The stool clattered when Princess Platinum shot back, pressing herself up against the dresser so suddenly that the mirrors rocked back and forth. Her teeth chattered.
Celestia strode forwards, slow and patient as death. Below her unshod hooves, the carpet blackened. Slight flames flickered for a short time before fading away.
“D-D-D-Duchess Celest-t-tia!” Platinum tittered, her head twisting to and fro, her foreleg raised either as a shield or as a prelude to fleeing. “Th-This is a most un-unorthod-d-d-dox meeting, ahahaha. Y-You know better than not to apply for an appointment. Wh-What brings you here?”
“A fair cop,” said Celestia. It was all she could do not to breathe heavily.
Platinum’s gaze darted towards the treasure chests. They were piled up at the foot of the bed. Most unicorns would’ve kept a music box or a small travelling case.
“Interestingly enough, no.” Celestia passed the midway point, right below the chandelier and flanked several yards either side by bouquets mounted on torch brackets. “Clover taught me that particular lesson. ‘To cop’ comes from capere, Old Unicornian for ‘capturing’. It has nothing to do with ‘copper’.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Platinum shook so much the mirrors vibrated. “I-I’m sure that F-Father would be most pleased to see you, but r-really you should be reporting directly to him. I-I never get involved in p-politics or m-m-military m-matters.”
You’re talking too much. I don’t want to see you squirm, but…
No. I really want to see you squirm. If Clover had been just a second too late, I’d have been cooling in some soldier’s grave while you were listening to the musicians playing on.
“I want the truth, Your Highness,” said Celestia. Five reflections of her closed in behind the princess.
Barely inches above the wide eyes, the bared teeth, the neck trying to collapse in on itself, she stopped. If she lowered her horn now, she’d spear the princess through the garnet of the crown.
Naturally, a duchess would be due for the chopping block for getting this close to a royal. Even now, Celestia’s heart cried at her for making the mare almost flatten herself against the drawers. Nevertheless, the Lieutenant’s blade flashed through her memory. Iron cut cleanly through magic, and other things besides.
Celestia’s horn glowed. Platinum flinched, but lowered both cannons. One of the chests sprang open. Coins rattled inside, and three zipped through the air to hover between them.
“Coppers.” Celestia shook her head sadly. “No one would dare search a royal bedroom, would they?”
Platinum steeled her face. “I’m perfectly capable of owning common coinage, Your Grace.”
At the word “common”, Celestia winced. Instead, she turned the coin over and over. Despite the low light of sunset through the stained glass, her magical aura was enough to pick out the engravings.
“Not these coins, I imagine,” she murmured. More calmly than her beating heart, she spoke to the twirling coin. “Copper is certainly a wonderful substance, Your Highness. Energy flows through it. Did you know Clover and I were working on a means of channelling power through copper pieces? And of course, it’s useful in everyday, common ways too; the earth pony smithies combine it with tin to craft bronze. And pegasus ponies adore the material. They use it for razors, pumps and aqueducts, treasure boxes, little twisted bits of artwork… even musical instruments like harps and lyres.”
“Well yes, yes of course.” Relief quavered through each syllable. “I mean, I am an aficionado for all things pegasine, ahahaha. Nothing strange about common coin collections in a lady’s boudoir, is there not?”
Celestia stared past the coin. “Then you know all about the beliefs of the Ancient Pegasine Empire?”
Platinum’s grin creased the skin around her face. Behind her neck, the faux fur pelt slid past her shoulders.
“Vaguely?” she said.
“Therefore, of course, the ancient goddess of the pegasi – Cup Rum – would be too obvious to mention.”
“Cup Rum. But of course. I knew it was on the tip of my tongue.”
“And you hardly need me to point out how they came to associate copper with her most loving traits: its softness, its flexibility, or its ability to stretch further than most metals ever manage. All ancient history, I assume, to one as well-read as yourself.”
“Clover might have mentioned one or two little lessons, yes.” Platinum’s hoof groped on the chest of drawers.
“In fact, that’s what attracted unicorn alchemists over the ages to copper. Pegasus chronicles often mention its power to help release energy. Clover and I – and many others before us – believe there’s something in these ancient lessons. Copper helps to give us life. So far, we’ve found traces of it in the most unexpected of places: almonds, sunflower seeds, bran. All staples of the pegasine diet. One might say it accounts for their incredible drive, if not necessarily their intelligence.”
“Um, right. I suppose I could –” This time, Platinum had the sense to cut herself off. Hastily, she looked away from the stare.
“So it’s really quite sweet of you to keep them close by. I imagine that would be a most touching gesture, if anyone outside this room knew about it.”
Platinum if anything turned paler. The three coins zipped back to the chest, which slammed shut. Celestia breathed in the lavender caresses and the tickle of bath salts. Mixed in now was the acrid stench of fear.
“Listen,” whispered Platinum, “I-I didn’t want to do it. Th-That’s why I sent Clover out after you. I-I had to make sure no one suspected anything. I-I mean, a mage figuring things out on her own? Does not Star Swirl the Bearded see all and hear all and know all? Why n-not his own ap-p-p-prentice?”
“Didn’t want to do what, Your Highness?”
Platinum’s gaze travelled up to the horn. “Oh, for pity’s sake. If you’re going to end me now, then please do so! I can’t stand all this, this suspense and playing around! Oh, you are a ruffian!”
“Had I wanted to end you now, I assure you we would not be talking at all.” Celestia closed her eyes and swelled with the breath coming in. “I do not play around. I only talk when I think there’s a hopeful chance of learning something. Besides, why on earth would I want to end your life?”
Because she’s overdue a little hardship. Because she sleeps in a four-poster bed while Clover sleeps on flagstones in the corridor. Because she thinks a little smile and the odd polite word makes up for years and years of treating ponies as nothing but her servants. Because she told soldiers to look away while I was to be beheaded by a coward.
Celestia willed herself not to twitch a single muscle in her face. She could not give in to the anger.
She leaned back. Platinum stopped shaking.
“It wasn’t me!” the princess squeaked, throwing herself at Celestia’s hooves. “I was just supposed to give the instructions!”
“What instructions?”
“They said they only wanted to be rid of any sympathizers. Sympathizers! Ponies who actually like living in Equestria together, instead of fighting those brutish scuffles with those dirty earth ponies and those rough-and-tumble pegasi!”
Deep within Celestia’s head, a little version of herself ground its teeth together. Dirty earth ponies? Rough-and-tumble pegasi? She knows Smart Cookie and Private Pansy herself. How can she be so blind?
Then she realized that was the wrong question. How could she not be blind? Until the union, that was all anyone had known. Unicorns looked down their noses at everyone. Pegasi always said “What are you looking at?” before kicking you. The average earth pony couldn’t find their cutie mark without a map and someone to stop them chasing their own tails forever.
Princess Platinum had greeted the first settlers with open forelimbs and a gracious smile. Rumour had it that she occasionally hugged Clover, though everyone passed this on with a snigger and a “yeah, right” or equivalent. And she had taken to the new opportunities for being pampered, certainly. Fermented juices were only the start.
Platinum slipped past her and paced from side to side, from one bouquet to another. Patiently, Celestia followed her progress, head swivelling.
“What’s wrong with the union?” said Celestia gently. “Apologies, pardon me: what specifically is wrong with it?”
Princess Platinum barked a laugh. “Nothing whatsoever. Dear me, why on earth would there be? I have nothing against earth ponies myself, nor have I a quarrel with even the most quarrelsome of pegasi. One must keep an open mind, after all. They do constitute the salt of the earth and the proud warriors of the sky, do they not?”
Not trusting herself to speak, Celestia inspected the novelty glazed cauldron beside the bedstead. ‘Salt of the earth’. ‘Proud warriors of the sky’. In principle, they were compliments. It didn’t matter that Cookie preferred the unicornian pastime of archery, or that Private Pansy would sooner don an earth pony’s gardening hat than a pegasine war helmet. Even Clover had spent more time practising magic shields and bolts on frontier armies than she’d ever spent mixing alchemical acids. Star Swirl’s monthly travels had seen to that.
She wasn’t surprised to see the cauldron was copper-bottomed. “How lucky for me that Clover was ready and waiting.”
Platinum stiffened in mid-stride. It lasted several heartbeats. “Yes,” she said, not quite hiding the sniff.
Celestia peered at the copper finish, or at least she leaned down and made a point of inclining her head. Despite her casual look, her knees were tensed, her ears upright, her mouth a thin line. Fortunately, Platinum knew better than to be fooled by it. She hadn’t bolted for the door, despite the lack of obstacles.
“I wonder now,” Celestia murmured to the cauldron’s eyelash engravings, “if anyone else was less fortunate than me.”
After all, several unicorns had vanished in recent months, ever since the Pax Equestriana had been declared. Lord Gleamberry had apparently been kidnapped by a pegasus supremacist party, in spite of there being no feathers or witnesses to prove pegasi had even seen the mansion. Lady Rotunda supposedly died of a heart attack, and the coroners had mysteriously abandoned the investigation and moved from huts to houses with two more storeys. Most of the rest had been no-rankers with a tendency to shout on street corners. Whoever the unseen criminals were, they targeted practically any unicorn who made a speech about the need for earth-pegasus-unicorn pony unity.
Although, oddly, none of the victims were pegasi or earth ponies. They could still shout on street corners.
Platinum stood still in the middle of the room and glanced at her. Both cheeks were reddening, either with heat or with shame.
You owe me your life, thought Celestia. As though it was happening there and then, she could see Platinum on the pile of mattresses, sleeping mask drawn up. It was the last time she ever opened any of the windows, however much she moaned and whined about the stuffiness puffing up her skin.
The snake slithering out of the dark and stars beyond. A thump on the carpet. A shine of metallic scales, crossing the next window, winding up the bed, leaving drops of venom like breadcrumbs.
Triggering the nexus spell.
Clover and Celestia bursting in. Both summoning the snake from the quilts. Both smashing the windows and dragging through six pegasi in dark tunics, with red feathers protruding from behind their ears. Pansy-petitioners, they’d found out later. Ironically, the would-be assassins had complained about being treated like brutes.
Platinum, screaming. Throwing herself onto Celestia’s hooves. Kissing and thanking her over and over and over.
“I’m not the first one you’ve condemned,” said Celestia quietly. Her voice was the tumble of a pebble, minutes away from the whole mountainside giving way. “Am I, Platinum?”
“I didn’t want to do it.” The princess resumed pacing, trying to walk out of her own living nightmare. “I didn’t want to do it. I used to do everything for him: attend the intertribal summits, seek out new land, make decrees on behalf of the kingdom. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. Ever since the union, he’s been making stranger and stranger requests.”
“For ‘him’?” said Celestia.
Too late, Platinum rammed a hoof into her mouth.
“Why would ‘he’ be giving instructions to you? Forgive me if I misunderstand, but you must have told the entire kingdom by now about your support for Puddinghead and Hurricane. Hardly an enemy of the union’s supporters, are you? Moreover, you are a princess. I should think those qualities alone would make you the last pony to be wiping out politicals on someone else’s say-so.”
“I’m… I’m just… well-connected…”
Celestia straightened up. “True.” And even better; you’re unpopular. You can’t string two-and-two together without Clover’s help. You whine and wheedle so much anyway that a little more after you’re caught won’t shake anyone’s beliefs about you. Even the unicorn nobles only put up with you because you’re the King’s daughter. In short, you’re the perfect scapegoat.
“Look, I did send Clover after you!” said Platinum in a rush. “I could have simply kept quiet about it and continued playing with my rubber duckie! But I did the brave thing and sent my best friend after you, and you’re still alive, and that’s what matters, I believe! If anything, you should be thanking me! I’m on your side!”
You were in my house, drinking my juice, admiring my art, running poor Slate ragged, and knowing the whole time you were sending me to my death. Who could possibly have made you do anything!? You didn’t even cringe with guilt!
“And, after the frankly gallant manner in which you saved my life, I figured it was the least I could do to reimburse you.”
A bolt of lightning flashed from Celestia’s forehead to the tip of her horn. When she swung round, she saw Platinum darting backwards towards the portal.
“What did you say?” Celestia’s voice slashed at the air. “‘Reimburse’?”
Platinum barely stammered the sentence through all the gibbering. On the second try, she managed to squeak, “In an honourable way, yes! N-Not like some earth pony m-mercenary! C-Certainly not!”
The sword of Celestia’s voice trembled, ready to skewer. “You stand there, having ordered my death and countless others, for something you don’t even begrudge, while you ate imported caviar and treated Clover to a bean in a bowl, and you dare compare yourself to a mercenary? Favourably, I might add?”
“No one knows!” Platinum’s voice was on the edge of high-pitched sobs. “They were only accidents or lowly criminal deeds! Who’d suspect a princess!?”
Celestia’s heart burned with the effort of fuelling her rage. A star lit up on the end of her horn.
“What price, Platinum? Riches, artworks, patronage? What could ever justify selling your heart and your soul?”
“I sent Clover! I didn’t want you to die! But he said it was for the greater good! If we rushed into too tight a union, we’d end up betrayed! You were keeping dark secrets, he said! You wouldn’t listen to reason, he said! I had to do it! He made so much sense at the time! I was confused and scared! Oh, woe is me! Oh, woe…”
Celestia narrowed her eyes at the tears streaking the princess’ face. At the snivelling sobs. At the babbling still fighting against the squeak.
The star dimmed and went out. Carefully, as though made of glass, Celestia straightened up.
“It’s your father, isn’t it?” she said. No emotion lived in her speech.
To her surprise, Platinum wiped her face down on the back of her gown’s hemline. Instantly, the princess’ hauteur solidified across her face.
“You know,” she said through a noseful of snot. “I only have to scream and the guards will come galloping in.”
Her yelp was cut off; barely inches from the portal, she glowed yellow and shot across the room. A jolt later, she hovered almost muzzle to muzzle.
Celestia bared her teeth. “Perhaps you should think before you speak, Your Highness.”
“Are you… g-going to…?”
Disturbed by the rush, the chandeliers overhead soon tinkled to a stop. Magic sparkled around Platinum and along Celestia’s horn.
No. It can’t be that simple. Platinum’s a lot of things, but she’s not a monster. Don’t let the fear tell you what to do. That’s what Clover used to say. And always look for the light.
Gently, she lowered Platinum to the carpet, not releasing her until all four legs had braced themselves for the weight. Magic zipped out of being. She bent down and kissed the princess near the base of the horn.
“No,” she whispered. “I’m not. But I want you to appreciate the gravity of your actions.”
It can’t be him, she thought. He may be the only pony powerful enough to coerce her, and he may be the least committed to the union – “Our tribe first, eh?” – but it just can’t be him. Not after so many decades. Not now.
“Good,” breathed Platinum. “Because if you’d done… whatever you were going to do… you’d be ruining your own life. I mean it.”
“Who’s been telling you what to do, Your Highness? Perhaps I can help out?”
“You? Help?” Platinum curled her lip. “What could you possibly do against him? Above and beyond that, how could you even know who ‘he’ is? I have most certainly not revealed his identity yet.”
“I understand why you’re protecting him,” said Celestia, fighting to stay calm and not strangle her. “However, you must realize what he’s doing to Equestria. The Pax can only last as long as ponies are willing to work for it and keep it together. We need leaders and inspirations, ponies who can encourage everyone else by example. Can you imagine what would happen if they were all cut down?”
Platinum’s frown never wavered.
“And,” added Celestia, “what would that mean to Clover?”
The frown evaporated. “She’ll… manage. She’s always known…”
“Really? I rather think she’d have put a stop to this had she always known. Imagine the creator of the Fires of Friendship, keeping quiet while ponies vanish.”
In the dusky light, Platinum’s eyes gleamed, as did the trails down her cheeks.
“I’m not the first to confront you about this, am I? And Clover didn’t even know about it until I was singled out. Did she?”
“How could I have told her what I’d done!?” Platinum slumped where she stood, gown flowing over the carpet, head hanging with the weight of her own words. “She’d set her heart so much on keeping Equestria alive, and I don’t blame the poor soul! I never would have done anything to hurt her! She knew that! Oh, I know what you’re thinking; I ride on her saddle and make her fetch my garments, and I never listen to anything that’s not a ‘yes, your highness’ or a ‘no, your highness’. But she likes that! She always wants to be so humble! Not many princesses in antiquity would have tolerated her strange ways. I did! I’m not a bad pony!”
Celestia winced, but part of her made her nod her head in agreement, and it wasn’t merely for the look of the thing. Everyone knew Clover had been born several leagues below the nobility. On the day Star Swirl had followed the stars to find his prophesied apprentice, she’d been sleeping in a crib made from thrown-away kindling and potato sacks. No one ever questioned why a mage would want to look like a peasant. Mages were beyond questioning.
Her gaze flickered towards the chest. Copper coins. One copper-bottomed cauldron. Even the engraved money had “copperhead” on it, and the profile of a copperhead snake.
Still, trust Platinum to think equality meant giving royal approval to things. She’s spent too many years inside one castle or another. No wonder no one likes her. Even the King goes out riding with the nobles once a day. How they persuaded her to go looking for a new land, I’ll never know.
“You were braver than you think, Your Highness.” Celestia managed to keep a straight face. “But why didn’t you tell her sooner? Did you fear ‘he’ would find out?”
Platinum shook her head at the floor.
“Or is it because I’m her friend too?”
At once, Platinum looked up. “Y-You think she’s still g-going to be m-my fr-fr-friend after this?”
“She begged me not to come.” Celestia summoned the magic once more, and the Lieutenant’s coin, until now lodged behind her chest plate, slipped out and rotated slowly between them. “Why copper coins? You must know it was a lowly metal. Hardly befitting a princess, one might think?”
“Ha,” barked Platinum, twisting her mouth and wrinkling her nose. “I am not so snobbish as all that! It would have made a perfect cover.” Sensing this was the wrong tone, she added, “Though of course that is nothing to be proud of.”
“Is that the only reason?”
Another image swirled inside her own head. Platinum, alone amid the vast expanses and mountain of wooden dolls and rocking horses. Muttering under her breath how she was going to grow up to be a lady someday. Swinging her little filly legs and booming with nasally speeches and high-pitched war declarations. And there was Clover beside her, ears cocked, eyes wide, a one-filly audience in burlap. The only other foal in the room.
Copper coins were the most Clover would ever have held.
Celestia saw the portrait between two stained glass windows. The King of the unicorns, booming pigments and bursting brushstrokes, towered over them like a shouting house. His embracing limbs and rising horn glinted with gold. Despite herself, she shivered.
It just couldn’t be…
“What are you going to do?” whispered Platinum.
“What I must. Equestria is in danger. I am oath-bound to protect my country and my ponies.” She stood up and ambled around Platinum towards the grand exit. “I fear the King and Equestria cannot co-exist without imminent catastrophe.”
Lightning crashed inside her. Boiling seas roared and thundered across her mind. And if it is him, if he’s behind every setback we’ve had…
“But surely, you’re not going to actually, really…”
Celestia didn’t dare let as much as a tic escape her. She continued to amble forth. The doorway to a new life loomed before her. Gears turned inside her head. Springs creaked with pressure. Pumps began rising and falling.
He’s the last pony you’d expect. He’s not stupid; with or without disappearances, a king has to stay sharp to stay on the throne. Hundreds of monarchs throughout the ages must have honed their political weapons just as keenly as they honed swords and arrowheads. Worse, he’s got his own connections, not just Platinum’s. Everyone loves him. Even his enemies would nod politely and tip their helmets if he swept by.
And he’s still Platinum’s father.
At the door, she crafted a small smile across her muzzle and aimed it at Platinum. “I mean that we will have to adjust to a world without Equestria,” she lied.
Then she left the warmth of the boudoir and entered the chilling breeze of the stone corridor. Before the whole wooden edifice slammed shut, she glanced back in time to see Platinum biting a hoof.