Sweeping Sea gave way to indomitable Jungle in less than a heartbeat. Had Celestia not been so utterly sure of her recollections, she would have been hard-pressed to argue that there had ever been sea below her at all. Celestia’s wings ached and burned as she slowed to a hover and turned her head in the direction from which she had come.
Despite the mere seconds it had taken her to stop her flight, the churning waters were a distant sight to her ancient eyes, barely a sliver of blue on the horizon. It was a testament to the fury of her flight. She had traveled across half the world in mere hours, though every minute felt like eons. Desperation and grief fueled every flap of her mighty wings, every second encouraging and threatening at the same time. Exhaustion plagued her, for she had not felt the touch of true restful sleep in weeks, but she pushed aside the clouds that threatened to tear her mind to pieces and returned to her trek.
“Let Tempest Seas froth and boil at wingtips
Until Green Untamed pounces upon you.
Three Fountains of Rage surround the Garden
Upon whose Gate shall stand the Envoy of Fire.
Face not the Guardian, but look to the fading Light.”
The memory on the wind whispered in her ears as three incomprehensibly massive volcanoes loomed in the distance. Impossibly perfect columns of smoke marked a boundary that protected an unknown she could only guess at. The White Mare tossed aside the curiosity that drove her to investigate and turned her gaze to the West. Her Sun’s daily journey was three-fourths complete, and every shade of red shined across the landscape. Had she been in her right mind, Celestia would have noticed a hundred miniature defects in the Sun’s radiance. Luna was inexperienced in shepherding the Burning Life, and having the duty foisted upon her with mere seconds of warning had done her no favors.
When no great revelations came to her, Celestia tucked her legs close to her body and rocketed towards the sunset. She had little time for games and cryptic prophecies, but those were all that were left to her. For the uncountable-upon tenth time she cursed her Mother’s propensity for theatrics and grandeur.
Trees as tall as mountains and as ancient as the dirt gripping their roots taunted Celestia, masking the secrets she sought. The mere wood and leaves threw her endless power and eons of wisdom in her face and she was helpless to retaliate.
Eternity passed, and eventually Celestia’s wings gave out. Lack of nourishment, no rest, and dried out adrenal glands finally reduced the Eldest Sister to nothing more than a tumbling mess of fur and feather. Branches thick as entire ponies snapped like twigs beneath her. Harsh bark scratched at her unblemished skin and left long streaks of red in their path. Only after passing through enough wood to construct a small village did tree give way to earth. Cold mud sloshed about her fresh wounds as she slid to a stop among a long-dead thorn bush.
Out of options, out of time, and out of energy, Celestia laid in the mud and cried. Her sobs echoed through the trees and she screamed until her throat was raw. Her horn fizzled and swirled with sapped power, as she lacked even the willpower to stand, much less weave a coherent spell.
Tears and stagnant rainwater mixed together through the ditch that marked Celestia’s landing. Celestia cried until her eyes ran dry and bloodshot. Her form continued to shake until she was reduced to retching and dry heaving.
Though it was difficult to tell from beneath the three layers of canopy, it eventually became apparent that night had fallen over the Jungle. Any normal creature of Equestrian origin would have panicked at the prospect; the Jungle was wild, untamed beyond comprehension. The only order to be imposed upon the flora and fauna was that which imposed itself. Nary was a stone placed upon another in good order in the entirety of the expanse. By comparison the Everfree Forest was a tamed housecat.
Predators mindful of meat and little else stalked the shadows in search of feather-footed prey. It was a struggle as old as time, forged and honed and sharpened and forged again in an endless cycle of adaptation and innovation. Strengths overcame weaknesses and were in turn reduced to weakness by new strengths.
There was a part of Celestia’s mind, a significant fraction in fact, that wished nothing more than to lay in the mud and die. She toyed with the idea of becoming a prowling jaguar’s dinner, but the prospect proved unappealing enough to bring Celestia to her hooves. Her legs were shaky and ached as the feeling of her crash landing surged to the forefront of her senses. She groaned and lit her horn to untangle the spiked vines tangled on her barrel and legs. The golden light sputtered before solidifying and burning away the brown remnants.
Deep breaths gave way to pained coughs and flecks of blood on mud-matted white fur. When her coughing fit subsided, Celestia sighed shakily and considered what to do next. A thousand years of plotting and scheming to engineer every scenario to her precise specifications, and she had no idea what to do. She couldn’t conceive a single plan that would save both her student and her nation, both of which she had carefully nurtured from infancy. To rescue the former would doom the latter, and to do nothing would condemn the first to an eternity of torture and suffering.
With nothing left to do, Celestia gave an experimental flap of her wings. The white-hot lance of pain that shot through every neuron nearly dropped her to her knees, but she bit her lip and forced herself through the pain. Even more blood trickled down her lips as she folded her wings back to her sides. Robbed of flight and too mentally frazzled to properly teleport, Celestia settled for pointing herself in the direction she instinctively knew Equestria to be and began to walk.
Thick vegetation provided a moderate obstacle, but the occasional fleck of magic was enough to clear away the greenery. The beasts of the wild had likewise come to the conclusion that the Radiant One was more trouble than she was worth, and as such left her a wide berth. Hunger was a driving force in the Jungle, but fear even more so. Time passed unnoticed for Celestia, each step blending together until her endless trudge was all she had ever known.
Gradually, the sounds of the Jungle faded away as birds and insects fled an intangible cloud of unease. Shadows darkened and light dimmed. Even the air itself stilled as if afraid of upsetting the capricious dominance that had overtaken the atmosphere.
Celestia noticed none of these signs. Her eyes were glazed over and her attention turned inwards. She cursed her Mother, Fate, herself, everyone and everything under the Sun. Loathing didn’t even begin to describe the seething hatred she felt for everything in Creation at that moment.
An arrow sliced out of the darkness and across the tip of her nose. Barely a scratch, a kitten would have inflicted more injury, but it was sufficient to draw her back into reality. She jerked to a halt and darted her eyes about the void for the source of the attack. Her ears twitched in search of absent ambient noise as lead dropped into her stomach. Adrenaline thought exhausted shocked her heart into a frenzy.
“Who is there? Show yourself!” The command was raspy and quiet, a result of her mangled throat. The Jungle said nothing in reply, leaving her to spin in place in search of hidden danger.
“Why do you come to this place, Sun Bringer?”
Liquid mercury filled her ears and drained into the depths of her being to tickle her soul. Primal fear danced across her spine and weakened her knees to the point of trembling. Had she ever heard a sound so foul and wrong in all her eons she would have gouged her eardrums from her skull and praised the pain for its release.
“Speak. Forays to Cursed Realms are not undertaken lightly. Why have you come?”
Desperate hope blossomed from ashes and gave birth to her voice. “Twilight Sparkle has been taken from me,” she blurted without reservation or pretense. It had been centuries since she had spoken with such honesty laid bare.
A rumble passed through the underbrush.
“The Redeemer. Her True Birth was felt even in this Forsaken place.”
Celestia nodded rapidly. “Chrysalis of the Changelings has stolen her and holds her captive. The depths of her Kingdom would doom any rescuers, and she threatens Twilight’s death upon the attempt.”
A sound shook the ground beneath her hooves. It was too foul to be called true laughter but Celestia's extensive vocabulary lacked another word to describe it.
“So the Deceiver fools the Sun, and so she seeks the Forlorn in pursuit of hope. Has Heaven ever rained upon the Low more indisputable retribution for hubris?”
Rage, white hot and furious as the most fearsome solar storm ripped across the land. Life seared to glass from emotion translated to arcane intensity. When the light faded Celestia realized her jaw was seized and her teeth were on the verge of shattering. Deep breaths relaxed her tense muscles and dissolved the white light that had replaced her eyes.
“Apologies, Sun Bringer, but I could not resist. Who can say they have riled the Sun and lived to tell the tale?”
Celestia snarled at the mirthful voice’s return. The earth was scorched in every direction for a half a league, and yet the voice seemed to caress her ears from just outside her vision. It was tender velvet upon sandpaper, both soothing and grating to the essence of her being.
“Do you wish to play games?! I shall play your games!” Her horn blazed, but before she could even begin to draw upon her power a chill fell over her.
“Calm yourself, Life Giver. Make your plea, and we will hear you. Beyond that, I promise nothing.”
Terror flashed through her, but took a backseat to her priority.
“I ask you to do what I cannot. I ask you to bring Twilight back to me.”
There was a long, drawn out silence before the voice spoke again.
“Do you beg?”
“What?” Confusion and dread danced through her.
“Do you beg? Would She Most High beg Those Cast Aside?”
Without hesitation, Celestia dropped to her knees and buried her horn in the ash. Her wings spread and rested on the ground in ultimate submission, offering her most delicate appendages to their mercy. Blood, soot and mud coalesced in her feathers to form swirls of macabre beauty. Those seeking knowledge of how far the great could fall needed look no farther than the wrecked patch of what was once a vibrant section of the Jungle.
“I beg of those who would listen, I offer all of what I am and I possess. Please, return Twilight to me. I beg you.”
For a long moment, silence reigned. Only when it became unbearable did Celestia raise her head. The landscape had changed, charred and barren remains returned to a lush and bountiful state. Even the snapped branches from her fall were repaired without even the slightest defect.
“I BEG OF YOU!” she screamed into the reborn darkness, but only the birds answered her call.
Centuries later, scholars would pour all their resources into ascertaining the true events of what was later known only as ‘The Crisis.’ The disappearance of Princess Twilight, the frantic house-to-house searches across Equestria by the Royal Guard, Princess Celestia’s withdrawal from public view. These and a hundred other strange occurrences remained unexplained until the ponies of the day moved on. It was astounding the way ponies could simply forget en masse such upheaval, and it frustrated scholars to no end.
When Princess Twilight returned to Equestria, no statement was given. When asked about the incident, the Princesses would close their respective Courts immediately and resume the following day as if nothing had occured. Those who had asked the question would be ejected from the Palace and barred from returning. Ponies learned quickly to remain silent on the issue.
The one, solid piece of information the scholars were able to uncover was a report by the commander of a Royal Guard outpost on the Equestrian border. The report mentioned a small group of Changelings that had wandered in from the Badlands, disoriented and half-insane. Considering the report was dated barely a year after the Changeling attack on Canterlot, it was unsurprising that the Guards immediately took the Changelings prisoner
What was unusual was the fact that they revealed that their entire Swarm had been annihilated. That was the word each had used, annihilated. Burned away to less than nothing, erased beyond even remembrance. The Guard officer noted that he had never seen such listlessness or panic in Warrior Drones, and included a short list of their accounts.
Each account spoke of beasts of unparalleled speed and ferocity. Shadows turned corporeal with twisted forms and looming figures. Tunnels filled with corpses stacked to the ceilings with wounds smoother than glass. Flashes of silver and steel in overwhelming darkness beginning at the outermost reaches of the Hive and moving towards the Nexus without slowing or stopping. The Queen sending confused and conflicting orders through the Collective until, with one horrific slice, the Queen was no more.
Those who remained living only accomplished such by fleeing in every direction at once, and still the survivors felt haunted even in their magically-secured cells. An attached follow-up report dated a week after the first reported the Changelings in custody had been found slaughtered in their cells, and an investigation revealed no evidence of physical infiltration or damage to the facility's anti-teleportation runes.
Two days before the group of researchers were to publish what few findings they had uncovered, the Royal Guard confiscated all related materials ‘with apologies from the Crown.’
Author's Note
10 points and an adorable pony gif to anyone who can point out all the allusions in the story.
