How Equestria Was Made

Chapters

The Creation of Equestria
The Appearance of the Goddesses
The Great Deeds of the Goddesses
Further Deeds of the Goddesses
The Passing of the Goddesses
The Sacrifice
The New Era

The Creation of Equestria

Two young sisters sat in the attic of their house. It was the farthest room from the living room, the floor of which was now littered with fragments of Great-Grandma Mimsy’s antique vase.

Seven years old and small for her age, Annie loved shadows, moonlight, bats, and--for no readily apparent reason--ponies. She tried to pace back and forth, but the attic was too cluttered with old junk for her to move far in any one direction. “How long are we gonna have to hide in here?” she asked.

Polly was an awkward, gangly twelve--just old enough to be interested in boys, but not old enough to be allowed to walk to their houses unaccompanied. She didn’t look up from her cell phone, but she briefly paused in tapping out a text message. “At least a few hours,” she replied. “One for Mom to find the pieces, and two for her to calm down, so . . . until dinner?”

“But it’s boring here!” Annie objected, raising her arms in protest.

“Annie, you were the one who broke the vase,” Polly said. “Now I’m stuck here too, hoping Mom doesn’t figure out we’re up here. If you want to go get a book or something, go get one, but if Mom catches you . . .” She drew a finger across her throat.

“It was an accident!” Annie whined.

Annie stamped her little boots on the attic floor, and an unexpectedly rotten board snapped in two. She let out a yelp as her leg disappeared into the crawlspace under the floor.

Polly rushed over to her and grabbed her hand. “Are you okay? I’ll help you out of--”

“No touching,” Annie reminded her.

It seemed not long ago that Annie had been very tactile, always hugging and clinging to Polly. Polly was still getting used to how touch-phobic her sister had become since she’d had to change schools.

To the older girl’s credit, she backed off immediately. “I’m sorry, Annie,” she said.

Annie struggled out of the hole. “It’s okay,” she said. She turned and looked back into the darkness. “Hey, there’s something in here! Can you reach it, Sis?”

Well, it wasn’t like they had anything better to do . . . Polly fished out something that resembled a snow globe. Not that there was snow in it, or anything else, for that matter. She rotated it in her hands, trying and failing to find something interesting about it.

“Can I see?” Annie asked. She took hold of it by the base, and she peered into the glass like it was a crystal ball. “Oh magical snow globe,” she intoned, “show us your secret powers!”

Somewhere in the dark of space, Polly silently floated. She had no eyes, but she could see distant stars all around her. She had no ears, but she could hear the whisper of the solar wind. She had no mouth . . . Okay, that might be a problem.

“Sis, where are you?” Annie yelled.

“Over here!” Polly instinctively replied. Her voice sounded strange, like she was hearing it on the answering machine. “Where are you?”

“Over here!” Annie echoed, her voice coming from nowhere at all.

After a brief pause, Annie popped into existence, her face screwed up in concentration. “Think about yourself, Sis,” she said. “Remember what you look like.”

Polly did her best. Suddenly possessing hands again, she brought them to her face to take a good look at them. They were vague and blurry--who really remembers the back of their own hand?--but at least she had them.

“So if I think of a cat . . .” Annie said. She was gone, replaced by a curled-up tabby. “Or a dog . . .” the cat said in Annie’s voice. It was transfigured, and a Saint Bernard floated in the void. “Or a fish . . .” A goldfish swam through imaginary waters. “This is so cool!”

If Polly were several years older, and if she’d had much more knowledge of illegal drugs, she might have had the words to express how she felt. As it was, the best she could frame it was that she was manic and mellowed all at once. She knew on some level that she should be alarmed by what was happening, but she couldn’t muster up an appropriate level of fear, and instead her sense of logic and reason decided to take a nap. A very long nap.

Annie, on the other hand (or paw, or fin), was simply manic. She ceased her swimming and turned to look at Polly. “Let’s make something!” she said.

“Annie, we need to find a way out of here,” Polly attempted. She realized she was giggling. Why was she giggling? “Um, wherever here is . . .”

“Sis, you’re no fun,” Annie replied.

The void was no longer empty. A planet floated below them, blue and green with swathes of white. The continents didn’t match Earth. “It’ll have magic, and monsters, and ruins thousands of years old!”

Polly’s logic stirred in its sleep. “If you just made it, the ruins can’t be thousands of years old. Besides, there aren’t any people here to leave ruins.”

“Not people!” Annie insisted, her new form quadrupedal and aggressively pink. “Ponies! Just like my Pony Princess dolls! They all live in the pony kingdom and have adventures!” She pointed a hoof down at the planet. “There’s the kingdom!”

Against what was left of her better judgment, Polly wished to see more clearly, and her vision magnified. She looked down on a village filled with brightly colored equines, going about their brightly colored equine lives.

God was real, and She was Polly’s little sister who liked ponies. This time, Polly’s sense of reason was down for the count.

“Some of the ponies are unicorns,” Annie said. Horns sprouted from a few ponies’ heads. “They can do unicorn magic. And some . . . Um . . . What else is cool, Sis?”

“Pegasi?” Polly ventured. At Annie’s blank look, she added, “Horses with wings.”

“Cool!” Annie shouted. “Make some peg-a-si, Sis!”

It was just like changing a dream. Polly had only to picture it, and some of the ponies sprouted wings and flew. One soared past a cloud, and on impulse, she made the cloud solid for it to land on.

A ground-bound, hornless pony looked up at a pegasus with undisguised envy in its eyes. “Let’s give them something, too,” Annie suggested, “so they don’t feel left out. Maybe they’re really strong! Or maybe they can make flowers grow anywhere!”

“Flowers?” Polly asked.

“Yeah, ponies love flowers! All the Pony Princess dolls have flowers in their manes!”

It felt like they spent hours tweaking the world before Annie declared it done. At this pronouncement, Polly blinked, and she came to herself on the floor of the attic. She didn't feel like she'd been sleeping there--it was more like she'd been dropped there from a height.

Polly stood up and brushed dust from her clothes. “Must have been a gas leak,” she said. She wasn’t sure what kind of gas it was, or where it would leak from, but it was the only thing she could think of.

“Nu-uh!” Annie said. “Look!”

Annie held up the snow globe. A little world hung inside it, surrounded by stars.

Polly clutched at her forehead. She felt a headache coming on. “What. The. HELL?”

“Bad word, bad word!” Annie chanted. “You said a bad word!”

Author's Note

My original note called the story "a response to, and in some ways a counterargument to, Them by Ether Echoes." However, Annie's tale evolved and changed from my initial conception, and that descriptor doesn't really fit anymore. I'm only leaving it so the comments will still make sense.

This chapter was edited by Rakni.

The Appearance of the Goddesses

“Diana Artemisia Baker!” Mom yelled. “Did you break this vase?”

Annie the Just, creator goddess of the magical land of Equestria, lowered her gaze and humbly apologized. “I’m sorry, Mom. I tried to fix it, but it wouldn’t go back together.”

“Well, since you were honest,” Mom told her, “I won’t ground you. But I’m taking away your TV privileges for the week.”

Annie kept looking at the floor. She was a big girl now, and big girls don’t throw tantrums--at least, not when their mothers are looking. “Yes, Mom.”

Mom smiled. “I always hated that awful vase, even if it was an antique. You shouldn’t have broken it, but it’s not a big deal--your father probably won't even notice it's missing. Now go wash up for dinner.”

Sitting down at the table and eating dinner felt weird. No, it felt normal, and normal felt weird. Dad was gulping down huge helpings of mashed potatoes, Mom was carving her steak into perfect little squares, and even Polly occasionally put something in her mouth instead of picking at it. Only Annie stared at her food. Goddesses didn’t need to eat, but she wasn’t a goddess now. How could she become a goddess and then stop being one?

Briefly setting down his fork, Dad looked across the table at Annie and smiled. “What did you do today, Little Moon?”

At any other time, Annie would have protested the nickname, but she was still a bit distracted. “I made a world,” she absently mumbled.

It’s difficult to choke on mashed potatoes, but Polly somehow managed it. She coughed loudly, briefly drawing Annie’s attention.

“Made a world?” Dad repeated.

Annie’s first instinct was to backpedal, but she’d already said it; she might as well follow through. “Yeah. I made it, and Sis helped. It’s called Equestria. It’s thousands of years old, and it’s full of heroes and monsters. But it’s a nice world--the heroes always win.”

Polly’s left eye was twitching rapidly.

“Oh, how cute!” Mom said. “Tell us about some of the heroes.”

“Well, there’s Star Swirl,” Annie said. “He’s a unicorn. His magic lets him travel through time, so he can stop villains in the past and the future. And Violetta, who wanders the whole world looking for rare flowers for her garden. And Lightning Dash, the fastest peg-a-sus in the world . . .”

Annie’s food grew cold while she talked, but she didn’t really care. Mom and Dad were just playing along at first, but after a while, they actually seemed interested. Even grown-ups thought Equestria was cool! (As for Polly, she stopped twitching after a while, though she didn’t talk much.)

By dinner’s end, Annie was starting to feel normal again. Lots of girls made up imaginary worlds. It wasn’t really a problem if her world was a little less imaginary than her parents assumed.

“Annie . . .” Mom said gently. “Do you want to start drawing again?”

Annie had done a lot of drawings before she’d changed schools. She was a lot better than the other students, and Mom had said she was a “prod-i-jee.” If she could draw Equestria . . . if that perfect world could mix with her world, at least in pictures . . . Maybe Equestria could come to her, some way, somehow.

“Yes,” Annie said. “I’d love to.”

The sisters stood in the attic and looked down at the hole in the floor.

“You’re going to be careful, right?” Polly asked.

“Yeah, I will,” Annie replied. “I promise.”

“It’s just that we don’t know what’s going on . . .”

“You said that already, Sis,” Annie reminded her.

Polly squatted down to Annie’s height. “Annie, I’m scared. I don’t know how to handle this. I know we can’t just back away. I mean, we made a whole world; we need to go back so we can understand what we did. But still, there are so many ways this could go wrong.”

“Equestria’s not like that,” Annie assured her sister. “It’s a peaceful world. There’s not a lot of danger . . .”

Polly fished the snow globe out from under the floorboards, and for the first time, it lived up to its name.

All of Equestria was covered in frost.

More than anything, Clover the Clever just wished everypony would shut up.

The assembled leadership of all three pony tribes was hopelessly snowed into one tiny little cave. With no clue what had caused this freak blizzard, there was no way of guessing when it would finally let up--and with nothing to do while they waited, their noble and majestic leaders had fallen to petty bickery. Even with her eyes closed and her hooves clapped over her ears, Clover couldn’t fully drown them out.

“We are a princess, and We refuse to go hungry! We demand a full share of the rations!”

“We? We? I, me, Chancellor Puddinghead, was the one who brought these rations. I’m the one who’ll eat them. So you can just shove off.”

“Hurricane, help Us put some sense into this ruffian! We’ll share the rations with you as well!”

“I’d sooner starve than make your fat rump any bigger, princess.”

Clover silently recited mathematical formulas to herself, then switched to plans for how one might silently and efficiently dispose of three heads of state at once. Neither was working. Why couldn’t there be just one other pony here who understood? Who realized that there were more important things than what a pony had on her head or her back?

“Whatcha doin’?” a playful voice asked.

Clover looked up to find an orange earth pony smiling down at her. Puddinghead’s assistant, she remembered--but hadn’t Puddinghead gotten separated from her retinue in the blizzard? Yet at the same time, a part of her was certain the earth pony had been in the cave with them all along.

Clover set aside the clashing memories and focused on answering the question. “Being bored,” she said. “The magic barrier at the entrance is mostly keeping the cold out, and air’s still getting in through the top of the cave mouth. If we run out of food before the blizzard ends . . . well, we run out. I spent the first few hours worrying, but now I just hate having to wait like this.

“If you could do something, what would you do?” the assistant asked.

“What’s there to do?” Clover retorted. “If we had the pieces, we could play chess, but . . .”

Suddenly, there was a board in front of her, all the pieces neatly in place. “Chancellor Puddinghead always packs a chess board,” the assistant said. “She won’t notice if we borrow it. Let’s play.”

The assistant clearly had no experience playing chess, and Clover easily beat her twice. But she was a gifted amateur, and the third game was long and protracted, ending in a stalemate.

“You have talent,” Clover observed. “Stranger, my name is Clover the Clever, assistant to Princess Platinum and pupil of Star Swirl the Bearded. What do you call yourself?”

“I’m Smart Cookie!” she said, beaming. “Assistant to Chancellor Puddinghead! So, what else do you want to do?”

Clover snuck a glance over at the heads of state. Still arguing, and still thankfully distracted. “We shouldn’t do anything to catch their attention. That rules out anything loud. Perhaps we could just talk?”

Cookie frowned. “I don’t have much to talk about. I’m a little boring. But I could tell you a story. You know Star Swirl, since he’s your teacher, but have you heard of Violetta?”

“I know her legend quite well,” Clover said. “I study potions as well as magic. She discovered many of the reagents I use.”

Cookie’s eyes crossed when she heard the word “reagents.” “Well, I’m an earth pony, so I can’t tell pegasus legends. Pansy?”

At that moment, Clover realized there was another pony in the cave with them--Pansy, Hurricane’s assistant. She’d been there all along, hadn’t she? But where had she been during the chess game?

“Um--er--I’m not that good at telling stories,” Pansy said.

Cookie threw Pansy a petulant look. “Aw, come on! Just one! Please?”

“Well, I do know Lightning Dash’s story. She was a pegasus from the north, where the winds are fast and the clouds are thin . . .”

It was a pretty good story once Pansy got into the rhythm of telling it. Dash was far more hotheaded and overconfident than comparable heroes in unicorn myths. Indeed, her brashness tended to create more problems than it solved. But she was never willing to let anyone else suffer for her mistakes, sacrificing anything and everything she had to lose in order to put things right. Clover couldn’t help but root for someone so duty-bound.

“Her injury never really healed,” Pansy finished. “She would never fly fast enough to make another Sonic Rainboom. But when little Spark grew old enough to fly, Lightning could still fly well enough to teach her, and that was more than enough for both of them.”

“That was beautiful,” Clover conceded. “I’m afraid I don’t have any stories to share myself. Unless . . .”

“Unless what?” Cookie asked.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t,” Clover said. “I’m not confident in my skill.”

Cookie leaned in close, her disarming smile filling Clover’s vision. “We’re your friends. We won’t laugh. Unless it’s a joke; then we’ll totally laugh. Right, Pansy?”

“Right,” Pansy said. “I’d love to hear your story.”

Friends? It was a little sudden, but Clover supposed it was true. She rather liked these foreigners, strange as they might be.

Clover snuck a glance off to the side. Strangely, the leaders all seemed to have fallen asleep. She briefly thought of checking for frostbite, but no, the air was still relatively warm.

“In addition to the sciences,” Clover explained, “I’ve studied some of the arts--in particular, the art of music. I can sing for you, but I mustn’t be too loud, lest I wake them.”

“I don’t think they’ll wake up,” Pansy said. “It looks like they’re out cold.”

Clover cleared her throat.

I met him on Kenkyrie Heath

One summer night when all was still

His blade undeeded in its sheath

He wanted naught but to test his skill . . .

Pansy was clearly swept away by the ballad. Cookie seemed oddly confused at first, but in time, she too was lost in the music. Clover didn’t permit herself to feel any pride at this, merely continuing the song and bringing it to its conclusion.

. . . And now he lives in Kenkyrie

And I live with him as his bride

His blade has seen no noble deed

But he cares naught for foolish pride.

“Wow,” Pansy said.

“That was really good,” Cookie added. “I thought for sure he was gonna kill the hydra, though.”

“There’s a version where he does,” Clover admitted, “and then he leaves Kenkyrie forever. ‘He didn’t look back as he walked. I didn’t call for him to stay.’ I prefer this one, though.”

“Yeah, me too,” Cookie said. “I don’t like sad endings.”

“What should we do now?” Clover asked. “I could set up the chessboard again . . .”

“Or we could go outside,” Cookie suggested. “All the snow has melted.”

Clover did a double take. How had she not noticed it was getting warmer? But it would have taken days for that snowfall to completely melt, unless . . .

Clover walked over to the sleeping leaders, taking a closer look at them. Their coats were wet, melted ice trickling down from where they lay. Yet the cold hadn’t harmed them, and that meant magic.

“Windigoes,” Clover said. She advanced towards Cookie, looking her directly in the eyes. Then she decided that was too bold, and she cast her gaze down. “There were windigoes outside, weren’t there? They came because our hearts were so cold, and they would have frozen us solid. But you warmed my heart to free us all.”

“Um, win-di-goes?” Cookie asked. “You mean those snow ghost things? I thought you knew about them.”

Pansy looked like she was trying not to facehoof.

“I can’t see them directly,” Clover said. “They’re too magical for pony eyes. But you can see them, can’t you?”

Cookie blanched, and Pansy didn’t look so good, either. “No, I can’t see them!” Cookie insisted. “I just, um . . .”

“There’s no need for artifice, Your Highness,” Clover said. “You don’t fit well in my memories. Puddinghead didn’t have an assistant, did she? Not until you came down in mortal form.” She bowed until her horn hit the cave floor. “Annie the Just. Creator of the world. I am ashamed to admit that I never believed you existed.”

The silence stretched out awkwardly until Pansy started to laugh. Her quiet chuckle grew into a roaring guffaw.

Clover looked up, but she stayed on the ground. “Have I done something inappropriate?” she asked Pansy. Not knowing exactly who this strange pegasus might be, she added a hasty “Your Majesty.”

Pansy covered her mouth with her hoof until the laughter stopped. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . You were so friendly, and then the moment you learned she made the world, you started bowing! She’s still the same person--er, pony--as she was a minute ago!”

“We’re friends, right?” Annie asked. “You don’t have to bow to me. I’m not that special, anyway--you beat me at chess, and you can sing better than me, too!”

Clover rose. “Fair enough . . . Your Highness.” She winked.

"By the way, how did you know about us?" Pansy asked. "This is the first time we've gone down here and talked to anypony."

"I don't know how the legends started," Clover admitted, "but they're relatively consistent. All known races refer to the creator as Annie, and they all call her something like 'the Just' in their language." She wrinkled her brow slightly as she looked at the pegasus. “Though I must confess I don’t know of you. You’re not mentioned in the legends.”

“I’m her sister. My name’s Polly. I, um . . . sort of made the pegasi.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Polly,” Clover said. “And you too, Annie. Though I suppose you’ll be going now that your task is done?”

“Um . . . Sort of,” Annie said. “Before we came here, there wasn’t a Cookie or a Pansy. Now we’re here, they’re here. We could make it so they aren’t here anymore, but the pony tribes need them, so we’ll leave them when we go. They won’t be us, but they’ll be a lot like us, and they’ll remember that they made friends with you.”

“It’ll be up to the three of you to make peace between the tribes,” Polly added. “Do you think you can do that?”

“I can certainly try my part,” Clover said.

Annie and Polly began to glow, presumably preparing to leave this world. If there was anything else for Clover to say, she needed to say it now. But did she really have the words to express what she felt?

Before she could talk herself out of it, Clover rushed forward and hugged Annie around the neck. The goddess stiffened at first, but she soon relaxed and leaned into the hug.

“Get over here, Polly,” Clover said. “You deserve a hug too.”

Polly hugged Clover instead, creating a tangle of legs. “You deserve it more.”

The glow left them long before the hug ended.

Polly rose on all fours, then remembered that she was bipedal again. She was oddly relieved to stand up. She’d felt a lot less manic this time than the first time, but she’d still been slightly off-kilter, and standing on just two legs helped her shake it off faster.

The sisters spoke almost simultaneously.

“Annie, this is creeping me out,” Polly said.

“I’m scared, Sis,” Annie said.

They stared at each other for a moment. “You go first,” Annie suggested.

“It’s Clover,” Polly said. “Her song, I mean. I thought it would be flat, but there was so much emotion in it . . . She sings like a person. I think she is a person.”

“Of course she is!” Annie said. “What did you think she’d be?”

“A dream. An illusion. A figment of your imagination. But I can’t pretend like that. She’s as real as me! And we made a whole world for people like her, but it’s full of dragons and hydras and windigoes that all want to eat them up. ”

“It was supposed to be a nice world,” Annie said. “It had monsters, but heroes always won.”

“Then what the hell was with those windigoes?” Polly asked. “If we hadn’t come back, Clover couldn’t have stopped them. They could have frozen everyone!”

“I didn’t make the windigoes,” Annie interrupted. “That’s what scares me. And I didn’t break Lightning Dash’s wing--I wouldn’t do something like that. And if that stuff about Kenkyrie was real, I didn’t do that, either.”

“Then who the hell did?” Polly demanded.

Annie’s response was so quiet that Polly could barely hear it. “I don’t know.”

They both let that hang in the air for an uncomfortably long time.

“We can’t stop, can we?” Polly asked. “We made them, and we made their world. If they all freeze or starve or get eaten by hydras, it’s like we murdered them. But we’re just kids! We can’t be gods--”

Annie began to sniffle, and to Polly, she suddenly looked very small.

Polly reached out to hug her. Annie pushed her away. “No touching. Not when we’re human.”

“I’m sorry,” Polly said. “Look, I’ll see if I can find out anything about this snow globe. We can’t have been the first ones to use it. In the meantime . . .”

“. . . We’ll go back every day,” Annie finished. “It was gonna be a perfect world. I’m gonna make it one, no matter what.”

Author's Note

This chapter was edited by Rakni.

Edit: With added suggestions by Razalon

The Great Deeds of the Goddesses

Annie and Polly sat side by side on Polly’s bed, staring at the screen of Polly’s laptop. Cute pastel ponies danced across it.

“Through thick and thin, no matter the weather,” the ponies sang, “Pony Princesses, friends forever!”

“Annie, this show is kind of . . .” Polly trailed off.

“It sucks,” Annie admitted. “I’m sorry, Sis. I didn’t know.”

This was the first time Annie had watched the show her dolls were based on. All the doll descriptions made it sound like the Pony Kingdom was a happy, peaceful place, and since she wanted Equestria to be a happy, peaceful place, she’d thought it might be good to learn more about it. She just hadn’t expected it to be so boring.

This episode was about a birthday party. The conflict had something to do with attempts to make charm bracelets that turned out to be too big. There wasn’t a villain, nothing really happened, and all the characters wound up happy in the end.

“We can’t use this,” Annie said. “If we made Equestria like the Pony Kingdom, the ponies wouldn’t be happy. They’d be bored without adventures.”

“Do you want to watch something else?” Polly asked. “That show about bouncing bears has adventures, right? Maybe we could learn something from it.”

“You can keep looking if you want,” Annie told her. “I’ll go back into the snow globe and check on the ponies.”

“Just be caref--”

“I know. You worry too much, Sis. But if something big happens, I promise I’ll come get you.”

Halfway out the door, Annie turned back to look at Polly. “Sis? Thanks for watching that with me.”

“You’re welcome,” Polly said. “Just don’t ever make me watch it again. Please.”

Over generations, the legends grew.

Once there was a guard contingent in the town of Hollow Shades, tasked with protecting it from the monsters that lived in the nearby woods. Most of the guards would only patrol by day, frightened to remain in the woods after sundown. Only two pegasi would search the woods at night, keeping a safe watch over late-night travelers.

One night, they found a lost merchant, his leg broken in a rabbit hole, begging and sobbing while something paced closer. The younger of the guards rushed forward, striking out at a vague figure in the darkness. The figure struck back, throwing him backwards in a half-conscious heap. The older guard readied her blade and prepared to fight alone.

The monster and the merchant froze in place, and an earth pony maiden appeared from the darkness. The younger guard stood, his wounds suddenly healed, and he and the older guard stared at this newcomer.

“I can give you a gift,” she told them. “New eyes, new ears, new wings . . . Everything you need to fight this monster. Will you take it?”

The younger guard was unafraid. “I will. We can’t fight this thing without it.”

The older guard looked back and forth between the merchant and the maiden. “I fear a trick,” she said. “But it’s my duty to take risks. If it will save this stallion, I accept.”

The maiden smiled, and her teeth lengthened into fangs. Her eyes became slitted, like a cat’s. Her ears grew long and tufted, and leathery wings sprouted from her back. Every change to her body was echoed on the guards.

She laughed as they shrank back from her, but it was a gentle laugh, not a villainous one. “I’m sorry for scaring you. This isn’t a curse, I promise, and it really will help you.”

She vanished, and time restarted. The guards’ new eyes could see the outline of a manticore in the darkness, and their new ears could hear every twig that cracked under its paws. The older guard distracted it, ducking and diving in tight circles around it, her new wings allowing her to turn faster and maneuver better. The younger guard sank his fangs into its neck, and it silently collapsed, out cold.

“A-are you m-monsters?” the merchant stammered. “P-please don’t eat me!”

A tittering giggle sounded from the darkness. “They’re the Night Guard. They’ll protect the night from the monsters that stalk it. So sayeth Annie!”

And so Annie the Just became known as the goddess of the night, the righteous protector who guarded ponies from evil. From this and other miracles, her fame grew, and across the land, temples were founded in her name.

Polly stared down at her cell phone with a mounting sense of dread. Reluctantly, she flicked it on and checked her messages.

A text message from two hours ago: “lol you gotta see this samantha and hayley are kissing!” A photo accompanied it. Polly didn’t look at it.

A text message from an hour ago: “Samantha kissed Hayley. WTF.”

A text message from thirty minutes ago: “Need to talk NOW.”

Polly checked the sender on that last one. It came from her friend Hayley.

Polly couldn’t bring herself to care about the gossip. She suspected it wasn’t healthy to distance herself from her friends like this, but there was a lot more at stake here than her own sanity. Every moment she spent here was a moment she wasn’t in Equestria. A moment she wasn’t helping ponies.

But even if it didn’t matter to Polly anymore, she knew someone it did matter to. So she dialed a familiar number and waited for her friend to pick up. “Hey Hayley,” she said. “I heard about Samantha. I . . . kind of figured there was something between you two, to be honest. Are you okay?”

“She likes me,” Hayley said. “She actually likes me. But she’s so much prettier than I am, and she’s so much more popular. When I was dating Katie, people threw frigging rocks at her. Samantha shouldn’t have to . . . I’m rambling. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Polly told her. “You have the right to ramble right now.”

Polly wasn’t a goddess here. She couldn’t solve everyone’s problems. But that didn’t mean there was nothing she could do to help.

Once there was a griffoness by the name of Brunhild, a courier from the east, who fell in love with an earth pony innkeeper known as Hearth Flame. They settled in a town near White Tail Woods that no longer exists today. She delivered packages to the neighboring towns, and he waited patiently for her each time she left.

In time, they decided their little family needed an addition. But in those days, the races were separate, and no unicorn magic nor zebra medicine would let a pony and a griffoness have children. So they adopted an orphaned unicorn, raising her as their own, and they grew to love her like she was their own flesh and blood.

When their foal was still young, scarcely out of diapers, a travelling pegasus came to the inn. She seemed intrigued by the strange couple, though by no means impolite, and she struck up a conversation with them.

“Do you still want to have a child by blood?” the pegasus asked. “I may know of a way.”

“I don’t know,” Hearth said. “I guess it would be nice, but it’s not like I’m unhappy. Smoky’s a fine daughter, and we’re blessed to have her.”

He looked over to his wife. “How about you, honey? Would you like another set of hooves around here--or paws and claws?”

“Stranger, how certain are you of what you’re talking about?”Brunhild asked.

“Um, ninety percent, maybe?” the pegasus said. “It should work. I don’t see why it wouldn’t.”

“There are fewer and fewer griffons every year,” Brunhild said. “Someday, there might not be any of us left at alI. I don’t regret getting married, but I can’t help but feel guilty for not having a chick to carry on my bloodline. If you know a way for us to . . .” She trailed off. “Please, tell me.”

“I need to ask you both for a promise first,” the pegasus said. “Um, two promises, I mean. Smoky needs two parents who love her. Don’t drift away from her to favor your chick. And don’t favor Smoky, either. Can you promise to love and cherish them both?”

“Of course I can!” Brunhild said, umbrage in her voice.

“I promise, too,” Hearth said. “So what do we need to do?”

“It’s already done,” the pegasus said. “I’ve blessed you both. Remember your promises, or I’ll have to come back.”

Before their eyes, she turned translucent and faded.

Not long passed before Brunhild laid an egg. The chick that hatched from it looked much like her mother, but her eyes were just like her father’s. In a few short years, little Gudrun wasn’t so little anymore, and she was ready to start accompanying Brunhild on courier runs.

Perhaps it was inevitable that Gudrun grew distant from Hearth. She spent far too long learning the courier trade with Brunhild, and not enough time back home at the inn. And Hearth, too, grew distant from both Gudrun and Brunhild, slowly coming to resent being left at home while they traveled. In place of them, he bonded to Smoky, learning as much as any earth pony could about unicorn magic, doing his best to teach her how to use her powers.

Gudrun grew lonely on the road, however, and most of the time she spent at home was spent with Smoky. Smoky tired at times of her little sister’s attention, but overall, having a big strong griffon for a sister had its advantages. Once Gudrun was large enough to carry Smoky on her back, she spent many a day “strength training” with her sister for a weight, while the foal hung on tight and shrieked with joy at the rush of wind on her face. For her part, Smoky took to studying the magic of wind and air, applying unicorn powers to the domain usually reserved for pegasi. It surprised no one that her cutie mark turned out to be a drifting cloud.

One day, when Gudrun and Smoky were out playing, Hearth and Brunhild had an argument. It began in the usual manner--Hearth asked Brunhild to consider another job, one that would keep her closer to home, and Brunhild rejected the idea. They cycled through all their usual complaints, each trying to hurt the other as much as possible with their words, until Hearth said something he’d never dared to say before.

“I wish we’d never had Gudrun!”

“You two are horrible!” a familiar voice said.

The door hadn’t opened, and the windows were shut--so how had this mysterious pegasus come in? But given what she’d done before . . . “Please, Annie, have mercy!” Brunhild begged. “Don’t hurt the little ones!”

The pegasus grimaced. “WHAT? Of course I’m not gonna hurt them! They’ve done nothing wrong!” At Hearth’s look of terror, she added, “And I won’t hurt you two either! Your kids need you! Both of you!”

A brief, pregnant pause.

“And I’m not Annie!” the pegasus added. “My name is Polly!”

“We broke our promise,” Hearth admitted. “What happens now?”

“I’m not here to punish you,” Polly said. “But you both loved the kid who looks like you, and neglected the kid who doesn’t. You need to learn to be more fair. So . . .”

Smoky fainted dead away when she came back to the inn, and Gudrun grew quite unsteady on her feet. Their mother had become an earth pony, and their father was a griffon.

Perhaps the story could have ended there, but that wasn’t how Polly did things. For a year, she watched invisibly as they put their lives back together. Unable to travel as fast or as far, Brunhild put her strength to use as a farmhand, and she grew to like the feel of soil beneath her hooves. Hearth tended the inn as he always did, but on days when business was slow, he took time off and flew with his daughters, learning to love the air as they did. All four slept under the same roof each night, and slowly, the family began to knit itself back together.

At year’s end, Polly appeared to them again--all of them, this time. She came just after the evening meal, while everyone was chatting happily. “Did they tell you about me?” she asked the children.

“You said you would teach Mom and Dad a lesson,” Smoky said, “and then . . .” She smirked. “They kind of deserved it.”

“Smoky!” Brunhild chided.

“So what do you think?” Polly asked. “Have they learned anything yet?”

Gudrun touched a claw to her chin, pondering the question. “They’re nicer,” she said. “I think you can change them back now.”

Polly grinned. “That’s one question down. Now for you two. Brunhild, do you want to change back?”

“Well, being a pony isn’t so bad,” Brunhild said. “But I still feel like I belong in the clouds. I’d like to fly again.”

A brief flash. “Done,” Polly said. “How about you, Hearth?”

“Thanks, but no,” Hearth said. “I may be an earth pony at heart, but if my wife and daughters are up in the sky, that’s where I should be, too.”

For the first time since they’d met her, Polly’s smile actually seemed happy. “That’s pretty wise,” she said. “From now on, you two will be griffons.”

And so Polly the Wise became the goddess of the day, guardian of hearth and home. Couples who had trouble conceiving prayed to her, and while she didn’t grant every prayer, the races of Equestria became far more entwined than they once had been. In her name, too, temples were erected, though they were seldom as large or as lavish as Annie’s.

Author's Note

Edited by Rakni and Razalon.

Further Deeds of the Goddesses

On the edge of the school playground, Annie sat alone at a small table. In front of her was a sketchbook, fresh and unmarked, with a picture of a unicorn on the cover. Rather than look at it, she watched her fellow students as they took turns on the slide.

She’d read a book once in which a mean old adult hated the laughter of children. Perhaps she was all grown up already--watching these kids set her teeth on edge.

It was an alternative school, and many of them had come there because they’d had no alternative. Like her, they’d been unable to function in regular schools. Most had simply been bullied, as she had. A few had suffered far worse offenses, things they wouldn’t even talk about. She was nothing special compared to them, and she knew it.

Some of the kids had tried to talk to her at first. She knew they meant well, and she pushed them away gently. At her old school, she’d just been the weird kid, a walking punching bag for anyone to use. She wasn’t ready to trust again.

Some of the teachers had tried to connect with her. They’d searched for subjects she’d liked, and tried to engage her on an equal level. But at her old school, the teachers had done nothing to help her. She wasn’t ready to open up again.

She opened the sketchbook and put pencil to paper, outlining narrow eyes and a cruel smile. Danny Winters stared out of the page at her, real as life.

She hadn’t minded so much when he’d kicked her, though it angered her that teachers always believed that she’d started it. Her ruined backpack was easily replaced, and even her broken Pony Princess was really just a toy. But he had a kind of power--with a snide smile or a cutting joke, he could make people into their opposites. Students who were normally kind and friendly would watch him humiliate her, and they’d smirk and join in.

She could almost hear his voice. You should see the look on your face! And then that laugh . . .

She tore the page out and crumpled it up. She’d throw it in the trash later. Then she put pencil to paper once more, outlining two ponies playing chess in a cave.

She was ready to draw again. And maybe, someday, she’d be ready to feel like a human being again.

For now, she was going to feel like a pony instead.

Once there were three pegasi, two parents and a foal, and they loved each other dearly. They prayed faithfully to Polly, and they believed that their prayers were rewarded. They lived peacefully, harming no one, and they considered themselves happy.

The father’s death was a simple accident--the local weather team was transporting a lightning cloud, and they accidentally let a bolt fly loose. The mother sank into loneliness and sorrow, growing far too fond of fermented cider. The foal watched, but there was nothing he could do.

One night, the weather team prepared a storm to clear the air after a forest fire. They advised all townsfolk to stay indoors, but the mother was drunker than usual, and she didn’t heed the warning. She rushed up into the sky, kicking at the clouds to break them apart, yelling something about taking revenge.

The wind hit her hard, and she landed badly. Ordinary treatments weren’t enough to let her fly again. Unicorn magic could fix her wings, but the few healers who could perform the spells charged exorbitant amounts, and a pegasus who couldn’t fly had few ways of earning money.

The mother sank deeper into self-pity and self-hatred, blitzed on cider all day every day. And the foal watched, but there was nothing he could do.

One day, years after the mother’s crash, a pegasus appeared in the foal’s bedroom. By then, he was nearly a stallion, and his first impulse was to attempt violence against what he thought was a burglar. But when he saw her cutie mark, a stylized sun, he realized this was Polly herself, come in answer to his prayers.

“Do you want to ask for anything specific?” Polly asked. “Your prayer was pretty vague.”

“I want my dad back,” the foal said. “That’s all.”

“I can’t do that,” Polly said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know where dead ponies go. I don’t think I can die here, so I can’t go there and bring them back.”

“Then I want my mom to stop drinking,” he said. “I want her to be like she was before my dad died.”

“She drinks because she’s sad,” Polly told him. “I can’t just reach inside her brain and make her happy. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Why not?”

“I could make you happy that she drinks. I could make you want her to keep drinking. But that would be wrong, wouldn’t it?”

The foal shuddered. “That’s horrible. But isn’t there anything you can do?”

“Maybe,” Polly said. “I’ll have to find something to make her want to stop drinking. It will take time to figure it out.”

The foal sighed. “Look, if you’re not gonna do anything else right now, could you at least heal her wings?”

Polly frowned. “Isn’t there magic for--”

“On it,” a cold voice said. “Don’t worry, little pony--your mother’s gonna be fine.”

The foal looked around in confusion, while Polly merely sighed. “Maybe Annie can fix this better than I can. I’ll just go now. I’m sorry.”

A great many healers found a hooded earth pony at their front door, her cloak hiding her cutie mark. She told them each a story of a broken-winged pegasus who needed to fly again. A great many of those healers shut the door in her face when they learned they wouldn’t be paid, but one at last agreed to help. Physically, at least, the foal’s mother was okay again.

Those healers who refused to help were plagued for two days by diarrhea and vomiting. None of them died from it, but all proclaimed their repentance.

The earth pony appeared unhooded before the youth, and he knew her as Annie. “See? I helped when Polly wouldn’t--”

“Why now?” the youth asked. “I prayed for years. Why did you only come now?”

Annie seemed surprised by this. “Um, it was time.”

“Why was it time?” the youth demanded. “Why wasn’t it time after Dad died? Tartarus, why wasn’t it time before he died? Why couldn’t you stop that bolt?”

There was no flash of light or puff of smoke. One moment, only Annie was there. The next, Polly stood beside her. “Because we’re not gods,” Polly said, “even if everypony thinks we are. We don’t know everything, and we can’t be everywhere at once. We just help where we can.”

“Then what good are you?” the youth asked.

“I don’t know,” Polly said. “But I’d rather do something than do nothing.”

For the first time, the youth really looked at her. She wasn’t any bigger than him, and her mane wasn’t any more flowing. She didn’t glow with an inner light, nor blaze with a hidden fire. The all-powerful, undying figure he’d worshiped all his life was only a pegasus, just like him.

The youth collapsed to the floor and cried.

A vision came to young healers who were just starting out in the craft. It asked them to minister to the poor and the needy. It was a request, not a command, but a healing order was soon established, its labors funded by donations at Polly’s temples.

As for the mother, and whether she found a purpose again . . . well, that’s another story.

“It’s not good enough,” Annie said.

“What else can we do?” Polly asked.

“I don’t know,” Annie said. “I don’t know!”

Annie stared down at the floor, and Polly stared down at Annie, and neither of them said anything for a very long time.

“I’m going back in,” Annie said.

Polly grabbed her by her shirt collar, making sure not to touch bare skin. “Oh no you don’t. You’re going straight to bed, and you’re getting a good night’s sleep. We can work on it again tomorrow.”

The recess bell rang, and a river of small children flowed out the door onto the playground. The teacher smiled to see a few stragglers--the morning’s lesson had evidently proven interesting. Still, none of them ultimately resisted the call of slides and tire swings.

None save one.

Annie was filling up a sketchbook, outlining detailed landscapes in plain black and white. She didn’t look up when the teacher approached, but she turned the book and set it down. “You can see it if you want, Mrs. Wilcox.”

Mrs. Wilcox studied the page. It was only half finished, but it was leaps and bounds above anything Annie had done for art assignments. For that matter, it was more expressive than many of the drawings the eighth graders made. Even in pencil, with no colors added, precise shading created the illusion of a vivid sunrise over a grassy hill. And at the base of the hill . . .

“Horses?” she asked. “I’ve never seen you draw anything living before.”

“Ponies,” Annie said. “At first, I wanted to make something like my Pony Princess dolls, but those are silly. These need to be better.”

Mrs. Wilcox thumbed through the pages. A pony with bat wings, fighting some kind of scorpion monster . . . A pony with a horn, riding on a griffon’s back . . . Two ponies playing chess inside a cave . . . “These are really good,” she said.

“You don’t need to patronize me, Mrs. Wilcox,” Annie said, still looking down at her desk.

The teacher combed through her memory, trying unsuccessfully to think of another time she’d heard a child Annie’s age use the word “patronize.” She’d taught gifted students before, of course, but Annie always made her feel distinctly outmatched.

“There’s going to be a schoolwide art contest in March,” Mrs. Wilcox attempted. “Almost every year, the grand winner is from seventh or eighth grade. But I think you might win with one of these.”

“They’re not perfect,” Annie said. “Not yet.”

“They don’t have to be,” Mrs. Wilcox said. “None of the other drawings in the contest will be perfect.”

Annie finally looked up to meet the teacher’s eyes. “They do have to be perfect. There needs to be a world that’s better than Earth.”

Mrs. Wilcox called Annie’s parents that night, leaving a message saying that she was worried about their daughter. Annie deleted it before anyone else could hear it.

Author's Note

Edited by Rakni and Razalon.

The Passing of the Goddesses

Once there was a patchwork beast with mismatched limbs and a serpentine body. He called himself Discord, but his victims called him terror incarnate, for just a wink of his eye or a snap of his fingers could change anything and anyone as he saw fit. There seemed to be no limit to his powers, and the destruction he left was truly random--one town had every building turned upside down, while another had all its inhabitants transfigured into hedgehogs. No warrior or wizard was able to defeat him, so the populace took to praying. They called for the wisdom of Polly, to find this monster’s weakness, and the might of Annie, to strike him down.

One day (if it could be called such, with no sun visible in the rich purple sky), he bounced down a road made of edible pink rubber, looking for a new target. He spied two young mares standing in the middle of the road, one pure black and the other pure white--and to his surprise, they weren’t bouncing at all. This wouldn’t do, so with a snap of his fingers, both were flung into the air.

“Vile villain--” the black one spat. Then she hit the road and bounced back up. “We are here--” Bounce. “To defeat--” Bounce. “Stop it already!”

“Since you asked so nicely . . .” Discord said. A miniature tornado sucked the ponies up and threw them far into the distance.

Fifteen seconds and several miles away, Polly dug herself out of the impact crater. “Let me guess--you didn’t make this one.”

Annie looked herself over, discovering that she was covered in dirt. She shook herself like a dog, and most of it flew off onto Polly. “Nope,” she said. “But he can’t really be this strong. We’re goddesses! There has to be a way for us to beat him.”

“E-excuse me,” a small voice stuttered.

Belatedly, Polly checked her surroundings. They were near the point where a grassy field met a forest. A small wooden hut stood at the edge of the woods, smoke rising from its tiny chimney. A pale yellow earth pony stood in the doorway, staring at Polly a little too widely.

“I w-was--” She coughed a few times, and her voice steadied. “I was just about to make tea. I can make enough for you both if you want. Do you like tea?”

Polly did her best to look friendly and unintimidating. “We’d love to have some. Thank you.”

She realized the earth pony was eying her coat, and like Annie, she shook herself to keep from tracking dirt in.

The inside of the hut was a mess, for which the earth pony was incredibly apologetic--“I wasn’t expecting to have goddesses over.” The kitchen table was large enough for three, but there was only one cushion to sit on--“I’m sorry; I don’t have guests very often.” The tea was a common blend, found all over Equestria--“Nothing as fancy as you’re used to, I’m sure.”

“What’s your name?” Polly asked

“Posey,” the yellow pony said. “But it needn’t matter to--”

“Posey, stop diminishing yourself,” Polly said. “We’re not here to set ourselves above you. It’s not like we could right now, anyway.” She took a sip of tea. It was disgusting, but she swallowed anyway. “Right now, we’re not goddesses. We’re just two ponies trying to figure out what to do.”

“There has to be a way to stop Discord,” Annie repeated. “We just need to find something stronger than him.”

“What should we do?” Polly asked.

Rather than try to answer, Annie tried the tea. She made a face, but Polly glared at her until she swallowed it.

Posey coughed. “Um, if I may . . .”

“Go for it,” Polly said.

“You can’t change morality, can you?” Posey asked. “Right is right, and wrong is wrong. So that means morality is stronger than you. So it might be stronger than Discord.”

“Oh!” Annie exclaimed. “Like the Crystal of Harmony! The box says it uses the power of friendship to protect the Pony Princesses against evil forces!”

“Um, what?” Posey asked.

“It’s in another world,” Polly explained. “But that’s actually a really good idea. We think up a few magic crystals made of virtues, and we make it so they’ve always been there. Once they’re there, they’ll be more powerful than us. The only problem is that if they’re really more powerful, we won’t be able to change them once we make them. What virtues would work?”

“Courage,” Annie said. “Like my Night Guards when they faced down that manticore.”

“But courage isn’t always smart,” Polly said. “Sometimes, it’s better to run away. How about loyalty? Staying when you need to protect the people you care about?”

“Yeah, that goes with you, too,” Annie said. “Remember that griffon who fell in love with a pony? You helped them remember to be loyal to each other.”

Bantering back and forth produced honesty, kindness, friendship, and sacrifice (the latter renamed to generosity at Polly’s insistence--“I don’t want anypony killing goats on an altar for me.”) “That’s five,” Annie observed. “It’s a good number. Four little ones, and friendship as the big one.”

“Excuse me . . .” Posey said.

“You have something to add?” Polly asked.

Posey nodded. “I like to think I’m honest and kind, and I can be pretty generous. But I used to be completely alone out here, only going into town when I needed to buy things. I was always scared that if I tried to talk to anypony, I’d say the wrong thing and they’d make fun of me.”

“So what changed?”

“Laughter,” Posey explained. “I saw a pegasus try to win a bet by getting onto a cloud without flying. She used a catapult. She wound up splashing down in the lake. I thought she was hurt at first, but she just popped right up and starting laughing, and I started laughing, too, so I decided I might as well say hi. She was the first real friend I made since I started living out here.” She took a deep breath, and for the first time since they’d arrived, she looked Polly square in the eye. “Ponies need honesty, and kindness, and loyalty, and generosity. We wouldn’t be ponies without them. But I don’t think we could have real friendship without laughter.”

“Six is a nice number, isn’t it?” Polly said. She looked to Annie. “Three artifacts for you, and three for me.”

Annie concentrated. “They’re in a tree in the middle of the forest. We can go get them in a minute.”

Polly drained the last of her tea. It had started to taste surprisingly good. Then she looked back to Posey, smiling widely. “We couldn’t have done it without you, Posey. As a thank-you, I’ll give you a gift.”

Posey’s eyes widened. “There’s no need to--”

“Yes, there is,” Polly insisted.

In later generations, the source of the gift was forgotten, as was Posey herself. The cottage was abandoned, and when it was rebuilt, it wasn’t on the same spot. The gift itself remained, a powerful stare that could make any wrongdoer think twice--but as a precaution, it only appeared in the meekest of individuals.

“So . . . there it is,” Polly said.

It didn’t really look like a tree so much as a tree-shaped crystal, with smaller crystals hanging off the branches. By all rights, it should have been silly, but it radiated too much power for that. Polly had never felt so aware of her own skeletal structure, and she idly wondered if there was such a thing as pony cancer.

“What are you waiting for?” Annie asked. “Let’s get them.”

Polly stood in place, looking at the tree rather than at Annie. On some level, she hadn’t really expected this to work. She hadn’t thought they could make anything like this. But if their power stretched that far . . .

“We could take these crystals and use them on Discord,” Polly said, “but what about the next monster, and the next one? If we’re not around when they show up, the ponies will be helpless. We shouldn’t fight Discord. We should make ponies who can.”

“But . . . we’re goddesses!” Annie protested.

Polly turned to look Annie in the eye. The younger girl looked quite resolute, but Polly didn’t back down. “We’re kids,” she insisted. “We made these things, but they’re more powerful than we are. We should be able to make ponies who’re more powerful than us, too.”

Annie looked down at the ground. “Two,” she said quietly. “One for the day and one for the night, just like us. One could become a tyrant, but two can keep an eye on each other.” She looked back up at Polly. “I’ll fit them into history. They fought Discord and lost, but then they found this tree.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Polly said. “We’ll watch them and see how they do. If they can beat Discord on their own, we can trust them to protect Equestria.”

Annie smiled crookedly. “If this goes wrong, I’m blaming you, Sis.”

Discord went down with surprisingly little fanfare. The newly made super-ponies established themselves as leaders and protectors, defending against all enemies who tried to take advantage of the remaining chaos.

The ponies were leaderless at that time, and Celestia and Luna were invited to rule. They accepted, but refused the title of queen. That was reserved for the goddesses themselves. Instead, they proclaimed themselves princesses, and they ruled as such ever after.

As for Polly and Annie, they were forgotten in time. Objects of worship who can be met in person always have more currency than ones who no longer appear to mortals. A few cultists turned to stranger and stranger rituals, filling their temples with odd carvings and lethal traps, but in time, even they gave up and vanished to who knows where.

The princesses were like the goddesses, but they weren’t the same as them, nor did they have the same memories. Still, Luna felt a secret pang of emotion when she fought Discord. Just before his defeat, he said that the sisters ought to see the looks on their faces, and she felt oddly like there was something she should remember about that.

Author's Note

This chapter was edited by Rakni and Razalon.

The Sacrifice

Late that night, Polly gently knocked at the door to Annie’s room. Thankfully, Annie was still awake--Polly hadn’t been looking forward to waking her up.

“You’re going back, aren’t you?” Polly asked without preamble. “Even though Celestia and Luna can run it all without us, you’re going back.”

“I need to check,” Annie insisted. “What if something goes wrong?”

Polly stretched to her full height, looking down at Annie. “I could hide the snow globe, you know. I could put it somewhere you’d never find it.”

Annie stood up on the bed, matching Polly’s height. “You won’t.”

Polly sat down on the bed next to Annie and exhaled heavily. “Annie, I have three things to tell you. Remember that IQ test Mom and Dad had you take last year? That’s one thing--I’ll tell you what score you got.”

“Sis, what are you--”

“The average is a hundred. A hundred and thirty means you’re a genius. It doesn’t go higher than a hundred and sixty. That’s how high you scored.”

Still standing, Annie looked down at the bedspread. It caught Polly’s eye, too--it was plastered with pictures of little pink ponies.

“Yes, you’re a kid,” Polly admitted, “but you’re smarter than me, and I can’t keep up with you. That’s one thing you need to understand.” She reached into her pocket--awkwardly, given that she was still sitting--and pulled out her cell phone. Flicking it on, she offered it to Annie. “The second is that we’re both in way over our heads.”

There were six tabs open, ranging from Wikipedia pages to newspaper articles to a hideous thing in red Gothic letters on a black background. All six had something to do with monster sightings, presenting blurred photos and shaky testimonies of things that shouldn’t be. They ranged in time from less than five years ago to more than a century past, but all of them were within a hundred miles of Polly and Annie’s house.

Annie sat back down and examined the pages, skipping from screen to screen. “It looked just like that two-legged rabbit from that movie . . . He smiled, but his teeth were long and pointed . . . These female monsters ignore human women, but they tell men to come closer, and if they do, they . . .” Annie wrinkled her nose. “Ew. Ew. EW! Who would make up something like that?”

“I don’t think they’re made up,” Polly said. “Just like Equestria isn’t made up.”

“But they’re not really connected,” Annie said. “They’re just random urban legends.”

“I found the last one just a couple hours ago,” Polly said. “It’s the one that made me certain.”

The final page didn’t have much to it--just a brief note that had supposedly been found thirty years ago in a house where the owner had gone missing. It was a confession of sorts, describing how he’d found . . .

“. . . A snow globe,” Annie read aloud.

He hadn’t created a whole world, just a single perfect island. He’d ruled over it as a king, and his subjects--all young, beautiful women--had done absolutely everything he’d wished of them. But in time, they’d found minds and wills of their own, and they’d come to hate this outsider who controlled and degraded them.

I’m gonna wipe it all clean, the note finished. Destroy the whole island, and kill all those-- Annie skipped over a string of insults and profanities. But if they get me, I want whoever finds this to know not to so much as touch that snow globe. It’s not worth it.

“Nobody ever found the snow globe,” Polly said, “but that urban legend about monster women started around the same time as this. The red-haired one sounds a lot like his ‘wife,’ doesn’t she? I think she found a way out.”

For the first time that Polly could remember, Annie looked absolutely gobsmacked. “Are you saying Discord could have . . . Jeez.”

“Maybe,” Polly said. “I don’t know how it works, though. Maybe he could only get out if we somehow let him out.”

“Or maybe he could have figured it out if we’d left him alone long enough,” Annie suggested. She handed the phone back. “This doesn’t really change anything. We just need to be even more careful.”

“One of us needs to keep checking back,” Polly said, “but it doesn’t have to be you. That’s the third thing I need you to understand. You matter more than me.”

Annie looked like she’d been slapped in the face. “You can’t say that, Sis! You’ve done so much to help Equestria . . .”

“I’m normal,” Polly said. “Average. If Mom and Dad didn’t have money, I’d grow up to be a waitress. Instead, I’ll probably go to business school and work as a middle manager in an office somewhere. My life won’t mean anything. Annie, there’s so much you could do--in this world, not Equestria. Don’t throw it all away.”

Annie seemed to have run out of shocked expressions. Instead, her mouth made a narrow line, and her tone was completely even. “You envy me. You see little broken Annie who jumps when someone touches her shoulder, and you want to be just like me.”

“I don’t want to be you,” Polly said. “You’re already you, and that’s good enough. You need to keep being you--not Annie the Just, not Princess Luna, just plain old Annie.”

Annie stared at her, then slowly began to shake in place. She broke into a full-throated laugh that lasted almost a minute. “Do you--do you--” She put a hand to her mouth until she calmed. “Do you have any idea how much I wish I were you? Sis, how many friends do you have?”

Polly realized her mouth was gaping open, and she hastily closed it. Then she remembered that she needed to say something. “A few.”

“How many friends do I have?”

“Clover was your friend.”

This time, Annie only chuckled quietly. It was over almost as soon as it started. “That’s my point. Do you know why I like the Pony Princesses so much? It’s because they’re always kind and always accepting--they never hurt each other or make fun of each other like humans do. But I’m human, so I should at least be able to talk to humans. Instead, I had to make a whole new world, full of ponies instead of people, just so I could make a friend! You said you’re not smart. Maybe you’re right, but your life will be a hell of a lot better than mine.”

“Annie, you can’t keep doing this to yourself,” Polly attempted. “You--”

“Get out of my room, Polly,” Annie said.

“But--”

“Go!”

Polly went. She shoved the door open, but closed it gently and quietly.

She heard Annie one last time before the door shut completely. “Equestria needs me. But I need Equestria, too.”

For a goddess, incarnation was simple. Had Annie wished it, she could easily have imagined herself a new body and a new life, hers to live until death or boredom. But living means doing things--eating, drinking, talking--and Annie was not in a state to do anything at all.

Incarnation was simple, but possession was simpler. The body was already there, and all she had to do was hide herself away in it. The mind was much like her own, but it was separate from her, and it acted while she merely watched. And so, peering out from behind Princess Luna’s eyes, Annie saw days turn into nights and nights turn into days.

She could go back any time she wanted. She knew only a few seconds had passed in the human world. But why would she want to? Back there, she’d need to pretend to be alive. Here, she could simply be a ghost.

There was little change in the pattern of the days. Celestia made plans and passed judgment. She did her best to include Luna, but the short-tempered, impetuous princess was worse than useless at any diplomatic function, and she soon exiled herself from Celestia’s presence. The only task she still performed was raising the moon, and she was unsure if Celestia even needed her for that.

Lacking a purpose at the court, Luna took to visiting villages in person, looking for wrongs to right and criminals to punish. But she found that the locals had no use for her brand of justice, and they feared her far more than the villains she hunted. A part of her wanted to show them what true fear was . . . But she simply packed up and returned to court.

Day by day, serving no purpose. Envying the adoration the ponies gave Celestia. Wishing that somepony loved her that much.

Entire months blurred into a single moment of pain.

There was no prior warning when Luna completely snapped. She was angry, of course, but no angrier than usual. And then suddenly, apropos of nothing--“Tell me, sister, do you love me?”

At that moment, Celestia was sitting on her throne, treating with a dignitary from the deer tribes to the east. She stared at Luna without getting up, literally and metaphorically looking down on her. “Luna, this is not the time for--”

“When is the time?” Luna demanded. “The court can wait for now. It could wait forever if you so wished. Do you love me?”

The dignitary looked nervously between them, then silently headed for the door. His entourage followed. This wasn’t something they wanted to be caught up in. Only a hooffull of royal guards remained in the throne room, and with a quick gesture from Celestia, they departed as well.

With no mortal eyes upon her, Celestia was free to lean back on her throne and sigh. “I’m sorry, Luna. I know I have neglected you. But you must understand that I love you very much. I just wish I had some way to help you.”

Luna climbed the stairs to the throne, the better to look Celestia in the eye. “Then leave the court. At least for a year. Make a royal vacation of it! I’ll stay to watch over our little ponies, and maybe then they will adore me like they adore you.”

“You know I can’t do that, Luna,” Celestia said. “You mean well, but you cannot rule on your own. You push too harshly where a delicate touch is needed.”

“Am I to be your shadow forever?” Luna demanded.

“That’s not what I--”

Luna’s hoof nearly impacted with Celestia’s face, but Celestia teleported away just in time.

Somewhere in the depths of Luna’s mind, a quiet little voice thought, What?

From the front of the throne room, Celestia stared at Luna, more confused than angry. “Have you gone mad?” she demanded.

“I’ve finally gone sane,” Luna replied.

Luna, what are you doing? the little voice demanded.

Slowly, Celestia edged towards Luna.

“Not another step!” Luna shouted. Then, a touch less firmly, “Did you really expect me to sit idly by while they all basked in your precious light? There can only be one princess in Equestria--”

Luna, stop it, the little voice said. You don’t want to do this.

“--And that princess will be me!”

The window behind the throne shattered, and light poured into the room. Then Luna called upon the power within herself--the only power she still possessed--and up in the sky, the moon shifted out of orbit, moving to eclipse the sun.

Darkness poured into Luna, transforming her body and soul. Deep inside her, Annie silently screamed in a terror born of recognition.

Rage. Hatred. Jealousy of her sister, who stood in the light while she walked in the shadows. All of it was in Luna, but none of it was native to her. Like everything else in Equestria, it had come from the mind of its creator.

Me, Annie realized. All of it was me. Discord was Danny, hurting whoever he wanted whenever he wanted. I felt cold and alone, so that’s why the windigoes were cold. Everything that hurt ponies--everything wrong with this world--it’s here because I brought it here.

The thing that had been Luna laughed bitterly, her mouth wide open to reveal a carnivore’s fangs. Inside her head, Annie almost joined her.

Fight it, Annie demanded. This is me, not you. Don’t let me control you.

Wordlessly, Luna tore apart the throne room, beams of raw magic shredding the ceiling to expose more of the night sky. Advancing through a cloud of dust, she found and fired on Celestia, who dodged without returning the attack.

“Luna, I will not fight you,” Celestia pleaded. “You must lower the moon! It is your duty!”

Listen to her, Luna, Annie begged. You have to--

“Luna?” the creature asked, sounding genuinely confused. “I am Nightmare Moon! I have but one royal duty now--to destroy you!”

So much for that. Out of options, Annie tried to retreat. She’d be better off helping Celestia than trying to talk to the Nightmare.

For the first time, Annie realized that she was stuck. Not in the sense of a fly in a web, nor in the sense of a mouse in a trap. She was stuck to the Nightmare in the same sense that one’s arm is stuck to one’s torso--and with the same sense of proportion. She couldn’t even tell where it ended and she began.

She wasn’t sure if there was still a difference.

“And where do you think you're going?” the Nightmare demanded. Annie thought at first it was referring to her, but no, Celestia had been trying to escape as well. The Nightmare followed her through a hole in the ceiling, firing bolt after bolt across the night sky.

Annie stretched her soul like taffy, and the very tip of it touched Celestia’s. You have to stop her, Annie ordered. Only you can. Do whatever it takes.

Then a lucky shot struck home, and with an agonized scream, Celestia fell.

For a full thirty seconds, the Nightmare hung in the air. For the first fifteen, she laughed. For the next fifteen, she waited.

Sure enough, one shot wasn’t enough for the princess of the day. She rose up again, surrounded by . . . the magic crystals?

The Nightmare fired a shot. Celestia fired a bigger one. They met in midair, but the Nightmare’s was pushed back.

A rainbow of light surrounded her, and then all Annie knew was pain.

Annie awoke face-down in grey dust. The first thing she realized was that she was human again. The second . . .

“I’m on the moon?”

“We’re in the moon,” the Nightmare explained. “But you’re in my head, too. This isn’t real, but it’s close enough to hurt you.”

Annie took her time rising to her feet, trying to size up the situation. She could see Equestria hanging in the sky, but she had had no way of getting back to it. The ground was the same in every direction, gray and dusty, pockmarked with craters--nothing to run to or from. As for the Nightmare, she looked none the worse for wear.

“Are you gonna ask me to join you so we can rule together?” Annie asked.

“You would say no,” the Nightmare said. “So I won’t ask. I’ll order.”

She rushed forward and kicked Annie in the head.

Annie sprawled backwards on the ground, but she got to her feet quickly enough. “That hurt, you--”

The Nightmare kicked her in the head again. This time, she lay there, unmoving, and was kicked again.

“You’re me,” the Nightmare said. “You know what I want. You know everyone I want to hurt. Bring me to the human world, and you can watch them all suffer.”

This was all imaginary, wasn’t it? So perhaps Annie could imagine things into it. She thought of a kitchen knife, sharp enough to cut through meat. She tried to feel it in her hand, and when it was solid, she swung it upwards.

It passed through the Nightmare like she was a cloud of smoke. “That was a good try,” the Nightmare said. Then she kicked Annie in the head again.

Annie let the knife clatter to the ground. This was pointless. Unless . . .

“Why are you just kicking me?” Annie asked. “Why not stick your horn through my heart? Or blast me with magic?”

“You’re me,” the Nightmare said. “I can’t just kill you.” She kicked Annie again.

Annie lifted the knife again. Before the Nightmare could kick it away, she brought it down on the fingers of her own left hand.

There wasn’t any blood. In a rush of pain and a flash of light, the fingers simply disintegrated. That part of Annie’s soul was lost.

As they vanished, the Nightmare screamed.

Annie cut and cut, slicing herself away piece by piece. With every lost chunk, the Nightmare shrank as well. The pain seared through her, but it was all right. Pain was natural. It was a part of who she was.

As less and less was left, she cut more randomly and jaggedly. She barely remembered why she was doing this, but she knew she couldn’t stop.

In the end, little was left but a small, round blur. Only the cutting arm made it any different from the soul of a pony or a griffon.

“I’m sorry,” came a voice from the blur. “P . . . P . . .” She couldn’t remember the name. “Sis . . . I won’t let her hurt you.”

Then the arm severed itself, and Annie ceased to be.

Author's Note

This chapter was edited by Rakni and Razalon.

So, how about that Teen--Violence rating? *Runs and hides*

The New Era

Almost a thousand years after Luna was banished, a little pink pony silently pulled a cart full of rocks through a barren field. The magical energies in the ground created valuable crystal spirals inside the rocks, and she’d spent her whole foalhood helping her parents with the farming. In her own way, she was happy with the work--at least, she’d never considered doing anything else.

“Annie?” a soft voice asked.

The pink filly turned to find a white pegasus mare behind her, bearing a cutie mark of a rising sun. The foal hastily bowed, then realized this couldn’t be Princess Celestia--she didn’t have a horn, and there was no color in her mane. But how had she snuck up on her so quietly?

The filly knew she ought to say something. “Um, my name’s Pinkamena. What’s yours?”

“I’m Polly,” the mare said. “I’m looking for my sister.”

“I don’t think I know her,” Pinkamena admitted.

“You have to,” Polly said. “There’s something special about your soul. It’s shaped like a pony’s, but it’s not a pony soul.”

Pinkamena backed away from the crazy pony, but Polly was faster, and she laid a hoof on the filly’s head. Pinkamena went rigid, staring straight at Polly. She spoke, but the words were not her own.

Sis, I think I might be dying. I’m not gonna tell you what happened--I owe you that much. All you need to know is that it’s not your fault, and that I’m sorry.

If I really die here, I think Equestria will die, too. But everyone says you can’t die in your dreams. If that’s right, you need to listen. You need to let me go.

I made this world. It had everything I wanted and everything I was scared of. That’s why it was full of monsters. That’s why so many ponies died. To make a new Equestria, I had to stop being afraid. And fear was part of me, so I couldn’t be me anymore.

Equestria’s at peace now, isn’t it? There aren’t heroes. There aren’t adventures. And there isn’t real evil, either. There’s just a pony or a griffon or a diamond dog who’s happy to work all day. And when she dies, she’ll be born again in another body, and she’ll keep working forever. It’s not the Equestria I wanted, but at least it’s one where ponies won’t be hurt anymore.

Back when I was at my old school, I told the teacher Danny Winters was bullying me. She said she knew. But his parents gave the school a lot of money, and she was afraid to punish him. So she let him hurt one "snotty little brat"--me. I was the sacrifice then, and now I get to be one again. Maybe that’s what I was born to do, like a pony with a cross for a cutie mark.

I’m gone, Sis. You can’t bring me back. Please don’t bring sadness back into Equestria. Just go, and leave this thing here--this thing that used to be me.

Pinkamena’s eyes focused again, and she stared at the older mare. “Did you want anything else?”

“Yes,” Polly said. “There are a lot of things I want.” Her voice was oddly steady, like there was something she was trying very hard not to show.

“You should ask Mom and Dad,” Pinkamena said. “They’re the ones who sell the crystals.”

Polly spread her wings and flew away. Pinkamena didn’t watch her leave. She still had rocks to move.

On a distant cloud, three young pegasi with something to prove stood side by side and prepared to race.

The one in the middle was nothing special--a bully like any other, his thick brown mane not long enough to hide the cruel glint in his eyes. He smirked at the filly on his right. “You’re going down.”

The little blue filly was a bit more remarkable. Her mane was many-colored, patterned like a rainbow, and together with her sky-colored coat, she seemed like a creature of wind and water droplets. Her stance, too, was different, more practiced than the others. And of course, her confidence would have spoken for itself if she hadn’t been so willing to speak on its behalf. “In history, maybe!”

The flag lowered, and they were off.

The colorful pegasus took the lead at first, smiling gleefully at the wind in her mane. She’d never flown this fast before, but she made each turn with absolute precision. There was no way she would lose this race.

Then the bully rammed her, and she began to fall. She spiraled, unable to regain control--

Time stopped, and the little pegasus hung in the air like a fly in amber.

What’s your name, little pony? a motherly voice asked.

The foal tried to look for whoever was talking, but she couldn’t move. She could still think, though, and her thoughts seemed to carry. I’m Rainbow Dash. Who are you? What the hay is going on?

My name is Polly, the voice said. Ponies used to worship me, but I’m not a god, not really. I’m just someone who wants to make a better world, and I want to ask you to help me.

I’m not going to sell you my soul, Dash thought.

Polly laughed. That’s not what I meant. It frustrates you to live in a world where nothing ever happens. I want to make Equestria less boring. I want there to be adventure again, and I think you could be a hero. It’s not a trick, I promise--this world is happy, and I’m not gonna make it sad--but it feels incomplete, and I want to fill in the last piece.

Why? Dash asked. Are you bored, too?

I just want to help my sister, Polly said. Nothing more.

Dash tried to smile, but she was still frozen. Family loyalty. I like it. I’ll help you.

There’s one more thing I’d like to ask, the voice said. Please don’t tell anypony about me. I don’t want to be remembered.

Before Dash could respond, time restarted, and she felt herself speed up. A wave of air built in front of her, then exploded in every color of light.

Polly didn’t say a word when she woke up on the attic floor. She just looked into the snow globe, staring at the world spinning inside it. Annie was still down there. Her brilliant little sister who loved bats and moonlight and ponies was going to live forever in a place where she could be happy and safe. She would never remember the world she came from. She would never remember Polly . . .

Polly lay on the attic floor and cried. Then she hid the snow globe back under the floorboards, and she never touched it again.

When her parents asked if she knew where Annie was, she lied and said she had no idea. But she did her best to comfort them in their time of grief, as they did their best to comfort her.

A little pink farm filly saw a rainbow in the sky, and in more ways than one, light came into her life.

A unicorn who might never have amounted to anything felt a surge of energy, and she cast a spell so powerful even Celestia noticed it.

Countless others were guided in subtler ways. Some might have followed a similar path without it. Others saw adventures that would otherwise have passed them by. All were in some way changed by the experience.

Villains, too, were affected by the light. On the moon, the Nightmare woke, and she considered how best to return. In the Canterlot gardens, a hideous statue of a patchwork creature began to think and plan. But they were not the monsters they’d been in Annie’s era, and for the first time since they’d been fashioned, they had a chance at redemption.

Heroism returned to the world. Laughter returned as well. Creation was at last complete.

And that’s how the new Equestria was made.

Author's Note

This story was edited by Rakni and Razalon.

I’ll be doing a blog post later about what this story means to me--nothing necessary or revelatory, just a bit of commentary.

Edit: Blog post up.