Harmony

by Luna Nightshade

Rating: everyone
Tags: Adventure, Princess Celestia, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Sad, Other, Princess Luna, Original Character
Length: 28801

When Twilight asks Princess Celestia about the Tree of Harmony, the Princess starts to tell her a story from long ago ...

After the defeat of Tirek and the map appearing within the castle, Twilight got curious if there was more to the tree than meets the eye. After doing some research the only one left to ask is Princess Celestia herself.

On Twilights request the Princess meets up with her and tells her a story from long before Equestrias founding, from even before the events that led to Hearth's Warming Eve ...

The [Alternate Universe]-Tag is present, because things might not fit into canon completely (now or more on a later date). Still, I tried to keep as close to canon as I could.

CoverArt used with permission by SailorTrekkie92 [ Source ];
Tree of Harmony Vector by Serenawyr [ Source ]

Published 2015-06-05 20:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2015-11-01 17:38:55 UTC

1 - Sun meets Moon

Twilight paced through the empty hallways of canterlot castle. The eyes of the otherwise silent solar guard followed her every move. She had asked Princess Celestia about the Tree of Harmony and the Princess had replied to her request that they should meet personally to answer the question she had. Now she was really nervous. Why would the princess want to meet her personally to disclose this? Why wasn’t a short letter enough? She looked out of the stained windows showing her and her friends saving equestria more than once. The latest addition was her and her friends defeating Tirek. But the questions in her mind stopped her from really appreciating the art of the craftsponies. Why had the tree spawned that chest and that chest evolved into a castle and now the map in that castle and then there were those cutie marks on the trunk and …

The tree was more than met the eye. That much was certain to anypony. The tree had powerful magic and all those things that had happened, the elements, the chest, the castle, all of that couldn’t just be some strange coincidence. Her research so far had brought up nothing about the tree. The most it got was some notice that it existed and many of those clues were from Celestias and Lunas journal alone. But nothing explained or even tried to explain its existence or what it did. There was nothing in the Royal Canterlot Library, as well as all the books left behind in the old castle of the Royal Sisters.

At first she thought she could just roll with it and explore and discover the secrets of the tree herself. Maybe even write some thesis on it like some of Starswirl the Bearded earliest works on magic. But since the map just happened to mysteriously appear within her new home, and sent her somewhere where she and her friends were needed, she was on edge. It seemed that the tree and that map knew more about the problems in Equestria than even the princesses themselves.

The sun slowly disappeared behind the horizon and made room for Luna’s moon to rise, the colors of the corridor shifted and the solar guard was replaced by ponies of the night guard.
“Sorry, that I kept you waiting”, Celestia said as she entered the corridor through some of the doors at the side. With a nod she dismissed the guards with her and closed up to Twilight.

“It’s no problem”, Twilight replied, her voice squeaking unusually high.

Celestia ignored her signs of nervousness as usual. “It’s good to see you again.” She smiled her benevolent smile and went past her along the corridor. “Come.”

Twilight fell in next to her. “Yes, yes. Everything is fine as the princess of Friendship. We already had a chance to do our duty, thanks to the castle.”

“Are you already learing the traditional way of being a princess, using the royal we?” Celestia seemed to smile just a bit more than usual.

“N… no. I meant my friends and I”, she stammered. Only then she noticed Celestia giggling. She felt herself blush slightly.

“No need to be flustered.” She stopped in front of a door and opened it with her magic. Twilight followed the Princess into the Solar Study, Celestia’s private rooms. The princess kept her room as tidy as it could have been, only a few pieces of paper and some ink were there for when she felt the need to write letters. There was a small table with a pot of steaming hot tea and two cups prepared.

There was a comfy rug in front of the fireplace, where a small fire was already going, warming the room with its crackling, orange flames. Celestia settled down on the rug, motioning with her wing for Twilight to do the same. Her horn glowed and she poured each of them some tea and levitated some over to Twilight. She took that cup carefully into her own magic and took a sip. The tea did wonders in calming her down.

“To the matter at hoof. You had a lot of questions about the Tree of Harmony. As I recall you implied that the Tree has a mind of its own.”

“So it has a mind of its own?” Twilights ears perked up and she looked at Celestia. She felt like her personal student once again, the situation so similar to many evenings before she went to ponyville.

“You haven’t changed much in that regard.” Celestia chuckled. “Your conclusion is neither right nor wrong.”

Twilight slightly embarrassed smiled grew into confusion. “I do not understand.”

“Well, for you to understand, I will need to tell you a story”, the princess answered and looked out of the window and unto the moon that rose past her window and out of sight, gently guided by her sister. “It is a story long forgotten in time and my own memories of it are hazy at best. Some things might not be very accurate.”

“Is there a book I can read about that?”

Celestia had to giggle. “No, I’m afraid not. In fact, I wish Luna and I had started that journal of ours a lot sooner. I never wrote it down and I never will, because some details always change each time I try to remember them.”

“But wasn’t there somepony else that remembered it?”

“There were, but …” Celestia shook her head. “Sometimes a ponies wish to erase something is stronger than anything else.”

“A wish to erase something?” This only got more and more cryptic by the minute.

“Be patient. I think you may understand some things, once I have told you everything I know. I do hope that you have a bit of time.”

“Don’t worry, Princess, I have all the time we need.”

Princess Celestia chuckled. “I can imagine.” It made Twilight blush again. “Well, this is a story from a time long forgotten, very long ago. It is from before Luna turned Nightmare Moon, it is from before Discord tormented this land and even before Sombra ruled the Crystal Empire.” Celestia closed her Eyes and her horn started to glow in that faint golden glow it always had when she started to cast magic. Images floated in front of her, showing Twilight glimpses of the past she was recounting.

“It was before Luna and I ruled Equestria, before Tirek and Scorpan came here and even before the events that lead to Hearths Warming eve.”

Twilight gulped as even more images floated through the space in front of her. It was as if the room around them disappeared and as she looked to the side quickly she noticed that the room had disappeared. She was floating in some kind of void, similar to when she ascended into princesshood.

“Back then pony settlements were few and far between and the three races kept mostly to themselves. This land wasn’t anywhere close to what we have today.”

“As I recall, back then ponies weren’t living here at all!” Twilight recounted the events of Hearths Warming Eve in her head.

“Back then Equestria wasn’t founded. Ponies did not travel too much, for them a new land was behind the next hill, mountain or river.” Celestia raised an eyebrow. “You of all should know that the stories of Hearths Warming Eve have been modified over time. They are not that much of an accurate description as any scholar would like.”

Twilight smiled embarrassed again and took another sip of her tea to hide that blush.

“But besides all that, there were a few more things very different to today: The weather needed not to be tended to by pegasi and their city was swept where the wind would carry them. Sun and Moon rose and set by themselves, the seasons were coming and going automatically without anypony needing to intervene.”

“Y… you mean everywhere was like the Everfree Forest? That is BIG! Why hasn’t anypony mentioned that in any books or texts? What happened to change all this?”

“Slow down, Twilight. You might find the answer in what I am about to show you.” Celestias horn started to glow even brighter. “The windigoes were attracted to what were the governing powers back then: Selfishness, greed, cruelty, sadness and lies. Everypony looked out for themselves and friendships were few and far between. But there was one more thing that nopony had back then: A cutie mark.”

Twilight gasped as the pictures seemed to overwhelm her, take hold of her consciousness and plunged her right into the memories of the princess herself …

~*~*~

Celestia trotted down the streets of the village, next to her mother. Her mother was a beautiful while alicorn mare, her mane and tail the color of the sunset. They were sparkling and moving on their own, although there was no wind. It made her stand out against the dark, cloudy sky and the otherwise grim atmosphere of the village itself. They were taking a stroll over to the market to get a few apples, but there was something that struck her has odd. She wasn’t sure what it was or why it bothered her so much: All the ponies around seemed to be either ignoring or avoiding them, whispering to one another. Only the day before they still gave courteous but small nods. There were also far less ponies around than usual, but looking at the weather above, that wasn’t very surprising.

She could remember when they first arrived at the village. Everypony was thrilled to have not only one but two alicorns in their midst. But over time that feeling seemed to fade and acknowledgement of their presence faded to only a nod. Maybe they were completely tired of their appearance now.

The market itself was buzzing. Ponies of all colors and races, mostly earth ponies though, stood around, listening to one pony proclaim something in a loud voice. Her mother suddenly stopped and put a hoof in front of her path. Celestia looked to her mother who was intently listening to what the pony was saying. Curious as to why this was so important, she herself strained her ears to listen.

“… as of now, we need to defend ourselves.” His voice carried undertones that made Celestia shiver. “They tried to subdue one village and it took all of them and all their wits and magic to win. And even when they were moments away of winning, their opponent doomed their lands! All plants shriveled and nothing will grow there anymore, ever! I say we should get rid of those demons in our midst before they do the same to us!” His outburst of speech riled the crowd. “We are officially at war with them all! Let us show them that we don’t just take them as our masters, that we are capable of defending ourselves, capable of defeating them!” His hoof outstretched he pointed toward them.

Celestia stepped backwards, only to run into a pony behind her.

“What is the meaning of this?” Her mother asked. Celestia looked around, noticing that they were surrounded by other ponies.

“First they said that would stay neutral while we struggled, while we fought our little wars”, the pony on the center continued. “Now that they think that we are weak, they have tried to make us their slaves! I say we show them that we are no ponys slave! I say we hunt down all of them and show them what it means to go against us! I say down with all alicorns!”

The ponies around them turned toward them, their eyes hard, unyielding. “I assure you that we do not intend to harm or enslave anypony”, her mother pleaded.

“They have fooled us once”, the pony shouted. “Don’t let them fool us twice!”

“Yeah”, several other ponies around them shouted. And some of them drew the swords they were carrying around.

Her mother cast a shield and pushed them away. “Stop this nonsense at once”, she shouted back. “We have lived with you for months. We gave you counsel, whenever you needed it. We did no harm to any of you!”

“They feel superior to us and won’t hesitate to exploit our weaknesses”, the pony shouted. The ponies around them stepped forward again.

“What have we done?” Her mother shouted, her horn glowing, her wings outstretched. She stepped over Celestia and stared at all the other ponies.

“Counsel?” One pony shouted all of a sudden. “All your advice did was weaken our village against our attackers. We have lost many ponies because we heeded your advice to offer peace more than once!”

“But you also made friends. The few pegasi and unicorns living with you are proof.” Celestia bit her lip, stifling her own voice. She felt tears running down her face.

“Friends? Those few that changed sides don’t matter! We lost ten time the amount we gained as friends!” Another voice shouted.

“I lost my husband”, one mare cried out.

“They are too far gone”, her mother suddenly whispered. “No matter what we say, we can’t change what they think now.” She felt herself being picked up and her mother took to the air. “Run as fast as you can, I’ll be close behind you. Now spread your wings!” Celestia opened her wings and before she could say anything more, she was hurled through the air, her mother’s magic propelling her forward faster than any pegasus could fly.

She kept moving her wings, trying to stay airborne. Thunder growled behind her and she thought she heard her mother scream. But it would be okay. Her mother said she would be right behind her. She always kept her word. She kept on gliding through the air, towards empty streets. She struggled to keep afloat, but soon her hooves touched the ground and she changed toward galloping. Her vision was blurry. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she kept going. Kept telling herself that her mother would be fine. Thunder growled again as she left the last few houses of the village behind. A few drops of water met her face, but she kept on running and running. A few droplets started to become a lot and the rain turned into a real downpour. Finally she stopped galloping and went down into a trot. She looked behind herself. The village was out of view. And her mother did not come. She felt something akin to a wave of love from her mother. It made her hope that she was close. She should be coming soon. But she couldn’t wait here out in the open. She ran to a tree nearby and waited … and waited. And waited … Thunder bellowed above and she shrieked. She shivered, feeling cold and lonely. She looked toward the direction the village was again. There was no trace of her mother, no trace of anypony.

Tears started to run down her face. Somehow she knew that her mother wouldn’t come anymore. She cried as the rain poured down all around her, a perfect mirror to how she felt.

~*~*~

Celestia left her spot on the tree, trotting along the dirt road that lead to the next village. She had been there a few times with her mother to get some special herbs and ointments. Maybe they could give her some shelter for a while. At least those unicorns always smiled when they arrived. The scholars hanging at her mother’s lips when she told them a few more secrets of magic, of what alicorns and unicorns could do with training and knowledge. Although she had been at edge with the alicorn there, that tought those unicorns spells to summon fireballs or thunderstorms. Still, there was another alicorn there. One that could help her, possibly. What was his name again? Warlock? Either way, he was the closest she had to family now. Maybe he even knew where her father was.

She started to gallop a bit faster again. Maybe if she hurried, she could be at the village at nightfall. As she galloped along the hills and fields, the clouds broke. The sun’s rays warmed her not only her coat but also her heart a bit. She would find her father and stay with him from now on.

Her hooves flew over the ground as fast as they could carry her, her face showing determination as she ran across the land. Her hooves soon felt sore, but she pushed herself further. She didn’t want to stay outside, not during the night. Not with what happened at the other village. Her mane and tail streamed through the air as the sun started to vanish behind the horizon, but she kept on running. She had never run as much in her life before, her lungs burned slightly as she kept pushing herself.

She rounded another curve on the road and saw a mare in front of her. The unicorn turned and looked at her in surprise. She stared at the white filly, a basket floating next to her, hold in her pale magic glow. “What are you doing out here alone?” She asked with a gentle smile.

Celestia heaved strongly as she came next to the mare, her hooves suddenly refusing to move another inch. “Aren’t you … oh dear. Come with me.” The mare set the basked down, picked Celestia up in her magic and put her on her own back. After that she picked the basked up again and trotted slowly into the village.

“I … I wanted … to see … Warlock”, she heaved out between words. “Something … terrible … happened …”

“Calm down. You can tell all of us after you rested for a bit”, the mare said and rummaged through her basket. She pull single carrot out of it and gave it to Celestia. Gratefully she accepted the treat and bit into the tip, holding the rest of the carrot with her lips. The sweet crunchy taste filled her mouth. Memories of her mother surfaced again and tears started to stream down her face. She cried softly all the way it took them to reach the village.

The mare trotted toward a small cottage that was almost at the center of the town and brought her inside. A pale green unicorn stallion with brown hair sat next to a table and stared at them. Without saying a word she brought the filly upstairs and in a room, laying her on a bed and pulling a blanket over her. “Rest for now. Tomorrow we’ll look for Warlock”, she whispered and left the room.

Celestia shivered beneath the blanket. She bit again into the carrot, her hunger defeating her sadness only slightly. She closed her eyes and settled into the bedding some more. Sleep did not come although she felt tired.

“Are you crazy?” The voice of a stallion startled her. “Why have you brought her here?”

“She is a filly! I couldn’t do anything to her while looking into her eyes.”

“She is an alicorn first! Do you think the others will look kindly on us when we are found out sheltering one?”

“But …”

“No buts. It doesn’t matter if she is a filly. If we don’t do anything right now, we’ll be seen as traitors and not handled any different than they!”

“You wouldn’t say that if you had seen her …”

“It is her or us!” There was a bit of silence. “I knew you would do the right thing. Keep her up there, I’ll get the others.”

Silence fell. Celestia felt everything within her cramp up. She felt paralyzed. Was it the same everywhere? Slowly she willed herself out of bed. Her limbs still protested, but complied to her sheer will. She looked around. The only way out of the room was the door. Or the window. She willed magic into her horn and unlocked the window. She spread her wings and jumped, fluttering slightly to gain more height. She got to the windowsill and grabbed on with her hooves, struggling with her wings and hind legs to get outside. She was on the straw covered roof and looked around.

The green unicorn was coming back with a few more unicorns in tow, holding a torch in his magic. Celestia panicked. She went around the roof and to the other side. It was a pretty steep way down, but with her wings she probably could manage to get down. Gulping she took the leap of faith and spread her wings again. Somehow she kept long enough in the air to get over to the next roof. Maybe she could just hide there for a while …

“… and you caught her by yourself?” She heard one pony say.

“My wife found her on the road, gained her trust and brought her here.”

“Very well done”, another pony replied. She heard the door open and soon after that it was silent. It only took a few minutes, then the ponies were out on the street again. “She couldn’t have gone far! Find her!”

Celestia pressed herself against the straw of the roof. The ponies spread out. At least there were no pegasi in this village. She still dared not to breathe a breath of relief. She still had to get out of that village.

She waited some more, then jumped to another roof, catching her breath once again. Crouching she went as far to the edge of the roof as she dared and got a good view on the ponies running around, their torches lighting the otherwise dark streets.

“Seen any hoof-markings?” She overheard somepony, her ears swiveling.

“No. Maybe she flew away?” Another pony answered.

“I don’t think she can fly for long periods of time. She is young and exhausted.”

“What do you propose then?”

“Check the roofs. She must be up there somewhere.”

Celestia crouched back. She needed a different hiding place. Her heart beat fast. Where could she go from there? She looked around. She couldn’t go inside any of the houses. Her pulse racing and adrenaline pumping she kept looking around. There was one promising house where she could hide below the slightly elevated entrance to the house. She just needed to get there, then wait until everypony had settled down and escape in the late hours of the night.

“I’ll tell the others to check the roofs. We spread out from here?” She didn’t hear an answer but the hoofs of the pony clopping over the ground told her that that discussion was over. She was running out of time. She crouched to the edge of the roof, looking down left and right, then got back a bit and jumped over. Two more.

“Was there something?”

She crouched down. The pony from before might be searching the dark sky now. Her white fur wasn’t the best of colors to hide against the dark of the night.

“Are you sure you saw something?”

They were in the street behind her. Celestia gulped, ran and jumped.

“Give me a lift with your magic.”

Celestia ran further, she had to get out of sight.

“Y… you are heavy …” She heard from behind. She pressed herself down against the roof on the other side of the tip, hoping that the darkness would conceal any tracks she might have left behind on the roofs.

“A bit higher.”

Celestia closed her eyes. Her pulse throbbed so loud in her ears that she feared those ponies might hear it, too.

“And, do you see something?”

“Give me a moment, it is too dark like this …”

“I’m telling you … nnggghh …”

She heard some grunting and grumbling. “Can’t you keep a simple levitation spell going?”

“You are too heavy!”

“Fine, then I’ll lift you and you look!”

Celestia used that brief respite, summoned all her strength and jumped again. This time she tried to step as lightly as she could over the roof to leave no marks there, hiding on the other side again. “I don’t see anypony”, she heard the voice of the other pony again. “I told you that you were chasing ghosts.”

Celestia took a deep breath. She only had to get into her new hiding place now. Without leaving any tracks. She quickly looked left and right and jumped down, her wings keeping her off the ground for the time. She reached her forehooves under the platform and dragged herself forward. After half the way she had to fold her wings and her hindlegs touched the ground.

Quickly scrambling under the platform she used her magic to erase the tracks she had left behind, pouring some dirt over them and hoping that nopony would notice. There she waited. There were a lot of ponies up and checking the roofs. She prayed, hoped that none would notice the tracks on the roof for hoofmarks.

She waited and shivered although her pulse still went strong. The unicorns passed her hiding place a few times, but thankfully they were still looking through the roofs. The night went on and started to change into day again.

“Have you found her?” She heard for the eighth time as a group of ponies met close to her hiding place.

“No. She must have escaped. Even if not, we have bigger things to worry about.”

“Another one?” The first one asked.

Celestia wondered if she should get to that alicorn first and ask him or her for help.

“He calls himself Galy Leo”, the other one replied. “We need all available horns.”

The torch fell out of the pony’s magic and clattered on the ground. Celestias heart jumped. “Lead the way!”

She saw their hooves moving away, heard the clopping of them grow fainter and fainter. As she was sure she didn’t hear anypony anymore, she crawled out of her hiding-place, hoping that that wasn’t any kind of ruse to get to her. She oriented herself by the rising sun and the way the ponies had run off to, to gallop north.

That alicorn was having to face the whole village and she wouldn’t be able to help him in any way. She still felt sore from the day before and her powers were limited. If she was lucky then she could compete with one grown unicorn, but that was all the extent her powers allowed her.

A loud crack behind her made her jump, her wings opened out of reflex and she fluttered a few times, before touching the ground and running again. She looked back. Behind her the sky turned red and yellow, green and purple as several different spells were cast. A bright flash and another crack told her that no one was pulling punches.

The whole scene remembered her just of the day before. Tears started to stream down her face again as she cried, galloping down the road. Why had she been so stupid? That pony telling them that alicorns would be ponies non grata had to have been there before her already. She wouldn’t be safe anywhere now. She looked behind herself once more as she left the last buildings behind. There was a sudden bright flash and the earth rumbled. She felt a powerful wave of energy. Magic. Her own horn reacted to it, lit up like a small lantern. She started to float above the ground.

Her heart started to race even faster as fear gripped her. Why was this happening? She tried fluttering with her wings, tried to run with her hooves, tried concentrating, but she couldn’t get her horn under control again. She still moved forward, but without control it was as good as not moving at all!

“What are you doing?” A voice scolded her from somewhere. “Do you want them to see you?”

She tried to hide herself behind her hooves and wings, despite knowing that that wouldn’t work. A hoof gently touched her horn and her own magic dissipated. The filly fell towards to the ground. Just before kissing the earth, something grabbed hold of her, kept her in the air and pulled her aside, from the road and over the fields into the forest.

Looking around she finally found someone holding her in her magic, flying above her, but still below the tree tops.

She tried to look up, to get look at the other alicorn above her, but the red-orange colors of the on setting dusk changed what she really looked like. She seemed orange blue with a ligher orange mane in that light. Her wings flapped every now and then, letting them speed through the forest.

They passed ciders and acorns, cherry and apple trees, some evergreens and more on their way deeper into the forest. It was only when they suddenly stopped in some sort of clearing that she allowed herself to ask “who are you?”

“I am the one that saved your hide”, the mare said as she landed next to her. “Seriously, what were you thinking?”

“I was only trying to get away, then this weird magic hit me and I couldn’t do anything!” She closed her eyes while loudly defending herself.

“Calm down or you’ll alert them to us sooner or later”, the mare put a hoof to her shoulder and looked around, her ears alert. “Sorry, it’s just … I have seen a lot of weird things lately and lost a lot of brothers and sisters.”

“Me too”, Celestia sighed and looked down. “Thanks for saving me.”

“Don’t worry about it”, the mare answered, “those of us that are left need to stand together. I’m Harmony by the way. And the filly on my back”, she turned slightly so that she could see the mares back, “is Blueberry for now.”

There was indeed a small blue filly on the mares back, her mane and tail were light blue and her eyes were closed shut frantically.

“I’m Celestia”, she answered, staring at the two.

The blue filly opened her eyes and looked back at Celestia, her big teal eyes slightly fearful.

“I… found her two days ago on the outskirts of that village I came to. I was wandering around as they started to attack every alicorn they saw. I was in luck that there was a stronger stallion there, so they focused on him and I could slip away. She was sitting outside next to the road, crying her eyes out and calling for her dad to come to her.” She sighed. “He was strong, but against that village … even he didn’t stand a chance. So I took her with me. She tried to get back and then we felt this strange wave of magic in the air … she was quiet ever since.”

Celestia looked down. She knew how the filly felt. “I don’t suppose you know the alicorns name or what he looked like?”

Hamony shook her head. “Maybe you can ask her, should she speak again.”

Celestia looked away. She wasn’t sure she could ask her about her father. It was sure to rile her own memories of her mother.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the earth shaking. Lightning struck soundless over the sky. Sun and Moon started to move on their own, trading places in a manner of seconds. An ominous scream went through Celestias limbs and bones. She thought she heard something like a clock ticking. With each tick they moved faster and faster. Celestia felt another wave of magic, her horn lit up again as did the one of the blue filly, both of them lifted into the sky.

Harmony flapped her wings, trying to catch them. A shock went through the whole world. The sun stopped at the horizon, the moon was out of sight, the sky a deep orange. The magic around Celestia’s and Blueberry’s horn dissipated again and they fell past Harmony.

The older mare caught them both with her magic and landed next to them, staring at the horizon.

“W… what was that?” Celestia gulped. The blue filly next to her shivered all over.

“I… I don’t know”, Harmony answered, her eyes still fixed on the horizon. Celestia trotted over to Blueberry and folded her wing over her back, comforting her like her mother did with her …

“The sun … it’s not moving.” Harmony said after a while.

“What do you mean, it’s not moving? It isn’t supposed to move.”

“You are right, it isn’t supposed to move in the way it did just now, but it is supposed to move slightly. It and the moon moving slightly are creating our night and our day. But the sun isn’t moving at all.”

“B… but why?”

“I suspect it happened when the alicorn in that village died. It was like his dying gift to this world.” Harmony sighed and settled down next to them, folding her wing over them both.

“Will the sun be okay? Will we be okay?”

“We will be okay”, Harmony answered with a soothing voice. “And I think the sun is okay as well. Don’t worry about it, too much.”

Celestia stared at the Horizon and shivered. But she wasn’t the only one. The blue filly shivered, as well as Harmony, even though she did her best to hide it. It made her think that the words she said just now were only meant to soothe her, but she probably didn’t believe them herself.

2 - Azure Silk

Celestia jolted awake from a dream. The memory of it faded quickly, but she had dreamed of being chased. She couldn’t recall falling asleep, so her sleep could have lasted somewhere between a few minutes and several hours. The sun was still on the horizon, casting its orange-red glow over the world. The blue filly next to her had fallen asleep as well, her slow and even breathing a sign that her dreams were a lot more peaceful than Celestia’s before. The other mare next to her was still awake, her ears perked up and her eyes scanning the surroundings. Even though her wing covered both Celestia and Luna, she could feel that Harmony was on edge, ready to spring up and flee from any kind of danger.

“Awake again?” Harmony spoke without looking at her.

“Y… yes. Sorry for falling asleep.” Celestia yawned and rubbed her left eye with her fetlock, just before using her other fetlock to rub her other eye.

“Both of you have been tired and since I saw no mane, tail or fur of anypony else I let you sleep. We still should get going, soon.”

“But where should we go? Is there a village we would be safe at?”

Harmony sighed and looked at her. “The short answer: No, the long answer: Maybe.”

“I don’t understand. Either we are safe or we are not.”

“We may be able to pass for a while, if we disguise ourselves.” Her horn lit up and a small image of an alicorn appeared before Celestia. “If we hide our wings, other ponies might just see us as unicorns and thus leave us alone.” The image changed, the wings pressed to the body of the alicorn and then hidden behind a layer of clothing.

“But wouldn’t they notice?”

“I can put a subtle enchantment on the cloth that will hide the rest.” The image changed into a representation of a normal unicorn and then vanished.

“But where will we get those clothes?”

“That will be the hard part.” Harmony gulped. “I know of a seamstress in another village. She still owes me a favor and I hope that she will help us. The problem is that we need to sneak into her shop without being seen.”

“B… but.” Celestia looked to the Horizon, her voice rising. “There is an eternal twilight! How can we sneak anywhere like this?” The filly next to her stirred and opened her eyes, yawning.

“Well, I have a plan for that as well”, Harmony answered, “but it is a dangerous one.”

“I… in what way?” Celestia shivered. The little filly next to her scooted a bit closer, nuzzling her gently.

“We need to draw most unicorns out of the village.” Harmony said, her look stern. “And I think you are the one that can pull this off.”

~*~*~

Celestia hoped that Harmony was right. She pressed her wings as close to her body and to look as inconspicuous as she could. They were hidden beneath an illusion spell that also gave her a tattered appearance. She slowly trotted towards the village entrance, her gaze fixed on the two ponies standing guard. One was orange and slim, the other bulky and white. Both held spears within their magic. She limped slightly with her right hindleg. Her heart was pounding up to her ears. She wasn’t sure that she could do this. But she was the only one that could. Blueberry was still too frightened to do anything and Harmony was known in that village. Her hooves were shaking with every step she took.

The guards took notice of her. Or maybe they had a long time ago, but only now they lowered their spears. Celestias heart jumped. Her step faltered and she fell forward.

“Are you okay?” One of the guards shouted and trotted over to her.

Celestia gulped and pressed the ruse they had devised through her lips. “Alicorn rampage.” She took a deep breath her voice shaking from being so nervous. “In Appleon.”

“Get the milita and the village council. We need to mount a defense! Alicorn on rampage in Appleon!” A moment later the guard next to her stretched out an orange hoof. “Can you stand?” Celestia slowly got up to her legs again, although they felt a lot more like they would gave way again anytime soon.

“W… will you help Appleon?” She asked, every hair on her fur on edge.

“We will probably be too late to help them, but we will try to meet that Alicorn on the fields. Do you know his or her name?”

Celestia shook her head. “The only thing I saw was a black shadow …”

“Sounds ominous. We should be careful.” He nodded more to himself and looked at Celestia again. “Come, I know a place where you can rest.” He turned and trotted toward the village.

Celestia looked back over her shoulder, hoping to see a glimpse of Harmony or Blueberry, but she didn’t see anypony. Reluctantly she followed the guard.

The village itself looked very much like the last one she had been to. Houses made of wood and straw stood scattered all over the place. In the midst of them all a horde of unicorns started to gather. There were a lot of voices shouting at each other. She could only make out some pieces of various conversations going on all at once. Some were arguing: “Why should we go and help them?” “Let him come!” “Why should we care?” Others replied: “We must help them.” “They are unicorns as well.” “Don’t let them come here and destroy our village!”

“Time is of the essence, everypony!” A voice rang out over the crowd. “We should try and help the ponies from Appleon! Together we stand more of a chance and even if we are too late, we should go and meet that alicorn on the way. Now he or she is still weakened for their battle. If we go now, it improved our chances!”

The stallion’s speech quieted the arguing ponies. Harmony seemed to know the mayor pretty well to predict his thinking. She took a deep breath of relief.

“Is everypony here?” The mayor’s voice resounded over everypony. “Good, then let’s move out!” The ponies stampeded in the way Celestia had come from, while the guard led her through the village still.

“Won’t you join them?” Celestia asked after a while.

The guard stopped and looked to her. Had she asked something wrong? “A few ponies are known to stay here. They are either too old or too young to fight, some are not even suited to fight and those need protection as well.” He explained with a clam voice, then turned toward a house on their left.

“Then you have been fighting for a while now”, Celestia concluded.

“Yes, there were always tussles with other villages, but it is the first time we head out to fight an alicorn. To be honest, I am glad that I can stay behind.” He knocked at the door.

Celestia gulped. She had hoped that even the guards were to disappear.

The door opened after a few moments, held in the azure glow of somepony’s magic. “What is it, I am busy?” A mare called from within.

“Sorry to disturb, Azure Silk, but I thought you would look after this filly while the town is busy.” The guard explained while they trotted inside.

The house itself wasn’t very big and everywhere was cluttered some sort of differently colored cloth, while a mare sat over a table, holding some fabric in her magic and staring intently at it. “The town is busy?” She asked without looking.

“Yes, there was an alicorn attack on Appleon.”

“An attack on Appleon?” Her magic faded and the cloth fell onto her mane, with her staring at them.

“And this filly risked her life to tell us about it.” The guard gestured toward Celestia with a hoof.

“Oh dear, you look dreadful. Come on in, sit. I’ll make some tea.” The mare jumped up from her position and disappeared into another room. Celestia looked around, unsure where to sit down, as all the possible places were cluttered with one thing or another.

“I’ll leave you to it, then”, the guard said and disappeared.

Celestia heard some clinging and clanging, something splitter and a bit of water being poured. She winced with every loud noised that came from the other room. Azure Silk soon arrived again, her coat a deep azure blue, her mane and tail a deep shade of purple, both longer than what she was used to see on mares. Mane and tail were a bit tussled but Celestia got the impression that Azure Silk usually tried to keep at least those in better shape.

The unicorn had a towel and a bowl of water in her magic, sitting down next to Celestia and starting to tend to her illusional bruises on her legs and face. “Galloping all the way here from Appleon to get help … You are very brave.”

“Uhm … thank you”, Celestia answered, her heart beating a bit faster again.

“What is your name?”

“Oh… I’m Ce… Pink Diamond.”

“The Pink Diamond? Are you famous over in Appleon?”

“N… no. I am … just Pink Diamond”, she stammered. She needed to be more careful of what she was saying.

Azure Silk looked up at her, letting the towel just float next to her. “There is more to this, isn’t there?”

“M… more?”

“Young Filly, I have an eye for details, it comes with my profession. And you may belief this or not, but I have tended to more injuries than I can count.” Azure stared into her eyes. “These injuries are fake, are they not?”

“I … I …” Celestia felt pressed into a corner. What should she do? Maybe if she admitted that part, Azure wouldn’t start to question more about her. She sighed and looked down. “Yes, they are …” Then she looked up to Azure again. “How did you know?”

“Simple. Ponies usually flinch when one tends to wounds as such”, she said, putting the bowl of water and the towel down. “But don’t try to change the subject now, young lady.” Celestia gulped. She had just been curious. “You just lied yourself into this village, probably clearing almost all the population out of it with another lie.” It was clearly a statement.

“P… please, don’t …” Celestia flinched back.

“I first want to know why!” Azure sat back on her haunches. “And I want the truth!”

The filly gulped. The mare in front of her was intimidating.

“We … need the help of a seamstress”, Celestia admitted.

“Well, I am the seamstress.” She stared at the filly, squinting her eyes. “Who else is with you?”

“Well, Harm…” The mare was on her, a hoof to Celestias muzzle, quieting her.

“Don’t say that name aloud here”, she pressed through her teeth. “Why has that idiot come back?” Azure Silk shook her head. “Come upstairs. Some things are still dangerous, even if most of the village is out.”

Celestia nodded and followed her into the kitchen. Pots, platters and cups were scattered everywhere, but there was still enough room to maneuver to the stairs on the far side of the room. The upper floor was in stark contrast to the lower floor. Everything seemed to be where it belonged. Azure led her into a bed-chamber. A single bed stood, a rug and a closet were all the items within the room, making it seem almost spartanic.

“You can drop the illusion now”, Azure said, sitting down on her haunches in the center of the room. “And don’t worry, there are no prying eyes up here.”

“B… but …”

“Look here. Whatever it is that she wants me to do, I need time to do it. And that ruse you pulled will keep them out of the village only for so long. When they come back without having found an alicorn, they’ll want to interview you – and then they’ll strip that glamour from you and I don’t think you want that to happen, but that you and her want to be far away from here by then.”

She nodded and spread her wings. She knew that after opening them past a certain point, the spell couldn’t keep her disguised anymore. The wings would become visible to Azure Silk.

“I suspected as much. What is it she needs for you and her?”

“She wants a disguise for our wings, some cloth that will conceal them”, she answered.

Azure nodded. “I hope she knows what she is doing. Wait here a moment.” She went past her and downstairs. Celestia sighed, her heart still racing from the encounter. She listened intently, heard things being moved and a few curses. Azure came up several minutes later, measuring tape and cloth held in her magic.

“Now, stand still, with your wings to your sides. I’ll try to make this disguise as good as possible, but you won’t be able to take it off without ripping it. So it will be a one-time thing, understood?”

Celestia nodded and did as told. Azure started to take her measurements, her magic moving the measuring tape all over the filly’s body.

“H… how do you and H… her now each other?” Celestia asked after a while.

“She lived in the village for some time”, Azure replied, putting some white cloth over Celestia’s back. “She helped me gather some rare materials from other villages. We were good friends.”

“Did you help her escape, when that pony came?” Celestia asked, curious.

“That pony …?” Azure stopped for a moment, her eyes looking up. “The one that started to spout all this nonsense about … all of you?” Celestia nodded. “No, she was long gone.”

“Why?”

“She made a mistake and managed to get almost the whole village upset at her. It made things even easier for that pony when he came here to tell those lies.” Azure sighed and wrapped some more cloth around Celestia’s body, adding some padding next to her wing.

“Why are you still … her friend?”

“Because I got to know her. Everypony else didn’t care much about getting to know her.” Suddenly there was a flash and the cloth around her body was fixed in place without any visible seams. “There, that is the best I can do on short notice. How does it feel?”

It was very warm and she was unable to move her wings. It wasn’t very comfortable, but it could have been worse. “It’s good”, she said. “Thank you.”

“Well, it does look like you got a bit too much weight.” The familiar voice made not only her jump, but Azure as well.

“Y… you!” Azure stomped over to the other mare. “You have nerves to come back here! Are you mad? Do you want them to slaughter you?”

Harmony took a step back, smiling uncomfortably. “Well, I didn’t have any choice”, she answered. “Can you help her, too?” She turned slightly and showed Blueberry to Azure. The little filly shrinking away from Azure.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to startle you”, Azure said, reaching out with her hoof carefully. The little filly didn’t move, but flinched slightly as Azure’s hoof touched her gently. “What is your name?”

Harmony didn’t say anything. Celestia waited, wondering if she should tell Azure the filly’s name. Moments went by in absolute silence, silence in which Azure just stroked over Blueberry’s mane.

“L… Luna”, she finally replied. Wasn’t her name Blueberry? What was going on?

“You have a very pretty name, Luna”, Azure replied with a smile. “Nopony here will hurt you.” Luna looked up, her gaze brightening just a bit. “Will you come down, so I can take your measurements?”

Blueberry – or Luna – looked to Harmony. “Don’t worry, you can trust her”, the mare answered. The filly looked back and forth between the smiling ponies and jumped off, fluttering her wings a few times, gliding smoothly.

Celestia stared at the younger filly. She seemed to have good control over her wings already. She watched as Azure went to work on her, more slowly and gently than she had been with Celestia.

“How much time do you think we have?” Harmony asked as she watched Azure taking the filly’s measurements.

“I’m guessing two or three hours tops”, she said and got back up. “Give me a moment, I need to see if I have her color in stock.” Azure went past the blue filly and downstairs.

“So … Luna?” Celestia asked and the filly nodded meekly. “I thought you said”, she looked at Harmony.

“I gave her that name because she never told hers. But Luna fits her, does it not?”

Celestia nodded. “It is a nice name.” The little filly blushed slightly and avoided their gaze. She looked back to Harmony. “Two to three hours?”

“Probably only two. We need to be gone by that time.”

“Where will we go then?”

“I know of another village north of here. It is quite a bit, but we should be able to live there peacefully for a while. Maybe they’ll even forget their war and we can show ourselves one day again.”

“Do you really think that we can …?” Celestia bit her lip. Somehow she would have liked to go back to where she lost her mother. If only to mourn her.

“I hope so. Hope is all we have. And we should hold on to our hopes as much as we can.”

Azure came back up and gave Luna a small cube of sugar. Then she put the blue cloth on her and started working. Why did the filly get a sugar cube and she didn’t? Celesita pouted, but then she saw the filly smile for the first time since meeting her.

“Thank you”, Harmony said to Azure. She floated a bag out of her mane and emptied about half of the coins in it on the floor. “I hope this will compensate you for the troubles.”

“Don’t you dare make me take your money”, Azure answered without even looking on the amount of coins lying there. “Take it. You’ll need it where you go, especially with those two fillies in your care!”

Harmony silently gathered the coins again in her back, a tear flowing from her eye. She quickly wiped those away with her fetlock, just as another flash of magic signaled that Azure was finished with Luna.

“Do you feel comfortable?” Azure asked the filly and Luna nodded with a smile.

Azure put the rest of the blue cloth aside and pulled a big silvery-blue cloth over Harmony’s back. The mare worked on her in silence, her movements quick and deliberate. Fitting her body and wings took her a lot longer than on Celestia and Luna. The blue filly joined Celestia in her staring, leaning slightly into her.

Finally there was the third flash and Harmony’s wings were hidden beneath the cloth. “That is the best I can do”, Azure answered and wiped some sweat from her forehead. “The rest is up to you. And remember that you can only take it off by ripping through it.”

Harmony nodded and trotted over to Celestia. Her horn glowed in a silvery aura as she applied a spell to Celestias disguise. The borders where the white cloth met her fur seemed to vanish, making her look like a slightly overweight unicorn and not as if she was wearing anything. Harmony did the same to Lunas and her own clothing. “There, that is all”, she said finally.

“Now, hurry up and leave!” Azure shoved Harmony toward the door.

The mare nodded and turned. “Come, we have been here long enough. We shouldn’t put Azure Silk in any more trouble.” Celestia followed Harmony. “Thank you”, she said as she left. Luna took a while, then said “Thank you” as well and rushed behind them.

They went down the stairs, through the clutter in the kitchen and out the door. “Take care, you hear me? Don’t you dare die or something”, Azure said just before Harmony closed the door.

“I’ll try my best”, she whispered and started to run. They quickly passed some houses and the guards in front of the village. As Celestia passed the guards she noticed that they were staring forward with an empty gaze. Harmony soon turned left into the woods. Something was strange, but she didn’t have time to wonder. They stopped only when the village entrance was out of view.

Harmony’s horn lit up for a moment and some sparks fell down. Celestia didn’t notice any immediate effects. “D… did you do anything to the guards?” She suddenly asked.

The older mare looked back and fell into a slow trot through the woods. “I had to put them under a spell in order to enter the village. They would have recognized me and I couldn’t allow them to see us leaving.”

Celestia shivered. Those were some scary spells. No wonder that some ponies saw them as threats and wanted them gone. Was this the mistake Harmony had done before? Or was it something different? She kept her curiosity for herself and followed her through the trees, the setting sun watching them from their right.

Harmony picked the way they went very carefully, so that their hooves didn’t leave any prints at all. They stopped only briefly to pick a few of the sparse berries and cherries on some trees. Finally they settled down at some glade. “I think this is far enough for now. We should rest and get some sleep”, Harmony said, laying down. Celestia settled down a bit next to her and sighed, her hooves feeling sore again.

“C… can I sleep next to you again?” Luna whispered into Celestias ear after trotting over to her. Celestia looked a bit surprised at the younger filly, but nodded. The filly smiled and got down next to her, leaning her head over Celestias shoulders and quickly fell asleep.

The white filly smiled and looked over Luna’s shoulder and toward the still setting sun, clinging to her hope that everything would be fine again.

3 - Starswirl

They kept on trotting through the wilderness for several days. The sun on the horizon made it hard to keep track of time. The plants around them started to wither and the food they found grew sparser with every day that passed.

Luna trotted next to Celestia and slept next to her all the time. Her mood seemed to improve over time and she opened up toward Celestia and Harmony. One evening she settled next to Celestia, looking sad again.

“Are you okay?” Celestia asked carefully.

“I … I have been wondering”, the little filly said, “what … was your mother like?” Celestia stared at Luna, her own feelings threatening to overwhelm her. “My father was … fun to be with, but … I always wondered about my mother …”

Celestia tried to gulp down the lump in her throat. She had always wondered about her father, so she could understand her question. “M… mother was … the kindest and most beautiful mare I can think of”, Celestia finally answered, her voice breaking and tears starting to flow from her eyes. “She was strict … but only to protect me at all costs …”

Luna started to tear up as well, leaning into Celestia as if trying to comfort her. “What did she look like?”

“She was … tall. Taller than everypony …” She sniffed and choked. “White coat, her mane and tail like the sun… set …” She started to cry loudly and Luna cried with her, her head laying upon Celestia’s shoulder. Harmony soon went over to them and settled next to them, putting a hoof over both. She didn’t say a word but let them just cry for a long, long time. When finally their tears stopped, Celestia looked to Luna and asked the question she had on her mind for a while: “Can … can you tell me … about your father? I never had one …”

Luna looked up to her with her big, teal colored eyes, burying her muzzle into Celestias white fur. “My father was … also tall. His fur dark blue and his mane and tail black, flowing … sparkling.” She scrunched her nose a bit. “We often went stargazing during the night and he told me all about the stars. He … he taught me how to fly …” She started sniffing again, but stopped herself from crying. “As … as he sent me away … I think he wanted to tell me something.”

Silence fell over them. Celestia didn’t know what to say, nor could she even begin to speculate what it was.

“We may be the last alicorns alive”, Harmony whispered, “but we have each other. We’ll stand together, like a small family, won’t we?”

“Like sisters?” Luna asked quietly.

“Like sisters”, Harmony answered with a nod. Celestia didn’t say anything, she had doubts. Harmony had cast spells on other ponies to save her own hide. It was something that her mother had been against for as long as she could remember. A pony who did that wasn’t a pony she would want to be family with …

~*~*~

“Who are you?” The black coated guard with a white mane stared them down, his spear aimed at Harmony.

“I am Silverware and those little fillies are Pink Diamond and Blueberry.” The older mare answered with a gentle smile. They had finally managed to arrive at the village they were headed to. It was a fairly large village and it was surrounded by a stone wall instead of a wooden palisade like all the other villages. Harmony had invented more unicorn-like names for them all, only Luna’s alternate name was the same as before. Luna pouted a bit, although she hadn’t said anything about that name before.

The guard looked at all of them in turn, staring into everyponies eyes for a moment. “Seems about right”, he finally said. “What do you want here?”

“We are searching for some refuge, at least for the night and something to eat.” Harmony replied.

“Where do you come from that you are searching shelter here?”

“Our home, Hill Valley, was destroyed by an alicorn”, Harmony didn’t miss a beat. She had probably thought about this for some while.

“Ah, yes, heard of that. Very tragic. No one can live there anymore.” The guard relaxed and retracted his spear. “You can come in. Starswirl needs all unicorns he can get. Best go directly to the marketplace. If you make yourself useful, you might be able to stay.”

“Why? What is it that he needs done?” Harmony asked.

“Don’t ask me. Go to the market place. He said to send all unicorns there that are not busy with guard duty.” He shrugged with his left hoof.

“Thank you anyways”, Harmony said and trotted off. Celestia and Luna followed her, wondering who this Starswirl was.

The town itself wasn’t much different from the last village she had been to. The houses were made out of wood and had a straw roof each. The only difference was, that the houses seemed to be build a lot more packed. But apart from all the houses, the streets almost seemed empty. There were a few earth ponies and pegasi around. Maybe they had had an alicorn that wanted to spread friendship to other races as well. The ponies she did see were slumped against houses, seemed devoid of any energy or motivation.

They trotted further into the village, coming upon a unicorn selling apples somewhere along the way. “Fresh and delicious apples, only 50 bits!” He shouted at the top of his lungs, advertising the small harvest he had next to him. Celestia counted just fourteen apples. A few other stands were on the street as well, but those were empty. Neither goods nor ponies were anywhere to see. Celestia looked at the apples again. They were round, greenish-red and plump, probably as fresh as advertised. She could feel her mouth water and her tummy rumbling as she kept staring at the apples. It had been a long time since she had one and grazing the sparse grass on the way did only so much to quench her appetite. There was something rumbling next to her. Luna’s blush told her that the little filly felt as hungry as she did. She looked to Harmony and found that the mare had gone on already and was looking to them. After a moment she went over to the salespony.

“Could you spare one apple for three starving mares?” She asked innocently.

“Do I look like I care if you are starving or not?” The orange colored pony looked angry with her, his dark mane was tangled up and his deep brown eyes stared at her like daggers. “Next you want three apples and then all I have left. No, you’ll have to pay like everypony else!”

Harmony sighed and used her magic to pick out the pouch she had had as they were with Azure Silk. She carefully counted the bits and looked up to him. “I only got about 30 bits.”

The salespony looked to Harmony and the fillies, before snarling: “I can give you one half apple for that.”

“But isn’t that more expensive?”

“Do you think I can sell half an apple to anypony else? You can be glad that I am even considering this offer!”

“Very well”, Harmony put the bag with the bits on the counter. The salespony went to count all the coins, biting onto a few of them in the process. Afterwards he took out an axe and cut the apple into two. He shoved one of the halves to her and took the other into his own magic. Harmony took the other half into her magic and trotted over to them, halving it while she went. She gave one to Luna and Celestia each. Smiling they sat down on their haunches and took the quarter apple into their hooves.

The first bite was sweet, crunchy and moist, the second was even better. But before she could eat it all, she noticed Harmony smiling at them. Somehow she felt bad, seeing that Harmony didn’t take an apple at all. She might not consider her family, but she still helped them out. She looked at her last bite of apple she had left. “What about you?”

“It’s fine, I’ll find some grass later. Now, eat up.”

Celestia eyed her piece once again and looked over to Luna. The little filly was as torn as she was. Then harmony gently touched her hooves and brought the apple closer to her muzzle. As the sweet smell assaulted her nostrils once more, she had to take the last bite. It was the same with Luna.

“Now, come. Let us go to the market place and find some place to stay for the night. Or at least for some time.” Harmony turned and passed the apple stand without looking back. Celestia looked to the salespony again before trotting after the mare. He didn’t look that happy with the half he still had left.

They followed the mostly empty street. Celestia and Luna looked around, admiring some of the larger houses that had up to three stories. Many roofs were also fashioned from wood instead of straw while the houses themselves were made of stone instead of wood. They met a few more pegasi and earth ponies on the way. Celestia overheard them speaking to one another while they passed. Some were gossiping about other ponies, some were cursing alicorns and some wondered why Starswirl wanted to gather as many unicorns as possible on the market place.

Some of the ponies wondering joined them on their way. They trotted along, but kept their distance. The market place itself was full of ponies. Mostly unicorns, but also earth ponies and pegasi were waiting there. A cacophony of colors. Differently sized ponies, mares and stallions alike came into view. The murmurs on the place were so loud that she couldn’t make out anything at all. She trotted a bit closer toward Harmony and Luna.

The murmurs grew louder. Something seemed to happen, but Celestia couldn’t see anything from her position.

“I can’t see”, Luna whispered to Celestia. Harmony looked down on then and smiled. Her magic got hold of them both and floated them on the mares back. Luna was clinging to Harmony’s neck, while Celestia stood with her hooves on Harmony’s hindquarters. From there she could see over the whole crowd. Roughly in the middle of them all there was a wooden platform. It was wide enough to hold several ponies and she wondered if it was used regularly.

On the Platform a pony was slowly going to all the corners of the platform, trying to quite the crowd with a hoof. He was a young, handsome unicorn stallion, probably the same age as Harmony. The color of his coat was probably grey and his mane slightly off-white. Most of his body was hidden by a blue cape and he was wearing a hat that was adorned with stars and moons. Despite the hat his horn was still visible, surrounded by a faint glow of magic. She could hear him clearing his throat. The murmurs within the crowd started to die down. He must have been amplifying his voice by magic.

“My fellow ponies”, he began, his voice quieting the last murmurs within the crowd. “You may wonder who that pony is that gathered all of you here and why. Some of you have heard my name already.” He looked around, making sure that he had the attention of everypony. “I am Starswirl and the reason why I gathered you here is in plain sight.” He gestured with his hoof toward the setting sun. “The sun hasn’t set for days and is still on the western horizon! It is the latest of a series of … gifts, left behind by the defeated alicorns!”

Murmurs started back up, the crowd seeming to affirm their hatred against them. Celestia shrunk a bit down, feeling cold showers run over her back.

“In the south east, there is a village where everypony was turned to stone”, Starswirl recounted. “In the south there is now a patch of land completely barren of life. In another village all ponies forgot who they were and what they were doing.”

Recounting all this the angry shouts around them increased in strength, Starswirl was inciting the masses against alicorns.

“I am not trying to recruit you to hunt alicorns”, Starswirl shouted. Celestia looked up at him again. This was somehow surprising. “I am here because of the incidents that were caused by them.

I have been able to turn those ponies back from stone, I have been able to return the memories to those ponies that have lost them!”

The mood of the crowd shifted. Ponies stomped with their hooves, applauding the pony on the podest.

“I have come to you, because I have found a solution to set the sun!”

The cacophony of noises that celebrated Starswirl increased. Celestia could see him smile.

As the noise started to die down, he rose his voice again. “I stand here because I cannot do this alone”, he shouted, the rest of the noise dying quickly. “I need a few magically inclined volunteers to help me!”

Celestia looked around. After that speech, he should get at least a dozen volunteers.

“How do you plan on accomplishing that?” A pony shouted. The shout was soon joined by others that demanded the same answer. Celestia lowered her ears. She had expected things to go differently. Starswirl didn’t stand as upright as before as well.

The stallion cleared his voice again. “The plan is relatively simple. We reach out to the sun and set it ourselves.”

All ponies stared at him. The silence that encompassed the square was so intense that Celestia wondered if she had gone deaf.

“Come on”, one pony shouted, a pegasus jumped up and flapped her wings above the crowd. “You can’t be serious!” She stretched her hooves out, gesturing over the crowd. “You can’t seriously expect us to believe that it is possible.”

“Fact is, that this eternal Twilight is hurting us more and more by the minute”, he answered.

“Which is, in fact, why we should go out there and hunt down all the last alicorns”, the pegasus retorted.

“Hunting down the last alicorns may be dangerous”, Starswirl snarled. “I thought that would be obvious after every time one was destroyed, the curse they left us got worse.”

“How can you know that?” The pegasus answered. “We may have just gotten rid of the most dangerous ones! A few days ago you even proposed a different theory!”

Celestia shifted uneasily. Why were they fighting right now?

“What are we losing, if we simply try?”

“Whatever”, the pegasus said and flew away. Other ponies turned away as well. The crowd grew smaller by the minute.

“Please, I cannot do this alone”, Starswirl begged.

As Harmony stepped forward, Celestias heart jumped. What was she thinking? Shouldn’t they lay low? Wasn’t this guaranteed to get them noticed? She needed all her self-restraint to keep herself from panicking outright. Even though the crowd had diminished and was only a third of its initial size, there were still enough ponies around to give them a hard time.

“Doesn’t any one of you want to try at least? Don’t you want to have a normal day or see the night again?” Starswirl sounded more and more desperate as the moments passed by. He went around the platform and looked to everypony that hadn’t left yet. He stopped when his gaze fell upon them. Harmony kept moving slowly through the crowd, waiting occasionally for ponies to make place for her approach.

With Starswirl standing still, looking onto them and Harmony moving through the crowd toward the platform, more and more ponies looked onto them. Some of those that were leaving stopped, as murmurs started and other ponies called them back. Celestias heart beat up to her ears. Hopefully the disguise would hold.

“I don’t know what everypony else thinks, but I would like to end this eternal sunset”, Harmony said as she was in earshot of the platform.

“We have a volunteer”, Starswirl shouted. That definitely made some other ponies come back. “Please, please come up here”, he said and pointed with his hoof to some stairs. Harmony trotted around the platform and trotted next to him.

“Thank you”, he whispered.

“I hope you will help us later to find some shelter, something to eat and maybe work?” Harmony whispered back.

“Of course”, Starswirl answered with a smile. Then he turned toward the crowd again. “We need at least four more. You don’t have anything to lose in trying.”

Harmony set Celestia and Luna down and rose her own voice: “I am not from this village and I only just arrived here. On the way I saw the plants wither and die. Food is growing sparse and what little you have left may not last until you find the last alicorn. This pony is offering you a chance. Take it!” The murmurs between the ponies started up again, they were looking at each other. Harmony gestured toward Celestia and Luna. “I don’t want my sisters to starve!”

“Might as well try”, somepony from the crowd shouted. “I don’t have anything better to do anyways.” A brownish unicorn trotted toward the platform and up the stairs. He trotted between them and simply said: “Let me handle this.”

His horn started to glow. As he spoke, his voice was so loud that Celestia was sure that everypony had have to hear him. She laid her ears back and winced. “Make up your minds! Either you want to help or you want to go but STOP gawking and DO something!”

Suddenly there was movement in the crowd. A few more ponies stepped back and galloped away. For a few more his speech fell on deaf ears, but there were a few more that raised their hooves, volunteering at last. The pony with them smiled, his horn stopping to glow. “And that’s how it is done.” He said. “What now, Starswirl?”

The grey stallion cleared his throat, his horn glowing again as he started to explain what they needed to do: “This will basically be a levitation spell. First you will have to close your eyes and picture the sun in your minds, will it down the horizon. I will use my magic as well and coordinate all your efforts.”

“In other words we don’t even need to learn a new spell”, the brown pony with them said. “You should have said that in the first place.”

“Why do you want to set the sun?” Another pony asked. “The day was just beginning when this happened”, the yellow mare pointed toward the horizon.

“The sun is on the western horizon. It is where she would normally set. I don’t think it would be easy nor wise to go against its natural progression, but to continue it, take a small break and then have it rise where it needs to rise.”

“Agreed”, the brown pony said. “Let’s do this, everypony!”

One after another the ponies still left closed their eyes, their collective horns starting to glow in a myriad of colors. The colors of their magic soon changed, synchronizing into a pure white glow. Celestia looked toward the Horizon, wondering if their combined effort would prove fruitful and after a moment, she thought that the sun had begun to move. Only a bit at first but then a bit more until it smoothly disappeared behind the horizon. Celestia felt a bit disappointed to see it go.

“A bit more, everypony”, Starswirl shouted, his horn seemingly glowing the brightest.

The orange sky changed first into a dark blue and then into being completely black, only a few stars visible within the sky. “That’s it”, Starswirl shouted, and the glowing horns subsided. Starswirls horn glowed in his own silver-grey color again and a few torches around the platform sparked to life, the flames bathing them in their orange light now. “Now all we need to do is raise the moon. So, picture it within your mind and will it up. I will coordinate your efforts again.”

A few ponies were groaning, but they closed their eyes nonetheless. Their horns started to glow again and soon the moon would be up. Celestia breathed a sigh of relief. Everything went far smooth… There was something in the corner of her eyes that startled her. Harmony’s mane and tail moved, waving in an unseen wind. This was bad. She was losing control of some of her magic and it started to show. She hoped that nopony would notice until the moon was up. Where was it? She looked to the eastern horizon. There it was slowly climbing over the forest. In thoughts she urged it on, wanted it to go faster. Luna stared at the moon, not noticing anything. It was as if she was mesmerized by it, her muzzle open as if in awe.

Celestia looked around. Was there anypony not casting the spell? Anypony watching them, watching Harmony? She hoped that it was too small of a change, that it would go by unnoticed. Her gaze met the moon again. It was almost at its zenith. She looked again to Harmony. Was her mane and tail sparkling now?

“Good, that is enough.” Starswirls voice got her attention. He was looking down from the sky. She looked to Harmony. The mare looked normal again. Had he noticed or had she stopped her spell in time? Her heart was pounding.

“Good work, everypony!” Starswirl shouted. “We can do this! We will have our sun back soon enough.” There were half-hearted cheers all around him. “Go rest, we will reconvene in about four hours.”

The orange pony trotted toward him and put his hoof to Starswirls shoulder. “Good work. Didn’t think that it would work.”

Starswirl smiled, slightly embarrassed. “Thank you for pushing them the last bit.”

“Well, next time you plan something like this, come to me first!” The orange pony turned and trotted away. “See you in four hours.”

“In four hours”, Starswirl replied and trotted toward Harmony, Luna and Celestia. “Come. You can stay with me for now.”

“Thank you”, Harmony replied with a smile on her muzzle. “Come on, sisters, let’s go.”

Celestia followed them, keeping a careful eye on Starswirl. He could have seen it, could lead them all into a trap. And Harmony probably didn’t know.

What could she do, if it was a trap? It if was only one pony, she maybe could immobilize him. Or silence him. That is if he didn’t know any counter spells and wasn’t more powerful than her. But if he showed his true colors alone, then Harmony would probably have something she could do. But what should they do if there were several ponies? She should tell Harmony of the possibility somehow …

“Welcome to my humble abode”, Starswirl said and opened the door to a small two-story house. It was made of stone and had a roof plastered with wooden planks. Harmony nodded her thanks and went in first, wiping her hooves clean on the mat in front of the door. Celestia jumped almost as Luna ran into her.

“What are you doing?” The filly whispered.

“Nothing”, Celestia answered and followed Harmony into the house. Things within the house were a mess to say the least. Where Azure Silk had many things cluttered around that showed that she was sewing, Starswirl had his own things lying around: Scrolls of parchment, leather bound books, quills and ink. There were drawings plastered onto the walls that showed complex diagrams and some magic circles. But all in all there was no horde of ponies waiting to ambush them. The door falling back into its lock made her jump again. Celesia turned and saw Starswirl locking the door with a wooden beam from the inside. Why did he do this? Was this a trap? But that didn’t make any sense. He couldn’t keep them locked in like that. It was more as if he tried to lock everypony else out.

“Excuse me for a moment”, he said and his horn started to glow. A small bubble formed around it and expanded until it encompassed the whole room, carefully ending in the middle of the door. “Please do not be alarmed”, he said as he trotted away from the door. “I want to talk to you without anypony prying on us. You can leave anytime you want.”

Harmony nodded, but any smile she had had before had vanished from her muzzle.

“Do you want some tea?” Starswirl asked and went to one of the two still open doorways that led away from the room they were currently in.

Celestia trotted over to Harmony. She put her hoof to her muzzle and whispered: “He knows.”

“Apparently so”, Harmony whispered back. “But how?”

“What does he know?” Luna asked, her voice just a low whisper.

“He knows that Harmony is an alicorn”, Celestia supplied. “Because she went and helped them lower the sun and raise the moon. But she didn’t take into account that her mane and tail would go all ethereal while she did so”, she snapped.

She could hear Harmony swallowing something in her throat. “I … I am neither old nor strong enough for that to happen! Nothing should have happened!”

“But it did happen!” Celestia fumed as quietly as possible.

Starswirl trotted back to them, levitating a few cups with his magic and put them down on a table next to them. “Please, be comfortable. Tea should be ready shortly.”

Harmony didn’t move and neither did Celestia nor Luna. They stared at the grey stallion, waiting.

“Look, if I wanted to harm you, then I would have exposed you already. I want … no I need to talk to you and I fear that this will be my last chance to talk to any alicorn for a long while.” Harmony waited, her eyes looking over the stallion repeatedly.

Celestia stared at him as well. Could it be true? Could he really just want to talk to them, especially after he managed to rile everypony against them so easily?

“Very well, let’s talk”, Harmony replied and trotted over to the table.

“Thank you …”

“Silverware”, Harmony said, once again supplying her false name.

“Silverware, then.” Starswirl cleared his throat. “One thing that I wanted to know is, if you can fix whatever is wrong with the sun and the moon?”

“No.”

Starswirl blinked a few times after Harmony’s short answer. “Why not? You seem pretty powerful for your age and …”

Harmony sighed. “I am not that powerful. What you saw was probably a fluke and shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Even if I had that much power, I would not even know what to do or where to begin.”

“Good point”, Starswirl rubbed his chin with a hoof. “I tried to investigate, but this very much puzzles me. I had hoped you could lend me your wisdom in this.” He turned his head and his horn started to glow, making a steaming pot float from next door into the room.

“I suppose that was not all you wanted to know?”

“You are correct”, Starswirl answered and started to pour them tea. “The other thing I wanted to do is to investigate and hopefully falsify a theory I had.”

“Do you mean the theory that pegasus mentioned?”

“Eagle Eye? Yes, that theory.” He took a deep breath and looked into Harmony’s eyes. “It is quite a grim one. There are two ways of keeping up a powerful magical spell like the one that has caused this. The first and most obvious way is either an alicorn or a unicorn that keeps the spell up.”

“And your theory is that Galy Leo has bound his spell to the remaining alicorns”, Harmony concluded. “Which is why this Eagle Eye wants to get rid of the rest of us so desperately.”

“Which is why I want to test your magical auras. I may be able to deduce from that if it has been bound to any of you or not.”

“I see”, Harmony said and took one of the cups, sniffing on the tea. “What will you do if you find that it has been bound to us?”

Starswirl looked down into his cup. “It is a question I have asked myself a few times. First and foremost I will try to remove that spell without hurting any of you, but should that fail …” He looked up into Harmony’s eyes. “I would ask you to help me keeping up the natural progression of night and day.”

Celestia rubbed her eyes. Somehow she had expected a different answer. One where he would either apologize or let the truth stand unspoken between them. Of course there was a chance that he was lying.

“I see.” Harmony said and took one of the cups in her own magic, taking a sip.

“W… what is the other possibility?” Luna asked a bit shy.

“The other …” Starswirl looked to her and tried to think. “Oh. Yes. The other possibility is to bind that magic to an object and create a magical feedback-loop that will keep the spell alive. I did theorize that possibility as well and unless he managed to bind it to some far away object, I doubt it.”

“Could he have bound it to the world itself?” Harmony asked, the tea cup still floating before her muzzle.

“Possible, but no. I already tried to detect the magic coming from our world and it has not changed in a degree that would allow for such a large-scale spell to work.” Starswirl sighed.

“If you told that to anypony else …” Harmony put down her cup. “Then you basically told them to hunt alicorns down.”

Starswirl nodded. “I fear that I did. I didn’t and still do not want to consider the other possible explanation.” He put his own cup down and poured himself some more tea. “His powerful release of magic might have broken something fundamental in this world.”

“Judging by the research strewn about this room, you still investigated that possibility.” Harmony looked to some of the walls plastered with scrolls.

“Yes, but I haven’t gotten to any conclusion in that regard.”

Celestia reached out to her cup of tea, floating it down from the table with her magic. It was a red liquid and smelled sweet, like apples. She took a sip from the warm fluid and felt her whole body warm up instantly.

“Would you allow me to examine your magic aura?” Starswirl asked again. “It won’t take long.”

“If it will set your mind at ease”, Harmony replied and took another sip from her own cup. Luna finally grabbed hers as well.

“Thank you.” Starswirl closed his eyes and his horn began to glow. They sat in silence while he did what he wanted to do. Celestia briefly felt a tickling sensation all over her fur and then even her horn. As he opened his eyes he stared at them. “Well, I don’t feel any magical spell attached to you.”

Celestia breathed a sigh of relief. That meant that they would be safe now, wouldn’t it?

Something crashed against the door. Then there was some frantic knocking. Starswirl looked toward the door, his horn glowing for a moment, dislodging the strange bubble that he had cast around them. As soon as the bubble passed her, Celestia could hear somepony shouting from outside.

“… the door! It’s important!” She had heard the voice before.

“Eagle Eye.” Starswirl trotted toward the door slowly. “He may have seen the same as I and have come to the same conclusion. If he did, then he already has assembled a mob.” He sighed and shouted loudly: “I’m coming!” The knocking subsided. Starswirls horn started to glow with a rhythm and Harmony’s horn did the same. It was strange seeing them stare at each other, their horns glowing in an unsteady rhythm. Starswirl then turned toward the door and removed the beam that held it into place.

The door swung open to reveal a large mob outside. Eagle eye was the one closest to the door, smiling at them. “Good job, Starswirl”, he said. “You kept her here without raising suspicion.”

“I just told her the truth”, Starswirl said, “she didn’t expect you to be showing up with a mob.”

“Then it is true”, Eagle Eye smiled even broader and turned toward Harmony. “An alicorn sneaking into a pony village. I am guessing that you didn’t take on any other foals than alicorns themselves.” He trotted into the room, a smug smile on his muzzle.

“You know that what you are doing won’t solve the problems you are facing”, Harmony replied.

“I don’t have any reason to believe you. You deceived us, sneaking into our village and you will do everything to save your own hide.” Eagle Eye stood between them and the doorway out. A few more ponies were streaming inside through the door.

“We don’t have any hostile intentions”, Harmony said, standing on her legs.

“Ether said the same thing one day and after we declined to become his minion on another day he attacked us. Now come outside and we will make this as quick and painless as we can.”

“We are not bad and killing us won’t help! Tell them that we are telling the truth”, Celestia said toward Starswirl.

The grey unicorn hung his head, closing his eyes.

Eagle Eye watched him and them looked toward Celestia. “At least you didn’t alter his mind with magic, making him stand up for you. I commend that.” He smiled. “We have a pony that is very skilled with his axe. It will be over in a moment!”

Celestia gulped. She felt betrayed. Starswirl didn’t stand in for them as he said before.

“I see that you have already formed your opinion”, Harmony answered. “You leave me no choice!” Her horn started to glow, her wings ripped through the fabric, unfolding to their full wingspan.

Eagle Eye gulped and took a step backward. “You won’t intimidate me! Even if you defeat me, there is half the village outside, ready to take you on! And they won’t know any mercy. They’ll tear this house down, if necessary.”

Harmony’s horn glowed even brighter, the power radiating from it stirring a wind that hurled Starswirls parchments and scrolls through the air. “Oh, I have different options.” The alicorn suddenly crouched down, her wings encompassing both Luna and Celestia, darkening their vision. But even through the feathers she could see the bright flash, hear Eagle Eye’s scream and suddenly everything went dark and silent.

4 - Doubts

Celestia’s eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness around her. Harmony was still next to her, the mare’s wing encompassing her form. The silver blue mare was panting frantically, struggling to stand up.

What had happened? Why was Harmony suddenly so exhausted? And why was it so eerily quiet? What spell had she cast? Celestia crouched forward, her muzzle peeking out from under the wing, looking onto the darkness of a forest around them. There was some glow in the distance, probably the village they just were in … or was it some other village? Or maybe even some strangely glowing monster?

Whatever had happened, Eagle Eye, Starswirl, the mob, the village, everything around them had vanished and they now stood within a forest.

“We … need to … go”, Harmony said, her legs allowing the mare to stand again. She folded her wings to her sides, in between the tattered shreds of the clothing Azure Silk had made for her. Harmony’s disguise was lost. Irreplaceable.

“W…what just happened?” Luna asked, looking around and trotting back to Harmony’s side.

Celestia trotted up to her as well, matching Harmony’s slow pace. Luna’s question was something she wanted an answer to, herself.

“Tele… por… tation. I’m not …very good … at it …” Harmony took one step after another forward, turning away from the glow. “The further … you tele… port … the more … exhausted … you… will be … especially … when… trying to… have others… tag… along.”

Celestia blinked a few times, wondering why Harmony had taken them along. She seemed so intent on protecting herself by any means necessary, that it just didn’t make sense for her to protect them as well. Maybe she had misjudged the silver blue alicorn … or maybe Harmony needed them for something else.

“C… can you teach us?” Luna’s voice stopped Celestia’s thoughts from piling more distrust onto the mare.

“If … you think … you can handle … it”, Harmony answered, while looking toward the blue filly. “B… but there … may be unicorns … that can trace … a teleportation.” Harmony took a deep breath, steadying herself. “Hiding … by teleporting … won’t work … It only gives you … a head start.”

Why then had Harmony endangered her own escape by having them tag along? She slightly shook her head. That wasn’t important right now. Their head start was diminishing fast as slowly as they trotted along. The earthen ground made things worse, enabling the other ponies to trace them even after they found the point they had teleported to. Probably the only thing protecting them right now was the darkness of the night – and that could be ended by the same ponies that were chasing them.

“We need to hurry”, Celestia said and fell behind Harmony, pushing her forward. They needed to get to some kind of river or find a path of hard ground where they left little or no hoof prints at all. Despite her efforts they couldn’t get Harmony to move any faster. If only she wasn’t that heavy …

With a sudden idea in her head Celestia grabbed Harmony in her magic and tried to levitate her. She couldn’t get her to leave the ground, but she managed to ease the weight off of harmony’s hooves, allowing her to move faster.

As Luna added her own bit of magic to it, they were able to proceed almost galloping through the forest. They had to slow down as it got darker around them. Celestia looked up. She couldn’t see the moon at all. The forest canopy had to be so thick … no. That wasn’t it. She could see the stars. But if there wasn’t a moon around anymore that could only mean …

Her fears were confirmed as everything started to bright up considerably. Through the trees she could see the sun rising on the eastern horizon.

Harmony stopped in her tracks. “It seems we are out of time. Can you two fly?”

Celestia looked back on her body and the disguise Azure Silk had fashioned for them. She said that they would be unusable if they took them off. She was reluctant to let go of this small piece of clothing that promised her a somewhat normal life, but then again, she needed to escape her pursuers and flying would allow them to purge their tracks. She looked to Harmony, wondering, if the mare would be able to fly now. She looked a bit stronger than before …

A ripping sound got her attention. Luna actually managed to rip through her own disguise with her little wings and was hovering above the ground. How …? Well, if the little filly could do it, then she should be able to as well! She stretched her wings against the fabric, holding her breath while trying to break through. She could feel her face flush as she tried to push. There was a faint ripping sound, but her wings didn’t get free. She felt exhausted and needed to catch her breath. Celestia looked onto her sides, noticing that the fabric was only a tiny bit loose.

Did Luna struggle as bad as she did? The filly’s laughter was answer enough. Why was she weaker in her wings than that little filly? Celestia closed her eyes and put all her strength into her wings, fueling their power with her mind, magic and frustration.

The fabric ripped and her wings got free. She flapped them a few times on the ground and soon enough started to fly proudly next to the blue filly.

“Good”, Harmony said, though her face was frowning slightly. The mare sighed and put a smile onto her muzzle that wasn’t mirrored in her eyes. “Go on, stay low. I’ll follow you in a minute. I just need to rest a moment, but I’ll catch up with you.”

Celestia nodded and turned. As she passed Luna, the little filly stopped looking to Harmony and followed the older filly. They flew in silence while the sun’s warm rays started to wash over them, chasing the shadows of the forest and the night away. They passed through the trees, Celestia’s ears perky and alert. There was a lone pine tree, a fallen tree, some bare apple trees, a tree that had part of its bark removed and one tree that had lost a thick branch which was now lying on the floor. Luna looked to the ground, biting her lower lip. The filly looked backwards every minute.

“Where is Harmony?” She finally asked.

Celestia slowed down, looking back herself. The filly was right. Harmony should have caught up to them already. Suddenly she had a bad feeling in her stomach. Had she really misjudged her that much? But going back was dangerous.

“Where is she?” Luna demanded, her hooves pressed against Celestia’s chest. “Where is she?”

“I …” Celestia gulped down something that was building in her throat fast. “I think she sent us on without her …”

“But why?” Luna put her hooves down again, her eyes full of tears.

“Maybe so she can lead our pursuers away from us …” Celestia avoided the filly’s gaze, looking back the way they had come. Could they make it on their own? Were there others like them? Where should they go? All those questions and she had no answers. Whatever she had thought of Harmony before, she wanted the mare back now.

“I … I want to be with her”, Luna exclaimed and flew off. Celestia nodded and followed the filly. Hopefully they were able to track their own way back. What had they all passed? She tried to remember and took the lead. There was the tree with the lost branch … and over there the tree that had lost its bark. Then there were no special marks for a while. Celestia almost thought they had lost their way when she spotted the bare apple trees. Her heart was pounding fast as she saw the fallen tree. They were almost there and every minute they could meet other ponies.

She could only hope that they had had trouble following them so far. Maybe they were lucky and the unicorns were all too exhausted from raising the sun in order to track them properly. Maybe there was even a time limit as to when they could track them. There was the lone pine tree. They were almost back. She suddenly glimpsed something in the corner of her eye. Two pegasi were flying toward them.

Celestia grabbed Luna and pulled her below the tree, folding her wings in and pressing herself and the filly deep into the shadows, motioning to her to be silent with her wing.

The pegasi passed over them. Her heart was pounding fast and she waited a few extra seconds when they were out of view before she continued to follow the rest of the way. Then she found the faint hoof-marks they had left when they parted from Harmony. The mare had gone a different way. Instead of continuing on forward, she had trotted to the left. Still away from the town, but also away from them. She started to follow those hoof-markings.

“Keep an eye on the sky”, she instructed Luna and concentrated on following the faint trail Harmony had left behind. There were patches of dirt that clearly showed her hoof prints and others that were less clear. As soon as she was sure of her general direction, she sped up, slowing down whenever she didn’t directly see another hoof print.

Without warning Luna suddenly sped past her, shouting “Harmony!” Celestia was hot on pursuit a moment later, catching up to the filly and pressing her hooves onto her muzzle.

“There are still patrols out there that could hear us”, she whispered into Luna’s ears and then looked up. Harmony stood there, the whites of her eyes big, the pupils small, her wings raised as if to fly. Slowly she folded her wings back in and trotted toward them.

“You shouldn’t have come back”, she said in a low voice, embracing both fillies with her wings.

“I don’t want to be apart form you”, Luna answered, her voice shaking while tears streamed down her eyes.

“We didn’t know where to go or what to do”, Celestia admitted.

“I do not know myself”, Harmony replied. “But we need to continue on, they are surely closing in on us.”

“They have already pegasi in the air”, Celestia nodded.

“It doesn’t matter. They will surely find us. I am still too weak to fly to conceal my tracks.” She shook her head. “You had a bigger chance on your own.”

“Not necessarily”, Celestia replied and took a step backwards. “I know how to conceal your hoof prints.”

~*~*~

Celestia had used the shreds of Luna’s and Harmony’s and her own old disguise and bound them to Harmony’s hooves, softening her steps so much that her hoof prints became all but invisible on the forest floor.

Luna and Celestia were flying next to Harmony as she trotted in yet another direction, in hope that it will make them harder to find. Still, they were all uneasy, expecting the ponies to find them at any moment. Backtracking and fashioning those hoof cuffs had cost a lot of time. Considering the amount of time they had wasted, it was a near wonder that nopony had come upon them.

They were still wary and Harmony changed her direction every so often that any pursuer would have trouble following the little indents she left behind occasionally.

Time went by as they flew further next to Harmony, trotting through the wilderness of the forest. It wasn’t long before her wings grew heavy with exhaustion, but Celestia refused to land earlier than Luna. She kept on pushing herself. She didn’t even know why she wanted to be better than the filly. Was it only because she was older than Luna?

Her thoughts were interrupted as Harmony stopped suddenly. The mare’s ears were swiveling and she looked up to the sky and behind them. Hastily she spread her wings and pulled Luna and Celestia to the side and into the shadow of a tree.

Celestia noticed the pegasi a moment later, a group of them flying overhead, their eyes scanning the ground. She held her breath, fearing that even the faintest sound of her would alert them to their presence.

“Wait”, a familiar voice shouted above them. Celestia shivered as she heard Eagle Eye’s voice. “I think I see something. Let me check for a moment.”

The red stallion soared down from the sky, breaking the through the green of the trees and landed in front of them. His eyes went huge from surprise, than narrow. He opened his muzzle and stopped in his motions.

Celestia saw Harmony’s horn glowing faintly next to her. “There is nothing … all you saw was a rabbit”, she whispered.

“What is it?” Somepony called from above.

“Go”, Harmony whispered again, her voice speaking with authority although it was only a whisper. Eagle Eye nodded, spread his wings and flew back up.

“It was only a rabbit”, she heard him say.

“Let’s go. We still have a lot to search”, another said and the pegasi continued on.

Harmony shivered next to them. She shook her head and took a deep breath.

“W… what did you just do?” Celestia demanded as soon as she was sure that the pegasi were out of earshot.

“I forced another perception onto his mind, made him forget what he saw and forced my will upon him.” She answered, shaking her head again, as if trying to lose a fly buzzing around her.

“W… we can do that?” Luna stared at her with her big eyes. “Why didn’t you cast an illusion on them as you did with the guard of Azure’s village?”

“I couldn’t because he saw us. I had no time to fashion an illusion spell”, Harmony answered.

“And we shouldn’t be casting such spells”, Celestia added, frowning. It was the one thing her mother had insisted upon: Never force another pony to do something.

“No, we shouldn’t”, Harmony agreed. “Though I didn’t know of any other way to keep us hidden”, she added. The mare closed her eyes, took another breath and exhaled deeply.

Had some black mist just left her body? Or was that only Celestia’s imagination? It made her even more wary of the mare next to her.

Harmony straightened herself and trotted forward, taking once again another route. “Come, we need to get as far as possible.”

“But why shouldn’t we?” Luna raised her voice again. “It would be so easy to stop them hunting us with that magic. So easy to stop all this fighting between ponies.”

“It is because it is wrong”, Celestia argued.

“There are many good reasons”, Harmony answered a lot calmer. “But the most important reason is, that, if we use magic with ill intentions, it will always come back upon us, changing us, until we change into …”

“A nightmare”, Celestia completed the sentence, shivering.

Luna looked a bit abashed, even the filly had heard of nightmares. Fallen alicorns that demanded worship and used their power to terrorize other ponies.

“B… but wanting to stop fighting is not an ill intention”, Luna argued.

“Forcing others to do something against their will, is”, Harmony explained. “Taking their freedom …” She sighed. “Even if we were to succeed and not succumb to our own selfishness, there are a few ponies that can resist this spell or others that see you casting such a spell. You can’t hold back an army with it. Nopony is that powerful.”

Luna let her head hang, as did Harmony. Celestia was weary of her. Although she knew the risks, she had used the spell to protect them and she was dealing with the aftermath. Had she found a way to deal with it? Or had she fallen already and it was only a matter of time until she exploded and turned into a nightmare? She couldn’t help but keep watching her.

~*~*~

They had to lie low a few more times. Several pegasi were patrolling the skies and they overheard that there were several earth pony search parties combing through the forest. Still as long as they had trees covering them, they were relatively safe.

Celestia gulped as she looked over the open fields that lay before them. They had reached the edge of the forest. From now on they had to travel beneath open skies and they would be visible for pegasi patrolling the area. They could wait for a while, but behind them, earth ponies were searching the forest and closing in on them.

“We should wait until nightfall”, Harmony murmured. “But I don’t know when that will be. I am sure Starswirl will try and persuade them to take down the sun and raise the moon anytime soon, but …”

But Eagle Eye and the others would be against it, knowing that they could search for them a lot better while the sun was up.

“Can you cast an illusion spell to make us look like rabbits from afar?” Celestia asked. Harmony shook her head. The mare looked over to Celestia and her horn glowed slightly. Suddenly she could hear the mare’s voice in her head.

“I can’t cast illusion spells. I never was able to grasp the concept behind them.” The voice in her head said something different than the mare said aloud: “I can’t fashion an illusion spell without seeing my targets.”

Celestia gulped. She didn’t want Luna to know … She used a different spell to get past the guard into Azure’s village. Propably one that forced him to forget that he saw them, maybe one that froze him. But why was she telling her?

“We probably need to run and cover as much ground as fast as we can.” Harmony looked straight ahead and sighed.

“So we should either fly or teleport … or both?” Celestia stated and looked toward Harmony again. Luna did the same, her eyes big, waiting. She really seemed eager to learn the secrets of that teleportation spell.

Harmony looked at them, and back toward the horizon. Her eyes scanned the sky and she sighed again. “Maybe we can risk waiting a bit here, hoping that Starswirl will be able to convince them to set the sun.” She shook her head, turned and trotted toward the tree with the densest leaves on it she could find. There she settled down and patted the floor next to her with her wings.

Luna followed the invitation immediately. Celestia hesitated a moment, but settled down next to her as well.

“For teleportation to work, you always need to have clear view of your target. That means you either need to see it or remember exactly how it looks like”, Harmony started to explain. Her horn glowed softly as the image of a small alicorn appeared before them, looking around.

“The tricky part is to connect yourself with your target destination through magic. It is a lot easier when you can see it, but it is possible if you can only sense it within your mind. Some also use scrying spells to first look at the location, allowing them to grasp unto it a lot easier.”

“I don’t understand how you connect to a location? That doesn’t make sense!” Luna complained.

“Look around. What do you see? What do you feel?” Harmony asked.

“Well, I see trees, leaves, grass and the ground beneath my hooves …” Celestia answered.

“And there is also the air around you”, Harmony said. “You need to grab all of those things with your magic. Grab onto them as if you were trying to levitate them with your magic. But don’t try to lift them, just grab onto everything you see or remember of your destination.”

Celestia nodded and looked forward, concentrating on the location right next to one of the trees. She tried to grab onto it like Harmony had said, but it was a lot more difficult than she thought. When she grabbed onto a tree, she lost the grip on the ground, when she gripped onto the ground she lost the tree, when she tried the air, she lost everything else.

“Good”, Harmony said, after observing them both for a while. “The next part is to let yourself be pulled toward that destination by your horn. But that alone doesn’t teleport you, it only floats you toward the target and flying or galloping would be faster and less exhausting.”

Celestia nodded, waiting for Harmony to finish her explanations.

“In order to instantly reach your destination, you need to … transform yourself into energy. Like light or lightning.”

“But you can’t teleport through walls with that spell”, Celestia observed.

Harmony nodded. “No you can’t, but I think this is a lot to try and master already for you two.” She smiled. “Besides, teleporting through walls is not that different, there is just a fourth step you need to do.”

Celestia gulped. The teleportation Harmony had tought them was already a high level spell for them and it would get even more complicated when they learned the secret of teleporting through walls.

“Nnnngh”, she heard Luna struggle. She looked to the little filly and saw how she turned into a cloud of dark blue mist. Some light seemed to be blinking within that darkness, remembering her of the night sky. It only lasted a moment. The filly reappeared, panting heavily.

“Very good”, Harmony said, smiling. “Now you only need to get the rest under control.”

Celestia gritted her teeth. At this rate teleportation would hinder them instead of helping them escape. She looked toward the blue sky again. The sun didn’t show any sign of setting anytime soon …

Celestia gritted her teeth. At this rate teleportation would hinder them instead of helping them escape. She looked toward the blue sky again. The sun didn’t show any sign of setting anytime soon.

~*~*~

Celestia had tried to teleport a few times, but the most she could do was to get her horn pull her forward to where she wanted to go. As time went by she only felt more and more nervous. Of course that didn’t help her magic at all, making even that small bit she had mastered unreliable.

“Wouldn’t it be better, if we just ran for it?” She asked after her tenth failed attempt, brushing the sweat from her muzzle with her forehoof. She hadn’t experienced practicing magic to be this exhausting before. Most of what she had done was just depending on a lot of concentration and fine control – but this demanded physical strength as well. Luna was also sweating all over and surely the filly felt as hot as she did.

“Maybe we should”, answered Harmony, looking toward the sky. The position of the sun was unchanged since it had risen and although the mare had rested all the time, there was also some sweat glistening on her fur.

Celestia saw Harmony’s ears perk up even before she heard the muffled voice. Her heart started to race. The ponies from that village were about to find them.

“You are right, we need to leave right now.” Harmony got to her hooves and started moving. Celestia fell in next to her, looking behind them into the woods. Luna followed as well, dragging her hooves forward.

After stepping out of the shadows and into the open fields, they could feel the sun heating up their coats and bodies even more. The merciless heat from the sun above threatened to cook their hides alive. Celestia opened her muzzle and breathed the air over her moist tongue. It allowed her at least some measure of cooling off. “This is madness”, she whispered while looking back toward the woods.
“It is, but we do not have any choice”, Harmony answered and her horn started to glow slightly. A cool breeze surrounded them and granted some protection from the heat. “At least they won’t be able to chase us easily now”, she muttered and looked back as well. A group of ponies had appeared on the edge of the forest, hesitating to step out into the heat.

“At least now they’ll know that they need to keep a regular cycle between day and night going.”

“But where do we go now?” Luna looked up. The filly looked tired. It wasn’t only a physical tiredness, but something that went deeper as well. She had been through hell. The same hell she had been through, but she was also younger than Celestia.
“The Everfree Forest”, Harmony said with grim determination in her voice.

“The Everfree Forest?” Celestia gulped. Her mother had told her of that forest. It was a force of nature to be reckoned with. A magical place that gave birth to magical monsters like timberwolves or Ursa Major. Celestial beasts roamed the trees and nopony dared to enter it.
“It is an Alicorn Legacy. Although it is now wild, it can provide us with the necessary protection we need to live in peace until this whole mess has settled down.”

“Alicorn Legacy?” Celestia looked up toward the mare.

“To my knowledge it was a magical experiment gone wrong. An experiment conducted by alicorns. I don’t know the details, but I know that it is used to teach us caution. Caution when wielding magic, thinking that we can do everything. Because we can not.”
Celestia gulped. It sounded like the last place she wanted to go. But then it was the last place left to them.

Author's Note

I am very sorry that this chapter took so long to get out. I still am rewriting the story and trying to have it go as smoothly as possible, but I caught a flu somewhere after publishing the last chapter and then the dreaded writer's block - and forcing myself to write just ends in some crappy junk (there may even be something in here).
I hope I can get out the rest as fast as possible - there isn't much more to it. Maybe one or two more chapters. So please stay patient.

6 - Sephiroth

Chapter 6: Sephiroth

“As much as I’d like to cure you of your idealistic mind right now, we need to go”, Sephiroth finally gnarled.

“Fine, we will settle this later”, Harmony answered and turned away from the stallion. She trotted to Celetia and Luna, leaning down toward them. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, although her hooves were still shaking. She wasn’t okay, but she was more okay than a moment before.

“I am okay”, Luna replied.

“Good”, Harmony sighed. “Though my heart jumped as you went out there. It was dangerous to do what you have done, and I would like you not to do any rash things ever again.” Her voice had a strict tone, though her face was still soft – and as she added “though I’m glad that you managed to save your sister” a small smile formed on her muzzle.

Celestia looked toward the elder mare, who began to turn now “come, we need find a hiding place.” She had acted like her mother … she acted as if she cared for them more as for any strangers she happened to meet on the way. If that was the case …

She slowly willed her hooves forward as a warm feeling spread within her. She knew that her mother would have done anything to keep her safe – and if Harmony was doing the same, then all she had done up until now, all the things she had despised so far, had been to safe them. To safe them with doing the least amount of damage she could do.

A shiver ran over her spine and her hooves felt even weaker for a moment. Why was she going out of her way to safe them? Why wasn’t she looking only after herself like everypony else? Were they the reason? Or was it just Harmony herself? Was it really only her being naïve, as Sephiroth claimed?

She willed herself forward, willed her hooves to hold her, as she followed them into the Everfree Forest.

“I really like her”, Luna whispered all of a sudden. “I bet she would make a great mother.”

Celestia smiled wryly. Harmony was nice, and she cared, but she couldn’t be compared to her mother. To their mother. Although Luna never got to know her. “I would say she is more like a big sister.”

The blue filly smiled and fluttered her wings for a bit as the shadows of the forest began to engulf them. Celestia had never been to the Everfree Forest herself, but she had heard stories. Stories of Timberwolves, Celestial Beasts, Pony-Eating plants, Poison Joke and other things come to life. That knowledge added to the general eerie feeling she had, trotting after Harmony and Sephiroth.

The trees themselves just looked like every other tree she had seen, though the undergrowth seemed to be a lot thicker than what she was used to, the shadows a bit deeper, the air colder.

A wolf howled in the distance and she hurried to close the distance between them and Harmony. “S…so”, she gulped, “what happened to the forest?”

“I only heard that an accident has happened here, an accident caused by alicorns”, Harmony turned toward Sephiroth. “Would you tell us what you know?” Despite her growling on him before, she was very polite.

The stallion turned his head partly, staring at Harmony. After a moment he looked forward again, trotting silently deeper into the forest. He probably wouldn’t answer. Whatever catastrophe had happened, he might have been responsible – and why should he admit guilt?

“It was … a big project”, his deep voice suddenly resounded in the forest. His horn glowed and illuminated the ever darker growing forest. “We wanted to help everypony by making the weather controllable.”

Celestias ears perked up. What was the point in making the weather controllable?

“No more sudden storms, never too much rain or too much heat that could affect our harvests”, he stopped suddenly. Before them was a big field of blue flowers. He looked left and right, before settling for left, making a beeline around the flower field.

“Poison Joke”, Harmony whispered and followed him.

“We gathered the strongest alicorns, the most brilliant minds and we combined our strengths to craft a big spell, a spell that would allow us to achive our goals.” He stopped again and looked back toward Celestia and Luna. “Your mother and father were part of that team”, he said, before continuing on. “It wasn’t a simple task. Creating the spell took us the better half of a decade – and even then we still needed a lot of magic to make it work. Your father insisted that we should recheck it a fifth time – although the four times before we couldn’t see anything wrong with our theory. Everypony else was content with trying the spell and although he was grumbling, he helped us casting it, pooling in his magic with everypony else.

“Everything seemed to work fine, the magical energies build up as planned, forming a bright sphere in our midst.” He started walking again, ducking beneath a low hanging branch of an oak tree. Harmony followed and ducked as well, Luna and Celestia were too small to be bothered by that branch. “But your father had been right. There was something we had missed, something we had forgotten to think about and maybe we would have found it with another check”, he gritted his teeth audibly.

“Suddenly the enormous amounts of magical energy went out of control, striking at the sky, at the trees, at the ground and … at us.” He shivered, his wing fluttering slightly. “The ground shook and broke open, the sky was wounded and we could see stars during the day time. The trees started to grow unnaturally fast and … Eva and I were hit by lightning.” He stopped again, his voice suddenly full of regret. “She died … and I …” he opened his wings – the one wing only a stub, some small thing left from a once big and beautiful wing. “Many other ponies died that day and the forest claimed our village in a matter of minutes. Your mother took a minor injury before the others got the magic back under control and dispersed it safely.”

Celestia gulped.

“Only later we found out that the magic had done far more than we expected. Celestial beasts had fallen from the injured skies. The Ursa Major rampaged through the forest before finally settling somewhere. The magic had awoken the trees themselves, had created timberwolves and some of the flowers had begun to mock us.” He stopped and pointed with a hoof to the poison joke at their sides.

“Ever since then, the ponies didn’t trust us anymore. They wanted us to separate, to never again assemble in such a big group. It is probably another reason why your family lived apart from each other.” His voice sounded sympathetic.

Harmony was quiet, biting on her lower lip for a while.

“That’s unfair”, Luna suddenly said. “You tried to help them!”

Sephiroth barked laugh. “That wasn’t the worst for me”, he said finally. “The worst one was that nopony, except your mother, showed me sympathy that I had lost Eva.” He grumbled. “No they pushed the blame on me because I insisted on trying in the first place. That easily forgot that they all agreed to do this.”

“I am sorry”, Harmony said all of a sudden, “for your loss.”

Sephiroth looked at her, startled. A smile soon crossed over his muzzle. “Thank you”, he replied.

They went on in silence for a while and then away from the patch of poison joke flowers. Luna looked back on them, her muzzle scrunched in thought.

“The biggest irony of this all”, Sephiroth suddenly began again, “is that now, after those ponies killed some of us, the weather stopped working in its natural way and may even be controllable.”

“It is not only the weather that has changed”, Harmony replied calmly, “the sun and moon have stopped on their tracks as well.”

“I noticed”, Sephiroth replied. “I have a theory as to why …”

“Can it be reversed?” All three of them asked.

The stallion shook his head. “Not anymore. Not with only us left.”

“But if you know why, you should also know a way on how to reverse it”, Celestia countered.

“It is because I know why that I know it cannot be reversed anymore.” He stopped again and turned toward them. “I believe, that the very spell, we cast here, backfired on us.” He stepped aside and gave way to the view of a big ravine, a cleft in the earth, right in the middle of the Everfree Forest. “It probably bound us to the forces we tried to control – and with killing us they only manage to kill those forces with us.” He turned and gazed on the scar left in the ground.

“We cannot restore what has been killed”, he said loudly, but is muzzle moved a bit longer, as if he was whispering something to himself. “Now, come. I believe us to be safe in this very spot. Not even the monsters awakened by our spell dare tread close to this place.”

Celestia stepped closer and felt a shiver. There were some roughly hewn stairs leading down into the cleft.

“Who made the stairs?” The filly treaded carefully downwards, shivering with each step. It felt wrong going down into the wound left within the earth.

“I did”, Sephiroth answered. “I can’t exactly fly down anymore, and I had need to get down there … To get down to Eva …”

Celestia gulped down any and all things she could have asked. As much as she didn’t want to go down into the injured earth, she didn’t want to bore into Sephiroth injury. All the things he had told them explained why he was so bitter, so angry with the ponies attacking them. But it had also sealed their fate. Unless they stayed down there until everypony forgot all alicorns, they would still be chased and … She shivered and hugged herself with her wings to keep warm.

The ravine itself wasn’t as deep as she had thought. It was not the path to the center of their planet like in those stories she had been told when she was young. Instead they trotted on solid and plane ground after roughly three or four stories of what she knew to be a normal house, though that didn’t change the fact that it was dark and creepy.

Sephiroth led them to a spaceous cavern that was located in about the center of the ravine. His horn lit up and illuminated the place: The stone walls and ceiling were made of some dark, almost black stones. The floor had the same color as the ground outside – a simple grey. In one corner of the cave were saddlebags and in the center lay a single rose. It seemed to be cut of freshly from a rose bush.

This was probably the place where Eva had died. And the rose … maybe it was her favorite flower? Celestia didn’t ask any of these questions. They had awoken enough sad memories for Sephiroth.

“There is one more thing I wanted to ask you”, Harmony said and looked at the stallion.

“What is it?” He trotted over to the saddlebags in the deepest part of the cave.

“I started to notice these magical surges whenever I was close to a dying alicorn.”

“Yes, I noticed those as well”, Sephiroth said and produced five differently colored stones from his saddlebags: A red, dark blue, light blue, orange and green gemstone were floating in front of him, held within his magic. “You see, whenever one of us dies, our magic disperses to everypony else. Or should I say every alicorn else?” He chuckled. “Part of their essence lives on within us, ready to be reborn one day.”

“I haven’t heard of any reborn pony”, Harmony answered.

“Oh, they will never be the pure pony they were before, unless you do your best to piece them together bit by bit.” Sephiroth smiled, but Celestia got the impression that this smile wasn’t a warm, welcoming one. It felt threatening. “It is also such a shame to let it disperse first”, his horn suddenly glowed a lot brighter, a stream of energy hit Harmony in her chest. The mare held her chest with her hoof.

“It looks much more beautiful when it is crystallized. In this way”, he glanced onto his stones”, not one drop of the original essence is lost!” His horn flared again and a stream of magic hit Harmony in her chest again. The mare screamed in agony.

“What are you doing?” Celestia heard herself scream. The stallion stopped its magic. Harmony stopped screaming, but a part of her barrel looked as if it was made of crystal.

“I will set things right”, Sephiroth said, his horn started to glow again, but his eyes were not fixed on Harmony. It was fixed on a point behind them. Celestia turned her head just in time to see his magic flicker in the air, sealing the cave’s entrance off. He had brought them here not to protect them, but to imprison them.

“To get things right, we need to make sacrifices”, Sephiroth explained and smiled at them. “You see, Harmony here has the last part of Eva’s essence that I need to resurrect her. And all three of you have the last bit of Alicorn Magic that I need to become powerful enough to brainwash everypony into worshipping us.” He giggled and turned his head toward Luna. His horn started to glow again. “Eva and I will be the new heads of a new race of Alicorns!”

She knew he was going to attack Luna. He was going to attack her sister! To make her suffer like Harmony! Time slowed down for her. Without thinking much, she gathered her own magic, concentrated on the spot were Luna was and – pulled herself toward her. She barely registered the plopping sound her teleportation made and immediately grabbed Luna’s neck fur with her teeth. Without pause she concentrated on another spot in the cave and pulled them there. She had the felt that Sephiroth’s spell graze her tail.

“Leave. Them. Alone.” Harmony’s voice resounded behind them. Sephiroth ducked behind a quickly summoned magical shield.

“You can still cast spells?” Sephiroth gnarled at Harmony. “Casting spells should crystallized your essence!”

“FREE HER!” Luna suddenly cried. The little filly was angry. Angrier than anypony she had ever seen. Sparks of magic appeared around her horn, turning into lightning bolts that all but scarred Luna’s own horn. A dark blue stream of magic burst forth from Luna’s horn. Spehiroth was once again forced to shield himself.

“DO YOU REALLY THINK YOU CAN DEFEAT ME!?” Sephiroth lowered his horn and shot a blue stream of magic against Luna’s. Her stream of magic was repelled, shoved back toward them.

Celestia gulped in panic. She was sure she couldn’t teleport Luna away while she was casting – and if she stopped casting, the spell would hit them. But she had to do something! Anything! Maybe if she duplicated the spell Luna was casting … But what was she casting? Perhaps she just needed to help her push.

She gulped and charged up her horn, feeling the magic course through her body, she directed the flow to the big knot of clashing magic in front of them and pushed. The knot of magic stopped advancing toward them. Together they were managing to stand up against a grown alicorn stallion!

“You fools! There is no time!” Sephiroth grunted.

“Do you really think that Eva would like what you have become?” Harmony stepped forward. She had sweat glistening within her fur. Every move was visibly straining for her, but she still closed in on Sephiroth.

“STEP AWAY”, he screamed. “YOU DON’T KNOW HER! AFTER WHAT SHE HAS BEEN THROUGH … WHAT I HAVE BEEN THROUGH …!”

“YOU REALLY THINK SHE WOULDN’T CONDONE YOU KILLING INNOCENT FILLIES?”

Sephiroth froze. Celesita could feel his magic giving in to them. Celestia cancelled her spell, but Luna was still casting, and with a cry her stream of magic hit Sephiroth’s horn. The stallion cried out as his horn shattered, bits and pieces scattering on the floor. The five stones he held in his magical grasp fell to the ground, five tingling sounds like small bells reached her ears. Somewhere behind her the magical barrier shattered like a piece of ice.

Sephiroth fell to his knees as Harmony stepped toward him. Luna breathed heavily next to Celestia, but the filly kept an eye on them. She was still gritting her teeth.

Sephirtoh gritted his own teeth, tentatively reaching up to feel his shattered horn. He winced back as he felt the sharp edges where it had broken off.

“Are you … ?” Harmony stopped with what she was saying, a wing gently touching his back.

“You and Eva … are too much alike”, he looked up to Harmony. “You have her personality, her views … even your voices are close … but you are not her.”

Luna stopped glaring and fell to her own knees. Celestia started to nuzzle her sister gently and placed a wing over her back.

“I had hoped to bring her back … but I never thought of what she would have wanted.” His ears swiveled and he used his wing to gently touch Harmony’s face. “I can’t reverse the spell anymore. But I hope that you can somehow create a miracle.”

He got to his hooves and trotted slowly to the cave’s entrance.

“I shall buy you some time.”

Harmony hadn’t said anything at all. Her ears were erect and pointed towards the cave’s entrance.

Celestia turned her head. She could hear the faint hoofsteps of … many ponies. She gulped and pulled Luna closer to her.

“Thank you”, Harmony finally said, smiling at Sephiroth as he was about to disappear out of the cave.

He looked back at her. “I … you really are too much like her.” He shook his head, and put on a grim look of determination. Then he galloped off. Celestia could hear his hoofsteps receding.

“What now?” Celesita asked.

“Now”, Harmony took a deep breath and winced. “Now it is time for me to say goodbye.”

“W… why?” Celestia stammered. She felt a sudden pain within her heart.

Harmony slowly moved toward them, moving as if her right foreleg had gotten stiff. “I cannot flee and I cannot protect you or me.” She sighed and looked on them with a pained look on her face.

“T… there must be a way. We can reverse that spell. Right, Luna? Luna?” The blue filly had fallen asleep next to her. She had exhausted herself by holding up to the stallion.

Suddenly there was this eerie feeling passing through her. All the hairs of her coat stood on edge. The last time she had felt that …

“I am afraid we do not have time to figure out how this spell even works, let alone to cancel it.” Harmony shook her head. “I need you to take care of your sister.” Harmony’s horn lit up. Celestia could see the crystal on Harmony’s fur spreading.

“S… stop casting”, she screamed and jumped to her hooves.

“Stay where you are”, Harmony chided, her magic slowly wrapping around the stones that Sephiroth had … created.

Celestia stopped, her hooves still ready to jump further.

“There is something that I have learned, something that will help us all to live together in peace”, the mare said, pulling those stones toward her. “And I am trying to teach this to all ponies.” She winced as more and more crystal started to grow around her, her right foreleg glittering in the glow of Harmony’s own magic.

“B… but how will you manage to teach anypony if you’re … you’re …” Celestia felt tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn’t say it, she wasn’t even able to think it. When had she gotten this attached to Harmony?

“I can make ponies forget. I can also make them remember”, Harmony answered, the five stones started to swirl around her in a flurry of colors. “I will remind them how it is to laugh, to be honest with each other, to show kindness, to be generous and loyal to one another”, those stones started to light up as her spell started to form, the glow around Harmony got stronger, lighting up the cave as if the full moon was down there with them, as if the sun was climbing over the horizon. “And I will remind each and everypony of what they love to do!”

“D… down there”, somepony cried outside. “The light! Quick!”

Celestia turned, her ears picking up the stampeding hooves of the ponies storming into the ravine.

She had to do something. Maybe she could hide them with her magic. Put a shield around them like in that cave …

She stepped back to Luna, her horn glowing.

Harmony was swept into the air by her own magic. Her barrel was consumed by crystal as were her other hooves. Crystal was growing out of her and toward the ground, while her eyes glowed in a brilliant white, the five stones floated away from her, as if trying to complete a big magical circle.

“She is casting something. STOP HER!” Somepony shouted and others stepped into the caves. But nopony dared to get close. A wave of magic passed over them. Celestia’s magic wavered.

“Quick, throw that spear!” Somepony called.

Celestia saw the spear flying toward the still exposed parts of Harmony. She wanted to scream. Her hooves were at her muzzle. She barely felt the second wave of magic passing over her. The spear hit Harmony’s neck. The glow of magic was suddenly everywhere. An uncontrolled flow of power hit everypony.

Images assaulted Celestia’s mind. Images of Harmony growing up alone. Images of Harmony being ignored from her foster parents. Images of her being robbed. Images of her attacking the robbers and getting her belongings back. Images of ponies condoning her actions, of ponies throwing her out of the village. Images of her not being welcome anywhere she went. Images of her fond memories with Azure Silk. Images of her struggle against her own darkness. Images of her seeking revenge against some fraud-ponies. Images of her feelings toward Celestia. Images of her fear against Sephiroth. Images of Luna. Images of Luna’s father. Of her own father. And her mother.

Celestia’s own memories swept away the pictures of Harmony’s presumed past. Her mother sending her away, her escape, her meeting with Harmony and Luna. Their flight through the lands. Every action Harmony had taken. Seeing them again she knew that Harmony had done them to protect them. Up until her last, big spell.

The spell that fell apart around them. Like glass shattering. Pieces of light falling toward the cold, uncaring floor of the cave they had found themselves in. Before Celestia stood one big tree, made entirely of crystal. The five stones were held in its outstretched branches like fruit. There was no sign of Harmony anywhere. There was only the sign of other ponies. Ponies looking around frantically.

Nopony seemed to see them. Celestia held her breath. She could feel her own magic still wrapped around them, still hiding them from view.

“W… what are we doing here?” Somepony asked.

“I don’t know …” another outside asked. “What is with all these weapons and torches?”

Nopony of them seems to even recognize the big crystal tree in the center of the cave.

“It’s getting dark. We should leave”, somepony suggested.

“I… I think this is the Everfree”, another shouted, panicked.

“L… let’s get out of here quickly!” The ponies retreated from the cave and the ravine. Their hooves clipclopping about as they tried to get as far away from where they were as they could.

Celestia finally dropped her shield. Her heart was pounding. They forgot. They total forgot about them. She looked to the tree. Harmony had done it. She had managed to save them …

She … who …

Celestia felt her own memories slipping away. She refused to let them go. She closed her eyes shut and gathered all the fragments of her memory. She couldn’t just forget her. She couldn’t just forget Harmony. How could she be so cruel to erase herself? Why would she erase herself from every memory? Had she already managed to erase the memories that could answer her questions?

Celestia struggled to keep the memories. Every time one piece threatened to slip away, she caught it and reinforced the memory of it until she had built a small castle inside her mind. A castle that Hamony’s spell couldn’t tear down.

As she opened her eyes again she looked at Harmony’s only legacy. She looked onto the crystallized essence of the pony that had saved their lives. She looked upon a tree saturated with magic. The tree … of Harmony.

“S… sister? W… where are we?” Luna opened her eyes and looked questioningly at Celestia. “How did we get here?”

Celestia looked from Luna to the tree again, hiding her face from her sister as tears started to stream down her cheeks. Luna had forgotten. She couldn’t remind her. She knew that it would break the filly’s heart.

“We came to the Tree of Harmony to ask it for its protection”, she lied. Now she understood why Harmony had erased herself. Why she had tried. She never wanted them to live with this pain that now dwelled deep within her heart.

“Protection?” Luna asked. We were in danger?

“It doesn’t matter now”, Celestia asked and trotted to Luna, putting a wing over her sisters back. “We are safe now. Let’s go …”

Luna looked back to the tree, confusion showing on her muzzle. “Have you been crying?” She asked worriedly as the last two alicorns left the cave of the Tree of Harmony …

~*~*~

As the images faded and Twilight was returned to the present day, she could only stare openmouthed at Celestia. She felt tears streaming down her muzzle – the same tears that were streaming down Celestia’s. Her brain worked in overdrive. There were so many things she wanted to ask, so many things she wanted to know, but right now she knew that she couldn’t ask any one of those things right now.

Instead she got up and settled down next to the sun princess. She hesitated a moment before putting her wing over Celestia’s back. The bigger mare answered with a nuzzle and leaned into Twilight. “Thank you.”

Twilight stayed next to her former mentor. Being reminded of the times she was her personal student, learning all types of magic while cuddling beneath her big comfortable wing. It was something she had missed. She leaned into Celestia and most of her questions faded into the back of her mind.

“I am sure you have even more questions now”, Celestia finally said. “I will try to answer what I have figured out myself.”

“D… did she succeed with her spell?” Twilight asked.

“Partly”, Celestia stared toward the window on the far end of the room. “She managed to remind everypony of what they love to do. It is something that holds true even today. She also managed to remove the memory of fighting against alicorns from everypony.”

“W… wait. If she managed to remind everypony of what they love to do until today … then …”

Celestia smiled. She waited for Twilight to give the answer to her own question – like she had done so often when she was younger.

“That spell is the origin of our cutie marks?”

Celestia nodded. “But that was all she was able to accomplish. Her other wishes were stopped and somehow sealed within the Elements of Harmony.”

“This is so exiting. I need to write this down!”

Celestia shook her head. “I want you to keep this knowledge between us. I still do not want Luna to remember. But I have to thank you for rescuing the Tree of Harmony.”

“D… do you think that, if the tree had died … our cutie marks would have disappeared?”

“It is possible”, Celestia’s smiled faded. “And considering that those marks boost our prowess with our favorite abilities … it could plunge Equestria into chaos.”

Twilight shuddered. “T… then …”

“If I knew that the tree was slowly dying without the elements, I would have had you bring them back earlier.”

Twilight nodded. “I’m sorry for assuming …”

“It is okay, Twilight. It is always worse to judge without knowing than to clarify your suspicions by asking first.”

Twilight smiled. She looked out the window onto the full moon. “So … Harmony’s spirit still looks out for Equestria after all this time …?”

“She does … and until today … I was the only pony who knew.”

“Thank you for telling me”, Twilight said, and thanked the tree itself for all it had done to help them up until now. The tree … and the pony that had created it …

THE END

Author's Note

And here it is: The final chapter. I hope some things do not feel too rushed or anything. I also hope that noone has problems with how I write things (English is my second language, not my first).

Leave comments, if you want to - or don't. But I hope that those, who read to the end had fun.

I also want to thank "TheLivingCouch" for his first comments on my previous version (which resulted in it getting about thrice as long than before), that allowed me to increase the story's quality a bit ...

5 - Quint Essence

The sun started to set a few hours after they had left the forest. Grass and Trees had started to whither in the intense heat and Harmony’s magic did little to keep them cool. Celestia felt as if her back was burning and she was thirsty. On the way they had used what little shade they had found to rest for a while. But they didn’t dare to stay in one place for long. She only hoped that those ponies thought them dead already and that they wouldn’t pursue them during the night.

Even though the sun had set and the moon risen from its long slumber, Harmony kept going. She looked at least as exhausted as they, but she stubbornly moved her hooves forward.

“Can we stop for a bit?” Luna pleaded. The young filly was probably the most exhausted from them all.

“Soon”, as all Harmony said. Her gaze was fixed forward and she mercilessly pressed on. “I dare not to stop in the open.”

Celestia trotted over to Luna, putting a wing over her back to comfort her. They continued on over vast plains. A few forests were visible in the distance, but Harmony didn’t take those into account, stepping ever forward toward a hill in the distance.

Time became blurry and for a while Celestia didn’t notice her own exhaustion anymore, until they were suddenly climbing the hill. From above Celestia could see a rocky cliff in the pale moonlight, thick bushes growing at its side. They seemed to be less wilted than any of the other green she had seen so far.

Harmony started to descent the hill, heading for the bushes. Her horn started to glow and push the bushes apart, revealing the entrance to a cave. It wasn’t very large and Harmony had to crouch to get into the cave. Celestia followed inside and ran into Harmony. As she stretched to see what the holdup was, she saw another pony standing in the cave, staring at them with muzzle agape, illuminated by the light that shone from Harmony’s horn.

He was a brown stallion, his eyes a murky green. He was about Harmony’s height, his horn a lighter shade of brown than his coat and his wings were half outstretched.

“I thought there was nopony else … that knew about this place.” He folded the wings back in.

“I thought the same”, Harmony answered and stepped further in, to let Celestia and Luna follow her into the cave.

“Hmpf.” Another pony stepped into the glow of Harmony’s horn. The stallion had a hard muzzle, showing his age even more than his size. His left wing was bandaged to his body, but that didn’t stop him from ruffling the other. He stared at the mares with a clear brown eye, while his left eye looked grey and milky. His coat shimmered light blue, while his mane and tail were white.

“That’s it with your assurances”, he said and his horn started to glow. Celestia could feel the magic at work behind her. “If they know of this cave, then surely others know as well!”

“But those could also be alicorns”, replied the brown stallion.

“Those will pass the barrier without problems, but other ponies will be turned away.” The blue stallion turned and trotted deeper into the cave once more.

“Forgive him, he’s a bit grumpy, but other than that a really nice guy”, the younger stallion grinned slightly. “The name’s Quint by the way. Quint Essence.” He stretched a hoof out.

Harmony touched her hoof to his and smiled. “I’m Harmony and these are Celestia and Luna”, she encompassed both with her wings. “We came here to rest and maybe get some clear water from deeper in the cave and something to eat.”

Celestia’s ears perked up. There was water in the cave? And something to eat?

“You won’t find much to eat besides grass outside, but I think I can spare a few apples”, Quint answered and trotted deeper into the cave himself. Celesta’s mouth watered and her stomach started to rumble. Her fatigue vanished with something to eat and drink in sight.

They followed him a bit deeper into the cave, the ground fell downward into a spacious area. Celestia could hear water trickling in the distance and she soon saw the light of a magic sphere not only floating above them but also reflected from a small stream at the far end of the cave. It was all she could do not to tumble towards it and drink greedily from it.

After a few gulps she felt alive again. It was at that moment when a fresh green apple floated in front of her, held in the orange glow of Quint’s magic. She smiled and took it into her own magic. “Thank you.” Her words joined those of Harmony and Luna, each mare holding an apple of their own. She hadn’t eaten that much since she had lost her mother …

Tears were streaming down her cheeks while she chewed on the apple, remembering sharing such an apple with her mother, how she rode her back, excitedly taking in the sights of the town they lived in, crying in pain after tripping and falling on her muzzle and her mother comforting her. Before she knew it she was leaning into Harmony’s side.

“W… what is it? Have your apples gone bad?” Quint looked puzzled at them. Only now Celestia noticed that Luna was weeping as well, her tears falling onto the still uneaten half of her apple.

Celestia shook her head.

“Th… then why are you crying?”

Harmony shook her head and mumbled something that resembled “stallions”, before turning toward Quint. “You should be able to guess.” She folded a wing over both. “They have been hunted and lost their family.”

“So, you are not …?” Quint had the decency to look abashed.

“Hah”, the other stallion let out a single sound, then grumbled toward himself.

“Fine, I am ignorant of our ways”, Quint shouted at the other stallion. “I can’t see family resemblance between us as well!”

The other stallion barked out even more laughs, before trotting toward them. “Those two are actually related”, he pointed with a hoof toward Luna and Celestia.

“They are?”

“We are?”

“They … are?”

The blue stallion chuckled. “Oh yes, I knew your parents and I even saw you two as foals.”

“You did?” Suddenly he was the center of attention for both fillies.

“Ah, yes, your mother was very gentle and wise”, he said, a genuine smile on his lips. “She was very caring and tried to understand everything first before judging. Your father though …” He sighed, his free wing sagging downwards. “Let’s say he was fierce and stubborn, the complete opposite of your mother and yet together they could be the happiest couple I have ever seen … though at other times they had so fierce fights that they took days off of each other. Even weeks, months and years. I guess they were living apart for a long time now, since you two never got to know each other.”

Celestia looked at Luna. The blue filly stared back at her. She had a completely different coat color, teal eyes, and her mane was blue and not a shade of pink like hers. Could it be true? Did she want it to be true?

Luna seemed to study the earth, biting her lip. Maybe she was thinking about the same things right now. About what it meant to be sisters. About what they should do. Should they care for each other, as she had seen other siblings do? Argue with one another, as she had seen? Prank each other? Laugh together? Was it more than Friendship or the same? There were so many questions in her head.

“I don’t know, if it’s true or not”, Luna suddenly said, “but I would like to have you as a sister.” The blue filly stepped forward. “The thought of not being alone, that there is somepony that knew my mother, that are my family, is out there …”

Celestia felt tears running down her muzzle. She closed the rest of the distance and nuzzled the younger pony. “I understand, it’s the same for me”, she whispered and added “sister.”

“Well, that was a touching reunion”, the blue stallion suddenly grumbled. “But I’m sure you won’t need me for the rest. I’ll try to catch some sleep, so try to be quiet.” He trotted off and found a corner for himself.

Quint raised a hoof and shrugged. “But he is right, some sleep after this,” he stifled a yawn, “long day is what we all need.”

Celestia looked toward the cave-entrance. “And you are sure that nopony will find us here?”

“I am sure”, the blue stallion shouted, “that magic will repel everypony but alicorns.”

She turned to harmony, her gaze asking for confirmation. The mare had been looking at the entrance as well. She closed her eyes and nodded. Relieved she sighed and hugged Luna with a wing, leading the smaller filly into another corner of the cave to settle down and rest.

~*~*~

Sleep didn’t come easy and when it came, it was filled with her being hungry, but all the apples out of reach and her magic didn’t work. It was filled with Quint losing his wings and the other blue stallion cackling with mad laughter. She dreamed of losing her sister and of harmony disappearing, of being all alone. She dreamed of her mother and how she was sent away. Of Pegasi with swords and earthponies with spears chasing her. She dreamed of being caught, the spear of an earthpony coming down on her …

Her eyes fluttered open, hear heart still racing from the dream. Luna, … her sister, was still asleep, sweat glistening on her forehead. Quietly she unfolded her wing and used it as a blanket for the younger filly, squeezing her slightly and smiling at her. It was something her mother had done, when she was sleeping and having a nightmare. Seeing that Luna started to relax in her sleep as well, she started to wonder what it was like to have a father. Was it much different from having only a mother?

The feelings of loss tugged at her heart again and she felt tears forming in her eyes. It was probably unfair to ask Luna any of this now, to remind her of her own loss. Maybe later, in a few days or month, she could ask it. If they were still alive then.

She turned her gaze to Harmony, who was lying a few feet to the side. The mare’s eyes were closed, but her ears betrayed her as being awake.

“Can’t you sleep as well?” Celestia kept her voice low, she wouldn’t want to wake Luna. At least one of them was sleeping.

Harmony slowly opened her eyes and looked at Celestia. “Yes and no.” She had this tired look about her. She probably should have answered ‘Yes, I can’t sleep either’ or something like this. Why such a cryptic answer?

“I have been meditating”, the mare continued and looked toward the ceiling of the cave, as if it would hold the answer to a question that was on her mind. After a moment her eyes met Celestia’s again. “I have been wondering why it had come to this, why there is always some sort of conflict.”

The white filly opened her muzzle and closed it again. What should she answer to this? What could she answer?

“It is because nopony is content with what they have”, another voice chimed in. The blue stallion trotted next to them. “They all want more, want to escape what they are currently doing, in hope that they then will be happy.” He blew some steam through his nostrils. “As if that is even possible.”

Harmony had lowered her eyebrows, glaring at the stallion. “And how do you suppose this should be solved?”

Celestia shrank back under the hostility on display from these two.

“The idea to rule over them all wasn’t wrong”, the stallion supplied, “though Diamond Gale was wrong to trust them. He should have ruled them with fear and should have conquered swiftly, demonstrating his powers, instead of trying to rally every alicorn under his banner first. He should have known that someponies would read the letters he wrote!” He chuckled. “Maybe we shouldn’t have taught them how to read and write in the first place.”

“Reading and writing is essential to understanding”, Harmony replied with strained calmness in her voice. “And understanding is the key to living in peace.”

“This understanding brought those ponies to attack us! In what way is that they key to harmony?” He stared at Harmony, grinning, awaiting an answer that never came. “Thought so”, he huffed, turned and went away.

Celestia gulped. She had disliked Harmony’s methods for some time now, but a part of her had wanted the mare to win the argument. Instead there was defeated silence, a mare that looked down, biting her own lip.

“I sometimes wonder, if he is right”, Harmony whispered suddenly, “but then I meet ponies like Azure Silk, who just lives for her passion and would do anything for her friends, a pony that understands others … and it gives me hope. Hope for there being another way, hope for his words to be wrong.”

“Mother said, that we need to be generous, when we see others in need, that we need to be honest and loyal to one another and if we then show a little bit of kindness, we can join together in laughter and see that we are able to understand each other.”

Harmony started to smile. “Thank you. That was exactly what I needed to hear.”

Celestia blushed slightly. “It’s just what mother used to say.”

“Even then, repeating it just now was your decision.” Harmony answered. Celestia’s blush only deepened.

Harmony looked towards the blue stallion. He had leaned down to drink from the underground river. “I wonder what has made him so bitter”, she whispered.

“At least he is honest”, Celestia answered. “I guess not all is lost.”

“I really hope so”, Harmony answered and closed her eyes again.

Celestia sighed and hoped the same – not only for the stallion, but for all of them.

~*~*~

As the light of the sun shone into the cave from the outside, Quint packed his saddlebags and started to wake everypony else. The blue stallion grumbled, but came up quickly. Harmony was a bit harder to wake. She blinked the remnants of sleep away and yawned, having fallen asleep during her meditation. Luna stretched her hooves and wings and leaned into Celestia “Five more minutes, dad”, she said sleepily and almost fell asleep while standing. Celestia herself hadn’t found any more sleep. Nightmares tugged at the edge of her sleep and she had been too afraid to close her eyes.

Part of her wished that they could just hide away in that cave. They had a small river with fresh water, so it was almost perfect, but it had one fatal flaw: They were low on rations and even as they prepared to set out, her stomach rumbled in protest on the small meal she had had the day before. Maybe she could get some of the grass outside? But even that wouldn’t last for everypony – and the danger to be discovered by other ponies would grow with time and the distance they had to go, before anyone could eat.

She knew that there was no other way than to go on, to reach the Everfree Forest and find some peace and quiet in its depths. Its questionable safety beckoned her onward and she left the cave with everypony else, after the blue stallion said it was safe to leave.

She wondered, how long it would take them to reach the forest, but asking now, and maybe hearing that it could take a week, would shatter her hopes and drain her of the strength she needed to go on.

Rolling hill after hill followed as they went on, and only some lonely trees on some distant hills told her that they were, in fact, moving somewhere and not going in circles.

Around midday – at least it felt for Celestia as such – they arrived at a hill full of trees. The trees themselves were apple trees, but the fruits had suffered from the intense heat. They had become inedible except for some insects that were buzzing around them. The grass looked more inviting, although some of the blades had turned brown, it was still edible and their rumbling stomachs didn’t care what they got.

“I will try to find a few edible apples”, Quint said after a while and started to trot through the copse of trees.

Celestia kept to the grass – it tasted better than any grass she had ever had. She grazed right next to Luna and the little filly ate her share of grass and hay.

Harmony and the blue stallion suddenly looked up, their ears upright. They looked around, as if searching for something and suddenly Quint appeared on top of the hill. “We need to leave”, he called and galloped downhill toward them. “I stumbled onto a unicorn and he shot a magical flare into the sky”, he told them, panting.

The blue stallion grumbled and turned, he looked toward the top of the hill, narrowing his eyes. “I don’t know how fast they’ll be here. We need to hurry.” He set off toward their goal again, but instead of galloping he trotted along a bit faster than their mornings pace.

Celestia was thankful for his slow pace. Maybe he was more caring than he let on? Or maybe he wanted to conserve his strength for when they needed to gallop fast. Either way, Celestia was thankful. But into the feelings of thankfulness mixed feelings of fear and she kept looking back, wondering if she could see that lone pony – or the army chasing them.

Luna kept close to her and seemed just as nervous. It eased Celestias feelings a bit, knowing that the blue filly was next to her. Breathing deeply she kept up with the brisk pace, most of her tiredness forgotten for the moment. Harmony looked back every once in a while, too, as did Quint. Only the blue stallion kept his head forward.

They went on for about three or four hours. Celestias fear started to lessen. Surely, the ponies wouldn’t catch up to them now before darkness would fall. The night would hide them away, protect them from pursuit and allow her to rest. She felt so tired that she didn’t care about nightmares. Not this night.

The sound of a horn sent shivers down her spine. She looked back. There was nothing there. “In the sky”, Luna whispered next to her. Celestia lifted her gaze and saw what seemed like specks of dirt in the sky. It was an army of pegasi. It could only be pegasi. She gulped.

“Run”, the blue stallion instructed and started galloping. Celestia turned and followed him, forward and up another hill that stood in their way. Was there even hope to escape them now? Luna looked up to her, her eyes asking the same question. She tried to look determined and pushed herself, pulling the blue filly with her.

On top of the hill she could make out a forest. “It’s the Everfree”, Harmony said. Celestia felt a surge of hope and energy. A glance at her pursuers told her that it would be a close call in reaching the forest. The pegasi were a lot faster than them on their hooves. But why weren’t they flying, too?

Celestia opened her wings and swept downhill. Luna was soon next to her, as was Harmony. They caught up to the stallions, both of them still galloping as fast as they could.

The white filly glanced back again, the pegasi were still gaining on them.

“Can’t you fly?” Harmony asked as she flew next to them.

The blue stallion opened his wings, showing that one was badly damaged, almost only a stub. He snorted.

“My wings are too weak to hold me up”, Quint answered and unfolded his wings. They seemed rather small for his body. “I’ll stay with Sephiroth and we’ll catch up to you.”

“Ha”, the blue stallion laughed, “if you can, levitate him with you and catch up with me”, he said and his horn started to glow suddenly. It was only a short flash, but suddenly Sephiroth was several paces in front of them. His horn glowed again and he was further away.

Harmony’s magic started to glow and she took Quint in a levitating grasp. A few more flaps with her wings and they sped toward the forest. Celestia flapped her wings harder as well, she felt sweat forming on her forehead. Looking back she saw the pegasi, could make out single ponies, their colors, their mane styles, their grim determination.

Looking forward again, Celestia almost hit a tree. She stumbled, hit a branch and fell to the ground, hitting her horn. It was a pain unlike any other. A burning sensation as if her forehead would be melting, a sting as if someone poked a spike the size of her horn into her head. Her vision faded to black. She cried out, saw specks of color within the darkness.

She heard somepony else’s voice, a grunt, a curse. “What happened?” Quint demanded.

“I cast a barrier that only alicorns can enter”, Sephiroth explained with a smooth, deep voice. “I wanted it to protect us from those pegasi, but it even protected us from a spy in our midst.”

Celesta bliked, slowly colors returned to her. Her vision was blurry, but she could see the brown stallion standing a few feet in front of them, his unfurled wings blotches of color.

“It was you that let those ponies find us every time.” Sephiroth’s voice was colder than ice, “you who shot that magic flare …”

Celestia felt herself being grabbed with magic. Somepony lifted her of the ground. She got dizzy as she was moved through the air.

“Stop!” Harmony shouted.

“NOOO!” Luna cried.

As Celestia’s senses returned once again she could make out the blue stallions horn, glowing icy-blue, noticed her own aura of brown magic that held her.

“Let her go”, Harmony demanded, her hoof was in front of Sephiroth, stopping whatever he was doing.

“Let go of my protection? I’m not that stupid.” He stepped backwards, Celestia still in his grasp.

“We promise that we won’t harm you”, Harmony argued.

“Promise? I had enough alicorn promises for one life. We will end the problem that infects this world once and for all. As soon as the unicorns are here, we will break through your barrier. This filly just has the luck to be the first.”

Celestia gulped. Every hair of her coat stood on end. She looked toward Harmony, Sephiroth and Luna. The little filly was shivering herself, her eyes closed, her horn glowing in a faint, dark blue.

“I never broke one of my promises!” Harmony protested and stepped fully in front of the blue stallion.

“I don’t care”, Quint answered. “You are standing in one of those ‘never broken’ promises already”, he gnarled.

Celestia stared at Quint, the forest and Harmony. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that Luna was gone and a dark mist was slowly travelling over the ground toward Quint. Part of her wanted to shout out, to stop her from coming closer, but another part of her wanted Luna to come to her, to succeed in what she was doing.

“I wasn’t part of what happened here”, Harmony said, her wings outstretched.

“But he was”, Quint pointed behind Harmony with his hoof.

Harmony’s wings faltered. She turned her head around, her eyes probably asking a silent question, the mare herself wondering what Sephiroth may have done here.

“Let go of my sister!” Luna had reappeared behind Sephiroth and had bit him in his hindleg. Her teeth leaving a deep mark. Quint lost control of his spell and Celestia fell to the ground. She was caught by Harmony and pulled through the barrier, Luna galloping through the field behind her just before Quint could grab her with his magic.

Quint turned around and galloped, Sephiroth stepped out of Harmony’s shadow, his horn glowling brightly.

“No!” Harmony tackled him as a stream of hot glowing magic shot out from his horn, a tree turning black and burning in a dark blue flame as it just missing Quint by mere inches.

“Are you nuts, mare?” Sephiroth roared. He glowered at her with his icy blue eyes.

“Killing him won’t change anything”, Harmony said, returning his stare with the same intensity.

They stared silently at each other, while the flames on the tree died down.

“Are you okay, Tia?” Luna nuzzled the still shaking Celestia. She nodded slowly, putting a wing over the blue filly’s back.

“Thanks to you I am”, she said, but wondered how much longer they would be okay now …

Author's Note

I probably shouldn't make promises I can't keep. So, I won't say that the next (and probably last) chapter will come faster than this one.
I still hope you like it, as we are now closing in on the finale.