Jenny had been having a good day, and the reason for it was simple.

She had achieved what some would call a self-improvement loop, it had begun with a crude set pincers made using excess metal, with some basic manipulators now in her possession she built a new pair, a pair with a wider range of movement and a greater number of fingers, then she made a new set, and a new set, and a new set recycling the old hands the moment they their replacements were completed, and now, after many hours designing and building in her own little world they were done. The final set.

Their beauty was only surpassed by their simplicity and their simplicity, their simplicity surpassed in turn by their elegance, to anyone else they would look like a mere pair of knee length steel horseshoes each composed of short overlapping plates, but as she slid one on she let out a childish squee as a faint white light emanated from the joints as from the shoe’s sides five curved and pointed metal pieces floated off arranging themselves into four fingers and a thumb.

One gentle flick of her wrist and the old horseshoe flung off her other hoof and arched into her waiting hand and with a swift swing the old device fell into a waiting pool of metal. She slid on the other then reached out for the design and with pencil in hand enscribed in a corner:

Model Success.

Her work complete she looked to the rest of her work desk, tools and drawing implements sat there in an orderly fashion, flanked on either side by books borrowed from the local library on pony anatomy. Her eyes drifted to the series of designs placed on the adjacent walls, each one vastly more complex than what she had been working on.

Maybe I should start working on that… Nah I’ve worked enough today I mean it is… Noon! How long have I been in here she bounced out of her tesseract home and into the boutique.

“Rarity! Come and see what I- Rarity? Sweetie Belle?” the silence of the room was the only reply, the house was empty, devoid of anyone but herself and the mannequins, then she noticed, there on the table next to the tesseract was a small folded piece of paper. Picking it up, taking a moment to savour the fact she had functioning hands and reading the cursive text

Sorry Jenny, I had to leave for something important. Please meet me at Sugar Cube Corner.
Love, Rarity

Then the letter exploded perforating the room with her smoldering remai- No, the letter released a great burst of confetti spraying coloured paper everywhere.

“God damnit Pinkie.”

It took ten minutes to clear up the mess, and an additional four to remove any remaining paper that had chosen to nest within her mane before she stepped out into town. The sky hung above in its usual baby blue shade, the soothing rays of the sun from above telling her that it was in fact noon and that in time night would soon descend upon the small town, with the soft twittering of the birds as her only company Jenny made her way down the road humming softly to herself as she drew ever closer to her destination.

It was a nice feeling, simply moving from one point to the next, no hurry, no rush, just the destination and plenty of time to think, her stay on this world had been nice. That was an odd word, nice. Not the kind of thing that would enter your mind in the Imperium, unless you lived on a Paradise World, or were part of the Astartes, or even payed patronage to Nurgle, a particularly developed Feudal World could even be described as nice, now that she thought about it there were probably quite a few people from back home who could genuinely say that their lives ranged from tolerable to pleasurable despite the horrors that lay at the fraying edges of the shattered Imperium, but really, they were the minority falling under the rule of the better emperors.

If she had continued to think about it she wouldn’t have noticed one interesting thing, the town was very quite, much too quiet for a town of this size at midday. Where were the vendors selling their wares? Where were the customers wishing to accrue said wares? And why was there so much noise coming from Sugar Cube Corner?

She walked closer to the door as the sound suddenly died out completely. She reached out and grabbed the doorknob, taking great satisfaction as the door turned in her hoof. She stepped into the darkened room…

“Surprise!”

The curtains flung open flooding the room with light to reveal a group of mostly complete strangers and what few friends she had.

“Whats going on?” Jenny asked panning from table to table and pony to pony, unfamiliar faces and familiar food everywhere.

Next thing she knew she was hanging on for dear life from a beam at the sound of a certain pink pony.

“Jenny, please come down dear.” Rarity said.

“No no, I think I’ll be fine up here.” Jenny replied.

“Oh come on Jenny! You’ll miss the party! Ooo! Nice hands.” she heard from her side. What, but this is the- How?. Once again she made her way back to the ground in the fastest way possible, straight down.

“I’m okay,” she said as she rose back to her hooves. “So...What’s all this?”

“Your ‘welcome to Ponyville party’ of course!” Pinkie said as she dropped from the ceiling. “Haven’t you ever been to a party?”

“Pinkie,” she replied as flatly as physically possible, “I am as of today bordering on four weeks old, and I’ve been keeping to myself for most of it, so… No, I haven’t” this was met with a great and terrible gasp from the pink mare.

“Never been to a party! Never been to a party! How can you have never been to a party!”

“Very easily Pinkie.” Jenny replied just as flatly as before.

“Someone will have to fix that!”

“Please don’t,” she practically pleaded.

“And I’ll be the one to fix it!”

“Oh dear Emperor please just kill me now!” Jenny yelled as Pinkie ran from place to place, Jenny in tow, to introduce her to every single pony in the building. Lyra, Bon Bon, Octavia, Vinyl Scratch, everyone that she could find. Then she reached the final two of the guests.

“And these are-,” she was about to continue when she noticed she was gone. “Uh, Jenny?” she panned left and right

Bright little eyes looked up at Jenny with innocent curiosity and glee. The soft gurgling the only sound they made.

“Hello,” she said softly, trying not to scare them “aren’t you just the most precious things I’ve ever seen. Hey, look at what I can do!” her fingers floated out and began spinning in circles around her hooves, “Wooby wooby woo!” she squealed to the foals’ delight. “Ahhh, he likes my hair… Now he’s eating my hair,” she said with growing concern, “nothing to worry abou- And now I’m floating, panic time! Rarity help!”

“I cannot believe I had to save you from a foal, Jenny,” Rarity giggled.

“Do you know how much I weigh? She’ll be moving the sun by the time she leaves school!”

The party had long since ended, the moon hung high above as the shops closed for the night, and in the middle of it all Jenny and Rarity made their way back home where sleep, and new projects, awaited them both.

“But honestly dear did you have to react so… Badly.”

“If you had been in my situation you would have acted the same.” she replied.

“Oh I don’t think so dear.” Jenny for a moment paused, then thought, and finally inched ever closer to Rarity as a smile crossed her face. “Um, Jenny, what are you doing?” Then with a heave she was lifted off the ground. “Jennifer, you put me down this instant!”

“Oh no, you said you would react quote-on-quote ‘not as badly’ so I think you’ll be fine,” she replied with a chuckle, she took one swift step after the other, each time just escaping falling on her face, “huh, you’re heavier than I expected.”

Rarity let out a series of confused and in no small part offended sputtering sound in response.

“Are you implying that I am fat?”

“Not really the word I would use, you’re not fat, you’re… Squishy. Like a marshmallow.” Rarity didn’t see it as an improvement. “Anyways, we should get home.”

“Could you at least put me down?”

“Let me think...No.” and with that they made their merry way home with Rarity laughing and screaming all the way.

A mere three minutes later and they were at the boutique’s door, “”Here we are Carousel Boutique, home to one Rarity Belle, soon to ascend to godhood as Princess of Fashion!” she said as she put Rarity down at last. “Oh don’t give me that look, you’re smiling, you enjoyed it.”

“I admit to nothing.” Rarity replied as she unlocked the door and made her way in.

“Oh and Rarity, thanks. Today was great.”

”Well I’m glad you had fun today dear.”

With quick ‘good-nights’ the two went their separate ways, one to sleep and the other onto her next project.

In the little dimension she called her own, Jenny looked from design to design until she found what she was looking for.

With design in hoof she dashed across the shelves in search of the first thing she needed.

A power sword.

Every member of the Imperial Army, from the Imperial Guard to the Space Marines, the power sword was a weapon of great value if not rarity. To most it seemed a simple blade, but to those who knew, who knew of its capacity for destruction, its pale and radiant light was capable of slicing through armour and bone as easily as a sword would cut through skin. All of this had been made possible through knowledge of the universe now long since lost by the Imperium of Man and the fragments that now lay in its place.

In the Imperium such a weapon would not be considered special, but in Equestria it would be seen as the single most dangerous weapon to ever grace their world.

And with the improvements she had planned for it...

They’re going to tell stories about you she thought to herself as she began to work.

Atop Canterhorn Mountain Canterlot’s ruins remained, Equestria had not been given the boon of the once great city collapsing to the ground below to be forgotten, instead it stood on in its dark and shadowed state as a grim reminder.

Nightmare Moon, Discord, Tirek had indeed been monsters who each would have brought an end to the world if they had not been stopped, but they were mere names in the history books, ink written upon dead trees.

But every day as the people of Everfree woke up they would awake beneath the shadow of their once grand capital, gazing upon the cracked crumbling walls, the ash-blotted and teetering towers, the dark waters, stained with ash and dust as it tumbled from the city above. One merely had to look out their window to be reminded of the fiery wrath of the Tsaras, and the destruction they had once rained upon them.

None were reminded as much as Celestia for she alone knew what lay within. If one were to visit that shadowed place you find a once opulent palace, within that palace you would find a great room, cleared of bones dust and ash as much as one could in such a place. In this roone one would find a throne, warped by heat and fire where once two resided,one for each sister, but that time had long since passed.

If one were to stand closer they would see a door, a pathway down into the heart of the mountain with neither torch nor crystal to guide one’s way down below, only the faint light of a single lantern revealing the path ahead. But even with this one would surely become lost.
That is, unless you were Princess Celestia nearly two centuries after the reign of Jennifer Tsara.

Her steps were those of one who had walked this path many times before, mechanically and without thought each hoof, one of after the other fell to the same place they had every other time she had come here.

With each step she would make her way closer to her destination, with each step she felt that familiar presence as the faint smell of incense entered her nostrils. Slowly she reached the heart of the mountain and looked at the door before her.

It was a simple thing large and well maintained, the only thing upon its surface being a sigil. A great eagle, its wings stretched out and its talons grasping a black sun wreathed in golden flame, the sigil of House Tsara. Below it was written in gold a simple phrase that even now made her uneasy:

From the Embers We Rise

As she took another step forward the door opened flooding the path behind her with light. The space behind the door was cut from the rock itself, the steps, the murals, the pillars that held up the heavily decorated ceiling, all of it was made of the same dark crystal, but the room did not betray the true size of the structure, to either side of her Celestia could see doors leading to dorms, shrines and kitchens for the ponies, griffons and other creatures that had chosen to dedicate their life to maintaining the room ahead.

The door was the same as the one behind her, large and well maintained and bore the sigil of House Tsara, but there was one thing different, instead of the imperial moto it had something else written in its place:

The chain shall be broken and with its breaking the flame shall be lit

But the flame shall be weak and sputtering, the flame shall seek a source

And the flame shall burn bright, a beacon to bring down death from the moon

And bind us all in its strings

The flame shall rise and scorch the skies as this world aside it is sweeping

As she walked forward the unicorns to either side opened the door as if by some silent command. The room beyond was dimly lit, only the flickering fires at each corner giving light, each one maintained by a pony wearing the same black sun pendant and robes that the others wore.

Upon each wall was a carving, etched from the same dark stone as the rest of the temple. To the left was an image of Luna, each star in her mane carved with expert precision even as her mane seemed to melt into the stone around her, she was bedecked in armour standing tall over the screaming masses as she rained fire from the heavens.

To the right was Pandora Tsara clothed in the imperial garb, her eyes filled with a cold malice like none Celestia had seen before, behind her great cities, one of them Canterlot, were consumed by fire as she stood facing away with the imperial crown crushed beneath her hoof.

Last was the carving of Jennifer Tsara upon the furthest wall, she stood with her wings spread out in triumph her mane fanning out under the force of stormy wind as a halo of light shone behind her. The beauty of the image however was detracted from by the hundreds of ships and they unfortunate crew burning upon the surface of the sea.

If one took time to take in the details of each wall they would see they had something in common, not the fire and death though that was something they shared. In each mural the same sword appeared, Luna held it up to the sky, Pandora had pierced it into the scorched earth and Tsara held its hilt between her fingered hooves, a sword which this very temple had been built to contain or rather to appease it. It was embedded into a stone pedestal, the pattern of circles and lines on the flat of its dark blade giving off the same white glow as the flame gleaming in the wing shaped cross guards.

Some had called it the Tsaran Blade, others the Reaper of Souls but Celestia, Luna, and the Tsaras had only ever known it by one name…

“Ragnarok.”

“Celestia.”

Her host was a mare, seemingly only thirty years of age with soft blue eyes and a well-groomed black mane and tail, the former supporting a crown with a ruby at its centre and point likes a flame surrounding it. She was dressed in the traditional black robe of a Tsaran Priest with a dark red undershirt visible through the open collar.

“I do hope you can forgive my suspicion but, why are you here? You never just visit.” Celestia pulled a scroll from under her wing and unrolled it in front of her host’s face:

The chain has been broken.
The flame will soon be lit.

“This was the last message I obtained from an agent in the Theocracy,” Celestia explained, “soon afterwards he was found and executed.” Her request was simple, an explanation of how he could have known about a phrase known only to a reclusive cult of twenty hidden in a mountain. Ragnorok at first replied only with a soft chuckle.

“Oh, I remember him, Elusive was his name I think.” She rubbed a hoof against he chin in thought. “He was a nice enough person, I used to talk to him in his dreams, telling him about Tsara, her hopes, her ambitions, her history and the mark she left on it.” an almost nostalgic look crossed her face, “I even shared the prophecy upon the door with him, shame he had to die, but he was spying on the Theocracy and spying is heresy after all.”

“But why would he send this message?" Celestia pressed closer.

“I had told him once that I could talk to you, he probably thought that I could tell you more about the prophecy as if I would be so inclined, it would not be in my best interest to tell you.” She turned around and looked at her vessel pierced into the pedestal, “Suffice to say the first step is done and you won’t know what it is till it stares you down. With how little you know he could have found out about the Theocracy’s Clerics.”

This caught Celestia’s attention, “What are these Clerics?”

“Oh, they are a fascinating bunch, do you know of the Hunters?” for the briefest of moments Celestia was not in the temple but instead looking in horror upon scorched earth, covered from east to west with burnt and bloodied corpses surrounding a flag waving in the breeze, a blood red flag bearing a downwards burning sword.

The flag of a what would one day be called the Tsaran Theocracy.

Celestia was quickly drawn back to the present by an impatient cough from her host, she nodded dumbly, in reply. “As I was saying, the Hunters are psykers, specifically pyromancers, they draw power from the warp to wield fire as a weapon and in some cases summon Tsaran daemons. Clerics on the other hand are sorcerers, fanatical beyond description they draw power from Tsara herself giving them power comparable to Pandora, summoning hordes of daemons from the warp with their blood or channeling great firestorms with their ceremonial lanterns, they function as the second highest authority of the Theocracy answering only to the Divine herself, but they are so absorbed in prayer and teaching the Hunters over the last hundred years that they are rarely seen, but they have been more active in recent years as tension builds ever greater. Fascinating all around but ultimately irrelevant to Elusive’s message.”

“Then why tell me all this?”

“Simple really, I want to make sure you understand.” she took a menacing step forward, “Your enemies have been building their strength for years, no matter what you do, now matter how hard you try to appease them, the Petty Imperiums will not just let bygones be bygones. ” she took another step closer. “There will be blood Celestia, how much of it will be your little ponies’ depends on you.”

Celestia would not be cowed so easily however. She took an even greater step forward and flared out her wings.

“And what do you expect me to do? Unleash you upon this world again?”

“Yes!” Ragnorak screamed, “The Elements are gone! Your army is a joke told by Prench recruits to feel better about themselves! You’ve seen what I can do with a suitable wielder,” she pointed to the mural on the left “Luna slew Discord, she burnt all nine million square kilometres of Draconia then contained what she unleashed behind the Black Gate.”

“All at the expense of losing her soul!” the room was beginning to get warmer as Celestia poured out her anger, “Cities burnt to the ground, slaves and their masters cut down, the very earth itself wiped clean of life by fire all to slay a draconequus racked with grief.” She was no longer yelling, her voice was that of a soft burning fury to match the inferno of colour that was her mane. “You alone are responsible for the death of millions, and you have the audacity to look upon the one pony to show you mercy, to give you a home where you cared for and loved? I should have thrown you into the ocean where you belong.”

The last response she had expected was Ragnarok laughing, even less that what she said next

“After all this time… After all these years, you still think I made her do that?” her rage was doused, her mane losing its fiery energy as what she was told sunk in. “I am a weapon, a tool, I cannot be blamed for how I am used. Celestia, Luna was ill, did you really think that you could just wash away a millennium of resentment? That she would not hate herself for what she did? The Longest Night, The Tantibus, even if I wasn’t there this would have happened eventually, and eventually you would have had to lock her away… Or put her down.”

Slowly she walked away, her image fading as she walked closer to the pedestal. “When the time comes for the next Great War what will you do?” she turned around and looked at her with a mixture of contempt and pity “What is right, or what is best?”

Author's Note

The flag of the Tsaran Theocracy, a silhouette of a burning down-turned sword upon a red background symbolises the violent and bloody history of the nation's founding. Both the background and the the burning sword represent the Second Great Crusade also known as the Secession War where ponies of Roamanum battled for the Theocracy's independence as well as being a symbol of national pride it also incorporates symbolism of the Tsaran Faith in which the burning sword is the symbol of a just cause and has long been the emblem of the Tsaran Hunters.
-Flags of the World, Chapter 4: The Petty Imperiums