There was always somebody following Celestia. One could call it near obligatory, but Celestia was royalty- By kingdom law it was obligatory. Just when she thought she had escaped her everpresent companions on the way back to her room, she happened to run into a guard all too happy to fall in line next to her and immediately begin offering up his services.
"Your Majesty! Where do you need to be escorted?" The guard barked.
Celestia shut her eyes, putting on a pleasant smile. "I am simply returning to my quarters. You may be at ease, my little pony." She kindly answered, not slowing her pace.
"Unthinkable." The escort responded, struggling to keep up with the princess' much longer legs. "My post must always be with you. I will ensure your rest is unmolested."
"I thank you, but... That is not necessary. I do not wish to be in the company of anybody, even through closed doors." The Princess insisted.
The guard seemed to falter, put off by a command violating his core tenants. "Your majesty..." He began.
Celestia put hammer down. "My little pony." The imposing princess turned, looking down at her escort with a commandingly straight face. "You are to return to your quarters. You are to tell the Day Guard that I do not wish to be disturbed for the remainder of today. Should you follow these instructions, you will be rewarded handsomely. Do you understand?"
The guard paused, wiltering under a millennia-honed eye, before nodding solemnly. "Very well, your majesty. I believe you can protect yourself."
Celestia's warm smile returned. "I thank you."
The two parted ways, and Celestia sighed as she finally reached her private quarters, while the Guard spontaneously received an excellent fanfiction idea. "Our love must not be disturbed!" Cried the Solar Princess as she cast away the judging eyes, desperate for a night of passion with her subject...
In the real Princess' room, preparations were being made for a very strange ritual indeed.
Her doors were locked, by every normal means and quite a few abnormal ones, before Celestia removed all pillows from her grand beds and set them on the floor. She took her seat on the impromptu pillow pile crosslegged (A difficult pose for an equine), and levitated over a blank scroll, quill, and inkwell. In the modern era, many new improvements had been made on the art of calligraphy, but Celestia was nothing if not a sucker for formality and permanence.
Quill to ink, pen to paper.
She wrote small in the very top right, leaving as much room as she possibly could. Then she set the scroll in front of the pillows on the hard floor. Now, the hard part. Celestia took a breath, lifting her chin to the air and shutting her eyes.
Her heartbeat calmed.
All auditory disturbances had been removed from the room.
Her head ebbed and lulled.
She felt as if she was falling asleep, drifting out of her own body...
Awake.
Her eyes shot open in a wave of sparks, many of which landed threateningly on the beanbag chair. Her lips peeled back, revealing a new set of yellowing fangs, and she snarled with a huff of blazing hot air from her flared nostrils. Like a wild animal she rose onto her haunches and scrambled for purchase on the pillows, leaping off and spreading her wings. Her entire fur coat was curling, turning a buttery yellow from the intense heat she was putting off, threatening to burn off completely as she flew like a shot towards her own bed and latched onto the frame with her teeth. The wood chipped and snapped as she whipped her head back and forth, finally tearing off the leg and moving onto the sheets. Midway through her tantrum she froze, head perking up and shooting towards the door. Escape!
The only trace of Celestia was her vibrantly multicolored hair floating like a body of water, and even that was quickly corrupted by flame, spreading through it like a disease and turning it into a plume of orange struggling to keep up with her head as she flew for the door. She slammed into it and threw her entire body again and again into the frame in a wild attempt to break the charms that had been put on it. When that did not work, rage siphoned her wit and she fluttered through the room like a caged moth trying to break free of a bottle.
After several minutes of this she began to calm, still snarling and sparking but undeniably catching her breath when she found nothing substantial to take her anger out on. Her nose twitched and she looked back to where she had started, noticing for the first time the note with her own scent on it lying on the ground.
Daybreaker slunk back, poised low to inspect the note with narrowed eyes.
I'm the only one who can enchant against myself. It read in impeccable calligraphy. You're not getting out. Now talk to me. I know you're an intelligent creature. Tell me what you want.
Daybreaker's magic was much more volatile than Celestia's, despite coming from the same horn. It fizzled and cracked as she lifted the pen, snapping it in two and writing with the still dripping end. All the same- At the end of the sentence the rest of the quill caught fire and turned to ash this close to an enraged Sun God.
I want out. I want out I want out I want out I want out
Celestia woke up. She didn't know how long she had been out, but Daybreaker clearly hadn't relinquished control easily- the room was in tatters, and several small fires still blazed, including the one at the end of her rear she quickly sat down to put out.
Celestia took a deep breath, running a hoof through her hair to stabilize its wild motions. She would need heavy grooming by the time this was done, but it looked like she had gotten some modicum of success- sure enough, the note had been written on. Rambled on, more like, filled front to back with the same sentence in paper-tearing letters, but this is why she had brought extras.
Celestia fetched a replacement quill. She would get through to her other half if it damn well killed her.
I understand you want out. I don't like imprisoning you. But you're a danger to me, to yourself, and to my subjects.
I Ccan't move. I can't think I can't talk I can't I can't
Let's calm down. Steady your quill- I'm giving you this chance to defend yourself because you deserve the same chance every pony does. I want to help you.
I don't want your help.
Frankly, you don't have a choice. Who else knows you exist?
Your sister. She knows what that blasted Nightmare does to ponies.
I don't want her to have to put up with another one of her own creations. She's guilt ridden enough as it is. This is my problem to s
Celestia tore the paper up, starting a new one. Must choose her words carefully.
I don't want her to have to put up with another one of her own creations. She's guilt ridden enough as it is. You're my responsibility.
I'd slit our own throat if we weren't immortal.
Bless our mother above for that. I can think of a healthier outlet than that. I want you to have the same freedoms I do, but I don't know if I can trust you.
You can't. If there's a way to make you hurt, I'll find it.
You can't defeat me by pulling other ponies into this conflict. I'm sorry for what I've made you become. I remember Nightmare Moon all too well, and the idea that I could have turned into someone like her is an idea that my entire kingdom once lived in fear of, in those years when the Nightmare wasn't just a fairy tale character but a very real threat. I let them rub off on me, and when I found out I had been infected in a similar way I did everything in my power to repress you. I didn't see I was making my own monster, doing the same thing to myself I had done to my sister. But I know you can be someone different. This is my olive branch, and I can only pray you take it.
When she returned, no response had come.
Passing control almost completely nyxed Celestia out of existence, but felt very much like going to sleep. Giving- not losing, but giving- that complete control to someone as uncontrollable as Daybreaker was the biggest show of trust she could imagine. But when Celestia tried to fade back into that sleep, tried with all her might to slip into zen and hand control to the creature that normally spent all hours fighting for existence, she found for once it was silent.
The sun was lowered from her bedroom that night.
Day Court the next day was cancelled, as well as the next day after that. For two days Celestia remained vigil in her bedroom, holding only curt conversations with those who checked up on her save reassurances to Luna. She read her personal library of poetry and ate the food she was brought, but for two days straight refused to even entertain the thought of leaving her post.
And she waited.
'Robins will wear their feathery fire'
'Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;'
Celestia fell asleep on the third night with the poetry book gently lying on her barrel. When she woke, a neat note had been scribbled into the margin above the excerpt she had fallen asleep on.
I regret to say I believe you.
Any progress was progress. Celestia quickly fetched a quill from her bedside, still dripping ink.
I need to know I can trust you. You are still a princess, and a princess' word is gospel.
Luna once swore she would never betray the Crown.
You are not Luna.
Daybreaker slowly exhaled when she read those words, calmly bringing quill to paper. Her magic no longer sparked, but flowed.
Then I swear, by my name and yours, if you give me my freedom I will not use it to put any of our subjects in danger.
The mind of an Alicorn opens infinitely inwards, capable of thought leagues beyond the most intelligent mortal. Few beings in existence could claim to be as old as Celestia and few had seen just as much as she had, as voracious for knowledge as she had been as a filly. Deep within her psyche, roots stretched and latched onto her thoughts with such an iron grip it had long since become a part of her. The parasite fed on her emotions, feasting and burrowing further and further over its long lifespan, until grinding to a halt...
The Nightmare dislodged itself, moving for the first time in centuries. It tore away, and miraculously accomplished something which Luna's own had never.
Nightmare Moon was defeated through force and magic ripping it asunder.
Daybreaker was defeated through a realization so crushing it could only declare checkmate- It had gluttoned too much.
It was now a pony.
Daybreaker certainly didn't feel more civilized, but she at least wanted to look the part.
"I don't believe it, Miss. You're a spot-on match for Her Majesty's dimensions."
The Nightmare spawn still exuded a heavy aura of humid heat that gave her a golden glow in the dark, but she was calm enough now to wear cloth without fear of it catching fire, and intended to take advantage as such. When night fell, her first act as an official citizen of reality was to find an outfit- there was no need for disguise, now that she owned a body of her own. She had more personal reasons for this choice.
"I'm inclined to believe it." Daybreaker mused. Her voice was deep and grumbling, but twinged with amusement. It had been a long time since she had spoken words rather than snarled, but her vocabulary was still Celestia's- She did not intend to be an animal anymore.
Daybreaker had never been able to 'break out' per se anywhere but in Celestia's own quarters when she could let her guard down, a trend which forever confused the poor maids who had to wonder how Celestia constantly set fire to her bed sheets (Many a rumor had started around this, most of which involved her genitalia in some unflattering way). Seeing the outside for the first time, passing under lamps across the dark streets of an unknown city on the way to the nearest Rarity For You chain felt... peaceful. She didn't know where she was, but Canterlot Castle was barely a blip in the distance behind her, and that satisfied her.
The mare working early morning's first shift wiped sweat from her brow as she helped Daybreaker fit on her suit, one using the princess' dimensions but- Something Daybreaker had heavily stressed- Of a make and fabric entirely unique. White with gold trimmings- not the most creative, but something her.
Daybreaker's lip vacantly twinged as she stared ahead patiently. Poems, art, music... there was so much she wanted to try, and that she had only been exposed to through Celestia's bedroom. The world outside held more than cake and queen sized beds, she was sure of it.
Daybreaker and Celestia stared at each other in disbelief, neither quite sure of what had just happened. For creatures of their ilk, disbelief at all was rare.
"I'm free." Daybreaker looked down over her body, a near identical copy of Celestia's save the singed coat, predatorial features, and plume of impossible fire that sprouted from her scalp.
And Celestia looked at herself, and saw through a songbird through the visage of a hawk.
"I want you to leave this place and never come back." Celestia replied, parsing her confusing thoughts into words with the skill of a diplomat. "You deserve it."
"Miss?"
Daybreaker started, barely holding her flames down as she turned to the pony crouched at her side, fitting her suit. "Yes?"
"Sorry, I didn't mean to bother you!" The pony stammered, clearly intimidated. "I just... you're an Alicorn. I-I didn't know there was a... fifth? Sixth?"
"Be at ease." Daybreaker assured. "I am.. not from here. Let us leave it at that."
The pony warily watched her toothy smile as she worked. "Those are... some fangs. You part Diamond Dog or something, miss?"
"I haven't the foggiest clue what I am." She amusedly noted. "I look forward to finding out." She turned back to the pony. "After all, I seem to have quite a bit of time on my hooves."
Daybreaker perched on the windowsill, hooves stabilizing herself on the frame as she breathed in the cool night air. Her nostrils twitched.
From hatred of her host she had been born. Going into that hatred, it seemed, would not be her fate.
"I will not forget this fast." Daybreaker craned her head back to Celestia's bedroom. "Maybe you couldn't save Luna. But as far as I'm concerned, you're even. Maybe you'll take that to heart more if it comes from yourself."
Celestia broke her gaze, turning away.
The seamstress stood up with a breath. "Well, your suit is complete. Wool seemed best for someone of your... physical attributes. Nearly completely fireproof, assuming its not pushed too far. May I ask what you intend to use it for?"
Daybreaker raised an eyebrow inquisitively. "I supposed I would wear it."
The seamstress laughed unsurely as Daybreaker stepped off her podium and withdrew from Hammerspace a sizable bag of coins, levitating it to the worker.
"Thank you for your service. I hope we see you again soon, Miss...?"
The ex-parasite didn't think she could say much else that would soothe Celestia's doubts. Until recently, those doubts had been the Nightmare's only diet.
"You are loved more than you know." Celestia's other half admitted, slit eyes turned low.
And she took flight.
The alicorn nodded politely at the seamstress. "Daybreaker. You may call me Daybreaker."
Once, it would have taken a declaration of war to remove Celestia from the country she ruled. Now, it was a rumor.
The ex-princess sipped calmly from her cup, carved of some manner of tin. "So you know who I am, then?"
Her host nodded, shifting in his seat. "Sure I do. Yer the face on all the coins."
He dug a paw into the baggy brown pants he wore, fishing out a few dull gold coins and dumping them onto the table. On each was an artistic representation of her stoic face, mane flowing in a very flattering wind. It humored her that even here, nearly on the other side of the planet from home, she still couldn't outrun her reputation.
"A lotta stuff from Equestria ends up over here. Trading and dealing holdovers, or just bits and bobs shared between friends. We always know its from Equestria, because its got yer name and face on em. Did, anyway. The newer stuff has a different little pony on them." The Diamond Dog tapped a claw on the table idly. "Purple one. Younger lookin. Ye give it up?"
"To someone I could trust." Celestia nodded respectfully.
"Heh. Good lass. If I had a kingdom, I'd run the damn thing into the ground."
The Diamond Dog, Jones, was the first sign of sapient life she'd met on the foreign shores. He lived holed up in a shack near the sea among beached ships, in seemingly willing isolation. He was an old hound, fur greying around his muzzle and eyes, but he still held soulful brown eyes in his wrinkled and drooping face. He had gladly taken Celestia in after her long overseas flight for a night, giving her directions and small talk before she continued on the next leg of her journey.
"Tell me, Jones." Celestia inquired. "When I go further into the jungle, where the Dogs coalesce, how will I be received?"
"With a strange fascination, I reckon." Jones yawned, clacking his canines together. "And more than a bit of suspicion. None offense to you, personally, course. Just bad past experiences. But once you tell them who yer lookin for it'll, probably click why yer there."
Celestia took another sip from the drink prepared for her, a distinct taste of some foreign herb she didn't recognize.
"Tell me about her."
Jones shrugged. "'Taint like ye might expect from the stories. Nobody thinks she's a god or anything funny like that. They just respect her. Owe her a great deal. 'Sides, there's just something about her, a real charismatic something." He chortled to himself. "She... isn't a god, right?"
Celestia tilted her head noncommittally. "Alien space parasite given pony form."
"Ah. Course. Well, we've all got our problems."
Celestia hummed with a small smile. "Yes, I suppose we do."
"An what's she to you, exactly?" Jones questioned, lifting his thick digit to point at Celestia with the almost comedically small claw embedded at the end. "You don't make her sound like she's all too fun to think about, let alone cross the globe to meet."
Celestia tilted her chin up. "I'm like the dogs, I suppose. I owe her a great deal."
The town wasn't impoverished, but it wasn't the modernity Celestia was quite used to, either. Houses were built from metals and woods crafted by builders, many of which resembled mainland Equestrian architecture closely. The placement of homes and buildings showed a clear care to infrastructure, and even with the absence of certain modern amenities, she watched neighboring dogs engage civilly with each other and children playing with each other in the dirt. A fellow Canterlot citizen may wring their eyes in pity at the poor town of wild-raised animals who had to get by without plumbing or electricity, but she watched with a careful eye and noticed how pleasant the citizens seemed to be.
She herself was regarded with a range of reactions, from curiosity to nervousness and a wide berth. It was clear ponies were rare around here, and she saw in their eyes the familiarness foretold by the old man she had met at the shore, likely a result of the Equestrian property bearing her face.
She stopped one on the road, a grey shorthaired mutt with brown eyes. She couldn't help but notice old scars on her shoulder and stomach. Despite old pains, she had a joviality to her eyes. When she asked where she could find their leader, the dog laughed.
"Looking to enter an imitation contest?"
That one was funny, Celestia had to admit.
"She lives up the hill, but she sees a lot of people every day. You may be waiting for a while."
Celestia told her she would wait as long as she needed to.
She elected not to fly, taking each step up the hill by hoof. It wasn't until she was halfway up the slopes the town was built on, looking out at the distance she had crossed, that she could finally confirm she was where she needed to be. Painted on a stone wall, alongside several murals, was an effigy of a white mare with striking orange eyes. Despite her fearsome appearance, the art portrayed her generously; standing bold, watching the viewer with only a scowl that seemed trademark. All around her the other murals played, as if she watched over them. Celestia admired the chipping paint and how her flames had been captured in shades of mixed orange before moving on.
At the top of the hill, she found her destination; a much larger house, constructed of much finer painted wood. Its roofs were hills apexed with grooved points, and pillars supported the overhangs around the grand front entrance. As she walked up the padded dirt to reach it, she noticed a well trimmed rectangle of grass, in the center of which sat a statue she initially assumed to be of Daybreaker.
Celestia's own kind eyes looked back at her from a marble sheen, smiling like she knew something flesh Celestia did not. The statue had some wear and water damage, implying it had not crossed the ocean here voluntarily, but Celestia highly suspected it had been intended for one of her own country's cities. Clearly it had not made the journey.
She levitated the doors open, stopping politely in front of the two dogs who accosted her.
"I'm here for Daybreaker." She explained calmly. "I'm family."
Celestia was seated at the end of a long table. The other end was empty, waiting patiently to be filled. And occupying both sides of the long refined plank, Dogs of every shape and size talked and feasted. Their plates were loaded with primarily seared flesh, while Celestia's own contained a smorgasbord of various fruits and vegetables.
She was being treated with all the respect she would get in Equestria- as an honored guest of Princess Daybreaker.
Celestia felt her long before she heard or saw her.
The room temperature raised, slowly but surely, and she noticed a trail down the forehead of her nearest neighbor dampening with sweat. Celestia herself showed no bother, waiting patiently as the sound of metal clacking on stone picked up. Then she entered. As soon as she did, the gathered Dogs fell silent and sat up straight in respect.
Celestia admitted to herself she had no reason to be surprised at how little her other half had changed. It had been less than a decade since Daybreaker had fled from the Princess' bedroom window. Celestia herself could live sixty years before a single of her hairs showed signs of growth. The only new aspect of Daybreaker was her suit, muddied and dirtied across time and space. It had once been a fine material, and she thought she recognized a sewn R signifying Rarity For You fabric. The seamstress would be distraught to see it still worn, dashing silks turned to muddy rags that hung over Daybreaker's flawless form.
Daybreaker regarded the Princess with a flat expression, hiding some unknown emotion as the two approached each other again.
"Princess." Was all Daybreaker said, barely bowing in respect. Her voice still rumbled with the sun in her belly, her words sounding like they were forced out a melting speaker bathed in radiation.
"Not for a while now." Celestia refuted. "I'm retired. My protege, Princess Sparkle, has taken the throne."
"I wasn't aware a divine monarchy was something you could retire from." Daybreaker murmured, taking her seat.
"No state of existence is permanent."
"Except ours."
Celestia took note again of the various dogs surrounding them, watching them with professional stoicism. "This is your kingdom, then? As I retired, here you were on another part of the planet, rising to your own power."
Daybreaker levitated over her silverware, and began civilly cutting into the cooked meat before her. "A lot of things have happened since I left you."
"Fill me in. Please."
Daybreaker lifted the meat to her teeth, flashing her sharp fangs. They gripped the morsel at the end of the fork, working her jaw against it to chew gently, with none of the barbarism her maw suggested. Her teeth were yellowed like the dogs around her, but she ate calmly and cleanly. When she had finished chewing her first bite, the dogs around them took it as their sign to continue, chowing down on the served meat silently to let the alicorns talk.
"I left your room." Daybreaker continued without introduction. "I left Canterlot. I wanted a new life, far, far from... you, I suppose. And in Equestria, a life away from you is like a life away from dirt. I finally settled on an option that took me far, far away."
The seas were racked with rocky waves as the roar of a horn split the sky. In the center of the planet's blue belly, a pony vessel of steel bobbed through the storm like a determined wood chip in a river.
And leaning against the railings of that vessel, a tall white alicorn sizzled with the rain evaporating on her fur. Her suit was damp, but dryer than it had any right to be due to her natural heat warding off any stray droplets. Her mane and tail still burned, simmering grumpily and ready to burst out into a firestorm if prompted.
The pony beside her in the yellow raincoat seemed nervous.
"The place is occupied by a few stray packs of Diamond Dogs." He called over the din. "You know what those are?"
"Foggily." Daybreaker grunted.
"Big, mean bastards that looked like Lassie stood up and grabbed a weapon. Ugly as sin, too. We just shoo them off the parts we need, and you'll be working on the building."
Daybreaker nodded slowly, still inset with her permanent grimace.
The pony lifted his hood up to shield off drops and tilted his muzzle up to look at the glowing form next to him. "Why the keenness on picking up a job, missy?"
She reflected on that. Her host had been a ruler, who had never known a day of work for pay in her life. Hours earlier that night, when Daybreaker had finally slowed down from soaring through the air and reflected on what was next, she realized she didn't have many options. An ex-Nightmare Alicorn would be a hard hire.
But she was strong, ten times as strong as any mortal and hundreds of times more resilient. Manual labor seemed the obvious route to go.
"Normalcy." She murmured.
The pony hugged his coat to himself closely. "You don't mind me asking, miss... What... are you?"
"If I'm lucky? A pony."
"A Nightmare and a Pony are nothing alike, I have come to find. A pony is a multicellular, herbivorous species occupying physical space, that must stuff its face multiple times a day and excrete what it cannot absorb just as fast. A creature like that is disgusting to a Nightmare, but it was the body I found myself in." Daybreaker chewed her food thoughtfully. "Imagine sporadically wearing a mask, and suddenly finding you could only wear that mask."
"You seemed pleased that night."
"During my many, many years latched onto you, I consumed a lot out of your head. Beliefs. Comforts. Loves, desires, fears. In the environment of your subconscious I was forced to evolve, and became something that very much resembled you." Daybreaker acknowledged. "Like a cat that grows up in a litter of dogs, I thought myself a pony. And when I was torn out of you, I thought I could join their society."
"And what convinced you you couldn't?"
Daybreaker smiled. "It took a while. I fought hard to secure my place among the Equestrians."
Daybreaker quickly grew a reputation from the laborers she was among.
She was a machine. As soon as she had finished one construction she moved on to the rest. She could complete an entire house's frame in a day. She never bothered with hard hats, and only wore her by-now very grimy suit nobody dared demand she take off. Nothing seemed capable of stopping her, whether it was a wall falling full force on her or a blow to the head.
Like the one that had currently struck her.
She had never seen the elusive dogs her employers had spoken of until now, and as far as first impressions went, she had to admit this was one she could respect.
The punch to her face had tilted her chin away from its deliveryman, and she took a second to recompose before calmly turning to face them. The dog's composure crumpled from the fury it had once embodied, now looking very fearful of this mare who had shrugged off a fist the size of her head. She was a grey shorthaired hound, wearing dirty rags around her chest and waist that seemed to barely hang onto her. Her ears that had stuck up when she charged out of the brush to attack Daybreaker now pinned back against her head in fear. Her small, forward facing eyes were level with Daybreaker's, which would have made her quite tall against a standard pony.
Daybreaker set down the beam she was levitating.
"Good morning." She neutrally regarded her assailant.
At this response the bitch seemed to regain some of her fervor, even if her fist came back held sorely in pain.
"Get off my fucking land." She hissed.
Daybreaker tilted her head curiously. Her face stayed stonily passive.
For a moment neither of them moved. Daybreaker had noticed something that caught her interest- a stray tooth jutting out from her assailant's lower lip. One that tapered to a sharp, fine, meat-rending point.
Then the mutt howled, face clenching in pain and falling to one knee. A bright red spot stuck out of her thigh, at the end of a thin needle.
A pair of ponies with wide brimmed hats protecting their eyes flanked her, ensuring a safe lull to sleep as she began to go out. With her last moments of woozy consciousness before the drug worked its way into her system, she tried to grab at Daybreaker's leg. Then she was sprawled out in a tired, ragged lump of fur in front of the alicorn.
Daybreaker looked at her motionlessly as the other ponies worked to get her up by the arms over their backs.
"Shit, she's big..."
"Hold her there, lets find someplace to hold her..."
"Every other day its getting to be, eventually we're just gonna start..."
The stallion close to Daybreaker looked up, squinting against the light. "...Err... Yes?"
Daybreaker looked back to the house frame she had been working on all day since breakfast. The sun was high in the sky now, indicating mid afternoon. She measured her work against the pathetic body being dragged through the dirt.
Daybreaker cordially straightened her suit.
The house caught on fire, everywhere, all at once.
"...Which made it all the more annoying when it came down."
"How did it happen?"
Daybreaker had a lot to think about in the seat of her employer's office.
Their work had begun at the foot of a great series of rolling hills. She had been told expressly, many times over that pockets of Diamond Dog civilization were small and isolated. The towns and eventual cities they would be building for future Equestrians would fill in the blanks, taming the wild and making it livable for the next generation of ponies.
It was now clear that was not true. She had ventured outside the camps and company grounds they lived on. She had seen the Diamond Dog towns that stretched up the hill. She had seen what would happen to them, clean and out of sight of the workers.
Daybreaker appeared to be on her final straw with the company. Her employer was yelling at her, too unruly, too disrespectful. She didn't pay attention to the words. Instead, she watched the mortal pony's movements. Muscles and bones, shifting under her frail skin.
When Daybreaker's employer opened her mouth to fling spittle, the pyrokinetic alicorn coolly observed her teeth. It was hard to believe such a predatory creature could be herbivorous.
She set her hooves against each other in front of her and watched the mare yell.
She found she did not quite like being subservient.
"We had a disagreement."
"Sir? You might want to take a look at this. Its... about the Dogs."
The underling clutched his papers tight to his chest, waiting patiently at the door to the site overseer's office. The door was slightly ajar. He could hear movement from inside, but so far nobody had answered. Lantern light lit the room from inside, giving it an eerie glow against the dark hallway.
He gulped, anticipating one of his boss' trademark moods as he prodded the door to swing open.
"Sir, I apologize for interrupting you. But this really cannot go overlooked anymore. We keep receiving..."
The room was warm.
Beginning at the door, a choking, stifling warmth.
The light was not from a lantern. The desk was on fire- No, that wasn't quite right. There was a mare in the flame, her body washed with orange tongues furiously snapping and popping with embers.
She looked up, and the underling saw her brilliant orange slit-shaped pupil bore into his soul.
She bared her fangs. They dripped black.
Then she stood, almost cordially, and a rumble came from somewhere in her throat.
"Return to Equestria. Tonight."
The underling stammered, trying to recognize the mush she was standing on top off, pinned to the desk. "The... boat..."
"Swim." She replied.
Daybreaker grinned grimly. "Before the night was over I was the only pony remaining on the land. Before the week was over I was the only pony remaining on the island." Then, thinking it over, she laughed. "'Pony' being used loosely. As I am no longer you, I am no longer equine."
Celestia tilted her head quizzically.
"And if you are not a pony, then what do you consider yourself to be?"
Daybreaker drew a forked tongue over her teeth, enunciating her canines. Around her the dogs passed a dry chuckle amongst themselves.
"Once, I was a tumor. Now, I am a predator."
Celestia regarded that information curiously. "So, they left?"
"I did not want them. And they did not want anything to do with me."
Fire was a god.
Daybreaker watched it purge what was left of Equestria's influenced on the island. It moved like a dagger, leaving the trees around it only lightly singed as she moved it where it was needed. Her orange locusts swept the land clean, anything that had been left behind by the rightfully fleeing ponies consumed in dust.
She heard a rustle behind her, and swung her neck around lightning fast. A familiar grey mutt was standing in the brush, looking between her and the inferno. Fresh red bruises and cuts had been sliced across her skin, leaving long streaks of her body furless.
She looked to Daybreaker fearfully.
The alicorn nodded politely.
"Come sit."
The mutt approached carefully, ears flat against her head again.
"Did they release you?"
"Not willingly." The mutt admitted.
"And yet you returned."
The dog nodded slowly, still standing.
"Then you are a braver soul than anyone who fled this place."
Her eyes remained narrowed, but she smiled warmly.
"I implore you. Take me to your home- Or what may remain of it."
"I've seen what ponies have done to us when we show them kindness." The mutt's fur bristled.
"They fear the other. Not a species or creed- only that which they are not."
Daybreaker's eyes glowed as she turned to the mutt, baring her fangs. It was not a threat- only a display.
"That is I, and that is you. We are one, are we not?"
Daybreaker sipped from a ceramic cup, watching Celestia with a twinkle in her eye.
"Did they have a power before you came in?"
"Not an alive one." Daybreaker admitted.
"So you filled a vacuum."
"I was chosen to fill one, yes." Daybreaker corrected. "Do not mistake me for a hypocrite. My first instinct was to leave this island and keep moving. Memories of a certain someone and her own ruling convinced me to heed their offers.
"My, what a life you've been leading as mine became substantially more boring." Celestia's breast swelled with pride. "Have you served them well in their years?"
Daybreaker set down her silverware, sweeping her muzzle back and forth to watch their dinner partners knowingly.
"None of these Dogs work for me. They are my subjects, so they are my equals."
The Dogs remained silent out of respect for their conversation, but Celestia heard a gentle pattering as if of rain, which on this clear night could only be multiple tails beating unconsciously on wood.
"We are princesses, dear Celestia. Perhaps I will step down as you have once, and leave what I have created in the paws of another." Daybreaker acknowledged. "But I have a lot of work to do. I will always respect you and what you have done, and you are welcome to come to me again any time you like- but I feel a greater kinship with these, predators and outcasts, than I could ever have with the people of Equestria. Your student follows in your footsteps? Then I wait with baited breath for the day we will meet formally, and when we do, I will bow to her."
Daybreaker nodded kindly. "And I will tell her stories of a great mare who came before her- A few even she may not know."
Celestia leaned back in her chair, surveying the dining Dogs with a weary breath. She felt the need to answer that with something equally as profound, but came up dry for several seconds.
"Dear sister. I-" She choked on her words and tried again. "...I may be ready to rest. But I am happy to look around me and see, even far from home, signs of what I have done well."
At this Daybreaker lifted her cup into the air.
"I told you, dear sister, did I not? You are loved more than you know."
Author's Note
Sorry for making you wait. Its my vengeance for There Are No Ponies In Equestria making me wait 2 years and counting.
