Author's Note

Apologies for the wait.

Strange Times

Celestia stood in front of a huge, wall-sized mirror. It was sparsely decorated, having no gemstone adornments and only a wooden frame. The only truly notable things about it were its sheer size, enough to cover the entire eastern wall of the room, and the ever-shifting web of cracks that covered it’s surface.

The scene inside the mirror showed a younger Celestia, brushing her not-yet-flowing pink mane. A wave of anxiety hit, her past self’s thoughts and emotions bubbling to the forefront of Celestia’s mind. She focused, not quite ready to be pulled into the illusion.

The mirror in front of her didn’t have a name, having been seized before it was finished. It was built to be a trap, throwing its victims in a labyrinth of their own memories and leaving them unaware that they’d been deceived in the first place. Incomplete as it was, it was only capable of maintaining it’s grip for a limited time before the victim’s psyche broke past the enchantment.

Celestia had found another use for it. Due to the unconventional nature of the enchantment, it could recall with startling accuracy memories that had faded or been distorted over time.

It was for this reason that Celestia had it brought up from the vault and placed into a spare room.

The mirror shattered in front of her, sending shards zipping around the room in a whirlwind of broken glass. A single shard, still showing her memory, froze in front of her. Another shard flew from the whirlwind to slam against it, and then another, and other, until Celestia’s vision was completely engulfed. A sense of vertigo ran through her as she fell into the memory.

A knock on her bedroom door startled Celestia out of her odd reverie. She ignored it, continuing to brush out tangles that no longer existed in an attempt to calm her nerves.

The knocking continued, growing more insistent. Celestia continued to ignore it, switching from brushing her mane to checking her reflection to simply standing in front of the mirror, stewing in anxiety.

“Celestia!” Starswirl’s voice, muffled by the thick wood of her bedroom door, barked.

“Coming!” Celestia replied, forcing herself to sound cheerful instead of terrified.

“Good!” Starswirl flung open the door with his magic, grabbing a startled Celestia and floating her alongside him as he began to march toward the great hall.

“Starswirl!” Celestia kicked ineffectually against his magic for a moment before wrenching herself out with a flash of her horn. “I said I was coming.”

“You said you were coming half an hour ago, too.” Starswirl replied, “And now you’re half an hour late.”

“I’m not late! The sun isn’t supposed to rise for another…” Celestia paused as she checked her internal clock, “Two hours!”

“You’re not just raising the sun, Celestia, you’re making an impression.”

“Isn’t raising the sun alone going to make enough of an impression? Why do I have to stand around doing nothing for two hours?”

“You won’t be doing nothing, you’ll be socializing.” Starswirl said as he opened the door to the great hall and all but shoved Celestia inside.

“Starswi-” Celestia hissed before turning to see that Starswirl had already disappeared. “Bastard.”

“Lady Celestia! I am so excited to see your performance. Also, I must say, you look stunning today.” A unicorn noble… Lord Silver Shine of the Confederated Unicorn Kingdoms, right, winked at her. Lord Shine was a recent widower, his previous wife, Lady Starshine, having died of old age about two months ago, leaving her title and substantial fortune to her much younger husband. “Tell me, will your sister be attending?”

Celestia composed herself quickly, pulling herself into a smile as best she could. She might not like it, but until her position was more secure, she couldn’t afford to offend someone like Lord Silver.

“I’m afraid my sister is too tired from her nightly duties to attend, Lord Silver.”

“A shame. Still, this is quite the event!” Lord Silver continued.

She hadn’t seen Luna for almost a month now. They had both been too busy, Celestia ingratiating herself with nobles and leaders across the continent, and Luna watching over the dreams of the common populace, each of them building up support from whatever avenues it could be gained.

She missed her sister. It felt like they had been seeing less and less of each other ever since Starswirl had started work on unifying the disparate kingdoms of ponykind together. It was a good cause, necessary even, but it was still a strain on her.

“Say, is that Lady Malachite? I’m surprised she’s attending, what with that fiasco at the ball last month.”

Celestia tuned him out as best she could while still appearing to pay attention.

The next two hours were exhausting, full of meaningless gossip and transparent attempts at manipulation. It was almost enough to make her glad when the party was moved outside to see her raise the sun.

It wasn’t really necessary; the great hall had windows. Nevertheless, the party was moved to the expansive (and equally unnecessary) front yards of the castle. Several pavilions had been set in a semicircle surrounding a marble dais, engraved with her sun, facing east, with a gap in the middle lined by two columns of royal guard. Celestia suppressed a wince at how long they must have been standing there at full attention.

The guards snapped into a salute as she strode by, perfectly synchronized and very much at odds with the disorganized nobility slowly filling their seats.

Celestia waited a moment for the nobility to settle in their seats before stepping onto the dais, taking the opportunity to try and convince herself that she wasn’t nervous. She had raised the sun before, technically, and it couldn’t be that much harder without Starswirl and the other’s help. She focused, keeping her eyes firmly on the horizon and not the crowd of ponies around her, and reached out to the sun. The world faded out around her as her horn lit up, the boundaries between mind and reality weakening around her. In the distance, she could see a spot of bright light resting below the horizon, waiting to be drawn out by their - no, her power.

There was a moment where she felt nothing but boundless heat as she made the connection. When she had done this before, it had been spread out, diluted among the other unicorns. Now, it was just her, taking the full brunt of the sun’s might. This could kill her, she realized. She had seen what happened to unprepared unicorns who tried to help lift the sun. She was doing this alone.

The heat hit her in a wave, knocking the breath out of her. She tried to inhale, but her lungs wouldn’t cooperate. Her mouth tasted like burning metal. The light around her horn intensified, and Celestia had to clench her eyes shut to protect them.

Light to bright for her to look at, the smell of smoke and burning flesh, screaming-

Celestia couldn’t hear anything over the roar of her blood pumping in her ears. Even with her eyes clenched as hard as she could, all she could see was white.

“Look at me, please, focus on me. You’ll be okay, alright?”

Celestia felt a rush of burning pain at the base of her mane. She thought this was her destiny, that this was what her mark meant, but her mane was burning, she was wrong, she was going to burn-

“You can do this, alright? Just focus on me.”

She had to raise the sun.

Celestia’s legs nearly gave out beneath her. She had to raise the sun. She dropped her head, desperately clinging to threads of magic connecting her to the sun through the burning pain. She had to raise the sun. Every cell in her body screamed as blistering fire engulfed her. She had to raise the sun.

“I love you.”

The pain receded, everything fading but the magic around her. The Sun, as it truly was, hung in front of her, blazing with immortal, primordial light. Threads of it weaved around her, spiralling down her horn and running along her outstretched wings. Her mark pulsed once with the same light, and the Sun responded with a pulse of its own, bright and glorious. The threads of light thrummed and tightened, entwining with her soul and binding her to the Sun.

Celestia opened her eyes.

Her heartbeat drummed in her veins, each beat filling her with light and warmth. Fire of every colour spiralled around her. With a thought, the fire dimmed, letting her see the night sky. She pulled, and the Sun responded, rising above the horizon in a halo of golden clouds.

She turned around, the Sun still rising behind her. Her audience looked on with wide eyes and open mouths. There was a moment of complete silence as the palace grounds brightened around them. It broke then, shattered by thunderous applause as the Sun rose to its peak in the sky.

The mirror broke, pieces rapidly flying back into their frame. Celestia stumbled, reeling as her memories reasserted themselves. She composed herself, and began to focus on another memory as the shards began to orbit her again.

Twilight’s magic snapped, and the Amulet fell to her desk with a clatter. The unpleasant fuzzy feeling of magical feedback crawled down her horn, coupled with lavender sparks spilling down onto her face.

For the last decade, Twilight had never botched a spell badly enough to trigger feedback. She had been precise, measured, and above all careful every time she had performed a spell with that specific danger.

Today she had done so eleven times. On the same spell.

Thankfully, working with the Amulet provided the advantage of having excess mana drained before any of the nastier effects of feedback could assert themselves.

Not to you, at least.

“So you feel the effects then?” Twilight questioned. The Amulet remained silent. It was frustratingly tight-lipped (tight-minded?) about how it’s more esoteric properties functioned.

Which is why you are casting this spell.

Again, Twilight lifted the Amulet, focusing on the core knot of magic at its center. The spell, discovered in the Amulet’s strange ‘library’ of incomplete magic, was designed to temporarily unweave an enchantment so that it’s individual components could be studied. It was utterly unique, unlike any other spell Twilight had seen, employing methods of spellweaving in ways she had never seen before. It would be an incredible opportunity for study on its own, even without the Amulet.

If she could figure out how to cast it, that is.

Again, magical energy began to coalesce, preparing to briefly pull apart the enchantment of the Amulet. Lavender light weaved through the air, spiraling from Twilight’s horn to create a complex web around the Amulet. Once finished, the ethereal lines began to grow steadily brighter as the spell was filled with more and more mana. One of the lines began to distort, twisting in sharp angles.

Control it.

Twilight focused on the line, pulling it back into the correct position. Unfortunately, while she focused on the one, three others began to distort. When she refocused on the new breakages, the one she had just fixed began to distort again. She rapidly lost control of the spell, lines twisting and fading until there was a harsh snapping sound. Her head was knocked back by the force of the feedback and a fresh deluge of lavender sparks spilled from her horn.
Before anything else could happen, the Amulet flared a bright crimson, draining the excess mana from the room. It fell back to the table at the same time that Twilight’s head did, making it bounce from the impact.

Twilight groaned in frustration, trying to will away her growing headache. She wasn’t sure if it was the feedback or the exertion.

“This is impossible. There’s too much to focus on, too much instability. No unicorn could cast this!”

Correct.

“What? Why am I trying to cast it if it’s impossible?”

You are not a unicorn.

Twilight’s head shot up.

“This is a spell for alicorns?” she blurted. Hundreds of questions immediately flooded to the front of her mind. Who had designed it? When was it made? Has it ever been cast?

I cannot answer you.

Twilight stifled a growl. Again, the Amulet dangled a tantalizing piece of information right in front of her before snatching it away.

The spell, Twilight.

She hesitated. If this was a spell for alicorns, would she even be able to cast it?

You are an alicorn.

She was born a unicorn. She still felt like a unicorn, most of the time. What difference was there? She had wings, but she hadn’t grown taller, hadn’t gained an ethereal mane like Celestia and Luna.

There is a difference. You are changed, you simply have not realized it.

What in the world did that mean?

The spell, Twilight.

“Right.” Twilight muttered, focusing for a thirteenth time on the Amulet. Once again, tendrils of magical light weaved from her horn around the Amulet. They grew brighter, and several began to distort almost immediately.

Control the spell. Do not let it waver.

Twilight turned her focus to one of the sharply twisting lines, but before she could fix it another line snapped. Twilight sharply refocused, and with an effort of will the broken line reformed before the spell failed completely.

This was the problem. She had to divide her attention to control individual lines, while letting the others warp. She had to juggle multiple, almost failing component spells for long enough for them to activate.

Two more lines snapped. Twilight almost retreated from the spell, but stopped. This was a spell for alicorns. There wasn’t much time for extraneous thought. Twilight grasped for control of both of the broken tendrils, willing for them to reform. Sweat beaded on her forehead as the spell stilled, ready to shatter at any moment.

Slowly, the broken lines started to reform, connections fading in. Twilight shuddered, the stress of holding two component spells at once manifesting as a growing headache. Another snapped, and without hesitation she seized it, too. The spell flared, and Twilight was forced to brace every component at once to avoid total failure.

The Amulet glowed a deep, intense red. The spell tightened, tendrils of magic weaving together into a single beam. Intricate patterns exploded from the Amulet, each bordered by an intense lavender. Twilight’s eyes were screwed shut, every ounce of attention in her body focused on maintaining the spell.

The strain grew as the spell wound deeper inside the Amulet, pulling it apart piece by piece until it reached the center, where-

There was something surreal about the peaks of the Canterlot mountains. The nearly blinding sunlight and freezing cold created a paradoxical atmosphere, only heightened by the pervading, eerie silence. Starlight felt a sense of trespass, as if she were desecrating some sacred place by treading here. Even Princess Luna seemed cowed by the place, having taken to flying silently a few minutes earlier.

They were following an old trail, only marked by the occasional worn statue. It was the oldest lead they had followed yet, dating back to before Canterlot had been first settled.

Starlight was focused on breathing into her hooves in a futile attempt to stay warm when she lost track of Luna. She glanced around herself, expecting to see that the Princess had simply lagged behind for a moment, only to find herself completely alone.

“Princess?” She called out, voice echoing over the vast expanse of white. There was no response. Starlight began to look more urgently. “Princess?” They were near the top of the mountain. There was nothing but fields of snow for miles around her. There was nowhere for Luna to have disappeared to. “Princess!”

Starlight nearly had a heart attack when Luna appeared out of thin air right beside her.

“Starlight, I’m right here.” Luna stated, confused.

“Where-” and then Starlight saw.

Soaring gates flowed from towering walls, woven from millions of threads of pale metal. The threads moved, twisting and changing, sending patterns of rainbow light dancing across the snow.

Luna waited for a moment before asking “You couldn’t see this?”

“No, not at all. This is incredible!” Starlight prodded the gate with her magic, watching as the threads twisted the cyan light into minute, intricate patterns. “How long has this been here?”

“I have no idea.” Luna motioned towards the entrance. “It gets stranger. Come inside.”

The air inside was warm and humid, a stark contrast from the frigid mountain outside. Starlight's hooves clicked as she stepped through the gate, and looking down, she saw that the pathway in was paved the same pale metal the woven walls were made of.

The remains of an enormous fountain laid in the center of a break in the path, still trickling water from the jagged remains of a pipe. The basin the water should have landed in was split in two, the two halves lying covered in creeping vines, each nearly twice as tall as Luna.

It was the most intact piece of construction Starlight could see. What once must have been spiraling towers of spun gold were toppled and melted in the distance. There were statues of alicorns standing half obliterated every few meters. The path itself only remained intact at the entrance, jutting spikes of stone and massive sinkholes having consumed the rest.

“What happened here?” Starlight asked in a horrified whisper.

“I do not know. It was obviously magical, but I cannot imagine the amount of power it would take to destroy a whole city like this.” Luna replied.

Something crunched under Starlight's hoof. She looked down.

A unicorn’s skull grinned up at her, a hole where it’s left eye socket should have been, courtesy of Starlight's hoof.

Starlight suppressed a scream, carefully removing her hoof from the skull.

She had to suppress another when Luna’s magic plucked it up from the ground for inspection.

The skull turned in her grip, letting her examine every angle. “Is there more, or was it just the skull?”

“What, you, no, it-” Starlight stammered, taking a quick look around herself, “Just the skull, what are you-”

Luna’s horn lit up as a dozen spectral blue arrows shot from it, each following a different path through the ruins.

Luna grinned, much to Starlight’s dismay. “I think we have found our lead. The Amulet's magical signature is everywhere here.”

Starlight paled. Luna gave her a questioning look. “The Amulet did this?” Luna nodded, still confused. “The Amulet that Twilight has right now?”

“I’m certain Twilight is taking every precaution-” Luna started, before she was interrupted by a stricken-looking Starlight.

“I need to get back to Ponyville, right now.” Luna opened her mouth to object, but Starlight was already gone.