Illuminated by nothing but a single lantern, a marble white coated alicorn mare sat on the soft and slightly wet grass of the flatland below the Canterlot Mountain. With a steady breath, she inhaled the steam coming from the pot of tea that was held in the gentle grip of her magic.
The tea was a combination of several herbs and flowers, all of which had their very own magical qualities. Combined, there was no more relaxing beverage. She slowly took the first sip, feeling the aromas unfold. She had held her eyes closed the entire time, only taking in the sounds and smells of her surroundings, as well as the chilly feeling of an evening breeze.
She placed her cup back on the plate she had brought with her. A deep breath followed by a second one was all it took to slow her pulse down. While the magic of the herbs began to work, her mind slowly became clear. The entire world, from the breeze around her to the wetness of the grass below her, faded from her conscious perception, until there were only two things left in the emptiness her mind had become.
One was the incantation spell she was about to use. The other one was a very clear image of the place it would bring her to.
“Omni, I call upon you,” she quietly spoke. In the silence around her, her voice sounded surprisingly loud.
Nothing happened. Except… Yes. She definitely felt him. Felt his magic aura. Somewhere in the distance, he watched her. Waited.
“I don’t have time for your games,” she said in determination. She concentrated herself on letting go completely. For quite a while, nothing happened. She could not tell if it took seconds or minutes, but she eventually felt a releasing feeling all through her body. A moment later, she was sure she had made the transition.
When she opened her eyes again, she was surrounded by light. Millions of small lights wafted through the air around her and filled the realm she had just entered as far as her vision went. A phantasmal stream of greenish blue light extended everywhere below her, creating the illusion of ground beneath her hooves.
“Show yourself,” she loudly demanded, knowing of the close presence of the only other being in this realm.
Out of dust and sparks of light, a being began to take form. It was shaped like an equine, but bigger than she was. It had neither a horn or wings, but it didn’t need them. She knew that it had its very own kind of magic, a magic beyond anypony’s imagination.
When it was finished taking form, the mare looked into a face made up of nothing but dense, luminous dust, same as the body of the being. Only the eyes stood out. Two small but bright dots of light in the appearance’s face.
When the being spoke, its deep and ethereal voice came from everywhere at once. “Well hello there, mortal. In the calendar of your kind it’s been so long since I last spoke with one of you. Say, what leads you to my realm?”
“You need to stop it,” she demanded without delay.
“To stop what?” the being spoke, feigning ignorance. He looked at her for a moment, before he added: “You look like someone I once knew…”
“You knew my parents, yes. They were the ones who told me the incantation needed to reach you, and you know exactly what I am talking about, Omni.”
“Oh, right,” he responded. “Selene and Astrum, right?” He tilted his head a bit, like he tried watching her from a slightly different angle. “Then you must be their firstborn, Celestia.”
“I am,” she responded. “And the reason for my visit are the Windigos. Why have you sent them, Omni? I saw the signs, saw that they were your creation. Why would you send such a plague upon us? The legends say that you are the one who created us.”
“That is right. I once created life on your planet, from the tiniest bug to the biggest dragon,” he confirmed.
“Then why would you destroy it?” Celestia wanted to know. “You are aware that you nearly trapped the entire planet in a new ice age, right?” she furiously questioned.
She nearly lost her composure when the semi-transparent being nodded. “I indeed am. In fact, that had been the exact reason I had sent the Windigos for.”
“What?” she asked in shock. “But… why?” she demanded to know, her words having a nearly sobbing undertone.
“Because ponykind has failed in fulfilling its greater goal. I once created them to bring harmony, yet they have caused nothing but disorder and destruction.”
“They… don’t fulfill their goal?” she wondered. “Is this… nothing more than a game for you?” she bluntly asked. The idea alone frightened her.
“This is more than just game!” Omni suddenly boomed. “There are greater powers at work than just ponykind. You couldn’t understand.”
“Try me,” Celestia challenged him. When he looked at her, she gave him a whizzy grin.
“Fine,” he agreed after a moment. “Don’t suspect Astrum raised a fool, so you might comprehend.”
He lifted his hoof and drew a perfect circle in the air. He then separated the circle with a ‘S’-shaped curve into two halves of similar size. Without his visible doing, one of them darkened. “To every force, there is a counter-force. To life, there is death. To light, there is darkness. To order, there is chaos.”
“To good, there is evil,” she added, but he shook his head.
“There are no such things,” he lectured her. “Is life truly good, equally being the source of everything pleasant and kind as well as everything mean and immoral? Is death evil, being the end of both paths alike?”
Two dots appeared within the halves of the circle. A light one within the dark half and a dark one within the light. “In the end, balance is the only truth. And now tell me, daughter of Astrum: What do you think I represent?”
“The good part,” she immediately responded. “You created us. You created life.” She remembered some of the more recent events. “And you tried to take life away. That is the dark dot within you, right?”
The eternal being shook his head. “No. Try again.”
She thought about it longer this time. Nearly a minute, she alternatingly looked between him and the image in the air, before she responded: “You are the circle. You represent both light and darkness.”
To her surprise, he shook his head again. “I wish the answer would be as simple as that. No, the circle represents all there is. Every stone and star, every pony and other life form. No, I am the line in the middle.”
“You are just the line?” she wondered in rejection. “No, that can’t be. You are Omni. Mother told me the legends of you, how your hot breath created the volcanoes from which the dragons were born, the first species to ever wander the world. You are almighty, you must be more than the line.”
Omni watched her rant in silence, waiting until she was finished before he continued with a disappointed tone: “If you think the line in the middle has no power, you did not understand the image. The line in the middle has all the power. It can shift and change, grant more power to one side or to the other. That is what I do: I shift powers from one side to the other in the attempt to keep the balance between both forces alike.”
“But you sent the Windigos. How could death be balance?” she pointed out.
“It would not have been permanent, but I need to re-create. As you may have noticed, ponies are different from every other species. I created them with a greater goal in mind and gave them the means to reach it. Or, so I thought.”
“Magic,” she concluded. “The means to reach the goal is magic, right? No other species has it.”
He nodded.
“And if magic is the means, then the goal is…” she paused and looked at him agog.
“Harmony,” he stated, before he began to elaborate. “Harmony, as the counter to disharmony. There is a great spirit, a being that represents everything disharmonious. He is strong, and he becomes stronger by feeding on these little quarrels of the ponies and every other species. And the stronger he becomes, the more strife he will cause. In the end, even I won’t be able to hold up balance if one side unites the energy of both within itself.”
“So… you created the ponies to defeat this spirit?” she asked.
“No, not defeat!” he boomed. “Have you learned nothing?”
She stumbled back. “Right. So just… to hold up the balance? Like, a never ending, but equal fight?”
He nodded in satisfaction. “Or no fight at all.”
“But if you destroy the ponies, they can not accomplish this balance you talk about.”
“Well right now they can’t do so, either. Besides, I would not destroy them. The Windigos would.”
“The Windigos you sent!” she accused.
“I sent them, yes, but did I do anything more? I was not the one who fed them. The ponies fed them just as they would feed this spirit. They themselves will be the only ones responsible for their doom.”
“But… but…” she stuttered, unable to find the words to express her horror.
While Celestia paused, a window appeared in front of them. It showed a scene far away from them, on a different plane of existence and in a different time. Six ponies were gathered in a cave. They were clashing with each other, furiously arguing over the right to possess certain parts of said cave. They were clearly separated into their respective tribes: Two Unicorns, two Pegasi and two Earth Ponies. Above them, at the top end of the cave, several ghostly creatures galloped through the air.
“Do you see it?” Omni asked. “They fed their own doom, just as they will when he appears. I would rather end it now, before they set something in motion either of us is unable to reverse.”
“Wait!” Celestia asked in a begging tone. “Didn’t you say that you saw the key to harmony in us? Is there really no other option left?”
“Just look at them,” Omni urged. The window changed the scene. It now showed a nearly empty throne room, where a pink-maned Unicorn stumbled into a richly decorated throne room. She immediately let herself fall onto a big silk cushion and demanded another mare, who wore nothing but a burlap gown, to dry her hooves and coat. “Conceited and arrogant,” he judged.
The scene changed again. This time it showed two Earth Pony mares inside a cottage. One of them had a bright pink coat, the other one a light orange one. The pink one wore a headdress with decorations that could only be described as “abstract”. It seemed like the other mare, obviously an assistant of some sort, tried in vain to reason with her. “Short-sighted and disrespectful. These beings will never bring balance to the world.”
Celestia stepped closer towards the window. She had heard of the events during the leader’s summit and also of those in the cave on that fateful day only few days later. “May I…” she asked. He gave her a nod, whereupon she felt an indescribable tickle. She thought about the part of this event he had not told of, and like the window knew what she wanted, it presented the appertaining picture: Three of the mares were gathered close to each other, finding comfort in an embrace and testifying their friendship. Seconds before they all were frozen where they stood, the horn of the Unicorn mare ignited. A purple flame shot upwards and incinerated the Windigos at once.
“Did you see that? They can work together to create harmony. All they need is guidance. A leader. Someone who will keep them on the right path,” Celestia argued in defiance. She was not willing to give up on them.
“That may be so,” Omni grunted. “But there is no being that could take over such a task, and I can not directly interact with the plane of the mortals.”
After a short moment of silence, Celestia turned towards him, looking him right in his eternal eyes. “But I could. You know that my kind lives longer than a normal pony. I could give them the guidance they need in their first steps.”
Omni looked at her with a combination of amusement and frustration, before he turned himself away from the window, proceeding into a slow walk. “You are determined, but there is nothing a mortal could do. You may live longer than a common pony, but over the course of time, even your lifespan will be of no significance. What, after all, are a hundred or two hundred years compared to the lifespan of an entire species, reaching over hundreds of thousands of years?” he rhetorically asked, before he concluded: “No, Celestia, I am sorry. There is nothing you could do to help them, and I have to do my part. I will send another plague upon them, putting an end to them once and for all before I create a new species, one that will be capable of fulfilling their destiny.”
“But… but… There must be another way!” she began to sob. After a moment, she whispered with tears in her eyes: “I know there must be.”
All of sudden, Omni stopped dead in his tracks. He held his eyes closed and his head low. Bit by bit, the phantasmal ground beneath Celestia’s hooves seemed to grew colder. “Yes, there is,” he admitted. “There is a way to save the ponies, but it has a terrible price.”
“Something worse than ending all of their lives?” she asked.
“Not for them, no. But for the one who would dedicate oneself to the task of guiding them.”
“Tell me,” she demanded.
“It is called the ‘great burden’,” he told her. Celestia gasped for air. That was a term known to her.
“So you know it. You know what it would mean,” he concluded. He gave her a moment to think about it, before he added: “It is not called a burden for no reason, Celestia. You would see the ponies die, one by one. Friends, family, all who are close to you. There would not be a single being except me you would not outlive.”
“As far as the legend went, those who carried the great burden had been ageless, but not immortal, right? So I could still die in battle, for example?” she carefully asked.
Omni shook his head. “No. Those who are ageless, like the dragons, can still die by outside means. But if I grant you this power, you would be truly immortal. There would be no way out of this until balance would be ensured, something you need to be aware might never happen. How you yourself said, an eternal fight would be one way how this could end.”
“Or no fight at all,” she repeated his words from earlier. “What if I would find a way to create permanent balance with this spirit?”
He seemed to think about his response. “Then I could take the burden off your shoulders again. But until then, you might witness hundreds or thousands of generations pass by. Even though alicorns have long life spans, you must be aware that no one of them could accompany you. Unless, of course, you want me to put this burden upon a companion as well. Your sister, maybe?” he asked, but she immediately refused.
“No! Not… not on her. I would not want her to suffer like that.”
“Alright,” he then concluded. “Are you ready?”
Celestia deeply inhaled. If this was the only way… “There is no third option?” she ascertained, on which he shook his head. “Then I am ready.”
She placed herself in a steady stance in front of him, closing her eyes and bracing for the worst. Instead, he took one of her hooves into his own. She opened her eyes again, being curious about it. To her surprise, he placed his hoof onto hers and held it there for a moment. When he lifted it up again, a drop-shaped crystal had appeared. It’s shining surface glossed in all colors of the rainbow.
“I did not send the ponies into battle without the means to defend themselves and neither will I send you. This is a seed. Bury it deep within magic soil, and it will become a last resort if you ever need it.”
She nodded, holding the crystal carefully in her hoof. “So, what…”
Before she could end the sentence, Omni had placed his hoof on her chest. From one moment to the next, everything around her became light. She closed her eyes, but the light was everywhere. Even though it did not blind her, it caused her to lose all sense of her surroundings.
The only thing she could clearly see where Omni’s radiating eyes. Then, everything became dark.
Her breath went faster, her muscles tightened. Her fur stood on end because of the freezingly cold wind around her.
The wind. She opened her eyes again, only to find herself on the soft, wet grassland below the mighty mountain. She gasped for air, taking it in with all the scents of the grass and the humid air - and the teapot in front of her.
She examined the porcelain bowl. A shiver went through her body. Had it all just been a dream? A hallucination, caused by wrong dosing of the herbs? She stood up and stretched her wings. She let her hooves wander alongside them, then along her upper body and face as well. It all felt normal, but she was not really sure what she had expected.
She slightly winced when she noticed that one of her hooves rested on a small stone. She lifted it up, only to find a rainbow-colored crystal below it. Carefully, she wrapped her magic around it. Lifting it closer to her face, she examined the pointy gem. Without a doubt, this was the seed Omni had given to her.
“So, not just a dream?” she whispered, before remembering his last words. “Bury you in magic soil, hm?” She thought about a well-known forest nearby, one that was famous for all kinds of strange magic taking place. “I think I know where to put you,” she said, before she began to pack up her belongings.
She held the lantern up with her magic and searched for the nearby path. Although she could just fly, she did not see a reason to hasten. As far as she could tell, she had all the time in the world for her journey.
