CELESTIA IS MISSING (Patreon)

CELESTIA IS MISSING

Cadance opened her eyes, a loud banging noise having awoken her. Reaching up to her face, she raised her sleep mask, blinking blearily as she realized it was still dark: she could barely see in front of her face. Lighting her horn, she filled the room with a soft pink glow as she looked at the clock. Three in the morning. Someone was beating her door down at three in the morning.

Rising, the Alicorn began to drowsily make her way to the door of her room, opening to reveal one of the many halls of Canterlot Castle, in the middle of which several guard were standing, both Day Guard in their shiny golden armor, as well as a few members of the Night Guard. “I’m up, I’m up,” Cadence mumbled, blinking as she noted how…tense they all looked. “What’s going on?” She said, concerned.

“You, uh, need to come with us, ma’am,” One of them, a white colt with blue eyes, their mane only a few shades off the regulation blue, their golden armor poorly afixed, somewhat disheveled. “There’s been an incident: we’ve been ordered to escort you to Canterlot Tower.”

Looking back on it, this would be the moment Cadance would pin-point it all going wrong.

***

The office was dusty: its walls lined with books. As Cadance walked in, the Pegasus quickly noted two things. First was that she recognized it as being one of Celestia’s studies: she had dozens of them scattered all over the castle that she occasionally swapped between so long as they were vacant. Indeed, Cadence vaguely recalled studying in this very room a few years ago during an evening where due to an incident involving an axolotl, a loaded cannon, a crate of instant pudding mix, and a griffonian accordionist, her regular study quarters had been unavailable: on the wall was a case full of different pieces of art, mostly carved wooden ships of various shapes, one of which she vaguely recognized as a miniature recreation of Celestia’s personal sky-yacht.

The second was that there were already people within it: a batpony, older, with a pitch black coat and grey mane: their chest had a few medals pinned to it, their cutie mark a bubbling beaker, and Cadence vaguely recognized the stallion as the current head of the Night Guard, Commander Noxious Vapours. His day counterpart and Captain of the Guard as a whole, Captain-General Luxurious Mane, the golden maned unicorn sitting at the desk, writing and reading letters in a frenzy, her pen quickly scratching against paper. Raven Inkwell, Celestia’s personal aide, the mare pacing back and forth, nervously muttering. A dragon she recognized as a recent hire to the castle staff, green scaled and rather rotund, the sleepy looking reptile nursing a cup of coffee as they helped General Lux, belching out scrolls and letters and occasionally incinerating ones the general finished writing, sending them to unknown recipients.

“Oh good, you’re here,” Raven said, breathing a sigh of relief as she spotted Cadance, the disheveled mare pausing their pacing. “Alright, all of you are dismissed except for Private Armor,” She said, causing the Princesses escorts to give an awkward salute and leave, shuffling out the door one by one until only one remained, the guard with the almost-regulation mane, who stood at attention.

“What’s this all about, Raven?” Cadance asked, brows furrowing. “Its three in the morning.”

“There’s a… We’re dealing with a…” Raven gave a dry swallow, her eyes glancing to Generals Nox and Lux, both averting their gaze, uncomfortable. “We have a situation.” That…didn’t sound good.

“And I assume Celestia wants me to handle it,” Cadance observed. It wasn’t the first time she had been awoken in the middle of the night to deal with some problem or another: Celestia was big on first hand experience: a few months ago, it had been helping a visiting Zebrican prince uncurse a ruby. Some weeks before then, it had been aiding in the capture of a tatzlwurm that had been accidentally conjured by a wizard with more power than sense.

The three of them glanced at each other again, a mix of emotions on their face: Ravens was fear and anxiety. Nox looked like he had just swallowed a sour grape and was trying to hide it to be polite, his lips tightening as a strained look appeared on his face. Lux looked tired, the mare breathing in slowly, as if girding herself.

“Unfortunately, you’re half right. As of 48 hours ago, Celestia is missing: we have searched the entire castle and can’t find her, and so far we haven’t been able to locate them in the greater Canterlot area either,” The Captain of the Guard admitted, reaching up to massage her temple with her hoof. “Neither can we find her immediate successor in case of a crisis, Sunset Shimmer.”

Cadance immediately felt her blood go cold, ears folding back as what she was just told registered, filing away the knowledge that Sunset had been next in line for succession. “That- Who’s next?” She asked, trying to tamp down on the pang of fear. There had only been a few times in the recorded history of Equestria where the Princess had been unable to be located, but most the alicorn could recall were extremely unpleasant.

“That’d be you, ma’am,” Nox said, coughing, looking apologetic. “Per the Princesses own instructions, the chain of command goes from princess, t’ senior most student that can be located, t’...Well, there’s a whole list: Celestia updates it every year an’ has us memorize it: yer actually fourth of fifth down th’ line, but we can’t locate any of th’ other ones higher up.”

Oh. “Wh-what about any of Celestia’s previous students?” Cadance said, feeling a bit of shock, sitting down. To her left, she saw Cadet Armor blanch, the young guardsman looking as out of his depth as Cadance felt. “I know the Princess has had proteges before Sunset: shouldn’t they...”

Raven groaned. “Unfortunately that’s not looking to be an option yet: the seniormost of her former students whose still within the realm of the living is living in Stalliongrad last we were able to find, the one after that isn’t on speaking terms with Celestia and hasn’t been for twenty years, and Sunsets immediate predecessor, Dusty Tome, has been missing for seven.”

“Which leaves you,” Lux said, finishing a letter, the unicorn floating it next to the dragon, who slowly inhaled before giving a fiery yawn, sending the missive to some unknown party. “And I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, we are knee deep in some potentially explosive horse apples.”

Cadance froze, and took a breath. “Okay. First we need to figure out where Celestia went. Are there any leads so far?” She inquired.

“We’ve received no ransom notes, as far as we’re aware there have been no breaches in Tartarus, and so far the only incident of suspicious behavior we’ve managed to find turned out to have been a possum sneaking into the forbidden wing of the palace. The only thing we found otherwise was that apparently one of the maids overheard an argument between Sunset and the Princess,” Raven said, voice full of something as she looked away, pursing her lips in discomfort.

“Sounds like a murder-suicide,” The dragon in the corner said sleepily, causing Nox to blink.

“Goodnight moon, that is dark. Why is murder-suicide your first assumption?” The general said, aghast, causing the drake to give a shrug, taking another sip from their mug.

“Look, you grow up in Neigh Jersey, you get a third sense for these things,” The dragon said. “You see it in the news all the time.”

“Please excuse Krunch, Princess Cadance,” Lux said, exasperated. “Apparently Celestia didn’t consider baseless conspiracy theories disqualifying for employment as the court messenger. Krunch, please don’t go spreading conspiracy theories like that: we’re already going to be dealing with so many panicking ponies.”

“Which brings us to why you’re here,” Raven said, cutting Krunch off before the dragon could speak, the drake shrugging, burping out a series of letters that showered over Lux’s desk, knocking its contents over, causing the Mare to shudder. “We’re going to keep looking, but if we can’t find Celestia in the next 24 hours, and it’s looking very likely that that will be the case, we need to start preparing to run the country in the interim.”

“An’ by we she means you,” Nox clarified. “So are we just gonna move past th’ murder suicide thing, because I really feel-”

“Yes, we are,” Raven said, cutting him off, even as Cadence made a series of choices, having spent the interlude offered by the exchange to formulate thoughts from the bubbling chaos of mental uncertainty.

“Okay. First, we need to lockdown the Castle: for the next few days, no one enters except for important members of the government,” Cadence decided: they need to control the flow of information while they prepared to publicly announce the situation. “Commander Nox, I want you to keep investigating Celestia’s wherabouts: search her and Sunsets quarters if you have to,” She said, trying to take control of the situation even as the cold specter of doubt crept its way up her spine. “Lux, I want the guard on high alert: just because we don’t think anything escaped Tartarus doesn’t mean they didn’t. Raven, did Celestia leave any kind of instruct-”

“Absolutely none,” Raven said, dryly. “If she did happen to leave a “what to do in case I go missing” guide its neither in her quarters, her current study, or her actual study. I’ve looked.” She narrowed her eyes. “Extensively.”

“She left me a guide like that, but it was mostly a list of what gems I’m allowed to eat,” The dragon said. "Apparently any agate I find lying around is finders-keepers, but if I eat any of Celestia's pearls she's gonna turn me into a purse."

“Thank you Krunch, your contribution to this conversation is noted,” Lux said through gritted teeth to the sitting court messenger. “Look, Princess, we don’t need a guide,” The general sniffed, before opening a drawer on the desk and retrieving a ledger. “We have Celestia’s personal schedule: we just have to follow it to the letter, and we should be fine,” They said with confidence, floating it to Cadance, who opened the book, looking it over.

Most of it was blank, unfortunately. The remainder consisted of a dental appointment, tea with the Griffonstonian Ambassador, a meeting with some person named Anton, and a note to review something labeled only “dog law” in the booklet. Cadance frowned, flipping the thing around with her telekinesis to show it to the captain of the guard, who swore.

“Um, I don’t want to interrupt, but I think shutting down the Castle is a bad idea,” Private Armor spoke up, voice shaky and nervous, surprising Cadance, who had in the absolute heck that was this conversation forgotten the young guards presence. “That would probably make a lot of people really, uh. Scared? Also, can I ask why I’m here? Uh, Sir.”

Nox closed his eyes, sighing. “Thank you for your input, Private Armor. And stow the sir for now: you’re here because the Princess needs someone to guard her and you’re the only person who sits at that perfect juncture between extremely skilled and perfectly expendable,” They drawled, and Cadance felt somewhat bad for the colt the commander was addressing: .

“O-oh. Uh, yes sir. I won’t let you down sir,” Armor said, giving a salute.

“I know you won’t, son,” Nox said, giving a slight tired smile, before turning back to Cadance. “But he isn’t wrong: we lock down the castle, it’ll send out a thousand decibel signal to the press that something isn’t well in the lair of the white princess, so t’ speak.”

“Something ISN’T well,” Luxurious Mane countered. “Besides, we need to buy time while we try and get things under control.”

“Why not just pretend nothing is wrong?” Krunch argued. “Jus’ have Cadance do all the stuff Celestia was already going t’ do, and tell the press the princess isn’t feeling well.”

“What if the princess doesn’t come back, though?” Armor said, and for a moment the room went silent, as they all pondered the possibility this was permanent. To Cadance, the idea seemed impossible: Equestria without the Princess was like….picturing it was like picturing Canterlot without its castle. Impossible, incomprehensible: some vast and apocalyptic visage that lingered before her like a titanic monument of darkness, like the world in which the sun had stopped.

Wait. What about the s-

“Wait, does this mean I’m out of a job?” Krunch said, concern in his voice. “I don’t wanna move back t’ Neigh Jersey,” He whined, a note of genuine anxiety in the drakes voice as they sat their coffee down, unfortunately derailing Cadances line of thought.

“No, Krunch, you are not out of a job,” Luxurious Mane said, tail whipping in annoyance. “Your position is unfortunately secure unless the Castle head of staff decides otherwise,” She said, giving a hopeful look to Raven, who merely rolled her eyes and shook her head: she would not fire the only Dragon capable of sending messages on the Castles payroll. “Fine,” She grumbled. “Unfortunately, Armor has a point: we can’t just sweep this under the rug. If the Princess is gone for longer than a few weeks or, Sun forbid, YEARS, trying to hide it will just backfire.”

“We could jus’ try t’ rip off the Bandage,” Noxious Vapors added, the dark coated pony scratching their chin with their hoof. “Big old announcement tomorrow: tell em all Celestia can’t be found, but that we’ve already found her replacement.”

“PLEASE don’t call me that,” Cadance said, pained.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m not a…” The commander made a wave with his hoof, face sheepish as they realized how what they said sounded. “Public relations sort of poney,” They admitted, appologizing for their gaffe. “But y’gotta admit, the idea ain’t bad.”

“No, it’s terrible,” Lux retorted. “Unfortunately, its still the best idea we’ve had: people will freak out, but if we can convince them everythings still running fine, we should be able to handle the situation. Just gotta remind em the sun is gonna keep rising,” They said, and with a jolt the thought Cadance had earlier returned, with force.

“Wait a minute, if Celestia has been missing for 48 hours, how has the sun kept rising?”