Prism Star
"I'm really not sure this is a good idea, Mid," Prism said as the fussy jeweler Ray-Ray carefully made final adjustments to her crown. The crown itself was perfect - a simple circular shape, but made with intricately woven bands of gold that almost seemed to move in the shifting glow of Ray-Ray's magic aura and studded with tiny amethysts that were supposedly the exact same shade as the massive jewel in Celestia's crown. In fact, it was nothing short of a miracle that the unicorn had created something like this literally overnight. No, the problem was the placement of the crown, or the way it affected Prism's thick mane, or the way it looked with her scarred ear... any number of seemingly minor problems that had Ray-Ray constantly making adjustments to the circlet and to Prism's mane, and had Prism inwardly seething with frustration.
Midnight shrugged at her from his position laying on a stool. "You'll be fine, stop being a baby," he said with a playful smirk, in his best imitation of his brother's Manehattan accent.
This led both foals to start laughing, and Ray-Ray finally huffed and put the crown on her one last time before backing away. "I suppose this will have to do, if you're going to keep moving around," she said with a haughty tone, before sighing. "You do look radiant, though, Princess."
"I, um..." Prism hesitated at this and looked at herself in the mirror. Ray-Ray and her assistant really had done wonders. Her messy, bushy hair had been washed and conditioned repeatedly until it almost shined in the light, then aggressively (and somewhat painfully) straightened, thinned, cut, and finally styled into a braid of twisting colors that tumbled down her shoulder in a way that Ray-Ray had described as 'stylish enough for royalty and practical enough for an active filly'. Her overly-long tail had been cut down to size as well, and she wore a thin, silky purple dress that was admittedly pretty, even if she would rather not wear clothes at all. "Yeah, it... it actually looks nice. I'm glad I only have to wear this stuff for a day, though."
Prism slid her hooves into the small gilded shoes that had been made to match her crown, then jumped down off of the stool she'd been sitting up on. "Thanks for all this, Miss Rarity. I know I haven't made it easy," she admitted with an apologetic expression.
The mare leaned down to rub Prism's chin with her hoof. "Please, call me Ray-Ray. I'm not Rarity no matter how much my mother wanted me to be." She smiled. "I would be more concerned if this was easy. A filly is supposed to be energetic and headstrong, but you're also very brave to be doing this. It's been a unique pleasure to make a new crown for a princess." She stepped back and bowed to the two of them. "If you ever need anything else from me, you can always find me at my shop in Upper Canterlot. I'll probably be working on that crown's twin soon, I'm sure." Ray-Ray left with a smile, leaving Midnight and Prism alone.
"So now what do we do?" Prism asked.
"We could probably go over your speech again," Midnight said with a sigh, but then the doors opened again and their friends came in, all of them wearing their Elements. In addition to Prism's crown, the jeweler and her assistant had been eager to make new settings for Honesty and Laughter. Talon now wore her Element as a brooch pinned to her coat, and the Element of Laughter hung from Shimmerwing's neck on a chain of silver, enchanted at the changeling's request to expand or contract at will.
"Are you guys almost ready?" Southern Storm asked. "You look fantastic, by the way."
"I think I'm ready?" Prism frowned. "I don't know. I'm a bit scared."
Shimmer hugged Prism, pulling the filly close. She finally let her go after several moments with a soft smile. "You'll do great. The outfit and the pageantry are what will get their attention, but the most important thing is that you speak from the heart." She looked over at Midnight. "Just one more thing. Midnight, can you come over to stand by your brother?"
Prism gasped a little and stepped back, watching. This must be it - the day Sour Apple would finally become Midnight's Protector in title as well as function. Sour Apple stepped forward and raised a hoof, that was met by Midnight's smaller hoof, and Prism could feel her own heart beating a little faster. It took her a moment to realize it was from Shimmer's nervousness. "Shimmer..." She tapped her big 'sister' on the side with one hoof. "You'll be alright. You've been practicing, and even if you're not a unicorn, I know you can do the spell." Shimmer closed her eyes and seemed to open her mind a little, at least from what Prism could feel in the odd 'sixth sense' of their bond, and the little filly shivered a little in empathetic nervousness as she realized why Shimmer was so worried. The Protector's Spirit (as Shimmer seemed to call it in her thoughts) was old magic - an enchantment Starlight Glimmer put on the first Protector in the early days of the Order of Harmony. It could be passed on or shared from one pony to the next, but nopony had ever managed to recreate the original spell. Prism shook her head slightly and tried her best to send Shimmer happy, confident feelings, but she couldn't help but worry that if the ritual failed, the Spirit could be lost forever. "D-don't think about it, Shimmy. No pressure."
Shimmer took several deep breaths before stepping forward to address Sour Apple. "Sour Apple, do you accept the bond with Midnight Shine?"
Sour Apple smiled at her. "I, Sour Apple, son of Apple Jam, of the line of Applejack, accept the love and friendship of Midnight Shine and give him my own heart in kind."
Just as Thunderbolt had done, Shimmer closed her eyes and began the spell, weaving Sour and Midnight's hooves together with a strand of light from her horn - blue-white instead of her normal green magic. "Sour Apple, do you accept the lineage of Midnight Shine?"
Sour nodded with a grin. "You bet I do. Um, I mean..." He blinked nervously. "I, Sour Apple, recognize Midnight Shine as the true blood of Princess Luna and the son of the moon."
Shimmer kept the spell going, and Prism could sense magical energy building inside her - something ancient and powerful. "Sour Apple, do you swear loyalty to the true rulers of Equestria?"
Sour looked down at Midnight and nodded again. "I swear my fealty to the throne of Princess Celestia, who bathed us in the life-giving warmth of the sun. I swear my fealty to the throne of Princess Luna, who sheltered us with her wisdom in the night. I swear to oppose Nightmare Winter at every turn, and to serve the true diarchy with my dying breath."
The spell was almost complete, and Prism knew that if Shimmer didn't release all this magic soon something terrible might happen. "What do you swear this on, Sour Apple?"
"I swear it on the Element of Loyalty," Sour Apple said without hesitation.
Prism thought she saw his Element glint, and had a feeling that it would hold him to that promise - but she didn't have much time to think about that as Shimmer released the spell. This time, with her heightened awareness of magic, Prism could almost see the magic splitting off inside her - some remaining in Shimmer and the rest going into Sour Apple. "I pass the power of the Protectors to you, Sour Apple," Shimmer said with a grin, and Prism cheered as she stomped her hooves on the ground just as loudly as everypony else.
******
As the six of them stood in the antechamber to the Conclave, they could hear the ponies inside still arguing distantly. Just as Prism had thought, it didn't sound like they'd made any progress at all towards a consensus. All she could hope at this point was that this would work.
"Alright... wish me luck getting their attention," Shimmer said, taking her insectoid form. As the changeling started walking into the main chamber, Prism had the thought that maybe they should have had a better plan than barging in and trying to take over. But then again, it was too late now.
"I come to introduce-" Shimmer called out, following the script, but from the sounds of the continuing debate, nopony noticed. "I am introducing-" she started again, before she was cut off again. Prism didn't so much hear as feel Shimmer's growl of frustration through their link. "All of you! QUIET!" She heard the loud, fizzling pop of a powerful spell being cast and the room immediately went dead silent. "I know this is irregular, Masters," Shimmer went on in a more respectful tone as she abandoned the script, "But I am not here today as a Protector, and in this instance royal authority overrides the rules of order. In light of your endless, childish bickering, the heirs you've been arguing over have chosen to come to their own decision! And now all ponies will respectfully stand for Princess Prism Star and Prince Midnight Shine - your rulers!"
Prism took a moment - and a nudge from Midnight - to realize that this was her cue. She drew the sun's energy into herself, feeling the rush of confidence that accompanied it, and started stepping forward. Every pony in the stands was standing, and she could feel their eyes on her and Midnight as she approached the thrones, but suddenly she didn't care. This was her element. This was where she was meant to be. "Please be seated, assembled Masters." Prism gave them a moment to settle back down, stepping forward back into the middle of the room even as Midnight took his seat on the throne. "You've argued for days about what to do, but you're all missing the real picture. I'll take this crown if it means making peace between you all, but I'm not here to fight a war for you - or to hide away. I'm going to save Equestria myself, without putting ponies in harm's way, and I'm going to do it with the Elements of Harmony." She gestured down the hallway, calling her friends to her. "I came to you weak, wounded, and scared. But I've learned so much since then, and I've done it with five amazing friends. And those friends were chosen by the Elements to bear them." As they came to stand by her side, including Midnight and Shimmer, Prism felt a different sort of confidence that had nothing at all to do with the sun. "You already see Honesty, Generosity, Loyalty, and Laughter represented here. Together, we will find the Elements of Kindness and Magic, and with their power we will finally be able to stand up to Nightmare Winter."
Prism stopped her speech, realizing with a little gasping breath that she'd forgotten to breathe while she was giving it, and the silence stretched on for several painful moments before Peregrine Dive finally leaned forward to address her. "This is all... highly irregular," he said. "The Elements didn't stop her the first time. What makes you think you can stop her with them alone?"
She looked up to her father for support, but he kept silent. Thunderbolt wasn't looking at her at like she was his daughter at all - it was more like he was examining an unpredictable storm cloud and trying to decide if the rain was worth risking the wind and lightning. "I don't know," she admitted, tearing her eyes away from his calculating gaze. "But meeting her with open force isn't the answer. There's no way that whatever the Order can put up will match the Crystal Empire. I know that it's a slim hope that we can stop her with the Elements, but it's the only hope we have. It's the only hope we've ever had. Starlight Glimmer started all this because she had faith. She had faith that the Elements weren't gone forever, that Celestia and Luna's legacy would live on, that ponies would survive the winter. Everything she did, she did for a reward she'd never live to see. Every pony who ever died for that dream, from Starlight herself to my own mother, gave their lives because they had faith it would all pay off someday." Prism took a deep breath, closing her eyes before opening them again with fiery determination. "We're going to follow that dream, too. And at the end of the day, there's nothing you can do to stop us from doing it. We leave for Ponyville in ten days, with or without your support."
Peregrine leaned back with a startled look, and Prism thought she could see a small smile of satisfaction on her father's muzzle as the stands exploded into first hushed whispers, and then applause. "So be it, Princess," Peregrine Dive said. "This Order exists to serve you, after all. I call the Conclave to a close."
Nightmare Winter
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty. We just couldn't find anything concrete about the Sun Princess or the Order of Harmony in Las Pegasus." The brown earth pony was dressed smartly in a military uniform in blue-and-white crystalline camouflage, with a red beret over his short-cropped mane, but the overall effect was ruined by his terrified eyes with their contracted pupils and the sweat pouring off of his coat in frozen beads. "Everybody's talking, but no ponies have actually seen her. The only thing remotely treasonous we could find was some rich colt planning a Cloudsdale Day party."
Nightmare Winter snorted frozen mist. "I don't care about some ridiculous party. There's a pony out there, a tiny little filly, raising the sun, and I want her." She leaned in, not even bothering to maintain her glamour. "Now go. Look again. And if you still can't find a pure white pony with a RAINBOW MANE then you might as well never return!" She stomped a hoof on the marble floor, causing frozen spikes to spring up in fractal spirals, and the commander fled with a quite un-stallion-like whimper. "Incompetents," she muttered darkly after him. "Fools like you would never have survived in the Crystal Army a thousand years ago."
"Ooh, somepony is in a mood." Winter heard a malicious giggle behind her and shuddered angrily as she resisted the sudden desire to blast everything in a quarter-mile radius with her ice. "You shouldn't be so hard on poor Commander Phalanx, Winty. It's not his fault if Starlight's little freedom fighters are hiding her so well," she heard Flurry Heart say.
She whirled around, but her tormentor was nowhere to be seen. "I expect results from my subordinates, not excuses! There was a time that all you wanted from me was results!" She was just yelling at an empty hallway, but the specter had to be close. She rarely left Winter's side for long these days.
"You know, I don't remember asking you to kill Dad. Or poor, sweet Professor Sunburst." Flurry Heart appeared directly in front of Nightmare Winter, inches away from her muzzle. "Especially not Great-Auntie Celestia. But you killed all those ponies anyway, just because you could. You had Celestia at your mercy," Flurry said, her voice dripping with icy hate. "And I begged you to send her to Tartarus. But you froze her heart right there, and you made me watch. I hope you can forgive me if I don't cry for you."
Nightmare Winter huffed angrily and walked right through Flurry, taking the long way to her chambers. "Ungrateful mule... you were pathetic when I found you. A puling whelp dancing and prancing and singing on command for the approval of your elders like a trained dog. You begged for every scrap of magic Twilight and Sunburst would teach you. You learned to cry on command just to get Rainbow Dash to teach you how to make a sonic rainboom..." Winter smirked cruelly as she began to climb the spiral stairs of Luna's tower - she'd never quite liked Celestia's tower. "And you cried for real over her disappointment when you failed every time. You were never going to be one of them, you know. A real princess. Oh, they fought and bled for their wings and their precious alicorn magic, but you were better than them from the start... and they knew it. Why do you think Sunburst put that little leash on your magic? They were afraid of you - and they were right, weren't they?"
She went through a door out to one of the tower's many balconies, looking out over Canterlot and southern Equestria beyond it. But, of course, Flurry Heart was already there. "Perhaps you should have been the one they were afraid of. All I ever wanted was to be everything I could be. You're the one who wanted all this death and destruction, and now you're getting your share of it."
Winter glared at Flurry Heart. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"It means that nopony loves you, or wants you to rule them. They're going to cheer when we're dead, Winty." Flurry Heart grinned hatefully. "They're going to cheer for our little cousin and her sun magic, because all you've ever done is spread hate and fear. You masquerade in my skin, but everypony knows the truth deep down about what you really are. They have parties to celebrate your military defeats," she said with a giggle. "Ooh, I bet there'll be cake. And delicious punch. And, y'know, I bet you they'll do The Breaking of the Three. I love that play... it's so tragic what happened to those fillies because of you. You know, Winty, we should go to a party like that. Maybe you'd learn a few things about what ponies are really like."
Nightmare Winter huffed angrily, unconsciously spreading frost down the tower in her rage. "You know what, Flurry? I think I will go to a party, and they'll regret that they ever insulted me with their little celebration. They're probably supporters of that damned princess, too, aren't they? Well, that's alright. If she wants to hide, let's see how she likes it when I go for her friends."