Powdered Snow Falls Softlyby libertydudeChaptersThe OfferBared TeethRoom of DoomThe Root of PowerConfessionThe OfferPinkie Pie was tightening the bow around the crimson and gold box when she heard the pop across the room. Her first instinct told her that the balloons for the Hearth’s Warming party at the Riches had burst; they had seemed a little overfilled. The sight of a large white pony with wings outspread and a long horn atop her head soon changed her expression from annoyed to overjoyed. “Princess Celestia!” she squealed, hopping clear across the table and wrapping the alicorn in a tight hug around her neck. “It’s so splenderific to see you again!” Celestia chuckled as she returned the hug. “Likewise for me, Pinkie Pie. But remember: I’m not a princess anymore. I abdicated, remember?” “Oh right!” Pinkie said, loosening her hug and dropping to the floor. “Sheesh, that seems like it was years ago…” Celestia gave a thin smile. “Because it was. Three years and two months, if you’re into specifics.” “No, I’ve always been more of a cupcake mare.” She suddenly looked around her room and gave a sheepish grin. “Sorry about the mess. It’s been a really busy Hearth’s Warming season this year.” The eyes of Celestia wandered over the room. Nestled atop the local Sugarcube Corner bakery, Pinkie’s loft had normally been quite spacious and open (“You never know when you’ll need to host a party!” Pinkie had often exclaimed). Yet now the place seemed like a bomb filled with every Hearth’s Warming decoration had exploded in the middle of the room. Trimmings hung from the walls and ceiling, some strung along properly, but most just hanging limply down from their perch. Wreaths filled whatever parts on the walls the trimmings didn’t fill. Across the whole room were stacks of boxes. Some were party supplies Pinkie had bought in bulk, but most were empty gift boxes waiting to be filled. “The Super Duper Party Pony has kept herself busy,” Celestia said, more to herself than Pinkie. “Too busy,” Pinkie Pie sighed, hopping back to her table and the crimson-gold box. “Ever since Twilight took the throne, it seems like everypony in Equestria has wanted me to throw a party for them. Not just for holidays, but all year. I haven’t slept-in for two years!” Celestia sighed. “Now you’re making me feel guilty. Luna and I have been sleeping in so much that we’ve had more brunches than breakfasts in our retirement.” Pinkie finished tightening the bow upon the gift. “Well, after over a thousand years of punctual planetary placement, I think you deserve it.” “That’s what Luna said,” Celestia chuckled. “She’s adapted better to retirement than I have. I keep expecting somepony to burst into our house and announce some new threat that’s attacking Equestria. Always ready to zip off to save the day, then I remember where I am.” She shook her head. “But you don’t need to hear an old mare’s musings at a time like this.” “I don’t know,” Pinkie grunted, putting the crimson-gold box atop a pile beside her. “If I have to pack one more Supermare action figure, I think I’ll just move to Yakyakistan and spend the rest of my days building specialty snow forts.” “What about infiltrating snow forts?” Pinkie gave her a confused look. “What?” “Well, not a snow fort exactly. More like an ice cave.” Pinkie’s mouth opened and closed. “Did…did I miss a part of this conversation?” “Oh, right,” Celestia said, bringing her hoof to her face. “I haven’t told you yet.” She sighed. “Days and moments blur together too easily in retirement. Okay, do you want the short version or long one?” “The medium version!” Celestia paused. “Alright. I want to get Luna a present this year and-“ “Ooh, you need gift ideas!” She zoomed across the room, Celestia’s mane flapping from the wind rush. Just as fast as she’d passed, she was back by Celestia and waving a paper catalogue under her nose. “I’ve got an entire catalogue dedicated to Moon-related presents for Hearth’s Warming and-“ “It’s not for Hearth’s Warming, Pinkie. It’s for the Winter Solstice in three days.” Pinkie gasped. “For Winter Wonderday?!” She let out an excited scream. “That’s fantastic!” She zipped away again and reappeared with another catalogue. “Lunar-tics Limited just published an issue about the best Wonderday presents and how they-“ “I already know what I want to get Luna, Pinkie,” Celestia said patiently. “Oh.” Pinkie’s excitement seemed to disappear in an instant. “So…do you need a special box or card to go with the gift?” “Oh, I don’t have the gift yet. I just need your help to get it.” “How?” “Easy: I need you to accompany me to an ice cave cursed by an evil sorceress and filled with painful death traps to steal a cookie recipe.” A few moments of silence pervaded the room. Outside, light snowfall continued to land upon the streets and houses. The distant hustle and bustle of holiday shoppers made their way through the windows, but even they seemed unable to break the quietude grasping the room. “But of course!” Pinkie said, smiling. “Why didn’t you just say that from the beginning?” Confusion filled Celestia’s face. “You’re…interested?” “Well, duh! Anypony with a lick of common sense would risk their lives for cookies.” “…Sure.” “But why do you want me? Why not bring Twilight or Luna along? They might be able to help out if this ice cave is cursed.” Celestia shook her head. “This curse plays havoc with any magic brought into the cave. I should be able to handle it by not using much magic, but I don’t want to risk anypony else falling victim to its power.” She pointed at Pinkie. “That’s why I need you. As an Earth pony, what magic you have is so minimal that you should be relatively unaffected by the curse. Yet you also have a strange set of talents that nopony can fully explain: You appear where you shouldn’t be able to, you manifest objects out of thin air, and you’re surprisingly durable to injuries that should maim anypony else.” Pinkie grinned. “Just the old Pie genes in action!” “Besides, you were the one to figure out that challenge in the Somnambulan Pyramid. A pony that can spot traps would be useful, and I’m sure you are the only Earth pony I know could survive whatever gauntlet this cave throws at us. I’m more than willing to give you whatever you want in return for-“ Pinkie put a hoof to Celestia’s lips. “As long as you let me taste these cookies, I will consider all threats to life and limb forgiven.” She paused, then said, “By the way, what kind of cookies are they?” “Powder Cookies, made from a mixture of the softest, powdery snow you can find and a smattering of other magical ingredients.” “Ooh, that sounds yummy!” She rubbed her chin for a moment, then said: “Hold on. How do you know about this recipe?” “Because the recipe used to be mine, Pinkie.” Pinkie let out a loud gasp. “Let me explain. Seven hundred years ago, I gave the recipe to a sorceress named Kalamandra. She’d fallen in love with the cookies and I gave it to her as a gift for Hearth’s Warming. But, for some reason, she eventually became so paranoid and selfish that she cursed the recipe so that it could never be copied. If you tried to write it down on another piece of paper, the ink would disappear or the paper would catch fire. If you tried to memorize the recipe, you would forget it within minutes. Even any other copies that existed before the curse was cast vanished, just so nopony other than Kalamandra could ever make them again.” “How mean!” Pinkie scoffed. “Deserts are meant to be shared, not hoarded.” “Worst of all, the one surviving recipe had another strange property: The longer someone didn’t use it, the more the magic leeched out of the recipe and into the surrounding area. The magic would start to enchant everything around it, living or inanimate, all with the express purpose of defending the recipe from anypony ever touching it again. So when Kalamandra disappeared seven hundred years ago, I kept my ears to the ground about any strange magical occurrences. Then, one day, I was flying past the Macintosh Mountains and felt a surge. I followed the energy to the ice cave, and tried to cast a fire spell to light the cavern. But the spell backfired and nearly burned me alive. That’s when I knew that was where the recipe must be.” She stared out the window, out at the snow-covered roofs and streets of Ponyville. “Sitting for seven hundred years and infecting everything unlucky enough to go in that cave.” She stared hard at Pinkie. “What else can I say? I may not be ruler of Equestria anymore, but I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t try to fix this.” Celestia hung her head. “After all, this is somewhat my fault.” Pinkie put a reassuring hoof on Celestia’s shoulder. “No, it isn’t, Princ- I mean, Celestia. You couldn’t have known Kalamandra would go so far over a cookie recipe.” Celestia nodded, then looked to Pinkie. “You still sure you want to come?” Pinkie puffed her chest. “Being able to get the greatest Winter Wonderday gift ever for Luna and defeat an evil curse? I’d be crazy not to try!” Celestia smiled. “Ready?” “Oh, just a moment!” Pinkie bounded toward the stairs down to the first level and opened the door at the top. “Mrs. Cake!” Pinkie called down the stairs as she put on her magenta snow boots. “I’m going on a dangerous quest for a cookie recipe with the Artist Formerly Known as Princess Celestia!” A moment of silence, then a light voice called: “Alrighty, dear! Stay safe and keep warm.” “Thank you!” She shut the door and hopped back over to Celestia, pulling her scarf around her neck. “Just so ponies know where we’re going.” “Of course.” With that, Celestia’s horn began to glow. A quick flash of white light, and the two ponies were gone from the cluttered room. Bared TeethThe warmth of Pinkie’s loft dissipated into a bone-chilling cold. All around Celestia and Pinkie whirled a heavy blizzard. Dots of white filled their vision against the dark grey sky, while the snow underhoof crunched with their sudden appearance. Gales blew their manes back and left their tails wiggling with each gust. “The weather team must have the day off!” Pinkie hollered over the wind. “No weather teams in this part of the Macintoshes,” Celestia called back. Her eyes scanned the area around them, a determined expression upon her face. Just past the long lines of dots filling her vision, she saw a black object standing against the oncoming whiteness. She pointed towards the enveloping darkness. “There!” she proclaimed. “The cave!” Pinkie squinted, soon finding the black opening in her vision. “Why’d you teleport us so far away?” “The cave plays with magic, remember?” Celestia said, taking her first steps toward the cave. The wind blew the opposite direction and she grit her teeth. “Didn’t want to risk the place blowing up or something like that.” “Okie-dokie-lokie,” Pinkie said. The gusts seemed to be blowing her cheeks open and flashing all of her teeth. A short giggle escaped Pinkie as her cheeks flapped. “Just like when I use the hairdryer!” Celestia gave no heed to her joke if she heard it. She pushed on against the wind and sleet, Pinkie likewise grasping her way forward. Her initial attempts to bounce her way to the cave resulted in the wind merely pushing her the other way, so she kept closer to the ground like Celestia. Five minutes later, they came to the cave opening. Less a circle and more an askew oval, the opening seemed like the weight of the mountain above had warped it into something not native to the land. The roof at its highest point reached thirty feet, and the oblong sides seemed twice that wide. A sign, obviously placed there by a local, read: KEEP OUT, WILD ANIMAL RESTING SPOT. I hope not, Celestia thought. The last thing we need is a mountain lion infected by the curse and- “Let’s go!” Pinkie gleefully chimed. The mountain blocking the wind, she immediately resumed her traditional bounce inward. Each bound pushed her five feet deeper into the cave. “Pinkie, wait!” Celestia called, trotting in after her. “We need to make torches so we can-“ Suddenly, a loud rumble filled the cave. Both Pinkie and Celestia ceased their forward progress and stared up at the black ceiling. Tiny rocks tumbled from the edges of where the ceiling met the walls, but nothing else seemed to move. Celestia gave a relieved sigh. “Whatever power is in that recipe knows we’re here now. Let’s just hope-“ Her face froze in horror. Where light had once come in unimpeded from the opening was now filled with shafts of dim sunshine bursting past cracks. The rocks that jutted from the floor and ceiling had the unmistakable similarity to closed teeth. Had anypony seen the cave from the outside, they would have thought it was giving a mocking, smug sneer after catching its prey. “We’re trapped!” Pinkie screamed, grasping her tail like a comfort pillow. “Don’t worry,” Celestia said evenly. “I expected something like this would happen. Let’s just stay calm and light those torches.” She reached over to the walls where numerous roots and dried leaves hung. Taking out her two torches, Celestia placed the roots and leaves within the top of the sticks. She gave the smallest burst of magic she possibly could. The cave rumbled as if it felt the magic too, before the cavern was flooded with light. “As long as I don’t cast powerful magic, we should be fine.” She handed a torch to Pinkie. “Now we should-“ An earth-shattering roar shook the cavern. Celestia turned and caught sight of a large, black mass thundering its way from deeper in the cave. She lit her own torch and held it aloft. Each stride brought the thing closer to the light, and Pinkie let out a scream as the figure reared and stood on its back feet. What stood before them was a bear, or at least what used to be a bear. Eight and a half feet tall and with gnarled claws. Where fur would normally be was covered in dark, green moss. Long fangs, caked in black mold and rotting, bared with the creature’s bellows. The roars emanated nothing but hatred and fury towards the two little ponies below. “Aaiiiieee!” Pinkie screamed, bee-lining for the cave entrance. Furiously she began pounding against the rocks, trying to knock them down. Celestia, on the other hand, stood firm. No point in panicking, she thought. Only action will save us from these enchantments. She looked the bear-thing in the eyes, her own gaze like steel and unblinking. The creature roared. All animals knew such a stare to be a challenge, and even corrupted by black magic the creature would not stand such an insult. He threw his front legs down and resumed his charge toward Celestia. Celestia stood unmoving. There’s a chance this is a feint charge, she thought. And if it’s not- She didn’t get a chance to finish the thought, for she thrust herself to the side. The bear’s charge had been faster than she expected, and she just managed to roll out of the behemoth’s path. So close had he been that Celestia felt his putrid breath upon her nose just before she tumbled out of the way. Quickly, she righted herself and got to her feet. To her shock, however, the creature did not slow down and turn around for another lunge. Instead, the beast kept throwing itself forward. Celestia’s eyes widened as she saw Pinkie still futilely trying to break the entrapping rocks of the entrance. She was actually making decent chips against the rock, but not fast enough to save herself. “Pinkie, move!” Celestia yelled. Her horn began to glow, but she forced it back down. Even a paralyzing spell is too risky, she thought. It could rebound on us and make us easy meals! Pinkie looked up from her work and screamed. The creature was only thirty feet away and would be on her in seconds. Instead of running along the sides of the jagged rocks or trying to climb the walls, Pinkie instead sat on her rear. Celestia’s horrified gasp was matched by the creature’s gleeful screech, thrusting itself faster toward a meal that showed all signs of surrender. Five feet away from the sitting party pony, the creature leaped forward with claws out and jaws open. Sproing! The creature felt Pinkie zip over his head. Her tail tickled his nose as she whirled past. This was followed by the pressure of solid rock smashing into his face. Crunch! Pinkie continued her journey forward. Just before she reached the ground, her tail began to whirl furiously. A soft wind fluttered across Celestia’s face, and Pinkie hovered above the ground. Her tail kept spinning like the blades of a whirlybird. Celestia chuckled. “I’d forgotten how powerful your tail was. Enough strength to coil into a spring.” “Yep!” Pinkie said, still hovering. “I figured that if I was always going to have a spring in my step, why not have one in my tail too?” She giggled, and even Celestia couldn’t help but crack a smile. The jolliness ended when Celestia saw past Pinkie. The creature, though dazed from his headlong crash, was beginning to right himself. Celestia scrunched her face in thought. No low level spells will disable him, she thought. And I can’t risk a high-level spell so early into the cave. She looked around them. They were practically in the middle of the cave’s opening passage, with twenty to twenty-five feet of clearance on either side of them. “Pinkie, you go to the right and I’ll go to the left,” Celestia said, pointing to the opposite walls. “If he goes after you, I’ll kick him in the back of the head. There’s a little spot on the back of a bear’s head that, when struck, will render them unconscious for hours.” “What if he goes after you?” Celestia gazed up at the wall on the left side. Several notches and dark holes sunk into the rock. “I’ll climb up those hoofholds in the wall. Then I’ll need you to distract him for a moment so I can leap off and strike him in the head.” “Got it!” Pinkie dug her hooves into the hard floor below her. Celestia’s confidence seemed to be rubbing off on her, and she glared at the creature now with eager cockiness rather than fear. Celestia steeled herself as well. We’ve only one shot at this, Celestia thought. Bears aren’t smart, but they aren’t stupid either. He won’t fall for this a second time if we can’t pull this off. The creature, fully recovered now, roared and charged again. The duo’s closeness meant his eyes were on both of them the whole time. Reading which one he was more interested in was impossible to tell. Each step forward rumbled through the cave, almost as loud as when the rocks had raised to block the entrance. Faster and harder they came with each second. Strings of saliva flew off the creature’s mouth. Celestia and Pinkie stood, ready. They gripped their torches ever more tightly. Thirty feet away. Twenty feet. Ten. All at once, Celestia and Pinkie sprung to opposite sides. The creature turned to follow Celestia. Curses! Celestia thought. She threw her legs forward with all her might, desperate to keep her lead. The creature pounded after her, regaining the speed which the sharp turn has cost him. Celestia kept her eyes on the hoofholds down the cave, her whole focus on timing the jump just right. This focus, however, left her unprepared for the rock jutting out of the floor. Her front right hoof caught the rock and tripped her forward. The creature roared in triumph and quickened his pace. His prey laid stunned and prostrate upon the floor. Nothing would keep him from a feast tonight! BONG! Celestia looked up to see the bear falling forward. Unlike Celestia’s forward tumble, the creature merely fell flat where he was. Standing just to his side stood Pinkie, beaming and grasping a large carnival mallet. A sharp laugh escaped Celestia. “I wondered if you’d pull anything else out of your tail.” “Oh, this was in my mane,” Pinkie said, shoving the impossibly large hammer back into her mane. “I figured that hitting a bear on the whole head would work too.” Celestia gazed down at the furry lump now dozing on the floor. “I’d say you figured correctly.” Pinkie walked over and helped Celestia up. “Shall we continue? All this fighting has left me kind of famished and…” She wiggled her eyebrows. “…I think some cookies would be nice, no?” Celestia smiled. “Yes, they would.” They made sure their torches were still lit, then made their way forward. Room of DoomThe cave continued downward the further Celestia and Pinkie went. Their hooves slipped against the rocks, which grew slicker with each step. Water leaking from melted snow above furthered their difficulty. More than once they had to pause their journey to catch their breath. Not helping was the gradually lowering ceiling, which Celestia frequently had to turn her neck to make her way through. Yet the journey also became easier in some ways. They soon discovered that whatever magic filled the cave caused a bright green glow in the walls. Perhaps a mixture of magic and local bacteria, Celestia thought. They soon agreed to put out their torches, which had started dimming anyway. After what seemed like hours, they exited the tunnel into a large room. Straightening her long-bent neck, Celestia gaped in surprise. The room’s ceiling was adorned with sharp stalactites. Thousands covered the top of the room, each pointing down like a plethora of knives ready to come down. The walls of the room were smooth rock, water trickling down their walls. For the first thirty feet, the solid floor shared the walls’ smoothness. Then, the floor turned into a wide, clear pool of water. The edge of the water met the surrounding rock perfectly; the slightest disturbance would send water crashing over the edges onto the floor. In the dimness of the light, Celestia could not see the bottom, but she could see the reflection of the stalactites perfectly. Whatever water was dripping in here was uncontaminated by minerals or anything else that would discolor the water’s clearness. “Alrighty!” Pinkie said, hopping atop Celestia. “Let’s fly over this pool and get us some cookies!” Celestia looked across the room. On the other side of the pool, fifty feet away, sat the same even ground like they currently stood on. Just past this space stood an open archway leading deeper into the cave. The same green light filling the cavern illuminated the steps leading downward. Opening her wings, Celestia took a step forward. Then she paused. “What is it?” Pinkie said. “This is too easy,” Celestia said. Her wings curled back against her body. “The power guarding the recipe wouldn’t make such a breezy obstacle. There’s a catch here…” Pinkie hopped off her back, inching towards the water. “Don’t get too close, Pinkie,” Celestia cautioned. “We don’t know if something is in there.” “Right,” Pinkie said, taking a few steps back. “Besides, I don’t have the best records with mysterious pools of water.” Celestia’s eyes scanned the room. She tried to look for anything amiss, some magical sign etched into the walls, anything that would- The realization hit her. She pointed to the wall on her right. “The water, Pinkie.” “Yeah?” “It’s running up the walls.” Pinkie’s eyes shot to the wall. Indeed, she could see that the streaks of water did not fall down to the pool, but instead up towards the stalactites’ bases. The long streaks closer to the grounded pool remained for several seconds, making it easy to mistake them running down. “This room is a booby trap, Pinkie.” Pinkie froze solid. “Are we in danger?” “Always,” Celestia said, eyes wandering the room again. “It’s just a question of what triggers this danger.” Against her wishes, Pinkie’s body began to shake. “C-Can we move?” “For now.” Celestia picked up a loose rock. Around four inches in circumference, the tiny boulder fit perfectly in her hoof. “But be ready to run back the way we came if that changes.” Rearing back, she chucked the rock over the pool towards the other side. For several feet the rock flew forward. The second it starting to fall down toward the pool, however, the rock halted in the air. Then, with a speed even Rainbow Dash would be astounded by, the rock shot up towards the ceiling and thrust itself upon a stalactite. The force split the rock into several smaller pieces that fell back toward the pool. They too soon stopped and shot back upwards to the rocky blades to impale themselves. On and on this fall and reversal occurred until the dust could not be seen. “A Reversal Room,” Celestia said grimly. “Simple, but effective.” “You mean, everything goes backwards?” Pinkie said, still nervous. “Anything that goes over this pool. Up and up we’ll go until we’re shish kebabs.” Celestia sighed. “Reversal rooms were used to keep thieves from trespassing the homes of sorcerers. Apparently the curse Kalamandra made allowed the recipe to create one too.” “So how do we get across?” Celestia sighed. “That’s just the problem. Reversal Rooms always had unique methods of passage. Sometimes the sorcerer would carry a magic talisman or a special plant. Occasionally they’d whisper words that only the sorcerer would know. But they were all unique for each room. There are a thousand different options and we have virtually zero of them.” “Can’t we teleport or fly across?” “Too risky. We’d have to assume I could fly against the curse’s forces, which is a gamble I’m not willing to take. And teleportation requires magic. It might work, but it may go wrong for us by teleporting us somewhere else or worse, right over the pool.” Pinkie looked over the pool, hugging herself. Her nervousness had transitioned into deep thought. “I should have known this would happen,” Celestia groaned. “This curse would never give up the recipe that easy. I should’ve…” Celestia’s rant did not reach Pinkie’s ears. Her head was cocked, staring down at the pool in front of her. Eyes still fixed, she reached over and grasped another rock. Gripping it in her hoof, she rolled it toward the pool. Her gasp pulled Celestia from her tirade and guided her eyes over to the pool. Celestia’s own gape soon followed. The rock was rolling atop the pool! Ripples echoed wherever the rock touched. The surface was undeniably liquid water, yet the rock rolled like it was on the smoothest ice. On and on it went, until the force of Pinkie’s roll waned and the boulder came to a stop. Then, a half-second later, it shot up to the ceiling to be stabbed by the stalactites. “Dang it!” Pinkie whined. “The rock you threw was in the air, so I thought maybe it would only grab things in the air. I was hoping all we had to do was keep our hooves on the floor to be safe.” She sat down and pouted. Celestia, however, began to inch toward the pool. Grabbing another rock, she turned her back to the pool and tossed the rock over her shoulder. Her aim was just right, the rock landing right at the edge of the pool and rolling along the surface. Going, going until it too rolled to a stop. Both Celestia and Pinkie stared, waiting for the rock to plummet upwards and be stabbed repeatedly to dust. Several seconds went by in agonizing silence. Yet the rock continued to lay there on the pool, still as the grave. A wide smile filled Celestia’s face. “That’s it!” She grabbed Pinkie into a powerful hug. “Pinkie, you genius, you cracked the secret!” “Fwa fwa?” Pinkie mumbled, her face shoved deep into Celestia’s chest fur. “Sorry,” Celestia said, releasing Pinkie. “When you rolled your rock, it kept going until forward motion stopped. The same thing happened when I threw the first rock, except that was when it started to fall down. Whatever goes over this pool falls up if it goes down or moves forward. When I threw my rock backwards and along the surface, however, it was fine.” “So we need to go across the pool backwards and without moving ourselves downward?” “Exactly!” “But…how?” “Simple: We get a running start going backwards, then throw ourselves on our bellies to slide backward across the pool!” “Why not just walk backwards?” “We have to put our hooves down in order to walk, and I’m not sure if the room will interpret that as ‘going down’. We’ll need to stay on our bellies if we want to be safe.” Pinkie turned and looked over the pool. A slight shiver filled her body, before a deep breath steadied her. Turning to Celestia, she whispered: “I want to go first.” “No,” Celestia said in a firm tone. “I’ll do it first. If anypony’s going to risk getting impaled, I should be the first. I got us in this mess, I’ll pay the price if I can’t get us out.” Pinkie shot herself between Celestia and the pool. “And I’m not going to let you do this by yourself. We’re friends, Celestia, whether you like it or not, and friends do things together.” Celestia stared down at her for a few moments, then nodded. “Alright. We’ll do it together. Whether salvation or destruction, we’ll share the fate.” Pinkie nodded and turned away from the pool. Celestia likewise turned around to face the entrance to the room. Each took deep breaths, then looked at the other. “Ready?” Celestia said. “Ready,” Pinkie said. They began to run backwards as hard as they could. Celestia counted each step, waiting until the last possible moment. I hope this’ll carry us all the way across, she thought. I don’t want to think about what happens if we get stuck halfway. The doubt faded as the last five feet of solid ground came. At the three foot mark, Celestia screamed, “Now!” Downwards they threw themselves, their bottoms hitting a small patch of the solid floor just before the pool. They flattened their bellies and chins to the floor. Celestia could tell when the surfaces shifted beneath her. The pool held a softer touch than the hard ground, like glass smoothed by a sander and waxed to utter perfection. Like ice without the chill. Celestia closed her eyes as she felt the rush of the pool beneath her. I’ll try to teleport us if this doesn’t work, she thought. But if I can’t, I want to think of this smooth pool before the end. Forever and ever she seemed to slide, even though she knew that she was gradually slowing. How far she’d gone, she couldn’t tell. Ten feet felt the same as ten hundred in the intensity of the situation. She wanted to shout something reassuring to Pinkie, who she could hear sliding alongside her, but she couldn’t think of the right words. How odd I should be comforting the Element of Laughter! Celestia thought. What else shall this-? She felt a slight bump under her flank. A roughness that went up her body, from her belly to her chin. One that brought her to a complete stop. Celestia forced her eyes open. The pool sat before her, a thin line of ground separating her from the water. She turned to her right to see Pinkie Pie in the same position. A look of utter relief filled the party pony’s visage. Then utter joy. “Yippee!” Pinkie Pie squealed, bouncing all around the floor. “We’re alive, and we’re going to get cookies!” Celestia laughed, despite herself. Seeing Pinkie’s change in demeanor seemed to light a fire under her as well. To see a pony go from despair to joy was one of the grandest experiences Celestia had ever seen in all her years. Magic could work miracles, but so could hope. “Yes, we shall,” Celestia said, standing up. “Though I hope this curse only made three challenges, because I’m getting tired.” “You and me both, sister!” Pinkie said. “Powder Cookies better be in the S-Tier of cookies for all this trouble!” “Oh, they are, Pinkie,” Celestia said, following the party mare to the chamber’s exit. “They very much are.” The Root of PowerThe rest of the way down was smoother than every other part of the cave. Carved steps followed the tunnel down, damp but bumpy enough to prevent any slips should one catch the occasional wet stair. The light likewise brightened and illuminated everything as clearly as any ceiling light. Pinkie’s mood likewise picked up, with her rambling about all the ponies she would invite to the World Premiere of Powder Cookies party that she’d be throwing once this was all over. While others might’ve grown annoyed with the rambling, Celestia took the talk with a knowing smile. She knew this to be one of Pinkie’s coping methods with scary situations. Who am I to judge how she deals with these traps? Celestia mused. I roped her into this. After a few minutes journeying down the steps, a large archway appeared before them. Pinkie stopped right at the cusp and stuck her head in. Before her stretched an arena, one hundred feet tall and two hundred feet wide. Four different levels made of stone moved downward to the main stage. Where curtains should be on the stage stood only blackness. Sitting in the center of the stage, atop a wooden table, laid a small sheet of paper. “At last,” Celestia said. Pinkie looked left and right. “I hope this room isn’t booby-trapped too,” she said. Her voice echoed across the room. Celestia scanned the room carefully. Aside from the table, nothing but the stone steps and stage filled the room. “It isn’t,” Celestia said, before hopping down the levels. Each one was twice as long as her, and she resisted gliding all the way down. Closer and closer the table came until she was upon the stage and staring down at the paper. She didn’t bother trying to read the directions or ingredients; she’d forget them in a minute anyway. Instead, she looked to the top of the paper where two words sat in bold type: POWDER COOKIES A hoof eased forward to grasp it. “Wait!” Pinkie Pie cried. She hopped up on the stage and started to root through her tail. A bouncy ball and accordion fell out before she managed to pull out a camera. “I want to try something,” she said. Celestia lowered her hoof as Pinkie readied her camera. A bright flash and a loud poof filled the arena, before a soft whir filled the room. Pinkie plucked the picture rolling out from the bottom of the camera and squinted. A few moments passed in silence, before a frustrated grunt escaped her. “No use,” Pinkie whined. “The camera didn’t pick up any of the words.” “It’s the curse,” Celestia said. “Apparently Kalamandra had the foresight to make the curse cover anything that could replicate it, even technologies that didn’t exist yet.” She gave a mirthless chuckle. “I almost want to applaud her for such talent.” “Then why aren’t you?” a low voice called out. “We are in a theater, after all.” Celestia and Pinkie whipped themselves around. The archway, much like the cave opening, laid covered. The sole difference was the archway had been filled by stacked stone, carefully placed as if architects from long ago had walled it off in the original construction. “Who said that?” Celestia demanded. She pushed Pinkie back behind her outstretched wing. “Oh, your memory really is going, Celestia,” the voice chuckled. “Who do you think it is?” Celestia’s eyes narrowed for a moment, before expanding in horror. “Kalamandra!” At the word’s very utterance, the blackness behind the stage shot out and snared the two ponies. Upwards they flew until they hung ten feet above the stage. Celestia found her limbs and wings encircled by three black tentacles each, while a lone limb encircled her neck. Pinkie hung upside down, gripped by one large tentacle that bounced her up and down. Her breathing labored and limbs feeling like they were about to be torn off, Celestia stared down at the stage. From the blackness stepped a shadow in the shape of a pony. Each step forward caused a small portion of the blackness to fall off, replaced by a brown coat. More and more equestrian did the shadow look until it stood directly beneath them. A copper mare stared up at them, her turquoise eyes staring up at them in malicious amusement. Thick bangs of black hair fell down her face. A red dress adorned her body and flowed freely onto the stone below her. “How nice of you to visit, Celestia,” the mare said. “Did you want some Powder Cookies? I’m more than happy to give you a few.” “How is this possible?” Celestia sputtered. “You’ve been dead for seven hundred years!” “Oh no, Celestia. See, unlike you and that nocturnal sister of yours, we regular ponies don’t get to live a thousand years. The best you can give us is a cookie recipe.” She waved her hoof. “But no matter. That recipe was the key to my immortality. Because it didn’t just twist animals and inanimate objects to do my bidding.” A sharp gleam filled her eyes. “It kept me alive forever.” Pinkie Pie shivered, and Celestia did everything she could not to shake herself. “I have you to thank for that,” Kalamandra said, nodding. “Your Powder Cookies recipe had just the right amount of sentimental value. All those years of baking them with your sister gave the recipe such deep, emotionally-charged magic that I could feed off of it for three more millennia.” “Wait, you baked them with Luna?” Pinkie gasped. Kalamandra raised an eyebrow. “Ah, you didn’t tell your pink friend here about why you want this recipe so bad, did you?” She laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, my little pony. It’s quite simple. See, all the way back to foalhood, Celestia and Luna would share Powder Cookies on the Winter Solstice. It was their little tradition of sisterhood. But one day…well, let’s just say they had a little disagreement and Celestia saw fit to exile sweet little Luna to the Moon.” Celestia’s face filled with rage. “You thought I wouldn’t know that, Celestia?” Kalamandra cooed. “Of course you didn’t. It wasn’t public knowledge seven hundred years ago. Don’t bother asking me how I figured it out.” She gave a flippant wave of her hoof. “Let’s just say a lot of research and a little hard work made your Royal Archives tell me everything I needed to know. Including what the mythological Lunar Princess’s favorite Winter Wonderday dessert was.” She turned to Pinkie. “Anyway, poor Celestia could never have a bite of Powder Cookies again without thinking of her absent sister. Each bite would just bring a torrent of once-pleasant memories flooding to her, now soured by little Luna’s moonbound flight. So she had to get rid of it. Had she been smart she would have burned it, but bleeding hearts can never destroy things. She had to give it away, so I stepped in and asked for the recipe. I’d done all the right curtsies and said the right lines, so how could she refuse?” Facing Celestia again, she grinned. “You should’ve been a crueler Princess, Celestia. You might’ve survived longer.” “Cruelty is for tyrants and monsters like you,” Celestia spat. Kalamandra shrugged. “Monster or magician, it matters not what I am now. For once I absorb your power, I shall gain physical form once more. With the wings and horns of an alicorn to match! No longer constrained to this forsaken cave and free to conquer Equestria! And unlike you, my reign will be eternal. An undying queen rules forever and punishes without mercy!” A look of wry amusement crossed her face. “But I suppose I should allow some leniency. The griffin kings of old always let a prisoner free whenever their reign began, just to show their subjects that they had some small bit of mercy in them.” She brought Pinkie Pie down toward the stage until the tendril held the party mare before her. Still upside down, Pinkie felt like a bat staring at wolf. “Miss Pinkie Pie,” Kalamandra cooed. “I’m more than willing to spare you should you pledge yourself to me. You defeated my bear in combat and Celestia trusted you to navigate this cave, so obviously you’re a mare of some resources. I could use somepony like you in my court.” She shot a glance up at Celestia and shook her head. “Besides, if she was willing to drag you into a death trap over some cookies, I don’t think she has your best interests in mind.” Pinkie looked up at Celestia. A twinge of guilt seemed to fill Celestia’s face. Looking back at Kalamandra, Pinkie’s face hardened. “She told me enough,” she said in a tone just above a whisper. “She told me the recipe was important to her and told me I didn’t have to come. That was enough.” Her chest puffed out in defiance. “In fact, knowing now that she wanted to relive a memory with her sister, I can say I’m glad I helped her! I would do the same thing all over again!” Celestia smiled. I hope we survive this, Pinkie, she thought. I want to cook you the best batch of Powder Cookies in the history of Equestria! Kalamandra likewise smiled, her grin unearnest. “Such a shame,” she tutted. “I would’ve liked to have a party pony like you when I marched into Canterlot. It will be a party for the ages…” “Why wait?” Pinkie said, beaming. “What?!” Kalamandra’s face scrunched in confusion, before widening in horror. Sticking out from Pinkie’s curly mane was a light-blue cannon. One strand of hair wrapped around the barrel, while a smaller strand pushed down on the trigger. PWEEEE! Kalamandra stumbled backward, an onslaught of confetti and pies smashing against her face. The black tendril around Pinkie Pie loosened and she fell face-first onto the floor. The party cannon pushed itself back into her mane upon impact, and Pinkie bounced off her head directly back onto her hooves. “Celestia!” she hollered. “Let’s hoof it!” Celestia grinned and closed her eyes. “The power of the Sun has not left me!” she screamed, engulfing herself in a blast of light. The tendrils around her vaporized in an instant and she swooped down to pick up Pinkie. Grabbing her, Celestia readied another blast to blow open the arch’s doors. ZWOOOM! The blast hit against the stone with a thunderous crash, but Celestia stopped. A black mark stood where there should be a hole. Kalamandra’s laugh echoed behind them. “You’re too late, Celestia!” she howled. “You’ve spent too long in my cave! I’ve absorbed enough of your magic that I can resist any attack you throw at me!” A sinister grin filled her face. “But if you want to keep trying, feel free. The more magic you use, the faster I’ll digest you and your little pink friend!” Celestia growled and sent a blast of fire directly at Kalamandra. The sorceress made no attempt to even move as the flame crashed against her. After the flash subsided, the stone around her flickered with flame, but not a singe was upon Kalamandra. “Yes!” she screamed in ecstasy. “Keep fighting! I’d rather be a goddess sooner rather than later!” Gritting her teeth, Celestia panted. She knew Kalamandra was telling the truth; already she felt her strength leaving her body. I can only put up one more strong attack, she thought, gazing at the black tentacles starting to snake out from the stage. But where to? She has to have a weak spot that- Her eyes wandered to the wooden table. Atop it sat the recipe gleaming an unearthly glow. The shine was just like the cave: light green and bright. Pulsating with power and dark magic. A tear began to form at Celestia’s eye. I’m sorry, Luna, Celestia thought. She turned to Pinkie. “I’m sorry, Pinkie,” she whispered. “There won’t be any Powder Cookies this Winter Wonderday.” Pinkie stared up at her in confusion, then realization. Before she could say anything, Celestia launched another fire attack. This time, however, it was not aimed at Kalamandra. The sorceress’s eyes went wide when she realized the path. Had she been a split-second quicker, she might’ve been able to direct the tendrils to the defense or cast a quick telekinetic spell that would knock the table over. But she wasn’t, and the recipe burst into flame upon the spell’s contact. A high-pitched scream filled the arena, and the black tendrils disappeared. Kalamandra herself began to dissipate like a cloud being blown away by the atmospheric winds. Large boulders began to fall to the floor as the cave-in started. Celestia grabbed Pinkie Pie and teleported. Pop! Celestia and Pinkie tumbled into the snow. They looked up to see themselves outside the cave once more. The blizzard had stopped, but the howl of the wind had been replaced by another screech from inside the cave. The jagged rocks that had locked them within rumbled and crashed inward. Now the passage remained even more blocked than it had before. “She’d tied the recipe too closely to her,” Celestia sighed. “The only way to freedom was to destroy it.” She stared sadly at Pinkie Pie. “I’m sorry you didn’t get anything out of this, Pinkie.” She hung her head. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything.” Pinkie shrugged. “It’s alright. You told me enough. And…” She let her hoof wander over the desolate mountain. “Better to let a recipe be destroyed than the whole world.” Crash! Both ponies’ eyes shot toward the entrance. A panting bear thrust himself out through a crack in the rocks just big enough for his body. He pushed on until his last paw came outward. A new rumbling started as more rocks fell to fill in the crack. Soon, even more rocks tumbled downward to cover the cave opening in another layer of impenetrable stone. Clear of the new avalanche, the bear stopped and looked toward the two ponies. Celestia’s horn glowed a deep golden color. Even the few moments outside had restored her to full strength. The bear sniffed towards them, then stumbled off toward a nearby treeline. Whether he understood the implicit threat of Celestia’s magic or just wanted to escape the place of his enslavement, Celestia could not tell. She suspected the latter. Celestia sighed. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s go.” “Back to Ponyville?” Pinkie asked. “No. To Luna.” ConfessionLuna didn’t initially know what to make of her sister and Pinkie Pie appearing in the middle of her living room, disheveled and dotted with snow. She was right in the middle of Level 37 of Gallopga, but something in the way both of them looked at her killed any annoyance she would’ve had any other day. A deep melancholy seemed to fill their entire being. A feeling she knew and understood. They sat down in the other chairs around her. Celestia began to tell the story of the past few hours. Pinkie said nothing, only nodding along as if to confirm the story. Luna likewise remained silent. Her eyes never left her sister. Everything, from the Powder Cookies to Kalamandra to the Reverse Room, spilled out of Celestia. A million details Luna never would have thought Celestia could remember in all that happened. Stories from over a millennia ago intermixing with the present. Apologies for gifts that would never be given and memories never re-experienced. Then the story was all over. Celestia rested her face in both of her hooves, not to hide tears but to lessen the burden that seemed to weigh her whole existence down. Pinkie lounged back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. Luna remained unmoving. Then, without a word, she got up and embraced Celestia. A look of shock filled Celestia’s face, then she returned the hug. “Celly, I do not require Powder Cookies to have a delightful Winter Solstice,” Luna said. “Having you by my side is enough.” Tears filled Celestia’s face. “Yes, but it would’ve been nice to-“ “No buts, Sister,” Luna said softly, but firmly. “Yes, it would’ve been grand to have Powder Cookies again, but it was grand enough having them all those years ago. Those memories have never faded from my mind. They are enough.” She pushed herself back and looked deep into her sister’s eyes. “I want to spend this Winter Wonderday making new memories with you.” Celestia nodded, tears streaking down her face. Pinkie Pie wanted to cry too as she gazed upon the scene. She withheld herself though; she knew this was not the moment to bawl like she did all those years ago when she and her friends had restored Luna to her rightful self. Luna had begged for forgiveness back then. Now it was Celestia’s turn, and Luna would do the same as her sister had long ago: Remind her that her sister still loved her despite everything. A few soft sobs filled the room for a few minutes. Then, after a quick sniffle, Celestia said: “You know, I promised Pinkie cookies after all this. We didn’t get the Powder Cookie recipe, but we have quite a few ancient desserts we could still share.” “Indeed,” Luna said with a smile. “Like the Towering Technicolor Tiramisu, or the Deep-Melted Delight.” “Ooh!” Pinkie said, hopping off her chair. “Those sound like they could be fun!” “Correct!” Luna proclaimed. “They are the most fun!” Pinkie Pie giggled. “Then what are we waiting for? Winter Wonderday is only three days away, and we need those desserts prepped stat!” Celestia and Luna followed the bounding party mare toward the kitchen, leaning their heads against one another all the way. Ready to make a delicious dessert, and ready to make new memories. Author's Note I thought about an ending where Pinkie somehow managed to copy the recipe or Luna had another one that had a slightly different instructions, but I decided against it. The story's message about moving on from the past and trying to make new memories wouldn't work as well if I hadn't gone with this ending.
The OfferPinkie Pie was tightening the bow around the crimson and gold box when she heard the pop across the room. Her first instinct told her that the balloons for the Hearth’s Warming party at the Riches had burst; they had seemed a little overfilled. The sight of a large white pony with wings outspread and a long horn atop her head soon changed her expression from annoyed to overjoyed. “Princess Celestia!” she squealed, hopping clear across the table and wrapping the alicorn in a tight hug around her neck. “It’s so splenderific to see you again!” Celestia chuckled as she returned the hug. “Likewise for me, Pinkie Pie. But remember: I’m not a princess anymore. I abdicated, remember?” “Oh right!” Pinkie said, loosening her hug and dropping to the floor. “Sheesh, that seems like it was years ago…” Celestia gave a thin smile. “Because it was. Three years and two months, if you’re into specifics.” “No, I’ve always been more of a cupcake mare.” She suddenly looked around her room and gave a sheepish grin. “Sorry about the mess. It’s been a really busy Hearth’s Warming season this year.” The eyes of Celestia wandered over the room. Nestled atop the local Sugarcube Corner bakery, Pinkie’s loft had normally been quite spacious and open (“You never know when you’ll need to host a party!” Pinkie had often exclaimed). Yet now the place seemed like a bomb filled with every Hearth’s Warming decoration had exploded in the middle of the room. Trimmings hung from the walls and ceiling, some strung along properly, but most just hanging limply down from their perch. Wreaths filled whatever parts on the walls the trimmings didn’t fill. Across the whole room were stacks of boxes. Some were party supplies Pinkie had bought in bulk, but most were empty gift boxes waiting to be filled. “The Super Duper Party Pony has kept herself busy,” Celestia said, more to herself than Pinkie. “Too busy,” Pinkie Pie sighed, hopping back to her table and the crimson-gold box. “Ever since Twilight took the throne, it seems like everypony in Equestria has wanted me to throw a party for them. Not just for holidays, but all year. I haven’t slept-in for two years!” Celestia sighed. “Now you’re making me feel guilty. Luna and I have been sleeping in so much that we’ve had more brunches than breakfasts in our retirement.” Pinkie finished tightening the bow upon the gift. “Well, after over a thousand years of punctual planetary placement, I think you deserve it.” “That’s what Luna said,” Celestia chuckled. “She’s adapted better to retirement than I have. I keep expecting somepony to burst into our house and announce some new threat that’s attacking Equestria. Always ready to zip off to save the day, then I remember where I am.” She shook her head. “But you don’t need to hear an old mare’s musings at a time like this.” “I don’t know,” Pinkie grunted, putting the crimson-gold box atop a pile beside her. “If I have to pack one more Supermare action figure, I think I’ll just move to Yakyakistan and spend the rest of my days building specialty snow forts.” “What about infiltrating snow forts?” Pinkie gave her a confused look. “What?” “Well, not a snow fort exactly. More like an ice cave.” Pinkie’s mouth opened and closed. “Did…did I miss a part of this conversation?” “Oh, right,” Celestia said, bringing her hoof to her face. “I haven’t told you yet.” She sighed. “Days and moments blur together too easily in retirement. Okay, do you want the short version or long one?” “The medium version!” Celestia paused. “Alright. I want to get Luna a present this year and-“ “Ooh, you need gift ideas!” She zoomed across the room, Celestia’s mane flapping from the wind rush. Just as fast as she’d passed, she was back by Celestia and waving a paper catalogue under her nose. “I’ve got an entire catalogue dedicated to Moon-related presents for Hearth’s Warming and-“ “It’s not for Hearth’s Warming, Pinkie. It’s for the Winter Solstice in three days.” Pinkie gasped. “For Winter Wonderday?!” She let out an excited scream. “That’s fantastic!” She zipped away again and reappeared with another catalogue. “Lunar-tics Limited just published an issue about the best Wonderday presents and how they-“ “I already know what I want to get Luna, Pinkie,” Celestia said patiently. “Oh.” Pinkie’s excitement seemed to disappear in an instant. “So…do you need a special box or card to go with the gift?” “Oh, I don’t have the gift yet. I just need your help to get it.” “How?” “Easy: I need you to accompany me to an ice cave cursed by an evil sorceress and filled with painful death traps to steal a cookie recipe.” A few moments of silence pervaded the room. Outside, light snowfall continued to land upon the streets and houses. The distant hustle and bustle of holiday shoppers made their way through the windows, but even they seemed unable to break the quietude grasping the room. “But of course!” Pinkie said, smiling. “Why didn’t you just say that from the beginning?” Confusion filled Celestia’s face. “You’re…interested?” “Well, duh! Anypony with a lick of common sense would risk their lives for cookies.” “…Sure.” “But why do you want me? Why not bring Twilight or Luna along? They might be able to help out if this ice cave is cursed.” Celestia shook her head. “This curse plays havoc with any magic brought into the cave. I should be able to handle it by not using much magic, but I don’t want to risk anypony else falling victim to its power.” She pointed at Pinkie. “That’s why I need you. As an Earth pony, what magic you have is so minimal that you should be relatively unaffected by the curse. Yet you also have a strange set of talents that nopony can fully explain: You appear where you shouldn’t be able to, you manifest objects out of thin air, and you’re surprisingly durable to injuries that should maim anypony else.” Pinkie grinned. “Just the old Pie genes in action!” “Besides, you were the one to figure out that challenge in the Somnambulan Pyramid. A pony that can spot traps would be useful, and I’m sure you are the only Earth pony I know could survive whatever gauntlet this cave throws at us. I’m more than willing to give you whatever you want in return for-“ Pinkie put a hoof to Celestia’s lips. “As long as you let me taste these cookies, I will consider all threats to life and limb forgiven.” She paused, then said, “By the way, what kind of cookies are they?” “Powder Cookies, made from a mixture of the softest, powdery snow you can find and a smattering of other magical ingredients.” “Ooh, that sounds yummy!” She rubbed her chin for a moment, then said: “Hold on. How do you know about this recipe?” “Because the recipe used to be mine, Pinkie.” Pinkie let out a loud gasp. “Let me explain. Seven hundred years ago, I gave the recipe to a sorceress named Kalamandra. She’d fallen in love with the cookies and I gave it to her as a gift for Hearth’s Warming. But, for some reason, she eventually became so paranoid and selfish that she cursed the recipe so that it could never be copied. If you tried to write it down on another piece of paper, the ink would disappear or the paper would catch fire. If you tried to memorize the recipe, you would forget it within minutes. Even any other copies that existed before the curse was cast vanished, just so nopony other than Kalamandra could ever make them again.” “How mean!” Pinkie scoffed. “Deserts are meant to be shared, not hoarded.” “Worst of all, the one surviving recipe had another strange property: The longer someone didn’t use it, the more the magic leeched out of the recipe and into the surrounding area. The magic would start to enchant everything around it, living or inanimate, all with the express purpose of defending the recipe from anypony ever touching it again. So when Kalamandra disappeared seven hundred years ago, I kept my ears to the ground about any strange magical occurrences. Then, one day, I was flying past the Macintosh Mountains and felt a surge. I followed the energy to the ice cave, and tried to cast a fire spell to light the cavern. But the spell backfired and nearly burned me alive. That’s when I knew that was where the recipe must be.” She stared out the window, out at the snow-covered roofs and streets of Ponyville. “Sitting for seven hundred years and infecting everything unlucky enough to go in that cave.” She stared hard at Pinkie. “What else can I say? I may not be ruler of Equestria anymore, but I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t try to fix this.” Celestia hung her head. “After all, this is somewhat my fault.” Pinkie put a reassuring hoof on Celestia’s shoulder. “No, it isn’t, Princ- I mean, Celestia. You couldn’t have known Kalamandra would go so far over a cookie recipe.” Celestia nodded, then looked to Pinkie. “You still sure you want to come?” Pinkie puffed her chest. “Being able to get the greatest Winter Wonderday gift ever for Luna and defeat an evil curse? I’d be crazy not to try!” Celestia smiled. “Ready?” “Oh, just a moment!” Pinkie bounded toward the stairs down to the first level and opened the door at the top. “Mrs. Cake!” Pinkie called down the stairs as she put on her magenta snow boots. “I’m going on a dangerous quest for a cookie recipe with the Artist Formerly Known as Princess Celestia!” A moment of silence, then a light voice called: “Alrighty, dear! Stay safe and keep warm.” “Thank you!” She shut the door and hopped back over to Celestia, pulling her scarf around her neck. “Just so ponies know where we’re going.” “Of course.” With that, Celestia’s horn began to glow. A quick flash of white light, and the two ponies were gone from the cluttered room.
Bared TeethThe warmth of Pinkie’s loft dissipated into a bone-chilling cold. All around Celestia and Pinkie whirled a heavy blizzard. Dots of white filled their vision against the dark grey sky, while the snow underhoof crunched with their sudden appearance. Gales blew their manes back and left their tails wiggling with each gust. “The weather team must have the day off!” Pinkie hollered over the wind. “No weather teams in this part of the Macintoshes,” Celestia called back. Her eyes scanned the area around them, a determined expression upon her face. Just past the long lines of dots filling her vision, she saw a black object standing against the oncoming whiteness. She pointed towards the enveloping darkness. “There!” she proclaimed. “The cave!” Pinkie squinted, soon finding the black opening in her vision. “Why’d you teleport us so far away?” “The cave plays with magic, remember?” Celestia said, taking her first steps toward the cave. The wind blew the opposite direction and she grit her teeth. “Didn’t want to risk the place blowing up or something like that.” “Okie-dokie-lokie,” Pinkie said. The gusts seemed to be blowing her cheeks open and flashing all of her teeth. A short giggle escaped Pinkie as her cheeks flapped. “Just like when I use the hairdryer!” Celestia gave no heed to her joke if she heard it. She pushed on against the wind and sleet, Pinkie likewise grasping her way forward. Her initial attempts to bounce her way to the cave resulted in the wind merely pushing her the other way, so she kept closer to the ground like Celestia. Five minutes later, they came to the cave opening. Less a circle and more an askew oval, the opening seemed like the weight of the mountain above had warped it into something not native to the land. The roof at its highest point reached thirty feet, and the oblong sides seemed twice that wide. A sign, obviously placed there by a local, read: KEEP OUT, WILD ANIMAL RESTING SPOT. I hope not, Celestia thought. The last thing we need is a mountain lion infected by the curse and- “Let’s go!” Pinkie gleefully chimed. The mountain blocking the wind, she immediately resumed her traditional bounce inward. Each bound pushed her five feet deeper into the cave. “Pinkie, wait!” Celestia called, trotting in after her. “We need to make torches so we can-“ Suddenly, a loud rumble filled the cave. Both Pinkie and Celestia ceased their forward progress and stared up at the black ceiling. Tiny rocks tumbled from the edges of where the ceiling met the walls, but nothing else seemed to move. Celestia gave a relieved sigh. “Whatever power is in that recipe knows we’re here now. Let’s just hope-“ Her face froze in horror. Where light had once come in unimpeded from the opening was now filled with shafts of dim sunshine bursting past cracks. The rocks that jutted from the floor and ceiling had the unmistakable similarity to closed teeth. Had anypony seen the cave from the outside, they would have thought it was giving a mocking, smug sneer after catching its prey. “We’re trapped!” Pinkie screamed, grasping her tail like a comfort pillow. “Don’t worry,” Celestia said evenly. “I expected something like this would happen. Let’s just stay calm and light those torches.” She reached over to the walls where numerous roots and dried leaves hung. Taking out her two torches, Celestia placed the roots and leaves within the top of the sticks. She gave the smallest burst of magic she possibly could. The cave rumbled as if it felt the magic too, before the cavern was flooded with light. “As long as I don’t cast powerful magic, we should be fine.” She handed a torch to Pinkie. “Now we should-“ An earth-shattering roar shook the cavern. Celestia turned and caught sight of a large, black mass thundering its way from deeper in the cave. She lit her own torch and held it aloft. Each stride brought the thing closer to the light, and Pinkie let out a scream as the figure reared and stood on its back feet. What stood before them was a bear, or at least what used to be a bear. Eight and a half feet tall and with gnarled claws. Where fur would normally be was covered in dark, green moss. Long fangs, caked in black mold and rotting, bared with the creature’s bellows. The roars emanated nothing but hatred and fury towards the two little ponies below. “Aaiiiieee!” Pinkie screamed, bee-lining for the cave entrance. Furiously she began pounding against the rocks, trying to knock them down. Celestia, on the other hand, stood firm. No point in panicking, she thought. Only action will save us from these enchantments. She looked the bear-thing in the eyes, her own gaze like steel and unblinking. The creature roared. All animals knew such a stare to be a challenge, and even corrupted by black magic the creature would not stand such an insult. He threw his front legs down and resumed his charge toward Celestia. Celestia stood unmoving. There’s a chance this is a feint charge, she thought. And if it’s not- She didn’t get a chance to finish the thought, for she thrust herself to the side. The bear’s charge had been faster than she expected, and she just managed to roll out of the behemoth’s path. So close had he been that Celestia felt his putrid breath upon her nose just before she tumbled out of the way. Quickly, she righted herself and got to her feet. To her shock, however, the creature did not slow down and turn around for another lunge. Instead, the beast kept throwing itself forward. Celestia’s eyes widened as she saw Pinkie still futilely trying to break the entrapping rocks of the entrance. She was actually making decent chips against the rock, but not fast enough to save herself. “Pinkie, move!” Celestia yelled. Her horn began to glow, but she forced it back down. Even a paralyzing spell is too risky, she thought. It could rebound on us and make us easy meals! Pinkie looked up from her work and screamed. The creature was only thirty feet away and would be on her in seconds. Instead of running along the sides of the jagged rocks or trying to climb the walls, Pinkie instead sat on her rear. Celestia’s horrified gasp was matched by the creature’s gleeful screech, thrusting itself faster toward a meal that showed all signs of surrender. Five feet away from the sitting party pony, the creature leaped forward with claws out and jaws open. Sproing! The creature felt Pinkie zip over his head. Her tail tickled his nose as she whirled past. This was followed by the pressure of solid rock smashing into his face. Crunch! Pinkie continued her journey forward. Just before she reached the ground, her tail began to whirl furiously. A soft wind fluttered across Celestia’s face, and Pinkie hovered above the ground. Her tail kept spinning like the blades of a whirlybird. Celestia chuckled. “I’d forgotten how powerful your tail was. Enough strength to coil into a spring.” “Yep!” Pinkie said, still hovering. “I figured that if I was always going to have a spring in my step, why not have one in my tail too?” She giggled, and even Celestia couldn’t help but crack a smile. The jolliness ended when Celestia saw past Pinkie. The creature, though dazed from his headlong crash, was beginning to right himself. Celestia scrunched her face in thought. No low level spells will disable him, she thought. And I can’t risk a high-level spell so early into the cave. She looked around them. They were practically in the middle of the cave’s opening passage, with twenty to twenty-five feet of clearance on either side of them. “Pinkie, you go to the right and I’ll go to the left,” Celestia said, pointing to the opposite walls. “If he goes after you, I’ll kick him in the back of the head. There’s a little spot on the back of a bear’s head that, when struck, will render them unconscious for hours.” “What if he goes after you?” Celestia gazed up at the wall on the left side. Several notches and dark holes sunk into the rock. “I’ll climb up those hoofholds in the wall. Then I’ll need you to distract him for a moment so I can leap off and strike him in the head.” “Got it!” Pinkie dug her hooves into the hard floor below her. Celestia’s confidence seemed to be rubbing off on her, and she glared at the creature now with eager cockiness rather than fear. Celestia steeled herself as well. We’ve only one shot at this, Celestia thought. Bears aren’t smart, but they aren’t stupid either. He won’t fall for this a second time if we can’t pull this off. The creature, fully recovered now, roared and charged again. The duo’s closeness meant his eyes were on both of them the whole time. Reading which one he was more interested in was impossible to tell. Each step forward rumbled through the cave, almost as loud as when the rocks had raised to block the entrance. Faster and harder they came with each second. Strings of saliva flew off the creature’s mouth. Celestia and Pinkie stood, ready. They gripped their torches ever more tightly. Thirty feet away. Twenty feet. Ten. All at once, Celestia and Pinkie sprung to opposite sides. The creature turned to follow Celestia. Curses! Celestia thought. She threw her legs forward with all her might, desperate to keep her lead. The creature pounded after her, regaining the speed which the sharp turn has cost him. Celestia kept her eyes on the hoofholds down the cave, her whole focus on timing the jump just right. This focus, however, left her unprepared for the rock jutting out of the floor. Her front right hoof caught the rock and tripped her forward. The creature roared in triumph and quickened his pace. His prey laid stunned and prostrate upon the floor. Nothing would keep him from a feast tonight! BONG! Celestia looked up to see the bear falling forward. Unlike Celestia’s forward tumble, the creature merely fell flat where he was. Standing just to his side stood Pinkie, beaming and grasping a large carnival mallet. A sharp laugh escaped Celestia. “I wondered if you’d pull anything else out of your tail.” “Oh, this was in my mane,” Pinkie said, shoving the impossibly large hammer back into her mane. “I figured that hitting a bear on the whole head would work too.” Celestia gazed down at the furry lump now dozing on the floor. “I’d say you figured correctly.” Pinkie walked over and helped Celestia up. “Shall we continue? All this fighting has left me kind of famished and…” She wiggled her eyebrows. “…I think some cookies would be nice, no?” Celestia smiled. “Yes, they would.” They made sure their torches were still lit, then made their way forward.
Room of DoomThe cave continued downward the further Celestia and Pinkie went. Their hooves slipped against the rocks, which grew slicker with each step. Water leaking from melted snow above furthered their difficulty. More than once they had to pause their journey to catch their breath. Not helping was the gradually lowering ceiling, which Celestia frequently had to turn her neck to make her way through. Yet the journey also became easier in some ways. They soon discovered that whatever magic filled the cave caused a bright green glow in the walls. Perhaps a mixture of magic and local bacteria, Celestia thought. They soon agreed to put out their torches, which had started dimming anyway. After what seemed like hours, they exited the tunnel into a large room. Straightening her long-bent neck, Celestia gaped in surprise. The room’s ceiling was adorned with sharp stalactites. Thousands covered the top of the room, each pointing down like a plethora of knives ready to come down. The walls of the room were smooth rock, water trickling down their walls. For the first thirty feet, the solid floor shared the walls’ smoothness. Then, the floor turned into a wide, clear pool of water. The edge of the water met the surrounding rock perfectly; the slightest disturbance would send water crashing over the edges onto the floor. In the dimness of the light, Celestia could not see the bottom, but she could see the reflection of the stalactites perfectly. Whatever water was dripping in here was uncontaminated by minerals or anything else that would discolor the water’s clearness. “Alrighty!” Pinkie said, hopping atop Celestia. “Let’s fly over this pool and get us some cookies!” Celestia looked across the room. On the other side of the pool, fifty feet away, sat the same even ground like they currently stood on. Just past this space stood an open archway leading deeper into the cave. The same green light filling the cavern illuminated the steps leading downward. Opening her wings, Celestia took a step forward. Then she paused. “What is it?” Pinkie said. “This is too easy,” Celestia said. Her wings curled back against her body. “The power guarding the recipe wouldn’t make such a breezy obstacle. There’s a catch here…” Pinkie hopped off her back, inching towards the water. “Don’t get too close, Pinkie,” Celestia cautioned. “We don’t know if something is in there.” “Right,” Pinkie said, taking a few steps back. “Besides, I don’t have the best records with mysterious pools of water.” Celestia’s eyes scanned the room. She tried to look for anything amiss, some magical sign etched into the walls, anything that would- The realization hit her. She pointed to the wall on her right. “The water, Pinkie.” “Yeah?” “It’s running up the walls.” Pinkie’s eyes shot to the wall. Indeed, she could see that the streaks of water did not fall down to the pool, but instead up towards the stalactites’ bases. The long streaks closer to the grounded pool remained for several seconds, making it easy to mistake them running down. “This room is a booby trap, Pinkie.” Pinkie froze solid. “Are we in danger?” “Always,” Celestia said, eyes wandering the room again. “It’s just a question of what triggers this danger.” Against her wishes, Pinkie’s body began to shake. “C-Can we move?” “For now.” Celestia picked up a loose rock. Around four inches in circumference, the tiny boulder fit perfectly in her hoof. “But be ready to run back the way we came if that changes.” Rearing back, she chucked the rock over the pool towards the other side. For several feet the rock flew forward. The second it starting to fall down toward the pool, however, the rock halted in the air. Then, with a speed even Rainbow Dash would be astounded by, the rock shot up towards the ceiling and thrust itself upon a stalactite. The force split the rock into several smaller pieces that fell back toward the pool. They too soon stopped and shot back upwards to the rocky blades to impale themselves. On and on this fall and reversal occurred until the dust could not be seen. “A Reversal Room,” Celestia said grimly. “Simple, but effective.” “You mean, everything goes backwards?” Pinkie said, still nervous. “Anything that goes over this pool. Up and up we’ll go until we’re shish kebabs.” Celestia sighed. “Reversal rooms were used to keep thieves from trespassing the homes of sorcerers. Apparently the curse Kalamandra made allowed the recipe to create one too.” “So how do we get across?” Celestia sighed. “That’s just the problem. Reversal Rooms always had unique methods of passage. Sometimes the sorcerer would carry a magic talisman or a special plant. Occasionally they’d whisper words that only the sorcerer would know. But they were all unique for each room. There are a thousand different options and we have virtually zero of them.” “Can’t we teleport or fly across?” “Too risky. We’d have to assume I could fly against the curse’s forces, which is a gamble I’m not willing to take. And teleportation requires magic. It might work, but it may go wrong for us by teleporting us somewhere else or worse, right over the pool.” Pinkie looked over the pool, hugging herself. Her nervousness had transitioned into deep thought. “I should have known this would happen,” Celestia groaned. “This curse would never give up the recipe that easy. I should’ve…” Celestia’s rant did not reach Pinkie’s ears. Her head was cocked, staring down at the pool in front of her. Eyes still fixed, she reached over and grasped another rock. Gripping it in her hoof, she rolled it toward the pool. Her gasp pulled Celestia from her tirade and guided her eyes over to the pool. Celestia’s own gape soon followed. The rock was rolling atop the pool! Ripples echoed wherever the rock touched. The surface was undeniably liquid water, yet the rock rolled like it was on the smoothest ice. On and on it went, until the force of Pinkie’s roll waned and the boulder came to a stop. Then, a half-second later, it shot up to the ceiling to be stabbed by the stalactites. “Dang it!” Pinkie whined. “The rock you threw was in the air, so I thought maybe it would only grab things in the air. I was hoping all we had to do was keep our hooves on the floor to be safe.” She sat down and pouted. Celestia, however, began to inch toward the pool. Grabbing another rock, she turned her back to the pool and tossed the rock over her shoulder. Her aim was just right, the rock landing right at the edge of the pool and rolling along the surface. Going, going until it too rolled to a stop. Both Celestia and Pinkie stared, waiting for the rock to plummet upwards and be stabbed repeatedly to dust. Several seconds went by in agonizing silence. Yet the rock continued to lay there on the pool, still as the grave. A wide smile filled Celestia’s face. “That’s it!” She grabbed Pinkie into a powerful hug. “Pinkie, you genius, you cracked the secret!” “Fwa fwa?” Pinkie mumbled, her face shoved deep into Celestia’s chest fur. “Sorry,” Celestia said, releasing Pinkie. “When you rolled your rock, it kept going until forward motion stopped. The same thing happened when I threw the first rock, except that was when it started to fall down. Whatever goes over this pool falls up if it goes down or moves forward. When I threw my rock backwards and along the surface, however, it was fine.” “So we need to go across the pool backwards and without moving ourselves downward?” “Exactly!” “But…how?” “Simple: We get a running start going backwards, then throw ourselves on our bellies to slide backward across the pool!” “Why not just walk backwards?” “We have to put our hooves down in order to walk, and I’m not sure if the room will interpret that as ‘going down’. We’ll need to stay on our bellies if we want to be safe.” Pinkie turned and looked over the pool. A slight shiver filled her body, before a deep breath steadied her. Turning to Celestia, she whispered: “I want to go first.” “No,” Celestia said in a firm tone. “I’ll do it first. If anypony’s going to risk getting impaled, I should be the first. I got us in this mess, I’ll pay the price if I can’t get us out.” Pinkie shot herself between Celestia and the pool. “And I’m not going to let you do this by yourself. We’re friends, Celestia, whether you like it or not, and friends do things together.” Celestia stared down at her for a few moments, then nodded. “Alright. We’ll do it together. Whether salvation or destruction, we’ll share the fate.” Pinkie nodded and turned away from the pool. Celestia likewise turned around to face the entrance to the room. Each took deep breaths, then looked at the other. “Ready?” Celestia said. “Ready,” Pinkie said. They began to run backwards as hard as they could. Celestia counted each step, waiting until the last possible moment. I hope this’ll carry us all the way across, she thought. I don’t want to think about what happens if we get stuck halfway. The doubt faded as the last five feet of solid ground came. At the three foot mark, Celestia screamed, “Now!” Downwards they threw themselves, their bottoms hitting a small patch of the solid floor just before the pool. They flattened their bellies and chins to the floor. Celestia could tell when the surfaces shifted beneath her. The pool held a softer touch than the hard ground, like glass smoothed by a sander and waxed to utter perfection. Like ice without the chill. Celestia closed her eyes as she felt the rush of the pool beneath her. I’ll try to teleport us if this doesn’t work, she thought. But if I can’t, I want to think of this smooth pool before the end. Forever and ever she seemed to slide, even though she knew that she was gradually slowing. How far she’d gone, she couldn’t tell. Ten feet felt the same as ten hundred in the intensity of the situation. She wanted to shout something reassuring to Pinkie, who she could hear sliding alongside her, but she couldn’t think of the right words. How odd I should be comforting the Element of Laughter! Celestia thought. What else shall this-? She felt a slight bump under her flank. A roughness that went up her body, from her belly to her chin. One that brought her to a complete stop. Celestia forced her eyes open. The pool sat before her, a thin line of ground separating her from the water. She turned to her right to see Pinkie Pie in the same position. A look of utter relief filled the party pony’s visage. Then utter joy. “Yippee!” Pinkie Pie squealed, bouncing all around the floor. “We’re alive, and we’re going to get cookies!” Celestia laughed, despite herself. Seeing Pinkie’s change in demeanor seemed to light a fire under her as well. To see a pony go from despair to joy was one of the grandest experiences Celestia had ever seen in all her years. Magic could work miracles, but so could hope. “Yes, we shall,” Celestia said, standing up. “Though I hope this curse only made three challenges, because I’m getting tired.” “You and me both, sister!” Pinkie said. “Powder Cookies better be in the S-Tier of cookies for all this trouble!” “Oh, they are, Pinkie,” Celestia said, following the party mare to the chamber’s exit. “They very much are.”
The Root of PowerThe rest of the way down was smoother than every other part of the cave. Carved steps followed the tunnel down, damp but bumpy enough to prevent any slips should one catch the occasional wet stair. The light likewise brightened and illuminated everything as clearly as any ceiling light. Pinkie’s mood likewise picked up, with her rambling about all the ponies she would invite to the World Premiere of Powder Cookies party that she’d be throwing once this was all over. While others might’ve grown annoyed with the rambling, Celestia took the talk with a knowing smile. She knew this to be one of Pinkie’s coping methods with scary situations. Who am I to judge how she deals with these traps? Celestia mused. I roped her into this. After a few minutes journeying down the steps, a large archway appeared before them. Pinkie stopped right at the cusp and stuck her head in. Before her stretched an arena, one hundred feet tall and two hundred feet wide. Four different levels made of stone moved downward to the main stage. Where curtains should be on the stage stood only blackness. Sitting in the center of the stage, atop a wooden table, laid a small sheet of paper. “At last,” Celestia said. Pinkie looked left and right. “I hope this room isn’t booby-trapped too,” she said. Her voice echoed across the room. Celestia scanned the room carefully. Aside from the table, nothing but the stone steps and stage filled the room. “It isn’t,” Celestia said, before hopping down the levels. Each one was twice as long as her, and she resisted gliding all the way down. Closer and closer the table came until she was upon the stage and staring down at the paper. She didn’t bother trying to read the directions or ingredients; she’d forget them in a minute anyway. Instead, she looked to the top of the paper where two words sat in bold type: POWDER COOKIES A hoof eased forward to grasp it. “Wait!” Pinkie Pie cried. She hopped up on the stage and started to root through her tail. A bouncy ball and accordion fell out before she managed to pull out a camera. “I want to try something,” she said. Celestia lowered her hoof as Pinkie readied her camera. A bright flash and a loud poof filled the arena, before a soft whir filled the room. Pinkie plucked the picture rolling out from the bottom of the camera and squinted. A few moments passed in silence, before a frustrated grunt escaped her. “No use,” Pinkie whined. “The camera didn’t pick up any of the words.” “It’s the curse,” Celestia said. “Apparently Kalamandra had the foresight to make the curse cover anything that could replicate it, even technologies that didn’t exist yet.” She gave a mirthless chuckle. “I almost want to applaud her for such talent.” “Then why aren’t you?” a low voice called out. “We are in a theater, after all.” Celestia and Pinkie whipped themselves around. The archway, much like the cave opening, laid covered. The sole difference was the archway had been filled by stacked stone, carefully placed as if architects from long ago had walled it off in the original construction. “Who said that?” Celestia demanded. She pushed Pinkie back behind her outstretched wing. “Oh, your memory really is going, Celestia,” the voice chuckled. “Who do you think it is?” Celestia’s eyes narrowed for a moment, before expanding in horror. “Kalamandra!” At the word’s very utterance, the blackness behind the stage shot out and snared the two ponies. Upwards they flew until they hung ten feet above the stage. Celestia found her limbs and wings encircled by three black tentacles each, while a lone limb encircled her neck. Pinkie hung upside down, gripped by one large tentacle that bounced her up and down. Her breathing labored and limbs feeling like they were about to be torn off, Celestia stared down at the stage. From the blackness stepped a shadow in the shape of a pony. Each step forward caused a small portion of the blackness to fall off, replaced by a brown coat. More and more equestrian did the shadow look until it stood directly beneath them. A copper mare stared up at them, her turquoise eyes staring up at them in malicious amusement. Thick bangs of black hair fell down her face. A red dress adorned her body and flowed freely onto the stone below her. “How nice of you to visit, Celestia,” the mare said. “Did you want some Powder Cookies? I’m more than happy to give you a few.” “How is this possible?” Celestia sputtered. “You’ve been dead for seven hundred years!” “Oh no, Celestia. See, unlike you and that nocturnal sister of yours, we regular ponies don’t get to live a thousand years. The best you can give us is a cookie recipe.” She waved her hoof. “But no matter. That recipe was the key to my immortality. Because it didn’t just twist animals and inanimate objects to do my bidding.” A sharp gleam filled her eyes. “It kept me alive forever.” Pinkie Pie shivered, and Celestia did everything she could not to shake herself. “I have you to thank for that,” Kalamandra said, nodding. “Your Powder Cookies recipe had just the right amount of sentimental value. All those years of baking them with your sister gave the recipe such deep, emotionally-charged magic that I could feed off of it for three more millennia.” “Wait, you baked them with Luna?” Pinkie gasped. Kalamandra raised an eyebrow. “Ah, you didn’t tell your pink friend here about why you want this recipe so bad, did you?” She laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, my little pony. It’s quite simple. See, all the way back to foalhood, Celestia and Luna would share Powder Cookies on the Winter Solstice. It was their little tradition of sisterhood. But one day…well, let’s just say they had a little disagreement and Celestia saw fit to exile sweet little Luna to the Moon.” Celestia’s face filled with rage. “You thought I wouldn’t know that, Celestia?” Kalamandra cooed. “Of course you didn’t. It wasn’t public knowledge seven hundred years ago. Don’t bother asking me how I figured it out.” She gave a flippant wave of her hoof. “Let’s just say a lot of research and a little hard work made your Royal Archives tell me everything I needed to know. Including what the mythological Lunar Princess’s favorite Winter Wonderday dessert was.” She turned to Pinkie. “Anyway, poor Celestia could never have a bite of Powder Cookies again without thinking of her absent sister. Each bite would just bring a torrent of once-pleasant memories flooding to her, now soured by little Luna’s moonbound flight. So she had to get rid of it. Had she been smart she would have burned it, but bleeding hearts can never destroy things. She had to give it away, so I stepped in and asked for the recipe. I’d done all the right curtsies and said the right lines, so how could she refuse?” Facing Celestia again, she grinned. “You should’ve been a crueler Princess, Celestia. You might’ve survived longer.” “Cruelty is for tyrants and monsters like you,” Celestia spat. Kalamandra shrugged. “Monster or magician, it matters not what I am now. For once I absorb your power, I shall gain physical form once more. With the wings and horns of an alicorn to match! No longer constrained to this forsaken cave and free to conquer Equestria! And unlike you, my reign will be eternal. An undying queen rules forever and punishes without mercy!” A look of wry amusement crossed her face. “But I suppose I should allow some leniency. The griffin kings of old always let a prisoner free whenever their reign began, just to show their subjects that they had some small bit of mercy in them.” She brought Pinkie Pie down toward the stage until the tendril held the party mare before her. Still upside down, Pinkie felt like a bat staring at wolf. “Miss Pinkie Pie,” Kalamandra cooed. “I’m more than willing to spare you should you pledge yourself to me. You defeated my bear in combat and Celestia trusted you to navigate this cave, so obviously you’re a mare of some resources. I could use somepony like you in my court.” She shot a glance up at Celestia and shook her head. “Besides, if she was willing to drag you into a death trap over some cookies, I don’t think she has your best interests in mind.” Pinkie looked up at Celestia. A twinge of guilt seemed to fill Celestia’s face. Looking back at Kalamandra, Pinkie’s face hardened. “She told me enough,” she said in a tone just above a whisper. “She told me the recipe was important to her and told me I didn’t have to come. That was enough.” Her chest puffed out in defiance. “In fact, knowing now that she wanted to relive a memory with her sister, I can say I’m glad I helped her! I would do the same thing all over again!” Celestia smiled. I hope we survive this, Pinkie, she thought. I want to cook you the best batch of Powder Cookies in the history of Equestria! Kalamandra likewise smiled, her grin unearnest. “Such a shame,” she tutted. “I would’ve liked to have a party pony like you when I marched into Canterlot. It will be a party for the ages…” “Why wait?” Pinkie said, beaming. “What?!” Kalamandra’s face scrunched in confusion, before widening in horror. Sticking out from Pinkie’s curly mane was a light-blue cannon. One strand of hair wrapped around the barrel, while a smaller strand pushed down on the trigger. PWEEEE! Kalamandra stumbled backward, an onslaught of confetti and pies smashing against her face. The black tendril around Pinkie Pie loosened and she fell face-first onto the floor. The party cannon pushed itself back into her mane upon impact, and Pinkie bounced off her head directly back onto her hooves. “Celestia!” she hollered. “Let’s hoof it!” Celestia grinned and closed her eyes. “The power of the Sun has not left me!” she screamed, engulfing herself in a blast of light. The tendrils around her vaporized in an instant and she swooped down to pick up Pinkie. Grabbing her, Celestia readied another blast to blow open the arch’s doors. ZWOOOM! The blast hit against the stone with a thunderous crash, but Celestia stopped. A black mark stood where there should be a hole. Kalamandra’s laugh echoed behind them. “You’re too late, Celestia!” she howled. “You’ve spent too long in my cave! I’ve absorbed enough of your magic that I can resist any attack you throw at me!” A sinister grin filled her face. “But if you want to keep trying, feel free. The more magic you use, the faster I’ll digest you and your little pink friend!” Celestia growled and sent a blast of fire directly at Kalamandra. The sorceress made no attempt to even move as the flame crashed against her. After the flash subsided, the stone around her flickered with flame, but not a singe was upon Kalamandra. “Yes!” she screamed in ecstasy. “Keep fighting! I’d rather be a goddess sooner rather than later!” Gritting her teeth, Celestia panted. She knew Kalamandra was telling the truth; already she felt her strength leaving her body. I can only put up one more strong attack, she thought, gazing at the black tentacles starting to snake out from the stage. But where to? She has to have a weak spot that- Her eyes wandered to the wooden table. Atop it sat the recipe gleaming an unearthly glow. The shine was just like the cave: light green and bright. Pulsating with power and dark magic. A tear began to form at Celestia’s eye. I’m sorry, Luna, Celestia thought. She turned to Pinkie. “I’m sorry, Pinkie,” she whispered. “There won’t be any Powder Cookies this Winter Wonderday.” Pinkie stared up at her in confusion, then realization. Before she could say anything, Celestia launched another fire attack. This time, however, it was not aimed at Kalamandra. The sorceress’s eyes went wide when she realized the path. Had she been a split-second quicker, she might’ve been able to direct the tendrils to the defense or cast a quick telekinetic spell that would knock the table over. But she wasn’t, and the recipe burst into flame upon the spell’s contact. A high-pitched scream filled the arena, and the black tendrils disappeared. Kalamandra herself began to dissipate like a cloud being blown away by the atmospheric winds. Large boulders began to fall to the floor as the cave-in started. Celestia grabbed Pinkie Pie and teleported. Pop! Celestia and Pinkie tumbled into the snow. They looked up to see themselves outside the cave once more. The blizzard had stopped, but the howl of the wind had been replaced by another screech from inside the cave. The jagged rocks that had locked them within rumbled and crashed inward. Now the passage remained even more blocked than it had before. “She’d tied the recipe too closely to her,” Celestia sighed. “The only way to freedom was to destroy it.” She stared sadly at Pinkie Pie. “I’m sorry you didn’t get anything out of this, Pinkie.” She hung her head. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything.” Pinkie shrugged. “It’s alright. You told me enough. And…” She let her hoof wander over the desolate mountain. “Better to let a recipe be destroyed than the whole world.” Crash! Both ponies’ eyes shot toward the entrance. A panting bear thrust himself out through a crack in the rocks just big enough for his body. He pushed on until his last paw came outward. A new rumbling started as more rocks fell to fill in the crack. Soon, even more rocks tumbled downward to cover the cave opening in another layer of impenetrable stone. Clear of the new avalanche, the bear stopped and looked toward the two ponies. Celestia’s horn glowed a deep golden color. Even the few moments outside had restored her to full strength. The bear sniffed towards them, then stumbled off toward a nearby treeline. Whether he understood the implicit threat of Celestia’s magic or just wanted to escape the place of his enslavement, Celestia could not tell. She suspected the latter. Celestia sighed. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s go.” “Back to Ponyville?” Pinkie asked. “No. To Luna.”
ConfessionLuna didn’t initially know what to make of her sister and Pinkie Pie appearing in the middle of her living room, disheveled and dotted with snow. She was right in the middle of Level 37 of Gallopga, but something in the way both of them looked at her killed any annoyance she would’ve had any other day. A deep melancholy seemed to fill their entire being. A feeling she knew and understood. They sat down in the other chairs around her. Celestia began to tell the story of the past few hours. Pinkie said nothing, only nodding along as if to confirm the story. Luna likewise remained silent. Her eyes never left her sister. Everything, from the Powder Cookies to Kalamandra to the Reverse Room, spilled out of Celestia. A million details Luna never would have thought Celestia could remember in all that happened. Stories from over a millennia ago intermixing with the present. Apologies for gifts that would never be given and memories never re-experienced. Then the story was all over. Celestia rested her face in both of her hooves, not to hide tears but to lessen the burden that seemed to weigh her whole existence down. Pinkie lounged back in her chair and stared up at the ceiling. Luna remained unmoving. Then, without a word, she got up and embraced Celestia. A look of shock filled Celestia’s face, then she returned the hug. “Celly, I do not require Powder Cookies to have a delightful Winter Solstice,” Luna said. “Having you by my side is enough.” Tears filled Celestia’s face. “Yes, but it would’ve been nice to-“ “No buts, Sister,” Luna said softly, but firmly. “Yes, it would’ve been grand to have Powder Cookies again, but it was grand enough having them all those years ago. Those memories have never faded from my mind. They are enough.” She pushed herself back and looked deep into her sister’s eyes. “I want to spend this Winter Wonderday making new memories with you.” Celestia nodded, tears streaking down her face. Pinkie Pie wanted to cry too as she gazed upon the scene. She withheld herself though; she knew this was not the moment to bawl like she did all those years ago when she and her friends had restored Luna to her rightful self. Luna had begged for forgiveness back then. Now it was Celestia’s turn, and Luna would do the same as her sister had long ago: Remind her that her sister still loved her despite everything. A few soft sobs filled the room for a few minutes. Then, after a quick sniffle, Celestia said: “You know, I promised Pinkie cookies after all this. We didn’t get the Powder Cookie recipe, but we have quite a few ancient desserts we could still share.” “Indeed,” Luna said with a smile. “Like the Towering Technicolor Tiramisu, or the Deep-Melted Delight.” “Ooh!” Pinkie said, hopping off her chair. “Those sound like they could be fun!” “Correct!” Luna proclaimed. “They are the most fun!” Pinkie Pie giggled. “Then what are we waiting for? Winter Wonderday is only three days away, and we need those desserts prepped stat!” Celestia and Luna followed the bounding party mare toward the kitchen, leaning their heads against one another all the way. Ready to make a delicious dessert, and ready to make new memories. Author's Note I thought about an ending where Pinkie somehow managed to copy the recipe or Luna had another one that had a slightly different instructions, but I decided against it. The story's message about moving on from the past and trying to make new memories wouldn't work as well if I hadn't gone with this ending.
