Princesses of Equestria

Chapter 11: Armonia

Canterlot palace shook hard enough to send dust trickling from the ceiling.

"I didn't do that!" Discord protested.

"Nay," Luna grated, "but thou didst plenty else." She advanced on him, horn levelled at his throat. "In a way, Discord, thou art responsible for what is happening this night."

Twilight Sparkle, Spike, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Fluttershy and even Pinkie found themselves cringing. The last time they'd seen Luna look that grim, she'd had a different name, a different face, and a different attitude. An evil world-conquering attitude.

Discord wasn't impressed by it.

"Responsible? For this horrorshow?!" he huffed, stubborn as a foal who wouldn't eat their broccoli ever. "I most certainly am not! The sheer cheek—"

"Enough!" Celestia's shout made everypony flinch. "Enough," she repeated more quietly, stilling her temper with an effort. "We have no time for arguments. Cadance and Shining's ward won't hold much longer." Her voice gained a bitter edge. "Armonia has too many petrified on her side. Too much fear to feed on. Too much fuel for her phobomancy."

"Why, though?" Twilight asked delicately. "I've never heard of anypony using power like that before. How did Armonia ..." She trailed off. Put two and two together. Princess. Armonia had been a Princess. And before that, a student. Celestia and Luna's first— "How did Equus Nox discover fear magic?"

Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity and, surprisingly, Pinkie, weren't taken off guard by the revelation. Rainbow Dash, Spike and Discord were though. Rainbow stared. Spike's eyes glazed over. Discord's bugged out. "What a twist!" he said, in an accent Twilight couldn't place.

"Why? How?" Celestia mused, ignoring Discord's nonsense. "Fair questions, Twilight. The answers lie in Equus's home. Her original home." Celestia and Luna resumed walking. Everypony else resumed following, Discord trailing sullenly at the rear.

They didn't go far. At the storeroom's end stood a pair of closed doors. A thousand years ago, they might have been lavish carvings of flame, stone, water, flora, cloud and lightning, all orbiting an eclipse. Today, those carvings were eroded into sketchy ruin. The words embossed in the eclipse were still legible, however:

'Princess Equus Nox's royal chambers. Please knock before entering'.

Sighing, Celestia forewent knocking, spellcast, and the doors ground open.

More dry, musty air. More cloying layers of dust. More abandoned cobwebs. Another Spring Equinox mural that lit when energized. Unlike the corridor behind, Equus Nox's royal chambers held no storage boxes. Instead, they held the corpse of a four poster bed, termite-hollowed bookshelves, and bricked up window that, if Twilight's calculations held true, would've opened onto Canterlot's courtyard about three stories up. Then, a fourth thing caught her eye.

"Wow, a scrying scope! And is it ... ? Yes! A Star Swirl original! You can tell because it's shaped like a beachball-sized sleighbell. I read in his Guide to Enchantment Amplification that you can conjure any memory in a scrying scope with perfect three dimensional high definition detail so long as you yeah okay I'm gonna shut up again sorry."

Twilight zipped it, looked at her hoofs, and blushed so fiercely her cheeks burned. Pinkie giggled. Applejack chucked. Discord slyly chewed his cardboard box. Rainbow coughed something that sounded suspiciously like "Nerd!"

Celestia and Luna, mercifully, took no offence. Instead, Celestia let her sister take the lead.

Luna focused, closed her eyes, and touched the scrying scope with her horntip. A beachball-sized sleighbell, made from blown glass, filled with fog. The fog swirled. Condensed. Colored. Formed moving images. Everypony leaned round, drinking them in.