Chapter 1: The Tag Is Literal
The desert was the Sun’s playground. The few clouds foolish enough to wander over these lands did not stay long, fearful of the Sun’s burning gaze. On these golden hills, a scrap of shade was worth your weight in gold, and a drop of water more than all the spices carried over the seas.
Celestia had traveled across the rolling hills for countless hours now, each step another pinprick of sand that slid down the hourglass of time, to be returned to the desert beneath her hooves. She was covered head to hoof in cloth, its meager shade her saving grace. She had run out of water long ago, and to say she was parched was to say that there was a little sand in this place. She dared not swallow to try and wet her throat, for fear that her throat would crack like glass.
She looked to the sky, an ocean of blue overhead that offered no water. The Sun laughed as it crept across the heavens, laughed at her like she was just another one of its toys, meant to suffer like everyone else.
Celestia slid her hood back, and the Sun’s rays lanced into her eyes like a hundred needles seeking to blind her. Others would have hidden their faces, seeking mercy from the pitiless Sun, but she felt only fury. “Is that how you like to play your game?” she called out, eyes trained on the ball of light and life. “Is this how you want it to go?” Her voice was too weak to shout, the words as dry as leaves on a dead tree’s branches.
The Sun gave no answer. Heat danced around her as if at a gala event, and beneath her robes, Celestia knew her hide shone as bright with sweat as any ballroom gown. It frolicked and made merry while she was left to bask in its uninvited presence.
“I know you can hear me up there. I have traveled across your desert. I have traveled far and wide. I have sacrificed my time and magic for you. And this is what I get?” Her eyes burned, but Celestia’s gaze didn't waver. Many had gone blind staring at the Sun, seeking to spy upon what lay beyond, but she did not care, not now. “Do you fear my presence? Is that it? Or is it that I am still unworthy to you, even now, even after all I have done?”
Still no answer. The Sun was too busy playing its game.
Celestia clicked her tongue. “Very well. If that is how it is going to be, if that is how you will reward my efforts,” Celestia turned her back to the Sun, to its games, to its life-giving light. “Keep your secrets, then. I do not need them.”
“Oh, but you do, equine. You do indeed,” a voice said in the breeze. Cool air flowed across her pricked ears. Celestia could hear leaves shaking and brooks breaking in the distance, flowing down the mountains, a hundred miles away, as if they were just beyond the next hill.
Celestia stilled her steps, standing atop the hill, ears swiveling. “Is it the one I seek who speaks to me?”
“He does not speak, not to you; no mortal words will touch his tongue.” Celestia shivered as the breeze whispered into her ears, carrying with it sibilant words, though she was alone. “He has sought you—yes, you—specifically. As you seek him. You are now acquainted.”
“Why does… he not speak to me himself?”
“He communicates with the wind, for it owes him a favor. Him using this debt to talk should not be taken lightly, so use wise words and a dull tongue with him.”
Celestia still did not turn around, eyes focused on the ground laden in miniscule gold. “Is he whose words you carry the one who stands above all?”
“He is the one who sits at the golden throne.”
“Are you he who flies overhead each morning until the night’s presence breaks the spell?”
“He is the one who roams across the sea of the sky, overlooking the earthly realm, entitled to it but no ruler for it.”
“Are you he who sparked the first life in the land?”
“He is the one who shepherded the lambs of the mortal flock and guided the beasts of mud and blood from when they first were arisen.”
Celestia turned around. She had finally found the other side of the light, the light she had been chasing since she became ruler of Equestria, the light that was the life-giver and taker of the world.
The Sun smiled at her.
“He is the one who has searched for the next one. Just like those before, he has searched far and wide. Many suitable candidates, but you… there was something different.” The Sun’s smile was toothy, almost too many to fill his mouth without spilling over. The nostrils of his long snout flared open and the sharp triangles that were his ears pointed to her. The whiskers on his face were aflame, that wolfish grin of his never leaving his face. The only truly alien part of him that signaled a godly status was the smooth skin he wore from the neck down, odd muscles and strange proportions making Celestia blink, but once her eyes cleared, they were still there. “Do you know what it is he saw?”
Celestia shivered. The Sun’s mouth did not move with the words his servant spoke into her ears, the words of the wind, smooth as silk, belying his burning visage. Celestia squared her shoulders, steeling herself. She had come this far; she would not back down now.
“That difference being that I want to use this power to help my little ponies?” she asked.
Bees buzzed happily in her ears before she realized the Sun was laughing at her. “Many have promised that over the ages. Promises, like kingdoms or empires, eventually break. The cracks seep in, one by one. How can you guarantee that your promise won’t be defiled in the years to come?”
“Because as long as I live and breathe, I shall protect my ponies. And if that means keeping this promise, not even death itself shall break it. This I swear by my magic, my life, and my soul.” The Sun’s eyes were two endless holes in the sky, darker than the void between the stars at night, but Celestia did not look away, the Sun’s radiance no longer scorching her face, no longer blinding her to what lay beyond. “You can choose not to believe me if you want, but I did not travel all this way to receive no answer.”
The Sun smirked, arms behind his back as he took a single step forward. An inferno more intense than anything Celestia could possibly imagine engulfed her. She did not burn, but felt the heat nevertheless, a heat so great that the sand melted into glass around her hooves. “You deem yourself worthy, you deem yourself ready, and you even deem yourself deserving. But, do you deem yourself responsible for what he has to offer?” The Sun reached out with a hand that parted back the void and rested a finger on Celestia’s cheek, her white coat turning gold as the Sun. “Many others have before.”
“You would not have appeared before me if I was like the others,” Celestia said.
The Sun tilted his head, an ear pointed upwards. “No, he would not. He is very busy, you see. He has little time for equines, even those like you. You were special, he said, special indeed, and he sees it even now.” The Sun leaned forward, his snout exhaling a breath of billions of flames lighting and extinguishing themselves all at once. “But do you see it?”
Celestia shook her head, keeping in mind that the Sun’s finger was still held against her skin. “No. If my first answer did not suffice, then what is it that makes me special?”
The Sun withdrew his finger. He took a single step back, refilling the void in space that had been empty for but a moment.
“You do not know it, then. Does not matter to him, for he knows it, and that is all that counts. In time, perhaps you shall as well, but for now, time is not a luxury he can waste.”
“Does… does that mean my quest is finally over? I have found what I was searching for?” Celestia smiled. “I can finally return home?”
The Sun turned his back to her, his hairless skin bristling with tiny flames and jets of fire that sparked across his back. He looked up to the empty sky, his stomping grounds, his playpen to roam and wander. He shrugged.
“It is up to you where your home is. He already knows where his is. But, to answer your question, yes, your journey has come to an end. He has decided you shall be the next, until a new next one shall arrive, as they always do. He thinks it shall be interesting to see how you handle it. Different circumstances, he calls it.”
Celestia pursed her lips. “Different how?”
“Well, typically he makes whoever is next perform numerous demeaning tasks or obey ridiculous orders that are implied to give one insight to the responsibility they are about to face. Really, it’s just to test how far the poor fool will go. He may not wish to waste his time, but when he does, he enjoys himself.”
The Sun smiled, back still turned to Celestia. Celestia scowled at his neck.
“So you’re telling me I embarked on an epic quest across countless miles to an inhospitable desert just to find you, when really the entire time it was a test to see if I’d actually go through with it?”
The Sun glanced over his shoulder, displaying his impressive canine grin to her. “You equines are an interesting race. He knows this well. Although not particular to his tastes most of the time.”
“I see. The diamond dogs, then?”
“Wrong. He prefers phoenixes. Really remarkable birds. Very pretty feathers. He recommends you should look into getting one as a companion.”
Celestia rolled her eyes. “I’ll be sure to get right on that.” Staring at the golden hills disappearing into the warped horizon, she asked, “So, what now?”
The Sun stared into the horizon as well, the air dancing in a duet with the heat in a song only he could hear. “Now, you go back to your little equines. Your days shall be long and easy, producing many grains and crops from farmland. His rays shall shine over your land, not too hot, not too cold, giving what is needed for life to flourish. He shall be merciful, as you shall be, as well. You are the land’s life-giver now, for you direct his rays and tell his light where to shine. His power shall be your own to provide for your people.”
“What do you mean by merciful?”
The Sun turned to her, and his empty eyes stared back at her, like an unblinking abyss. “The power he has granted you comes with life everlasting. His bounty can be seen across the world, you see. His bounty, they walk, they talk, they feel, they live. Take from this bounty using his power, and… well, he’ll be proven wrong about your worthiness.” A spark so miniscule that it barely resembled an ember shone in the sockets of the Sun’s eyes. “He does not like being proven wrong. Not befitting for him. Those who do that do not last long, one way or the other. He sees to that personally.”
Celestia gulped, throat still dry and cracked, like pottery left out too long in the Sun. “I see. Then I assure you that I shall use this power justly. Only to benefit my little ponies. Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Good. The last time the equines did not follow this simple task, well… you probably already know what he did, don’t you?”
A wind swept across the the desert, gold drifting in the air that sparkled in the Sun’s light. “Without warmth, coldness numbs the heart. You are Equestria’s warmth now, you see. Its heart is your own. Keep it beating.”
The wind grew more powerful, sand billowing in the air like waves of the sea that once resided here long, long ago, still under the same Sun. Celestia held her hood against her head, gazing into the Sun as he soon drifted away with the sand.
“Wait, what do I do now? How do I control it?” Celestia said.
The Sun stood in the sky, over the sandy hills that disappeared in the horizon, the heat dancing with its final song. “You do not control him. You are merely his guide, his path, his helping hand. Show him the way to his rest over these lands.”
Celestia’s horn glowed. She focused her gaze on the dying ball of light, the light of her magic traveling with the sand to form a golden trail down past the horizon. The Sun traveled down it, a hop and skip to his step as he reached his destination past the horizon into the lands beyond it that still needed his light. The path still sparkled even as the night overtook the day, but it slowly dwindled as Celestia’s magic let up.
Only the Sun could see this path, but he appreciated it, nonetheless, the final twinkle of his light almost winking at Celestia. Or at least that’s what Celestia thought. When the wind swept across the desert this time, it had no words to say.
Celestia turned away from the golden pathway and the Sun’s last rays. The desert was quiet and cool, the first chills of the night seeping in like the light pitter-patter of rain before the storm. She could hear her heart beating in her chest, a warmth spreading to her body to fight back against the night’s icy hold. She smiled, her thirst gone for the moment, the weariness of her travels gone. She felt light as air, free to roam in the sky, much like the Sun. In fact…
Celestia looked back and tore off her robes, her eyes widening. “When did I get wings?!”