Piece of Parchment

“This has become tiresome.” The Harpy growled, sitting in the middle of a patch of black roses. Her crown of black feathers lowered behind her head while she massaged her brow.

Twilight felt inclined to agree while the griffoness plucked a rose from the ground and smelled it with a creepy griffon smile. It was the way she pulled at the corner of her beak and the stern, filled with a constant, unsettling intensity. It gave her the shivers.

“So, this is it, right? The cycle Twilight is bound to show up. Right?” Rainbow Dash inquired indirectly, talking to the others, as though Twilight was not there. “We’re getting to the end. And she’s going to fix it.”

“I… I suppose so. I don’t know how I feel about this.” The purple alicorn turned from the Harpy to talk to her friends. Despite not being directly addressed, and staring at Rainbow. “I know they look like them, but I don’t believe that they are Princess Celestia, Luna, or Cadance. Or me, for that matter. Even if they carry the same souls as these ‘goddesses’ carried.”

“Why not?!” the pink alicorn flapped her wings, raising her voice. “Isn’t it obvious?!”

‘No! It is not obvious!’ Twilight wanted to say. ‘Nothing about this is obvious!’ she thought.

It was the fact that Naminé nodded with such certainty next to Cadance which gave Twilight pause. She let out a sigh and looked to the side. Knowing what she would invoke with her next words almost hurt her physically. “Princess Luna told us in the dinner, back at the warship, that even if the soul is the same, the individual is not.”

Cadance stared down at Twilight like she had attacked her.

“Hum…. It’s like a ship…” both stared at Starlight Glimmer when she spoke, and under their stare, she winced but continued. “As it gets damaged, sailors replace them off the hull and put new ones. But it is still the same ship.”

“But that is not the same ship! A better analogy would be tearing down a whole ship and rebuilding it. It’s not the same ship. And this is not about ships! Ponies are not ships!” Twilight rolled her eye and yelled.

“That is true, but Princess Celestia said that—”

“I know what she said, Cadance! I was there. We were all there.” Twilight glared back at the pair and stomped a hoof on the grass. But she stared away and let her wings relax. “Sorry. I’m just… not looking forward to what I’m going to see in this cycle. I don’t like what this is doing to us.”

Heavens forbid she let slip that she didn’t like what it was doing to Cadance.

“It is showing us.” The older princess responded with a touch of irritation in her sweet voice. “Things that we should already know. It is our right to know about this past that Naminé’s spell is showing us.”

A thin rain started pattering on the leaves and ponies instinctively tried to cover themselves, only to be reminded they were not really there. If nothing else, the drizzle defused their discussion and left them with awkward stares. Meanwhile, the Harpy brushed her feathers and then looked at her paw with a frown. Her voice was surprisingly soft. “How long have we been doing this?”

She looked at the sky and her frustrated scowl let confusion through. “I am losing my mind because of these damned ponies.”

Twilight’s ears perked. She watched the griffoness, scrutinized her expression and her posture. The stormy gray eyes hid behind her lids. Her voice lacked the same power as before. She missed the gravitas of the griffoness that stared at the fiery alicorn goddess in the eyes and that demanded her world returned. Was it her crown of black feathers that never rose as high and proud as before? Was it merely the rain? Twilight wondered with a perplexed frown.

The surprise came when the griffoness stood to walk. Twilight wasn’t the only one gasping as a patch of velvety black roses followed in her wake. The flowers wilted and sank back into the grass, only for new ones to bloom before and around the Harpy with every step. An earthy and sweet smell followed her because of them.

“Well, now, this is interesting,” Starlight remarked while her eyes lingered on the roses and Applejack mumbled something about ‘wonky magic.’

But what grasped Twilight’s curiosity was that the Harpy saw the roses too, yet barely glanced at them. Twilight knew little about the griffoness, or whatever griffons called deities, but a trail of black roses was certainly something to note. And yet, the Harpy barely minded them at all.

Puddles of warm magical rain formed on the floor and the griffoness stepped on them, not minding her fur or feathers at all, and her roses followed. The following hooves never disturbed the water, but feeling their magical warmth was uncanny at best. The group kept close to the Harpy and let her unwillingly guide them. Although Twilight wouldn’t need her to guide them, she remained silent about it this time, too.

There was no thunder. No sudden flashes of light coming from the clouds. They only rested above the meadow, heavy with water, and let the eventual beam of sunlight filter through. The griffoness didn’t curse or complain to herself while her paws splashed on the puddles and her little army of black roses followed. The smell of wet grass brought a homely feeling, and the sweetness from the roses contrasted with the danger that the creature represented. Only the rain pattered against the leaves and robbed Twilight of her worries. The realization came soon: that place really was a refuge, and it was intentional.

Shining Armor cut the quietness of the rain. Twilight knew him; his relaxed tone betrayed the influence of that place. “I’m not even sure what happened last time! Did you all actually see anything inside that pony’s head? I still can’t wrap my head around the idea.”

“Yeah. I’ve been meaning to ask too!” Naminé’s eyes lit up with hope as she came near Twilight and grinned.

“We went to the crystal-y, freaky palace.” Rainbow flared her wings with a swoosh. “Cadance added a thing that made ponies horny.”

“What Rainbow Dash means is that she taught them how to love,” Rarity’s voice came out laced with annoyance, and Twilight could almost hear the indignant glare behind the words. “It appears as though that caused issues of its own.”

Rarity was not entirely correct, though. Love didn’t ‘teach’ them. She fitted their brains and their minds to understand and feel it. But Twilight decided against speaking, simply closing her eyes and letting the rain filter out their words as best as she could.

“It is not merely about reproduction.” Cadance’s urgent words reached Twilight from behind. “Family is just as important.”

“Says who?” Rainbow asked.

“I do.” Cadance replied with a raised snout and a smile.

“Then why didn’t it work?” Naminé asked sheepishly.

“The problem is free will,” Twilight said absentmindedly with a sigh and still followed the griffoness. Their conversation intruded on the peaceful aura of the place. “Ponies feel compelled to follow their destinies, but their limited lifespan and the ability to reproduce threw a wrench in the original system the alicorns had created. Lacking free-will, they—oh gosh!”

Twilight slapped a hoof at her mouth and her eyes darted from one side to the other while the others surrounded her. Their faces carried a mix of confusion, sympathetic understanding, and amusement. Except Cadance. Cadance had a smug grin that grew shrewder by the second.

“You know, don’t you?” Her golden-shod pink hoof poked at Twilight’s chest, almost as irritating as Cadance’s toothy grin. “You know, because you made it work.”

“I did not!” Twilight glared up at Cadance and defiantly pinned back her ears. “I share a soul with the creature that knew how to fix the problem! I am done talking about this! Honestly, I wish I could go back to the previous cycle and tease you about it too!”

Unfortunately, Cadance’s grin didn’t go away.

“Calm down, everypony.” Shining groaned. “The Harpy is not going to wait for us.”

“I can show you the way.” Cadance snorted petulantly, singing her words before she pranced ahead of the griffoness with a parting flick of her tail.

The others stayed with Twilight and waited for her to resume walking, but an angry snort told them the conversation had ended. Her friends said nothing, but they were certainly thinking about it. The princess’ angry, heavy hoofsteps didn’t keep the girls from talking among themselves.

“Princess Celestia didn’t like that the griffons showed up.” Pinkie said in a secretive tone, and Twilight resisted the urge to tell them it was not their Princess Celestia. It was hopeless and just easier to let them believe whatever they wanted, but she picked up her pace. “Did the meanie catbird make them appear?”

“I reckon they just poofed into existence, magic-like, after the ponies had done their piece. Like the yaks, and diamond dogs, and whatnot. I can’t fathom why griffons, though. Maybe the griffon lady might have done something after the alicorns were gone from Equestria. I suppose. But how are we to know? Magic is all wonky in this vision. There are flowers growing out of this griffoness’ paws, for pony’s sake.”

“Well, the princess mentioned it was simply a trait of these primeval times. Quite intriguing! Certainly, magical phenomena because they are so powerful!”

Twilight tuned out their conversation. She watched the fearsome creature that the griffoness was and saw she couldn’t tear her eyes from her. A mass of muscles pulled her paws back with every step. The elegance of her cat-like gait was mesmerizing. Black talons and a hefty dose of killing instinct hid behind every footfall. That was the general perception of griffons among ponies, too. Also, they were selfish jerks and aggressive bullies. It was easy to see all that in the Harpy. Even more when the princess reminded herself of all the griffoness had caused.

Many griffons challenged that stereotype; it was the point of the conflict between north and south Griffonia. Ages before Twilight was born, King Grover sided with Celestia to challenge the Emperor and the Harpy. They won and tried to destroy the very memory of Aya Harpiya, the empire, and everything that they were. Is that how you kill a god? A creature that simply comes back. You make their supporters forget about them? Was that what the princess had tried to do?

Still, something troubled Twilight. How did it all work? Did the Harpy’s abusive nagging and insults somehow help forge the path ahead? Was that why she kept showing up? She denied the alicorns had bested her. But Twilight remembered the story the Princess had told them in that tense dinner on her airship. The possibility that the Harpy might still have something to do tingled at Twilight’s curiosity. It seemed natural in a world where destinies and talents mingled that the perfect griffoness who had created the world before the alicorns might still have a purpose to fulfill.

To think that Princess Celestia never believed the Harpy still lived… She believed she had destroyed the Harpy when she took over Creation. Poor Grover. It must have been maddening to have lived with her and not have Celestia believe him. And poor Celestia, she must be in a terrible place right now if the news they got from Griffonstone was true.

Behind her, the conversation had gone back to the problem of the previous cycle. Her friends didn’t understand it. It only frustrated Twilight that she did. It was so obvious; how could they not see it? That is right, she didn’t know the answer because of some stupid, dusty ‘soul memories’. She knew because it was obvious, and she refused to tell them.

Rainbow Dash’s voice wavered. She told the others that the alicorns eventually fixed the problem. ‘Right?’. Like a foal seeking reassurance. Twilight almost told her they did, but…

Did they? Twilight wondered. Discord’s words bubbled back to her from their conversation at her airship, the Magic of Friendship. She groaned and rolled her eyes, as proper memories ought to.

“Star Swirl was my friend, at least in the beginning, and the one that figured something was wrong. That I wasn’t supposed to be there. He wanted to study me and he saw there was something weird with the unicorns. They scared me too. The Elements of Magic and of Generosity are supposed to be the strongest in them, but they were different. Generosity was stained black with self-interest.”

Twilight frowned while it was Naminé who responded to Rainbow’s worries. “I suppose that if this is the fourth cycle and there are four alicorns—adult ones, at least—we will find the answers.”

Fluttershy responded with a suppressed whisper. “I can’t imagine the big scary griffon lady liking that.”

Twilight frowned a little more. There was also Discord’s strange message relayed to them by the Windigos. How bizarre had that been?

“I will prove you are wrong!” He told somecreature in the vision the magical creature granted her. Was he talking to the Windigos? To the magical bird-creature? It was a servant of the Windigos anyway, if the griffons were to be believed. “Take a message to Twilight Sparkle! Tell her that Lady Gwendolen is the Harpy and that she must find a way to destroy her and the northerner griffons. Or they will destroy Celestia and all Ponykind will be enslaved again!”

Twilight could see how they might need to remove the Harpy. Until that point, she really was unwilling to compromise or accept that she had failed to create a functional world. Much less give space for another’s approach. In the end, something felt like it didn’t fit. It had been a constant feeling along the way, when things should wrap up already. But Discord, in that message didn’t sound like himself. At all.

Twilight’s attention drifted out of her thoughts. Like every other cycle was different, this one was no exception. It just seemed more different. Yet Twilight couldn’t explain how, if she tried. The Harpy seemed to know where she was going, dragging her tiny garden of black roses around for a quick stroll among the trees. She even relaxed her impatient scowl. Under her breath, wondering what the grassbreath was up to this time.

Eventually, she and Twilight’s group reunited with Cadance up ahead and found the open meadow. It was uninhabited and dimmed under lead-colored clouds. A small mound here, a flower patch there, a funny-looking tree… all seemed out of place. Slight differences seemed more accumulated than the other three cycles, like the round, elongated stones that seemed to have sprouted from the earth. Even from a distance, Twilight could see the broken grass and revolved soil. Like the trees had taught the stones how to sprout from the ground.

The muddy pond was there, too. Unattended under the drizzle. The griffoness walked in no hurry, dragging her roses behind her. She seemed to not notice any difference at all. Bored, going through the motions for yet another cycle, Twilight decided. It simply struck her as strange when all seemed so different.

Was it that the place seemed deserted? Like that creature that felt like she was Celestia had given up? What was it that bothered Twilight and filled her with uncertainty? No. Even the clouds, absent in the other cycles, seemed small compared to the greatest difference.

It was just so subtle; difficult to put her hoof on it. Something hung in the air like a sweet perfume. Except it didn’t reach for the sense of smell. It brushed at Twilight’s being in a deeper way. Like a sweet breeze, as the drizzle itself. It was like a warm summer rain, the weather services provided to beat the heat.

“Can you guys feel this too?” she perked her ears, and her eyes scanned the trees in the distance.

“Yeah… It feels like I’m in an airship.” Twilight nodded at Starlight’s perfect analogy, still eyeing the distant tree lines like they held the answer. “With magical induction engines radiating magic all over.”

Far from abandoned. The very magic of Life inhabited that place. Far from dull, it was simply subtle. Twilight’s coat stood, like a scared cat, when the realization hit her. Life. So powerful it dominated the landscape and filled the background.

“Why is it not all glowy, then?” Rainbow walked closer in between them.

“Because it’s not free mana.” Rarity’s eyes too slowly roved over the distance, speaking like they were in a mystery novel. “It’s attuned magic.”

“I don’t see the difference.” The pegasus shrugged.

All Dash received was a roll of the eyes while Twilight agreed with Rarity. It was magic, like before, but not as raw. A magical presence was in the air. A powerful spell cast from a distance. It was very much a consequence of the flight of the fiery alicorn, spreading the day across the sky like she did in all the previous cycles. Not only mighty, but also refined and mature, like fine calligraphy. It was merely curious she was nowhere to be seen.

Walking along the Harpy, they saw a serene flat film of water covering the muck in the pond. A bubble popped here and there to leave a circular scar on the flat surface. It remained otherwise unmoving. Following the Harpy’s lead, Twilight sniffed at the lake and an earthy smell filled her nostrils. Not entirely unpleasant, but not nice either. It smelled like the mud used by the spa sisters back in Ponyville, with a slightly creamy touch.

“Surprisingly pleasant on the nose, I must say!” Rarity giggled.

While they spent time with idle talk, the Harpy stuck her paw inside the pond and rummaged around for a couple of seconds. Before Twilight even understood what she was doing, she simply pulled out a pony from it. At least, it mostly looked like a pony. While her friends gasped, complained, grimaced, and reeled back, Twilight and the Harpy examined the mud-covered creature.

Its limbs seemed too long because its articulations didn’t connect properly. She even held them by the slack neck, because the pony had no hair. It was fortunate the mud covered them, because they also lacked skin along with the fur and much of the muscles. They barely breathed. Gasped slowly, and Twilight was sure she could see the heart pumping away in between patches of slimy mud and unhardened, transparent bones. It was like an incomplete pony; a bun that still needed more time in the oven.

“Mud pony…” Pinkie snorted, much to everypony’s annoyance, while the Harpy let the pony go back into the pond, surprisingly gentle.

Among complaints and disgusted comments, Twilight was more interested in the Harpy’s reaction. Bored disinterest. Maybe to her, that was not so special. Yet given the screaming differences from the previous cycle, she expected more of a reaction. A word came to Twilight’s mind, and it was ‘grounded’. Practical? Maybe natural. As natural as things go in Equestria, at least. She hadn’t thought of it, but that was more like what a ‘pony creating pool’ should look like. Instead of a ‘cauldron’ where the magical alicorn ‘cooked and stirred’ ponies into being. A magical pond where the magic of the fiery alicorn made them, already adults, from the materials in the mud.

The Harpy turned before Twilight heard anything. “Ah. There you are.”

As confused as Twilight, the others also looked in the same direction. Only after a second did the bushes shift. Twilight’s jaw dropped slack. Instead of a carefree gazelle-like jump, the creature stepped out of the foliage. Flowers, delicate marigolds, sprouted from the grass and opened, each like a glorious sunrise. Tiny, shiny insects scuttered about her hooves and fled into the surrounding foliage.

Not a mass of magical flames, but sturdy white hooves covered by immaculately white long hairs stepped on the grass. A long leg covered in short fur was both elegant and strong, with tensing muscles powering her stride. Speaking of muscles, powerful ones contracted and relaxed under her creamy alabaster chest. Perfection in motion, every inch a dancing choreography of coordination.

Her long neck rippled with tout chords as she moved her head and the silken strands of her mane waved weightlessly behind her, avoiding the branches like they might evade clingy, adoring worshipers. Her coat was not merely impeccably white; it shone with a light of its own, a luminescence as subtle as it was warm. Each step was a strophe in a hymn to elegance. It was not only beauty, but a quality for which Twilight initially lacked a proper word. Power, might. Authority made flesh in motion. Twilight’s heart skipped a beat, and she held her eyes from staring when they found the cutie mark of the sun. Her magical presence remained past Twilight’s focus. A presence like the sun itself, bathing the land awash with its warmth.

A parade for flawlessness in the shape of Celestia of Equestria.

“Dashie,” Pinkie Pie mumbled with a mix of uncharacteristic awe and nervous excitement. “I’m having those colorful feelings again.” Pinkie mumbled behind her and their pegasus friend muttered something else in response, but Twilight couldn’t hear it.

Celestia barely deemed the griffoness worthy of a glance. Not even a disdainful snort. She pranced happily toward the pond with a whip of her tail and the tiny golden garden in her stride. Despite the lack of attention, the Harpy followed with no external signs of offense. Reaching the edge of the pond, Celestia stared down at the mud, frowning while her horn shone with its usual golden light. The griffoness, rather than teasing or accusing, simply sat and watched. Rather than bothering the alicorn, she gently straightened one of her black roses, adjusting its petals that had grown askew.

Twilight and the others mostly mimicked the two and copied each other’s stare of confusion.

“Is she… Is it just me, or is she back to acting the same way she did at the start?” Shining armor scratched the back of his head and shrugged with a frown. “Like… Almost, but not quite intelligent?”

“Why is it all so different?” Naminé asked, followed by a series of agreed statements. “Did something happen? Did we miss something?”

No answers. Twilight had none, her friends even fewer. The Harpy simply laid down by the pond, on her bed of roses and patiently watched. The alicorn worked, reaching inside with a more intense shine in her horn. Ponies watched and waited.

“It’s fine. Take your time. It’s not like you are in a condition to talk, anyway.” The Harpy said casually with a yawn, holding a paw before her beak. “This place gets strangely lonesome when you are like this.”

It wasn’t the shift that unnerved Twilight most, but the Harpy’s nonchalance. Bringing it up to her friends and Naminé yielded no new insights. Ultimately, there was not much they could do. Twilight and the others simply settled and waited, like the Harpy had.

With the strange flow of time in that vision, they didn’t have to wait long before something drew them from their quiet vigil. The surface of the slushy lake stirred. Bubbles popped on the thick mud. The alicorn’s face brightened with one of Celestia’s own radiant smiles. She whinnied and shifted her hooves excitedly. Twilight and her friends all gasped as sludge-covered hooves broke the surface. An astounded gasp escaped Rarity as she wondered aloud what was happening, but it was obvious. The griffoness, while not showing much surprise as the ponies, stood from her resting spot and put some distance between her and the edge, with her flowers following suit.

Ponies broke the surface and started climbing out of the lake. Often dramatically, splashing mud all over and with loud, anxious gasps. Other times dragging themselves out, barely slowing down. Every instinct urged Twilight to jump in that pond and help. At least use her magic and drag them out. Remembering she was witnessing past events barely kept the impulse at bay. And while the others too refrained from their instincts, Celestia’s identical twin did exactly that. She assisted several of them. Only just containing her joy, reaching into the mud with hooves and magic to drag the stragglers out of it. It was a job for alicorn stamina, but she got all one hundred and twenty-six—twenty-one males—out of the lake with a huge smile on her very expressive face.

“You were counting?” Rainbow raised an eyebrow when Twilight mentioned so.

“Uh… Yes?” Twilight craned her neck. “That could be important, you know?”

The activity didn’t stop there. Celestia pranced about and hopped between the ponies. Examining them, planting her ears on their chest, enveloping them in her golden magical aura. Some she poked with her hoof, others she rolled onto their side. One of the muddy ponies earned a frown and a stare from her tilted head. She rested her hooves on their ribcage and pushed, causing the unconscious pony to hack, cough mud out of their nostrils and peacefully snooze again. Celestia perked her ears and gave them a silent, partially confused, partially worried stare, but she was eventually satisfied.

“Will you stop fussing about them? They are fine. They’ve been fine all the other times.” The Harpy said, sitting by a tree and letting out an exasperated groan. “Hurry it up. My patience is already sufficiently tested.”

While she ignored the Harpy, Celestia licked her hoof and put it up in the air. As though she was feeling the breeze with an attentive frown. She smiled again, and her eyes turned up to the gray clouds.

“For feather’s sake. The sooner you are done with this, the sooner we can talk, and you can stop wasting our time.” The Harpy complained like an old lady in a shop. Ignored, she rolled her eyes when the white alicorn hoped and flapped her wings to hover a couple hundred hooves in the air. Her horn shone with the same light as the sun and the clouds responded with lightning and thunder while rays of sunlight pierced in between. The griffoness scoffed. “This is not impressive, either.”

The rain picked up in intensity, and pegasi started falling from the clouds. Drops of rain themselves, they popped out of the clouds and plummeted with nothing between them and a sudden, crushing death, tens of thousands of hooves below. Even after what they had just witnessed, a breathless moment had Twilight convinced something horrible was happening. After the collective gasp from the watching ponies, their wings unfurled and caught the wind. They glided down while the white alicorn kept her silly grin and wobbled her head to follow their spiraling descent.

“Whoa! That is awesome!” Rainbow cheered along with Pinkie and the other ponies and their excited hustle.

Even Twilight, taken by the majestic flight of the uncannily unreactive pegasi, almost didn’t see how bored the Harpy was. Or maybe her disdain for ponies kept her from enjoying the magical birth of an entire race. It was hard to truly know what was inside her head.

Twilight’s attention returned to the pegasi when the first thunked into the grass and prompted a bemused ‘ouch’ from Rainbow Dash. Their graceful glide ended with clumsy plants on the grass. One might expect a pony to wake up with a faceful of greenery and dirt after such a graceful descent—albatross-style—but that wasn’t the case. Some flipped over their heads, others bounced and faceplanted again, yet none seemed injured or even woke up. At worst, they rolled into a more comfortable position and snoozed on.

“Erm. It’s probably part of the process that they are so lethargic.” Starlight Glimmer grimaced. “Right?”

“Is this that pegasus flight instinct thing we hear about?” Shining asked, scratching behind his head. Twilight nodded, calling it the Wind-Vestibular Reflex as she watched the clumsy ballet of snoozing spirals and ungainly landings. Followed by limp skids and sprawled heaps of sleeping pegasi. One of them sneezed at the marigolds but kept sleeping.

“Well, it works as intended, I guess.” Starlight mentioned with a grimace and triggered Pinkie’s giggling.

Like she did with the earth ponies, the pony who looked just like Celestia spent a long time examining the snoozing pegasi. She rolled some into more comfortable positions and spent some time magicking over one of them. She tucked some wings into their resting position and flicked her ears at some snoring. Twilight’s friends kept commenting on the situation. It was funny, but there was also something about it that bothered Twilight.

“Why is this so different from the previous cycles?” Twilight looked at Naminé.

The yellow unicorn winced and shrugged. “Beats me! I agree it is different, though. I was hoping you could say why. Is it that different, though? We had a beach in the previous cycle.”

“There’s definitely something out of place here, Twilight.” Applejack agreed with her, but also couldn’t add any further insight. “Maybe it is all this silliness?”

Twilight nodded her agreement but was not satisfied.

Meanwhile, the Harpy followed ‘Celestia’ around as she made her way to the stones. It seemed obvious the unicorns would come out of those, but Twilight had not a clue how. The Harpy, however, urged ‘Celestia’ on, pushing her with her wings.

“Move this along, grasseater. I tire of your sluggish waste of time. The sooner we are done with this, the sooner we can converse like…” She sighed. “Like rational creatures.”

The alicorn stopped and gave the griffoness a petulant stare. She nickered and raised a hoof. Twilight groaned and frowned. She was such a strange creature—both showing and lacking higher intelligence. Uncanny in the way she echoed Celestia, and at the same time, someone’s pet.

Satisfied she had sufficiently chastised the griffoness, the alicorn then planted an ear on the round stone. She squinted her eyes, completely ignoring the Harpy’s bored glower.

Somewhere between the Harpy’s grumbling, the alicorn’s dead-serious stare at the stone, and flowers sprouting from their hooves and paws, Twilight wondered where all the surrounding madness had first gone wrong. Out of the blue, the alicorn’s eyes opened wide, and she showed a radiant grin with a happy whinny. Her horn filled up with the purest of golden lights.

“Wait!” the griffoness cried too late and failed to shield herself with her wings.

The stone exploded with a heavy thud and glittering dust covered the grass and trees, not to mention the excited alicorn and the coughing griffoness. Twilight and the others, too taken by surprise, cried and jumped away. Twilight tried to teleport in her fright, but her magic didn’t work. Instead, she thanked Naminé’s magic that none of the sparkling powder and thick liquid stuck to her.

The stone ‘egg’ didn’t simply explode with a cartful of glitter. The similar stones dotting the meadow exploded too. One by one popped in a glorious show of colorful light, slime, glitter and ponies pouring from inside like the yolk of a cracked egg. The alicorn promptly occupied herself rolling ponies into more comfortable positions, not minding the sticky goo or all the glitter. For better or worse, it added to the mud in her coat, but the rain was taking care of it, anyway. She stopped and stared at a unicorn. For a moment, their coat shimmered with the same Dainty Mellow’s fire as before when it focused on the sleeping unicorn’s horn with a shiny mote of light. Celestia’s lips made an enthralled little ‘o’ before she giggled when it fizzled out of existence.

Meanwhile, the Harpy started on an outraged tirade against all things pony, flapping her wings and muttering imprecations as she clawed at the clumps of goo stuck to her feathers. Every attempt only spread it and covered her further with it and the glittery crystal dust until she resembled a disgruntled, glittery mop.

Twilight caught herself wondering if that icky, colorful slime tasted as colorful as it looked. Inside the stones, surprisingly pointy and sharp crystals lined the interior. Geodes. How they didn’t hurt themselves inside the rock, the pony couldn’t imagine.

“Huh… Earth ponies born from the mud, pegasi from the clouds, and unicorns from crystals.” Twilight didn’t find her observation particularly mindful, but it was certainly an observation on a blatantly meaningful setup.

“We truly are hammering in the stereotypes, aren’t we?” Rarity complained, ears pinned to her head, as though she could read Twilight’s thoughts.

Pinkie and Rainbow practically rolled on the grass, giggling and guffawing like they had just been told a joke. ‘Glitter ponies’, they thought, were particularly funny. The others examined the new unicorns and the alicorn’s festive dance while Twilight pondered. Why did everything feel so different? What of the Harpy’s response? Annoyance rather than surprise. And that still nagged at Twilight’s thoughts.

No answers came to her, but eventually the alicorn finished fussing over her ponies and simply laid down in the middle of all the snoozing ponies and her bed of marigolds. She ‘loafed’, as some younger ponies might have said. Her long—elegant and strong—neck craned above, letting her watch the mass of earth ponies by the lake, but also let her survey the pegasi, strewn around the meadow and the clusters of messy unicorns too. The gentle rain slowly drained all the mud and glittery goo away, almost as part of a plan.

Not to mention the Harpy and her distress, not willing to lick the sticky mess off her and then her mad dash to the nearest body of flowing water. She probably wouldn’t like to know, but she gave the ponies a good laugh too.

As things settled in their little slice of Edenic retreat, the strange flow of time picked up the pace. The clouds mostly opened themselves and lent a soul-filling warmth to the meadow with the glow of the sun. Even the Harpy enjoyed some sunbathing at the top of one of the normal rocky outcrops.

What broke the peace was Celestia’s sudden gasp. The ponies had started waking up. Long stretching sessions helped the blood flow. Grimacing frowns came from unused eyes opened under the glorious sun peeking behind the clouds. The alicorn’s white coat remained an unmarred alabaster after all the mud and goo was gone. Its shine mirrored that of the sun. She stood with an unabashedly thrilled grin, watching as her little ponies came to life around her and did pony things. They grazed on the luscious grass and ate from the little bushes. They socialized, softly butting heads, bumping hooves, and excitedly rearing and neighing. Even more so as the alicorn joined them in rampant, unrepentant horsey jubilation.

“I get it!” The Harpy yelled from her perch like an old lady scolding the foals in her yard. “You are happy! Good! Can we move on?”

Her rant was ignored and for the longest time nothing more exciting than all the greeting and socializing happened. Until the alicorn laid down by a bush and made an awkward frown, poking at a beige earth pony mare trying to nibble at it.

“No. Not the branches. Eat the leaves.” Celestia’s voice coming out of the alicorn almost scared Twilight out of her coat and drew several gasps from her friends. “The leaves. Eat the leaves! It is gonna hurt your tummy! Stop!”

Then the alicorn herself gasped and took a hoof to her muzzle. “Oh, my! I’m talking! Oh, wait! I’m thinking!”

Her shocked expression turned to excitement as she stood. A garden of jasmines, tiny like little stars rose from the grass, and another alicorn literally poofed into existence with a shower of sparkling dust. Unsurprisingly, a deep blue, particularly cute alicorn, with her mane made with a piece of the night sky. Facing the wrong way, she spun around to blink at the white alicorn.

“You’re late!” the white one said, pointing a hoof.

“I am not late!” blue shot back, wings flaring indignantly. “I lost my way in that mess you made inside their heads!”

“It is not ‘a mess’!” White gasped. “It is a complex system of feedback loops!”

The Harpy walked closer to them with a scowl worthy of her storms, glaring so intensely that the two alicorns backpedaled a few steps, each trailed by their flowers like advancing and retreating armies. “You are like a broken artifact instead of a creature. A magical device with switches for turning on or off the individual parts. Do you think you could manage sex without the pink one prancing about? It is ridiculous.”

Luna pouted and was about to say something, but the white one stopped her. “No, no. This is not the time for bickering. We must focus—there is important work ahead of us.”

Blue’s pout turned right around to an excited gasp. “Yes! I, too, have ideas to identify the root of the Mortality Anomaly!”

“The what?” Celestia-from-the-past tilted her head.

“The Mortality Anomaly!” Luna declared proudly. “I have dubbed it so. And I have devised methods to help pinpoint the issue that causes our ponies to turn so vilely upon one another.”

“Instead of meddling with things beyond your control, you should be returning my world to me and apologizing for the damage you’ve caused.”

Celestia smiled gently and waved a hoof at the Harpy. “Don’t worry. We will make this right. You’ll see.”

As they were talking, a unicorn approached. A white stallion with a wild, deep gray mane, still covered in dried blobs of viscous rainbow liquid. He walked to the taller mares and griffoness, raising a hoof and speaking sheepishly. “Ah. Excuse me, ma’ams. But there seems to be a problem with-”

“Ah! You shall be perfect, my fine stallion!” Luna enveloped him in her magical aura, grinning with the excitement of a foal with a new toy. “Now, please, wait but a moment.”

She talked to him as she materialized a tree stump and put him seated on it. Then she materialized a table with a boxy crystal device on it and sat herself across the table from the pony. Her telekinetic magic raised a craning arm from the device. It held a tiny gadget with a lens that she telekinetically adjusted. Finally, she wrapped a band around the pony’s forelimb and stuck him with a helmet of blinking lights and spiraling cables. All connected to the machine.

The pony started with a confused ‘aaah’, but the blue alicorn shushed him. “Have no fears. This shall not hurt in the slightest.”

Finally, she produced a pile of paper, straightened it against the table, and cleared her throat before glaring at the pony. So serious a stare Twilight almost feared he had done something wrong already. “You are standing in a vast desert.”

“What do you hope to accomplish with this?” The Harpy growled.

“Silence, if you please. It is of utmost importance that you do not interfere with Mister Stallion here.” Luna shot her a displeased, petulant stare before she turned back to the pony. “You look down and see a turtle walking towards you.”

“Ah… Okay…” The pony was no less confused than he was a few seconds ago, but he wanted to help.

“What is she doing?” Cadance whispered to Twilight. All of them watched from the sidelines as though they feared interfering with the experiment.

“I have no idea.” Twilight’s bafflement was written all over her furrowed brow.

“You reach and flip the turtle onto its back,” the alicorn of the night told the pony in all seriousness, eventually glancing at the machine between them.

“I don’t… I don’t think that I would do that… But… Uh… Whatever you say, ma’am.” His ears flopped in confusion.

“Please, just focus on what I am telling you.” She gave him a firm glare before leaning down to focus on the machine again with a hum. She stared at him again. “The turtle lies on the sand…”

“Hum… It should be a tortoise.” Fluttershy whispered next to Twilight, but mostly only received a few shushing complaints while the machine started printing a strip of paper.

The blue alicorn went on. “It lies on its back, baking in the sun. It is struggling, but cannot right itself without your aid, Mr. Stallion.”

“Gah! I’ll help it! I’ll help the turtle!” The pony cried. “I’ll carry it on my back!”

“I don’t think this is helping, Night.” Celestia leaned closer with a worried frown while the Harpy complained under her breath. “You’re just distressing this poor pony with a ridiculous hypothetical situation.”

“Ah ha! But I am not!” the blue alicorn triumphantly tore the strip of paper from the machine. “I have been recording the autonomous response of his sympathetic system! I shall now determine what went awry in the last cycle!”

While the blue one carefully held the strip of paper in her hooves, the white alicorn talked to the pony. After a couple of words from him, showing her his hoof, she magicked at his cannon and dismissed him away. Blue’s eyes darted one way and another as her frown intensified, and she mumbled things to herself. Words like ‘reflex this’, ‘response that’ reached Twilight sporadically. Finally, after intense minutes of curious tension as ponies followed Twilight closer to the alicorns and the griffoness, the blue alicorn raised her eyes.

“It’s, uh… Completely within normal parameters. I don’t understand.” She confessed with flopping ears. “Maybe the inherent issue lies deeper than outward signaling from his autonomous nervous system can show. He appeared perfectly empathetic towards the turtle… At least on the outside. The Mortality Anomaly should not be happening. He perfectly understood it was suffering and didn’t want it to suffer.”

“Maybe the problem lies in their internal memetic processing. Maybe it is signaling correctly outwardly, but internally, he may be using incorrect neural glyphs. I just need to pry open somepony’s brain and have a closer look!”

“You are an idiot. The biggest one in existence.” The Harpy told her through a bored frown.

“You are not taking ponies apart!” The alicorn of the day waved her hooves with finality and proper distress. “Once assembled, ponies are not meant to be disassembled!”

“Hold! I have it! Let us create a simulation where we can experiment with the ponies—but with direct access to the discrete processes of their brains! I can make it work in just a few hours!”

“That is not the problem with them, you buffoon.” The Harpy yelled.

Twilight raised an eyebrow, watching the exchange, and her friends agreed collectively. “Now that Luna was about to figure it out, the mean bird decides to be helpful.”

“There is no problem! You backed them into a corner. They must follow their destinies, and you saddled them with emotions and intelligence they need nothing with. Then you put them in a world where they will see resources dwindle before their eyes. Naturally, they will fight over them. This is why your kind was never deemed worthy of free-will. You were meant to spread magic and sustain nature. There is no need for you to burden your brains with intelligence or choice.”

Twilight’s jaw clenched. It was positively infuriating that she was right, and Twilight knew that she was right. But she also never provided them with the answer to that problem, which Twilight also knew. It was one of the few times Twilight felt like she wanted to kick somecreature.

Around her, the others babbled and complained; their voices blended into a background hum. Luna huffed. She wanted to say something, but her words of righteous fury caught in her throat. Her mouth moved, but no words came out. Behind them, Celestia was the image of defiance, but she avoided the griffoness’ eyes. Mother Harpy’s expression softened with a drop of sympathy.

“It is time to let go of this ill-advised quest.” The griffoness spoke uncharacteristically softly, approaching and offering a paw to the white alicorn.

Celestia huffed and hoofed angrily at the ground. She was going to say something too, but an earthquake toppled her and the Harpy from their haunches. Night even flared her wings for balance, too.

The ground trembled, the grass shivered and rose from the ground as the soil beneath pushed. A vibrant pink, red, and yellow tulip sprouted from the ground and its stalk bent over. It was giant. So big it could hold a pony inside its petals. When they opened, it released a shower of pink smoke and deposited the bubblegum-colored alicorn of love safely on the grass.

Eyes stared at her and mouths gaped while Cadance walked out of the mist of pink fumes and tossed her wild, unpreened mane, dragging a garden of tulips in her steps. “We need to talk! I believe I have the solution to our problem!”

“You don’t say?” The Harpy sat again and brushed her feathers at the dirt in her black and white pelt.

Twilight was more stunned at how identical the two versions of Cadance were. One wild and barely ‘produced’ at all, missing all royal regalia. Cadance au natural. The other a proper princess. Both so stunningly beautiful she wanted to bop her upside the head for being so pretty. Every inch, every hair, the same mare. Shining stared, mouth agape in shock, and Twilight dreaded to know the things going through his head while their Cadance cheered like a foal at the fair.

“Watch this!” Cadance from the past grinned despite the other two crying for her to stop.

Her horn shone, enveloped in bright pink. All the ponies, whether walking around, watching from a safe distance, or already busy building their homes, stopped. Little pink hearts popped around their heads, and then they resumed their activities as though they had never stopped.

Luna squeaked, hoofing frantically at the residual magical energy around her head. “What did you do?!”

“I changed some parameters. That is all.” Cadance-from-the-past proudly set a hoof on her chest, sitting regally on her tulips. “I have made them capable of loving their own genders. Now they can love everypony and no longer need to fight each other over resources anymore! Problem solved! We can set them loose in the world.”

While Celestia mumbled awkwardly, not finding the right words to say, the Harpy turned to Luna with deadpan seriousness. “I take back what I said earlier. Clearly, there is an even bigger idiot.”

“What?” Love dragged out the word to match her surprise and her wide eyes.

“It will not work. In a way, you are literally making it worse in the long run.”

Love gasped, pointing a hoof at the Harpy. “That’s homophobic!”

“That is not what I mean, hoof-brain!” the griffoness screeched, tugging at her black crest of feathers. “They cannot simply love every creature they know. You should understand this!”

“This is going to overload their cognitive capacity, Love.” Luna explained, gesturing in the air as if holding a brain. “They simply don’t have the mental cache to process that many relationships. They’ll forget they love somepony, and when they remember, it’ll just make things worse.”

“Can’t we just make them better at remembering who they love?”

Celestia shook her head. “Their higher cortex can’t handle that. It simply doesn’t have enough connections for such powerful emotions over and over. They’d spend all their time processing who they love—and they’d need brains the size of watermelons.”

Watching the scene, Twilight grit her teeth before she yelled at their vision of the past. “This is so obvious!”

“So… We’re back where we started?” Love’s disheartened expression almost made Twilight feel bad for those doofuses. She even ignored her friends’ comments behind her back.

“Are you satisfied?” The Harpy impatiently crossed her forelimbs while sitting on her haunches. “You understand the strict requirements of biological systems. The elegance they require and that your blunt notions simply cannot fulfill. Do you not see it is time you gave up?”

Love had no words for her. She simply let her jaw hang limply, staring at the older alicorns. Night avoided her gaze, focusing instead on her own shifting hooves. Celestia’s closed eyes, under her pained frown, let escape a tear. For an instant, Twilight’s stomach dropped, and she could feel the tension among the ponies with her. Twilight knew she would not give up: they were watching events in the past. But the sadness that claimed the cheery alicorn’s expression punched her stomach as hard as Applejack could kick a tree. Even the flowers surrounding her bent and lost their petals. Even worse, their recently created ponies congregated and watched. Their stares, filled with confusion and hope, seemed no different from those of ponies in the present, fearing their princesses had given up on them.

“You did your best.” The Harpy spoke softly.

“We can’t give up.” Celestia’s frown deepened, and her voice wavered. A dark line of wet fur glistened a path of sorrow down her pony face. Words struggled out of her throat.

The griffoness shook her head and spoke with barely held anger and disbelief, tossing her forelimbs in the air. “You test my patience over and over. Time is not forever. Even the Black Sun cannot hold the Wheel of Time forever. Our cyclical existence will come to an end, eventually. Even the magic you call Harmony will cease to exist one day. Your insistent arrogance quickens the end. We cannot waste time on pointless flights of fancy.”

“It’s not pointless! It is a hope for a dignified existence! They…” The white alicorn’s voice cracked while her tears dropped on her halo of marigolds. Her stare turned to the other alicorns and the congregated ponies. Their creation, watching the scene, powerless to do anything, grouped together as ponies do in fear. In between, Twilight and her friends silently and thoughtfully watched her, even if she didn’t know they were there. The poignant stare straight at her drew a gasp from Twilight. “They mercifully don’t remember.”

Her pained frown twisted into a scowl of righteous fury and unrestrained sorrow while words caught in her throat and sobs escaped instead. “The pain of talons ripping apart the flesh. The dread of screeching griffons and the powerless, cold surrender of death. I hate you. Even if they don’t remember, I hate you and I will hate you until the end of time. We will make it a better world even if we must take a million cycles. All the pain and sorrow will be worth it if we rid the world of the horror you wrought upon Creation. You monster. Vile, devouring monster, hiding hubris behind sympathy when you feel in control. You are not in control. I am not. All that has happened was ordained by Harmony, and it will not let us fail.”

“You fool! Do you believe the clouds will part and the answers to your problems will come down from the sky?!”

A soft chime filled the air. The clouds parted and sunbeams rained on the grass. Flowers emerged from between the emerald blades in response. Puffy dahlias of every color in the rainbow sprouted and exploded in a vibrant show of color. An alicorn glided down from between the clouds and landed in their midst, obfuscated by the light. As it faded, another great pony with wings and a horn stood among the flowers.

Twilight herself was staring and finding it hard to believe. The creature lacked nothing to the others in majesty and awe, but her white coat shimmered with a purple pearlescent sheen. Her rainbow mane flowed with the same grace as that of her sister alicorns, but had distinct shades of pale lavender, buttery yellow, cheery pink, a strong orange, fair purple, and a bold cyan. And those colors repeated themselves in the diamond-shaped gems at the base of her neck, like she wore a natural necklace of clear precious stones.

“I hate you ponies so much…” The Harpy sighed.

“Hello, everycreature!” The new alicorn greeted them with a cheerful grin and a waving hoof.

The Harpy almost retched while the other three alicorns cheered for their new sister.

“Oh, my stars!” Rarity squealed. “She sounds just like our Twilight!”

“I do not sound that cheesy…” Twilight mumbled in the middle of all the excitement.

“She’s kinda different, though.” Rainbow twisted her mouth.

While the others made similar observations, Twilight refrained from commenting and Day approached the new alicorn. “Hello! Have you come with the solution to our problem?”

“No!” the new alicorn beamed. The following silence filled with a stunned confusion and bewildered blinks before she took a deep breath and, with utmost cheerfulness, declared, “We don’t need to!”

Since nopony else smiled and confused stares surrounded her, she spoke again. “Ah… I do have a way for our little ponies to live with the problem and make the best of it!”

“Joyous!” Celestia clopped her hooves together. “Please, show us!”

“With pleasure!” The new alicorn cheered.

While seated on her bed of dahlias, the alicorn’s horn shone with purple magic, summoning an easel that planted itself firmly on the grass. On it was a large sheet of paper bearing a simple drawing of a happy pony in a grassy field, a smiling sun, and trees in the background. The alicorn herself suddenly sported a purple frock coat and a pair of glasses perched on her muzzle, with a pointing stick floating in her telekinetic grasp. She whipped the stick toward the paper, where bold letters across the top read: Your Ponies and Free-Will, by Friendship.

“Ponies are happiest when they can fulfill their Animus Imperative!” she began brightly.

“Oh, no!” Rainbow trembled at the sight. “It’s a lecture!”

Others shushed her, as the other three alicorns gathered to watch. The Harpy was about as unhappy as Rainbow Dash. “What do you think you are doing?”

Celestia, watching with interest, shushed her too. Friendship cleared her throat and flipped the first page to reveal a new drawing: a stick-figure pony, sitting on the grass and with a miserable frown, surrounded by leafless trees and vaguely angry-looking creatures. Twilight squinted. She thought they were supposed to be griffons, but the drawing was so poor they could have been anything.

“Should anything keep ponies from fulfilling their Animus Imperative, they will grow frustrated…” a worried tone crept into her voice. “Then depressed, and finally delusional.” She gave the group a worried stare before flipping to the next page, which showed a meadow with the three elder alicorns and a herd of ponies—including foals—under a sky with happy sun, moon and heart.

“At the present, the ponies fulfill their Animus Imperative through a cognitive framework built on their biological needs. They experience their needs as emotions,” she said, as though reciting a textbook.

The Harpy raised her paw, prompting the purple shaded alicorn to stop before tuning the next page in her presentation. “Yes?”

“Can you move on to the end so that I can explain why you are wrong? Then we can stop this bothersome waste of time, and I can start again?”

Friendship lidded her eyes and tapped the pointer against the current page, where a crude drawing of a pile of apples showed an angry pony at the top and a sad pony at the bottom. “No,” she said flatly. “The problem arose once ponies became mortal. They realized their time was limited, which made it difficult for them to gather enough resources to pursue their Animus Imperative fully.”

On the next page, two ponies and a pair of foals sat atop a pile of apples. Friendship’s expression grew tense, her tone urgent. “With the creation of closely knit families, this problem has intensified. Ponies begun turning on one another, overwhelmed by their emotional distress!”

The following page displayed a cycle: a happy face, a frowning face, and a crying face, each connecting to the next. Her voice now bordered on frantic. “They cycle between states of inability to fulfill their Animus Imperative. They must sustain nature, but they must also care for their families and ensure their own survival! When they reach psychosis, they grow paranoid, fearing their friends are stealing from them!”

Finally, she dispelled the easel, drawings, and her outfit with a flick of magic. Her wings flared wide, large purple eyes trembling with concern. “Without free will, ponies have no choice but to fulfill their Animus Imperative. Once they forget their creators, they will lose their purpose within Creation as a whole! It led them into disaster and will again!”

“So how do we fix it?!” Luna-of-the-Past urged.

“Like I said… We can’t.” The newest alicorn frowned. “But I have a solution.

Before the Harpy could laugh, the alicorn closed her eyes solemnly and purple magic poured from her horn, enveloping the other alicorns and the griffoness. When Twilight and her friends came to themselves, they were inside the crystal hall from the previous cycle, but it was different. And the first to notice it was Cadance, as she looked up to the ceiling and then down.

“Oh, my gosh! It is like my dream now!”

“Ta-da!” cheered the alicorn of friendship with her wings open in all their glory, standing before the others and her creation.

The hall had moved deeper into the building, at the end of a corridor and opposite to the grand crystal doors of the entrance. Five great, tall doors surrounded the room, with the one in the middle leading downstairs. The other four doors each held the cutie mark of an alicorn princess. Equestria’s Sun, Equestria’s Moon, Cadance’s Crystal Heart, and Twilight Sparkle’s six stars. The murals were gone, and so was the eldritch, magical form of the soul.

The center of the room nestled a small garden from which stood a stout crystal tree. Its six limbs each held a string of crystal threads, like the silk of a spider gathering dew, and each string held a single gem with a color from the rainbow. At the top of the tree sat a stick holding a piece of paper that said ‘Cutie Mark here’.

Love’s complaining interrupted the amazed mumbles. “Hey! There is the Throne of Love?!”

“I’m sorry! I had to move everything behind. This needs to be the cornerstone of their minds, or it will not work!” The newest alicorn said with a sheepish wince before she pointed at the crystal floor with a hoof. “It is all connected, though. Under the floor.”

The other two alicorns examined the tree, and their smiles grew by the minute, as did Twilight’s discomfort. Her mind flooded with information. Like the magic of the soul, the tree was made of an untold number of moving parts. Elegant magic moving energy, examining, regulating. Under the crystal tiles, the different threads connected under the doors. Magical energies flowed fast. So fast a normal pony could not see them. But she could. Pulses of light coming and going, spiraling and dancing inside the tree and behind the doors. If she focused, she could see the individual pieces that made it all work interconnected. A symphony of magic that made up the mind of a pony.

It gave her shivers, and she felt again staring into an abyss too deep for any pony to fathom. The white alicorn, when she spoke with Twilight’s own voice, pulled her back.

“I call this the Harmonic Resonance System.” She waved her hoof grandiosely and greatly irritated Twilight.

“That is not what harmonic resonance means.” Luna promptly voiced Twilight’s grudges for her.

“Well… That is what I called it.”

“You have also put a tree inside their heads.”

“It is not a tree…” The alicorn with the gemstones chuckled nervously. “It is a scale.”

“It looks like a tree…” Cadance-of-the-Past frowned at her.

“It’s a scale that looks like a tree!” Friendship stomped a hoof on the crystal floor. “There are only so many ways a pony can make a six-armed scale!”

“What is it measuring, Friendship?” Celestia walked closer to her, an open wing pointing at the scale.

“Right!” The Twilight in their vision cleared her throat again and inhaled. “I have given them six cardinal directives. Moral guidelines, if you will. I have called them Laugher, Loyalty, Honesty, Kindness, Generosity and Magic.”

“They will shape the personality of a pony and change as their experiences shape their sense of self. They will run their Animus Imperative in the light of these six elements of Harmony which I have chosen to guide our little ponies. Each will weight differently and in weighing differently, change as they learn about the world and their own Animus Imperative.”

“Their varying weight will steer their minds. It will not fix the Mortality Anomaly. It cannot be fixed.” She said, looking up at the six gemstones hanging from the crystal limbs. “But it will give them space to choose. It just works!”

A strange, almost solemn silence trailed after Friendship’s words. The other three alicorns of the past circled around the scale and watched it critically. Twilight and her friends too stared, and the princess could only imagine if the others could see the same as her. With how strangely perception and memories worked inside that vision.

“I’ll be…” Luna-of-the-Past said. A grin slowly took over her muzzle.

Her contemporary Cadance giggled, looking at the scale up and down, while Celestia did a little tap dance of joy.

“Does this satisfy you, Mother Harpy?” Day’s cheerful voice directed Twilight’s attention back to the griffoness.

The life had drained from her face. Her beak hung open, and her eyes shifted. Slowly, a grimace took over her visage as the pristine sheen of her feathers dulled. All her bravado and arrogance fled with the red from her conjunctiva. A trembling paw hovered before her slack beak and her majestic black crest of feathers deflated. The imposing stature and powerful frame of the Queen of Talons were replaced by disbelief and a world-shattering shock.

“I’m not sure I understand.” Twilight’s contemporary Cadance inched closer with a frown.

“Free-will is not something you can decide to add or not.” Twilight spoke, back to staring up at the scale and its eerie similarity to the Tree of Harmony. “It is an emergent characteristic of the mind. It is built, layer upon layer. Ponies needed all that came before, so they would understand that there is a choice. It is not a true free-will, like the Harpy said earlier—that may not exist. But this system gives them enough room to navigate their lives, to find their own way within the structure they’ve been given. Like navigating a maze and finding themselves at the center.”

A distant discomfort she couldn’t fully grasp still hovered above her head. It still felt like something a normal pony shouldn’t gaze upon, but Twilight figured she could not protest. A small nod came with a deep breath. In her airship, she had complained that Cadance was the one graced with a vision of the inside of a pony’s mind. In the end, she smiled. It was knowledge and understanding. And it explained the problem with ponies, but she frowned again. There was still something missing. The puzzle felt incomplete, but, as Discord had also mentioned, and the vision had taught, now they had the substrate to understand what they had set out to understand.

They were back ‘outside’, and the ponies had advanced well in the construction of their homes and of their initial little village. They had even found and roped domesticated animals to their village. Cows, chickens, pigs. Like in the previous cycle, they certainly had found them elsewhere in the forest, brought to life by the ever-growing magic of life in that place.

Seeing that, immediately upon returning, the alicorns started minding their tasks. How they knew what to do, Twilight had only one inkling: some sort of instinct. They busied themselves in preparing the place, not unlike they had done in previous cycles, but ever so cleverer. By ensuring their ponies had the best head start possible while still under their guard. Setting up little trials for their ponies. They taught them nothing new compared to the previous cycle.

Meanwhile, Twilight and the others noticed Shining Armor and Naminé sitting next to each other and glaring at them. She blinked and thought for a second before she let out a chuckle. “Oh. You missed all that, didn’t you?”

“Not funny.” Shining grumbled and Naminé snorted angrily.

“You just missed Twilight solving the problem.” Rainbow said nonchalantly.

“This isn’t fair!” The yellow unicorn whined, and Cadance started explaining, but Applejack cut her off.

“Serves you right. I’d bet a bushel of apples you’d be turning everything into another crazy village full of crazy ponies! It’s too soon for another cuckoo unicorn, for pony’s sake!”

“Excuse me?” Starlight glared at the farm pony.

Naminé barely had the time to gasp her outrage. Cadance was already making excuses for her. “Well, it is thanks to her magic and special talent that we even can witness this, Miss Apple.”

“Guys?” Twilight stopped all the bickering, pointing her hoof at the Harpy.

While the conversation entertained Twilight, the Harpy had never moved from where she was. Her eyes were unfocused, staring at nothing amid the trees at the edge of the meadow. One of the curious ponies waved a hoof in front of her and earned an angry screech before she turned to the white alicorn a few hooves away.

“It is not enough!” the griffoness cried. She stood up and stormed towards the other. “You will fail again, and we are wasting time!”

The alicorns and the ponies within earshot stopped what they were doing and looked at her. Skittish as they were, the ponies cowered, but the white alicorn stood her ground. She turned to face the griffoness and kept an unreadable expression until the fierce predator glared with the intensity of a storm at her.

“No.” Friendship trotted closer, keeping a soft tone in her voice. “I am convinced this should work fine.”

“Why don’t you explain why it won’t work, then?” Luna challenged the Harpy from afar, in front of the scared ponies.

“Fine!” the griffoness tossed her black crest. “Their cognitive processes are… Too feeble. They need more robust neurons. And all that because you made them vegetarian. That they can’t get the nutrients they need. Yes. They’d need a carnivore diet. And you don’t want that, do you?”

“Boo!” Cadance-from-the-past, sitting among a group of young mares, held her hooves before her mouth.

While the other three alicorns exchanged uncomfortable stares, the Harpy spoke again. “It’s not my fault you cannot see this simple and easily identifiable issue. I’ll have my world back now, please.”

“That is kinda… hum…” Pinkie winced.

“Foalish.” Rainbow finished for her with pinned ears.

“I was thinking pathetic, but…”

“Aint nopony likes a sore loser.”

While her friends kept shooting barbed comments among themselves—Twilight understood, the Harpy was not popular—she watched Celestia of the past walking to the griffoness. But before she could say anything, the other received with her a hiss and her crest standing angrily.

“I need no sympathy from you, abomination.”

The white alicorn pony first reacted with a gasp, but then her ears hung limp, and she turned away, busy with her things to do. From there, the Harpy secluded herself to the distant edge of the meadow, almost hiding among the trees. While the others dismissed her as a petty loser, Twilight went to her. All she found was the griffoness lying on the grass, under one of the mighty trees. All she did was sulk and stare murder at the distant ponies. For once, Twilight would like to see what went on inside her head.

Disappointed, Twilight decided that watching the ponies and what came out of Friendship’s ideas was a better use of her time. And a lot was happening. The alicorns busied themselves with what Twilight called fine tuning. Day walked around the ponies who lend themselves to foraging, talking to them about all the bad things the wrong herbs and fruits could do to them.

“Hum. Why do poisonous fruits even exist?” asked a small earth pony, looking up at the majestic white alicorn.

“Well, that is because the fruits don’t grow only to feed you. Ponies will not be the only creatures who eat them. They will spread seeds to other areas and the plants will grow beyond immediate proximity. That said, they don’t want the tiny insects to eat their sap, so they will produce substances to keep them away. Those may become dangerous to others—like ponies.”

Meanwhile, Night sat with a couple of ponies and discussed the intriguing relationship between the length and the radius of a circle, and the inherent structural integrity of the triangle. Love, on the other hoof, gathered ponies inside the already built homes and talked to them about the nitty and gritty of lovemaking which promptly sent Twilight fleeing.

Finally, she found Friendship engrossed with her own project. She trotted among the groups of idling ponies and recruited them to follow her. With them arranged in a semicircle, she magicked an easel (again, Twilight noted with annoyance) holding another presentation. She tapped her stick at the wood, urging ponies to settle down, even as others joined upon seeing that the alicorn wanted to tell them something.

“I’m not actually like this!” Twilight snapped.

Next to her, Pinkie and Rainbow Dash laughed. Starlight Glimmer said ‘well…’ and rolled her eyes.

“Certainly not, darling.” Rarity provided some soothing words. “But you are prone to explaining things. If only because you are so smart.”

“Gee. Thanks Rarity.”

Indifferent to their conversation, the white alicorn with the gemstones showed the ponies a drawing with the outline of six pony heads. Two with horns and another pair with the outlines of the wings behind. More eerily, each pony head had a symbol for an Element of Harmony. And each symbol was the same as the cutie marks on Twilight’s own thighs and those of her friends.

“Oh my,” Rarity said. “I don’t even believe they should know what balloons are.”

“Honestly, with all that we’ve seen, this is not even shocking.” Pinkie deadpanned.

Twilight agreed with a silent nod, but her attention was at what the white alicorn was telling the attentive ponies. Even as more kept coming. “I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that you understand this. All ponies must abide by this pact, but specific elements will assist each tribe in your specific tasks. I have attuned earth ponies to Laughter and Honesty because your work shall be hard, and you must endure the hardship.”

“To the pegasi, I have given the elements of Kindness and Loyalty.” The alicorn kept talking, pointing at her drawings. “Your job is paramount and just as indispensable, but also leverageable. Beware that your control over the clouds may cause you to explore your friends. Loyalty and Kindness will steer you to serve them.”

Finally, she turned to the unicorns. “And the unicorns must be mindful of their friends’ needs and the power of their magic. You will yield an unthinkable power. Let Magic guide in your sacred task of commanding the cycles of life itself in the sun and the moon. Most of all, heed Generosity not to abuse your place.”

“The magic of bureaucracy.” Cadance snorted into her hoof and the others laughed, but Twilight and her deadpan stare didn’t think it was that funny. She, instead, thought it was curious, but not at all surprising, how the ponies paid rapt attention.

“You must promise me not to breach this pact.” Friendship urged. “Earth ponies will feed and fill others with joy. Pegasi will offer the waters of the sky with kindness and loyalty. Unicorns will be generous with their gift of Magic. Once you leave, you will forget this place, and you will forget us. But this must remain with you all the way.”

“You know… That doesn’t sound very fair,” Rainbow complained while Pinkie giggled, and Shining Armor shrugged.

“Wouldn’t that mean that pegasi can’t be farmers? Or something?”

Twilight twisted her mouth. “Discord told us that the elements are not meant as strict law. In fact, if they were, the entire system wouldn’t work. More like guidelines. I imagine she is doing her best, but she probably couldn’t imagine how complex the world has become in our time.”

“Yeah.” Starlight grinned. “The important thing is that they don’t mess up.”

“Please, please, please…” Friendship urged the ponies again. “You must uphold this pact. You must promise me you will.”

In a way that reminded Twilight of her own students, the gathered ponies, many more than she had initially herded to her lecture, responded in a choir of obedient little ponies. “We promise.”

“I made a tiny verse to help you remember.” Friendship gave them an awkward smile. One that didn’t fill Twilight with confidence, or that betrayed her own lack of it. She cleared her throat. “Honesty and Laughter to the earth ponies’ toil. Loyalty and Kindness for pegasi’s gift to the soil. And unicorns, with their Magic, Generously share. Binding us all in Harmony’s care.”

The ponies’ stare remained on her. So focused, Twilight almost worried something was wrong as she repeated the little rhyme, but with more rhythm. Her audience didn’t even blink and their mouths moved silently. Word after word, like her voice had seared them in their minds.

The alicorn still stared at them for a couple of seconds before her ears flopped. “I mean… This is serious. Are you absolutely sure you understand? Because this is so important! You will die!” she cried at them.

“I think they understand, Friendship.” The other white alicorn came closer with a smile.

A gasp escaped Twilight. She blamed the weird flow of time, but the alicorn’s audience had grown from a few dozen into many, many more. All of them seemed to have gathered to listen to her, in fact. Even the other alicorns had joined.

“Quite. I’m convinced we understood it.” Night was lying on her belly in front of the audience, right next to the very perplexed Love.

“It is time, now.” Day spoke softly, easing Friendship’s anxious, raised hoof with her own.

“It appears so,” Night added with a deadpan while standing up. “The big and terrible griffoness sulks in the forest. I believe it is reasonable to say that victory is ours.”

“My little ponies,” Day started. “Rest well tonight. Come dawn, we will start the preparations for this most momentous occasion. Let no anxiety mar your mood.”

Nothing too important happened in the evening. Ponies split into groups of forty-two and started on their preparations. Friends and families grouped together, despite Twilight’s logical side struggling with the idea they had families already, and some mares were bloated with foals. She shook her head at the sight. It seemed little more than a couple of hours had passed.

More important than that, the night arrived when Day and Night unanimously decided it was time. One lowered the sun, and the other brought up the moon, but the dark sky bothered her. Night scrunched her muzzle, and her magic reached for the open geodes where the unicorns had been made. The powerful wave of magic washed over Twilight so suddenly she almost yelped and jumped. A warm wind that passed her and retreated so fast she almost wondered if she had imagined it. A giant swirl of twinkling dust followed Night’s command and rose to the heavens, filling it with its light and keeping company to the lonely moon as the ponies retreated inside their homes.

“Good job, Night.” Day said with a smile before she noticed the other alicorn glaring at the sky, her horn shining and the stars changing places while Night mumbled to herself.

Day left the other alicorn to do as she preferred and retreated into one of the houses like the other alicorns. And then the day arrived. And with it came the purposeful preparations.

Unicorns organized a meeting of the three tribes. They joined their heads in a debate about the specifics of their preparations. The obvious was already being covered: food, shelter, protective garments… The gathering ponies discussed routes with the alicorns, but the world outside the Green Harbor was a chaotic wasteland. There were no routes. They were the trailblazers. Barely discouraged, the unicorns decided they should think about protocols for dealing with emergencies. Most of those were common sense musings, practical ideas and barely anything that required noting down. At the end, the unicorns were confident they could guide their friends across the Chaos to their destinations. All the others knew what to do.

Some ideas, they rejected. Such as when a group should give up and return to the Green Harbor. There would be no coming back. The alicorns explained again they would forget about that place, and that should signal that they were ready, and everything worked as it should.

“Once magic stabilizes, we can no longer exist as we do.” The alicorn of the night told them. “We concentrate too much magic within ourselves, and our presence would damage the quantum fabric of reality. This place too will cease to exist as the new, functional, magic you will shed upon the world will reorganize it. Such is expected, and good. It is necessary for the normal functioning of the world.”

“Fear not. You will not be alone.” The alicorn of the day said before any of the frowning ponies could say anything. “You will have each other, and we will be with you. We will always be a part of you. Even if the Green Harbor will be gone, you will find us inside yourselves and every time you look to the sky.”

As the ponies of the past minced their words, Starlight Glimmer took a hoof to her mouth and turned to Twilight and her friends. “Did you guys notice they call this place Green Harbor, but no one seems to have officially named it?”

Twilight nodded silently among the acknowledging mumbles. That could be because of the weird flow of time in that place and Twilight’s friends had just missed it. Or it could be something even weirder, as they spoke a common language no one had taught them. Even worse was that Twilight and her friends all understood them. She had noticed that before but thought little about it. Twilight chalked it up to the wonkiness of the entire vision, but maybe they had ingrained concepts… Who could say? That was not as important. What was, was that Day and Night had changed the sky for another velvety tapestry of stars gleaming through the gaps in the clouds.

Soon, another day arrived, and they were ready. Multiple groups of forty-two ponies. Fourteen of every tribe, every single one wearing a grass cape. Each group with different combinations of animals, from chicken to cows and pigs on leashes or cages made from twine and twigs. The Harpy? Nowhere to be seen, but Twilight would not leave the momentous occasion to look for her.

Naminé came out—through—the crowd of assembled ponies.

“I can’t find myself!” she complained, more than announced. “I should be here. I was present when the goddesses sent us on our way. I can’t even find anypony I know.”

That probably meant something, but Twilight was not sure of what. She had little time to worry about it. As soon as the ponies gathered, the alicorn of the day waved her wing to get everypony’s attention.

“It is time. We have prepared you as best as we can. Now, it is on you.” Day said with a soft hint of melancholy.

Night put on a brave expression and shot her hoof up at the evening sky. “Prepare thyselves, brave mares and stallions, for the hour is neigh! We shall send thee forth into the world, as Harmony so wills it. Beyond these green trees awaits thy destiny, and through thee, shall Harmony’s radiant reign be made eternal!”

“Night? Uh… Pull it back a touch?” Friendship gave her an awkward grin.

“Please don’t do that again…” Day frowned at her. As she turned to address the ponies, the dark alicorn struck her tongue out at her.

“There is no challenge you are not prepared to face. We have suffered much, but we have earned our place. We have earned our right to exist and to be free. Me and my sisters have done all that we can to prepare you for your task. You may not realize it, but much happened before, and you are the culmination of our efforts. Your task is monumental, but we have brought you up to meet your challenges. You are meant to succeed.”

Bold words from someone whose efforts fell apart three times before a fourth, Twilight thought with a pinch of sarcasm. But she could not disagree that something seemed different this time.

“Don’t feel discouraged if things seem difficult.” The Night picked up after the white alicorn. “There is no challenge you are not prepared to face. Learn. Adapt. Succeed.”

“Hold to your passions.” Love told them before she elbowed at the alicorn of Friendship with a teasing grin. “And whatever that watered-down version of Love she gave you.”

The other rolled her eyes and smiled, but her expression turned worried right after, and she flared her wings with a tentative step forward. “Trust yourselves, and your friends. Keep to our pact…”

Like they were the younger students at Twilight’s school, the assembled rainbow army of ponies recited like a memorized axiom.

Honesty and Laughter to the earth ponies’ toil,
Loyalty and Kindness for pegasi’s gift to the soil,
And unicorns, with their Magic, Generously share,
Binding us all in Harmony’s care.

Satisfied, the alicorn smiled with a nod and stowed her wings. And with all that said, while a few ponies exchanged stares like they understood each other beyond words, the first of the groups started walking. The alicorns took the lead and escorted them to the trees, through the forest and out into the chaotic wasteland.

While the alicorns never left the tree line, they watched as the ponies of the first group of forty-two marched on. They covered cages with cotton cloths and encouraged their cows and pigs out from under the cover of the trees. They looked little more confident than their animals, looking up to the streaks and waves of mismatched colors in the sky. But they soldiered on. Under the rain and through the rocky terrain. Until they stopped when their guide, their leading unicorn, halted and looked at the horizon.

A young beige unicorn with a falling star for cutie mark. After half a minute of consideration, she turned to the left and started walking towards the gap between two mounds in the distance. The others didn’t hesitate and followed. The other groups followed soon, and without delay, a stream of colorful ponies came out of the woods. They became multicolored blobs in the distance. Braving the magical storm and the difficult terrain, spreading in all directions, circling around the Green Harbor if not following other groups for the time being.

“Will they be alright?” Fluttershy asked quietly.

“It’s not over yet. Right?” Rainbow said, pointing a hoof up. “We gotta go up there. Right?”

“It should happen at any moment, I suppose,” Applejack added.

“I can’t find myself!” Naminé interjected, running back at them from the crowd of ponies out of the forest. “I was here… Erm… At this time!”

“Twilight, this feels different from the vision Naminé gave me when we met.” Starlight agreed. “It looks the same, but… Feels off.”

“This isn’t our time. This is the fourth cycle.” Twilight finally said, turning to face them with a frown. “I’m not sure what is going on. I assume this is the cycle that first succeeded, but it is not the one we lived our lives. It was a few cycles after this one. Princess Celestia, our Celestia, told us as much in the dinner.”

Twilight nodded, finding it all oddly reasonable, if bogglingly confusing. A sequence of cycles folding on one another. “Princess Celestia told us there were cycles before ours—ones where creation failed. The ones we witnessed. This one, when it all finally worked, but something caused it to fail later on, and time reset. There were even others before our cycle. Celestia used this cycle as the foundation for the story we’ve been told about our own past to cover for the existence of the Griffon Empire in our cycle. I think we are in the last cycle, after a sequence of cycles that should have succeeded and continued onward, but failed for reasons we don’t know yet.”

Naminé craned her head in a silent gasp. “It was my birth, my creation. It marks the cycle where we live. Everything happened the same after it worked for the first time. It kept repeating and repeating until the cycle when I was born.”

“And the differences between what we believed about our past, and the things Princess Celestia tried to hide, are the consequences of Naminé’s creation.” Shining Armor frowned and grimaced. “Is that right?”

“But why did the cycles fail later on, if they had worked out?” Rainbow asked.

“Maybe there was something that needed tweaking later on?” Pinkie suggested.

As they talked, ponies and more ponies walked out of the forest. Only when the last had left, as if on cue, the four alicorns of the past gasped. The alicorn of the day looked at her hoof with a sad frown just as her leg unfurled itself into motes of magic. Little dots, bright tiny suns of magic becoming free and vanishing, like the flowers that followed her, withering and washing away.

“Our job is not done yet,” Night said, maybe more to herself than the others. “One might say it truly begins now. We shall integrate into their minds and help them along in the next steps. Responsibility over the heavens will pass along to them, as will all that we represent. We will not see each other again.”

“Will it hurt?” Love asked.

The other white alicorn, Friendship, was more curious than sad, watching the feathers in her wings undo themselves. “I hope we can see each other again.”

Everything froze in place. From the blades of grass in the harsh, chaotic weather to the motes of magic and flowers that turned to ash. The sadness in the day’s alicorn, the curiosity in the alicorn of friendship, froze in their faces.

***

Naminé’s cave replaced the primeval world. Awakened with a startle, shocked ponies stood from their haunches with jumps and gasps. Pops and bangs filled the air and two of Naminé’s ponies rushed toward them from the cramped entrance.

“What? Is that musketfire?” Shining Armor shook the drowsiness off his eyes.

“What in the hay is going on?!” Rainbow jumped and hovered in the air.

“They found us!” Naminé’s pony screamed. “The entire Local Militia must be here!”

While Naminé still struggled to orient her senses and the others yelled questions back and forth, Fluttershy’s scream made all of them look at her. Twilight was still asleep. Although it would be better said that she was unconscious and that her body convulsed violently like a terrible dream pulled the strings of a marionette.