Chapter 12

The day after the Yule ball Harry woke and found himself not in his normal surroundings, up in the Gryffindor tower. Rather, as his mind rapidly began working on full power again, he found himself currently lying in bed with a sleeping female, by the name of Rainbow Dash, who was currently snuggled against his left side with her arms wrapped tightly around him.

Harry smiled seeing this, but as his mind caught up fully with being awake he realized the arm she was currently lying on was sleep, and the feeling of pins and needles was rapidly causing him to want to move it. But that would mean waking her, and as much as he did not wish to wake her, it was rapidly becoming a need to move his arm.

It took a little bit, but with some work he was able to get his arm free and with still more work he was able to get out of her embrace. She at this point rolled over on the bed and curled up in a tight ball, pulling the blankets off of him. A chuckle alerted him to someone else being up and as he looked about the room he spotted the pony watching them.

"Well it is about time you woke up," Luna said, who had been lying on one of the beds they had made out of a set of chairs.

Harry rolled his eyes, there was no point in defending himself right now, a quick glance at the clock told him it was only about nine in the morning so it was not too late. And since they had both gone to bed with their clothes still on, it was not as if anything had happened during the night. Getting up he stretched and yawned a little bit.

"Night is sleeping on the couch, Twilight and Applejack are asleep in the other bedroom," Luna said getting off the chair before opening the door and leading him out.

"So everyone had a good night then?" Harry asked, keeping his voice low as to not wake anyone.

"Yes," Luna said smiling.

"And yourself?" Harry asked.

"I had a good night, and I was able to figure some things out," Luna said.

Harry nodded, "That's good, want to go with me to the tower to get some normal clothes to wear?"

"No need, I went and got some for you," Luna said, before levitating some clothes off a table and handing them to Harry.

Harry thanked her and left the room for the bathroom and quickly changed into his daytime wear. After making sure he was presentable he exited the room and saw the other ponies were waking up. Applejack and Twilight were already working on brushing out their manes and tails, which had gotten tangled.

Night was now awake and was trying to get Rainbow to wake up, though it was quickly proving to be a lost cause. At least till Luna decided to help and dump a small bucket of water on the sleeping girl. The effects were near instant as she yelled and jumped out of bed, looking surprised. It was too much for Luna and Night who fell over laughing, while Harry stood chuckling by the door at the scene.

A little while later, after getting some fresh food and meeting up with Hermione, they all sat down in Rainbow's room to hear what Luna had to say.

"So what is this big thing you want to talk with us about?" Rainbow said, having only heard about it while they had been eating.

"Well, it is an unfortunate mistake on my part, or an act from Discord while he was free. But either way, I have realized that the letter I meant to give to my sister vanished before I could give it to her," Luna said.

"I don't get what the problem is," Rainbow said a little confused.

Twilight though got what Luna was getting at perfectly, "The problem is that without that letter to explain things to Celestia she is going to be less than thrilled with you, or possibly all of us upon our return."

"I wish that would be the only problem Twilight. You see, Celestia is not as… forgiving as you seem to believe," Luna said.

"What are you talking about? She is very forgiving!" Twilight said angrily.

"To those she believes can be helped, not those she believes to be enemies of Equestria. You see, long before I was banished, Celestia worked hard to always spend time with me, rather than spending it ruling the ponies. But over time, the ponies became more and more dependent on her, as such drawing on her time more and more," Luna explained.

"So that is why she never noticed your slipping into darkness," Applejack said.

"Yes, without her around, or anyone else, well, nothing was there to halt my fall. As it is when this finally happened, Celestia changed, I am not sure when, but she has changed. Being forced to banish your closest friend and sister will do that to anyone, and then being forced to live the next thousand years alone is a hard punishment," Luna explained.

"But she had friends, didn't she?" Twilight tried to counter.

"Can you name anyone of her former friends?" Luna asked.

"Well… I… no," Twilight said, looking a little taken aback.

Luna nodded, "Celestia, if I understand right from the books and historical documents, began to cut herself off from all former friendships. And focused solely on leading the ponies of Equestria."

"A bad move on her part," Night said.

"But what about her friendship with me or the love that she has for me?" Twilight asked.

Luna sighed, she really hated to break this to Twilight, but some things had to be down, "Twilight… I will not deny that Celestia cares for you. But to her you are nothing more than another student; her best and favorite student but still only a student. The only reason she is so close is because she needed you and your friends to control the Elements of Harmony as our connection to them was broken after I was sealed."

"That's a lie! I know Celestia cares for me more than that," Twilight said angry.

Applejack put a hoof on Twilight shoulder and shook her head, "Twi, this is not the time. Let Luna finish first, then we can discuss who Celestia loves."

Twilight looked at Applejack in disbelief. This could not be happening, it just couldn't be happening. Applejack believed them, and worse, she could see that Rainbow was not able to come to her defense either. She felt tears threatening to form, but she forced them down as she took some deep breaths, working to calm herself. Applejack was right, it was not the time to lose herself over if Celestia really loved her or not, it was time to figure out what they were to do about the lack of a letter.

Luna was watching Twilight closely, feeling the emotions pour off of her. But after a few minutes Twilight to her surprise was calming down. Twilight then looked at her again, though her eyes held a lot of anger her voice was level as she spoke.

"Just … continue," Twilight said.

Luna nodded, "This brings us forward to current times. You see, while I was at the castle, though I did spend a good deal of my time studying as you know, I tried to talk to Celestia about what had happened, but every time she was called away to work on some royal duty, or other such things. She never had time to just talk with me anymore. And finally I gave up, realizing it would never happen unless I forced her to talk with me."

"So you wrote the letter which you think vanished," Rainbow said.

"Yes, and I don't think. The letter I had was kept in a special lockbox only my sister and I could access. Hidden under my bed for safekeeping," Luna explained.

"I still don't see why you think it vanished then," Applejack pointed out.

"Well, you see, when I went to leave for the Nightmare Night Festival, I opened the box and noticed the letter was not there. I was confused at this, but then thought maybe I had already left her the letter, to read the next morning, by then it would be too late. When I really thought about it, I realized I had never done these things," Luna explained.

"Celestia will not take kindly to us returning," Twilight said.

"Most likely, as the letter detailed everything that happened and why I was doing what I was doing. And everything that I would have told her if she had not been so busy," Luna said with a sigh.

Night nodded, "Without that letter it is not likely she will see me as… kindly as you have done."

"So how does this involve us more than the fact we kind of got ourselves indirectly ponynapped?" Twilight asked.

"Well, as much as I may not want to, I will need to ask you three to stand by and support me against Celestia so I can prove that Night nor Harry are a danger to Equestria," Luna said.

"What about me?" Hermione asked.

"As powerful and as talented as you are, your powers are not that much above a normal Unicorn's own magical powers," Luna said.

"So wait, in this world I have more magical power than most, but in Equestia I would have only a normal amount?" Hermione said a little surprised.

"Yes, but we are getting sidetracked. The point is, unlike you, Harry's magical powers are growing to rival Night's or my own. Both of which are equal to or more than Celestia's own," Luna said.

"So that's why he would be seen as a threat, okay," Hermione said nodding, slightly happy for once she was not above average for magical skills, in the pony sense.

"So can you three stand by me, in my attempt to prove that I am not… completely in the wrong?" Luna asked.

"Sure," Rainbow said without hesitation.

"If RD is for it then so am I," Applejack said.

Twilight though did not speak, to be honest she was rather conflicted. On one hand she knew that Night was perfectly safe and rather kind, though she seemed to have a dark side if you got her mad. But on the other hand, to go against Celestia was something she would never have ever thought about doing before. It was almost against her very nature to go against the Princess, or worse disappoint her or get her mad. It was after all the reason for most of her big near and actual panics.

Twilight sighed, before asking, "What happens if this goes from defending you to a full-out fight?"

Luna frowned and looked away. That was one thing she had not wanted to think too much about, but it was something she did realize could happen, "Pray it does not get to that point."

"I take it this would be less than good," Rainbow said.

"Well, without the Elements of Harmony and with two powerful Alicorns on our side, Celestia would not take any half measure, in short: full out war. Unless we silenced her quickly, or were able to convince the pony population we are not actually a danger to them," Luna said.

"War! You really think Celestia would go to war?" Twilight said, staring at Luna in shock.

"If she saw us as a great enough danger, then yes. She formed the royal guard for just that reason; she may be powerful but she does have limits, and can only be in one location at a time," Luna pointed out.

"It is a good thing you have our support then, or at least mine and Applejack's," Rainbow said with a small smirk.

"Yes, it is a very good thing, even if you did come along by accident," Luna said before looking at Twilight, "What about you?"

"I don't want to stand against Princess Celestia," Twilight said, before sighing in annoyance, "But I cannot let her actually attack innocents. So… for this one time I will help you against your sister."

"Thank you," Luna said, while Harry moved over and gave her a hug much to Twilight's surprise.

Twilight smiled, looking a little embarrassed as Harry sat back down, not really liking the short hug, but she did not make a comment yet. Applejack noticed the look, but she didn't comment either. It was at this point that Twilight decided it was her turn to speak.

"Harry, I think I might have figured out the riddle to your egg," Twilight said.

"Oh, please tell us," Harry said smiling.

"Well it's more of an educated guess, but based on my research on things wizards could keep control on, and creatures that would be willing to work with them. I am thinking it has something to do with the merpeople village in the lake," Twilight said.

"How did you guess that?" Hermione said a little confused.

"Well simple really, first of all was the sound, which should be a clue unto itself for older students who learn a lot about other cultures in your history class. One of them is the merpeople language which is known to be unable to speak above water in anything but shrieks. From this I was able to guess it would be in the lake," Twilight explained, "That and Harry left his Monster Book of Monsters lying around and I decided to do some reading in it."

"So, how does that help us figure out the riddle?" Rainbow asked.

"Simple really, Harry needs to listen to the egg underwater, unless he cares to learn above-water Mermish before the second task so he can figure out what they are saying without water," Twilight explained.

"Well, that won't be too hard, the hardest part might be figuring out a spell to breathe underwater," Harry said.

"Agreed," Luna pointed out, "But for right now let's enjoy what little time is left before Rainbow has to return to her life in the human world."

Harry smiled, "Of course."

With that they went their separate ways to enjoy the days and time off they had, hoping this peace would last for a while longer.