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// Can You Hear? 
// Story: The Archmage's Last Bow 
// by Rytex 
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The Archmage’s Last Bow
Chapter 11 - Can You Hear?


Bright Gleam stood blindfolded in the middle of the usual grove, feeling more than a bit silly, as Master Nova Shine stood nearby, watching her intently.  She knew her master wouldn’t make a fool out of her, but after some experiences with bullies up at Celestia’s School, that old doubt came slowly creeping back into her mind that she was being played.

She sat still, listening to everything around her.  The rustle of the wind in the trees, the occasional flutter of fruit bat wings, the distant sounds of Big Macintosh and Applejack bucking trees…

She felt everything around her that she could, too.  The gentle breeze tickled the hair of her coat.  The sun’s warmth beat down all around them with this time of the year between summer and autumn meaning the heat would slowly start to go away over the next several weeks.

She furrowed her brow, trying to feel even deeper.  What did he want her to find, exactly?  He was supposedly teaching her how to sense energy the way he did, and he said he was going to be using magic at different intensities around her to try and get her to feel even the beginnings of an energy flare.

Something brushed up against her right foreleg.

“I feel something!”

“You do?” asked Master Nova Shine.

“Yeah, it’s… it’s so close!”

“That’s definitely magic,” he said.  The feeling was getting stronger, and was trailing further up toward her shoulder, as if it were tickling the hairs of her coat.

“Really?  That’s what magic feels like?”

“Wow, even Twilight didn’t figure it out this fast!”

“Wait, what?”

*smack*

“EEK!”

Gleam yanked the blindfold off and looked over just in time to see Master Nova Shine toss away a small tree branch, look up at the sky, and start whistling innocently.

She rubbed her smarting hoof.  “Why’d you hit me with a tree branch!?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Master Nova Shine replied airily, failing to keep a straight face.

“What was that even for!?” she huffed, crossing her forelegs.

“Well,” Master Nova Shine rocked himself forward and trotted toward her, lightly pushing her into a sitting position, “you were just doing it wrong and I wanted to mess with you a little bit.”

“Could have done that without hitting me with the branch,” she glowered, her horn picking the branch up and throwing it away even further in case he got any ideas.

“I didn’t hit you that hard,” he rolled his eyes.  “It sounded a lot harder than it actually was because I broke one of the smaller twigs on it.”  The twig in question floated up from where she had been standing moments ago before she kicked it away.

“And what do you mean I was doing it wrong?  I was doing it the way you told me to!”

Master Nova Shine tilted his head from side to side.  “Not… quite.  You were focusing too much on the environment around you.  The tactile environment, this world of sight, smell, sound, taste, and feeling, was what you were paying attention to.  Don’t get me wrong,” he added, holding up a hoof to prevent her from firing back, “you’re not doing something dumb, Gleam.  It’s important to be able to feel the world around you through your normal senses.  But the whole point of the blindfold is to deprive you of one of your most heavily used senses, so your mind will be open to another one that it hasn’t listened to since you were born.”

“I… see,” she replied.  No, she didn’t.

“Then put your blindfold back on and we’ll try again,” Master Nova Shine said, picking it up with his magic and levitating it back toward her.  Gleam let out an annoyed huff, snatched the blindfold from him, and slipped it back on.  Once again, she was surrounded by darkness, only able to rely on her other senses as she sat in the middle of this clearing.

“Breathe, Gleam.  The key is not to focus so hard on any one thing, but to simply be at ease and feel everything around you.”

“I’ll try,” she grumbled.

“You will,” he said.  “And each time, you’ll see more and more, until you finally get it.”

She let out a quiet snort.  She was learning not to distrust his confidence in her.  He was usually right when he said she would get something, but this was the fourth time she’d tried to sense energy.  Each time, he’d tried some different way to get her to sense things, and each time, she wouldn’t feel anything.  It was starting to get frustrating.

“Alright.  I’m going to start with the magic again.”

She heard the slight pop as a few things blinked into existence around him, and based on the slight gusts, he had begun to move them around the air, in the hopes that she’d feel it.  Yet as she sat there in darkness, all she could focus on was what she already knew.  The sound of those things moving through the air, the rustle of the leaves, the light tickle of her coat as some grass brushed up against it…

Minutes later, she was no closer to feeling anything of note than she had been when they’d started.

“I just don’t get it!” she finally snapped, yanking the blindfold up and slamming a hoof into the ground next to her.  “I’m not feeling anything different!  We’ve been at this for hours, and… and it just feels like you’re making a fool of me!”

Master Nova Shine stared at her impassively, eyes shifting every so often, yet glazed over.  He was looking at her, but he wasn’t looking at her.  Gleam felt sheepish the longer she stayed under his gaze.  She knew he wasn’t here to embarrass her, she trusted him more than anyone else on the planet, and she knew he was trying his best.  But she was his first student, after all.  She knew there’d be moments where he’d struggle to get the point across.

Maybe he just needed to try something new?  Maybe Princess Twilight could teach her this instead?

“I see,” he finally said, staring at her with a curious expression.  “Maybe… you don’t even know what you’re looking for.”

“I do know,” she huffed, crossing her forelegs.  “I’m supposed to be feeling magic, right?”

“Yes,” Nova Shine dipped his head.  “But do you know what that feels like?  Not energy sensing, but magic itself?  Do you know you’re feeling the right thing?”

“Of course I do,” she replied, trying to keep the bitter edge out of her voice.  Was he underestimating her now?  “How would I have found the Dark Magic in the Crystal Spire if I didn’t?”

“No no,” Master Nova Shine shook his head.  “You know what it’s like to probe magic with magic.  What I’m asking is, do you know what it’s like to be surrounded by magic and just… experience it?”

She stared at him.  She wasn’t feeling foolish or embarrassed by any stretch of the term anymore, but… no, Celestia’s School had never taught her this.  Magic was studied academically.  Practically.  Focus was placed on tangible results, magical theory, applications, that sort of thing.  What Master Nova Shine was asking her to do was not necessarily to discard all of that, but to unlearn what she had learned, ignore the academics she had studied, and simply submerge herself in magic in its basest form.

The moment she realized what he was actually asking of her, something clicked.

She sat up straighter and pulled the blindfold down, catching her master grinning knowingly just before the black strip of cloth was pulled over her eyes, and she heard him trot up next to her.

“Reach out,” he said, pressing her hoof into the dirt.  “Feel everything around you.  The tactile environment as before, but look even deeper than that.”

Gleam took a deep breath, doing as her master asked.  She felt and heard everything as before.  The breeze, the warm air, the rustle of the trees, the flutter of the bats, the Apple Family toiling…

Deeper.

She smelled the grass, the apples, rotting plants, the Everfree Forest’s cocktail of aromas, her master’s sweat, the shampoo she’d used this morning…

Deeper.

She didn’t know how to describe it, but it was as if she thrust something deep inside of her forward, reaching down into the earth, and she felt… something.

“What do you see?” her master asked as her brow twitched.

“I… I see…”

A sea of trees, each one reaching high toward the sky, the better to reach the sun and the nourishment it provided.

“The forest.”

The bats flew from place to place, leaving a wake of something behind them.  Timberwolves prowled the edges of the Everfree Forest.  Worms burrowed beneath the ground.

“Life.”

Rotted plants.  Skeletons of dead creatures beneath the earth.  Scavengers consuming the flesh of the dead.

“Death and decay…”

Plants grew off of the nutrients that were left behind.  Baby birds fed on the worms provided by their mothers.  Young fruit bats ate the rotten apples that lay scattered.

“...that feeds new life.”

The sun.

“Warmth…

The breeze.

“...and cold.”

The bats above their heads, watching them.  The timberwolves chasing after prey.  The calm of the entire farmstead.  The tension of everything that lay within the Everfree Forest.

“Peace and violence.”

And between it all, was something.  Something that moved like waves, resonating with that same something in everything around it.  It was as if the world itself was one great cacophony of these waves, crashing and merging, forever thrumming and vibrating in tune with each other.

The world was at peace with itself.

“A… a balance,” she said, before frowning.  “No-... no, it’s more than that.  It’s… it’s Harmony.”

“Look elsewhere,” Master Nova Shine ordered.  She knew he was pacing around her.  She knew he was close, but she just couldn’t quite sense him in the midst of all of this.  “Look inside you.  What do you feel?”

Hungry, she thought to herself, suppressing a tiny smile.

What was odd was, she couldn’t even really feel herself, so to speak.  As she experienced this feeling, as she basked in this balance that existed between everything, she felt… no different at all.

Then, it clicked, and the curtain was pulled back, and at last, she saw.

No one was separate from all of this.  This was Harmony.  This was what it was like to live in Magic.  Unicorns, she realized, had a great hubris, to believe that magic was a tool to manipulate and to use freely, that they were separate from magic or even above it, when in reality, magic was more than that.  Magic was everywhere, magic was around them, in them.

The moment she began to see, it was like light sprung up in the darkness around her.  Light that moved languidly through the darkness, pacing around her as she sat there.  Gleam felt herself break into a smile, and somewhere, deep in the recesses of her mind, she could swear Harmonia was beaming.

To demonstrate her newfound sight, she plucked an apple down from one of the trees, her own magic illuminating the darkness as well, and offered it to the swirling sea of stars that had paused next to her.  A new cloud of energy appeared, taking the apple from her and lifting it back toward this sea, and she heard the most satisfying apple crunch she believed she would ever hear in her life.

“Well done.”

Gleam lifted the blindfold from her eyes with a tired but accomplished grin and fell backward against the cool grass, the perfect pillow for her after the surprisingly tiring exercise.

“You’ll never forget the first time you saw the world for what it is,” Master Nova Shine said, walking over and sitting down next to her.  “We unicorns, especially those of us who want to be mages, spend our whole lives staring at the world through a keyhole.  We try everything we can to widen it, to see everything we can, to understand magic, and bend it to our will.”

He let out a soft sigh.

She could sense that even though he wasn’t using magic in the open air, he was drawing shapes in the ground.

“But the moment the door opens, and we see just how wild, untameable, and beautiful magic really is, it’s not surprising that many ponies run back to the safety of the keyhole.  To run back to the comfortable world, where magic fits neatly into a bottle, when it’s so much bigger than that!  Magic isn’t about formulae and theories, it’s about feeling and interacting with the balance of the world around you!  Just like music isn’t about being able to read it off a paper, it’s about being able to hear it and play it!  Just listen, Gleam!  Listen to what they are missing!

“Can you hear the music?”

The shapes beneath the ground disappeared, and now she could hear sound.  A powerful, thrum that sounded like a cellist playing the loudest possible note they could, and yet if she listened closer, she could hear other notes and instruments behind it, backing it.  Horns and flutes and drums and clarinets and violins and even instruments she couldn’t recognize, all playing one note that was part of a greater whole.  A powerful tone, rattling her bones and making the hairs in her coat stand on end.

Then the music was gone.  Now it was color, vivid shades of bright light appeared in the sky and beneath the ground, but were invisible to the naked eye.  One moment she was surrounded by bright colors as though she were in a field of flowers, and the next, everything was as dark and moody as the night.  A moment later it was dawn, and rosy and fiery shades danced within her sense, followed by cool and calming colors as though she were surrounded by nothing but ocean and sky.

And then she realized, Master Nova Shine hadn’t done any of that.

She had.

The colors vanished, the sound faded, the shapes disappeared, Bright Gleam blinked, and once again, she was laying in the forest, sweating and breathless as the bats shifted in the trees, the breeze fluttered through the clearing, and she felt as if she had walked a thousand miles in mere moments.

Bright Gleam breathed, a wonderful cold and refreshing feeling, and her first on the other side, her first breath in a new world.

Master Nova Shine had a knowing smile on his face as he offered a hoof to help her up.

“Terrifying, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she agreed, grabbing his hoof and letting him help her up.  “But…”

“But beautiful too.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll tell you the way I felt for a while,” he said, leading her over to the cider table, “even after studying magic for years, when I first felt that, for a while after, it felt like I was a foal at a pool, swimming close to the deep end but feeling too scared to swim out into it, afraid I would drown.”

Gleam grinned sheepishly as she recalled that she couldn’t even go out to the 2-meter depth for a while, even after she’d learned how to swim.  She had been afraid that she might accidentally cough, and inhale some water, which would lead to her sputtering, and then she’d flounder and fall underwater…

“But when you finally do it,” he continued, leaning back to stare up at the sky, a blissful smile on his face.  “It’s the scariest moment of your life.  To let go and float off into the unknown, into the expanse that is just so massive and so deep.  But then you realize as you’re miles away from the safety of the shallows… you had nothing at all to fear, and all you think now is why didn’t you do it sooner?”

All Bright Gleam could do was stare at him in awe as he stood there, blind and deaf to the world around him.  How could she ever hope to come anywhere near this?

You are beginning to see magic and the world as he does, and that is already far more than most spellcasters.  Look not at how far you have to go, Bright Gleam.  Look instead at how far you have come.

“Well, I think that’ll do it for today,” he said, sitting up and getting to his hooves.   “We’ve gotta start packing to head up to Canterlot here soon, seeing as Twilight wants to head out tomorrow.”

“I thought your House of Nobles session wasn’t until–”

“Yeah, you’re right,” he said, cracking his neck and trying to shake off some of his fatigue from the last few days and their bedrest.  “But Twilight wants to go up a couple of days early.  Says she wants to stay connected with some of her old friends, and that gives me some time to go visit Mom and Dad, and you can go visit your parents too.  Plus…” he grimaced, “I think she wants to get all her anger at Celestia out of her system before they sit through Day Court.”

With that, he started to trot out of the grove, with her close behind.  The day’s session, it seemed, was being abandoned, but… why was he acting like it was all over and done?

“So what, today’s lesson’s just over? We’re not coming back after lunch or something?”

“No…” he said slowly, giving her an odd look.  “You need time to let it sink in.  And besides, why wouldn’t we just continue now if the lesson weren’t over?”

She frowned.  Had he forgotten?  “Don’t we need to be at Princess Twilight’s School soon?”

“Hm?” Master Nova Shine blinked dumbly.  “What do you mean?”

“You had a guest lecture for one of Princess Twilight’s classes, remember?”

“I– yeah, I remember, but…”  He frowned and looked over back toward the town.  “I could have sworn that wasn’t for another hour or so.”

“Well it is,” she replied, before flicking her mane, which was still slightly sweaty from the morning’s exercise before they had come right out here afterward, “but do you really want to be turning up to lecture them with me looking like this?  It takes time for some of us to get cleaned up.  Not everyone can go out with messy hair like yours.”

Nova opened his mouth to reply but closed it a moment later.  “Point taken,” he conceded.  “Alright, yeah, we’ll continue these lessons up in Canterlot, I think.  Right now, we’ve got to get a move on, we’re already behind.”

“We’d be less behind if you hadn’t taken the time to smack me with the stick.”

He grinned.

“Gleam, may I mention that it’s so nice that you feel comfortable enough around me to routinely mouth off?  You’re very different from the filly who would talk herself into a death spiral when you thought you’d done something wrong a few weeks ago.”

Gleam smiled to herself at that.  It was always nice hearing praise from her master.  To think she, an ordinary unicorn from a lower-class family in Canterlot, could become his apprentice and do well enough to earn his praise?  She’d had doubts, but it seemed like she had taken well to his tutelage.  Thus, she wasn’t worried that she didn’t really get energy sensing just yet, but she knew she would in time.  She’d only just taken her first steps into a much larger world, after all.

“Whoa!”

She turned around, just in time to see her master stumble and fall to the ground.

“Master?  Everything okay?”

“Legs are still a little wobbly from the hospital,” he replied, rubbing his thighs vigorously.  “Just lost energy there.”

“You’re eating and sleeping properly, right?” she asked, giving him the same look she imagined her mother gave her when she knew Gleam was lying.

“Yeah, I am,” he answered, getting back to his feet and dusting himself off.  “Just… you know, paying the price for my short-sightedness.”

She just gave him the same disapproving look, but somewhere deep down, she knew he wasn’t lying.  He really was making an effort.

Suddenly, a chill went up her spine, and her head snapped up by reflex, looking wildly around.  Something felt wrong.  Next to her, Master Nova Shine did as well, his eyes alertly scanning the grove around them, trying to find the source of the off feeling.

“Wh-what is–?” she asked, suddenly feeling cold.

“Shh,” Master Nova Shine held out a hoof.  “Something… someone is watching us, and I can’t sense them.”

Alarm shot through her at that.  It was one thing for him to know something was there with that overpowered energy sense of his, but to know they were there without being able to feel them at all?

“How do you know?” she asked softly, afraid that whatever had their eye on them would hear.

“Instinct,” he replied, just as loudly as usual.  She envied his confidence sometimes.  Oh to even be half as powerful as him…  “I don’t know, but… something’s wrong, and we know there’s a certain someone out there who’s probably keeping an eye on us, right?”

“You mean…?”

“Yeah,” Master Nova Shine nodded stiffly.  “Envy.  But… this doesn’t feel like her at all.”

“How do you mean?”

“Doesn’t it feel a bit colder than it did five minutes ago?”

Gleam blinked.  It had been feeling a bit nippier in the last few minutes, now that he mentioned it.  She thought the chill from a moment ago was more her imagination than anything, but if he felt it too, then was it an actual thing?

He stared out into the trees at a specific point.  He wasn’t looking around for anyone at all.  Had he found them?

Eventually, she felt the chill vanish, and she let out a quiet sigh of relief.  Whatever it was, it was gone.

“Not to mention,” he added, turning and beginning to trot back to town, with her staying close behind, “I don’t think she’d miss out on a chance to come mess with me.  No, I think we’ve just met a new adversary.”

“I mean, after what Harmonia did to her,” Gleam replied, the memories of Envy screaming in pain as Harmonia attempted to grasp hold of something inside of her and pull it free, “I wonder if she’s afraid.”

“Maybe,” Master Nova Shine sniffed.  “Stay close, and let’s hurry.”

Despite the caution of what had just happened, knowing that someone new had entered the Great Game, Gleam left the grove that day giddy as a schoolfilly.  To finally have proof to herself that she was learning, not just things she’[d had trouble with, but entirely new ways of perceiving the world around her felt empowering and encouraging.

She was really learning from her master.  He really was teaching her to see the world like him, and she couldn’t wait to see how it affected the way she approached things.  But most importantly…

She could hear the music!





It was strange how Shimmer had made the remnants of the Old Castle her little home, the more she thought about it.

Four years ago, she’d hidden out here when she’d been holding Trixie Lulamoon as her hostage, keeping her trapped down in the dungeons, albeit well taken care of.  Back then it had been quite a ruin, almost entirely unvisited for years.  Now, however, not only was the place well-visited and well-taken care of, but the Tree of Harmony itself wasn’t too far away.

She hated that thing, hated the being living inside of it, hated that her Master no doubt intended for her to eventually destroy that tree or something, but mostly she just hated that, at any point, the Spirit in that tree could just decide to yank her soul out and tear her apart like she had those weeks ago.

She still woke up screaming when she dreamed about it.

Shimmer was used to causing nightmares, not experiencing them.

At the moment, she was in the castle library, a surprisingly well-kept part of the castle.  Most of the books in here were ruined, and most of the shelves had long since collapsed, but there were still some clean and new-looking book receptacles scattered around the mostly empty room, and some of the things in here appeared to be far newer than the ruins.

Clearly this was a place commonly visited in recent years.  Probably by the purple princess and her friends.  That said, it had some light reading material, which allowed her to distract herself from the screaming in her mind.  She’d had hundreds of years to get used to it, but every so often it still got through to her.

Something about what Harmonia had done to her had lessened the screaming’s grip on her actions, and she was able to resist more effectively, but it wasn’t flawless.  She still had to go “vent” her bloodlust on a poor woodland creature or two.  Reading, however, seemed to help soothe her more than usual.

At least, it did until she received five most unwelcome guests.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the knocks on the door to the library.  Had she been found?  Was Bonehead here?  Had Harmonia come to finish the job?

No, worse.

A powerfully built bald red unicorn stallion with a braided bloody-red tail and a shattered horn stepped into the room, and Shimmer’s heart sank at the sight of him.  So this is how he intends keep me under his hoof.

“Lady Envy,” he said politely, inclining his head to her, his voice a dull rumble.  As he stepped aside, the others came in.  A shapely green mare strode into the room, and as the two of them locked eyes, the newcomer squealed and dashed over to hug her.

“Shimmy!  It’s been so long!”

“Ezzy,” Shimmer grunted, lightly shoving Esmeralda off of her.  She had a feeling this wasn’t just a friendly visit.  “Good to see you too,” she lied.  She was happy to see the closest thing she had to a friend among Sombra’s ranks, but it didn’t outweigh her dread, knowing why they were here.

Esmeralda was followed by three more ponies, a bright white-silver mare not unlike her normal form, a deep blue mare with white glimmers in her mane, and a dusky orange stallion who kept his own mane and tail very neatly kept.

Platina sneered at her, but Saphira gave her a friendly smile and trotted over.

“Shimmer!  It’s good to see you, even though you’re wearing a different skin today.  Who’s this?”

“An unfortunate victim nearly thirteen hundred years ago,” she grunted, not really in the mood to relive that experience.

“My Lady Envy,” Pronssi said, inclining his head as he stepped forward.  “A pleasure to see you once again.”

“Lord Sloth,” she grunted back.  “So where’s Assface at?  Out terrorizing someone for kicks?”

“Lord Pride will be along shortly,” Pronssi couldn’t help the small smirk.  “I have sent him to assess the situation.”

“‘Assess the situation’,” Shimmer rolled her eyes, stamping over to a ruined table and falling into a seat next to it.  “I could have given you all the information you wanted.”

“Like why you’re wearing someone else’s skin when you’re not on the job?” Platina asked, leaning against a wall and glaring at her.  “What’s with the green and red?”

“It’s maroon, thank you very much,” Shimmer snarled.  “And it’s not my body, so this is the easiest form to keep.  The mare whose body this really is is kept nice and close by,” she said, tapping the ruby Spirit Gem held tightly to her neck.

“Then where is your body?” Pronssi asked, raising an eyebrow.  “Are you unable to use the abilities gifted to you by our King?”

“Oh I can shapeshift just fine,” she said, proving her point by dissolving into shadow and reforming into the skin they wanted her to wear so badly.  She hated being herself while controlling someone else’s body.  It just felt wrong.  She could do it when she was on the clock, but once she was on her own time, the last thing she wanted to do was walk around in someone else’s skin pretending to be her own.

I’m his Envy, and the only person I wanna be is me in myself.  She suppressed a tiny chuckle.  Between his Sloth demanding maximum efficiency yet tolerating no wasted time or energy, his Wrath being the calmest pony she knew, his Lust being almost too innocent and sheltered, his Gluttony keeping herself at a svelte figure, his Greed only wanting to acquire things for their Master, and his Pride having almost nothing there at all to take pride in, it was clear that despite the seriousness of his goals, King Sombra did have a strong sense of irony.

Pronssi’s eyes widened as her shadows reformed, and he smiled at her.  “Impressive, Shimmer!  How did you gain this ability?”

“It’s a long story, and it involves the Elements of Harmony,” she answered, really resisting the urge to give in to the screaming mind voice and fling a knife at someone in here.  She’d be punished the moment she tried.  “Let’s just say it’s way more comfortable to do it this way and not the normal way and leave it at that.”

“Hm,” Pronssi dipped his head, before surveying her from head to hoof, his calculating brown eyes flicking over every inch of her.  “The only flaw in your transformation seems to be your eyes, They stay red in every form you take.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t going back to my old body any time soon,” she huffed, giving him a challenging glare.  “Not unless you want to either kill her or let her scamper back to society.”

“And why shouldn’t we kill her?”

The voice whispered right in her ear as she felt the ghostly chill pass her by.  She didn’t jump this time.  She never jumped when Assface was involved.  She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction.

“You took your time,” Platina observed, staring at a spot in the room that appeared to contain nothing but empty space, but Shimmer’s eyes were trained to see the subtle giveaways of Auric’s presence, such as the faint pony-shaped outline just barely visible.

“I simply wished to enjoy the fresh air before it was ruined by this worm’s presence,” Auric replied, right into her ear again.

“Do I need to give you another scar to remind you not to talk down to me?” she asked, as if she were asking something as simple as what he wanted for lunch.

“You would threaten Lord Pride?” Rubeus asked, staring at both of them.

“I’m not threatening him, Rubeus.  I’m asking him a question I want him to answer,” she sniffed.  “If you’d like me to threaten him, I can oblige.  Call me a worm again and I’ll gouge out your eyes,” she stated coolly to the shade standing close by.  “Don’t believe me?  Take a gander at Onyx Lance’s face next time you see her.”

Auric hissed, but said nothing else.  He could try to frighten her all he wanted, but he knew his place.

Pronssi stepped forward and got between them.  “Lady Envy, Lord Pride, please, we have work to do, and I would rather do it without having to also keep the two of you from fighting.”

“You want us to not go at it?  Sure, by all means, give it a shot,” Shimmer just waved a weary hoof.  “Just make sure Assface remembers who the strongest out of all of us is the next time he wants to talk to me like he owns me. If he thinks it’s him, I’ll make sure he remembers the point.”  She punctuated her boast by slamming her favorite knife point-down into the table.

“Unfortunately, that is exactly why we have been sent here, Lady Envy,” Pronssi sighed longsufferingly.  “You may be more than a match for any of us individually, but even you cannot take us together at once.  His Majesty has sent us to keep you in line.  I am sure you know why as well?”

“Yeah, he doesn’t think I’m goading Nova Shine enough into finding the Gems of Being,” Shimmer huffed, rolling her eyes.  “He thinks that just because I’m sitting here laying low, I must be trying to slack off or rebel or all that other stuff.  So lemme guess, you’re here to threaten to rough me up a bit if I don’t start lighting a fire under his ass to make him find the gems, right?”

Assface laughed, a high, cold, cruel whisper of winds, and Shimmer felt a stab of dread pierce her gut.  He would never be this thrilled about something unless he was sure it was going to ruin her day.

“You think His Majesty doesn’t know a little torture wouldn’t have any effect on you?” he asked mockingly.  “You really have been slipping, Envy.  Oh no, we all know he’s trained you too well to be affected by something as mundane as a little bit of pain and suffering.  Which is why that’s not how we plan on tormenting you.”

Pronssi frowned, a most distasteful look for someone as sophisticated and high-class as him, and behind him, Shimmer watched in horror as Ezzy’s face fell completely, and she couldn’t meet Shimmer’s eyes.

Shimmer knew that Sombra would mandate that they commit all sorts of atrocities.  She also knew there were few lines Sombra wouldn’t cross.  They all knew that.  They had all grown numb to some of the things he’d made them do.  But there was only one thing that could make Esmeralda look so forlorn.  Even Pronssi balked at such a thing.  They had been trained to be weapons, but none of them had completely abandoned their ethics except for Auric.

“You can’t mean it,” she whispered.  “Tell me he didn’t.  Tell me he hasn’t!”

“This isn’t merely about your lax attitude,” Pronssi shook his head.  “He cannot be assured of your loyalty, and so he has asked us to hang over that filly’s head until you clean up your act.”

It felt as though she had been struck by an ironclad punch to the gut.  He would make them murder a foal just to get her to comply!?

Then she recalled what happened when she’d been forced to go after the filly, and suddenly, her dread vanished, and she began to laugh.  She knew Sombra wasn’t that stupid, knew that he would have taken Harmonia’s warning to heart, and knew that the six of them were here for some other purpose, but for now, she was going to enjoy it while she could.

“Oh, you think it’s as simple as that, huh!?” she jeered, taking every ounce of pleasure at seeing Platina snarl and feeling Auric recoil.  “You think it’s just ‘kill the little filly and then the big bad Envy will do as she’s told’?  Tell ya what, you go right ahead and give that a try,” she beamed mockingly at them.  “Tell ‘em, Assface.  You went out there to ‘assess the situation’, didn’t you?  Tell them.”

“Tell us what?” Pronssi asked, frowning, his eyes flicking over to the not-so-empty space that Auric occupied.

“It would appear that the filly is protected,” Auric said, his whisper somehow thundering in her ears despite its volume, but more than that, she could hear almost a begrudging admission.  “A formidable pony, who appears to wear the cloak of an archmage.  He also appears to be romantically attached to one of the ruling princesses.  This is the filly you care so much about, worm?”

“Yeah,” she smirked.  Bless him, he was really trying to spin this back to her.  “She’s also indwelt by Harmonia, Auric.  Good luck with that.  And that’s not even mentioning that she’s the Archmage’s apprentice.  You wanna get to her?  You gotta go through him and then Harmonia.  You think I’m tough to take down?  He’s stronger than I am, and she’s Harmonia.  You wanna try to threaten his apprentice?  He’d rip you apart in an instant before the filly even saw you coming.”

Auric bristled, and she felt the chill as he stepped toward her, but she kept right at it.

“You don’t know him like I do,” she said, glaring right at the tiny outline of a pony as Assface glared right back.  “We don’t stand a chance against any of the alicorn princesses.  He’s stronger than at least one of them, and it’s not even close.”

“Impossible,” Auric scoffed, but Shimmer was pleased to hear the uncertainty behind it.  “A unicorn, stronger than an alicorn?”

“You don’t get it, do you?” she asked him smugly, leaning forward to invade his space, since he was so fond of doing it to everyone else.  “He might be the single most powerful unicorn in history, and before you say something more stupid than usual, that’s including Star Swirl the Bearded.  And if you somehow get past him, you have to deal with the Spirit of Harmony herself, and she nearly pulled Sombra out of me like it was nothing.  If you really want to put that to the test, you go right ahead and challenge him.  I’ll laugh at your funeral and piss on your–”

“That’s enough,” rumbled Rubeus, stepping forward and sliding between them, physically shoving them both back.  Shimmer always admired how a soft push from Rubeus could still send her reeling, and this was no exception as she fought to stay upright.

“I have no wish to sacrifice any of you merely to ascertain the truth of Shimmer’s insights,” Pronssi said, taking a seat at an empty table and pulling a book from one of the shelves.  “However, if what Shimmer says is true, and I see no reason not to take her at her word, then it would seem we cannot threaten the filly without senselessly throwing away any of your lives in the process.  However, there are always alternatives to direct action.”

“Look, if you want my cooperation, you’ve got it,” Shimmer rolled her eyes.  “Not like I have much of a choice in the matter.  I’m just pointing out you’re gonna have a hell of a time taking down three alicorns, the Archmage, several guards, and the Spirit of Harmony just to take out one filly if I misbehave.”

“Harmonia will need to be dealt with eventually,” Pronssi replied, frowning at the book he was reading.  Shimmer glanced at the cover, then let out a quiet snort when she saw that it was a treatise on game theory and that it was written by him, no less.  “You have picked an excellent hiding place, Shimmer.  I can feel the Tree of Harmony close by, and it is within a forest that few dare to tread in.  We, of course, cannot move against the Tree or else Harmony will find a way to strike back at us, but that does not mean that we will simply sit idly by.”

“Far be it from Lord Sloth to make us do nothing,” observed Saphira wryly, before slinking back toward the way out.  “If ya need me, I’m feeling a bit hungry, and that Trottingham town’s just overflowing with energy.”

“I thought you had filled yourself already,” Assface whispered, his voice mercifully moving away from Shimmer.  “Surely you aren’t asking to eat out and risking exposure?”

“By all means, feel free.  I would ask that you please take a look around while you’re there,” Pronssi said, looking up from his book momentarily.  “The more information we have, the better I understand the situation and can formulate a plan.  Just be sure to hide your missing horn, and don’t draw attention to yourself,” he added sternly.

Saphira rolled her eyes.  “It’s what I want, not what I need.  Yeah, I’m already full, but I was feeling a bit peckish, and I ain’t gonna do something stupid just because I’m feeling a little rumbly in my tumbly.“  With that, she sauntered off with a friendly yet sarcastic wave, leaving the rest of them there to figure out things to do.  Shimmer had no more desire to deal with Assface or anyone else today, so she took the first chance she got to bolt, chasing after the Good Gal Gluttony.

That feeling of dread was back.  It had vanished for a moment when she had been laughing at Assface, but she couldn’t shake the fact that there was no small chance that Pronssi could succeed if he truly set his formidable mind to it.  As she retreated back to a room in these ruins she had claimed as her own quarters, all she could do was silently hope that, no matter how well-thought a plan Pronssi could come up with, Bonehead would live up to every one of her boasts.

But as she hurried out, one last horrible thought struck her.  One final, terrible realization wormed its way into her mind as she hurried up towards the castle quarters where she could shut herself away for at least a while longer.

Bright Gleam wasn’t the one Sombra would have killed if she didn’t comply.  Shimmer was right, he was too smart to try and meddle with the spirit after how thoroughly she had trounced the both of them some weeks ago.

No, the reality was much more simple, and all the worse for it.  They had no chance against the Spirit, just like she said.  But that was the point.  They were the closest thing she had to actual friends, except maybe Bonehead.  And she even did consider a few of them to be friends!  She and Ezzy got a long like a house on fire (that they both had probably started).  Pronssi had been something of a mentor to her, teaching her how to use her ability in its original form.  Rubeus had taught her how to fight.  And Feera…

Assface and Platina could keel over and she wouldn’t bat an eye, but she would miss the other four, and she knew he knew what she thought of them beyond the shadow of a doubt.

If she did not comply, he would send them to their deaths.





The hustle and bustle of Canterlot were eternal.

As Bright Gleam, Master Nova Shine, Princess Twilight, Spike (riding Nova’s back), and a guard detail consisting of Captain Cinnabar, Lieutenant Aegis, and Knightmares Frigoris and Vaporum all stepped off the train at Upper Canterlot Station, Gleam’s first thoughts were that they were overcrowding an already crowded train platform, and remembering her experience with the random creatures, she inwardly winced as she remembered the angry shouting last time she’d accidentally bumped into someone.  However, rather than cause a scene, everyone took note of the seven ponies and one baby dragon making their way through the station and happily made way, some of them even bowing respectfully as the eight of them trotted out of the train platform and into the main lobby.

Off in the distance, however, she could still hear the telltale squabbling of ponies being crowded upon as they wished to board the Valley Rail down to Ponyville and Neighton, or the Southwest Express down to Las Pegasus, or the Borealis Line to the Crystal Empire, or the Short Line Railroad to Park Place and Boardwalk.

Wait, no, that was Monopony.

Weren’t those railroads based on Manehattan railroads?  How many of them had stations full of squabbling travelers and commuters?  She’d never been to Manehattan before.  Did that place have train stations like this?  All big and palatial, with shop stalls and restaurants built in, all underneath a massive curving ceiling and stuff?

Focus, Gleam.  Get home first, imagine Manehattan train stations later.

As they emerged out onto the Upper Canterlot Mane Street, the bustle lessened ever so slightly as everyone was more spread out, and Gleam took a deep breath of the crisp morning air.  It wasn’t as clean as Ponyville’s air down in the valley, but it was home.

“Twi and I are gonna go get settled in our quarters for the next few days,” Master Nova Shine said to her, kneeling slightly to let Spike slide off his back as Princess Twilight quickly trotted out of the middle of the road to stay out of everyone’s way as much as possible.  “Feel free to go visit your family and friends if you want.  When you’re done, though, come up to Novus Manor.”

“N-Novus Manor?” Gleam asked, blinking dumbly.  The Novus Manor?  The big house with the magic lab in the back?

“Novus Manor,” Master Nova Shine nodded, patting her on the back.  “If you can’t get in from the front, Dad always keeps the spare key to the kitchen under the mat by the garden door.  Swing by when you can.  I’ve…”  He paused, and Gleam noticed his eyes grew distant for a moment, but then he blinked and returned to clarity.  “I’ve got someone I want you to meet.”

Gleam frowned.  Someone for her to meet at Novus Manor?  She was not prepared to schmooze with the rich ponies today.

Still, she could worry about that later.  She wanted to go see Mom and Dad.

With a cheerful wave, she began following the familiar paths of the city, passing by Railside Inn, Restaurant Row, the Canterlot branch of Carousel Boutique, and the other new and old Canterlot shops and places of business.  Even though her family lived down in Lower Canterlot, it was impossible not to come up here every so often, if for no other reason than because it was the way to the main campus of Celestia’s School.

Truth be told, though, she hated walking this way.  Not because there was anything particularly bad about it, or anything.  It was a very nice part of town.

Which was precisely the problem.

As she passed through the gates in the high marble walls that separated Upper Canterlot from the short paved mountain path to the rest of the city down below, she frowned as she got a nice glimpse of home.

Unlike its very meticulously planned sister that she and Captain Cinnabar were trotting out of, Lower Canterlot was way more haphazard and slapdash, as far as cities were concerned.  Where Upper Canterlot had been designed as a cultural, economic, and civic center for the Unicorn Kingdom long ago, Lower Canterlot had just sort of sprung up when it had the chance.  Upper Canterlot had walls to protect them, towers, manors, and new buildings, but Lower Canterlot was just a bunch of houses that had sort of risen up in the closest stretch of flat land that could be found, a mere plateau beneath the main city.  Upper Canterlot had major thoroughfares and transportation traveling in and out of it, but Lower Canterlot was shunted off to the side and was almost actively traveled around by the ponies who mattered.

In almost every possible way, Lower Canterlot looked up at its sister city.

Hell, apparently the Lulamoon family were the only ones who actually wanted to live this far out, since their manor was somewhere even further past the outskirts of this area.  Gleam often wondered why they’d built a place so far out, unlike the Belleblood family, or the Heartstrings family, or the Novus family, or the Terre Rare family, or the Brass family, or…

Well, anyone in Canterlot whose family was important enough to have a THE in front of it.

As she descended the well-trod path and stepped back into the familiar streets, she couldn’t help but take a whiff of the air again.  She’d gotten used to country air down in the valley.  Now that she’d been away long enough (even if “long enough” was only a few days), it almost felt weird to be back in the cacophony of smells and sounds that she called home.  She could smell the fresh bread in Leaven’s, could hear Hammer Hoof pounding away at some new wagon or whatever he was building, could practically taste the food over at Cavalla’s…

Eventually, after a short trot, she pushed her way into her house, noting that the lock on the door still wasn’t fixed.  Everything looked exactly the same as it had when she’d been here last, back when Master Nova Shine and Princess Twilight had come to accept her as Master Nova Shine’s apprentice.

Before all of this.  Before Harmonia.  Somehow it felt like a lifetime ago.

She heard trotting, and broke into a grin as Mom poked her head out of the living room.

“Oh!”  She beamed, stepping out to give her a hug.  “Gleam!  I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were going to be in town!”

“Hey Mom,” she said, letting herself be hugged and pulled into the living room.

“Sit down, sit down!” Mom said, ushering her toward the couch.  “You’ve got to tell me everything!  What’s it like learning from the Archmage?  How is Ponyville?  Are you eating well?  Is he making sure everything’s okay?”

“MOM!” Gleam threw her hooves up, overwhelmed by all the questions.  “Mom, sorry.  Yes, everything’s fine– I mean, great!  Everything’s great!  I’m eating plenty, he’s making sure I’ve got plenty to live off of, and–”

She blinked, before she grinned, stood up, and summoned her cloak in a small flash of green light.

Mom’s eyes widened, and her smile widened even more.

“Oh my word, that looks so good on you, Gleam!” she said, practically dashing around to take in all the angles, running a hoof along the linen and scrutinizing the emerald brooch.  “Who made this for you?  This looks… this looks tailored!”

“Miss Rarity made it for me,” Gleam said, doing a tiny twirl.  “Functional and fashionable.  Master Nova Shine taught me how to enchant things, which means it works to protect me from spells and stuff.”

“M-Miss Rarity?” Mom gaped at her.  “As in Carousel Boutique Rarity?  This must have cost you a fortune!”

“She… actually made it for free,” Gleam admitted with a sheepish smile.  “I, uhh… well, it turns out I needed it.”

Mom’s face had somehow even gotten even more shocked when she’d mentioned it was free, but when she heard about how Gleam actually needed it, it fell almost instantly.

“Right,” Mom said, her head drooping as she took a seat on the sofa herself.  “Princess Twilight did tell us what happened up in the Empire.  Are you… okay?  Is everything fine?”

“Yeah!” Gleam nodded.  “Yeah, everything’s fine.  Did she tell you about…?”

Mom nodded.  “You have… someone in your head.”

“She’s actually really nice,” Gleam said, shrugging.  “And she protects me.  But she also wants me to learn how to protect myself from Master Nova Shine so that she doesn’t have to protect me.”

Mom didn’t seem to know how to react to this information, putting on something of a half-smile, half-wince.  After a moment, it finally clicked what must have been going through her mom’s head when she’d said that.

“She’s not putting me in any danger,” Gleam added hastily.  “She’s just trying to make sure I’m ready just in case.”

“I don’t…” Mom said, the wince becoming more pronounced, until she finally looked away.  “Gleam…  You shouldn’t be in this position to begin with.  You were only supposed to study magic!”

“But that’s just it,” Gleam shook her head, feeling a slight bit of indignation.  “You and Dad told me growing up that if I know something was the right thing to do, then I should always do it.”

“And how do you know letting her put you in h-harm’s way is the right thing to do!?” Mom demanded, her voice finally cracking for the first time.  “We only allowed you to become the Archmage’s apprentice because we thought you would be kept safe!”

“Allowed!?” Gleam asked, feeling the indignation turn to outright anger.  “Dad said it was my decision!  And even if it wasn’t, I’m not a filly anymore, Mom!”

“None of us knew you’d be put into actual danger!” Mom replied, tears starting to creep into the corner of your eyes.  “Gleam, your father and I are s-so proud of you and everything you’ve done.  We were just as happy as you were when the Archmage showed up here and said he wanted you to be his apprentice!  If you had a daughter you’d understand how we feel, and you’d understand what it does to us when we hear you were actually put in danger!”

“I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF!” Gleam shouted.

Gleam knew it was hollow, knew that her master had bailed her out once and Harmonia had bailed her out a second time.  But that was why she was learning, right?  That was why she was the Archmage’s apprentice!  She wasn’t helpless, she just needed to learn!  Why couldn’t Mom see that!?

There was a small tinkling, that got her attention.  Gleam looked back over to see one of Mom’s porcelain knick-knacks was very slightly rattling as if there were a breeze.

“Gleam…”

She looked back to Mom, who had covered her mouth and was staring wide-eyed at her.

“What?” Gleam asked sourly.

“Y-your mane!”

Gleam frowned and turned toward the first reflective thing she could lay eyes on that was dark enough to let her see herself, a window outside.  Despite how faint the image was, Gleam’s anger faded, replaced by slight confusion.  Why was her mane moving like it was windy out?

The moment she thought about it, however, the winds ceased, and Gleam was left staring at her faint reflection and letting the moment before come creeping back.

“Wh-what was that?” Mom asked, much more subdued than before.  “What d-did you do?”

“No idea,” she growled.  Truthfully, it worried her, but she was too angry to care.  She loved her parents, but they could just be so… so much sometimes.

She sighed, before trotting up to her room, where a quick green flash of light saw her travel bag pop into existence on her bed.  Just as she was about to leave the room and head back outside and begin her hike back to Upper Canterlot and Novus Manor, however, she paused.

There was that picture again.

A younger her at the remote campus down here in Lower Canterlot, all smiles, with Archmage Nova Shine in the background giving a lecture.  Even just lookikng at it, even after knowing everything she’d learned about him and Princess Twilight after the last time she’d looked at this picture, those same feelings came back.  The awe and wonder…

But also the gratitude.

Now her experiences had seemingly reshaped all of the earlier heroworship into pride, that the very stallion she idolized was now teaching her what she had longed to learn back then.  That he was a wise, kind, and patient mentor who let her fail and tumble on her face (though sometimes he was the one who pushed), but every time she did, he was always there to help her pick herself up, brush her off, and help her go again, a little banged up but wiser for it.

She would have given anything back then for this opportunity, and now she had it.  Why couldn’t Mom understand just what it meant to her?

Gleam walked out of the house minutes later feeling a bit dejected.  She knew Mom’s feelings for her situation were natural, but that didn’t mean she had to like them.  Why couldn’t she just get it through her head that Gleam was happy despite it all?  She had learned so much in such a short time, and with Harmonia protecting her, was she really in any danger?

So as she plodded her way back up the path to Upper Canterlot, with its white walls, shiny buildings, and pleasant views of the Canterhorn Valley, she couldn’t even take time to enjoy the view of Ponyville, Neighton, Trottingham, and the Everfree Forest down below like she usually did.

“Is something the matter, Lady Bright Gleam?” asked Captain Cinnabar, hurrying to march alongside her as they passed the gate she’d trotted through only a hoofful of minutes ago.

“No,” she shook her head.  Captain Cinnabar arched a skeptical eyebrow, and Gleam sighed.  “Just… family stuff.  You wouldn’t understand.”

“Perhaps not, but you are welcome to test that assumption,” the captain said with a curt nod.

“It’s just…” Gleam sighed and dragged a hoof down her face.

“‘Just’...?”

“They told me that if they’d known all of this was going to happen,” she tossed a hoof at everything around them in general, “they wouldn’t have let me ask Master Nova Shine to teach me.”

“They are your parents, Bright Gleam,” Captain Cinnabar replied sounding almost amused.  “All parents worry about their children.”

“Yeah, but not like this, they don’t,” Gleam replied.  “Why don’t they just wrap me in bubble wrap and put me somewhere safe for two more years if they care this much?”

“Now you’re just exaggerating,” the captain snorted, shaking her head.  “You make it sound as though they are worried about you scraping your knees.  Bright Gleam, perhaps having Harmonia with you has left you naive about the very real dangers you face.”

Gleam opened her mouth to retort, but Captain Cinnabar gave her the Mom Look, and she instantly shut her mouth.  There was something about the eyepatch that sent a prickle up her neck when she was giving her the stern eye.

“If you were in no real danger, I would not be here with you,” she continued.  “The fact of the matter is, Bright Gleam, through no fault of your own, you have found yourself in greater danger than perhaps you can even comprehend.  We shall protect you to the best of our ability, but you must know,” she lowered her voice meaningfully, “we are not perfect and our enemy is powerful and cunning.”

“But I’m learning,” Gleam fought back.  “I’m learning how to defend myself.  You, Master Nova Shine, and Mister Sharp Eye are teaching me to be a powerful mage!”

“And until that day comes, you will be in need of protection,” Cinnabar replied firmly.

“Even when I’m as strong as you or Master Nova Shine?” she scoffed.

“Do not get overconfident in what you don’t yet know,” Cinnabar warned, turning her face so that the eyepatch was more prominent.  “I am a master of many different styles of combat and I personally captained Sombra’s Imperial Guard, and yet I was outclassed before your very eyes.  There will always be someone stronger than you, Bright Gleam.  Never forget that.”

Whatever arguments Gleam had left died in her throat.  The rest of their trip was finished in silence, with Gleam left to stew in all of these feelings as her hooves moved seemingly of their own accord.  It felt like no time at all had passed before Gleam found herself staring up at an enormous manor house, surrounded with a large and currently open wrought-iron gate flanking the pathway up to the house proper.

Gleam had seen this house about a thousand times and been inside exactly once.  It was hard not to see one of the biggest houses in Equestria when it was just off High Street near Mane, and Celestia’s School had brought her here on a field trip one time as they visited Lord Novus’ arcanology labs in the North Wing of the manor.  It had wowed her then and it still wowed her now, to stand in the shadow of such a massive house, although she also felt a tiny twinge of jealousy at the sight of it.

Her dad was the hardest worker she knew, and they barely got by.  She’d been accepted into Celestia’s School on scholarship and thank Celestia for that because she’d seen what those tuition fees cost.  Princess Twilight’s family owned a small place in Upper Canterlot too, and they still made a modest income, since apparently Mr. Sparkle worked up at the castle.  What had Lord Novus done to make him so rich and afford to live in a house this big?

It couldn’t be the arcanology lab, she remembered Professor Witty telling them it was maintained by the family and was open for public use, though not without limitations.  Maybe they were just one of those rich families who owned a lot of things that they made money from, but didn’t actually do anything and just sat back and let the money roll in while they laughed it up and socialized at soirees and galivanted at galas.

She felt a bit sheepish as she stepped past the gate and trotted up the walk, glanced around nervously as she passed by exquisite gardens that self-watered, even looked back over her shoulder to see if anyone was going to point and laugh at the peasant as she tried to pull open the door to the aristocrat, even if said peasant was accompanied by her own guard, standing a respectful distance away.  Just for good measure, she conjured her Apprentice Cloak as she climbed up the steps toward the front door, just to be sure everyone knew she had a reason to be here.

It was still a long walk from High Street up to the front door.  These gardens were massive! And self-maintained, by the look of things.  Even his family’s more talented than I’ll ever be, she thought, just imagining the gigantic and complex web of magic that must have been required to power all of it.

After what felt like hours, she trotted up the steps of the [whatever Richponyese for “front porch” is], each step feeling like a mountain that elevated her even higher so everyone in Canterlot could get a good view of the pauper walking up to the mansion door uninvited and about to track Poor Pony mud in.

Unfortunately, the door didn’t budge when she pulled.  Just to make sure, she tried pushing it and that didn’t work either.

There were other ways in, right?  Master Nova Shine had said so, but…Gleam’s head drooped sheepishly.  She’d forgotten.

Someone tapped her shoulder and she jumped, whirling around in a panic at the thought of being witnessed and ridiculed, only to lock eyes with a very pretty older mare carrying several bags of groceries with her silver magic.  Her coat was a light blue, almost baby blue in shade.  She had a long, neatly-combed tail and just as long and fine of a mane, both of which were bright silver, as were her eyes, which were staring at her curiously.  Behind her, Captain Cinnabar continued to keep an eye on her, though she didn’t make any move to approach.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said in the airy, regal accent Gleam had come to expect from the snooty rich ponies, although hers was gentler than most.  “I just saw you trying to pull open the door.  You are Bright Gleam, yes?”

Gleam squinted suspiciously at the new rich pony, before uneasily nodding.  The mare smiled slightly at her, before gesturing with her head to follow and starting to trot toward the back.

“My son has told me quite a bit about you,” she said as Gleam stared after her.  That got her attention, and she was very quickly cantering to catch up to the mare.  “I think he did mention you would be visiting, but I forgot to leave the front entry unlocked.  Fortunately, we can get in through…”

She paused, glancing sideways at one of the walls of the manor.  Why this wall in particular was so interesting, Gleam didn’t know, there were a lot of walls like it on this house.  But Mrs. Novus, whoever she was, was scrutinizing it as though it were a speck of dirt on her perfect and immaculate dress, with a disdainful frown and narrowed eyes.

“Miss Gleam, could you hold my groceries for me for just a moment?” she asked, glancing back at her.  Gleam nodded, catching Mrs. Novus’ grocery bags in her magic and holding them aloft.  She supposed she had to give Mrs. Novus some credit since she was out buying her own food and carrying it herself instead of using a butler or a servant or something, but was she dumping the groceries on her all of a sudden because now she had the help around to do it?

Mrs. Novus continued to stare at the wall for a moment, before taking in a soft breath, pressing one of her hooves against the wall, and–

Gleam yelped as silver light flashed at the spot on the wall her hoof had been touching.  She didn’t drop the groceries, but she did wince a little bit at the sudden burst of light.  Mrs. Novus stepped back and inspected the spot with her magic.  Gleam couldn’t sense anything different about it, but what was that?

“I’m sorry for the scare,” Mrs. Novus said, collecting her groceries from Gleam in her own magic once more and gesturing for her to follow.  “There was a leak in the plumbing that I could sense, and rather than wait until it became a bigger problem, I chose to fix the problem now.”

“What was that?” Gleam asked, hurrying after her as she rounded the corner.

“Did my son not tell you I am an alchemist?” she asked, glancing back and looking surprised.  Gleam shook her head.  “Well, I am,” Mrs. Novus continued, with a small, proud smile.  “A master alchemist, as a matter of fact.  I taught him most of what he knows on the field, apart from the basics.”

“I don’t know much about alchemy,” Gleam admitted, smiling sheepishly.  Some valedictorian candidate she was.

Mrs. Novus smiled warmly back at her, but continued down the way.  Gleam hurried after her, wanting nothing more than to explore the giant garden they were in, but wanting more to keep up and be let inside.

“Not many ponies do, much less unicorns,” Mrs. Novus said with a small shake of her head.  “It is a very… different approach to spellcasting.  Where normal spellcasting depends almost entirely on willpower, alchemy requires fundamental knowledge of the sciences, and that’s in addition to a completely different way of performing a cast.  It took my son many years after learning the concepts before he could even perform basic destruction.  Making the first transmutation is always the hardest part, but once a would-be alchemist knows what it feels like, it becomes far easier.  Would you like to try?” Mrs. Novus asked, looking back at her again with a raised eyebrow.

Gleam froze.  What did she say?  Mrs. Novus was a bona fide noble after all, and a master alchemist.  Would it be rude to turn her down?  She didn’t want to make a fool of herself in front of her master’s mother.  Would she tell him if Gleam did?  Would Master Nova Shine kick her out for failing to transmute something on the first try?  Would–

Calm down, Bright Gleam.  She is merely offering to teach you, nothing more.

Gleam let out a beleaguered breath, secretly thankful Harmonia was disrupting her downward spiral of death, and nodded.

Mrs. Novus smiled, set the groceries down on the grass, placed a hoof in an open spot, and transmuted a small stone slab out of the soil, barely wider than her own hoof.

“Ray’s not going to be happy with me,” Mrs. Novus admitted with a tiny smirk.  “He hates it when I practice my alchemy in his garden, but I think your education is a little more important than the grass.”

As Gleam watched, several shapes and runes began to etch themselves into the slab, forming a circular diagram-looking carving.  Gleam recognized it as a textbook runic circle, complete with magic runes dictating the purpose of the circle once the energy was channeled.

“Nothing too major, all you need to do is channel the energy, and the workings of the circle will do the rest,” Mrs. Novus tapped the edge of it lightly.  “Now, give it your best shot.  Direct the energy through your hoof and into the stone.”

Gleam’s mouth parted, and she could feel the creeping feeling of impending failure approaching.  Direct it through her hoof!?  She’d never done that before.  She didn’t even know unicorns could do that!

Wait, no, she’d seen it happen before.  Envy had ripped open a fissure when she’d been trying to flee from Harmonia.  But, like… how did she do it?

She tentatively put her hoof on the little stone and just sort of thought about pushing the magic through her hoof, but she felt just as foolish thinking it as she felt just standing there as nothing happened.

“Don’t feel discouraged,” Mrs. Novus smiled kindly at her as Gleam looked up sheepishly.  “It’s a rare discipline for a reason.”

With that, as Gleam stepped away, Mrs. Novus tapped the stone and it immediately crumbled into dust and returned to the soil.  It was as if it had never been there at all, save for the tiny silhouette of the stone in the dirt where it had pressed down.

"Come along.  We shouldn’t keep my son waiting.”

A thought occurred as she hurried after Mrs. Novus trotting ahead of her on the gravel path.If she was so good at alchemy, and they were taking the long way around…

“If you could alchemy the pipe or whatever,” she asked, thinking back to a few moments ago, “then why couldn’t you alchemy the door open?”

Mrs. Novus hummed to herself before she answered, which made Gleam feel like she’d asked a stupid question for those brief few seconds.  However, it turned out she hadn’t.  “Because alchemy cannot do that, Bright Gleam.  In alchemy, there are four fundamental actions,” she explained as they rounded a corner into the backyard, where Gleam felt even more jealousy well up within her as she beheld a massive lawn stretching several meters back, easily three times the length of her house.  To say nothing of the width.

They’d come in through the front door on their field trip.  She’d never seen the back like this!  They were currently standing in a gap between the rear wing of the building and the back end of whatever wing traveled around, standing on bricks arranged into something resembling a back porch with a fire pit, several lawn chairs for guests, tables, it was like an outdoor restaurant out here!

“Bright Gleam?”

Gleam jumped, turning back around to find Mrs. Novus standing by a back door into the house, which she had opened and was holding ajar for her.

“Sorry!” Gleam hurried to trot inside the massive rich pony kitchen now revealed to them.  “Just… never seen that yard before.”

“Hm,” Mrs. Novus hummed again.  Gleam could feel her eyes staring into her soul, judging her guilty of being poor as she set her groceries down on the massive kitchen island.  “I find it overly large, to be honest.  It’s a chore to maintain.  Ray and I have discussed selling the land to make room for other endeavors, but we haven’t done anything just yet.  In any case…”

Gleam looked around the restaurant-sized kitchen, with its fifty bajillion different pots, pans, cutlery, and everything else hanging from the pristine walls before just mentally shutting herself off from being wowed by all the Rich Pony stuff she was going to see over the next several minutes.

“Nova, I have returned, and your apprentice is with me.  Her guard remains outside,” Mrs. Novus said aloud to no one in particular, her horn glowing silver.  Gleam watched her for a moment, letting out a tiny squeak as a trail of silver light flew out of her horn and zipped somewhere else in the house.  With that, another silver glimmer began to put the groceries and foodstuffs away.

“Continuing from before,” she said, as Gleam watched the food arrange itself into different cabinets, “alchemy’s four actions are construction, destruction, transmutation, and reshaping.  Unfortunately, none of those actions are practical for unlocking a door.  Do you know why?”

Gleam felt the invisible Spotlight of Judgment on her once more and the nervousness crept back in, but after a moment spent thinking about the four words in question, it clicked into place.

“Well, construction and destruction are breaking something down or putting it together, right?”

“Correct,” Mrs. Novus nodded.

She felt the confidence grow.  “And transmutation is changing elements from one to another, right?”

“Also correct.”

“And reshaping is just rearranging the physical pattern of the element into something else, right?  Like, turning a cube of steel into a sphere?”

“Precisely,” Mrs. Novus beamed.

Wow, it actually all made sense now!  “But you’re leaving the lock alone, just ‘turning the key’ with magic, right?  So you’re not using any of the fundamental actions.”

“Beautiful, Bright Gleam.  My son chose his apprentice well,” Mrs. Novus nodded approvingly.

“But why not just use normal magic to open it?” Gleam asked, fighting back the warm and fuzzies currently welling up inside.

Mrs. Novus let out a tiny chuckle, shutting some cabinets as their contents finished arranging themselves.  “My husband designed our locks.  The tumblers within are made of inmanipulon, I’m afraid.  Magic will have no effect on them, and there are countermeasures to detect traditional means of compromising security.  And for that matter, my alchemy would do nothing either.”

“Umm…” Gleam frowned, remembering some of her lessons from school, “I thought inmanipulon was hard to come by.  Like, it’s really rare, isn’t it?”

“It was quite rare, not even all that long ago.  However, in recent months, its supply has significantly increased, but it remains very expensive to mine and transport,” Mrs. Novus trotted out of the kitchen now that her groceries were put away, with Gleam tailing her as they made their way toward a sitting room.  “Do you know where most inmanipulon comes from?”

“Arstrotzka, right?”  She remembered reading something about this once.

“Yes, most of the inmanipulon we have is mined and exported from Stalliongrad in particular, but more than that, a large deposit of it covers the southeastern edges of Arstrotzka and the northern reaches of what’s left of Centauria, where the Eternal Winter still rages.”

Gleam shivered at the thought of it.  Equestria’d had a taste of the Eternal Winter when the Terrible Trio had let the Windigoes loose on the land once more.  She loved cold weather, but even she had her limits.  To think that a winter had been raging for nearly 1,300 years in that corner of the world…

There was a knocking sound, and Gleam was jolted out of her thoughts.  Master Nova Shine was stepping in.

“Find you way in, okay?” he asked.  

“Yeah,” she nodded.  “I forgot about the key under the back rug, but your mom was nice enough to let me in anyway.”

“Thanks Mom,” he said, trotting over to give her a quick hug, before gesturing and turning back toward the way he’d come in.  “Follow me, Gleam.”

“Wait.  Was… wasn’t your mom the one you wanted me to meet?  Or is it your dad?”

“Neither,” Master Nova Shine shook his head.  Mrs. Novus clenched her eyes shut at that and seemed to sag, before she excused herself and trotted out back again.  Nova watched her go for a moment, before he resumed trotting with her in tow.

“So… who is it?”

“You’ll see,” he replied mysteriously as he led her through a large dining room with artwork and tapestries and chandeliers, and a whole lot of rich pony stuff scattered around it.  “It’s not the easiest story to tell.  Just stay close to me.  It’s easy to get lost.”

She took his word for it, although the trip to the manor’s foyer was easy enough.  Another massive room with a mezzanine, tapestries, the Novus Family Crest everywhere, and all sorts of other rich pony collectibles, but eventually Master Nova Shine led her to an archway tucked away in an inner room with a set of marble steps that led down.

“These lead to the Novus family catacombs,” he said, already trotting down without waiting.  “I used to hate this place, but… well, recent events have changed that.”

Catacombs? Gleam thought, scrunching her muzzle as they descended well beneath the ground.  Like, dead pony catacombs?  Who could be down here that he’d want me to meet?

She had been expecting a sort of decaying cave system, not a clean, well maintained marble sanctuary beneath the ground.  The walls and decorations were chiseled marble, cast in slight shadow because of the magic lighting scattered throughout this short cave system.  There were several large black rectangular plaques arranged on the walls, each with a name and dates on them, as well as a family crest.  Not all were Novuses; some had the Heartstrings crest, or the Belleblood crest, though a lot of them had the Lulamoon crest on them.  A moment later, she realized these were all the graves.  There were empty alcoves further down, but the ones that weren’t were covered by these plaques.

There wasn’t even a rotten smell of any kind.  Quite the contrary, the whole area smelled of incense and flowers.  It was… oddly peaceful down here.

But there were also large statues that stood in intermittent alcoves as well.  Famous Novuses throughout history, no doubt.  One of them showed a stallion wearing a cape much like Master Nova Shine’s, with a short, neatly kept main brushed back, staring impassively at the wall opposite him.  The plaque just underneath him read:


COMET NOVUS
2 OCTOBER 20 BNM - 12 OCTOBER 58 ANM


“I met him, believe it or not.”

Gleam jumped, glancing over to her master, who was also looking at the statue.

“You did?”

“Very briefly, but yeah,” he nodded.  “When I was on my way back to this time, Celestia pulled me out on the night Luna was corrupted.  Comet and I joined forces to battle Envy, and then we joined forces with Celestia to take up the Elements of Harmony and fight Nightmare Moon.”

His gaze flicked away toward another statue for just a moment, before falling to the floor.

“That led to all of this,” he muttered, gesturing at himself, then to everything around him.  “My oversaturation, Harmonia’s Gift, everything.  If Celestia hadn’t pulled me out, none of this would have happened.”

He sighed, before turning his attention and trotting down the hall to another statue.  This one was a lot smaller, and right at the end of the series of occupied crypts.  It was a much newer statue, and it depicted a filly not too much younger than her, maybe by only a few years.  Her hair was just as wild and carelessly tossed about as her master’s, but in a more mareish way.

“Gleam,” he said, his voice remaining soft as he trotted over to a blank plaque next to the statue’s, and tapped it lightly with his hoof, “I’d like you to meet my sister Glimmer.”

Gleam’s mouth parted as she stared at the statue.  She didn’t know what to do, or what to say.  What do you say when your master just casually reveals they have a deceased sibling like this?

“I don’t remember her,” he admitted, tapping the statue’s plaque.  “She died when I was not quite three years old.”


GLIMMER NOVUS
26 JUNE 970 - 29 JULY 984


“H-how?” she asked softly, to which Master Nova Shine shook his head.

“Not my story to tell, I’m afraid,” he answered, staring at the statue with a strange, faraway look in his eyes.  “I’ve just been… thinking about her a lot lately.”

There was a loud clunk.  Gleam jumped and turned her head back to the entrance of the catacombs in time to see Mrs. Novus trotting down.  As she stepped toward the two of them, however, her eyes also fell on the statue, but she quickly turned herself away from it, and Gleam was startled to notice she was suddenly fighting back tears.

“I thought you hated coming down here,” Master Nova Shine said, watching her as she positioned herself facing away from the statue.  Gleam felt a pang of sympathy for her.  It couldn’t be easy to look at the statue of a dead child.

“I do,” Mrs. Novus whispered, before clearing her throat.  “But… You wanted me to tell her, didn’t you?”

“Only if you wish to,” Master Nova Shine replied softly.

Mrs. Novus stared at the ground for a long time.  Gleam wondered if she was going to tell them, but then the matriarch took a deep breath.

“Glimmer was… she was the apple of my husband’s eye, Bright Gleam.  She adored Nova after he was born.  She was just so full of joy and laughter, and she was sharp as a tack!”

Mrs. Novus covered the side of her face with a hoof, fighting back tears even harder.

“She and Shining Armor were so close that, once upon a time, Vel and I thought they were going to end up married when they grew up.  For me?  She was… a s-second chance.”

“Second chance?” Gleam’s mouth parted.

“I… do not have the cleanest history, Bright Gleam,” Mrs. Novus admitted with a tiny shake of her head.  “Nova doesn’t know all of it, not even my husband does.  They know, but they know I can’t tell them everything.  The only one who knows all of it is Princess C-Celestia.  When I had Glimmer, I thought… I thought she was my chance to do something good.  To leave behind a positive legacy.”

She let out a deep sigh, before sniffling.

“Bright Gleam,” she began, still not looking up from the marble floor, “when you were a few years younger, did you suffer from Star Swirl Sickness?  Or just acute mana poisoning?”

“Star Swirl Sickness,” she answered, remembering those few days and grimacing.  The headaches, the burning, the inability to focus or even use the most basic magic, and because of her parents’ situation, she’d been forced to just deal with it without painkillers or medicine.  It was an awful, awful memory, to say the least.

“Do you know the specifics?”

“A little,” Gleam shrugged.

Mrs. Novus bowed her head.  “Most unicorn foals deal with acute mana poisoning as their body reconstructs the maniac pathways between Source and horn.  Some mana leaks out, causes some known symptoms, but usually dissipates in a short time.  Some lucky unicorns, such as yourself or my son,” she gestured to Nova, “have larger than average Sources, and so more mana leaks into the body.  More mana causes more problems.”

She let out a long breath, before wiping her eyes, still refusing to look in the direction of the statue.

“Glimmer… I th-thought she only had mana poisoning.  I had her take painkillers, I had her lie down, I followed all of the directions.  But it didn’t go away after those first couple of days.  It only got worse.”

Mrs. Novus sniffed, looking longingly at the stairs back into the manor, but soldiered on.

“I took her to the hospital.  They examined her.  Came back and told me what it really was, and that…” she took a small, shuddering breath, “that they had to run more tests, but they asked me why I hadn’t brought her in s-sooner.”

Mrs. Novus clenched her eyes shut and fell on her haunches.  “I d-didn’t know what Star Swirl sickness was,” she confessed, still bravely keeping it together.  “I d-didn’t kn-now how m-much danger she was actually in.”

Tremors started to wrack her body as she pawed away the tears.

“The doctors came back and s-said that dangerous amounts of m-mana had leaked into her body.  M-most of it would go away, but s-some of it had leaked into… into…”  She bit off the end of her sentence, letting out a choked sob before she could finish.

“The m-mana had leaked into her heart.”

Gleam felt the bottom drop out of her stomach.  Beside her, Master Nova Shine looked dead-eyed, staring at the statue of his deceased sister almost unblinkingly.

“They s-said they n-needed to transplant it, or else there was a h-high risk it could crystalize and… and… and if they did transpl-lant, it could des-stabilize her heart and do the same thing!”

She was taking great, heaving breaths now, fighting desperately to keep her voice level and to avoid bursting into tears.

“I d-didn’t kn-now what to do!” she cried, clutching at her head.  “I just didn’t w-want my little f-filly to h-hurt!”

And with that, she could go no further.  She shoved a hoof into her mouth and fought her hardest to keep herself from breaking down completely, holding back her tears, fighting her shudders, trying desperately to keep everything together.

“The mana crystalized while she struggled to make a decision,” Master Nova Shine finished, his voice only just above a whisper.  “Tore her heart to ribbons.  There was no time to transplant a working heart in, and Glimmer… my s-sister…”

He bit off the end of that sentence too, looking back at the statue.  Gleam felt that strange, unpleasant feeling of vertigo as the implication set in.  Gleam died because Mrs. Novus didn’t know what to do and froze in the moment.

Just like she had.

At once, any negative feelings she’d had toward her own mom only so long ago disappeared in an instant.  But what would happen when MAster Nova Shine had to tell her that he was also dying?

“Dad was… never the same after that,” he continued, seemingly gaining composure as he went.  “I used to think Dad neglected me because he thought of me as an inadequate successor.  But… no.  He was afraid.  Glimmer was everything to him, and she was ripped from his life.  My dad was afraid that I was going to do the same thing, and in his grief and his fear, he shut himself off from me.”

He clenched his eyes shut, before taking a great gulp.

“And now…” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper.  “Now I am being ripped away from them.”

“Wh-what?” Mrs. Novus asked, her mouth parting as she stared at Nova uncomprehendingly.  "Nova, what?"

He gave one last tortured look to her before he returned his attention to his mother.

“Mom, I’m…” Master Nova Shine whispered, tears starting to fall from the corner of his eyes.  “I’m dying.”

Silence fell over the catacombs as that last statement hung in the air.  Mrs. Novus stared at her son, processing what he had said, her bottom lip quivering as Master Nova Shine held her gaze, yet brushing his own tears away.

“Wh… what?” she asked.

“I’m… I only have a few months left to live.  The mana in me is coming back too fast, and at some point, I won’t be able to contain all of it.”

He reached forward and grabbed hold of one of her hooves.

“I-I’m dying.”

Once again, all she could do was stare at him for a long moment.

Then the dam broke, and and the brave face Shimmer Novus had put on shattered.  The tears began to fall.  She pressed a hoof to her mouth to muffle herself, but she began to weep, falling to her haunches and letting out a haunting scream that echoed around the marble hall as she curled in on herself.

Gleam could only stand there helplessly, even as her master knelt down to try his best to comfort her.  Even as they clung on to each other, Mrs. Novus sobbing into her son’s shoulder, Gleam felt her eyes be pulled back to the statue of the filly, and she stared at the filly’s unseeing eyes as she realized another implication.

Master Nova Shine’s passing would mean that his family’s future would end with him when that day came.  The Novus family would come to an end with its last children, brother and sister, together in death.





Celestia let out a tiny breath of boredom as yet another priceless antique delicate thing gifted to her and Luna from some visiting nobleman hundreds of years ago soared through the air to smash against her living room wall.

Honestly, they’d acquired too many of them over the years.  While she was glad they were being cleared out in what looked like a fun way to relieve stress, it hurt her to no end to know that it was her most faithful student taking out every last ounce of her rage and her pain on things she owned.

Twilight’s fur was white, her mane was blazing shades of purple, blue, and black and everything in between yet again, her eyes glowing violet with the intensity of the power within her, the room was at a nearly unbearable temperature despite the cool autumn outside, and yet Celestia didn’t feel it in the slightest.

Powerful though Twilight was and intense though her flame burned, Celestia could feel the Fire deep within her rousing at the thought of a challenger, protecting her from the heat that scorched her home, but she smothered that unwelcome side of her and bore every last bit of Twilight Sparkle’s rage as Twilight sent a vintage Faberge egg all the way from Stalliongrad hurtling through her window.

How she’d managed to set a sculpture crafted from enamel, jewels, and metal on fire was actually quite impressive.

“Twilight.”

Oh, there went a small statuette of a Germane prince.  A shame, she’d been fond of that one.

“Twilight, please.”

Luna’s second-favorite astronomical telescope careened past her, smashing into the wall and exploding into broken pieces of wood and glass.

“We both know this isn’t helping.”

The marble and onyx chess set with gem-encrusted pieces soared into the wall this time and bounced harmlessly off of it.  Celestia was starting to become quite impressed with the construction.  After the Terrible Trio’s attack, the architects had truly made this house quite durable.

She calmly sipped from a teacup that was sitting in front of her, savoring how the heat of the room had kept it warm (as all tea should be), before gently setting it down in front of her, next to the rest of the untouched alabaster sun-emblazoned tea set and quietly letting Twilight continue to fling every worthless valuable item her magic could reach in every direction.

Her guards dutifully hadn’t rushed in to protect her, though Celestia wondered if it was because they were too afraid to.

Twilight snarled at her through burning purple eyes, her teeth grit, her breath coming in shallow, sharp gasps.  This part actually surprised her, normally her eyes burned red when she shifted into her Elemental form, but if they were burning purple, that spoke volumes to her emotional state and to the level of power she had at her disposal.

“Are you feeling any better” Celestia asked her apprentice.

Angry stare.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Her horn glimmered gold and a cardboard box full of more priceless worthless trinkets popped into existence next to Twilight.  “Will smashing these help?”

She was actually impressed how quickly Twilight got through that box, lightly tilting her head to avoid a wayward Maretryoshka doll that had bounced off the wall and ricocheted toward her ear.  The doll bopped Twilight instead, who snarled even more deeply down at the doll, reared back, and started stamping it as hard as she could, trying to crush it into powder.  This whole day was just full of impressive surprises.

Celestia poured herself another cup.  This was actually going better than expected.

Once Twilight was content with the state of the ruined doll, she rounded back on Celestia.  This time, Celestia was pleased to see that her purple eyes had faded back to red.  She was tuckering herself out.  In a few more moments, the fires would probably flicker down to more tolerable levels, or maybe fade entirely, leaving the lilac coat and navy mane she normally wore, and then red eyes would fade back to purple once again.  How odd, from purple at no fire, to red at some fire, to purple at max fire, then back down again.

“How about now?”

Twilight let out an angry huff.

“Feel free to continue destroying my property, Twilight.  I have far too many trinkets and not enough space for them.”

“IS THIS ALL JUST A GAME TO YOU!?”

“All of what?” Celestia arched an eyebrow.  You decimating the many gifts I have received over the centuries?  No, I provided it as a way to take out your anger at me on things I care nothing for.”

The flames fizzled out and the whiteness of her coat faded, leaving behind a tired, singed young alicorn who was trying to maintain her anger, but flagging after demolishing her collection of unwanted paperweights.

“You know what I mean,” Twilight growled at her.  “Moving us all around like pieces on a game board, manipulating us, only telling us just what we need to know and no more, no matter who gets killed because of the things you did or didn’t say?”

Celestia inhaled a sharp breath.  Straight to the point.

She delicately took a sip of her tea once more as she carefully chose her words, before gently setting the cup down, the tiny clink as cup met saucer somehow thunderous in the silent room.

“Twilight,” she said quietly, meeting Twilight’s glare with a cool stare of her own, “do you truly believe that I care nothing for my little ponies?”

“You certainly act like it,”Twilight spat.

“Perhaps I do,” Celestia conceded with a tiny shrug.  “Perhaps the throne on which I sit has elevated me so far above my subjects that they all look like game pieces to me.  Is that what you believe?”

Twilight’s glare only grew stronger, but she didn’t answer.  Thus, Celestia continued.

“Would you believe me if I told you that I did not tell you or Nova about this because I cared about both of you?”

“Hah!  You hid things from us for our own benefit, ooh that’s a good one,” Twilight jeered, a mocking smile splitting her face before it was replaced with the usual snarl today.  “I’ll be sure to remember that when I’m the one sitting on that elevated throne in a few months.”

“Twilight,” Celestia replied evenly.  “Humor me for a moment.  Just a moment.  That is all I am asking.”

“And all I ever asked for was to learn magic from you, and now you’ve groomed me into your replacement while getting my fiancee killed,” Twilight cut her off scathingly.  

“Twilight,” Celestia said again, adding just the tiniest dash of a hard edge to her voice.  Twilight, ever her faithful student, recognized the warning in her voice and backed down.  They may be equals as princesses, but she was still the one in charge until Twilight was coronated.

She appreciated Twilight’s candor with her, she truly did, especially when so many elevated her just as much as she claimed her throne did.  But if she was ever to get her point across, she would have to put her hoof down.

“Fine,” Twilight said, her voice forcibly kept flat.  “You say you did it because you care about us. How?”

“Have a seat,” Celestia indicated the opposite couch.  Twilight took a spot grudgingly.  “Tea?”  Celestia offered the teapot and an empty cup.  Twilight drank it as though it were grape-flavored medicine.  “Comfortable?”  Twilight nodded, and Celestia could almost hear her teeth grating.  “Good.”

She drew in a deep breath, before deliberately choosing possibly the most provocative phrasing of her point that she could.

“I hid it because of Nova Shine.”

It had the desired effect.  Twilight’s eyes narrowed dangerously, and once again, Celestia saw her mane and tail begin to flicker.

“Celestia…” she hissed through bared teeth.

“Twilight, I ask you to look at things as objectively as possible,” Celestia continued calmly.  “When we first were made aware of the fact that Nova Shine’s magical capacity was above normal expectations, it was still within the acceptable range.  He went from merely having roughly the average manatic capacity to the top of the standard distribution.  We measured this four years ago, when we invited the two of you out to the San Palomino, do you recall?”

Twilight nodded tensely, and Celestia was happy to see the flicker go out.  Hopefully it wouldn’t have charred the sofa.  Luna would be irate if she had.

“First, we were concerned that our equipment was faulty, but after investigating that and finding that everything was calibrated correctly, we recognized that Nova’s capacity and depth had grown beyond expectations in a short time.  We were worried, and we did discuss whether we should inform you, but we decided to keep an eye from afar and see if it were nothing more than a false alarm.  After all, how would he have reacted if we’d told him?”

Twilight’s anger was replaced for a moment with uncertainty, then unease.  Celestia knew she had to be thinking what she and Luna both had thought years ago.  If Nova had known that using his magic, the very thing that brought him more joy than anything in the world except perhaps the love of his life, was slowly killing him, it was impossible to predict what he would have done.

Would he have broken down and blown up like he had a few weeks back?  Probably not, given that breakdown was the result of mental trauma piling up, but what else was he capable of?  Would he turn against them on principle, like he had when Luna had told him that they had plans for him?  Would it be enough to make him sever ties entirely?  What would he have done?

“So Luna and I agreed that the best thing we could do for all of us was to bide our time,” Celestia continued as Twilight’s unease deepened the more she thought about it.  “He would have to be told at some point, there was no way this could be hidden forever, so it was always in our plans to inform you.  But we believed that if we found a possible solution to this problem, then it would mostly alleviate the outcomes we feared.  He could have his misgivings about us hiding things from him again,” she added, seeing Twilight’s small snarl, “but he would at least be alive to have those.”

Twilight’s eyes widened slightly.  “That’s why you decided to train him to become the Archmage!” she realized.

Celestia nodded.

“We believed if he expended a regular amount of energy each day, it would delay the effects, buying all of us more time to find a cure that he would accept.”

“Then he was right,” Twilight said, a look of dawning horror and outrage.  “He was right this whole time!”

“Right about what?” Celestia asked, feeling unnerved.

“You didn’t make him the Archmage because he’d earned it,” Twilight snarled at her.  “You made him the Archmage to cover up you not telling him!  He was right!”

“Not true,” Celestia snapped, raising her voice for the first time that day.  “Yes, the timing is suspect.  But there’s a reason Luna and I agreed to train him to become the Archmage rather than simply toss the position his way.  You of all ponies should know better than to accuse me of being that flippant with royal titles, Crown-Princess.”

Twilight winced and had the decency to look ashamed of herself.  Celestia truly did not mean to be so personal with her, but if it was the only way to chastise her and to calm her down in such a state, then she would happily be cruel to be kind.  Twilight had learned well from her.  Too well, if she were honest.  She had even inherited some of Celestia’s flaws, such as her constant failings when it came to omission, and now her and Nova’s relationship was suffering because of things not said yet discovered all the same.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” she continued softly, shaking her head.  “We ran the numbers many times, and they all pointed to Nova’s training as the Archmage and then ascending to the position successfully buying him years of additional time.  But everything changed because he repeatedly had his magic stolen from him by Tirek and Cozy Glow.”

Twilight’s mouth parted, and Celestia was pleased to see the horror once again, subject aside.  It only proved she was as sharp as ever and was already drawing conclusions.

“His system tried to replace magic it couldn’t,” she realized.  “The feedback loop accelerated and accelerated each time his magic was taken from him, and…”

“And what was once years of additional time had become months.  Maybe even weeks.  There’s no way to know for certain.”

“And you didn’t know?” Twilight demanded.  “You knew about this, but you didn’t know about the acceleration?  You couldn’t see what effect it had?  When did you know that things had changed?”

Celestia remembered the moment well.  She felt the emotions just as strongly as she had on that day, even though she’d had weeks to come to terms with it.

“The day Nova Shine walked into this room with a bruised face and walked out without one.”

Twilight deflated, her head bowing.  “When you saw him heal.  When it was too late to pretend it was something else.”

“Yes,” Celestia also lowered her gaze.  “When it was clear that it had accelerated to a point where his daily mana expense could not be in balance with his regeneration.  Tirek and Cozy Glow had completely upended our efforts to buy all of us more time to find a solution.”

Silence fell over the room.  Twilight was no doubt glaring at her once again.  Deep down, Celestia could not blame her.  Twilight was right to be angry with her.  But more than that, Twilight needed to learn that sometimes, she had to make the best decision she could off of incomplete information.  Twilight preferred to have everything available when making a choice so she could make the most informed one.  But sometimes she wouldn’t have that.  And sometimes, she would get choices wrong.

“Why is it that everyone miscalculates,” she spat out the word like it was something unpleasant in her food, “and he has to die for it?”

“There is still a possibility that he may live,” Celestia replied.  Even she didn’t believe the words that came out of her mouth, though.  For all that Star Swirl said that the Crown of Life was capable of, Celestia did not trust it.  She was all too aware of the trappings of power, and from a certain point of view, that Crown was a shackle in its own right.  Would Nova Shine willingly chain himself to it?

Twilight also didn’t look convinced, just giving her a hard look, but otherwise saying nothing.

Regardless,” Celestia continued, dismissing the topic for now, “I endorse Lord Star Swirl’s search for the Gems and the Crown.  Given the threat it poses in Sombra’s hooves, I believe it is, bar none, your most important task.  Whatever your feelings toward me after what I did not say, I believe it is important that we all work toward securing the Crown and the gems that compose it.”

“Nova doesn’t like the idea of bringing all the gems and the Crown together,” Twilight replied, a harsh edge to her voice.  “He thinks all it does is make them easier for Sombra to pluck from us and assemble.  Lord Star Swirl says he has a reason for them.  Did he tell you?”

Celestia shook her head.  She could almost see the tiniest of vindictive smiles on Twilight’s face as she did.

“Fine,” Twilight said, before taking a deep breath and assuming a more neutral expression.  “You are not forgiven, Celestia.  But we do need to work together, don’t we?”

Celestia smiled humorlessly.

“Was there ever any doubt, my Faithful Student?

“No, I guess not,” Twilight frowned again, before leaning back against the sofa.  “I can only wonder how Nova and Luna are going to patch things up.  Or even if they’ll patch things up.”

That one Celestia couldn’t fight.  She felt a painful pang in her chest at that statement.  Nova was quite possibly the pony her sister was closest to on this world, including herself.  If that rift had been irreparably damaged because of her…

“He may surprise us,” Celestia admitted.  “Time and again, he finds the most unexpected way to come through in the end.  I only hope he and Luna can do it sooner rather than later.”

Twilight and Celestia spent the remainder of the afternoon civilly preparing for her responsibilities in Day Court the next day.  Meanwhile, only a few miles away, Nova Shine put the finishing touches on his own little little surprise.

Truthfully, he wanted nothing more than to go and reveal it now.  However, he knew it would have to wait until Day Court for maximum effect.

And maximum chaos.