Chapter Text
"Princess Twilight?" A voice called from behind the door. "You're needed in the throne room."
Twilight Sparkle turned her head to give a brief nod. She watched with a smile as Camilla lowered her head and exited from the doorway. After fixing the bookmark to the current page, she filed it back into its proper spot on one of her several shelves that lined her bedroom. I’ll reorganize this mess later, she thought with a fleeting frown as her eyes glanced over the unkempt stacks.
Tucking her mane back with her magic, and one quick look at herself in the nearby mirror, the alicorn closed the door behind her and joined her assistant down the hallway.
“Do you know what The Queen wants?” Twilight asked, even though she probably knew the answer.
“Unfortunately, no, Your Highness,” the pink-maned mare replied; however, the princess knew her too well to assume that was the end of it.
“What do you think she needs?” She caught the tiny smile that appeared for a second on Camilla’s face. Their paces fell to a saunter.
“Issues regarding the catering committee,” was her response, hushed and slow. “I heard from Night Vale that they’ve been overworking their staff and even had one of their volunteers - apparently the most energetic of the bunch - pass out from exhaustion.”
“Why would Celestia need me for something like that?” Twilight chuckled, noticing the telltale signs of shy embarrassment from the earth pony next to her; the look to the left, the slightly ajar mouth, the twitch in her right ear. She knew nearly everypony’s ticks and gestures in the palace, and yet, somehow Camilla’s were the easiest to notice. The alicorn only hoped it was because they were as close as she believed.
As they continued their walk into the stained-glass hall, worry threatened to break its contained barrier and flood her mind with infinite anxious thoughts. What does she need to see me for? Did I raid the library one too many times? Am I finally getting talked to for snooping around Canterlot unsupervised? Twilight held herself together as best as possible as she chose one of the murals to distract herself with. The portrait of a maroon unicorn stared back at her. Crimson Dust, her mind called out.
Crimson Dust was the unicorn general that led the first successful victory in the ongoing war that Equestria was stuck in. He was killed in battle, but the final order he gave to his brigade gave them their first win. His portrait was smaller in size, having been placed in the secondary hall (the primary hall was the throne room, where the much bigger stained-glass windows went), but his significance was enough to earn him one overall.
Out of all the portraits she could have picked…
The war was definitely not Twilight Sparkle's favorite topic to read about. It made her uneasy; there were forces outside of their home that wanted them dead. Learning about the topic was a necessity for The Royal Princess of Equestria, but she had her opinions on it all the same. It's border control. It was like that hundreds of years ago, and it's like that now. Around 600 years ago (603 but who's counting), Equestria fell into one of the worst famines it had ever seen. In order to fix this, Queen Celestia had ordered an expansion of their border to the west, into territory of which nopony had ever set hoof in before. After a few months, the denizens living there gave them their response to the intrusion: an assault to the ponies who were unfortunate enough to have been tasked with going there. Nearly all of them died and Queen Celestia's response was nothing short of the start of an age-old battle. And so for 603 years, they've fought, with no end in sight. And they, Equestria, were losing. Badly.
The doors opening into the throne room pulled her out of her spiraling thoughts. Twilight blinked a few times before remembering to stop herself from breaking out into a trot. She did have an image to uphold (as ridiculous as that sounded). The alicorn noticed the ever-present smile on her "adoptive mother's" face and eased a bit. Maybe this won't be so bad. She dipped her head to Camilla, who returned the gesture and made her exit, the doors closing behind her.
"Princess Twilight. I'm glad you could make it. Not too far into a book, I hope?" Celestia teased.
"Oh, no, don't worry about that. I already know what-" she stopped abruptly, "-... Sorry." The Queen smiled warmly, an expression that Twilight was used to. Gah, I did it again. "What did you need to see me for, Your Majesty?" The formal talk wasn't all that necessary between the two of them, but Celestia still required it for "additional practice", as if she thought Twilight wasn't capable of memorizing etiquette. The smile disappeared from The Queen's face.
"As you are aware, we suffered heavy losses in one of the aerial guard's fleet yesterday," she began. "We have permitted that section to return home and rest. Keep in mind that we do not do this sort of thing often, but because the death toll was so high, and since more than half of the remaining pegasi are heavily wounded, we have no choice but to allow them to come back while reinforcements arrive."
Twilight tried her best not to act alarmed. The perytons were able to wipe out that many pegasi? How many of them were Wonderbolts? And why are they coming home before their support shows up?
"Is this-" The princess was cut off by the doors behind her opening. A unicorn stallion trotted in, a stern look on his face. She had to use every bit of restraint to not show any displeasure towards him. It was Basalt Pool, Queen Celestia's advisor - and the overseer of the military. To Twilight, though, he was otherwise known as the most annoying and stuck-up pony in the whole castle.
"Your Majesty, they have arrived," he spoke, his deep voice with its snooty tone adding to his unlikability. Ugh.
"Thank you, Basalt." Celestia rose and looked over to her again. "The returning fleet has arrived. I will be attending their medal ceremony and welcoming them home. Twilight, I would like for you to remain here, in the palace, while I am out. You are dismissed." She bowed and watched as the queen walked past her. As she straightened, Celestia gave her a look she knew all too well. 'See if you can get out of the palace this time.'
The doors closed behind them and Twilight was left alone in the throne room. A smirk crossed her face, now determined to tally another successful sneak-out to her side. The alicorn princess spun around and promptly reopened the large doors.
Game on.
Twilight had to give credit where credit was due. Getting out of the palace undetected was much harder than it usually was.
While she was growing up in the palace, Twi had officially "gone missing" in Canterlot, and the royal guard spent an entire day and a half searching for her. At the time, she had dubbed the escapade the "ultimate hide-and-seek round" as she darted from alleyway to restaurant. Eventually, she was caught and returned to the throne, where Celestia had a few choice words for her (but nothing too harsh). Since then, they've held an inside competition to see how many times Twilight could get out of the palace without anypony knowing. She was up to fourteen, not counting her current escape.
Typically, only a few guards would be posted around the exits to the palace, and she would have to come up with some way to either convince them, distract them, or avoid being seen by them altogether. Her favorite distraction thus far was the indirect firework show she put off in the ballroom. It was incredible to look at - the guards thought so too.
This time, however, was much more complicated. In addition to the guards was a magic barrier and distractions with her in mind. She was almost lured in by the promise of the next edition of her favorite series being recently added to the palace's library, but she stayed strong and got past that (besides, as much as she loved it, the library would be there forever, and this event was limited).
Despite all of the obstacles, Twilight had made it out and was on her way up the flight of stairs to the stage. It was a spot not too far from the entrance of the castle and was reserved for special events like these. Plus, her invisibility spell made it pretty easy to walk across the courtyard unseen. Duh.
She forgot that it had a timer, though.
Just as she was perfectly positioned between the heads of two of the guards in front of her, she could picture herself popping back into the world. The guards promptly turned to face her with quizzical expressions on their faces. Ohh, please tell me she didn't let them in on this.
"I'm here with The Queen. Just running a little late." The two stallions in front of her glanced at each other for a moment before nodding to her, letting her pass. Yes! Another win for me! She couldn't help the proud smile that tugged at the corners of her mouth. It dissolved when she laid eyes on the returning soldiers. She halted and retraced the few steps she had taken forward.
They looked disheveled and beaten, tired and yet their posture was perfect. The only signs of exhaustion were the bags under their eyes - of the ones she could spot them on. She counted only around twenty pegasi standing there, all in a line, with the four Wonderbolts at the right end. The advisor was dragging out a speech while Celestia looked on, expressionless - but as she looked closer, Twi realized, she saw cracks on her surface that exposed her sadness. The princess's gaze drifted back to the soldiers, sympathy building in her chest the more she studied their faces.
One was angry, another was deeply troubled. Some were emotionless, others were on the brink of crying but were holding it together by a thread. Their uniforms were scathed, some more than others, with varying amounts of torn fabric. One had a gash covering his eye, another had a hole in her wing.
How were they keeping it together?
The Wonderbolts on the right end of the line were another story. They all looked equally expressionless, with minimal scratches or scuffs in their outfits and held the most color out of anypony in their group. Twilight didn't even realize until she was in front of them that she had moved that far (albeit, she was behind the guards). The princess knew why they looked so unscathed compared to their brothers and sisters: they were fast. Rumors had spread about how they could evade nearly any attack and land hits like a freight train. The Wonderbolts mostly aided the main front, swooping down for surprise attacks and alerting their group of developments in the field. They rarely ever dealt with the real fighting; they were mostly there for support.
Twilight studied the four faces in front of her intently, watching them for any break in their statuesque form. The one to the furthest left had a white coat with emerald eyes and a spiky, blue mane. Her expression was changing the most, flipping from signs of annoyance (that Twilight personally understood, though she had been tuning out most of the speech at that point) to disgust and envy. The next stallion, dark blue and a short, black mane with gray stripes, had a very clearly disjointed wing and was masking his pain well; however, the twitches of his ears and corners of his mouth were giving him away. She was almost tempted to make a splint and give it to him.
The third pegasus was a seafoam green and seemed intensely bored. Her eyelids were lowered slightly more than the other three, and her light purple mane stuck out like a sore thumb, even if it was pulled back. There was a scar on her chin that was difficult to notice at first from the mare's subtle nodding off. The last pegasus, however, caught Twilight's attention - for more than one reason.
The final mare was a light blue and was the most stern of the four. Even after watching her for several moments, there was no break or tell or sign of any emotion she was feeling, aside from the occasional eye movement. Unlike the others, she had no back mane at all, and the mane she did have was short and had the first three colors of the rainbow in it - red, orange, and yellow.
Wait. What? Twilight quickly passed the final two royal guards, peeking her head around the last one and edging as close as she allowed herself to. The stallion beside her paid no attention as she craned her neck forward. This Wonderbolt indeed had those colors in her mane, not that looking closer would've proved that. She figured, though, that the no-bottom-mane had to have been evidence to her forming theory. The alicorn racked her brain for a second before recalling everything she had studied about rainbow-maned pegasi.
While there wasn't any confirmation that the (expressionless) mare in front of her did, in fact, possess that trait, she knew that those pegasi were absolutely indispensable to the Wonderbolts as a whole. They had been hunted to near extinction in the past because of their unique ability - they could create a breach in the sound barrier and blind or distract their enemies with the rainbow trail left behind, as well as temporarily deafening them if close enough to the sonic boom. What they had been hunted by remained a mystery, but only those specific pegasi were picked off, so it was theorized to have been deliberate.
This was hundreds of years ago, though, dating to the start of the war. So why was a potentially rainbow-maned pegasus in front of her? And if she was, what in Equestria was she doing standing out in the open like this? Did the Wonderbolts not know? Twilight Sparkle didn't even notice the subtle smile that had crept onto her face until her mouth fell open slightly.
And then the pegasus locked eyes with her.