Twilight dropped the book she held in her magic, her face full of shock at the news she just received. “He was taken by the Lunarians…” she repeated quietly, a few tears flowing on her face.

“Yes, he was,” Phos lied to the alicorn. “They took us by surprise over the southern beach. He got broken and tried to fight without his wing,” he explained, fake pain in his voice. “I-I’m sorry Princess. If I had reacted quicker I could have saved him…”

The Princess shook her head. “No Phos, it’s my fault, I should have come out with you two since it was sunny outside. I should have insisted, but he wanted me to stay inside in case the voices came back,” she lamented.

Phos took the last piece of Antarc that he had saved. “Here, I didn’t let them get away with everything. If only I was stronger,” cursed Phos, in an attempt to sound more convincing. The sad reality for him was that he really hadn’t felt anything since the tree. The voice in his head had helped him somehow but it also took something. Phos didn’t care about what, though he did feel different, or maybe he didn’t feel as much? Who knew?

Twilight took on the flank piece with her magic and held it close to her. “His cutie mark…” she said, before she started sobbing and cursing to herself.

Phos and the Princess stayed in the main room, by themselves, without anyone capable of distracting them, for some time. Phos watched silently as the Princess mourned the loss of Antarcticite.

“I have to take care of him,” announced the alicorn after some time, her eyes swollen and red. “I want you to stay here, Phos. Come out only if the screams start again. I have to be alone for a moment,” she requested, not expecting any answer.

Phos simply nodded, and watched as the Princess left the Great Oak in direction of the eastern ravine. Back to your secrets, Phosphophyllite thought, bitter and distrustful.

Life without Antarcticite was harder in every way. The Princess suddenly became more strict about everything Phos did. Likely out of worry, she decided to always be with Phos, except at night, when the latter would go back to the crystal tree, observing it each night. Cinnabar was also there. This fact alone troubled Phos a lot. How did he know? Why was he sleeping there of all places? How many others knew?

Phos remembered that even though the sunlight reflected inside the crystal cave where the tree was, Cinnabar wasn’t woken up by it. Maybe something else absorbed the energy? There just weren't enough answers to satisfy Phos’ questions as they piled up.

Winter was coming to an end, and as the snow started to melt and the days got longer, so did the weather become sunnier. Each day in the sun was a possible Lunarian attack coming. Phos stopped fearing them, however. With his new found magic, he could crush them like he’d crushed Antarc. He couldn’t, however, display his raw power in front of the Princess, nor any kind of magic in fact. Twilight still didn’t know about his recently awakened powers. She hadn’t even acknowledged his new cutie mark. The broken star on his flank barely visible as the silver seamlessly blended into the white powder that covered Phos’ body.

Its meaning also was unknown to Phos. Despite looking into several books about cutie marks, he just learned that most cutie marks had a simple meaning and more complex ones were the exception. The most likely meaning of his cutie mark was magic. According to one of the books he’d read, stars represented magic in general. Twilight had her own cutie mark shaped like a big star surrounded by five smaller ones, so this interpretation made sense. But why was his broken?

For now, Phos couldn’t afford to waste any Princess-free time. At the end of winter, he would not be able to stay awake at night, and during daytime there would be too many other gems around for him to practice magic or look for clues about the crystal tree. The obvious course of action was to look into the Princess’ personal book collections. She kept lots of books outside of the reach of the gems in her office and Phos remembered seeing books in the basement too. The latter was simple to reach, as every night the Princess would go to her chamber to sleep, and Phos now had access to the forbidden area in case of sinners' cries.

The basement was unlit, as always. Fortunately, Phos could now do a simple light spell to illuminate the room. It was exactly as he remembers it, the book shelves had been cleaned but their content was untouched. The fireplace still looked unused, not like there was any chimney anyway, and starting a fire in a tree didn’t seem like a great idea either. The six chairs by the fireplace also hadn’t moved at all. Phos could feel some sort of magic on them, as if they were protected by an enchantment. On the chair Twilight had sat the last time they’d visited, a familiar book rested. A single horned pony head, with a single cyan eye on its almost destroyed cover. Why not start with this then?

Few things of value were learned, most of the book was damaged by time, and even turning the pages was painfully dangerous to the entire book despite the numerous preserving enchantments on it. What was readable, however, was very interesting. The book was about six friends who had some sort of adventures in the old world. Most of the text was faded, making reading it almost impossible. Despite that, Phos did manage to learn about the things that had helped those six friends to protect their world.

The book called them the elements of harmony, sometimes referring to the six ponies, and sometimes referred to them as gems. They grew out of a crystal tree not unlike the one Phos saw in the cave. The difference being this one didn’t have a full crystal cave nor strange ponies made of crystal around it. Finally, on the last page of the book sat a very detailed painting of the Princess surrounded by five ponies smaller than herself. One of the pony, with messy pink hair and a lighter pink coat, seemed familiar to Phos. Where did I see this pony? He thought to himself. Wherever he’d seen it didn’t really matter for now; dawn would come soon and he could just come back the next night anyway. There was still about a week before they would wake the other gems up.

Phos put the book down and spent the last few hours looking for anything else of interest. He did find a list of names he recognised, along with some observations about each of the gems, not unlike the reports he used to do.

Cinnabar: He was lonely at first but now that he has opened up and made some friends, he began showing his caring nature. Possibly Kindness His loyalty to Heliodor is impressive and it can’t be a coincidence, I’ll know for sure when he gets his cutie mark.

Heliodor: Incredible fighter, he immediately showed attachment to Cinnabar and helped him integrate. He and Cinnabar have some sort of relation close to romantic. Unfortunately, he had to sacrifice himself to save Cinnabar.

Quartz: His great magic potential is troubling, as if his body ignores the common law of spellcasting, he amplifies any spell he gets his hooves on. His cutie mark however, doesn’t make sense if he was magic. I’ll look into it.

Antarcticite: His honesty almost passes as rudeness, though I do think it’s but a side effect of being alone during winter unfortunately. I’ll try to train to be able to cast the solar spell more than once so another gem may join him and maybe help him.

“Phos! It’s daytime! Where are you?” Interrupted the Princess from the upper floor. Thankfully, Phos had left the door to the basement open so he could hear the outside world. He quickly discarded the paper to the shelf he found it on and made his way outside.

“I’m coming Princess!” He called back as he closed the door to the forbidden basement behind him. He’d be back for its secret eventually.

The seas had started to boil soon after the mountains were leveled. In three groups we separated the ponies, hoping one of them would survive it all.

Twilight sat in a tree-library not unlike the one she had before she became an alicorn. Surrounded by the sum of ponykind’s knowledge. None of the three groups could have taken them anyway. She put up her best enchantment on the place, along with her strongest shielding spells.

She still remembered her coronation all these years ago. The best time of her life. Everything was downhile from then on.

“This may be the end of this era,” she started to say to herself. “But it can still be the beginning of a new, better one. I’ll bring you back everypony. I swear.”

Author's Note

It was hard finding the will to write this, I am not 100% satisfied with it but I'll do better next time. Hope you enjoy.