blessings no less, allowed the true work to begin. Stone and earth are simple, even the unicorn magic of Canterlot’s newfound nobility is nothing compared to what has been brought to our site.

Princesses Celestia and Luna brought the greatest artifacts, the Elements of Harmony, to serve as reminders as to what our archive will be guarding and what true magic will be at work when it is prepared. I was fortunate, blessed indeed, to be allowed to handle one of them when Princess Luna presented it to us. My hooves are still shaking as I write this, not only for the chance to feel its magic firsthand, but at the blessing of the Princess! But I can’t let myself get distracted, the consulate is calling for the unicorns to meet and figure out how best to incorporate the ideals and magic of the Elements into our designs. If only they could actually agree upon its implementation.

Oh, bureaucracy.

“Oh, bureaucracy” Devon replied in a sigh, turning his gaze to look up and around the room. All of this was the doing of the very first citizens and builders of Canterlot. Despite the terror of the previous traps still throwing his hooves into a tremble, he couldn’t hold back an upswell of respect for those who built such a device. Not only did they build it for their own time, but built it to last for centuries and still work perfectly.

Year 2, Month 2, Day 4

We have been struggling on the riddle of how to imbue this lock with the Element of Honesty, to find a means that could flawlessly read the mind and thoughts of any who would approach. As per the element’s requirement, we must demand those who pass through be true of heart and mind, as we mustn’t permit any who lack the qualities that define our kingdom traverse.

Our solution came in the form of a side project I had been devising, a sort of memory recollection spell that I use for... well, personal uses mostly so I wouldn’t forget everything the missus said.

However, this little project got a little too good for my individual use, and I have opted to donate it to the project. Now my little pet of memories... my pet “glyph” is now comfortably situated, no longer a private adornment of home but the illustrious gatekeeper of the whole honesty wing!

A simple test, but one that speaks volumes. Seeing the truth of one’s dreams and ambitions, without rationalization or disguise, is a challenge that most ponies never experience.

It’s taken considerable time, but I believe this speck of magical light has a life of its own, and it is doing more than just communicating with others through their own thoughts and memories. It reflects them back back to whoever looks directly at it. I’ve tested this on some of my companions and they all report consistent results with their own memories, yet none of mine unfortunately.

Or... Fortunately.

Maybe here, this little guy will bring more happiness to them than he did to me.

I’ll put this aside for later, Princess Luna approaches. She requires my pen for the latest declarations.

“Lucky guy...” Devon exhalted. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself a tiny daydream, how glorious a moment it must have been when Princess Luna, still untouched by her now infamous past, presented Equestria’s greatest treasures to his ancestors. Almost by reflex, Devon slipped himself into the scribe’s, one of respect, awe and supreme gratitude as the Princess extended the hoof towards him.

“Mister Bookmark! Thy work is in thy tome, not ‘pon the ceiling! And our horn’s light loses its patience!”

Erk.

Year 2, Month 4, Day 12

Progress on this first chamber has been remarkable. To siphon the Element’s power creates a magical defense unless the proper means of passage is known. It saturates the room with power, and we only needed a spark! Considering the wealth and nature of what this place will be used for, it is only fitting that the chambers reflect their Elements.

We’ve also put in something of a puzzle lock. The Princesses were loath to use traps but the value of such a vault is too great to be given anything but the hardest and most aggressive defence. This first test is a most conventional puzzle.

Quite simply, press all the buttons.

All of them.

Then stand on the target, and watch as they all cancel each other out.

“Ha!” Devon laughed out loud as he finished the page. “Survive the traps by setting them all off at once!” He tapped a hoof against the page. "See right here in this illustration!” He leapt forward, pumping a hoof towards the destroyed room. “All the traps!"

"Hmm, mayhaps there is...a peculiar similarity..."

"Look! The blades, the nails,” a scent of pastries wafted into his nostrils. “Even the flaming tote of cupcakes on a rope!"

"Aye, aye, the illustration doth also depict the jets of canned dragon breath, but I trust not such a tome's accuracy."

"Princess!” Devon galloped forward, motioning with wide arcs to the various devices that just minutes ago exploded with murderous voracity. “Flaming! Tote! Of cupcakes!"

Luna brushed aside a large rock, a shimmering tendril of orange light from the other side of the dropped ceiling peeking through. "’Tis so old, antiquated..."

"On a rope!"

Luna pulled aside another stone, calling an even thicker window of orange into view. "Yea, look thee upon the very center here," she motioned out the dug-out gap, directing a hoof to the creaking metal hulk crunched in a lopsided twist atop the heap of rubble. "What of this?!"

Devon scanned the dusty tome, searching across the dozens of spontaneous wrathful drawings scattered around the room's blueprint. "Okay," he conceded, looking at the giant steel wreck draped over the pile of heavy debris. "The train car is new."

Luna said nothing as she navigated between the collapsed rocks, but in the dim light it was all too familiar. In fact, it was far more than a coincidence. A clutching knot of worry burrowed up in Luna’s gut and her next breath came as a sharp gasp when Devon spoke, breaking her from staring. She leered tentatively against the opposite barrier from the luggage car, a wafting sensation of instinctual familiarity emanating from the creaking steel.

“Is that train a problem?” Devon asked, looking over it in the blissful state that ignorance brings. “I guess it was in some cave above wherever we were and fell in with the collapse. Unless they were around back then?” he offered a smile. “Seriously,” he followed moments after he realized the smile did nothing, “what is it?”

“Tis...” Luna wavered on the brink of confession. Turning, she looked down at the honest earnestness in the unicorn’s eyes and forced back a twinge of guilt. Musn’t involve him. “Tis nothing.” There’s no reason to draw him more into this than he is. “We simply could not recall whether we had train cars so long ago!” Her laugh was nervous, it was a terrible lie and she knew it. “Ahem...hast thou made anything new of the journal?”

Devon flipped the page, but the journal was empty beyond that. As he set the book back down, the quiver of his excitement gave way to questions and trepidation, a terrible nagging uncertainty in the back of Devon’s mind. A deep unsteady nibble in the periphery of his mind pressed as he scooped the journals into the dusty old saddlebag that lay across the table. It belonged to more than just Luna’s sudden shift in confidence.

He peered down, a ball of shimmering daggers emanated from a silver adornment between the stone’s cracks. The quill pendant reflected the Princess’ cobalt luminance, and deflected it to him with even greater intensity than her own glow.

“If this was so important...” Devon said, bending down to scoop the pendant from where it fell. “Why has nopony in Canterlot ever heard about it before? Why was it forgotten?” The question hung perilously in the air as his attention travelled back to the pendant. Canterlot, for all the power of its bureaucratic quagmire, did not forget such things. Ever. Somepony would be clamouring to take credit for it or to hang their coat of arms over every doorframe.

Hooking his foreleg around the silver glint, he lifted the chain up until the charm lay at eye level. At the bottom of the chain dangled the simple feather quill, glittering with the same aura as the chain.

The pinpoint of reflection danced and twisted in the air from its sudden movement, but for all appearances, it was normal. Lifting it slightly closer to his face, Devon’s eyes followed the individually carved barbs, reminiscent of the quill emblazoning his cutie mark. New questions bloomed in Devon’s mind, each one clamoring for attention. But before a single one could find voice, movement on the quill caught his eye.

Like a tiny bead of quicksilver, a ball of animate liquid coalesced at the top of the pendant, beading and rolling down the contours of carved silver. As it flowed, the bubble grew and swelled, pulling unseen substance and form from the feather ornament. Liquid oozed down the notch and collected at the quill’s tip like a bubble of ink, swelling with liquid weight until it finally fell free of its home. Just as it broke free from the silver, the bead froze in the air and simply hung, unsupported, in front of Devon.

“Prithee, what dost that b-” Luna’s question only survived to that syllable before the droplet burst forth again, expanding outward until it was the size of a pony’s head. The liquid ball hovered before Devon, the silvery sheen reflecting the charcoal unicorn’s bewildered face as it approached closer and closer. Before he could step back, the ball rolled over the very tip of his horn and instantly its character changed again. Invigorated by just the merest contact with any sign of life, the ball writhed and flowed anew until the liquid started to evaporate. In its place was a myriad paisley swirl, constantly shifting and writhing.

With a jubilant whistle of noise, the bubbles of light swirled towards the great sealed door, untouched by the traps and flames. Dancing up and down the panels, it eventually settled on the gemstone apple and chirped. His focus staunch on the whirl of light, Devon looped the pendant around his neck and let his eyes and ears follow.

Nyrrp!

With a striking surge of glittery light, the glyph chirped with a gleeful tone. Spinning euphorically from some mysterious source of excessive joy, it bulged playfully with an ecstatic chime. The swirling overlapping markings danced in a circular orbit around a transmogrifying splotch of what appeared to be lucent ink, glowing between schizophrenic hues of cyan, green, and yellow.

The glyph's whimsical lightshow of turbulent cavorting sparks, lines, and glows was speeding up to an intense blur of illegible flickering. The cacophonous flurry started to whine at augmenting volume, elevating to a shrieking gale of piercing sound. Its colors changed so fast, it all blended together into a brightening quasar of blinding mint, photon clubs assaulting and forcing away any direct glances! Devon thought he was blinded, he thought he was going to go deaf-

Ping!

-When a shock of jolting silence flooded the chamber.

On the wall, the glyph remained perfectly still. Was this it? The ancient journal said that the light was the gatekeeper, that the glyph would automatically transform into an unmistakable snapshot of your mind's eye. How could the key be lost when it was simply ones’ goals and desires in their mind?

Devon adjusted his focus on the motionless tendrils resting in placid comfort against the wall. Well, that's strange. He knew that it spoke in memories somehow, but all he saw was a succession of dots arcing in a spiral, each dot with a ring of cascading paisley weaves being pulled into the center, and a helix of sporadic veins jetting around the outer edges of the-

"A hummingbird," Luna declared. “We see a hummingbird.”

The glyph leaped up the wall with jovial chirps and sputtering songs trumpeting the solved puzzle. Behind it rose a jarring rumble as the stone door began to part. It opened a crack and stopped. A hummingbird? But how did she even see...it didn't even look one bit like a...what made that crazy hodgepodge of nonsense a hummingbird?!

With an excited arc, the glyph drifted back to Devon's eye level like a descending leaf, seeming to fall to rest with enthusiastic expectations for his own interpretation. It bubbled and rolled side to side with impish eagerness, seeming to beg with enchanted squeaks and giggles for Devon to give it a try. He breathed in deep, but before he could goad the frolicking glyph to bring it on, a sharp warm sensation stung at the back of his mind.

His eyes could not detect the ethereal claws clamping around his head, but he knew they were there; he could definitely feel the pure essence of strong ancient magic gripping with vivacious energy. The tingling electric warmth ebbed and pulsed with the same increasing rhythm of the luminescent markings twirling sprightly before him.

No longer were there chirping verses of puckish delight, but now a booming roar of low melancholy chanting, its throbbing song reverberating every molecule of the chasm. A great ominous vigor shook through Devon, seemingly dislodging every muscle from every bone in his body. He immediately closed his eyes, trying to focus upon an image in his mind, hoping that he'd know exactly what he'd see, hoping to prepare for the test by keeping his head clear and fixated on just one thing, hoping to trick this insane arcane etching into-

-His mind exploded. With a sudden tug from the warm magical facets emanating further into Devon's cranium, his head jerked back, and before his eyes a never-ending rapid-fire squall of memory and sound overwhelmed every corner of the chasm. Every decorative pattern, shifting into the cutie marks of friends, loved ones, acquaintances and random passer-by's in the Canterlot streets. Faces warped through the stone masonry, peering at him, expressing and howling every imaginable emotion in a simultaneous chorus of chaotic decibels. He looked away, forcing himself to look at the floor, now a detailed map of every school, house, clubhouse, and gala he ever attended. He stepped back, hearing a crunch beneath his hoof, twirling around to see the smashed remains of a haunting blue ranch home bathed in lonely moonlight.

It had him. The glyph genuflected towards him, and once more, an unintelligible blast of various memories bombarded him from all sides in a metaphysical onslaught of thought, as if the glyph cast aside all the clutter haphazardly, digging for the predominant image basking at the forefront of Devon's consciousness, pushing inexorably towards a single goal. It summoned another shrieking whine, a tremendous gust of sparkling air spewed forth, and Devon again hunkered down as his senses started peeling away from his apprehension, his ears ringing painfully, his pupils burning from the caustic barrage of pure-

Ping!

-Silence...

The chasm once more rocked and swayed peacefully, the room's foundations adjusting to the cleave of tranquility slicing through. Devon slowly lifted his head, taking a timid step back, and saw that where there once was a perpetually spastic explosion of light was now a fully formed image covering the bottom half of the Honesty wing's gate. Where the glyph once shone, vibrating in chaotic streaks of multicolored clutter, there shone an image that Devon's mind would recognize just about anywhere from his memory and from lucid dreams.

Granted his vision wasn't so blurry from the recent trauma. The chasm still spun sickeningly around him, the warm claws of the glyph's brain-jacking uncomfortably relinquished their grip slowly.

"A pox upon thy glyph, Devon!" Luna sulked, kicking her hooves against the ground. "Thou hast rent our path forward asunder!" She reached out to the wall with a foreleg. "Why, we don't see an image upon here! Yonder illumination projects utter balderdash!"

With a wave of her hoof, she swished through the image on the wall. It dissipated, the image rippled away into a waving pattern of floral curves and dots. Wait, so...Luna couldn't see it? She just saw the glyph? She didn't know what was up there? If Luna couldn't see the picture, but he could, maybe the...perhaps the glyph...could it?

Could it project images simply by forming itself into shapes that reflexively trigger memories? Could it trick the mind like that? Could he not see Luna's glyph showing a hummingbird, because his memories didn't click with the design like her's could?

And why was she even thinking of a hummingbird? Why was she seeking one here?

"Luna wait, I think you-"

"Dost thou desire Our continuance?" Luna sauntered behind him, but Devon maintained looking forward. He blinked a few times, stretched his jaw with a yawn, and with a shake of his mane the room came back into comfortable focus. "Fie! Fie on your wobble-headedness and think thee harder, Mister Bookmark! Think! Harder!" The glyph's gnarled designs and curvature realigned, and suddenly, the room lurched in a sickening twist as the assortment of shapes coalesced, a staggering wash of déjà vu fading into a crystal clear image forming on the wall. Devon smiled, ready to pass this silly glyph's easy challenge, and inhaled a proud breath to proclaim that he saw-...

Oh no.

No, no no no no.

"Mister Bookmark?! Thou art wasting our time."

That horrible. Awful. Terrible. Despicable glyph! A simple test, but one that speaks volumes, said the old stupid book. Seeing the truth of one’s dreams and ambitions, without rationalization or disguise, is a challenge that most ponies never experience, chided the old stupid sadist that enchanted the gateway with this ghastly safety mechanism.

"Mister Bookm-...Uh, art thou well?" Luna turned back to him, noticing the wide-eyed glance baked onto his face. "Devon, thy eyes...mayhaps they..." Her lips parted, and her voice softened. "Thou seest something, aye?"

Something he wouldn't dare say out loud.

Devon shook his head, grunting slightly. "Oh, no, sorry I got...sidetracked...by...stuff. That wall...for instance-"

NYRRRRM!

The glyph protested, obviously agitated by Devon's lack of honesty, and surged aggressively.

Luna took a step back with a jittery gulp, "What dost thou perceive?”

"I..." he stammered, trepidation creeping from mind to body to voice.

"Mister Bookmark, We..." Luna narrowed her eyes, "...I..." and approached him closely. She cast a wing reassuringly over his shoulder, and softened her voice to the gentlest tone she could muster. "...’Tis something traumatic, is it not? Something that causeth thine heart to ache?" Devon didn't budge. "Something devastating?" He still didn't budge. "Something embarrassing?" Budge. "Ah. Something embarrassing."

"I'm not-"

"Prithee, tell Us what thou dost see?"

"You won't-"

"Speak, Bookkeeper!"

"Maybe we should just go find another way-"

"Speak!"

Devon slunk his head to his forehooves, nearly smacking his forehead against the stone tile floor. The opalescent squares peered back up to him, reflecting softly the broken visage of a colt too timid to even tell a fellow schoolfilly his honest heartfelt desires, let alone the highest ranking echelon of Canterlot royalty! How he tried in the past, but the tiles only responded with the story of dozens of blown opportunities and bad timing, his quivering lips, his sinking posture, that obliterated poise destitute of any semblance of anticipated success with such open amorous proclamations...He couldn't do this. Look at that face, those apprehensive eyes.

Maybe...

...Maybe the glyph would accept half honesty? Worth a try.

Devon looked back to the picture shimmering brightly in the glyph. "I see myself," he attempted.

With a flash of red, the picture swelled into waving flakes of sliding curves. Nrrr-uhrr, the serpentine icons chastised whimsically before reforming again in an enlightening chant of satisfied euphoria. With a vision-pinching pop, the glyph reformed, projecting Devon’s imagination back onto the gate.

Rather than give way, it only focused the images in his id, maybe half a dozen that shifted and danced in his mind’s eye. Oh how that dastardly entity was enjoying torturing him like this.

Devon closed his eyes, waving his head to the side away from Luna. He lowered his voice to a quiet whisper, diverting his voice away from the regal cobalt alicorn pacing along the other side of the corridor. "With her," he murmured.

Nrrr?

He peered forward, noticing the glyph seeming to lean in closer to him off the wall.

Nrrr?

"I said. With her!"

"Of whom dost thou speak, Mister Bookmark?" Luna's ears fully perked in his direction.

Nyuhrr-hrrrr! the glyph agreed. Oh come on, this stupid thing even picks sides? Nyurrm muur-n nurr nrrr-nerh eh, Merr-herr Herr-merrnh?

"With her! With Lu-..." Devon stopped, and exhaled deep. No, this mischievous parcel of irreverent magic wasn't going to win his attention. He turned his flank to it, facing Luna. "With you." He smiled, looking her in the eye. Maybe another half-truth would work, it was worth a shot. "I see myself...alongside you, Luna."

Nyrrrn? cooed the glyph.

"Very well," Luna motioned towards the glyph in agreement, "Aaand?..."

"...And ne’er again,” Luna continued bellowing, pacing heavily down the corridor, “shall such insulting vulgarity be uttered by thy lips. Dost thou comprehend Our demands, Mister Bookend?!"

“It’s Bookma-” He stopped himself, the death-dealing glance of the agitated Princess ensuring certain destruction if he dared joke about correcting her. “I just said a starlit stroll through the royal statue garden!” Devon trotted forward towards Luna as they progressed past the wide-open gateway into the next hallway. "I meant to not imply anything more, my lady-"

"We are not thy lady!" She shot a baleful glare that knocked him to his flank, her wings shot out maniacally as another salvo of Royal Canterlot Voice erupted forth. "Twenty haunches!" She bellowed, unsettling dust from every page, binding, and buttress caught in the raucous turbulence. "Thou art obliged henceforth to retain at minimal twenty haunches from us, dost thou heareth our decree?!"

"Yes'm."

Alongside him like the punchline of a cruel joke, the swirling paisley glyph floated, chirping with Devon could swear was a smug self-satisfaction. Once the door had swung open, the colors had swept back to Devon’s side like a loyal pet and bombarded him with replayed memories snatched from the unicorn’s subconscious. Images of loyalty, service, like when he signed the paperwork for his new job at the Archive; he wasn’t going anywhere with that job, and apparently neither was this glyph.

"Eighteen haunches," Luna growled.

"Huh?"

"Thou art only eighteen hanches behind me, Bookkeeper."

Seeing those vengeful sapphire irises threatening to drop the moon on him from the sky, he scuttled backward in a rapid panic. "Again, I'm so very sorry, my Lady-" Devon's soul jumped ship when she clenched her teeth at his reflexive diction. "-I, uhh, err Princess..."

Luna sighed, and meandered forward.

"I mean, I, I'm just not good with, you know, and, please understand that I am truly sorry."

She braced her eyes, lifting her head, gently emitting an irritated snort. "Don't be."

"I cannot even begin to think how embarrassing this-wait what?"

"Don't...be..." Luna's legs wobbled beneath her, and she stumbled against a bookshelf. The contents tipped and rocked, one of the paper manuscripts fluttered down, impaling itself on her horn in a suicidal dive that left Devon momentarily envious. "I just...I thought you..." A precursor to a scream was bubbling up inside her, her lips quivered uncontrollably to force her eyes shut. She exhaled deeply, resting her head against the wall, the manuscript still dangling limply off the tip of her horn.

Feeling the rifling pages lapping against her brow with the same pulsating convulsions of a stifled tantrum, Luna opened her eyes to see the swaying parchment still stuck on her horn. With a quick wave of her horn, the pages dislodged from against her forehead...only to clear halfway up her horn before subtly batting against her face again.

"Gyagh," she groaned, huffing crossly. "By the ticks of a thousand camels, won't you get off?" She gave another shake, "Get...off." Another greater swing of the neck, she threw her head to the furthest reaches her shoulders allowed, violently swaying to lose the offending literature, to get the images off the forefront of her mind.

"Get off!" She yelled, kicking against the adjacent shelving. "Get off!" The lines of books and decorative nicknacks scattered and careened towards the floor. "Get off!" A tsunami of shattering porcelain and glass echoed through Devon's mane. "Get off!" He looked towards Luna, his jaw clenching with a sudden unexpected alarm..."Get off!"...something was happening. "Get off, get off, get off of me!" She kicked again into the opposite shelf, bucking up a horizontal cone of convulsing splinters, "Get! Off! Of! ME!" Screaming with a final spinning dive onto the cobblestone floor, the papers tore down the middle, splitting evenly away from her horn.

Luna stumbled back onto her hooves, gasping for air, heaving, coughing up dust and vaporized wood. Devon stepped forward,

Twenty haunches

And immediately stepped back. A smarter pony within him was grazing his senses, simply insisting he step back. Whatever was happening to her, he wasn't quite in the right position to be much comfort. She was still swaying on her hooves. From a distance, Devon could see that her head could barely keep straight with her neck, and her eyes darted in various directions around her.

In a twisting crash, she fell to the floor again. From twenty haunches away, Devon could still hear her soft voice.

"Get off of me," the voice cracked. "Please, get off of me." It sputtered, snorted, and whimpered. "Get off of me." Sobbing. "Please." Pleading. "Get off of me."

Curses to royal decrees! Devon lowered his head, kept his eyesight firmly fixated upon the ground, not even dare send any more fleeting glances towards the broken Princess.

Twenty haunches.

He grit his teeth, half-expecting the next moment to be a blazing supernova of fury and anger that would banish him into the heart of the furthest star in the night sky.

Step.

Nineteen haunches.

His shoulders tensed, his spine braced for a full-on alicorn assault, but instead...

"P-P...Plea-e-ease..."

She continued gasping for air between tearful breaths.

Eighteen haunches.

Luna curled away from him, covering herself with her twinkling mane and tail to keep hidden.

Sixteen haunches.

She was visibly twitching from the involuntary waves of distress ricocheting up her lungs and quivering out curled lips.

“I...” She emitted a slow exhale. “I have more time than this...”

Fifteen haunches.

Devon didn't know what to do when he got there. This seemed more complex to be fixed than with a mere there, there. Something had triggered something in the princess to now feel exceptionally vulnerable, overwhelmed by something else.

Thirteen haunches.

In his view, a torn manuscript lay in two even pieces at his hooves. The cover suddenly jumped out to him, seemingly a swirling paisley nonsensical series of spiraling lines and shapes culminating before him. At first, they didn't make any cohesion to him, but as Devon looked more closely, he felt a warm electric tingling embracing with the force of ethereal claws wrapping around his mind.

He approached the manuscript, and hovered straight above the book’s torn carcass.

Ten haunches.

He saw it. With a shuffling of forelegs, his hooves nudged the serrated fibers together, pushing the book's leathery shell back together. Embossed in the manuscript's cover, ripped between the divorced halves... Devon recognized the symbols as the same as on the journal that rested in the dusty saddlebag slung around his shoulder and the floor from the archive.

A hummingbird. And...a moonflower.

Thirty haunches.