Chapter 1: Fallen Leaves
Date: October 10th 1993
"Today I was greeted with my second loving gift. Through all the pain, she came through bright and healthy. Her beautiful violet coat and her heavily, but small swaying tail couldn't stop me and her new father from tearing us up and laughing in pure happiness. She gently opened her eyes with the sweetest yawn to reveal a pair of instant loving twilight coloured eyes, which sparkled against the ceiling light. My sweet Twilight Sparkle had entered our world and is going to escape into a world of her own." - Twilight Velvet
Crystal sap began to occasionally ooze from around the Elemental Shard of Generosity with a sparkling chrome gleam before escaping to its new home below within the mud. One small droplet bounced onto the metal horse-shoe of the white, solar powering behemoth that stood before it, causing her to have to swipe it away with a quick wipe with the other fore leg, only to have it just stain both the other fore leg and the gold plated metal horse-shoe even more, just narrowly missing her flowing, rainbow coloured mane.
Celestia frowned.
It felt to her as if she had been outsmarted by inanimate sap.
Celestia focused on the tree opposite her and began to feel a little lightheaded. She shook it off.
'With what is about to happen, anything could--'
"Why have you called for me, Celestia?" a recognisable voice echoed, stopping Celestia in the middle of her inner monologue. The less she over thought things, the better.
The dominant, snow coloured alicorn took a large inhale and followed with a rather stuttered exhaled, before turning around to see the questioner facing her ,with concern in her eyes.
The small, lavender arrival immediately caught the un-reassuring eyes and gradually lowered her bottom lip. This action was interrupted with a sigh.
"I have some news for you, Twilight." announced Celestia, still focused on the slowly melting tree.
Twilight noticed something different in her voice. She let it slide and to avoid being rude she moved her self towards her former teacher.
"News about this tree, I presume?" the witty alicorn Twilight responded, with an ounce of certainty.
"Yes-- but, its mostly about... uh, the future". Celestia shuffled a fore hoof into the mud.
Celestia's brilliant mind was completely chaotic, as if Discord had climbed through her very soul and turned her brain into a mush of scrambled egg that he could easily eat away at. For what she was going to say she had no definite answer to. It wasn't like the harmony chest situation, she new that a harmonic entity of any kind would be in the chest and would lead to great outcomes. Here, she had nothing. Nopony to turn to. All she could do was warn, and wait.
She looked around the hollow cave. Crystal plants hanging from the cave ceiling, sparkled to a similar fashion of her animate mane. Assisting, with the Tree of Harmony, to light up the what soon will be a dark and lifeless. She then noticed her faithful princess was beside her staring up, with her night sky and star sparkling eyes, in absolute silence.
'So much life inside her, I hope the worst doesn't come', Celestia pondered in the chaos of her mind.
"What about the future?" Twilight broke the silence and fixed a slight amount of the chaos within Celestia for a moment.
"Well my dear Twilight. For the last 10 years I have noticed something... off with the Tree of Harmony. And with a little help from those plunderseeds, the evidence is more clearer." Celestia had never breathed so many times within a small statement.
Twilight tilted her head, filled with concern for the larger princess before her. "And that is?"
"The Tree of Harmony is rapidly dying" Celestia didn't stutter, even though it felt like one of the most scariest things she could ever say.
Twilight eyes widened with disbelief and stuttered where Celestia didn't. "D--Dying? How--How is this possible?"
"The Tree of Harmony is just like any other tree, Twilight. Magic, or no magic. It will die eventually."
Twilight focused an awe-striking amount of focus on the tree. The evidence of the trees fate was undeniably open, she didn't need to have Celestia tell her anything, as sap from every corner of the tree was steadily dripping down the smooth sides of the bark and began flooding the mud and dirt. A pair of ears flopped up and down with every question and answer that popped within Twilights head about the situation directly in front of her.
"The Rainbow Power..." a thought escaped from Twilights 'O' shaped mouth. "Will the Rainbow Power still work?"
Celestia quickly reassured her, "The Rainbow Power is stored within the hearts of you and your friends. As long as the elemental shards also exist, Rainbow Power exists."
Twilight sighed in relief, which followed with a sudden expression of confusion, "So if this no longer effects Rainbow Power... what is the problem for the future?"
"Society" Celestia replied.
"Society? Is something going to happen to it" Twilight quickly asked.
"Yes."
"What?"
"Um."
That's when it hit Twilight. Confidence. A key trait that Celestia always had within her and shared with everypony in any situation. And now she was lacking it. She had no answers, but it answered Twilights questions. Why she was slumped, why her mane was waving more slowly and why her voice seemed very lifeless and simple, something no princess has. This lack of confidence had really got to her, not having any ideas of what was going to happen in the future, so much so that she couldn't even theorise any plans due to the lack of knowledge, and if the tree is dying at a fast rate, a lack of time aswell. The pressure was getting to her and, dare say... even getting to her. Twilight opened her thick wings outwards and flickered them gently to lift her body off the mud and stretched her fore hooves out and wrapped them around the back of Celestia.
"Well, do you know why something is going to happen to society?" Twilight questioned, hoping that an answerable question for the elder princess might somehow boost her inner confidence. After all, she is the leader of the land. Celestia has to stay confident.
Celestia glanced over her shoulder with saddened eyes at the small smile pasted at the concerned pony hugging her. She created a smile in return, but still couldn't hide the self doubt and global concern. Celestia brushed the fluttering friend off gently with a hoof, before gesturing her to go in front of her.
Twilight turned to face her powerful and beloved mentor.
"You see ,Twilight." started Celestia.
"The Tree of Harmony emits a powerful energy source of harmony all over the world that gets an equal amount absorbed by the hearts of every living pony. When the tree dies, it will no longer be able to create any of this energy and it will wear away off ponies over time. Ponies personalities will literally change. The problem is, me and nopony else who is aware of the current situation, knows what will happen to our subjects or if it will cause any other repercussions. After all, we don't know absolutely everything about this tree." finished Celestia.
Twilight blinked, taking in the sudden new information into her very full brain.
"But, why do different ponies have different personalities, shouldn't we be the same if harmony is getting... well forced into us. Why are some kind, why are some mean? Why are--" Twilight was interrupted with a slightly more confident, but slightly more shaky Celestia. The thoughts of the possible futures where getting in her mind again.
"Well everypony is born with set personalities set down by the personalities of the parents. For say, if someone has very generous parents, one personality of the child will be generosity and due to this behaviour they will have self-made harmony already within them. Selfish parents however will have a selfish child and they will have less self-made harmony or none at all, depending on how serious the negative attribute is. Just think as the Tree of Harmony as an energy source of artificial harmony."
Twilight had a perfect understanding of the situation, "So your worried, because everypony is going to lose all this artificial positivity,"
Celestia nodded, "Exactly, another reason is that it might be a lot of artificial harmony lost. We don't know if there is more artificial or self-made harmony."
The two princess became silent and began scanning the room, hoping for a solution. Neither of the alicorns wanted the worst effects to happen, or in fact wanted this to happen at all.
Twilight stared at the elements individually, while Celestia began dipping her head downwards towards the ground again, taking in the shear power they once had and the shine they still possess. A sparkle appeared in Twilights eye, before disintegrating, as a fear overwhelmed Twilight.
"Are we going to change? Us princess' and my friends..."
Celestia gazed up at the concerned, young princess before putting down her verdict.
"I'm not sure, you are now the elements of harmony and alicorn magic is harmonic power. My guess is that we will be the last ponies to change, if we do change. Why does this concern you more."
Twilight noticed that Celestia spotted her personal worries. She was just as readable as her library in the Castle of Friendship.
"I just don't want to see my friends change, of course I don't want to see anypony change for the worse, but just not my friends... not again."
"Princess Twilight" Celestia put her hoof on her dearest former students chin and lifted up with little force. They made eye contact.
"You and your friends are the elements of harmony, you have more harmony than any other pony. You'll... most likely, change the least"
Twilights eyes began to show a sign of happiness, before being ambushed by an expression of worry.
"What about my other friends? Who... who aren't the elements?"
Celestia broke the eye contact and lowered her hoof to the dirty cave floor and stared at the floor with sorrow and self-hatred, as if she blamed her self for the trees upcoming fate.
"Well, I think we've already answered that."
Some of the sorrow and duplicated, escaping Celestia and had reached its destination, that was Twilight.
Twilight was motionless as Celestia began to walk towards her own sunlight that was only just allowed access trough the cave mouth, where more mud and several exotic plants were visible and alive.
The whooshing sound from Celestia's wings, awoken Twilight from her thoughtful trance.
She ran towards her devastated friend.
"Wait!" Twilight exclaimed.
Celestia twisted her head 90 degrees and focused her pupil on Twilight.
"What do I do know?"
"Whatever you feel is necessary, Princess Twilight..." Celestia calmly responded.
With that, the swan of an alicorn swooped into the air vertically to go over the forest that they were enclosed in, before shooting off into the far distance at a great speed due to her massive wingspan.
The purple princess watched the whole scene pass over head at the mouth of the muddy cave and readied her self in a similar style to her mentor. She glanced back at the Tree of Harmony, it was still gently melting away and the shiny roots on the outside of the dirt was noticeably more shrivelled up and the whole cave became less illuminated.
Twilight slowly rised upwards over the tree and headed straight towards the small countryside town, that she called home.
Princess Twilight had to do something she's done for a while, do her duty.
