Fire in the Leaves, Fire in the Mountains

In her mind and through the void, Celestia heard the alicorn’s deep voice rumble through her. “This last memory is not my own.  It was given to me by Velae before she left.  It is the oldest memory of any living being that I know of, including myself, as that it was before my time.  I am entrusting this to you because of your station as Shepherd of the Sun, and of the importance it has for all alicorns, as few left of us as there are."

Celestia’s sight had faded out of the embarrassingly personal memory Fen-ka Shal had provided her, and suddenly snapped into focus in the form of an utterly barren craggy landscape.  Harsh winds and sand blew all about her, and she was immediately struck with how…empty everything felt.  Something felt off about the light; perhaps Velae saw things differently than her or Fen-ka Shal considering how old she was.  She looked up and gasped as she saw a moon that covered about a quarter of the sky, and was rising above the horizon.  When is this? How far back has he gone to, and what-oh no.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE SUN??? Celestia gaped in horror as she saw what had to be a green sun, blazing high in the sky.  It was a fair bit larger than her sun, and was obscured by an unnatural eclipse.  Celestia stared in wonderment at the great green plumes of fire leapt the edge of the black disk, in a display far more active than anything she had ever seen from her familiar yellow orb.  She peered into the black depths of the eclipse and shuddered as she…felt something shift inside it.  Some THING was obscuring the sun, and the green fire surrounding it was…actually magic.  She looked around the barren landscape, and realized how thin the atmosphere was, as she could see stars despite it being fantastically bright from the obscured sun.  She felt a tugging feeling, and turned around to see Velae.

Velae was far more than large; she was colossal.  The mare was now a titanic figure that stood several hundreds of meters tall, and stood several kilometers back behind her staring at the sun.  Her coat was covered with more stars than she had ever seen in Luna’s night.  Her wings were covered in vast nebulae, stunningly beautiful things she had only glimpsed a few times while looking through her sister’s telescope, and spread out to her sides with a wingspan of what had to be over a kilometer in length.  Her horn was a pyre of blackness darker than the deepest night, and suddenly lit up the horizon in a brilliant blue light.  A vast column of energy spiked through the sky, towards the sun.

After a few minutes, she felt the ground shudder suddenly, and the light from the sun dim.   Gradually, whatever had been blotting out the sun uncoiled itself, and something…beyond all comprehension…slid directly down into the black of space.  The sun was blazing with a green fire that looked…similar to Tahl-va Shal’s transfiguration.  The light from Velae continued to spill into the sun, and gradually the fire began to coalesce into a single, bright emerald-green point.  The pillar of blue light abruptly went out, and night fell over the dunes.  The green star sparkled feverishly as it began to fall to the earth, and Celestia’s attention was caught by a bright light forming where the green sun had been.  She recognized it as a teleportation spell, albeit one that was forming very slowly.

Suddenly, there was a blinding light, and as it faded, Her sun appeared.  My sun is…foreign? I never knew it was one of the many stars in the sky, until it was chosen thusly by Velae.  I wonder what- Her thoughts were interrupted as the glare had begun to subside, and what looked like an awfully large, fiery shockwave was expanding out from the new sun.  As it drew nearer, Celestia saw Velae throw up a barrier, and grimaced for what was coming.  When it hit, Celestia saw the entire sky burn, and panicked with everything around her turning into a raging inferno.  She calmed herself as she realized she didn’t feel her fur burning off and her flesh being turned into charcoal, and reminded herself that this was just a memory, albeit a vivid one.  The fire raged for hours, until finally the sky had burned itself out, and where there was once sand beneath her feet, there was still-glowing molten glass everywhere she looked.  Celestia looked back, and saw an exhausted Velae, noticeably smaller now, panting with exertion.  She gathered herself, and paused.  There was a loud rumbling all around, and Celestia stared around in shock as the molten glass lifted up around her in bubbles, everywhere.

Many kilometers beneath her, hard rock lay, and she was both astounded and delighted at the beautiful spectacle around her.  Suddenly, the globes began to glow with the blue light of Velae’s magic, and exploded violently out in a hurricane of force and wind.  Immediately Celestia recognized the transmutation spell, as she now realized that Velae had turned glass into…air.  Well, there’s one thing I can show Luna when I get back. The white alicorn chuckled at her imagining her sister’s reaction of her turning a wine glass into oxygen and nitrogen.  The sky suddenly became a familiar blue, and she watched a small sea form beneath her, from the hydrogen in the rocks being transmuted into water with the oxygen in the air.  Clouds began to form, and through them pierced a still twinkling green point of light, setting upon the sea and descending into the depths.  A mighty green flash erupted beneath the waves, and Celestia stared slack-jawed at Velae, who was becoming increasingly smaller, and exerting an enormous amount of willpower over containing the magic from below, and watched as fissures appeared in the land, racing across the earth opening up chasms into the depths of the earth.  Everything shone green, and emeralds, rubies, and other precious gems began to grow near the fissures, under the catalyzing influence of what had to be core magic.

The light began to shake the earth more violently, and with a roar Celestia saw Velae reclaim massive amounts of the magic, light streaming out of the fissures directly towards the alicorn.  With with a blinding light and a loud crack.  Celestia blinked and saw two creatures, lying on the ground unconscious.  The first was Velae, now as large as she had been in the previous vision.  The second was…Tahl-va Shal.  He was an infant unicorn, with a small shock of green hair as his mane, and his tail was a fluffy white long tuft of hair, barely half a foot long.  He had no wings, of course, and Velae was twitching, and her nose, eyes, and ears were bleeding.  She coughed up blood, and her eyes fluttered open.

She took one look at the sleeping colt beside her, and picked him up gently in her arms, rocking him.

“My love is forever.”

Suddenly Celestia was back in her own body, back in her own time, back in the Equestria she new and in a room filled with people she felt she hadn’t seen in a lifetime.  Fen-ka Shal had broken the link, and was staring at her from no more than a few inches away, their noses touching.  Celestia reared back, screamed, and promptly lost her balance and fell on top of her sister.

Her head was still spinning, when she was brought back to her senses by her sister.  “Oof, Celly!  I can barely breathe, get your fat, sunny flank off my chest, you’re hurting me!” Celestia immediately rolled off her sister in embarrassment, only to see Rainbow Dash, doubled over in laughter at her sister’s words.  Brushing herself off, she got up from the undignified mess she was on the floor, and looked up around the room.  After silencing the blue Pegasus with an angry glare, she looked back at the red alicorn with wonderment.  “I…I’m sorry about what I said before about you.  You are indeed very, very old, and there is much you can teach us.  I will prepare you the guest room in the castle myself, and we will have a banquet celebrating your deciding to stay with us.”

Fen-ka Shal opened his mouth to thank her, when they abruptly heard the front door open and close behind them.  Fluttershy stumbled in, a nervous mess.  “Ohmygoodness I’m so sorry I’m late!  I was flying back from Zecora’s, and there was this big green flash, and then I got lost an-“ Celestia put up a hoof to stop Fluttershy guilty string of apologies, and smiled.  Fluttershy then calmed down, and looked around to see everyone in the room.   “Oh here’s your medicine!” she exclaimed, rummaging around in her pack, bringing forth a pouch filled with a small pot of orange healing potion.

Liira came over to her, and she handed the jar to her, blushing as the small alicorn gave her a hug.  Liira walked over, and as she began applying the medicine to Fen-ka Shal’s burns, Celestia and Luna turned to each other and began talking.

“Well Celly, what did he show you? Come on, fess up.” Luna looked up at her sister, with an inquisitive look on her face, smirking slightly. “Oh it was the most amazing thing EVER, Luna!” Celestia exclaimed lightly, her front hooves knocking together with glee as they sat facing each other.  “It was so much more than a simple memory spell; It felt like I was THERE, walking around among ancient ponies, seeing the sky fall and burn, seeing…so much HISTORY!  He and his companions are simply AMAZING ponies, and I can’t wait to hear all the things he has in store to tell us!”  Luna smiled and gave a confused expression of acceptance to her sister’s adulations, albeit still with that quizzical eye.  “I’ll hold the questions about what you saw for later, but for now we have to think about what to tell everyone.”  Celestia blinked and imagined the hushed whispers behind alicorns’ backs, talking about family members coming in to overthrow the queen, a strange male alicorn “shacking up” with the princesses, oh the scandel… She shook the silly image out her mind, and looked her sister in the eye.

“We need to make sure everyone understands that we are not related, and that he’s a royal guest of honor, who will be staying with us for an indefinite period of time.  We can have Twilight and the other elements near them to show them around, and although I don’t have any reason to doubt either of them, it’d be good to keep the Elements of Harmony near them in case something from…wherever war he left decides to meet up with him again.”  Luna nodded gravely, looking at the red alicorn and his granddaughter out of the corner of her eye.  “I agree it’s necessary to protect him, but we know nothing about the dragons he’s been at war with other than Azjhaarus.  He’s been at war with him for fifty millennia, Tia! If that…creature is anywhere near as powerful as the legends tell…” Luna trailed off, and Celestia spoke again. “Sister, what DO the legends tell? I haven’t read anything about this awful legend, and I’ve read quite a few books while you were gone, as well as before. “  Luna looked down, then up at her sister, with obvious worry on her face.

“Azjhaarus is the king of dragons as he said, but…he’s more than that.  He’s been around since the beginning, and before that or so they say.  The book I read was awhile before you banished me, and it’s probably dust by now.  It had…pictures of ancient creatures, mythical gods and titans of legend categorized in an old language that mother taught us to write in and speak in amongst each other, but only with each other.” Celestia remembered the her mother lecturing them on the “High Tongue” and the “Low Tongue”, the two languages used in Equestria.  The High tongue required magic to speak, and formed a direct telepathic link with whoever was using it, and hearing it.  It was used among only alicorns and a few unicorns because of how taxing it was to use; it was the most intimate form of conversation imaginable, as it linked memories, scents, feelings, emotions, and sounds all into its speech to convey as closely as possible what the speaker was thinking and feeling, and what they remembered.  Very few unicorns had ever been able to master it, and Celestia had always thought her faithful student, Twilight Sparkle, would be the first person she could talk to using the speech in over a thousand years.  She and Luna were still settling into being sisters again, and they probably weren’t ready to talk again like that for at least another half century or so.

Luna continued. “The book was so old and worn already, that I thought nobody would miss a ratty old thing like that from the archives.  I read it to help me with my studies, and since it only responded to magic, I figured it was more than enough practice.”  She paused as Celestia looked at her, confused. “When I say it responded only to magic…it was a weird book Celly.  It had…these gorgeous pages made out of a crystal lattice, and when you used it as an illumination, it filled the whole room with color!  You could see the creatures moving around on the pages on the wall as they were projected on it, and…well it’s probably gone now.  Anyway, Azjhaarus was one of a few pictures in that book that scared me so badly I had to stay with mother for the night.  She-“ Luna was rudely interrupted by Celestia’s giggling, and gave her sister a death glare that would fell a lesser mare. “Sorry sister, do go on.” Luna rolled her eyes and continued. “Anyway, it showed this…this giant serpent, wrapped around the world, holding the sun and the moon in its grasp.  It showed it walking over mountains as somepony would over an anthill, and how it had created dragons as its children to help it find all the gems and gold in the world.  The book said that once all the gems in the world had been gathered by dragons, he would bring his children back to him, and use the gems to eat the world and its magic.  I saw it…I saw it burn the earth with a green fire, and breathe in the ashes.  He…It swallowed the sun, and ate the moon in a single bite! Oh Celly…it was horrible…” Luna teared up and hugged her sister, shivering.

“What was the other thing that frightened you so badly?” Celestia asked her little sister.  Luna froze, and backed away from her sister, sitting back where she had been.  A hollow look filled her eyes, and immediately Celestia became concerned, as she had only seen her sister like this before Nightmare Moon had overtaken her.  “The second thing…was called Luvaeis.  I don’t know where the name comes from, since the book explicitly stated that it never called itself that, or even spoke.  It was the mummified corpse of an old alicorn, possessed by a single, dark magenta crystal that shone out of its eye socket like a star.  Wherever it walked, plants wilted, died and turned to ash.  Animals lost their souls, and shriveled up into charcoal.  It wanders between the void between voids, and comes to steal the lives of…truly evil ponies.  The book said ‘Luvaeis of the Black Path; He seeketh the souls of the wicked, tearing life from all surrounding His presence.  His Judgement comes to sate His appetite.  Though the wicked he may come for, none stand in his path; be they unicorn or Holy Alicorn, His Shadow bringeth Oblivion absolute.  He commandeth Void and Death as thy Holy Majesties command the sun, moon, waters and air.  He is the worst creature that may exist, and thou that speaketh His name shall be shunned, for It bringeth the Fires and the Plague, and death of all forms.  He is the Curse of Curses; He commandeth the Shadow and the Wretched Ones, the Leviathan and Gatekeeper.  He is End without beginning, and Lord of the Void, Emperor of Oblivion.  Do not cross Him, o bringer He is of the Ten Thousand Deaths.’ And then it…it would look right at you, and you’d feel this…chill in your heart.  Like you’d never love or be happy again, and you should just kill yourself or give up…” Luna retreated into herself, and began shaking; she curled herself into a blue ball and half-scooted half-rolled on over to her sister.

Celestia swooped her wings around her beloved sister, encircling her in warmth and soft, feathery love.  Behind them, Fen-ka Shal had listened to their conversation, wondering how a book from his library had made its way into these alicorn sisters as long ago as it did.  Perhaps her grandfather…had been closer to him than he had remembered.  Time indeed told no lies, only speculating on the broken bits of his memory did.  He smiled as he felt the relief flowing through him from the potion, and wondered what these strange ponies had in store for him.

Twilight Sparkle had woken up suddenly at the sudden discharge of magic in the distance, and recognized it immediately as a massive surge of core magic, flaring up out of the earth.  She scrambled out of bed, falling down on the cold wooden floor as she stumbled herself groggily to the window.  A green light was fading off in the distance, and although the initial shock of the magic was strong, she remembered how…natural core magic felt, and thought that most unicorns wouldn’t pay any mind to this, chalking it up to indigestion or an odd dream.  The flash was definitely magical in origin, and the enormous amount of magic released was larger than anything she had ever felt around Celestia or Luna during her training.  Hearing Spike snoring downstairs, she readied a few provisions, and concocted a flight spell, setting off in the direction of the strange phenomenon, her curiousity overwhelming her.

Off in the distance, Luna felt the purple unicorn moving out underneath her night sky, and paused from her discussion with her sister.  Earlier, all her attention was focused on the memory-link Fen-ka Shal was performing with her sister, making sure that nothing awry was going on.  She had failed to notice a massive spike in Core magic off to the east, and realized that the other alicorns, with the exception of Celly, all noticed it.  She was amused that Twilight had picked up enough of her teaching to truly recognize the spike for what it was, and worried about the little lavender unicorn’s safety.  “Luna? What’s wrong?” Her sister looked at her quizzically. “Our student,” Luna stated with deadpan enthusiasm, “Has decided to take a late night trip to a faraway land.  You do feel that…surge, don’t you?” Celestia calmed herself for a minute, closing her eyes to focus.  With a snapped she opened them, her pupils tiny and an expression of horror on her face. “Luna, you have to go after her immediately.  With everything that I’ve learned, there’s no telling what she could be getting herself into.  I’ll handle things here and look after our guests.  Please, hurry! We don’t know how far she’s already gotten…” Luna gave a quick nod, then teleported herself high up into the sky, scanning for a certain flying unicorn.

Rarity woke up, feeling disturbed by something.  She took a quick look around, seeing nothing out of place.  Curious… the white unicorn thought to herself.  Something…implacable was off, but she was too tired, and still a little woozy from the wine she had drunk with Twilight the previous night.  Remembering her throbbing head, she yawned, and hugging Opulescence, she curled back up into bed, the warmth and comfort bringing her to sleep almost immediately.

Twilight had been flapping her faux wings for a while now, when she noticed the dark outline of Princess Luna swooping down to meet her.  “Princess! I saw-” “Yes Twilight, I saw it too.  I’m going with you, this could be very important, and my sister and I certainly wouldn’t want anything to happen to you.  Going out on a whim like this at this hour is extremely foalish.  Now, hurry up.”  Smiling sheepishly, Twilight flew behind the Night Princess, wondering what could possibly be in store for them.

Off in the distance, Deep in the everfree forest, a certain Zebra had holed herself up in her hut, and had placed a powerful set of wards guarding her home.  She had finished brewing the special warding paint, and was chanting some arcane protection rituals.  She shuddered slightly as she felt the darkness creeping about outside her hut.  A huge number of creatures in the forest had been woken up to the violent flaring up of earth magic off to the east, and they were all extremely angry about having their sleep disturbed, and of the presence of such a powerful spike of magic.  She furrowed her brows, the indigo runes and spell containment lines surrounding her hut pulsing a soft indigo.  In addition to warding her property from unfriendly intruders and magics, the spell provided a very direct connection with earth magic, as well as a heightened sensitivity to all magic and life.  Shaman magic, unlike Unicorn or alicorn magic, relied on tapping in on the unique life magic of plants and animals, and using them in conjunction with earth magic, or “Core” magic as the alicorns called it.

She had been away from her homeland for a very long time to escape the wars, and was glad she was in the company of ponies who valued her for who she was, not the power she held as a high priestess.  She felt a slight anger rising as she remembered the throngs of zebra warriors visiting her temple, asking for her blessing before battle, asking for her to capture their soul for a time so that they could fight as zombiis without being afraid of dying, or asking to enchant them or their weapons to let them…kill.  That’s all that it had ever been about.  The killing of enemy tribes.  Zebras never had the high and mighty alicorns ruling over them, except one that had been so kind as to give them any sense of peace.  He was the Ancient Arbiter, the Red King.  His rule had lasted over their land for a mere thousand years, but in its time he taught Zebras technology, written language, and an astounding amount of magic that had unified them under a common school of thought, and common tongue.

It has been so long ago that only priests such as herself still held the old traditions, and commanded the old magics.  She was one of the elder high priestessess of her land, and had been given the gift of life eternal by Him, treasuring every day still like it would be her last.  While His coming to Equestria was unexpected, it certainly wasn’t unwelcome, and she was determined to understand the reason for visiting them after so long.  She was, strangely enough, an older creature than many alicorns, and had developed her curious style of speech to keep her mortal mind from going mad over all the years.  She smiled to herself, thinking, There is something about learning, it should be said; not knowing is the only thing to dread…

Far across the horizon, over the western mountains of Canterlot, and in the cold reaches of the highest mountain, an evil more ancient than the all the stars in the sky awoke from a long slumber.  Its single eye flared a bright, unnatural scarlet out of its skull, which was as barren and cold as the magical ice its body had been imprisoned in.  A creeping darkness bled out of the alicorn bones, and seeped through the ice, cracking it unnaturally in right angles in an intricate angular pattern.  The magic in the runes on the ice had finally subsided over the millennia to the point where their magic could be undone by him even in his weakened state, and after an age, he was free at long last.  The jewel in his right eye that possessed the body he was in crackled loudly with a violet light, and struck upon the mountain beneath him, causing an avalanche.  He stretched his massive bone wings, and watched as they were engulfed in shadow, spreading out gloriously to the length of that almost to a dragon's wingspan.  His bones were covered in the darkest shade of ebony that absorbed all light around it, and smiled maliciously as he felt all the life that had grown in the world since had last walked amongst the living.  His grin became a wolfish, distorted thing as he sensed how few alicorns were left in the world now, and with the dragons in force, he would have no trouble at all eating the life of this world at his leisure.

The windigos swirled about him, eager at the promise of chaos, despair, and death that his spirit craved.  He was somewhat irked that there were no true draconoqui left, and the one called Discord had been once again been the victim of his own insanity and been locked away in stone.  Luvaeis’ barren skull stretched ghoulishly in a smile as he felt the weakness of Fen-ka Shal, and the absence of his companions.  Azjhaarus  had done wonderfully with overthrowing them, and he had only to free Discord to bring the world under his will.  With a great swooping of his wings, he set off in the direction of Canterlot to free his friend.  He missed his lunatic sense of humor, and couldn’t wait to have someone to talk to again.  It would be glorious, and his bones twitched in anticipation as he imagined himself bathing in the blood of fillies and alicorns.  How he missed the taste of their blood in his mouth…