Sunset Shimmer’s first thought when she stepped out of the mirror was that, more than anything else, it felt good to be a pony again. It was too bad that she would only be here back in Equestria for a short while—just long enough to steal the Element of Magic from that failure of a princess that Celestia had replaced her with.
Back to being a pony, though, the familiar clop clop clop of her hooves on the crystal floors was just so comfortably familiar that it made her want to prance. Which she absolutely did not do. Not even once, just to get it out of her system.
On a completely unrelated note, an impromptu test of her adroitness proved that she was just as light on her hooves as she had learned to be on her feet, which was fortunate, since she was going to have to do quite a bit of sneaking to get that crown.
Well, some sneaking, anyway. The crystal pony guards were kind of pathetic, but this was Cadance she was talking about. What did she expect? Competent leadership? Apparently she hadn’t married that guard captain brother of Twilight Sparkle’s for his military prowess, if you know what she means.
Sometimes Sunset Shimmer felt like a bit of a creep given how easy it was to scry this universe from an outside context using something like the mirror portal and she had to remind herself… yeah, she was a terrible pony and she’d accepted that about herself a long time ago.
What could she say? Some people liked to play sports; others sewed dresses. Sunset liked to watch people and exploit what she learned to the best of her ability. It wasn’t what she’d expected to do with her life, but it was a decent enough replacement for burning things.
…
Sunset stopped just short of a turn in the hallway and blinked in sudden realization. Slowly, she looked crosseyed up at her horn.
“Oh my god.” She had her horn back.
Well, of course she did. She’d been using it to teleport, open doors and distract guards for a while now, but that wasn’t the point.
She had her horn back and she could properly burn things again. It hit her like a shot of adrenaline followed by a bucket of ice water when it dawned on her that she wasn’t going to be in Equestria long enough to do any real magic.
Also, her plans did not include causing enough of a ruckus that she’d be discovered and followed back to the human world where Twilight and her friends would rally the whole school against her and win the fall formal. This objectively meant that it was a bad plan, but it was the only one she’d come up with.
Also also, the Crystal Castle was, appropriately made of crystal and thus, wasn’t flammable. Well, not flammable in any practical way, at least. If Sunset’s time in the human world had taught her anything, it was that anything was flammable if you applied enough chemistry or physics to it, but she didn’t currently have a way to make even something as simple as liquid oxygen let alone any of the more interesting compounds that she’d read about, so her hooves were tied.
“You win this round, Cadance,” she muttered under her breath.
Fortunately for Sunset, what the Crystal Castle lacked in flammability it made up with in ease of navigation and it wasn’t long before she found her way to the guest wing—insofar as towers have wings—where Twilight and her friends were staying. Ironically, the security was actually heavier in this section of the castle thanks to the presence of non-crystal guards that had come with the princesses from Canterlot.
Princess Twilight, on the other hoof, had only brought her friends, which was kind of sad really.
Oh well. Maybe once the Element of Magic went missing Celestia would realize that she can’t just slap wings on some poor adorkable mare and leave it at that. Seriously, the girl clearly wasn’t princess material, yet, like a Christmas miracle, Sunset almost felt sorry for her. Given how Celestia had basically exiled Twilight right back to that podunk little farming town the day after her coronation, Sunset was self-aware enough to realize why she might empathize in some small way with Celestia’s latest student.
She would just turn right around and steal her crown anyway because that was the kind of person she was. Surviving on her own in the human world had taught her that.
Sunset was all but strolling through the corridors when she very nearly walked right into the mare in question coming around a corner. Panicked, she stumbled back and ducked into an alcove with some kind of crystal tupperware sitting on a plinth and ducked behind it, cursing everything from the Crystal Castle’s translucency and lack of shadows to the fact that her brown cloak didn’t really blend into the scenery as she did so. She supposed that it could be worse, though. When she’d left Equestria, she’d gone through the mirror and come out clothed. As shifty as she looked in dingy brown, it was still better than her natural red and gold, which was to say nothing of the fake crown she’d gotten the school’s fall formal committee to make for her. If that had gone missing along with her cloak… well, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but it definitely wouldn’t have helped her chances.
To Sunset’s immeasurable relief, Twilight was looking in completely the opposite direction as she walked past the alcove. Unfortunately for her, that relief was immeasurable because it was entirely encompassed by the raw panic of seeing Celestia walking beside Twilight looking right at her.
Sunset braced herself to teleport and run, but the alarmed shouting that she was expecting never came, and the bleary-eyed princess passed by, talking to Twilight, who was the one she’d been looking at, not Sunset.
Story of her life, really.
Sunset allowed herself a short breather to calm down and catch her breath, but not too long. Whatever it was that had Celestia and Twilight up at this time of night didn’t matter. Twilight hadn’t had her crown with her, so she must have left it back in her room. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
Once her heart was finally beating normally again, Sunset took a breath and very nearly stepped out in front of Cadance and Princess Luna, forcing her to bite her tongue to keep herself from shouting. If every ounce of her focus wasn’t split between staying hidden and keeping her cursing internal, she would have appreciated the symmetry in how this time it was Cadance who could barely see or walk straight. Even in her impaired state, however, there was a part of her that felt a spark of envy for the kind of night she must have had for the princess of love to be in that condition.
Oh, and she was envious of the alicorn thing too, she supposed.
Look, she was a teenager and no matter how she might dress as a manipulative bitch, people like her didn’t actually get laid. Ever.
Humans were hardly all that attractive anyway.
Overimaginative analysis on Cadance’s gait aside, the crusty-eyed mare in question was in absolutely no condition to actually see Sunset, so she was once again spared discovery as the pair walked on down the hall following after Celestia and Twilight.
This left Sunset Shimmer in quite the conundrum. On the one hoof, the universe seemed to be doubling down on there never being a better time to steal Twilight’s crown, but on the other, Sunset’s inner voyeur that she’d been feeding by treating scrying like it was the best soap opera in the world really wanted to know what was going on that had all four of the princesses gathering secretly in the middle of the night. It was always incredibly frustrating when she missed something important. With the unpredictable, accelerated way that time worked between the two worlds, there was little to no chance that she’d be able to catch what was going on. With her luck, even if she turned around the instant she got back and started scrying, she’d probably have already missed everything up to next tuesday.
Whatever cosmic uncertainty principle it was that dictated what she was able to scry seemed to gravitate to Tuesdays for some reason.
Sunset squirmed nervously in her little alcove as Cadance and Princess Luna got further and further down the hall. Ugh. Ancient power that she could mold to suit herself by isolating it in another world or not missing an episode of her favorite show.
Life just wasn’t fair sometimes.
Unfortunately, no matter how much she wanted to go straight home and scry in, she would never forgive herself if she gave up this chance.
What she could do, though, was hurry up and grab the thing, then follow and watch what was going on herself. In person. On this side of the mirror. There was no possible way that could go wrong.
Fortunately for Sunset, the time crunch that this plan involved didn’t leave her enough time to worry about whether or not it was actually a good idea. Mindful of her previous experience, Sunset checked to make sure that the hall was clear of unexpected princesses and quickly rushed off in the direction they’d come from—and then, when she almost immediately ran into a hall with a pair of stationary guards, tried another corridor, presuming that Cadance would at least do Twilight Sparkle the dignity of assigning the new princess her own separate hall of the guest wing.
Or, barring that, at least give Celestia and Luna some peace and quiet away from Twilight Sparkle’s friends.
Questionable snap decisions aside, Sunset turned out to be right when the next hall she searched was significantly less guarded and had raspy snoring coming from one of the rooms, suggesting that she was on the right track.
Wasting no time at all, Sunset headed straight for the largest suite and ducked inside, where the presence of an empty, unmade bed indicated that she’d picked the right room.
The Element of Magic sitting right there on the nightstand was also a clue.
In a hurry and on alert for unexpected surprises after her previous two close calls, Sunset Shimmer scanned the room quickly just to make sure that Twilight hadn’t formed a harem with the rest of the element bearers since arriving in the Crystal Empire and she wasn’t about to walk in on a pony pile of the less innocent sort.
Or something.
Considering the snoring by which she’d located the right hallway to begin with had been coming from another room, though, she should have expected to be dissapointed. Disappointed? No, the other thing.
Actually, though, disappointed worked after all, because while the room didn’t contain a pile of polyamorous ponies, it did contain a small, sleeping baby dragon, who she had completely forgotten about, so it was like a double disappointment, in a way, which was one more disappointment than strictly necessary.
Yeah whatever. Dragons could be notoriously light sleepers… except when they weren’t, and while Spike wasn’t hibernating, he also didn’t have a hoard to guard and had lived with ponies all his life. He was also sleeping in a new place where odd sounds were to be expected, so as long as she didn’t do something stupid like step on his tail while trying to sneak past him, she’d probably be fine as long as she was in and out quickly—and just like that, she was.
Crown in hoof, she tucked it into her cloak and rushed off in the direction that the four princesses had gone.
“Oh. My. God,” Sunset said as quietly as she could while peeking into the room with the four princesses with the door cracked open a bit. That was awesome. It was worth this entire trip just to be here in person to see Cadance and Luna call Celestia on all of her bullshit while Twilight sat there looking lost and betrayed. She felt so vindicated that she wanted nothing more right then than to step in and say a few things of her own.
No matter how good it would feel to swoop in and have the last word with Celestia, though, that would be… bad. Things would get messy, and she hated messy when she couldn’t watch it from afar and take notes.
And yet… suddenly her whole plan to take the Element of Magic to the human world where she could give it stockholm syndrome and use its power to build up an army to come conquer Equestria with just felt so empty and dumb. None of it would hold a candle to this moment, seeing that look of disheartenment on Celestia’s face.
And then, just when Sunset didn’t think that it could get any better, the two sisters went on to explain the history of the Everfree. She wasn’t sure if she believed the story about reincarnations and how Celestia couldn’t just turn somepony into an alicorn, honest, but the great part was that it didn’t even matter. There was two-thirds of an ascension just sitting out there up for grabs, and she already had the last third just from being born.
That thought brought her up short, and she bumped into one of the plinths lining the hall in the middle of her silent retreat. If she did this, then she wouldn’t be going back to the human world possibly ever again.
She had mixed feelings on—CRASH! Sunset whipped around to see some sort of crystal flower vase shattered on the floor, complete with crystal flowers.
“Oh, shit,” she cursed and started running.
Twilight immediately teleported out to the end of the hall as soon as she realized the basics of the situation, which was that somepony had been out in the hall and was now running away. Unfortunately, that wasn’t much to go on. It could be something entirely innocent—one of the castle staff or one of Twilight’s friends—or… it could be a figure in a brown cloak who evidently had something to hide.
All she could think to do was yell, “Stop!” as the mysterious figure was already about to barrel into her.
Just when she expected to be bowled over and trampled, though, there was a teal flash of teleportation—and then something hit her anyway. It took her a moment to realize that the figure had left their cloak behind when they’d teleported past her and another moment to get herself untangled from it and resume the chase.
Without the cloak, Twilight could finally see that the figure was a unicorn mare that she had never seen before with a red and gold mane who looked shaken and uncertain. Not to be deterred, Twilight teleported in front of the mare again, only for there to be another flash as the mare repeated the action. In that manner, they hopscotched through the Crystal Castle at an incredible rate. Though she wasn’t one for competing with other ponies, Twilight was impressed and beginning to get an idea who this mystery pony might be.
Okay, admittedly they had been literally, explicitly waiting for her, so maybe it wasn’t that great a leap of logic to make.
“Sunset Shimmer!” Twilight shouted, pleading for her to stop. “Wait!”
And to Twilight’s everlasting surprise, Sunset actually did stop.
Twilight, on the other hoof, found it a little harder to do so. The moment she let go of her teleportation spell, it went off anyway, skipping her forward half the distance to Sunset, who immediately backed away, teleporting the same distance away. Before Twilight could get a hold of the spell, she had blinked forward a half a dozen more times in increasingly shorter and quicker intervals, inadvertently backing Sunset into a corner.
Sunset was glancing around in panic, trying to decide which way to go when she seemed to come to a realization. While Twilight was still struggling to wrest control of her teleportation spell from her alicorn magic, Sunset levitated something out from behind herself.
It was the Element of Magic.
The moment recognition reached Twilight’s face, Sunset tossed the crown out of the window and teleported off in the other direction.
Twilight had no real choice; she instinctively loosened up on the tight grip she had on her teleport spell and went after the Element of Magic. It took three rapid-fire blinks to grab the Element of Magic out of the air, by which time the reality of her actions had caught up to her. Her heart began to race as she realized just how high up she was and she began to remember not just her swan-dive into the ground at her coronation but also all of Rainbow Dash’s repeated attempts to get her to fly.
Logically, if she’d had the chance to think about it she would have realized that she was in no actual danger. There was a part of her that knew that she could teleport to safety at any moment and, in fact, would likely do so the instant she lost control of her spell again. However, that part of her was buried deep at the moment, drowned out by the fact that she was so high up—a fact that was changing very fast as she raced to the crystal courtyard below.
Somehow the fact that she’d survived her last such situation wasn’t much comfort.
And then a shimmering blue light caught her.
“Is that what I think it is?” Princess Luna asked as she levitated Twilight back to the Crystal Castle, hovering beside her as she did so.
It took Twilight a moment to gather her wits and answer. Uncurling herself from around the ancient artifact, she showed it to the Princess. “Yes; the Element of Magic,” she confirmed. “I don’t know why she had it, but it allowed her to get away. You didn’t see which way she went?”
Princess Luna shook her head as she landed Twilight back inside, not far from where she’d left. There was no sign of Sunset Shimmer. “No, she seems to have gone to ground.”
“Well, maybe Princess Celestia had more luck?” Twilight suggested as she attempted to stand on trembling legs, but Princess Luna shot her down.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Celestia stayed behind to guard the mirror in case she looped back and was to send Cadance to check on the Crystal Heart, assuming she was able to wake her. I am afraid that we have lost her for now, though she will not easily leave the city, with the train running infrequently and under our control.”
Well, that was something, Twilight supposed. Still shaking and unsteady on her hooves but not wanting to dwell on it, Twilight did her best to walk off her nerves and bleed the magic out of her teleport spell as she and Princess Luna made their way back to Celestia.
The room with the mirror hadn’t changed in the short while that Twilight had been gone, though the same could not be said for Princess Celestia, who looked as twitchy and shaken as Twilight, leaping to her hooves the moment she and Princess Luna came through the door.
“Sunset…?” she asked hopefully and looked crushed when Princess Luna shook her head. “It was her, though, wasn’t it?”
Princess Luna looked to Twilight, who could only tell the princess what she saw. “Cream yellow coat, red and gold mane, cutie mark of a two-tone sun?”
Princess Celestia collapsed with relief. “Yes, that’s her,” she said, letting out a sigh as if the weight of the world had been lifted from her.
“She escaped,” Princess Luna reminded her sister.
Princess Celestia brushed her off and said, “We can worry about that later,” as she turned to the mirror.
Twilight was about to ask what the princess was going to do with the magical item in question when Princess Celestia flapped her wings and kicked it over, toppling the heavy frame, the glass shattering when it hit the ground.
“What—!” Luna attempted to interject, but she was cut off by the sudden daylight of a miniature sun swallowing the corner of the room where the mirror had been.
And then, as quickly as it had appeared, the ball of solar fire was gone and Twilight was left attempting to blink the single giant spot out of her eyes. “Was that really necessary?” she griped, rubbing her eyes.
“My apologies, Twilight,” the Princess said, sounding contrite. “But you have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to do that.”
“Since Sunset Shimmer went through the mirror in the first place?” Luna suggested, raising an eyebrow at her sister.
Princess Celestia paused, then admitted. “Okay, you know exactly how long I’ve been wanting to do that, then.”
"Regardless, it makes good tactical sense to cut off any avenues of escape,” Princess Luna said in approval. “If Sunset Shimmer had managed to flee through the portal again, we would not be able to follow lest we risk becoming trapped there ourselves. Even if we were to follow, there would be no catching her with an entire world for her to hide in.”
“Luna!” Princess Celestia scolded. “The aim is not to catch her. She is not a criminal.”
“Technically, she did steal the Element of Magic,” Twilight timidly pointed out, levitating the crown out in front of herself. “If she hadn’t used it as a distraction in her escape, we might not have even realized that it was missing until it was too late.”
Princess Celestia frowned. “That is… not like her,” she said uneasily.
“It has been a long time,” Princess Luna suggested tactfully. “Ponies do change.”
Princess Celestia shook her head in denial. “No. Not that much. The Sunset that I knew would never throw away what she’d come for just to make an escape. Not unless she was truly desperate.”
Twilight had to stop and readjust her expectations before she could continue. “…Well, we were at a stalemate with teleportation and I did have her cornered,” she said, though she admitted to herself that the former had mattered more than the latter.
Princess Celestia was unconvinced. “The castle isn’t on fire,” she said. “Ergo, she wasn’t desperate.”
Luna gave the crater in the corner a dubious look and said, “The castle is made of crystal. It is not flammable.”
“She would have found a way,” Princess Celestia said with complete confidence, having faith in her once-student and pseudo-daughter.
Luna sighed and decided to drop the subject. “Fine, then. If she was not here for the Element of Magic, then what was she here for?” she asked.
“Well, it has always been my earnest hope that she would one day come back to me so that we could talk about what happened and apologize,” Princess Celestia offered.
Twilight and Princess Luna both gave her the exact same deadpan look.
Princess Celestia sighed. “Very well. Let us go check on Cadance and the Crystal Heart.”
Twilight wasn’t sure what she had expected and therefore had no idea how to react.
On the one hoof, Cadance was sleeping on the job.
…But on the other hoof, she was sleeping on the job—or, to be more specific, laying on top of the job and curled around it for warmth, making happy sounds in her sleep.
“Well, the Crystal Heart does seem to be secure,” Luna admitted. “Perhaps we should simply leave her be until morning?”
As if prompted by the idea, Princess Celestia was unable to quite stifle a yawn. “Err… yes. Perhaps that would be for the best.”
Princess Luna nodded. “I will inform the proper ponies that no trains are to leave until this matter is settled.”
Princess Celestia briefly hesitated, but agreed. “So long as Cadance doesn’t object, I think that would be a good idea, but do not turn this into a marehunt. We can sort all of this out if I can just talk to her.”
Princess Luna looked like she wanted to disagree, but relented. “Very well. I suppose that she would not be the first to attempt to keep the elements from their bearers and receive no more than a slap on the wrist for it.”
Twilight felt there was something off about that statement considering that Princess Luna would technically be one of those in question and Discord the other, but she wasn’t about to actually say that.
“Very well, then,” Princess Celestia said, yawning again. “We will decide what more to do about this in the morning when Cadance is able to participate. This is her city, after all.”
Luna agreed and the two eldest princesses each went on their way, leaving Twilight alone with the sleeping Cadance.
Giving her old foalsitter a look and appreciating the irony, Twilight went off to find a blanket to put over her.
Breakfast was a late affair for the four princesses and their guests. Cadance had needed all the sleep that she could get and Princess Celestia hadn’t actually been that much better off, no matter how much she’d tried to hide it.
Now, though, while Princess Celestia was figuratively glowing with the relief of knowing that her old student was no longer trapped in another world, Princess Cadance looked more like she’d slept on a strangely-shaped rock.
Mainly because she had slept on a strangely-shaped rock.
That said, she too was glowing, though not in the sense of being in a bright and sunny mood. No, she was looking rather crystal-y that morning and quite literally glowing.
Again, this was the fault of the strangely-shaped rock that she’d slept on, and the combination of the two was quite the sight.
Rarity was aghast.
Shining Armor was just confused and rather hungry.
Rainbow Dash looked about the same as Cadance, but didn’t have the excuse of being overworked and woken up in the middle of the night, nor did she have the crystalline form to counterbalance it.
She just wasn’t a morning pony.
The fact that it could barely be called morning any more didn’t really factor into it.
Once everypony had something in their stomachs, Princess Celestia began to explain the events of the previous night regarding Sunset Shimmer, covering the princess’ history with her with significantly less commentary from Princess Luna this time and a little more from Cadance now that she wasn’t sleeping through most of it. Cadance still wasn’t wildly enthusiastic about digging up the past with Sunset, except for the fact that with her actually in the city, it wasn’t quite the past any more and she seemed to be tentatively melancholy about the idea of maybe actually making peace with her after all these years.
Of course, it was also clear to Twilight that that part of her was kept well in line by the fact that she had actually met Sunset Shimmer.
“She stole your element?” Cadance asked, directing the question at Twilight. “Why does that not surprise me? No, wait—what actually surprises me is that she actually let it go. She must have actually come for something else.”
Princess Celestia was happily nodding along, sipping her tea and looking quite vindicated.
“About that…” Twilight said, levitating the Element of Magic up and set it down on the table, getting curious looks from most of those present. “After everything was over, I went back to my room to rest and relax and found this.” The looks turned to surprise when she levitated another, nearly identical copy of the Element of Magic up and placed it next to the first.
“Two Elements of Magic?!” Pinkie Pie gasped. “Does this mean she’s actually you from an alternate timeline come back to prevent a horrible future where cupcakes and muffins have been at war for forty thousand years and it doesn’t even matter why anymore because both sides are gluten free?!”
“No.”
“Oh, good,” Pinkie Pie said in clear relief. “We sure dodged a bullet on that one.”
Rainbow Dash blinked and began to ask, “What’s a—” before she was interrupted by Rarity clearing her throat and giving her a look that said not to encourage her.
“This one is fake,” Rarity declared, levitating up one of the two crowns that had made their way over to her side of the table while the rest had been distracted by Pinkie Pie.
This was welcome news to Princess Celestia. “Really, now? That’s… fascinating. Is it a variation on the want-it-need-it spell that actually creates a simulacra of something the target wants, I wonder…?”
Rarity shook her head. “Sorry, Princess, but no. This was prepared beforehoof. It’s actually quite fascinating; the tooling marks aren’t like anything I’ve seen before. It was definitely made, but I would hesitate to say that it was made by hoof.”
“I see,” Princess Celestia said, a little let down. “So it was a premeditated distraction, then. That is, admittedly, very much like my old student, though it does also imply a worrying amount of foreknowledge on her part. If she has been using the mirror as a scrying focus, then she may know a great deal more about what has happened in her absence than we might expect.”
“That’s… a good point, actually,” Twilight said, then proceeded to give Princess Celestia an apologetic look. “Though, sorry, Princess, but I really should clarify that it was the crown in my room that was the fake. She not only stole the Element of Magic, but she came here to steal it.”
“I… see,” Princess Celestia repeated, more troubled than the last time. “That is… difficult to reconcile.”
“Yes, you and Cadance have already said that she should have been much more tenacious about holding onto it,” Princess Luna said. “I am even inclined to agree. If she has gone to all the trouble of commissioning such a well-made imitation, it seems unlikely that she would simply abandon it unless she had laid her eyes on a greater prize.”
Cadance and Princess Celestia both shared a worried look. “That would do it,’ Cadance said. “But what? I can’t imagine what she thought she could use the Element of Magic for in the first place and she didn’t go after the Crystal Heart. What other sources of power were there in the city that she could be after?”
“Maybe she tried to use the Element of Magic and it showed her that what she wanted was a loving family all along?” Applejack suggested to the chagrin of the table. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”
“Maybe it’s not something in the city?” Fluttershy suggested. “If she was just outside of the room, maybe she heard something. You tend to hear a lot when people don’t realize that you’re there.”
Twilight frowned, trying to recall what they’d been talking about when Sunset Shimmer had interrupted them, but she didn’t think that anything had come up except—Oh.
Oh no.
“The Everfree.”
“The Everfree?” Rarity asked, dubious. “Whatever she wants out of that dreadful place, she can have. Maybe living with the Timberwolves will improve her disposition.”
“Well, it’s… not that simple, Rarity,” Twilight said with some hesitation, not really sure how to explain that she was, in a way, responsible for the local creepy forest of doom that they’d all grown up terrified of.
“Is this about the Castle of the Two Sisters?” Rainbow Dash asked, bouncing on the edge of her seat. “Oh! Oh! Did the princesses leave some ancient magical research there that they deemed dangerous to use but too awesome to destroy?”
“That would be convenient, but no,” Twilight said. Looking around at all of her friends, sighed and decided to just bluntly tell them, “It’s where my missing alicorn powers are,” stunning all of her friends into silence.
Applejack was the first to recover. “Uh, would you care to explain that, sugarcube?”
Twilight was about to do so, but thought better of it and turned expectantly to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna instead. They weren’t quite primary sources, but they were as close as they were going to get.
When the sister princesses were done summarizing their discovery and subsequent study of the Everfree, Twilight was more uneasy than ever itching to go do something now that they had some idea what Sunset Shimmer was likely to be after. The responses from the rest of the table were a little more varied, though no less urgent.
Cadance was clutching her hooves together, eyes sparkling. “I have a sister!”
“I already became your sister when you married my brother!” Twilight shot back, not unhappy to be ambiguously closer to Cadance, but growing annoyed that this wasn’t being taken a little more seriously.
“Wait, my sister is your sister?” said Shining Armor to his wife, somewhat bemused and trying to work out whether he should be concerned about this or not.
It took a moment for the various reactions to die down, at which point Rainbow Dash voiced the question that was really on everypony’s minds. “So, what? This Sunset Shimmer mare wanted to be an alicorn and now she thinks she can just take Twilight’s magic instead? Is that even possible?”
That was the question, wasn’t it? Princess Celestia shook her head, to Twilight’s small relief. “I do not believe so. Luna and I studied the magics of the Everfree over the course of centuries, hoping that we might put them to rest or at least tame them, but we made little that could be called progress. We were younger and less experienced then, but I do not believe that Sunset will have any more success, if that is indeed the conclusion she came to from eavesdropping on us.”
“It may be supposition, but it is what we have to go on,” Luna surmised and Twilight agreed. “Given that she exiled herself after being denied ascension—”
“Which I cannot grant,” Princess Celestia interrupted, sending Princess Luna a scowl.
“…Yes, that,” Princess Luna said, brushing it off. “Given that, I imagine that the feasibility of it matters little to her. In fact, the idea that it is something that you failed at would likely only encourage her.”
“…Yes? Why wouldn’t it?” Twilight asked, giving everypony a little more insight into the mind of one of Princess Celestia’s students than she intended. Regardless, she carried on. “That’s how progress is made. Everything we do is something that hasn’t been done before—and on that note, I, uhh, think I would like to go back to my forest now? Because that really isn’t a risk that I’m comfortable taking when I have any other choice.”
Rarity gasped. “But you can’t! The Princess Summit—!”
Twilight rolled her eyes, thinking that this was a little more important than some made-up event, so she was understandably shocked when she saw Princess Celestia gently shaking her head.
“There is no need to panic, Twilight. Sunset isn’t going anywhere.”
Luna nodded along with this. “I have already made certain that none shall leave the city. All that is needed is for Cadance to make it official.”
“Yes, of course,” Cadance agreed, looking to Shining Armor.
“I’ll make sure it gets around,” he said, considering something before shaking his head. “Sorry, Twily. The best way to keep her contained is to shut down the trains. No unicorn is going to make it south through the snow and mountains on their own.”
“Compared to stowing away on a train, which ain’t exactly witchcraft,” Applejack said, finishing the thought.
Twilight wilted back in her seat. “That makes sense, but…”
Suddenly, Pinkie Pie was next to Twilight giving her a shoulder-hug. “Aw, cheer up, Twilight! Just you wait and see—the next few days are gonna be so full of parties that you’ll forget all about the nasty, treacherous mare that’s after your soul!”
Twilight’s ears flattened in distaste. “Pinkie, that’s not—”
“What kind of cake do you think I should bring to a search party?”
The next few days were not, precisely full of as many parties as Pinkie Pie had suggested. Even the search parties seemed a bit lacklustre to Twilight, though that might have just been sour grapes over the fact that she didn’t have the time to actually participate in them, nor did they turn up any sign of Princess Celestia’s wayward student.
Busy, on the other hoof, was a more than accurate descriptor. Once they had come to a reluctant consensus about Sunset Shimmer and the rest of the group had made their plans, the four princesses had to move on to the laundry list of items that they had actually come to discuss. Worse, Twilight actually felt like she was helping, which in turn made her feel guilty for not wanting to be there.
“No, that doesn’t work,” Twilight said, leaning over the table on her hooves with a look of concentration on her face. Finding what she was looking for, she pushed the small stack of papers over to Cadance. “Here, look—the materials for the stadium won’t start arriving until two weeks after that. There won’t be enough time.”
Cadance gaped, grabbing the paper and scanning down the list herself. “That’s not… Oh no, you’re right,” she said, finally seeing it for herself. Slumping forward onto the table, the paper began to drift off until Twilight caught it in her magic and made the stack neat again.
“I am sure that a visit from a princess can encourage them to have it ready sooner,” Luna suggested, presuming the matter settled.
Celestia had another suggestion, however. “The Hilltown Hotel representatives are refusing to work with crystal ponies, meaning they’re going to be short on labor and won’t be done with construction until the last minute. I’m sure that we could come to an arrangement with them for the materials they won’t be needing until after ours are available to replace them.”
That sparked something in Twilight’s memory and she went looking for something she knew was there while Cadance was expressing her discontent. “I don’t know…” she said, chewing her lip. “They’ve been rather unpleasant with us. If we can just get the materials sooner somehow, I’d rather work something out there than go hat-in-hoof to them asking for a favor.”
“Aha! Found it!” Twilight shouted. “Hilltown Hotels isn’t the only one receiving the kinds of materials we need before us. The Mareiott are handling VIP accommodation on-site and they can’t actually start their own construction until the stadium construction has started. There should be no problem getting them to release those to us, and they’re much closer to what we actually need anyway.”
“Will it be enough, though?” Cadance asked, taking the paper from Twilight and giving it a look for herself. It was a short list.
Twilight was confident, though. “We’ll have to shuffle things around and focus on one section before the rest, but we don’t have to make up the entire two week difference. It should be enough, barely.”
Cadance sighed and said, “I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with ‘barely.’ It makes me uneasy. See if you can find something else to give us a little more breathing room?”
Twilight considered that for a bit before she began shuffling through even more papers. “I think I know just the thing…”
And so it went. Eventually, they had the immediate concerns over the Equestria Games settled into something they could hand off to other ponies and moved on to other topics. Twilight felt like groaning when she saw that they also had things to do to prepare for the next Summer Sun Celebration, the refilling of Cloudsdale’s reservoir and so on, but these annual events largely ran themselves. Mostly they just covered what would be going on over the course of the next year and covered these subjects rapidly.
After a few days of this, Twilight not only empathized with Cadance’s level of exhaustion, but was well on her way to joining her, her only saving grace the fact that she was already used to long research projects far more than her fellow contemporary princess and double-pseudo-sister.
Unfortunately, research, planning and organization wasn’t all that she had to deal with.
“Now hold still,” Rarity instructed as she circled around Twilight searching for any flaw at all in her appearance. A moment later, her lips tightened a minute amount as she lit her horn and smoothed out a small section of Twilight’s coat that had gotten a little mussed up.
“Honestly, Rarity,” Twilight grumbled and asked, “Is this all really necessary?”
Rarity hmphed. “Your princesshood may have gotten you out of wearing a dress, my dear, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to look your best. In this situation, you are the dress, and you must be absolutely perfect.”
“Are you… mad at me?” Twilight asked, a little bewildered by the idea.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Rarity asked with a certain cold sweetness. “Just because you of all ponies didn’t bring your crown of office with you to your inaugural Princess Summit isn’t any reason for me to be mad—and the fact that you didn’t even think to mention it until the Duke of Maretonia had arrived? A trifle, really.”
Twilight sighed, which just gave Rarity the opportunity to correct her posture. “I already apologized about that,” she reminded Rarity. “Besides, it isn’t as if I’d needed it before now. Wouldn’t it be a lot simpler if I just had the Element of Magic as my crown of office anyway?”
“Absolutely not!” Rarity said and was just about to go into great detail about how such a thing would erode the very foundation of meaning of such icons when Rainbow Dash burst into the room, followed shortly by the rest of their friends, causing her to wrinkle her nose at their just-in-from-the-city appearances.
“Ugh,” Rainbow Dash grunted, actually dropping onto one of the plush chairs that the guest suites had been furnished with rather than remain in the air. Kicking back, she draped herself over it like a sodden blanket and bemoaned, “Still no sign of that damn mare. No sightings, no disturbances—not even anyone that’s noticed any food missing. Either she’s really good at sneaking around for a princess’ pyromaniac student or she really did try to head south in the snow.”
“Ah wouldn’t say it’s impossible,” Applejack chimed in as she took off her characteristic stetson, set it down on a small end table and claimed another seat for herself. “Only I’d’ve expected some sign that she’d been stocking up. It ain't like a unicorn can just magic up food. That's pretty much a rule, right?”
Twilight gave it some thought. “I wouldn't want to say that it's completely impossible since it's magic, but in practical terms, yes. Creating food with magic is something that unicorns have wanted to be able to do for a very long time for—well—obvious reasons."
Applejack nodded at that, exuding an air of satisfaction and pride.
“Although… that doesn't mean that there aren't other possibilities,” Twilight added. “Transmutation can turn anything edible into something else that might be easier to stomach. There have been stories of unicorn sailors who survived at sea by transmuting the rigging of their ship into spaghetti. Since hemp is entirely edible, they were able to survive long enough to be found and rescued. Of course, that kind of transmutation is hardly easy to get right. Someone who hasn't done it before is just as likely to end up with something that is less palatable then what they started with.”
“Ah see…” Applejack said, scratching her chin. “So it might not be missing food we're looking for, but anything that even comes close, including things in storage that nopony would notice missing. That does make it a lot harder.”
“And that's just things that we should be practically concerned with,” Twilight said. “There's this one legend about a unicorn with a talent for fire who was so in tune with her special talent that she could survive just by burning things—or so the story goes.”
Applejack grunted. “They say similar things about old Jolly Appleseed, but Ah’m closer to thinking this mare is a real good sneak than believe she’s on the level of some sorta storybook legend. Unfortunately, it doesn't really matter which it is so long as we can't find her.”
“Maybe she doesn't want to be found?" Fluttershy suggested, then blushed. “I mean, of course she doesn't want to be found, but is that such a bad thing? I know the princess wants to talk to her old student, and she might have done some bad things, but if all she wants is to be left alone, then maybe we should let her.”
“But she doesn't want to just be left alone,” Twilight said, understanding the sentiment but annoyed at the dismissal all the same. “She wants to be an alicorn and she doesn't care who she hurts so long as she can get it.”
“But she can't get it,” Rainbow Dash said, throwing up her hooves. “I mean, I know that just saying that is tempting fate, but even if it's possible, she's not going to figure it out in a week before you can go deal with things yourself. Sometimes you’ve just gotta let a pony crash and burn before they’ll listen.”
Twilight sighed. “That might be true, but it wouldn't be responsible to just leave it to chance. If there's something that we can do about it, then we should.”
“And we are,” Applejack reassured her. “But patrolling the streets and asking the same grocer if he's seen anything for the third day in a row ain't really getting us anywhere. Ah ain’t saying we should stop, but if we don’t come up with something else soon, they’re gonna have to start running the train again, and then it’ll be all Equestria that we’ll have to look for her in.”
“Sorry,” Twilight apologized, shaking her head. “I’m just stressed and frustrated. I just wish that I could be out there helping.”
“You really don’t,” Rainbow Dash said, not having moved an inch during the entire conversation.
“And you are helping,” Fluttershy insisted. “You’re getting a lot done with the other princesses during the summit, aren’t you?”
Twilight’s ears flattened. “Well, yes, but that’s just…”
“…Just what’s actually important about being a princess?” Fluttershy suggested timidly. “You know that we won’t think any less of you if you never get the rest of your magic back, right? You’ll still be an alicorn.”
“Not much of one,” Twilight defended, almost as quietly as Fluttershy when she’s trying to get somepony’s attention.
“Horse apples!” Rainbow Dash yelled without moving from her spot. “You, uhh, might not be as awesome as—”
“Not helping, Dash” Applejack interrupted and tossed a banana from a nearby fruit bowl at her.
“I mean it,” Fluttershy said, determined to get through to Twilight but slightly weakly all the same. “Even if it actually mattered what magic you have instead of what you can do as a princess—even if Sunset Shimmer got her hooves on your pegasus and earth pony magic, she still won’t be an alicorn. You said so yourself—that’s a different magic entirely, and it’s one you already have.”
“I…” Twilight had to admit—Fluttershy did have a point. “That’s… Thanks, Fluttershy, that does help, actually.”
Twilight shuffled in place feeling awkward when she realized that there were two ponies who hadn’t spoken up for quite some time.
The first was Pinkie Pie, who hadn’t even made it to a chair and had just fallen over onto her front on the crystal floor like a successfully tired-out foal.
The other was Rarity, who Twilight had to turn around to get a look at. The mare in question was just standing there, manebrush gripped tight in her magic… seething with malice.
“It is less than half an hour until the six of us are to have dinner with the duke of Maretonia!” she screeched, scaring Rainbow Dash out of her seat and onto the floor and continuing to berate the others for everything from being ‘sweaty piles of filth’ to their lack of a perfectly-styled coiffure. Out of all of them, only Twilight was spared for already having spent the last hour under Rarity’s tender ministrations.
Twilight blinked, then looked again.
And also Fluttershy, whose mane and coat apparently looked just as perfectly brushed as they had that morning.
Huh.
Dinner with the duke of Maretonia was… well, it was dinner. Twilight wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with sitting next to Princess Celestia at official dinners; the only difference now was that she had a crown on her head. It wasn’t her real crown, nor was it her element; technically, it was a forgery whipped up in a hurry by the Crystal Castle’s resident smith who Twilight could only guess didn’t actually do all that much smithing considering how even the fixtures and fittings of the castle were made of crystal.
…Actually, did it count as a forgery if it was officially commissioned? Twilight supposed not, so it was probably the other way around, then—technically not a forgery. Regardless of the vague legal limbo that it existed in, the commissioned counterfeit copy crown wasn't perfect; there was still a spot of forge scale on the inside that was scratching her ear and frankly, Sunset Shimmer's blatant forgery of the Element of Magic was superior in every way.
…
Twilight would have chastised herself for getting distracted thinking about her crown if there had been anything at all that she should be doing instead, but Princess Celestia was talking to the duke about Equestrian history, telling stories and anecdotes that Twilight could recite word for word by now and she just… couldn’t seem to escape feeling like a foal sitting at her mentor’s side rather than the princess that she supposedly was.
A princess with a counterfeit crown.
Yeah, that wasn’t actually helping.
With a sigh, she turned her attention instead to the conversation that Rainbow Dash was having with one of the duke’s guards several seats down the table. Of course, she’d heard that story a few times too, but at least in Rainbow Dash’s case, the laughs she got weren’t merely polite.
In the end, though, even as Rainbow Dash was explaining the quarray eels of Ghastly Gorge, Twilight’s mind drifted back to Sunset Shimmer as it often had in the past few days when she had a moment to spare.
The problem was, the only interaction that she’d had with Sunset Shimmer had been a chase through the castle followed by a short standoff, so rather than the haughty and disagreeable pony that Cadance and Princess Celestia had described, all she could actually picture was a twitchy mare who had yelled ‘Crown!’ and run the other way.
That seemed like something she would do. Well—not in a situation like that, when things were on the line, but maybe if a conversation was getting awkward?
The point was, she could empathize, which only made her more concerned about the other half of her alicornification just sitting there in a forest, because she knew how she would react if she were in a similar situation.
She was in a similar situation.
It hadn’t escaped Twilight’s notice that nopony had yet broached the subject of whether or not the thing that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had insisted that Sunset Shimmer couldn’t do would be possible for Twilight to do, and going quietly back to her mentor after accepting failure was not something she could ever see herself doing quietly.
There was a reason that her mind always used to go straight for exile when she was freaking out about getting in trouble with the princess, and looking back, there was no reason to expect the princess’ previous student to be any different and every reason to see some similarity.
Sunset Shimmer had quit her position by running off to another dimension, after all.
There was a certain irony to the fact that Twilight, who felt that she could understand Sunset, wanted nothing more than to catch her and prevent her from doing anything to cause trouble, while Princess Celestia just wanted to talk to her in spite of a seeming acceptance that her previous student had grown into… not quite an upstanding member of society, but one who would rather everypony else be on their knees instead.
Oh, hey, Rainbow Dash was telling the story about the time that Cerberus had ended up in Ponyville and most of the table was listening to her now. That was good. She was proud of that one.
Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash didn’t stop there.
“Did you really declare that you were going to stop time, Princess Twilight?” the duke asked.
Damn it, Rainbow Dash.
“I'm glad that's over,” Twilight said, collapsing onto a couch back at her suite after seeing the duke off the next day—though that wasn’t quite accurate as he and his entourage wouldn’t be allowed to actually leave the city for due to the travel restrictions that the city was under.
Awkward.
Regardless, the duke’s business had been short, mostly to arrange the details of his wedding, which he had for some reason decided the Crystal Empire would be an excellent locale for. Well, Twilight supposed that the ‘empire’ was rather picturesque all year around.
“Speak for yourself, my dear,” Rarity said, fanning herself as she stood by the door. “It isn't every day that you get to meet royalty from the entire other side of the world. Why, so many ponies completely forget that Equestria isn't the only civilized nation of ponies we have.”
“Sure, but you got to trade fashion ideas with the duchess-to-be,” Twilight reminded her. “I got to have all my most embarrassing stories narrated to everyone present by little miss tactful over there.”
“Hey!” Rainbow Dash objected. “What was I supposed to do? After the first one, they kept asking me for more!”
“I'm afraid that that's just part of being a princess, Twilight,” Cadance said, following Rarity in.
“Oh, hi, Cadance, I didn't see you there,” Twilight said, perking up. “Did you need something.”
Cadance giggled from behind a warm smile. “Nothing like that, Twilight. I just thought that it would be a shame if you were here for an entire week and we never got to spend any time together outside of business.”
“Oh, well, sure!” Twilight exclaimed, jumping up to her hooves. “You know, I've been the princess' student for most of my life and I never really appreciated how tiring it actually is. You have no idea how glad I am to be going back to Ponyville where all I'm in charge of is a library.”
Rarity cleared her throat meaningfully and gave Twilight a certain look.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. I'm going to have to do something to present myself as a princess, but having a day palace is still not the same as running an entire nation.”
“It really isn't this bad normally,” Cadance insisted. “The whole point of this summit is so that we can get as much as possible done in the short amount of time that all four of us are here together.”
“Will it be a short time, though?” Twilight asked, glancing uncertainly around at her friends. “From what I've heard, there still hasn't been any sign of Sunset Shimmer and the summit is almost over. Pretty soon, our only choice will be to either keep looking for her or let Princess Celestia and Princess Luna return to Canterlot so they can get back to running Equestria.”
Cadance sighed and walked into the room so she could close the door and take a seat. “You don't have to worry about that,” she said. “Auntie Celestia may be a little more focused than seems reasonable on the idea of having her tearful reunion with Sunset Shimmer where everything is forgiven, but I think you know as well as I do that when it comes down to it, she will go back to Canterlot regardless of her feelings.”
“And what do you think?” Twilight asked, curious. “You knew Sunset Shimmer too. You were also, uhh, not very complimentary about her when she came up.”
Cadance looked momentarily embarrassed, but she resisted blushing admirably. “I'd like to say that the relationship that we had was complicated, but it really wasn't. I came in and had everything that she ever wanted and I was insufferably cheery about it to boot. In return, she didn't take it at all gracefully and was kind of a bitch to everypony.”
“So, what do you think would happen if we were actually able to track her down?” Twilight asked.
Cadance grimaced slightly. “Now, that actually is complicated.”
“Well, she'll at least be on the hook for stealing food right?” Applejack said. “I mean, we haven't caught her at it or anything, but she's gotta to be doing it.”
“It would be hard to prove,” Twilight said, crossing her forelegs in thought. “She wouldn't be obligated to tell us what or if she's eating, and technically a pony can survive three weeks without food, but she would certainly be feeling it by now if she wasn't eating at all.”
“It's more complicated than that, even,” Cadance said. “Considering the history of the Crystal Empire and how the Crystal Heart works, we don't actually have courts or jails as Equestria would recognize them. For the small amount of crime that we have, we have social programs focused on helping ponies.”
“We have those in Equestria too, don't we?” Fluttershy asked.
“We do,” Twilight said. “But they don't get used quite as much as they should. The lower courts tend to get too caught up in punishing lawbreakers when they should be doing what they can to rehabilitate ponies and reduce recidivism. That's one of the reasons that Princess Celestia tends to be so much more forgiving than seems prudent sometimes; she really is like that, but she also does what she can to balance the scales when problems actually reach her.”
“Ah understand helping ponies, but having no jails at all is a mighty strange way to run an empire,” Applejack remarked.
“I'm well aware that we’ll be forced to consider other options eventually,” Cadance said. “But I can't just introduce those sorts of things to a traumatized population coming out of slavery without consideration. It's possible that the way we deal with Sunset Shimmer will set a precedent for how we deal with more serious situations going forward.”
“If we catch her,” Rainbow Dash said.
“And if we can actually pin anything on her,” Applejack added.
Cadance nodded at both of these caveats. “That is a concern, yes, but for what I had in mind, stealing the Element of Magic should suffice.”
“What’s that?” Twilight asked. “I'm not sure that princess Celestia will actually support anything being done about that.”
“I don't think she'll mind,” Cadance said with a hint of a smile. “You see, what I was considering doing was remanding her into the custody of Equestria.”
“That’s… no, I don't think she'll mind at all, Twilight mused. “Assuming that Equestria can hold on to her.”
Cadance shrugged rather helplessly. “There's not much that we can do about that. We aren't in any better situation there, after all.”
“That's all well and good for Sunset Shimmer, but how does that work going forward?” Applejack asked. “Ah mean, you can't just dump all your criminals onto Equestria and expect ponies to just go along with it.”
“Well, aside from the fact that many of those criminals will probably be from other countries to begin with, I was thinking that in exchange we can take some of the ponies who aren’t getting the softer hoof they need,” Cadance explained. “Rehabilitation appears more expensive in the short term, so I don't doubt that the idea will garner a lot of support.”
“Yes, that does sound like quite the nice little system. You will, however, have to make some attempt to ensure that you won't simply be getting the ponies the system was going to take care of properly any—”
“Enough of that,” Rainbow Dash shouted, catapulting herself up into the air. “The princess didn't come here to talk about prisons and social reform programs!”
Twilight cleared her throat. “Social reform is actually—”
“I don’t care!” Rainbow Dash interrupted. Come on—we’ve got a few hours before anybody has to be anywhere, let’s go do something! Princess, what do you have around here to do for fun?”
“Well, there is a new paint balloon center that somepony from Fillydelphia just opened where the old Crystal K used to be…”
“Ugh,” groaned a slightly more rainbow than usual Rainbow Dash, trotting along behind the group. “Whose idea was it for us to go up against a squad of trained guards, again?” she asked the group as a whole. “I feel like I'm more paint than pony at this point.”
“That would be me,” said an unapologetically grinning Cadance who was walking along happily next to her husband, her coat almost completely clear of paint.
“Never again!” cried a distraught Rarity, a single spot of green paint on her hoof. Everybody else had a generous smattering of colors and smiles on their faces.
“Aw, come on, Rarity! That was fun!” Pinkie pie said, bouncing along leaving little spots of paint along in her wake.
“You do realize that the whole point was to not get covered in paint, right?” Rainbow Dash asked Pinkie Pie, who was the only one who had fared worse than her.
“Ah could ask you the same thing, sugarcube,” snarked a moderately mottled Applejack.
Hey!” Rainbow Dash objected. “It's not my fault that I’m so awesome that everybody went after me!”
“Naw, but it is your fault that you wouldn't know what cover was if it snuck up on you and bit you on the backside,” Applejack ribbed with a good-natured chuckle.
“I still say they shouldn't have been able to hit me like that,” Rainbow Dash grumbled. “Do you have any idea how fast I was going?”
“Are you gonna tell her?” Twilight asked her brother with a bit of a smirk.
“Tell me?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Tell me what?”
Shining Armor chuckled and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how good or fast you are if your opponent knows where you’re going to be. You flew straight into some of those balloons, you know.”
“I told you not to just go straight for their flag,” Fluttershy quietly chided with a sigh.
“What?” Rainbow Dash said, turning to her oldest friend, shocked. “No you didn’t!”
“Well—um—you were usually on the other side of the field covered in paint by the second word…” Fluttershy admitted.
Twilight, though, was thinking. “Where she’s going to be, huh…”