The Twilight Years

The world is governed by rules of magic. Fate, it seems, enjoys balance. For everything good in this world there must be something bad, evil, or unsavory to counteract it. For myself, there was Discord. God of Chaos and disharmony.

For Luna, there existed Nightmare Moon, seeder of woe and horrors.

For Cadence, Queen Chrysalis. Who fed off of the very essence of Cadence herself.

Twilight met her foe early, and defeated him as the others had done. With friendship, and selfless sacrifice. King Sombra. Entity of Dark Magic.

Although each being was defeated, by either banishment or, in the case of Discord, reformation, they still exist for balance. Even true harmony can not exist without chaos.

Balance.

Such a curious word. As a concept it is even more so.

Something we all seek to obtain within our life. Balance, order, harmony.

Peace.

We strive for them. All of them. Perhaps we often mistake balance for perfection. Or they are the same. Balance and perfection. Two worlds apart yet similar in many ways.

Magic is also a curious concept. It permeates us and our world. In many ways we are linked together. The lowliest pony and the highest knight.

The pawn and the king go into the same box in the end.

For a time harmony can be achieved by use of magic, but it is always artificial. If achieved this way it has too much of one side, and not enough of the other. Too much darkness, or too much light.

Through our magic we achieved such false harmony. We banished foe after foe in various ways to keep what we... what I... saw as balance intact. My sister and I sought to make the perfect world, where happiness and light ruled over darkness and fear. When she succumbed to the nightmare, it dawned on me, only after thousands of years...

I realised that balance must be achieved through employment of both light and dark.

To achieve perfect balance you must have all aspects. We must embrace and control each of those aspects within ourselves. Perhaps that is why I released Discord.

Alicorn Magic is a subject that has been up for debate for thousands upon thousands of years. Indeed, the mere mention of it may cause debates even among Canterlot’s most prestigious philosophers. Even I do not know of its limits, or the potential within Alicorns to access it.

What I Know are snippets of wisdom and knowledge passed on by my elders. Each of us is born with both light and dark inside us, in the form of an Ember. As we mature, so does this vessel, and within us is the choice to embrace either the Darkness or the Light. If we accept the light, then we become a beacon of hope, like myself.

If we accept the darkness, then we become like a nightmare. Spreading that across the world.

A princess must learn to accept both within themselves. We refer to this time as the 'Kindling'. When darkness dominates the light half of our heart through jealousy, envy, even despair. My own sister almost fell completely to the darkness, and my "niece" refused to even acknowledge it as real for a time. We all made it through in the end, and each emerged stronger than before.

When a normal Unicorn ascends, they shake off the shackles of mortality and death. They become a fixed point in time. They must endure watching mountains crumble, rivers etching deep wrinkles in the Earth, and they must endure it almost alone. Friendship and love must be taken in equal measure with the darkness. They must never falter, nor can they afford to waver from their duty. Be that duty raising the celestial bodies, or ensuring peace by spreading love throughout their empire, or, most recently, controlling the very magical essence of our world.

Yes, I entrusted the latest addition to our ranks with the entire essence of our world. I entrusted her with everything.

With magic, if there is to be balance, one must tread the line between light and dark forces in equal measure, without being seduced by promises of wealth and power. Too many have fallen to those forces, and this time I was determined to not allow it to happen. I carefully devised plan after plan to get my students to see the good in this world before I introduced to them the darkness.

To protect our country, our very world, we needed a unicorn powerful enough to control both the good and the bad in this world.

I endeavored to show her the good first. Friendship and harmony. Even love. I tried to get her to see the light before thrusting her into the darkness.

But it seems, when Darkness comes all at once, it can be overwhelming to even the most devout mind. Like the blackest ocean against a fire's embers. Only one will emerge victorious.

It is only now that I see catharsis can be more powerful than rage. Take that whichever way you will. Pain, intermingled with pleasure, can be the most effective teaching tool. The despair would make the happiness all the sweeter, instead of being crushing and overwhelming in itself.

But this is not my story. My story ended when this one began. My story ended when I almost doomed this world to eternal darkness. Not simply from lack of the sun, but from lack of anything good. The sun, and the moon, and even the stars would have fallen thanks to my incompetence. The only thing that would have existed would have been evil.

No, this is not my story. This is the story of one of my students. One who rose higher than any other and sank so much further. One whom I trusted with the secrets known only to us three Princesses. One whom I loved as a daughter. As a friend.

One who nearly brought the entire world to its knees.

Twilight Sparkle.