My job description usually involves a lot of dust and insect repellent, but today I was lugging heavy packs across a nice hardwood floor instead of an ancient road or a stretch of untamed underbrush. This dig site was well-kept and still serving its original intended purpose, despite the team’s best efforts to drag mud through it and get in everypony else’s way. Visitors managed to study despite my clanking bags full of gear, and interns with loaded carts of books graciously stopped to let me pass.
An unsmiling senior curator met me as I made my way down to the end of the new wing. Fittingly enough, it was dedicated to books about ancient myths and legends. The results of the team’s last few visits here were in plain sight: A gaping hole in the ground next to a pile of pried-out floorboards in a neat stack. "Thanks for accommodating me," I offered as I looped a length of rope around my waist and prepared to lower myself into the pit. "This is the end of a very exciting journey for me ‘n my team." I tried to look friendly as I said that, to prove my enthusiasm.
She answered me with a wordless nod. She did not roll her eyes at me this time, and in return I did not flash her a shit-eating "what-you-gonna-do-about-it" grin like I had last time.
The Treasure Chamber, as we’d come to affectionately call it, was perfectly empty. It now resembled nothing more than a featureless grey stone box, except for the relief of an alicorn that covered most of the far wall. I’m told that when they first found this place, it was positively glittering with priceless relics from another age, but now it was just an empty room buried a few dozen meters underneath the library. My job today was to take a final round of photographs, then pack up the generator, lights, and everything else, and get it ready to be shipped back off to the university.
Not glamorous work, but I was glad for the chance to say goodbye to the monarch on the eastern wall. The entire time we’d worked down here, she’d smiled down at us with that eroded, pupil-less stare. Her body was raised in a rearing position, her wings were outstretched in a U-shaped arc, and her forehooves held a smooth round ball with a design on it that had been long since obliterated by time.
The first rule of any site is “don’t touch anything.” The actual phrasing tends to be “contaminate anything and you’re fired.” This time, though, nopony was around to stop me from approaching the ancient queen, reaching out, and touching the orb that she held in her hooves, as if I could somehow attract the stone queen's attention. I wanted—had wanted since the first time I saw her—to ask her who she was and why she had been hidden beneath this library for so many thousands of years.
One touch. That was all it took. Magic flowed forth from the stone alicorn’s wings, horn, and eyes like streamers of silver-violet stardust. I should have shouted out in surprise, but instead I only stared in openmouthed awe. Where the sheets of magic brushed my body, they sent shocks of refined reality through me. Each wisp of light whispered to me of another time, another place, another Equestria where ponies loved, wondered, and cried. An unfamiliar world, yet one that my heart knew was the same as the one I had lived in all my life, forced itself through my eyes, my ears, my skin.
As the magic of an ancient goddess engulfed me, I left my body where it stood with hoof against wall and began to see what she wanted me to see.
Solemn silence fell over the audience as a brilliant pillar of magic announced the arrival of the ruler of ponykind. When the obscuring light faded, she who raised and lowered the sun stood on the grass with wings outstretched and head raised in traditional posture. She was every inch the majestic alicorn, beautiful and powerful, benevolent and regal.
The dress she wore had been designed by a true virtuoso—warm pink and gold ribbons danced across its draped folds through a wash of star-studded blue. The enchanted fabric glinted in the dusky light.
Day's end. Sunset. For this occasion, it was especially appropriate.
The assembled Element-Bearers bowed their heads respectfully before taking their assigned places, yielding center stage to the Queen. They stood shoulder to shoulder, like guards forming a mismatched, colorful rank of five. One, a yellow pegasus with a pink mane, allowed herself a barely audible sniffle.
Their Queen crossed in front of them and faced the crowd. She did not speak at first, but instead raised her muzzle to the heavens, her horn flaring to life like a beacon that would guide Equestria through the coming night. Her mane, billowing wide in a breeze that only it observed, glowed with the colors of the evening sky all around. She had planned it just so: The assembly was facing due west and the clouds had been arranged to her exact specifications, to ensure that was this the most glorious sunset Equestria had ever seen, and that the following twilight would be somber, yet comforting in its peaceful finality.
The Queen closed her eyes as she moved the heavens with her magic, just as she had been taught. She had performed the same spell untold thousands of times now, but this time she thought she could feel her teacher's presence by her side once more, chiding her for her mistakes, keeping her safe, teaching her as if for the first time how to seize the reins of the sky itself.
“Good,” a determined voice said from behind her back. “Pool the power. Let it build, but hold it close and let not one flicker escape. Call upon the magic deep in your heart. You have always had this power. Let it shine now!”
The student’s horn flared like a dying star as she poured her being into the most powerful attempt yet. Her eyes were shut tight and her mouth gaped open in a silent scream, as if she were in pain—yet the glow of magic at the tip of her horn burned brighter and brighter with every moment, until—
“Enough!” Celestia commanded. “Cancel it!”
Twilight’s horn abruptly winked out, and she collapsed to the floor. “I’m sorry, Princess,” she sighed, resting her cheek on the stone tiles lining the observatory.
“If you’d lost control of the charge, the consequences would have been disastrous. Why didn’t you tell me you were approaching your limit?”
“It was stronger than last time!” Twilight protested, looking up at Celestia with a mix of frustration and disappointment. “That could have been it!”
“Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said patiently, helping Twilight to her feet with a gentle nudge, “This spell is unlike anything you have ever attempted. Have faith in yourself. Even if it takes years, I know you will master this spell.”
“I was so close, but I just didn’t have the power! I put in everything and it wasn’t enough!” Twilight turned her head away from her mentor, eyes shut again, teeth gritted. “If you’re going to tell me I have to stop for today, then I’ll go to the library and find some way to amplify my power. There has to be a way, and I will find it.”
There was a beat of silence before Celestia spoke. “You are the finest example of unicorn magic the world has seen in generations,” she said, resting a wing gently on Twilight’s back. “The techniques you will find in the library were meant to elevate ordinary ponies to your level. They can offer you nothing.”
Another pause, as Twilight let out a long, shuddering sigh.
“What’s happening with my training?” She asked, staring pleadingly up into her ruler and instructor’s eyes. “This isn’t the same kind of training at all! Instead of flowers and enchantment you’re teaching me force fields and self-defense, and now this... whatever this is? Princess, please, what’s going on?”
Twilight grimaced bitterly at the results of her words. Celestia had grown distant, standing regally upright and staring through the observatory roof to where she had set the sun burning in the sky.
“The day will come soon when you need these skills, Twilight Sparkle,” she said, with as much gentleness as could be expected. “A delicate caress is precious not because of its light touch, but because of the restrained strength behind it. So it is with magic. You have learned a gentle touch. Now you must learn strength.”
Heat. Angry, scorching, pressing heat filled the air. Orange glare covered the entire world, making it look like the sky had caught fire. The streets were empty and Equestria was gripped by a deathly silence; even the birds were oppressed by the heat.
The sun was falling. Already twice its normal size, it was only a matter of time before the damage became truly irreversible. There was perhaps one hour before dry grasses would start to ignite. And fatalities... fatalities might have already begun.
Twilight stepped onto the palace’s balcony, alone.
Her pupil-less eyes stared down the glaring sun, glowing with fury to match.
Her horn blazed. An orb of light formed at its tip, then quickly grew until it was the size of a beach ball, then the size of a pony, then the size of a house. Its surface did not shimmer, but was as smooth and featureless as that of a glass marble. It glowed the most blinding white imaginable, yet released no heat and refused even to illuminate the sharp shadows cast by the railing; all of its power stayed strictly within its bounds even as it grew to the size of the castle. Its owner rose off of her feet, away from the balcony and into open air. The orb of magic kept growing until it no longer looked like a sphere; it was a solid wall nearly the size of the sky.
And then it ruptured, exploding into a spiderweb of threads that expanded for the tiniest fraction of a half-second before their mistress forced them to fly upwards, towards their target. Each fibre of light anchored one of its ends to Twilight’s horn and then plunged into the sky, where it wrapped around the sun, netting it with energy.
The heat subsided gradually but quickly. One by one, doors opened and ponies looked outside to see that their lives—their world—had been saved. But when they looked to the Princess’ balcony to thank their savior, they would not see their ruler, only a small purple unicorn, already retreating back into the castle. Princess Celestia lay in her bed, unconscious and exhausted, lovingly tucked in under a thin sheet of satin.
The day after the sunset ceremony, the Queen had arranged for a meeting with Lulu. A simple affair, by Lulu’s request, though the presence of the winged ruler made it difficult to truly make this an informal event. Still, the evening’s fare was to be tea and biscuits in a posh Canterlot sidewalk cafe instead of in the castle. Lulu especially liked going for walks in this neighborhood, Twilight reflected. In the last few years, Lulu had gained a taste for the afternoon sun.
“Is it strange being without her?” she asked Lulu. “It had been such a long time, after all, and now... you’re alone, for the first time.”
Lulu smiled, as she always tended to do when presented with a difficult question. The wrinkles on her face were deep, but the mare beneath them was as lively and as graceful as ever. “It is strange,” she agreed, “But I understand your question, and I feel no grief. She sometimes told me that she wished she could know what kind of mare I would be without her.”
The Queen furrowed her brow. “Why did she talk about something like that? She was curious about what it would be like for you to lose her? That sounds so...” She couldn't bring herself to say what she was feeling.
Luna' happiness flickered. "You surprise me, Majesty. I hope that you do not think my sister callous. The Princess sent me into exile for ten lifetimes, and never once stopped loving me, nor did I stop loving her." She broke eye contact to spare a few idle glances around the city and the cafe. "You should know that for me the journey began when I was hardly older than you were when we first met on that Summer Sun Celebration, so long ago.”
“Not long ago for you, I’m sure.”
“Allow me the vernacular,” Lulu chided. “It was a long time ago, not for you or for me, but for an aging pony.” She smiled again, and her fading powder-blue mane was tossed by a sudden breeze.
As Lulu’s mane blew out in the air, the Queen imagined it billowing regally as it once had, not hair but a portal to a strange sky studded with unknown stars. Then it was over, and Lulu had a simple blue mane again.
“Majesty, please understand. I am happy that my Sister has passed.”
“What?” Her Majesty failed to contain her shock.
“Was the ceremony not beautiful? Did remembering her, writing the final words in the book of her life, not please you, your Majesty?” Lulu’s wings fluttered involuntarily as she stared off into the sky, as if she could see her sister smiling back from somewhere beyond the veil of blue.
“No!” The Queen tried to look and sound offended, but her face betrayed tightly restrained sorrow. “I was heartbroken, Lun... I was heartbroken, Lulu!”
“I am not. And she would scold you, if she could see you now.” The navy blue pegasus sitting across from the Queen stood, still smiling, and pushed her chair in. She still had the same Cutie Mark, though it had lost some of its meaning now.
“You mean,” said the Queen darkly, “that Prin...”
“Tia,” Lulu interrupted. “I mean that Tia has gone to a reward earned through millennia of service. I hope that I may see her again when my own time comes, but if we are to be separated for eternity, I can rest knowing that neither of us has regrets. No regrets for our eons of life, and no regrets for the precious few more years we stole in the process of taking our leave.”
The Queen said nothing. Lulu circled the table to nuzzle her ruler and old friend. “We must all say our goodbyes. Tia and I said more goodbyes than we could count.”
The Queen nuzzled back, albeit halfheartedly, and managed to murmur, “You sound so happy about that. I'm sorry, Lulu. I don't understand.”
Lulu crossed behind her Queen’s back to address her again from her left side. “Tia and I learned to see the beauty in goodbyes,” she said. Lulu’s fur and mane were soft from age, and her chest did not resonate with the same power it once possessed. “In the beginning, Tia and I cried when the time came for our friends to pass, just like you cried for Tia. But as time went on, we saw that no matter how bitterly we cried for our friends, they never cried for themselves.” Lulu paused, resting her ear against her Queen’s neck. “When my sister passed, she finally learned for herself what it was that makes ponies smile as they exhale for the very last time.”
Lulu left the Queen with a warm kiss on the cheek before pulling away and turning to leave. “My sister was not happy to leave us, Twilight. She was merely relieved to find her story’s ending at long last. Soon, I too will end. Try to be happy for me.”
“Did you ever find an answer to that question of yours?” The words came out as little more than a croak. Ancient lips fought to form the words; weakening lungs pushed out the sound. Clouded blue eyes stared up at Twilight, full of concern.
“What question do you mean?” Queen Twilight replied softly, brushing a lock of deep purple mane out of Rarity’s eyes. Rarity’s mane, at least, was as lively as the first time Twilight had seen it. Rarity took great pride in maintaining it. Even now, while its owner reclined on a soft bed covered with pillows and keepsakes, that mane held the same familiar shape.
“Oh, now. I may be old but I couldn’t forget something like that.” With a deep breath, she hoisted herself onto her side, seeming to stare past Twilight and into a time some years past. “It was late October. You invited the girls to the gardens for tea. Then your face turned dreadfully dark, and...”
“I remember,” Twilight interrupted gently. “And yes, there was an answer, and I found it.” It stung her to lie to Rarity, but maybe it wasn’t such a lie after all. There was no answer to the question she’d foolishly asked out loud that October afternoon, not in all the libraries in Equestria, but maybe the answer she’d found for herself was an even more important one.
Rarity’s face brightened, inasmuch as such a thing was possible any more. “Oh, that’s wonderful!” she said, her scratchy little voice hitting the same high note it always used to when she was excited. “No, no need to tell me; it’s enough to know that you found what you had been seeking.”
Queen Twilight nuzzled Rarity with a sad smile, cutting her off. Rarity hadn’t forgotten Twilight’s sad dillemma, but she had forgotten all the times Twilight had explained her answer, or her lack of one. Twilight placed a hoof on Rarity’s chest. Rarity’s forelegs curled around it and held it close to her chest. Rarity’s eyes closed, and she dozed there with a sweetly content smile on her face.
There was no explanation for the slow failure of the Sisters’ powers. Theories about the banishment of Nightmare Moon and such invariably led nowhere. Similarly, there was no way to know if the ritual that had taken their divinity away and given it to Twilight had ever been done before.
The only real information Twilight had was her own observations, but those were enough.
She remembered the laughing, ecstatic glee she felt as a filly, being welcomed into the Princess’ care as a personal student.
She remembered watching meteor showers with Princess Luna, drinking in the grandeur of the world even as she pierced it with measurements and observations.
She remembered the first time she’d noticed the growing fatigue in her Princess’ eyes every morning. She remembered watching how the sun weighed heavier on the Princess’ back with every passing season.
She remembered sobbing, heaving, crying like she had never cried before, at Fluttershy’s memorial.
And, of course, she remembered watching Tia--wingless, elderly Tia--waste away. At the time, it had felt like slow murder. She'd been forced to watch her mentor die, and she'd done it while wearing a stolen pair of wings. Tia was dying because the ancient power that had sustained her for untold thousands of years now resided in Twilight's heart.
The memory was clouded by tears, but now, Twilight could remember something far more important about watching her mentor die. She remembered the unfathomably deep peace behind Tia's eyes just before they closed forever. When the time came for Lulu to join her sister, there had also been crying, but of a different kind. Lulu passed away with a smile on her face and a single tear falling from the corner of her left eye.
Eventually, Rarity spoke again, patting Twilight's foreleg as she awoke for long enough to remember Twilight's presence. “You should go, dear. I’m sure you’ve already taken too much time to attend to little old me.”
“When shall we meet again, friend?” Twilight said, in a voice barely above a whisper.
"Not for a very long time, I think.” For a long moment while those words settled, the only sound in the room was of that of two ancient mares breathing deeply.
Finally, Twilight kissed her dear friend on the forehead and headed for the door, dimming the lights on her way out.
“It was good to see you again, Twilight dear.”
“Goodnight, Rarity.”
“See you in the morning, Twilight.”
Usually, Twilight was content to simply shut the door behind her and let her old friend rest, but those words gave her pause. She stopped in the doorway and turned to make a request. “Wait for me, all right? You and all of the girls. And tell them I said hello?”
There was no answer except a soft snore. Twilight whispered a reverent “sleep well,” and closed the door.
“Twilight Sparkle, are you prepared to embrace your destiny?” Celestia recited solemnly, her steps echoing throughout the cave. The dim light threw shadows across the faces of the six assembled ponies and their dual rulers.
“I am,” Twilight said.
After a short pause, Luna spoke. “Twilight Sparkle, child of Canterlot, curator of the Ponyville library, apprentice of Princess Celestia, and bearer of the Element of Magic, step forward.”
Twilight did so. A heart-shaped sigil had been drawn on the ground in the center of the chamber, and Twilight stood on its center while her friends formed an even circle around her. Celestia and Luna stood within the ring of ponies, addressing Twilight from both sides.
“Twilight Sparkle, tonight marks your last night as a mortal pony. When this ceremony is completed, your privilege and duty will be to serve Equestria and ponykind across the generations,” Luna said.
“Ponies have been ruled by friendship, protected by love, since the beginning of the world. Now this responsibility falls to you. The title you bear will be a heavy one, heavier even than ours, but a true Queen will be equal to the task.”
Celestia and Luna simultaneously circled in front of Twilight, staring her down. She did not wither, but instead stood taller. Her heart raced, but wasn’t that to be expected? No need to be afraid... she had been trained for this, and in some ways, she had been born for this. She shifted her hindquarters imperceptibly, and with them the cutie mark they had borne since she was a filly.
The heart at her feet flared with magical firelight. The chamber and the assembled ponies were bathed in a warm pink glow.
“Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said, “You stand on the very spot where the Fire of Friendship that burns in the heart of every new foal was kindled. It has chosen you as its bearer, just as it chose us, long ago.”
“With your heart, stand firm against darkness, unrelenting, unyielding.” As Celestia said these words, Twilight thought she felt a warming sensation in her chest, powerful and somehow familiar, as if she’d felt it before, though she knew she never had.
“With your horn, cast light into the dark corners of the world, to make them safe for your little ones, large and small, now and forever.” A strange warmth thrummed deep within Twilight’s horn as Celestia spoke.
Luna continued. “With your wings—” Twilight gasped as she felt a powerful vibrating sensation behind her shoulders— “soar over the land like a banner of hope, and beat back the oncoming storm.”
“With this crown, embrace your new existence as the rightful Queen of all Equestria.”
The glyph encircling Twilight’s feet flared brighter as the tiara that marked her as the Element of Magic materialized on her head, humming with energy and adorned with glittering, vine-like trim that hadn’t been there before. The five Element-Bearers shielded their eyes as Twilight was consumed by living magic. Illuminated by a pink false sunrise, Queen Twilight Sparkle turned her muzzle towards the sky somewhere far above, and raised her wings for the first time.
The light dimmed, and the chamber fell into silence.
Then Twilight laughed.
Her heart glowed like never before. The crown she wore felt heavy, yet she had never been more sure of her ability to carry it. Queen Twilight laughed, and the sound was fear, joy, gratefulness, and faith.
Her laughter stopped when she caught a glimpse of Celestia and Luna’s retreating faces. There was a troubling kind of peace in their eyes that Twilight had never seen before. Their smiles were unreadable, but as they turned to leave, Twilight saw something that would haunt her for many years.
Celestia’s wings were shrinking into her back, shedding feathers in a trail of brilliant white. As they fell, they disappeared where they touched the ground, leaving no evidence that they had ever been there. Before the two disappeared around a corner, Luna turned her head and smiled at Twilight. Her head lacked a horn.
Horrified, Twilight started to follow, but was stopped by a hug from Fluttershy. “Twilight!” Fluttershy squealed, trembling with emotion, “we’re so proud of you!”
“Thanks, girls,” Twilight laughed, spreading her wings to wrap around her friends as they piled onto her, Rarity with a gentle nuzzle, Pinkie with a full-force cannonball that knocked her to the floor. Her smile went from forced to genuine as she felt Applejack’s muscular form slide up alongside her. “Thanks for everything.” She felt a wetness against her shoulder. Rainbow Dash was crying. Soon, so was she.
My name is Twilight Sparkle. You will know me as Queen Twilight, if you know me at all. I created this cache. The spell, the delivery system, and the memories themselves--all are my own. It is my hope that someday a brave explorer or wise scholar will find this place, and remember. I’ve collected a few personal belongings from each of the other five Elements of Harmony and preserved them here along with notes written in a code that I think will be easily translated even in two, three, four thousand years. For all I know, the Equestrian language might be nothing at all like it was in my time! Fortunately, the memory encoding in this capsule should make it so that anypony who accesses it should be able to understand my age’s syntactical patterns enough to at least experience the memories and comprehend this message...
I digress. Explorer, what you’ve just seen is the story of another Queen from another age. She was an ordinary unicorn once, and the chosen student of a Princess who was her teacher, ruler, and friend. She ruled as justly as she could, and her subjects loved her like they loved the Princesses before her. During her rule, Equestria prospered, just as it always has, just as it always will for as long as ponykind is warmed by the Fire of Friendship.
My friends and I shared many adventures, many happy and sad times, both before my anointment and after, but perhaps it is best if those things die with us. Elements of Harmony we may have been, but even we cannot claim the spotlight of the world forever. By the time this message is found, our time will have long since come and gone, and rightfully so.
Whether you tell your fellows what you have found here is up to you. Whether these events end up recorded in some prestigious journal or simply carried in a single pony’s heart until the end of his days, it is the same. Memories fade. Books turn to dust. All stories must end. But beauty, and the Fire of Friendship, are truly immortal.
I was standing in an empty stone room buried deep under the earth, with my hoof against the wall. The grinding, blaring sound of the generator was making it hard to think.
I lowered my hoof from the stone-relief portrait and stood on all fours again.
Trembling, tears running down my cheeks, I knelt in reverence before the stone majesty of a forgotten goddess.
