The Gray Dames

Chapters

Introduction
The Princess of Rats
Children of the Sun
The Bulwark of Harmony
An Old Mare's Tale
Mess, pt, I
Mess, pt. II
Theory of Mind
Envy
Queen and Princess

Introduction

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

***

In the damp shade of Everfree Forest, amid all the creepy, crawling animals, and menacing shapes, a creature whimpered. The light from the stars and from the moon barely reached through the trees and the darkness hid threats and promised doom. A sad and pitiful sound came from beneath the vines holding onto a thick tree. A fire had carved a gallery inside the trunk and the cavity made for a cramped, but secluded spot behind the curtain of vines. A hiding place for a creature that wanted to be away from everyone and everything.

The humidity made for an uncomfortable refuge, and the gasses of the swamp smelled of rot, but it was good enough. In her feverish, desperate flight she had at least found a reasonable hole to hide. The natural Chaos of Everfree Forest disturbed magic in strange, unpredictable ways. It would shield her presence from any scrying attempt. For better or worse, it prevented anyone from finding her until she was ready to leave. If she would ever.

Celestia’s routine had become agonizingly exhausting. Startling awake, panicking and panting, scanning the still and dark water through the gaps among the vines. Jumping at every little noise, movement, or ripple of the swampy water surrounding her tree. Only to then fall asleep again, so exhausted she was.

Eventually it came to a point her body had accrued enough energy she wouldn’t fall asleep again within minutes. Instead, she crammed herself at the back of her damp, sooty chamber inside the dead tree. All joints in her body rattled every couple of seconds. Large, white wings covering her face, a small whiny escaped her again. They were everywhere, sure to find her at any second now.

But the hours passed, and nothing happened. Frogs croaked, insects buzzed and a timberwolf howled eventually. It became patently obvious there were no changelings outside to stick her inside a pod. No griffons shot at her with fancy weapons and no murderous ancient griffon goddess entered through the hole on the tree, smiling like someone’s conceited mother.

As her tired mind recovered its faculties, Celestia came to terms that no one was coming to get her. That the dwelling creatures of Everfree probably feared her enough they’d keep hundreds of hooves between them and her tree. They knew to avoid the area just because of the powerful magic she radiated. That the Harpy, dangerous as she was, was not actively hunting her. That her loyal Royal Guards were not all changelings in disguise. That there must be a reason Luna didn’t respond to her attempts at reaching her and that Discord didn’t abandon her. Neither had Twilight and Cadance or their friends. In reality, Celestia had the upper hoof, as she knew what her opponent’s strategy was. And she had good reasons to believe the Harpy was not even aware Celestia had learned of her existence.

She was alone, though. Her muscles relaxed and her wide, trembling eyes softened. Glistening tears pooled under her eyes before they rolled down her cheeks. Chocolate Velvet was gone. All the others might eventually return to her when the disaster the griffons had created was resolved. But he would not. He had laid down his life for her. Her goofy, adoring knight was gone. Killed by a particularly vulgar and disrespectful griffon criminal, travestied as a hero of Griffinkind. Ultimately, another victim of the vile Cult of The Harpy.

All salt to rub on Celestia’s wound. That she had trusted the would-be noble griffon king only for him to employ such a caliber of agents. He to whom Celestia had given her significant support to become the griffon king. All along, another puppet in a war older than time itself. Another weapon wielded against Celestia. Her good intentions themselves served her enemy.

It all seemed so obvious in retrospect. The hatred against the hippogriffs. All the resistance against any attempt to assist the northerner griffons. Thousands of years ago, when Celestia decided to honor Empress Geneviere’s request to leave them alone, their gallant defense of the northerner lands hid a backhoof slap of the likes Celestia hadn’t felt in a while. She fell on a trap which sprung millennia later, and she waited for it, sitting like a duck.

Anger like she hadn’t felt in a while filled her. Her chest turned into a furnace fueled with shards of her broken heart. But she reigned in those feelings. They wouldn’t serve her more than also fueling her paranoia.

One hoof to her chest, breathe in. Stretch it out, breathe out. The gesture didn’t wash away the anger, much less the sorrow or the shame, but it helped Celestia focus. Center her mind on the problem at hoof and what she could do about it. How to fight it.

A long sigh escaped the princess and her ears went limp. She understood she had suffered some sort of mental breakdown. Luna would understand it better. So would Chocolate Velvet. He’d call it a psychotic episode, or something like that, while Luna would go on about memory loops, sentience routines run amok and how stupid it was for Celestia to trigger that spell. Then Luna would hug Celestia, and Chocolate would hold them. Ultimately, all Celestia was left with was the unsettling, intimidating feeling in the wake of her mind recovering from such a break from reality.

The realization brought to her another facet of her present reality: she must do something. She had been dealt a crippling blow in more ways than most would understand, but The Mare was resourceful. As deteriorated as the situation had become, she was still as sharp as she always was. The lanky, streetwise little pegasus on the streets of Everfree still lived. Under the shadows of the ruins of the Old Republic, before she had effectively become Mommy Equestria, little Sunny Days could run circles around any Blueblood guard or Brightmane officer. She had defeated The Harpy, not once, but twice. She would defeat her again.

A frown found its way into her brow. She may have become a little too soft. Fortunately, she never became dull minded. Gentle? Yes. Defenseless? Not ever. One didn’t raise to her position without understanding things like the power of proper planning. And that included having alternatives. Already ideas popped into her mind, even as she hid inside a dead tree.

She… Could stay there for just a while longer, though.

If anything, Celestia knew what the music was she needed to dance. The Harpy meant to fragment her powerbase and use ancient magic to destroy her. Ancient magic most no longer understood except for herself and her enemy. Well, two could play that game. If Hairball had a million fanatical griffons to power her magic, Celestia could find ponies a million times over. It was all a matter of taking the right steps.

Manehattan. There were much more ancient things in there than the foundations of the largest pony city. Much more dangerous, and useful, than myths of sewergators. Ironically, it was the same place Twilight and Cadance were headed to. While Celestia couldn’t precise how many days had passed since their escape, if they hadn’t already arrived, they would soon. Hopefully, Manehattan’s local militia could be trusted to apprehend Celestia’s wayward princesses and help her deal with the whole situation.

It may turn out to be a small blessing, but Celestia must be careful. How far had The Harpy sunk her talons into her world? A large griffon community lived in Manehattan and they would get in her way. They would be a danger to Twilight and Cadance, and Celestia could not allow them to fall in the Harpy’s paws. Confused as Cadance was about her origins and curious as Twilight always was, they didn’t understand the danger.

Celestia pursed her lips and stood. Head low, stretching her neck. Her head poked out between the leafy vines, and she quickly scanned the dark swamp. Just to be sure no murderous griffons or sneaky changelings waited outside. A deep breath and some brave thoughts followed. She needed to get her shaking hooves under control. The Harpy was not watching her, and Celestia had places to go and ponies to see before she could mount a counterattack.

She forced her shaking hoof out through a fog of fear and apprehension. Plodding into the shallow water, nothing attacked her. Her eyes darted every which way, but nothing happened. A deep breath came before she took another shaky step. And another. Her entire body quaked as her mind flooded with terrible images of hunting griffons and cocky changelings. But no griffons swept down from the sky to rend her flesh apart and none of the shadows turned into a changeling ready to make her into a love farm.

The Princess of Rats

Real genius is nothing else but the supernatural virtue of humility in the domain of thought.

***

Far from downtown and away from the eyes of night-dwelling ponies of Manehattan, an unassuming metallic door hid under a bridge. No ponies pulled carts above it in the dead of night, and only a muddy trickle of water ran in the ditch under the bridge. In the past, the canal would gather excess water from the city’s many industries. Now, it gave the rain a quick way to the ocean and left the used water to the sewer system, accessible through the door.

The sun had just set and the grass, insistently growing through the cracks, danced in the chilly breeze. Only a trio of ponies disturbed the wafting whispers and trickle of water finding its way through the cracks. They busied themselves donning their protective gear under the bridge. Gas masks, impermeable overalls, and heavy boots. The most important, they were missing, though.

“Where the bubbles at?” A bulky, but short, brown earth pony with a thick beard rummaged through the supplies in their cart. The pony propped himself on the cart, supporting his weight with his hooves on it. His frown was not happy, nor his tone. “I ain’t going in without a bubble shield. I’ll see the union tonight!”

“Will you quit it, Shades?” His companion, a brick red unicorn in the process of magically tying his boots, groaned without looking at the other. “Sewergators are not and have never been real.”

“Yeah, you tell yourself that when there’s one chewing on your ass. No bubbles, no deal, boss.” He plopped back to the muddy concrete of the canal to glare at the white unicorn with the ‘Sewermaster’ hat glaring back at him.

The latter raised his hoof, but a flash of golden light cut him off. Night turned into day under their little bridge. Once their eyes recovered and they could uncover them from behind their legs, Princess Celestia stared at them. She cocked her head with a grim frown and pursed lips. Her words came out with little of the kindness they knew her for.

“Take leave tonight.” She ordered.

“But Princess.” The white unicorn raised his brows in a bratty frown. He hesitated and caused the alicorn princess to fold back her ears and knot her brow deeper. Still, he insisted, struggling with his words. “There is a… We’re scheduled to do maintenance in the…”

She didn’t allow him to finish. “I am not asking, and I do not wish to hurt you. I need you to leave. Now. Please.”

“We hear you, Princess.” The red unicorn shouldered the white one to move. “It’s all yours!”

“Beware of the sewergators, princess!” The brown pony warned, rushing past her to be followed by the unicorns. Their cart and equipment remained forgotten under the bridge.

Celestia watched them leave as her ears slowly returned to their resting position. Turning to the door, her magical telekinesis fidgeted with the padlock. Ponies not meant to go through that door knew better than to tamper with it, but any sufficiently motivated unicorn could unlock them. Even foals could cast ‘Thieves’ Friend’ and it would snap open. She still smiled softly that she wouldn’t have to force the door open. Inconspicuousness would be preferable. Not to mention someone would have to pay for a broken door.

She frowned at the thoughts swimming inside her head. Lifetimes of concern and warding the public property turned her into a strange creature. Who else would think of not damaging a door after all she had lost? She sighed.

“Don’t despair, Celestia.” She whispered to herself, staring at the open stairway, shadowy and damp, going down into the city’s sewer system.

Magical lamps provided a safe light source along the stairs. A sequence of crystals fixated on the arching walls and connected by thick cables hung from the right wall along the way. Not unlike the usual magical lighting inside many homes and public buildings, although older and less reliable.

A quick spell covered her in a golden shimmer for an instant, like an ephemeral magical protective suit, and she started on her way down the cramped stairs. Her large pony body couldn’t turn around, and looking over her shoulder was a bit of a chore, but she managed. The door banged behind her, and Celestia even managed to close the latch on the other side. Absconding with the padlock would probably have been preferable, or even locking it into place, but that would be time better invested moving forward already.

Forward meant down the slippery steps. Maintenance was indeed necessary, as the brick and plaster let too much silt accumulate. Her hooves often slipped, and she almost fell once and then twice, but careful steps would take her all the way down. The air became damper and fetid after a short while. None of that gave her pause. Celestia had been through worse situations. She knew dungeons and battlefields. The cramped, filthy bricks and blackening plaster wouldn’t stop her. Neither would the repulsive stink of sewage. At least, this one didn’t harbor the malice of some dungeons she had to explore in the past.

Broken crystal light fixtures forced her to feel her way down the steps through the dark areas of a winding staircase. Her shoed hooves clicked at the bricks, finding where each step ended and where the next one began. Careful she didn’t lose her balance. Careful her weight-supporting leg wouldn’t slip on the muck.

Her horn could have provided her with magical light, but sewers held pockets of dangerous gases. Could they explode in contact with live magic? They didn’t because of the artificial light magic of the crystals, but what of her complex and heavily elemental magic? Testing it would be imprudent when she lacked the understanding of the ponies who worked there. Even if she didn’t fear any damage, an explosion or flash fire could cause her. It would still damage the infrastructure and harm several little critters which lived in the sewers.

“Stop worrying about everyone else except for you, old nag.” She whispered to herself, letting her ears flop.

But then, what was she to do? Cause a fire just because she could, and knew it to be detrimental to the sewer system and all the critters which lived there? She continued her way down, ignoring the stray thoughts skittering every which way inside her head, like the black bugs on the wall.

She gasped and took a step back, almost tripping on the steps behind. She controlled herself so her wings wouldn’t flare open in the cramped corridor, but she was no longer in the sewers. Her royal suite in Canterlot Palace had replaced the grimy walls filled with black bugs.

Sitting in the middle of her enormous bed, surrounded with red, gold, and white silks and linen, she closed her wings around herself. Her forelegs beat the mattress like a furious drummer hit his instruments. White walls and a rich decoration of shades of blue and silver stars covered the walls in her spacious bedchambers. A censer filled the cool night air with the smell of rosewood. But not all was perfect. A shower of sparks flew from behind her opulent blue and gold-painted dresser.

She shrieked and pointed with a shaking hoof. “It’s there! Chocolate! It’s there, behind the dresser!”

“I got it! I got it!” Chocolate Velvet rushed past her bed, holding a folded newspaper in his telekinetic magic, flapping his wings like an overexcited colt about to deliver righteous justice upon his foe.

“Wait!” Celestia shrieked again. “Don’t kill it!”

“What?” He stopped on his hooves and turned to look at her over his shoulder, disbelieving brown eyes frowning. “For real?”

“It did nothing wrong! It’s just… Disgusting. Please, don’t hurt it!”

Ridiculous didn’t even begin to describe the scene, really. It was just a small bug with a penchant for lightning elemental magic. Celestia had toppled empires, conquered the entire world, and made friends out of her enemies. But she couldn’t negotiate her squeamish panic over a little bug. It was the lightning magic. It interacted weirdly with the components of her own magic, and she couldn’t stand it. Also… Lightning and thunder.

Chocolate Velvet stared at her for a couple of heartbeats before rolling his brown eyes. “Ah, alright. I’ll just grab it then.”

He scooted against the wall and looked down behind the dresser, straining and squinting before his horn ignited with amber magic.

“Wait! Don’t!” She yelled too late.

Already the magic had exploded out of his horn and sent him sitting on his haunches. He coughed with smoke evanescing from his dark chocolate mane and wide, scared eyes. Leaving no time for reprise, the brave little bug charged at him, and Celestia shrieked like her life was in danger.

A sizable bug like the mother of all cockroaches. Its carapace was dark blue with cyan streaks and shining in the dark. Carrying an aura of lightning magic around it that fizzled in the air. Celestia’s consort thought fast. He trapped the bug with a unique Kirin flowerpot upside down on the carpet. The white flowers it held, he unceremoniously tossed to the floor.

“Got it!” The chocolate brown alicorn declared after covering the shockroach’s escape with a book. An ancient, limited edition of Eternal Return’s ‘Pony, All Too Pony’ copied just for her before Canterlot even existed. Still, Chocolate had a huge, goofy smile, despite the burnt mane. “Uh… Do you want me to throw it out the window, or something?”

“Can you let it free in the garden?” Celestia begged, knowing full well she had crossed the line into abusing his goodwill. It would be a long, awkward walk through the palace’s halls, carrying an expensive vase and a book with a trapped bug. But she held her hooves together with a pleading frown. “Please?”

“Sure!” He laughed, jovial and vibrant as always. “I’ll be right back!”

A sharp pain pierced through Celestia’s temple. She squealed and shook her head, but it tortured for several minutes more. It forced her to stand still and just breathe with a pained grimace. The cramped stairs into Manehattan’s sewers returned, and she stared at the scuttering bugs pretending she wasn’t there.

She exhaled and closed her eyes. It controlled the pain in her head to a degree. It did little regarding the grasping sting in her throat. Like talons, squeezing the air out of her until a sob escaped her. Her weakened limbs forced her to lie on the grimy steps, but she barely registered the disgust or discomfort. Images of the wet, red-stained white sheet covering a broken body haunted her from the back of her thoughts. Celestia invested all of her willpower to distract her inner eye from such images, but it had little effect.

It could be an aftereffect of the Harpy’s magic, still torturing her with vivid memories. Or maybe Celestia would rather be back in those happier times before everything had begun. Before Cadance found that accursed letter and took it to Twilight. Before her best friends had turned into enemies and while her consort still lived. Perhaps a combination of both.

Tragically, the silly event with the shockroach caused the Equestrian Chivalric Society to make fun of him. Even Twilight later jested at him for his valiant defense of the solar princess’ bedchambers.

Celestia shook her head, but it did little to ease the echoes of Chocolate’s laugher going back and forth, weaving amid her thoughts. Much less the insistent dripping of rainwater in the ruined library where she had left him to die. Those slowly became the noise of tricking water coming from deeper down the stairs. Memories seemed to cling to the forefront of her mind. The deafening silence sprinkled with eerie noises of that place assaulted mental composure. Celestia forced her legs to move her forward.

“Get a hold of yourself, Celestia.” She complained and pressed forward.

Finally, the light from the opening to the collecting gallery up ahead reached her after a subtle curve. The smell became more pungent, and Chocolate’s voice reminded her they needed to update their sewer systems in large cities. That they should disconnect the pluvial and wastewater systems and effect a higher grade of magical waste removal to the water out of the homes. Of course, ponies were not barbarians. They knew the water out of their homes, and businesses, was perhaps more dangerous than the one out of their industries, but nature took care of it as it always did. It would be prohibitively expensive, so they took it slowly. It was hard enough convincing city administrations to listen to the Consort.

In the end, they settled with a hybrid system which aggressively treated the combined water through septic and decantation and enchanted tanks, and finally a magical purifying plant by the shore. Most of the rainwater found its way by the canals, but not all of it yet. The water she stepped into was not as toxic as it used to be before ponies finally understood that used water carried diseases. It still reeked of sewer water, though. Fortunately, the lack of scheduled rain kept the flow to a minimum, and it barely reached her knees once she entered the gallery.

It wouldn’t make her give up. She’s been through worse. Neither would the insects on the walls or swimming rats. It was all Life in its myriad forms and shapes as much as the smells and putrid appearance were also part of it. None of them carried lightning magic in their wake, at least.

Step after step, Celestia plodded her way through the filthy, cold water. After a couple of minutes of weaving her way through the sinuous tunnel, she reached an entire section plunged into absolute darkness. The culprit was easy to see. Chewed on cables, cut and each half hanging from the wall. No matter, that wouldn’t stop her, either. She probed the edges of the central ditch with her hooves, following the turns. She almost tripped once or twice, and it forced her to slow her pace and be more careful. After a few minutes of exhausting feeling around in the noxious environment, she could see light coming from the next lit section. Far down the collector tunnel.

The magical shield she had covered herself with suddenly covered her with sparkling little golden stars. She had entered an area filled with the dangerous gasses and she resisted the urge to shine some magical light. Something brushed against her hind leg and the chittering of the insects, emboldened by the lack of light, unnerved her. Still, she reminded herself, they couldn’t help being disgusting, and they too were little cogs which kept Harmony alive.

After a minute, her coughing worried her, and she pressed her step as much as she dared. Falling water, distant, echoed around the cramped walls. She was reaching her destination. The faraway light beckoned to her. Her steps quickened further, and the noise became louder as she pressed onward. The echoes bouncing in the dark became extremely disorienting, and she wanted to leave that place as soon as she could. One step became ten, which became one hundred and then countless. The next step never hit the floor, and she screamed in the near complete darkness.

The world spun around her, but Celestia resisted the desperate urge to open her wings. A second or so later, she splashed into the filthy water in the dark. She kept her lips pursed as her shield spell undid itself, overwhelmed with the surrounding foulness. Despite her outburst, she kept from panicking and flailing her legs. She shuddered but let her body’s natural buoyancy return her to the surface. She broke the surface, and a gasp filled her nostrils with the stink of sewage. A vile taste slipped into her mouth. She coughed, and a sob escaped her, but she controlled her outburst again.

She had reached the first stop in her journey, at least. The entire section lacked lighting, though, and she could not even see the references which would take her in the right direction from it. It was not like she couldn’t teleport out of the sewer system, but things were harder than they needed to be. Teleportation spells were energy intensive. What if she caused an explosion? Or even worse, what if someone tracked her position because of it? If she didn’t know better, she’d think destiny was picking on her. A tired sigh later, she reined her thoughts in a more productive and less paranoid direction.

Ignoring the filth clinging to her and shaking her head to rid her face of it, she looked to one side and the other. It turned out pointless, with barely any light to see. What little there was came from a higher connection, and it didn’t seem to be the one she needed, much less lighted the way for her. At least, she remembered the connection she needed to find was to the right of the one she had come out of. On a gantry, two levels above the side of the sedimentation pool, she found herself in. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure the light in the ceiling came from the right connection.

It seemed the scaffold connecting the tunnel she had exited from and the gantries on the walls had collapsed, else she would have stopped upon stepping on metal. Celestia could lose hours looking for the right passage, and that was after she first found the stairs to the gantry. She resisted the almost panicked pleas from her less rational side to just light the way with magic.

She didn’t even have the luxury of time. She couldn’t raise the sun from there, afraid that any use of her magic could cause an explosion.

Celestia closed her eyes in the dark and resisted another sob. Then she forced herself to swim. She was past disgust at the chunky filth brushing past her or any diseases she might have exposed herself to. She could deal with all that later, after she found her destination. Instead, she found solace in the fact it was not raining. The quickly pouring and draining water would make the sewers dangerous.

Not an excellent swimmer, Celestia knew she would take a while to reach the edge. But then it occurred to her she’d need to find the metallic stairs out of the pool first. The squeaking of the resident rats, filtering through the noise of water, gave her an idea. She stopped swimming and let herself drift. Closing her eyes, she paid attention to her ears. They gave her a direction to follow, but more than that, squeaks filled with distress reached her, and did so through means ordinary ponies would never understand.

Any run-of-the-mill unicorn could feel the arcane energies stirring when others cast spells, or how it poured out of powerful magical creatures. It was a subjective sensation akin to a sixth sense. But Celestia had the privilege of sensing the very life-force of creatures. It was a sense unlike any other. She couldn’t see it, as one could see the little rats scurrying around the pool. She couldn’t feel it, like one might feel the wind brushing their coats. Not even sense their location as a unicorn paying attention to their magical senses would. The ancient magic of the Sun filled creatures with life, stirring the flesh as a soul. And if she just tried to ‘see’ it, it would reveal itself to her.

It had been so long ago since she actively experienced it, she couldn’t remember. With ponies surrounding her all the time, only the most mundane of her senses mattered. She needed none of that to sign papers and listen to boring speeches. Information coming from inside, a mental map only her inner eye could see formed. Countless faint drops of Life adrift in the water, or chunks of Life scurrying along the edges, or skittering on the walls. It was everywhere.

But it went deeper than that. Countless little minds touched hers, their thoughts rubbed at her own. Unsophisticated, but so very real, vibrant with Life. They seemed to drink from the pool in their unending routine of seeking nourishment, shelter, and reproduction, but her racket disturbed their usual peace.

At first, feeling sorry, she simply followed them to the stairs out of the pool, but something in them recognized something in her. They stopped and watched as she swam to the edge. They gave her space to climb out. Little rats standing on their hindlegs, watching her curiously instead of scurrying away. Expectantly. Insects on the wall, stopping and feeling the air with their antennas. They no longer disgusted the alicorn. Little friends surrounded her everywhere, watching her. Ready and waiting for her to tell them something or to see what she would do.

Maybe it was her vulnerable situation, but her eyes welled with tears at the overwhelming humbleness the connection implied. They recognized something important in her, that Celestia herself had forgotten in the sea of papers to sign and endless meetings in the Hall of Friendship. She had lost something in the throng of representatives and rulers she mingled with daily. Stripped of all that, Harmony surrounded her in its simplest form. It waited for her even in the shiest of places, even after so long its power still filled her with the same amazement as it always did countless eons ago.

“I must find a specific place; thus, I must locate a passage.” Had she thought about it more, she might not have talked to them. They understood none of her words, only barely the emotion her voice implied. But their minds understood the idea hers presented. Much like the story in a foal’s book, she followed them to the stairs into the gantries and up the levels until she found the right entrance. A minute stream of water filled with the life of unseen creatures flowed from it as little rats leaped ahead of her and bugs scurried on the walls.

Again, following a narrow path in a confined space, she let the magical energies of insects on the walls help her avoid walking into it. If anything, it was easier than focusing on the edges of the ditch and almost tripping on it at every step. She followed twists and turns, even avoiding a lowered section she would have cracked her horn against in the dark. Vibrant lumps of life magic scurried ahead, jumping over each other, and she followed them. They seemed to know the path when they came into a bifurcation, or maybe her thoughts guided them. The specifics of it mattered little, and the fact made her smile, taking away the hurt in her every muscle.

Celestia lost track of time, thoughtlessly making her way through the narrow passageway, sticking her hooves in filthy mud with every step. Even the smell barely registered with her anymore for what felt like at least a couple of hours. A mild anger got at her, however. At finding an entire section of Manehattan’s sewer system completely abandoned to the dark. She supposed it didn’t matter that much, as the ponies working in there would have sealed magical lights and gas masks. But they were supposed to be lit! Maybe that was the section they meant to fix, after all.

Eventually, she reached the illuminated portion again. As her eyes were useful again, she stopped relying on her magical senses. A small horde of little black rodents stood before her, and countless insects swarmed the walls. “Thank you very much, little friends.”

“Please refrain from chewing on the dangling cables.” She couldn’t turn around in the confined space but seeing the group of rats scurrying in between her legs and running at the edges of the muddy waterway satisfied her. They were going back the way they had come now that she could manage on her own.

Then she glared at the black insects on the walls. “I supposed you don’t have anywhere else to be, do you?”

Unsurprisingly receiving no answer, Celestia shook her head and resumed her path. The red bricks and plaster remained as slimy and dirty as they were before. Supposedly, the little bugs had their job cut out for them. The sewer hallway still extended for as far as her eyes could see, but such was the point of hiding something in there. Reaching it was not supposed to be easy.

Her steps, clopping and splashing, echoed on the walls and she focused on their sound so her mind would not wander. It was mentally exhausting, but she feared getting lost in another memory. Even more if it would be one to bring her sorrow. When it became overbearing, she thought of her students. The silly things they did. The exams she had to grade, events to plan and parents to assuage. Not all students were as brilliant as they thought, after all.

Eventually, she sighted the end of the hallway. It opened into another pool, exactly as she remembered. She truly was on the right path. With a renewed happiness in her steps, she trotted into the opening. The thin stream running down the way she had come from poured over the edge of a pool of smelly water. A collection of trash covered it, and the edge had plenty of space for her to walk around the pool. The surrounding room raised several levels above, with gantry walkways skimming the walls all the way to the arched ceiling. Old and dirty magical crystals provided a dim but sufficient light. Many other tunnels connected to it on different levels. Some dribbling water, others waiting to drain the room if necessary.

Celestia gave the pool covered in trash a lingering stare, but then she pressed onward. Her hooves clopped at the brick floor and echoed in the enclosed space. She stopped and looked at the pool again. It took most of the ground floor and it had stirred. Celestia frowned at the water and all the trash that almost covered it. It was alive, and not in the same way as the water before, but she ignored the Life magic in it and moved on.

The water stirred again. A double line of bony protuberances breached the surface, moving in sequence. Celestia turned on her hooves and watched as a bulky monster climbed onto the edge of the pool. Made of slime and assorted trash, it was a long, heavy, and powerful reptile fac-simile. Pieces of broken plastic made the bone-looking spines on its back and black balls made its eyes. Its tail, thick and strong, covered in leathery muck, rapped against the wall with a thunderous crash, which shook the metal scaffolds and made them screech. Teeth made of broken bones, dripping foul slime, smelled even worse than the water.

The sewergator roared at Celestia, like a deep belch, long and unappealing, spraying gunk on the floor before it. Several more surfaced surrounding the gargantuan version of themselves that emerged from the water. It trashed at the surface and snapped its mighty jaw at the waterline, splashing like a foal at a pool.

“I am not in the mood.” Celestia spoke sternly, turning on her hooves to face the larger creature.

“You have not visited in hundreds of years and when you do, you will not even let me indulge in a little fun?” The beast’s guttural voice echoed amid her thoughts rather than the cavernous gallery. Thick, rich, and deep, like a gentlemanly dragon might sound. “Still, you would not be here, were it not for grave matters. Greetings, High-Queen of Equestria. Your presence honors these putrescent halls beyond their deserving.”

“I must access the vault.” Celestia nodded up. “I will not be bothering you further.”

“Then my children and I will return to our duty of protecting it. Farewell, o Radiance Eternal.” The creature’s voice resounded on Celestia’s mind, as it allowed itself to sink into the water and undo itself, returning the trash to float aimlessly.

Celestia watched for a couple of seconds as its children did the same, but then the alicorn turned to the stairs on the walls. Rickety things, made of rusted metal they were. Their support beams vacillated but should support her weight. She climbed the steps and walked along the walls to the next stairs over several rounds of going back and forth until she reached the ceiling of the gallery, past several connecting hallways which poured slimy sewer into the room.

On the far side of the highest walkway, where the ceiling bent above the open space, she walked into one of the connecting waterways. Someone who didn’t know its secrets would think it to be a common connection. Closer inspection would show it to be a short tunnel connected to nothing at all, with a brick wall at the back. Celestia counted the protruding bricks in the shade until she found the second from the floor, the fourth from the left, and pushed it vigorously. She used her hoof; magic would lock the mechanism. It released with a noisy click and the back wall started retracting into the floor. Its rumble echoed in the hall behind Celestia. But there was no one other than herself, her little friends, and the pool’s guardians to hear.

Children of the Sun

"They shall be my finest warriors, these mares who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them and in the furnace of war I shall forge them. They shall be of iron will and steely sinew. In great armour I shall clad them and with the mightiest weapons shall they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight them. They shall have such tactics, strategies, and magic that no foe will best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Evil. They are the Defenders of Harmony. They are my Battlehorns...and they shall know no fear."

***

Celestia’s steps echoed with a metallic ring. The rumbling of the closing door filled the air again until it locked in place with a stony crunch. After a heartbeat in absolute darkness, a sudden rush of magic lit the hoof-sized, flame-shaped crystals on the walls. Seemingly spontaneously, they caught fire and provided the princess with a soft light, but enough to see the rough stone walls and the metallic grill the cave had for the floor. A spiral staircase at the end of the cave, only twenty paces from the entrance, went further down.

Thin steps forced her to control her hooves, careful not to slip on them. Celestia submitted herself to the narrow downward path without complaint. She bent her body and minded her horn wouldn’t smack at the wall of magically carved, smoothed stone. The stone wall surrounding the staircase had been lined with more of the flame-crystals and she thanked them for the light under her breath, but a million thoughts flooded her mind.

“One for every hundred thousand of them…” she whispered to herself. “The ghosts of the past care little for reasons or justice, much less for reparations or excuses.”

She wouldn’t dare count them, but she followed the steps down. Her clopping hooffalls on the metal followed her like the beating of a marching drum. Images of countless creatures haunted her every time she blinked. In that place for the dead, her beloved consort’s brown eyes insisted on accusing her of letting him to die for the sake of those accursed griffons. She kept her eyes open as much as she managed.

A fire rose inside her and she quickened her steps, drumming on the metal like orders to charge. The clanking of steel and pained and furious cries hailed from thousands of years ago. The crushing sound of boulders launched from traditional siege engines and the incessant pounding of magical artillery spells all pounded at her head. She focused on her steps, else the noises of battles in the past would drown her thoughts.

Eventually, the smooth stone changed into stone blocks and at the end of the grueling parade of dead visages, the steps ended. Her hooves reached a naked stone floor at the base of a slim tower which shielded the stairway. She exited it through an open archway where two more flame-crystals provided their soft light. The feeling on her hooves and the sound readily evidenced the change into that most valued of stones, the marble.

The cold air stirred. Powerful magic in movement caused an impossible breeze. Standing with her head high in the shade, Celestia’s horn lit with golden light and, far above, a flash of magical light manifested. It flooded the hall when a giant crystal hanging from the ceiling came alight. Celestia’s magic covered it like the Sun itself at her command and the room immediately warmed.

Pure milky marble covered the floor and reflected the light from the crystal orb. Tall pillars rose from the floor, covered in the same white and spirals of gold climbed them in reflective spirals, casting their own light. Six pillars on each side held a ceiling painted like the clearest blue skies. Twelve of them, each pair flanked a giant marble statue of an imposing unicorn mare.

Each tall as a three-story house, their own white stone held similar golden swirls. Their massive limbs moved with an impossible grace and filled the room with the grating of stone against stone while their horns shone with the same golden light as Celestia’s magic. They rose from their sitting position to stand proudly, heads up high, and their massive golden lances floated before them. Their steps echoed in the hall like a cannonade followed by the booming of their weapons, hitting the floor to salute the alicorn.

The walls behind held endless green fields eternalized, along with images of happy ponies, dragons, yaks, and every creature in the world. Green land and blue skies, filled with pegasi, hippogriffs and griffons. Kirins, zebras, diamond dogs… Every creature in Equestria, and even the changelings. Cities stood in the distance while seas and mountains made the horizon. It all converged on the painting at the end of the hall, guarded by the massive stone mares and their golden lances.

A vast mural showed Celestia sitting in the center, wearing a radiant armor of golden sunlight. Her leg wrapped around the pole of an Equestrian flag. Next to her, a gray unicorn had a long silvery beard, a blue cape, and a pointed hat. He held a golden staff with a star. A literal ball of light.

Flanking the two were twelve unicorn mares. As tall as Celestia herself, six on each side, and each of them a different color. Purple, tan, aquamarine, cyan, green, white, black, yellow, orange, pink, magenta, and deep blue. Below them, a sea of rainbow colors in the shape of a million unicorn mares covered the wall all the way to the floor. Elegant horns and powerful bodies beneath the leaf-shaped plates of their armors. In the foreground, one of each color held banners showing the colors of their respective legions and the cutie mark of their matriarchs. The grimness of their eyes seemed unnatural in pony faces, although little about them had been pony-like.

Nestled inside the painting, a massive golden door waited. Well-placed cuts in its gilded exterior made visible the complex clockwork of gears inside. Closed, they joined two sides of an image. Painted reliefs of pegasus foals, blowing horns, playing harps, and simply flying around jubilantly. Two pairs of them held long white banners bearing words in the old language of the Diarchy of Equestria.

OMNIA SOL TEMPERAT PVRVS ET SVBTILIS, NOVO MVNDO RESERAT LENIS PLVVILIS

AD AMOREM PROPERAT ANIMVS EQUIIS ET IOCVNDIS IMPERAT DEA SOLIS

Celestia resumed her steps, each of them echoing in the gigantic chamber. Eventual clicking told her the ancient arcane machinery had suffered some dings through the centuries. It still resisted, and even without it, the opulence of that cavernous room would cause the representatives in the Hall of Friendship to have seizures were they to see it. The sum of resources used to build that, if corrected to present times, made Celestia’s head spin. Those really were different times.

Celestia’s brow wrinkled. In the present days, she had trouble getting senators and majesties to agree that schools needed functioning kitchens and well-paid teachers. Unless it was during elections. Then she could get them to approve anything.

What would Matriarch Grimoire say?

The princess stopped in her tracks and threw her head, laughing. The old crone would complain that Celestia messed everything up. Then she would storm the Hall of Friendship with a hooffull of centurii and leave everyone waiting while she went for her afternoon nap.

Before the pillars, the long banner of each legion still hung like the day the artist hung them. A purple background behind the flame-shaped leaf of the tree all ponies had forgotten, with the magenta star of the First Legion in the foreground. The motif repeated on all twelve banners. The color which represented the Legion, the leaf of the trees of Green Harbor, where it all began, and the cutie mark of their original matriarchs which repeated itself with minor variation in the cutie marks of all her daughters and sons.

The concept of such close-knitted families was alien to Equestria of the present. It would never cross the minds of modern parents that their foals couldn’t marry outside of the vassal families because it would dilute the magical potency of their blood. That their little foals couldn’t play because they must follow a rigorous training regime. They ought to be brought up to where they could spell-cast in coordination with others such complex and powerful spells as to rip apart a fortification. That they could summon the magic from another pony and make their own spells so powerful Matriarch Grimoire ruled only one thousand of them could be left in the same place. Unicorn mares so powerful any larger number could damage reality just by standing there.

So much changed, and for the better. Just being there made her ears go limp and filled Celestia’s blood with a cold, ominous feeling of defeat. The modern world was no place for ponies like those.

And that was the point of the mural. This time, Celestia shouldered the shock when the ancient memories assaulted her waking mind a second time. Instead of a sewer-soaked coat, linen and weaved golden thread covered her pristine white. Her head held radiant beams of sunlight for headdress, and she sat in that same hall thousands of years ago.

Colorful ponies and scaffolds filled the room. The new magical lights helped workers see in the underground darkness. Although, ‘new’ was a relative term as the flame-crystals mimicked torches when the actual modern magical lights provided a clear white light. The clacking of hammers and tools echoed while foreponies talked to artists, architects and magi over tables covered in plans and schematics. The almost painted mural on the back wall covered all the arcane machinery that made that place special beyond the significance of the painting.

Closer to the entrance, several tents served as a temporary home for all the ponies who worked on that project. A pile of supplies for the project and workers had formed closer to the entrance tower. Everything the foreponies anticipated the workers would need. From food and water to paints, tools, and replacement parts. Even then, special supplies still had to be hauled down the stairs.

A pair of the prodigious mares looked at the painting on the back wall. They wore bright white togas covering their tan coats. Their exuberant manes lost some of its shine to the passing of years, but most of their otherworldly beauty was not diminished, much less the might of their powerful bodies or the elegance of their long horns. They distracted Celestia, who sat by the massive clockwork door.

“Hey! I found myself!” One of them tap-danced happily on the marble, snout glued to the painting on the wall.

“No, you did not.” The other scowled. “These represent the Legions, not individual mares. Only the Matriarchs are supposed to be recognizable. It’s like we are all part of a whole rather than individuals.”

“Well, this is me! Maybe a painter saw me and took inspiration!” The first retorted happily, tapping the mural with her hoof. “Look! Look!”

“Idiota.” All the other did was roll her eyes. “Stop it, you will ruin the painting!”

Celestia allowed herself a small smile, watching their minor argument until approaching hooves clopped on the marble and distracted her again. The Archmage left the stone tower which connected to the outside world. He panted and approached her slowly, almost dragging his white beard on the floor.

“You deserve this. It was your idea that it should have three thousand steps. I agree with the teleportation wards, but I wanted a magical lift.”

An old pony approached her, slightly more than dragging his hooves. His face barely held any of his youthful enthusiasm for life anymore. Even at his old age, Star Swirl had a passion for living, but time eventually caught up to him. Yet he never let go of the same Discord-cursed hat with the irritating bells. A heartbeat later, Celestia stood next to him, letting Star Swirl rest his old body against her legs and the golden folds of her toga picta. All the annoyance of being summoned to that place evaporated from her.

“It is amazing, is it not?” His head swayed softly while he scanned the entire hall.

“It is fitting.”

He looked up at Celestia. “Ah. It is a shame we cannot put it for other ponies to appreciate. That it is such a private party. That Grimoire could not live to see it finished.”

“She saw something much more important finished.” Celestia frowned softly.

“True that.” The old pony nodded, and little bells tinkled. “That is what I wanted to see you here about.”

Celestia’s hoof pointed at the golden door. “Did you order the smiths to do that to the poor door?”

“I designed it myself! Same as the stairway. And the locking mechanism. I am quite proud, actually!” With his strength recovered and a chuckle, the old pony hauled his own weight. He walked towards the large, contraption-filled doors. Celestia followed while letting her eyes escape to the two toga-wearing mares scrutinizing the tan colored mares in the painting.

“Countless ponies. Creatures without end will be born from this day forward. Already, most of the younglings do not understand what was required so they could live free, happy lives. That is why this is here.”

“They will never come here to see the mural, Star Swirl.” Celestia pulled her ears back. “Nor this asinine vandalism you did to the doors. And fortunately, they will not have to suffer through the staircase either.”

“It is not for them, Celestia.” He kept staring at the mural and never looked at her. “If anypony other than you ever makes it here, something went wrong.”

“Do you imply I will forget?” Celestia let her voice raise. “I cannot close my eyes and not see Cherry’s eyes when that vicious hen ran her through. Or the looming white of northern Griffonia. The fear in the eyes of the slaves and the bloody obsidian of the sacrificial chambers in Aen Hader! I wish I could destroy that accursed place more than once!”

Star Swirl shook his head softly and lowered his eyes. “No. I know you will not. But one day, you may need to walk down these steps. One step, for every hundred thousand lives lost. Each step, such an elementary thing for you, but three hundred thousand of them, narrow and steep.”

Celestia pursed her lips, and Star Swirl sat on the marble floor. He opened his forelegs as the workers had stopped working to stare at them, and the bells on his cape ringed. “And when you arrive, your magic will light the Sun. The sentinels will salute you. And the Matriarchs of the Twelve Legions will stare at you from the past.”

He neglected to say he too would, but Celestia knew better than to interrupt that pony.

“You may never forget. But seeing them, and the lush green of the Equestrian Heartland… All the merry creatures, and the mighty Sun above… You will be mindful of it.” He showed a happy, tired smile and chuckled. “I suppose we knew their job was complete once the governors started complaining of paying for all the industry behind the Legions.”

“Well, it is over. Their job is complete. The times of suffering have ended. All the lands united under the Sun in jubilant celebration of Harmony. The Unicorn Kings are gone. The Griffon Scourge has ended. Dangerous beasts of Chaos roam the land no more. Equestria is safe!”

“The powerful Matriarchs pass away serenely, one after the other, and no more Matriarchs should rise. Their daughters lay down their weapons and armor of solar steel to become bakers, carpenters, teachers, masons, painters, farmers… Their arcane might will return to where it belongs. Their powerful magic will dilute among the population of Equestria.”

“It is as you commanded. The colors and symbols of the Twelve Legions will vanish into the past to give way to a new world of joy and Harmony. Our massive thaumatonite mines have already closed and the solar forges were dismantled for magical components. The matriarchs released the vassal families of their bonds. Mine and forge cities already prosper as ponies, released of their duty, turn their vast knowledge and experience to civilian life. Already foals grow to cutie marks of colorful candies and farmers’ tools rather than their family crests. Equestria has not only conquered its past, but She has also earned a future! And the entire world follows in her wake.”

The old magus sat again, resting his forehooves on the marble before turning to Celestia. “Only one relic of this time will remain.”

“Actually, I have a sister…”

The old pony’s eyes went wide and blinked twice. “Quite right. Ah… But Luna wants nothing to do with this. She has understood very well the brilliant mare that she is. And I am talking about this place. Not you or your sister.”

“Sure, you are.” Celestia gave him a smirk.

“The point is,” Star Swirl frowned, “after you have walked three thousand steps. One for every hundred thousand creatures whose lives the war has claimed, so we could stop Emperor Grigor. You will face them.”

His hoof pointed at the painting of Celestia herself and his own visage. Of the twelve powerful, brave, and honored mares, each followed by thousands upon thousands of lives sacrificed for that future. “They will ask you… Is it worth it? After three thousand steps. Is opening this door worth it?”

A moment of marked silence passed. Only Star Swirl’s clopping steps on the marble floor echoed on the walls. Celestia followed him only with her eyes as he walked around another clockwork contraption built into the floor, like a caseless watch embedded into the marble. All gold, complex into minutia such as rods, thin as a mane’s hair and one thousand cogs. The encasing frame had a bar in front of the ensemble of the machine, and it had a niche in the center.

“If you come here, and after three thousand steps, and under the eyes of the Matriarchs, mine and your own, decide that opening this door is worth it…” He pulled a dagger from under his cape. Not a normal dagger, but made of sunlight-saturated solar steel. So much gold the dagger would bend if used on anything other than exposed flesh, but would keep its sharpness for a thousand million years. Holding it with his leg, Star Swirl shoved the blade into the niche in the mechanism and it locked in place.

His eyes found hers again. “If it is worth opening this door, then your blood will be the first to be spilled.”

Celestia found herself alone in the hall again. Her old master was gone. The happy warrior mares vanished. All the surrounding activity had remained in the past. Not even any remnant of the small camp remained. The only thing with her was the soreness in her legs, the filth on her coat, a golden dagger on the floor and thousands of eyes looking down at her from the mural around the clockwork doors. The cold air stirred with magic. Spells hummed inside the stone sentinels. The arcane machinery behind the walls clicked and whirred. Celestia’s heart thumped. Air rushed in and out of her flared nostrils.

The dagger, after one million nights, waited. Cold, shimmering under the light, it waited for Celestia in the same place Star Swirl had left it.

From the sunlight infused grip, Celestia’s eyes jumped to find the ancient, purple coated Matriarch Grimoire Sparkle of the First Legion depicted in the mural. She sat right next to her in the mural, wearing her white toga with the red strip instead of her armor. Grimoire was already ancient by the time Celestia met her. Nopony was sure how old she was, but her oldest daughter had resigned to the fact she would never get to command the First Legion, and that was a running joke with the entire military. Star Swirl respected the mare with no bounds, and she even put Celestia in her place a few times.

Star Swirl had taught young Celestia how to channel magic through her horn. From willing a glass of water to float to her, to casting complex spells that required all her focus. From complex puzzles, to complex wards and summoning rites. How to talk like an educated pony, and even how to write. How to speak different languages and how to behave. He made the dirty street urchin into a queen.

Grimoire had taught the young, skinny alicorn to light her horn with magic and rip apart the ramparts between her and her enemy, how to fight with magic, and how to kill efficiently. From sword and shield held in a telekinetic grasp, to wielding her immense power and shaping it into a tool of destruction. But more than that, she had taught Celestia how to talk to the soldiers and to motivate them. In the times of war, she taught how to measure the needs of the people and of the military. She made Star Swirl’s politically savvy queen into a warrior goddess worshiped by ponies, venerated by soldiers, and feared by enemies.

At the end of her life, there barely was any purple left in her mane, but she lived through it all, and when it was all done, Grimoire passed away peacefully in the Sparkle Estate. Her daughters, the Siegecasters, went from tearing apart fortifications, griffons, and monsters to teaching foals the principles of magic and engineering. They built the greatest mansions and palaces that saw themselves all the way to Griffonstone. But to the present days, Celestia still shivered at the whispers of their immeasurable power to be found in their distant descendants.

Next to her was the tan Matriarch Cherry Flameheart of the Fourth Legion, eyes fixated on Celestia as she approached the dagger on the floor. Celestia’s first lover died in the Battle of All Armies. The Imperial Princess, and Swordmaiden of the Harpy, Gythia, impaled the mare with her enchanted dancing sword in the opening moves of the battle. Celestia was busy helping the Diamond Dogs fight off a flood of frostmane wraiths the griffons had unleashed on the valley leading to their fortress-city. When she saw it, Cherry had already fallen into the bloody snow, barely moving at all.

Her legion, ‘The Kind-Hearted’, always minded the non-combatants first. When the earlier war against Chaos reached the Capital, they gladly threw their lives away so that a few more civilians could reach the safety of the Citadel. When Discord almost ended the world during those times, Star Swirl and his friends held Equestria from falling apart. The Flamehearts assisted them with all of their heart, but most of all, they protected the peasants from the excesses of the nobles. Even in their diminished state, they shielded the destitute from the wrath of Bluebloods and Brightmanes. Young Celestia might not have survived to reach her Destiny was it not for them.

Years of witnessing privilege and callousness turned them into fierce avengers of the destitute. When the war with the Griffon Empire started, back to their full strength, they hunted down and captured every single one of the Emperor’s vassals with a righteous fury far above duty. But when the war ended, and their service ended, their descendants became Equestria’s first law enforcers while the new system matured.

A soft gasp escaped the princess, and her ears fell limp on the sides of her head. Almost as though they had a will of their own, her eyes scanned the mural with the unicorn mares flanking herself and Star Swirl. Every single one of them represented so many of the exceptional mares the mural was supposed to remember. Some of them couldn’t even make it to the end of the war with the griffons. Every single one of them had a story, and a story with Celestia, and if she allowed herself to linger on memories… Time was a luxury she simply didn’t have.

Celestia’s hoof encroached on the dagger’s hilt. Her leg refused to move. Immortal Celestia and Luna left behind powerful allies and loyal friends. The weight of the past, with all the suffering they endured in the war against the Griffon Empire, numbed her thoughts with images of countless dead and dying creatures. Among those, the dead warrior mares weighed the most.

They were not mere lifeless, unmoving bodies. Each one of them evoked images of beautiful mares wearing pristine white togas, saluting Celestia as she walked by a formation, or on their camps. Huddled around the fires, under the snowfall of Snow Mountains or the unbearable heat of the desert.

Their eyes would not leave Celestia’s mind. The devotion. The surrender. She was more than their commander or their queen. Celestia represented something to them that ponies in the present just didn’t feel anymore. They didn’t remember how ponykind felt about Celestia. It was something she had, herself, vied to extinguish. Time had moved on and the social structure of that time became unnecessary. It had ceased to be useful and started impeding progress, and even Celestia diminished herself. She tried to be what ponies needed her to be. It was a change for the better, but now she stood at the brink of bringing back to life ghosts that might not be welcome anymore.

Celestia firmed her cannon around the dagger’s hilt and took a deep breath. The more she dallied, the more she allowed memories to return, the worse it would be. Still, the eyes of the mares on the painting seemed to reflect upon the golden hilt, accusing Celestia of having herself alone reaped the benefits.

But finding Star Swirl in there sunk her heart. He trusted her. All his life, he believed her. When her heart became engulfed in darkness, he waited for her to come to her senses. When she left to fight a war on foreign lands, he and his friends watched over her sister and her lands. He and the ponies he surrounded himself with became her eyes when atrocities happened on griffon lands. Star Swirl always stayed at her side. Even his last great work was a lesson for Celestia thousands of years later.

Yes, she must open that door. It may as well be the world’s only chance of surviving the dangers to come. And she, Princess Celestia, was the only one who could open it. In fact, it was her duty more than a right. And in his last words, Star Swirl had entrusted her with that.

That mental battle with herself dragged on too long already! Celestia raised both legs, holding the dagger in her right, and turned her left so she could cut it above her cannon. She grasped the dagger, but it shook with her wavering limbs. Star Swirl had counseled her against her ultimate decision to erase the records of the Battlehorn Legions and of Grigor’s Empire from history. Even if Grover adamantly agreed, eager to be rid of the Cult of the Harpy. Had she acted in the wrong? Was she worthy of opening that door? After she failed so phenomenally to help the griffons? Had she wasted all that those twelve excellent mares helped her achieve?

Oh, Harmony sweetest! What had she done? Celestia looked up at that mural and saw only her failure staring back at her. What was it for?

Her old friends still stared at her from the mural above the golden door. They never failed to follow her command, but had Celestia been entirely worthy of their devotion? Was she worthy now? After all the things she put them through. Following all the sorrow she gave them and their foals. After all the colts that couldn’t fit the ranks of the Battlehorns, all the fillies that failed and found themselves relegated to the auxiliary forces. Sun above… All the deaths. The gruesome deaths of those under her command.

Celestia had relegated all their triumphs, failures, challenges, and ordeals into a past which no longer existed. She lied to their descendants for the sake of saving her utopia. All they did, she brushed it under the carpet. None in the world remembered any of what those most excellent of mares and their families did for Equestria. It had seemed such a simple and necessary thing. Ultimately, Celestia used and explored them before she got rid of them. Some of them didn’t even survive to the end.

Twilight and Cadance were right! Celestia had lied to them. Was she even worthy of her position anymore? But she had no choice. Otherwise, the world would not have survived! The Black Sun would have consumed everything had she not lied about their past. Had she allowed Grover’s eagerness to justify her decision? Fortunate was that griffon, he died without understanding the depth of their ploy.

In the end, was it worth it? The Harpy returned, despite all her efforts. Despite all the lies, Celestia covered herself and the past under. Despite all the records she destroyed. All the times she stood next to Grover’s statue and lied barefaced that the Griffon Empire never existed. That griffons had never worshiped the Harpy. That no war had happened. It was so easy; all it took was time and mortals forgot. They accepted her version.

To rub salt upon that wound, Celestia should have listened to Grover, that the Harpy was real, and that she had been counseling the Emperor. But how could she have known? There was no evidence, no signs. She never found more than an empty sanctum in Aen Hader.

They forgot everything. The monsters whipping the slaves, and the ponies abusing their power. King Sombra was the only one whose memory remained. Even so, legends engulfed most of his wickedness. All hidden beneath Celestia’s wings, along with the stories of the cruelest war ever. All changed to fairy tales of the cute princesses who came out of nowhere and took control of the Sun and the Moon. Even the sacrifices made by Star Swirl’s friends, those gallant ponies who helped her keep Equestria united. All hidden away. Sanitized. Made into an easy to enjoy little story.

Never mind the morality of her decision. Has it really worked?

All of Celestia’s friends abandoned her. Because of what she did, Twilight and Cadance rejected her. The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony turned from her. The griffons, who she tried so hard to save, denounced her. She failed to help them, and now… They were all at the Harpy’s mercy.

She should have listened to Star Swirl! Now things slipped out of her control. Could she even hope to destroy the Harpy now? Twilight and Cadence played into the Harpy’s plans and were bound to uncover all Celestia’s lies and unwillingly condemn the world to end. Another cycle to end, condemning them to repeat it all over again for a seventeenth time. Except there may not be a next cycle. The Harpy may have already beaten Celestia, and not even because of her own skill and resourcefulness. Celestia may have delivered the world on a gold platter to the Harpy.

The dagger fell from her grasp. It clacked on the marble twice until it settled on the floor. Her breath came in airless sobs, and she held her hooves against her face. When she looked again, the mural had twisted into a nightmarish sequence of desiccated mares; they scowled at Celestia with empty eyes and the velvety tan of Cherry’s chest had been stained with dark red around a terrible, half-frozen wound of black flesh and splintered bone.

“You took me to the coldest place in the world to die!” The mare’s once snappy voice screamed at the white alicorn. “You rewarded my love with death at the tip of the sword of a filthy griffon whore!”

“I am sorry!” Celestia’s voice came out a broken sob and her hooves trembled in abject terror. It could not be real, but it was. “I did the best I could! I didn’t want the war, but Grover would have failed without help! Then the Empire would have been too powerful! We were the only ones who could help him!”

She received nickers and angry neighs from the twelve mares on the painting, her apology rejected. Bloody and deep gashes teared open the flesh in another’s aquamarine neck. Exposed bones were covered with dark splotches of coagulated blood and her teared trachea bloomed with a pink foam as she screamed at Celestia with a horrible gurgling. “You used us! My daughters drowned in the dark ocean, far from home, fighting the Kirin fleets. We did everything you demanded of us, and that is how you have repaid us! We died for you, and our reward was oblivion.”

Celestia stepped away, but Star Swirl’s friends came from behind her, surrounding her, following the bearded pony in a parade of bony ponies and disarranged beards and manes. Star shook his head sadly, speaking with a tired, old voice. “I told you so, Celestia. It was a mistake. Why would you not listen to me?”

Sitting to the floor with a scared gasp, Celestia found none of the friendship and camaraderie which always filled the eyes of those ponies. Flash Magnus, Somnambula, all of them surrounded her with angry steps. The beautiful blue earth pony, Meadowbrook, pointed a bony, desiccated hoof at her. “You sacrificed us to your ego!”

“No!” Celestia screamed and covered herself with her great white wings stained with wastewater and gunk. “I had to! I wanted ponies to have another chance! You don’t understand!”

“You sure benefited from all them lies, though, didn’t you, Princess?” Applejack’s voice reached Celestia, but she dared not look.

“You lied to us!” Twilight screamed at her, walking closer and next to the purple and golden griffon she had become friends with. But he said nothing, only watching as Twilight accused Celestia. “How could you? The Battlehorn Legions deserved to have their stories told! All the failures of the Founding Ponies and the sacrifices of the Pillars of Equestria! Everycreature should know of those! We lost important lessons because you wanted all for yourself!”

“What of the sacrifices of thousands of northerner griffons, Celestia?” Finally, the griffon spoke too. “The blood of my people keeps southern Griffonia safe while you poison my brethren with your pony food and way of life. Griffonia belongs to Mother Harpy.”

Celestia’s voice came out a desperate bawl. “I wanted to save them from the Harpy!”

“You held me back!” Cadance accused her from behind, before she could even respond and caused Celestia to turn around in a panic. “You didn’t want me to know my power! About what I am. About who I am! You wanted it all for yourself!”

“I did it to protect you! You didn’t need to know! The truth will only bring you pain!” Celestia tried touching Cadance’s face, but her furious glare made her backpedal. Breathing fast and shallow, wide eyes and ears hanging from her head, Celestia tried talking to her, but her lungs lacked the wind.

“And they call me a liar.” Chrysalis, the changeling queen, sauntered behind Twilight and Cadance, staring at Celestia. Her regal gaze turned to an arrogant grin. “Tell them, Celestia. Tell them about the Children of the Sun. What happened to Queen Farfalla? Tell all of us about the Changeling Curse and who Daffodil was.”

“You were once the most important pony in my life, but you are a filthy liar! How many more lies?” Twilight accused with a hoof and flared her wings. Her hoof struck the floor, terrible like the mallet of a judge with every phrase. “That is barely the beginning! The Battlehorns. The Cult of the Harpy. The Cult of the Alicorn Goddesses. The Republic. The Windigos. The Old Unicorn Kings. The Palace of the Self. The Black Sun and the repeating cycles of the universe! Chocolate Velvet’s origin. How many more lies, Celestia?!”

“It was for your own good!” The white alicorn tried to distance herself from the accusing creatures and reproachful images on the wall, but her hooves had her locked in place. “I swear! I wanted all of you to have a peaceful life! I wanted nothing more than to help you!”

Celestia hadn’t seen him before, but Discord was there too. Behind the two princesses, the draconequus shrugged and spoke with his usual suave confidence, joining the mob advancing on her. “You know… Those northerner griffons are actually kind of cool. I think I will stay with them for a while.”

Celestia’s eyes bulged, red and swollen from tears. “I sent you straight into the Harpy’s nest!”

“And she has shown me you are not really that great.” He grimaced and shrugged. “Sorry.”

“No! This isn’t real!” Celestia shrieked and waved her hoof madly across the air at the apparitions before her, but they kept encroaching closer. She flailed it at the apparitions and her shrieks echoed in the hall. “Get away from me!”

Her hooves slipped on the marble. It had become slippery. Her hooves had red on them, but she didn’t understand why. She laid on the floor, unable to stand and flee, confused at the red stains on her coat. She looked when echoing laughter filled the hall. All those mares on the mural laughed at her, as did all the ponies that surrounded her.

Without warning, the brown alicorn she had taken for consort came from behind Cadance. “You are having a psychotic episode, Celestia.”

A ghastly wound split open his chest, charred with lightning magic and a ripped heart still beat, pouring blood amid shards of broken bones. He wore on his back the white, blood-stained and wet sheet they had covered him when she found him in the library. He pointed at his wound. “Also, you left me to die! I hope you are happy you helped all those griffons along the way!”

“No!” She screamed, but any further words never came out. She tasted blood in her mouth, and she coughed it out. She found the dagger in her grasp, stained with red. A gasp escaped her, and she tried to let go of it, but her bloody hoof wouldn’t release it. “Help me, Chocolate!”

When she looked again, the brown alicorn had turned into the great white and black griffoness with the exuberant crown of black feathers. Celestia wanted to scream, but her lungs lacked the wind. She flapped her wings and tried to escape as the griffoness sauntered closer, but they seemed sluggish and her body weak. All she managed was to slip on the bloody marble and fall with her limbs splayed from under her. She sat, just as the Harpy smiled, approaching. Her velvety black paws held Celestia’s bloody hoof around the golden dagger.

Crown of black feathers flared open, glee in her stormy gray eyes, the smile in her obsidian beak became cruel and arrogant in contrast to her motherly and comforting voice. “It is too much for you. Let go. I will take care of everything, and I will even let you keep your precious Sun. I will give you a pretty tower in the Fólkvangr; filled with gold and marble, from where you can see all the little ponies working in the fields. And spinning above the fires!”

A pointed pain stung Celestia’s chest and jolted her body. The Harpy’s let go of her hoof and it held the golden dagger jammed into her chest. Her laughter echoed in the hall as Celestia was again alone. The alicorn sobbed and let herself fall to the bloody marble. The shaking wheezes hurt her chest, but she couldn’t stop. She inhaled a broken breath and cried short, broken sobs. Her eyes closed slowly, and darkness surrounded her.

She fell into a river. It flowed smoothly, but fast, rushing into the sky and through an endless sea of stars. The flat landmass of Equestria distanced away from her while the Moon grew closer. Its pale light showered over little wisps, disturbances on the flow of magical energies. Dozens of voices reached Celestia along with the noises of the world. Some cried mournfully, others asked confused questions, and others raged. But they all silenced, and only soft murmurs reached her ears after a while as she traveled with them.

The light from the Moon caught on those wisps climbing the river with her, and its pale light became silver, taking over their forms like it turned them to quicksilver. But Celestia stopped, and they kept going past her, faster and faster towards the Moon.

Behind the Moon stood the Sun with a bluish shine to its light. It made no sense, but that was how things worked in that place. She knew. From the Moon, she would see the Sun before Equestria, and from the Sun, she’d see the Moon behind her and Equestria ahead. Ordinarily, such was how magical energies flowed in the Aether and space held no meaning.

A rising rumble reached her and interrupted her thoughts. The Moon shone with a terrible red glow as the Sun behind it fattened and its light became crimson. Time froze around her as the Sun replaced the Moon. All the light from the stars shifted away and the empty black replaced everything around it.

“It’s begun.” She whispered to herself amid the rising rumble. “Once again.”

The creatures in Equestria would take a few hours to notice. Only then would the changes in the magic intertwined with reality manifest to them. The aetheric flow of magic had begun reversing and their life-giving star would consume everything and bring Creation back to the beginning. Celestia closed her eyes, too tired. Too hurt.

“Hey, Celly. Nice seeing you here.”

She forced her eyes open hearing the cheerful voice. She couldn’t see him. All was dark except for the angry red ball of Life, Light, Fire and Lightning magic above. But that was the voice of her deceased consort.

“Chocolate Velvet?”

“Are you supposed to be here?” His voice came curious and happy. “I mean, I’m beside myself with happiness seeing you again, but I’m not sure what is going on… It feels to me you shouldn’t be here. That looks bad. As much as I think that a magical black hole that makes the universe cycle eternally is cool, that’d suck.”

She laughed. Weakly, painfully, but she laughed at his terrible joke.

“I left you to die, Chocolate…” She whispered, with tears in her eyes, even if she couldn’t see anything. She tried touching him with her hoof, but she couldn’t feel her own limbs.

“So, I died. Uh. I guess I had figured as much.” His merry voice became sad. “Well, that… I don’t know how I feel about this. It’s kind of peaceful. But that means you died.”

“My soul has left my body, but I don’t have the right pieces in my soul to make it to the Pool of Souls. Like you, because Chrysalis used my soul as a model. I can only enter through the Black Sun.” Celestia whispered. “The Harpy’s spell hurt me too much. I’m not well, and I think I hurt myself. And now I am here.”

“Can you stay with me? Just a bit longer?” The rumbling from the dying star intensified, and she smiled timidly, tiredly. “At least I can talk to you again.”

“You can’t just let it end!” Chocolate’s voice filled with urgency. “You have to go back and fix this!”

“I’m sorry… I wish I could hold you again. See you again.” Celestia whispered again. “I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time with those griffons. I should never have left you alone in that tower. It’s my fault you died and now I am all alone. Please… Let me share these last moments with you. I don’t know what will happen next.”

“What the fudge? No! You didn’t leave me to die! Whatever gave you that idea? I died because someone had to protect Miss Mallet while she found the records that Lord Gilad was doing bad things. I died because that stupid griffoness was stronger. And they had guns. Like, submachine guns! And grenades. But you can’t die! You have to fix this! If the Harpy wins, what’s gonna become of Equestria? What’s going to happen to Twilight and Cadance?”

“I can’t… Please.” She begged. “I lied, did terrible things, and can’t fix it. I’m not worthy.”

Immaterial tears welled in her eyes, and she sobbed. “Please, just let me be with you.”

“Ah, heck you can’t!” He cut her short. Almost angry. “You’re The Mare! Your head isn’t working very well. You’re tired, scared, and hungry. And filthy. But you’re still The Mare! I’ll tell you what will happen next. You’re getting your gorgeous hind back to Equestria and you’re fixing this mess! You are the Firstborn of Harmony. The High Queen of Equestria. The Dawnbringer. You have to deal with this. For me, for Twilight. For all of us!”

She didn’t answer. Her heart told her beyond a single shred of a doubt he was right. His voice echoed inside her thoughts once more. “I would stand by everything you did and all the lies you had to tell them. Equestria… It… Equestria is fine without me, Celestia. But it cannot survive without you! I remember all the things you told me about Harmony and the deep magic of Equestria… You and the Harpy are the only ones who can harness it. Equestria needs you.”

“The deep magic of Equestria…”

Stripped of everything, bared of all, Celestia found something she hadn’t realized she had forgotten.

The Sun shone above, but Celestia didn’t see the red, sickened star. Instead, she looked deeper. She saw it for what it really was, the way only she could see it. The bloomed Seed of Creation. Harmony’s dream. The Pool of Souls and its immense magical potential, overflowing with the magic of Life. Souls eagerly fizzing out of it, waiting to be summoned by plants or flesh in need of animus. Unfathomable potential waiting to rain upon the world and take the magic of the Living Harmony with it. Unimaginable beauty in the shape of all the creatures yet to be born.

Beneath her, Equestria was as magnificent as it has always been. From Mount Canterlot to the Marean Trench, mountains rose to the sky, rivers flowed, and the great oceans reached to the depths. Green meadows covered the land and lush forests spread themselves wherever they could reach. Deserts and canyons, lakes, and seas, even the frozen scar… All of them sparkled, filled to the brim with numberless, shiny dots of the magic of Life. Cities shone like the Sun itself. From humble Ponyville to massive Manehattan, and even under the perpetual clouds of northern Griffonia, Life showed itself to her unimpeded in Griffindell, Brokenhorn, Stormvalley and Frozenlake.

From plants to ponies, hippogriffs, griffons, zebras, minotaurs to dragons. Innumerable forms of life, from little rats and cockroaches in the sewers of the world, to the mighty ursa majors and all the wondrous magical beasts. All of them lived in that land, alone in the void, surrounded by the sea of lights in Luna’s sky.

The world shimmered, incandescent with Life. Little pieces, tiny dots so many Celestia couldn’t see individually filled their world with Life in its purest definition. Minute, ephemeral cogs, keeping Harmony alive. Every single one of them, a small destiny sent to the world to sustain it. Creatures doing their best through pain and hardship, joy, and prosperity. The Children of the Sun, clinging to their time alive, always doing something. Filled with purpose. Alive! Until their physical anchor in the world failed.

Little wisps of magic floated from the land, dragged by the great river of cosmic magical energies following the Moon’s pale gleam. They rode her beams on the flow of magic, tired of their worldly journey. Waiting for the Mistress of the Night to deliver them back to the Mistress of the Day. To rest and fill themselves with the magic of Life again, to begin it all anew. Forever in their never-ending journey, sustaining the world. Keeping Magic moving. Maintaining Harmony.

A fire brighter than the Sun flashed in Celestia’s chest. She had no eyes, but they somehow stung with tears, but not as before. How could she have forgotten? How did she allow herself not to marvel at the wonder it all was? When had the mountains of paperwork stolen her sense of wonder with that wonderful world from her? She breathed in and her lungs filled with a magic she had forgotten. It pulsated in her bodyless form; it glowed in her chest. She knew all there was to know about souls and what she saw warmed the deepest part of her being.

She had called it the Animus Imperative. The reason a pony had for existing, the dream Harmony had dreamed for them. Their Destiny. It reminded her that the sacrifices of the past were all worth it. Harmony beckoned to her from the deepest, most fundamental, indivisible part of her soul to tell her it was all worth fighting for, and that it was still too beautiful to let it end. Too sacred to sacrifice to the ego of a murderous catbird with too high an opinion of herself.

“You’re the one that gave me an earful about the things we’re obligated to do! It is not a matter of choice.” The unseen chocolate-colored alicorn told her quietly. “It is your duty.”

The combined magic of Life, Lightning, Fire and Light stirred as sunfire. Wings spanning the length of dawn flapped, and Celestia hurled herself towards the landmass. Wisps of magic whizzed past her faster than she could see them. An immense tension filled the Aether, and in an instant, it snapped.

Water rushed past, roaring in her ears until her eyes opened and Celestia was again in the great hall, lying in a pool of warm blood. The air seemed colder than it was before, and she shivered. She saw the mural again, above the door. She saw the twelve noble mares, and they didn’t judge her. They were a painting. Lifelike, but still a painting.

In life, they had never judged Celestia. The war against Emperor Grigor utterly destroyed half of the most phenomenal and unstoppable fighting force in the world. Had they not joined Grover, the Emperor would have won. Ten thousand fully trained Battlehorns, and their auxiliary forces understood that, and they marched behind Celestia. As the dedicated guardians of Harmony they were, they offered their lives for the future. A future which was now up to Celestia to save. Not doing so would be the greatest insult to the memory of those mares. They may have passed away, but their essence remained in the Magic of Harmony.

Thoughts came clearer and Celestia realized she was alone in that place. She felt her body again, and it ached all over. The cuts in her chest and her limbs burned, and the buried blade hurt her with every breath. But Twilight and the others had never stood there. At least not in body, but Celestia owned it to them as well. To Star Swirl and his friends. Had she died and met Chocolate Velvet halfway to the Pool of Souls? Was it possible? She didn’t have the time to stop and think about it.

Her thoughts fuzzed again. She knew her body struggled with the lack of blood. Not enough remained to keep her oxygen and energy hungry brain working. But it fought on. She shook her head and stared again at the mural above the doors. Star Swirl didn’t judge her. He was not disappointed. He always stood by her side, and he, too, trusted her. Sometimes he didn’t like it, but he never turned against her. He never judged her. And even in her darkest hour, he was still there, waiting for her.

Only one judged her in that mural. It was the white mare wearing the Sun for armor and its beams for headdress. Under her stare, lightheaded, on the brink of losing consciousness, Celestia summoned all the strength she had left. Her limbs shivered, muscles complained, but she hauled her weight over the slippery, bloody marble. One pull at a time.

Her lungs failed to provide sufficient oxygen and her breathing was shallow, too fast, and hurtful, but a fire burned in her eyes. Her heart burned hotter than the deep cut, something in her core filled her with a stubbornness that would not let her stop. Celestia’s horn filled with magic, and she directed it to her injured limbs and organs lacking blood.

She had never studied the healing sciences, but she had an instinctive understanding of it. Eons ago, in the first cycle of existence after she destroyed the Harpy and freed Equestria of her madness, she had created it all. From the intimacy of the cell to the complex systems, she understood it all. The very magic of Creation touched her body at her command. It urged cells, muscles, tendons to work and, for the life of everything, for her brain to just hang on. For just a little longer!

Sixteen cycles had passed since she destroyed the Harpy. Or she thought she had… She still didn’t understand how, but for most of those, the Harpy toyed with Celestia and with Creation. As though they were hers and existed for her amusement. No more! This time Celestia knew she had returned before she had the time to strike first. This time, Celestia would end her once and for all.

Mother Harpy would laugh and say she lacked a true free will. That it was merely that piece of her soul motivating her to fulfill a role. She could laugh all she wanted. Not even all the free will in the boundless multiverse would save her when Celestia reached her!

A grin showed on Celestia’s lips as she fought, literally hanging by a thread of willpower. The immense magical reserves in her soul alone kept her body alive, but time was running short. She could hear the Great River. She could hear the rumbling. The Black Sun called her to it. But through sheer force of her will, Celestia refused to leave that wounded body. Her damaged mind held like a poorly put together cloth of old rags stitched together.

She whined. She cried. Pain claimed her existence with each movement and near blood vessels failed to deliver nutrients to tired muscles. But pulses of magic filled her body with waves of energy as she commanded her ancient magic to fill her body with Life. She sobbed her way to it, but she finally reached the golden cogs on the floor. With a pained sigh, she forced her limbs to raise her body from the floor and yanked the dagger from her chest. Her cry echoed in the hall following, leaving behind a cut with barely any blood left to give.

Under the painting of the twelve mares, Celestia held the dagger, coated with her thick red blood. The world cried her name. Harmony called for the Matriarch of the Great Herd to save it, and she jammed the dagger into its niche. The machinery clanked to a stop and started spinning again. Faster and faster, whirring and clicking came from below, as much as magic radiated from the enchanted machine.

The golden cogs inside the door too started spinning and the heavy halves began parting from each other. Celestia grunted, raising her chest from the floor, dragging herself onward.

“Blood… Stupid, dramatic old fool.” She grumbled and dragged herself around the cogs on the floor and toward the doors. “For Harmony’s sake, whatever happened to keys? Maybe a password. No… Had to be a magical dagger soaked in blood. You’re lucky you’re dead and I can’t reach you, old coot.”

She let out a small sigh, stopping for a second. “His soul probably returned and left at least twice already. It’s a shame I never thought of looking for him.”

With a wince and against dwindling senses, and all the sorrow, Celestia crossed the threshold. The same white marble covered the floor in a grand entry hall that might as well be a mansion from Canterlot’s upper levels. A double staircase flanked another set of doors, although those were normal doors. A gigantic candelabra lit itself. Statues of great unicorn mares in armor decorated the room, watching as Celestia dragged herself to the center with a thin trail of blood behind her.

Finally, her strength exhausted itself and she rolled onto her side with a soft groan, lying beneath a golden statue of herself. Closing, the doors rumbled in her ears. The distant roar from the magical dying star called to her from the realm of souls. The rushing river of immense magical energies and universe-creating powers merged with it and the rumble of the closing doors.

The light faded from her eyes. It was alright. Her body should still resist. Her soul held immense amounts of magic and could keep it alive. And she wasn’t alone anymore. Once open, the vault would also initiate the wakening procedure of its residents and the most loyal of mares would find her soon enough, with the resources to help her.

The Bulwark of Harmony

Untamed by nature, rebellious by heart

My life’s my manifest, I am state-of-the-art

Make me immortal, venerate me and rejoice

Let my second death be halted, be my endless voice

Say my name, and I will never die

Light my flame, on the forever sky

***

Celestia woke up slowly. A harsh white light pierced right through her eyelids. It forced her to shut them tighter and turn away. A groan shuddered her throat and she could still taste blood, but most of the pain was gone. Only tiredness remained. The sticky gunk that had incrusted into her coat, mane and feathers was gone. Her back pressed against a very welcome soft mattress. The air smelled of disinfectants and chemical things, wholly unpleasant, but nowhere near as terrible as the sewage. Still, the air filled her lungs so satisfactorily she barely minded the pungent odors. Gone was the agony of a dying body.

Next thing, her magical senses picked up the magic radiating from the top of her bed’s header. She didn’t need to see it to recognize it as a healing talisman. Magical waves like a beating heart emanated from it, helping her body fix itself with a surge of healing magic. It had fallen out of use, as it could harm most ponies, but it should help her. There was also the subjective presence of the pony next to her and the radiating warmth they exuded showered her with. Most creatures alive would not understand, but their presence comforted her as much as the healing talisman.

A female with a wholly feminine and firm voice spoke from the bedside. “I do not even know how long it has been, and I expected if I ever woke up, the situation would be dire. But as I laid down in the Hibernatorium, I failed to predict the Magus Praector screaming for medicae at the top of her lungs first thing. I had to convince myself I was not having a bad dream when I saw you, of all creatures, covered in filth and blood.”

“I am terribly sorry.” Celestia turned her head to the left. The harsh light remained unpleasant even through her closed eyes.

She had barely closed her lips, and a door slid open. Angry hooves clopped into the room as another pony joined them.

“I swear on my oaths,” another mare approached Celestia’s bed, “if this ever happens again… I do not know just what I would do, but I left that light on myself. For no other reason than to aggravate you!”

When she finally could open her eyes without feeling her retinas burst into flames, Celestia saw the two unicorn mares next to her bed. Although calling them unicorns never felt appropriate and the feeling returned to Celestia as soon as she laid her eyes on them. They stood as tall as eighteen hooves on their withers and that was as tall as Celestia was. Radiant silvery coats covering powerful muscles and beneath the striking white of the tunics and togas they wore.

Different shades of purple cascaded from their heads and their necks, and both were strong and beautiful mares. The one to the right wore a red stripe on her toga and kept worried eyes over Celestia, while the one on the left might want to murder her. Neither of them a day older than when Celestia had last seen them, and both showering her with a devotion the ponies of the present didn’t understand anymore. Even if they hid behind their adherence to protocols. It warmed Celestia’s lonely and aggravated soul.

Matriarch Legatus Radiance Fellbane of the Gray Dames, the Zeroth Battlehorn Legion, as they were called. And the Domina Medica Panacea Fellbane, the mare that gave the orders when the legion’s medical corps were concerned.

“I hope there is a good reason we found you covered in blood and scum in our atrium. And naked!” The mare on the left, Panacea, came just short of yelling at Celestia like she was a misbehaving filly. “The world better be about to end!”

Celestia summoned what strength she had, and her body surprised her, sitting easily on the bed. Radiance’s horn lit with purple magic and the sheets covered Celestia like a cloak, which she held with a hoof.

“Not yet, but soon if we don’t act in a timely manner. Summon all centuriones as soon as all mares are able. Take stock of the Armamentarium and prepare to scout the primary accesses to the installation.”

“We already have.” Radiance spoke plainly, while the other’s horn shone. Panacea’s critical eyes scanned Celestia with perked ears as her magic filtered through flesh with a slight tingling. Radiance still talked. “Manehattan has grown. Significantly. And ponies walk around town naked with no shame. What happened?”

The princess sighed. Excessive efficiency really existed. “Over twenty-four centuries have passed. The world has changed in ways I don’t think you are prepared to understand. Reign in the scouts and avoid exposing yourselves to the outside world until second orders. I will see the officers in the Strategium.”

Panacea simply shook her head. “Legatus. I am not yet prepared to allow her majesty to leave the valetudinarium. Have the others wait. We have slept for two thousand years. Whatever happened can wait an additional couple of hours.”

The medica didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she walked away from the bed, leaving Celestia and the other mare staring at each other in awkward silence. At least until the latter gave Celestia a respectful bow, raising one leg and lowering herself on the other. Then she left with no further discussion. Both knew Panacea would only recognize her own authority. The legion’s medical installation was her little kingdom.

Left alone, sitting on the bed like a filly waiting for the adults to tell her what to do, Celestia turned her attention to the other mare. Panacea fussed about drawers with her telekinetic magic and clinking glass next to a nearby table. She had her equine rump covered with the soft cotton of her toga, which also hid most of her tail.

“You can start explaining why there is a knife wound in your chest, along with several cuts.” Panacea said, still looking for something with the soft chiming of her magical telekinesis.

“I was trying to open the door…”

Celestia frowned. Griffons and her friends either hated her or simply refused to listen. Everycreature blamed her. From rulers to representatives in the Hall of Friendship to the common citizenry. And those were the ones who hadn’t lost their lives because of the situation the Harpy had contrived. The situation would be even worse had she not reigned in Queen Novo. But Celestia still seemed to foul everything up in their eyes, even when she had saved them. At least Twilight still seemed to believe her intentions were pure.

She sighed, fully aware of how stupid her answer must have sounded to the other mare. As well as how whiny and bratty her own thoughts sounded to herself. The Celestia of the past wouldn’t think like that. She pursed her lips, pulling back her ears, giving the white sheets a scorching glare. The Celestia of the past would have made Twilight and Cadance pay fairly for the airship that ended up ran aground. Not only that, but for all the lives lost because of their reckless quest. It was part of Harmony… Justice. It was love. Tough love. In her position, Celestia should not allow such unruliness to fester.

Chrysalis should pay too. Impersonating Celestia and faking orders. The gall. Whenever Celestia thought she had reached across to that murderous, genocidal, matricidal monster, Chrysalis surprised her. Celestia had promised Queen Farfalla she’d take care of Chrysalis. Maybe it was about time she did. Time to give her an education because Farfalla’s clearly hadn’t caught on.

Right were the common folk. Most ponies and creatures still loved Celestia. She must remember that. It had never been about rulers and politicians, but about those creatures who honestly saw her working for them. Creatures who saw her honesty and pure devotion to her job.

Maybe it was time for a change in direction again. Like when she dealt with the Old Unicorn Kings. All they understood was strength and consequences. That was how the Harpy controlled griffons and it seemed to work.

“Have you considered a minute inoffensive cut on a limb? Instead of jamming the Discord-cursed blade into your chest?” Panacea turned to Celestia and glared at her. She was like an angry mother, glaring at her stupid daughter for doing stupid things. Expecting an explanation and it better be a good one.

Was Celestia honest to her thoughts, she might have put the mare in her place. But that wasn’t who Celestia was, was it? Her anger cooled and her wrath never saw itself materialized as the Alicorn of the Sun knew well Panacea was on her side and meant no slight.

“I examined a complex spell which was made to awaken memories from past lives on griffons and make them remember the Cult of The Harpy. It caused some severe stress to my mental faculties and magical defenses. It interacted with my mind with unexpected results, and it piled poorly on the present situation that is already critical enough.”

“The cult?!” The medical mare cried and cocked her head, perking her ears up again. “I thought you and the others had ended it properly when you slew the Emperor in the Battle of All Armies. I was also under the impression that you had used extensive care to remove all evidence of several ‘issues’ from that time.”

Celestia sighed. “It was a poor peace. I should have listened to Grover. There were grave complications, and it seems… I will explain further when all mares have gathered. Please, make yourself present in the Strategium.”

“This bodes poorly indeed.” When a pony might have grimaced, bordering on adorable, the mare’s frown was grim when her ears pulled back. “I don’t believe I am prepared to understand without some extensive explaining, and I am sorry I have prodded. I needed to understand the powerful magic I had to cleanse from your mind. Without Luccenoturna’s assistance, I feared I would fail to extract it safely. Where is she, by the by? Your dear sister?”

Celestia wouldn’t answer. Instead, her gaze turned to the white sheets covering the bed. Fortunately, the medica didn’t prod further. “You must rest. The sun is not to be up for at least a couple of hours still and the wound has not fully healed yet. I never imagined I would be in such a position to tell you not to worry and that you are safe, and that no harm shall come to you. Mostly, that no overzealous mare disturbs you while you rest.”

“Thank you.” Celestia spoke softly.

Panacea also showed a soft, maternal smile, and a glass syringe filled with a clear liquid. “This will help you relax.”

Celestia closed her eyes and stretched her neck to the side. After a dull piercing pain and some seconds, Panacea was done. The princess laid on her right side, eyes still at the mare next to her bed, covering herself with the soft cotton. Almost immediately, her eyes became heavy while the other prepared a larger glass syringe filled with glowing pink fluid.

The fall from the tower of stress she had been perching brought sleep quickly with whatever medication Panacea had given her. But it also brought visions from the past she would rather have forgotten. Thousands upon thousands of malnourished diamond dogs shuffling in dark caves haunted her dreams. Captive zebras hobbled with their legs chained and followed one after the other with their necks tied on a long rope.

A river of blood flowed from a city of sandstone buildings amid the sandy dunes of the Saddle Arabian desert. A black pyramid dominated the horizon under a red sun. Suddenly, the pyramid became a mountain at the center of a valley and with a black tower at its summit. A griffon screeched. Their scream echoed under a tumultuous sky and millions upon millions of griffons stood at the feet of the gray mountain.

A black monster in the shape of a winged and horned equine walked over the charred bones of numberless griffons. They turned to ash in her wake. A lightless void made her body and sunlight covered it in the shape of a jagged armor, ever shifting, bright and hot as the sun. Her horn was a black spike of nothing under the bladed appendage of a crown-helmet flanked by six spikes made of sunlight. Her purple eyes shone with magic of unimaginable power leaking like a trailing mist. Wings of smoke covered the land with every step she took, and a legion of every creature in the world followed her.

A sudden flash consumed the valley with the tall mountain. It turned everything to ash and sundered the mountains. A million griffons thrashed under world-consuming blazes. They cried and shrieked. They flew, but their feathers undid themselves to cinders. The river which flowed from the mountains dried and became cracked mud. They crawled on it but didn’t find any refreshing respite. Shriveling and twisting flesh became black and dry.

A white and black body fell through the embers remaining from the valley’s lush vegetation. A large griffoness with striped black and white wings which had broken and hung limp from her sides. Her gray eyes filled with pain and blood trailed down her obsidian beak. Her talons still were as terrible as black steel, but her hind leg bent midway through her thigh and standing was impossible. A black fan of feathers behind her head ruffled and stood like a glorious crown. She laughed. A choking laughter that stained the silver plumage in her chest with blood as she laid on the ground.

“If I knew it hurt like this, I would have dulled the pain down a little.” She laughed again, along with the thunder in the clouds, surrounded by dying whimpers and repeated screeches. “Maybe that is why the ungulates are so angry.”

She squirmed and her paws hugged her chest, smearing her feathers in more blood. Wincing in pain, her laughter came out breathless. A squeal before it exploded in hysterical guffawing.

Celestia floated down from the clouds, shining like the sun itself above the dying valley where griffons turned to embers. Three more followed her and the white griffoness stared up at them as her words came out coarse and weak. “You stupid animal…”

The griffoness turned and chuckled coarsely as she stood. Her chest moved unevenly and teared pieces of flesh stained her plumage in even more red. Her hind leg couldn’t support her weight, but she stood on the good ones. From the sky, Celestia looked down at her while the storm clouds slowly undid themselves and the sun shone through, harsh and hot.

The white and black griffoness gathered all the strength she had left and stood on her hindlegs as best as she could. She clenched her black, blood-stained paws and then she cried. Furious as a storm, her howl echoed in the mountains. “Do you understand what you have done?!”

Celestia said nothing. She only felt it. Fear and panic. Despair and hatred. Every fiber of her being urged her to attack. Tear the monster to pieces. Burn it to ashes. Only the solemness of the moment gave her pause, even if she barely understood it.

The griffoness lost her balance and crashed to the stone again while the sky roared and turned red through the broken clouds. With a painful cry, she laughed again. Quietly. “Of course, you do not.”

She shakily raised her head and her eyes struggled to remain open. Blood dripped out her nares and out the corner of her beak. Yet her imposing voice came out strong and clear. “I am the Allmother. I am Order. I bring law upon Chaos! From the first breath of Creation to the last whisper of Annihilation, I am Aya Harpyia and my will brought you into existence. Everything is mine and you exist to serve!”

The griffoness pulled herself, dragging over the burnt soil with a shaky laugh. But then she frowned and grimaced, still trying to pull herself up, and muttered weakly. “I will not forget… In another billion years, if I must.”

As she expired, the sun growled, extinguished, and turned itself inside out. Such was the only way the scared alicorn could understand what happened. The sky vanished into nothingness and the fire quenched. An earthquake shook the ground. It undid itself in showers of sparkling magic dragged into the rumbling void. The dead griffoness under the black monstrous alicorn unraveled herself in swirls of magic, same as the other three alicorns and Celestia saw her leg turning itself in a shower of sparkling dust. It never hurt her, and she merely watched as her body became magic and swirled into the black nothing.

Amid the irrational thoughts of an animalistic mind, the echoes of universe-creating magic whispered to Celestia. Strings pulled in different directions. Billions upon billions of shards of life-animating magic converged into a single entity. An endless sea of memories collapsed into a single question. It consumed Celestia’s thoughts as she fell into the lightless void.

‘What went wrong, and how do we fix it?’

In an instant, all that ever was joined into a single dimensionless point and time returned to the moment of creation. Magic exploded into existence and Harmony’s whispers echoed through the newly created universe. Everything that will ever be waited for directions.

“Harmony eternal…” Celestia whispered to herself. “What have I done?!”

The flash of creation, of everything coming into existence at once, became the magical light fixture in the ceiling. Celestia covered her eyes. Her leg did exactly as she wanted, further shielding her from the harsh light. The healing talisman had stopped radiating its magic and all the tiredness and soreness had vanished. She stood to sit easily on her bed.

That dream. It was not the first time she had endured it. Reliving the hodgepodge of memories from the past and of previous lives used to fill her with dread. Not this time. Maybe the realization that the Harpy had indeed followed through on her promise put a lid on all the tension it filled her with. Maybe it was the realization she had the upper hoof this time around.

Ironically, in past lives, she hadn’t even remembered enough to have that dream. Only in the present life, she remembered. Also ironically, it was because something had gone wrong. It was in the present life that the Harpy made her move against Celestia to take back her world. Perhaps it was the atypicality of the present cycle that emboldened the Harpy.

Celestia’s thoughts caused her to pull back her ears. It didn’t matter. Because it was not the case as Celestia having stolen something from the Harpy. It was more like the Harpy would try to take back the world she wasn’t competent enough to sustain before the responsibility fell on Celestia’s withers. But even if she wanted, Celestia could not linger on that issue. A trio of gray-shaded and purple maned, very young fillies sat next to her bed. One of them stared intently at Celestia, but shifted her eyes away as soon as she looked back at the filly.

The one in the center of their little formation, the unicorn with vibrant pink eyes, addressed her with a joyous, glowing smile. “Ave, Matriarch of the Great Herd. Legatus Radiance has commanded we assist you.”

Blinking, Celestia glimpsed something shining near the trio. Someone had cleaned her modern royal regalia and deposited it nearby. But next to it was a T-shaped stand which held garments she had not seen for nearly two thousand years. All the meaning they held returned to her like her beloved sun, raising above the horizon and flooding the world with its light.

Throughout her life, or multiple lives, Celestia became what ponies needed her to be. The provider of sunlight. Benevolent ruler. Distant caretaker. A caring teacher. Those intertwined, often, but there were the times when the Old Unicorn Kings needed to be extirpated like a parasite clinging to the flesh of Equestria. When evil had taken root in the world. When a dangerous being threatened the world with a fate worse than death. She found she could not afford to be lenient and often cruelty was the only language they understood.

She had already taken the first step. She had opened Star Swirl’s clockwork doors and Celestia woken the last battlehorns alive. The second step should be easy. That said, in the present she knew better than to consider herself the savior, the protagonist in the marvelous story of Equestria.

She stood before a challenge. She understood she had a role to play, and her position often bore responsibilities and duties which far surpassed those of other creatures. But Celestia had never, in all her existence, shied away from duty. She would not start when Equestria faced such a dangerous, vicious, and unrelenting enemy. If she must wear the mantle one more time, then so be it. She steeled her mind, though, as a dangerous monster lurked beneath those pieces of cloth.

She stepped down from her bed to the white porcelain tiles of the floor. Coming from under the sheets, the air felt chilly and so did the floor, but not enough to bother her. She stood tall, looking down at the three fillies. One unicorn, one pegasus, one earth pony. Next to them was a vast selection of perfumes, oils, scented waters, brushes, spatulas, and paraphernalia for making ponies look pretty.

After she smiled at them and laid on a purple and gold pillow, the fillies set to work with practiced ease. Celestia let them work free of any inconvenience, falling into an old routine even after so long had passed. She even accepted without thought when the little pegasus offered her a golden chalice with a richly aromatic wine. A little green branch from a bay tree leaned at the edge, dipped into the wine.

The deep crimson of her drink had a soft, barely noticeable, golden shine to it and a citric aroma only the Sunshine Sangreal would have. Celestia had forgotten how much the flavor had changed over the millennia. Two thousand years ago, it was drier and much stronger, but it was still mostly the same taste from the Royal Winery of the present. The over fancy Blueblood, even then, could not hold a candle to it. Even if the magical preservation tampered with the tang of her sample.

Tasting it again, she cocked an eyebrow. The Sangreal also had a tendency of lacking creative poisons.

Meanwhile, the little unicorn used another branch of a similar tree to sprinkle her coat with rose perfume. The aroma immediately eased Celestia’s mind from the chemical smells of the room. The earth pony started brushing her tail using a golden brush with the fur of a wild boar. Celestia didn’t even know for sure if such things still existed in the world outside. Modern times replaced them with finely cut wood or bamboo and other materials, such as quills. The pegasus filly had climbed onto a stool and braided Celestia’s mane with a practiced ease.

Once she was done with the perfume, the unicorn filly hopped away to the other side of their pile of beauty tools and products. She returned with a plater larger than herself hovering in the air. The white alicorn could only smile at the solicitous little filly bringing her a cornucopia of figs, pomegranates, and raisins. Not only that, but also a selection of cheeses and pistachio, cashew, walnuts, small rustic cakes, grapes, and a couple of apples.

Celestia had barely awakened from her debilitated state, and they showered her with luxuries. It would have made for an entire edition worth of scandalous articles in every single newspaper in the Equestrian Heartland. How could she deny them, though? The fillies were born at a different time, and their parents educated them differently from modern ponies.

Rejecting their offerings would mean something was wrong with it and would hurt the poor little fillies who had done absolutely nothing wrong. Thus, Celestia accepted the figs and the only thing that tasted better than those were themselves combined with the wine. Especially with how hungry she was.

Yes. Old habits returned frighteningly quick.

They brushed her mane and her tail. Scrubbed her coat and polished her hooves and horn. Even remade her makeup. Then the trio was ready to assist Celestia in donning the garment they had brought for her. Speaking of garments, their tunicae would pass for cute dresses covering their hindquarters. Their purple-striped togas would be quirky accessories in the present times. But a golden brooch before their left shoulders showed Legatus Radiance Fellbane’s cutie mark. The combined moon and the sun, and a flaming sword crossing behind them, with the tip upward.

Celestia almost winced at the reaction such an ornament would cause in present times. The problem never even crossed their pure minds as they helped Celestia don her clothes. The pegasus flew, bringing her tunica over the alicorn. With help from the filly, Celestia modestly raised her legs and let the purple silk slide itself around her. Her wings slipped through the cut effortlessly. She had changed little from the time it was first spun, sewn, and dyed for her. It had golden threads stitched into it in the shape of her cutie mark above her thighs and laurels before her chest.

Finally, she sat with her left foreleg raised to the side. The efficient flying filly brought her the semicircular piece of purple-dyed wool which was the toga. The same golden laurels decorated it, coming into place with the folds and pulls the pegasus filly did, helping Celestia dress. And once they were done, the little earth pony filly sat before Celestia, offering a golden plate with her headdress. A magical artifact unlike any in the past, or the present. Ordo Ferrarius unicorns from the sunforge of Shatterhoof Valley forged it for her. They made it with magically sequestered and eternally frozen sunlight.

Not a single unicorn in the present days would even understand how to make another. Celestia’s golden magic retrieved it from the plate and placed it upon her brow. The headdress shone with six outward spikes of frozen golden light, with her horn being the seventh, as though she wore a piece of the sun.

Celestia took an appraising look at the bronze mirror the little pegasus promptly offered her. They could put any Canterlot beautician to shame with how fast and precisely they worked. Cut from the same cloth of the Battlehorn Legionaries, they learned from a tender age how to work efficiently and in a coordinated manner.

Their work done, they stared up at the impressive mare raising to stand on her four legs, covered in purple wool and silk, gold, and sunlight. Celestia wasn’t sure if it was her headdress or their smile which shone brighter. Their little bodies radiated a form of magic Celestia had not witnessed for a long time. It slowly died away after the doors to that place had closed.

The warmness in their smile and the pure, unbridled devotion in their eyes shone like sunlight at the beach. It was a hard feeling to explain, one that Celestia too had forgotten. Not that the ponies of the present didn’t present her with a devotion of their own, but it was different.

“I would go to the grand hall if you would kindly lead the way.” She smiled at them, helpless to stop the warm, deeply touching agape they radiated. How could she make them stop? Was there a way they could stop?

Without missing a heartbeat, the little unicorn magicked the door open. The facility’s valetudinarium was missing some of the pomp and grandiose of the hospitals in the prime age of the Battlehorns. That one was to be used in an emergency. The builders had limited space but still fit it with impeccable white walls in the short corridor out of the room they had left Celestia to heal.

A pair of mares wearing pure white togas stood guard with no weapons. They likely had just awakened from the magical hibernation but stood sharp on their guarding posture. Heads held high and stoic stares, only changing for smiles when they saw Celestia in her glorious garment. They bowed before her, as the Legatus had done before, with their chests and heads low, one stretched leg, the other folded beneath them. Their manes were less than impeccable, though, further evidencing they had just woken up.

The three fillies galloped and flew down the corridor into the small hall, hollering at the top of their lungs. “Make way! Make way, Her Radiant Grace comes!”

There was no reason to make way, as the path was entirely free, but she just let the little ones do as their training directed. Walking out of the corridor, with the pair of gray mares accompanying her, Celestia entered a hall with several doors and windows. An internal yard, or a hall, where the walls remained white, and the floor covered with white tiles. Each door and window were a room where one of the legion’s doctors could examine a pony who was not feeling well. And it seemed the magical hibernation caused a good measure of discomfort.

Several of the large gray mares, all wearing only the white tunicae, sat by the walls with nauseous stares and flopped ears. They drank concoctions under the care of the Domina Medica’s many physicians. Male unicorns, not so much of the same size as the mainline soldiers, as well as pegasi and earth ponies, found jobs assisting their ailed brethren. And not only the large mares, but the illness afflicted ponies of all tribes and both male and female.

They all straightened. Raised heads and straight backs, standing at attention when Celestia’s purple and gold walked into the hall. All the complaining and hushed talks ended, and she felt it again. A wave of warmth, like the sea, had suddenly become violent, but instead of dragging her down to the bottom of the sea, powerful waves of magic meant to elevate her. Her very core burned hotter. She had forgotten how powerful they could be.

It was a bit like lust. Whenever one of her many consorts throughout the millennia would simply stop and stare at her, their eyes would fill with a burning passion. A love they could not contain. Chocolate’s eyes returned to her mind’s eye. It bordered on worship, a step away from the unhealthy. And it was not unlike the stares she received from those ponies. The sick and nauseated, waiting for the medicae to help them, simply stopped caring about whatever. Everything ceased to exist, and only she occupied their minds.

The white alicorn immediately gestured a dismissing wave with her hoof. “Please, be at ease. I was under the Domina’s care myself.”

It took a second, but the healers resumed their job and hushed conversations resumed. Some excited comments reached Celestia’s ears, but she ignored them. The alicorn focused on following the trio of little fillies into another corridor. The magical light fixtures were the ancient, outdated kind that produced too little light and required too much flux from the mana grid. But given the installation and the pure white walls, their torch-like light sufficed.

A couple of turns and a stairway accommodated rooms beyond the walls in the corridor. Being the access to the valetudinarium, it was ampler than needed, though. The little fillies dutifully guided her, and their incessant clamoring opened the way, as Celestia found no one in the corridor. Until voices reached her. A beautiful singing, despite the coarse reverberation in the cramped corridor.

Soon she reached a balcony, and she would be lying if she said she didn’t press her step to reach it faster. A couple of earth ponies carrying saddlebags filled with supplies meant to enter the corridor but waited by the door with curious stares. Their jaws dropped when they saw her, and they lowered their heads. Celestia paid them only a small nod, though more interested in the singing.

White marble suddenly replaced the ceramic tiles and the imperial style of the railings on the small balcony lent itself well to that place. The corridor opened onto a small balcony over a hall. Alcoves occupied by the statues of the few great mares of the Gray Dames surrounded it, each one as tall as the stone sentinels outside. It started with the legion’s founder, Matriarch Fellbane, herself, with her intense and grim stare perfectly captured in marble. And ended with the present matriarch, Radiance Fellbane. The center of the hall beneath Celestia’s balcony had an artificial magical sun which provided both mana to the installation and light to the hall.

It balanced at the tip of the elegant white horn of the statue beneath it. The white alicorn, rearing on her hindlegs, spread her mighty wings across the hall. On her shoulder and her leg, the alicorn held the largest banner of Equestria ever made. The golden inlay of the marble floor reflected the light back at the alicorn and her marble gleamed as though engulfed in golden flames. A painting of a clear sunny day shared the roof with a starry night, and the sun and moon sat in the middle of the roof in the combined sun and moon of the legion’s sigil.

The grand hall, even larger than the atrium, was the central hub of the installation and connected all the different areas. Many of the large-sized mares and several pegasi and earth ponies went about their duties after waking from hibernation. All of them stopped to listen.

Before the statue of the gleaming white alicorn stood a group of twenty of the large mares. The mainline soldiers of the legion, all wearing white tunicae and gleaming white togas. All young mares caught at the start of their career before the doors to the vault closed and preserved them for the millennia. They sang backing vocals to a leading unicorn sitting before the magnificent statue of the white alicorn. But once the male glimpsed Celestia’s presence on the balcony, he turned to her. His voice sang with a renewed flourish. A gusto that made her blush.

Although calling it singing was akin to comparing the work of a clumsy apprentice with that of their master. Whiter than most Fellbanes, he had a glorious purple mane in an almost ethereal shade of the color. His bright purple eyes filled with pure joy when he saw her standing on the balcony. Joining his hooves, he raised his voice, and the choir of mares accompanied him, as the trained team workers they were.

Every elongated syllable, a perfect sound. A perfect note following another in a harmonious melody. Like the silkiest of wines, carrying with it the rowdiest of fires. His was the highest range, humbling the choir of singing mares with the delicateness of every movement of his vocal cords. The best tuned violins in existence would die of shame contemplating the music he produced with his voice filled with love.

He opened his legs, squatting on his hindlegs and then holding a hoof to his chest. Projecting his voice. Prolonged vowels, as if his lungs carried the entire world’s worth of air. Dedicated solely to producing music worthy of Harmony itself. Eyes closed, they gleamed with tears. His voice rose higher and higher without breaking. So high, Celestia barely understood how he could maintain it for so long. Such graceful elegance and power under the guise of softness.

It was not music; it was the sound of agape, bleeding into the world as singing. The rite of latria, given shape as sung notes. Desperately expressing what only the heart can feel, and no words can truly express. It was the soul of a creature reaching higher, in pained tears with its inadequacy before the immeasurable magic of Creation.

Beautiful and powerful. It set Celestia’s heart on fire and sent a shudder through her spine. It was not music; but worship and Celestia’s old soul remembered it from ages ago. And thanks to the racket of the little fillies announcing her arrival, Celestia became the center of attention. All those powerful mares and the ponies involved with the day-to-day running of the legion turned to her, and she could see it in their eyes.

She drank liberally from it, wanting or not. Like being force-fed the sun and its power without measure burned her veins. The gates had opened and there was no stopping their souls’ power of shaping will into reality. Their devotion filled her veins with fire and fanned a hungry furnace in her chest. It flooded her, filling her soul with a power like which the world had forgotten. Like Celestia had forgotten.

The dedication shining in their eyes scared her. The very thing she did her best to destroy when she ended the Cult of the Alicorns and tried to end by destroying Grigor’s empire. Adoration, subservience. Already, notions of grandeur and visions of glorious victories flooded her thoughts. She was the only thing that could save the world, and they would be her tools. As they were thousands of years ago when she led the world against the madness of the griffon emperor. As lifetimes ago, when she killed a god.

Worship and obedience, faith, and discipline; the sword and shield of a Battlehorn. Life was simple for them. If there was a problem, they fixed it by whacking it upside the head with a magical weapon or blowing it up with magic. Just trust Celestia. She knows what she is doing. It wasn’t even their fault: such was their upbringing. It was necessary.

It may be necessary now.

The exhilarating surge of power which came with worship still brimmed her chest and tingled at her horn. She became used to it in the past; and she would accommodate it again. Celestia would use it for what she must and then relieve these mares and stallions of duty as she had done in the past. She was prepared for it. If it would be a test for her, she would pass it.

Outside her thoughts, ponies cheered, whooped, and stomped hooves at the marble. She coughed into her hoof, for no other reason than to distance herself from all that when it became too much. Legatus Radiance unexpectedly saved her, entering the main hall and speaking loudly.

“Enough. She does not visit us out of courtesy, or for leisure. Her Radiance, your centurii and praectors have practical matters to mind. And all of you have tasks to tend, kindly do.”

All the congregated ponies started dispersing and Celestia took the stairs to the main floor to meet Radiance. The unicorn singer bowed to her with a lingering stare but turned to leave the important mares to their business. Radiance, wearing her white, red striped toga, bowed respectfully while the hall emptied itself. She then excused the three little fillies and the two guards, as she would take care of guiding Celestia through the installations.

“Most of us didn’t think we would ever wake up again.” She said, walking with Celestia, showing the way with a hoof.

They walked side by side through a wide corridor and the walk helped Celestia rid herself of the overwhelming sensations. The corridor followed the theme of gold and marble, rather than the spartan gypsum and tiles. The hallway leading to the Strategium was as luxurious as the grand hall. In the end, it was still soil and stone carved into a corridor that the builders lined with marble and gold.

Celestia understood. It was the same mentality as that colt and his beautiful song. Another form of worship. The battlehorns were Celestia’s holy warriors with which the Chosen of Harmony brought it to rule over the world. The battlehorns must not mingle in poor corridors. Did that always sound as insane as it sounded to her now? Or had Celestia changed along the millennia, as had Equestrian society? The new way worked. More ponies were happier than they were in the past. And more griffons too. But not everycreature was as grateful as her little ponies.

Maybe Radiance noticed Celestia needed a moment to sort her thoughts and the silent walk took them to another hall. A trophy room dedicated to the conquests of the Zeroth Legion. It amounted to a paltry collection of sculptures of the minions of Chaos. A couple of otherworldly bizarre monstrosities from beyond the borders of their universe. The Gray Mares, the Fellbanes, had a very specific specialization. It provided fearsome enemies, but few decorations to the impressive hall, save for the masterful paintings of the mares who had commanded it.

Decorators also hung several placeholder pieces of art because of that. Some very tasteful pony placed many paintings of ancient Equestria around the room. Idyllic views of farms and newly founded cities. Those paintings must have provided some comfort in the days before the vault closed. Before the last of them went into magical hibernation. Those were the reasons for their sacrifice. To safeguard the future.

Now Equestria needed Celestia again. And she needed the Battlehorns. The Gray Mares were the only ones which remained, and they would rise to the challenge. Because that is what the Battlehorns do.

An Old Mare's Tale

A God themself shan’t be granted courtesy for a mistake. A God makes no mistake.

***

The Strategium was a glorified meeting room. Its most distinctive qualities included a massive table and enormous windows. Too much luxury for a military installation or meeting room. Made of a milky white crystal, the grand table occupied most of the center of the room. A golden finish framed it with images of cheerful, playful ponies. Like cutouts from a golden sheet. The tall windows, held by golden frames, showed a cloudless starry sky despite the facility being underground. They made up most of the walls and gave the room a mystical atmosphere. A glorious candelabra with hundreds of magical orbs provided light hanging from the arched ceiling.

The floor had more marble and raised like the tiered seatings of a theater, surrounding the table with a comfortable walking space. The attendance occupied all seats. The taller, mainline battlehorns sat in the back. Ten centuriones, the immediate commanders of the soldiers, all had attended and sat together in a group of grim and serious mares. They waited for the meeting to start. They were not the only ones with the prodigious size of the battlehorns, though. Many of them had taken duties outside of combat, such as the Domina Medica. And the Magus Praector, responsible for training the young ones and ensuring the adults remained sharp. Not to mention Matriarch Legatus Radiance herself.

Battlehorns could become members of the auxiliary forces for a series of reasons. Because they suffered injuries which their medicine couldn’t compensate for, or because of their calling. After all, even if battlehorns were soldiers, there was more than fighting to maintaining an army and Harmony understood that. The more normal ponies couldn’t become a battlehorn, though. They wouldn’t survive the training or the magical and pharmacological treatment necessary. They still served proudly, though, as their larger sisters needed support and usually only trusted their family.

Why, Cherry Flameheart, the last Matriarch Legatus of the Flamehearts, started as a cook.

In the front were the shorter commanders of the Auxilia Alae, the auxiliary forces made of pegasi and earth ponies. They tended to behave more like normal ponies, often giggly and carefree when not on duty. The ones before Celestia kept silent and waited as patiently as their larger sisters. A collection of differently sized silver and purple shades, mares, and stallions. All wore the white toga or the striped variations showing their position. One of the battlehorns stood watch by the door and closed it behind Celestia and Radiance.

They hailed Celestia and their matriarch with an echoing but restrained ‘ave’. As protocol dictated, Celestia sat herself on the golden, white, and purple throne, waiting for her across the table from the door. Radiance stopped next to Celestia, at her throne’s side. Because of protocols. They were important to the battlehorns and their disciplined minds. Those ponies too restrained themselves, focusing on their commander instead of Celestia. Thankfully. It diminished the effect of the wave of warm magic washing over her. She should get used to it again before long, but in the meantime, she welcomed the reprieve.

Radiance directed a dry stare to a mare sitting at a podium raised next to and above the table. After a quick nod, the latter closed her eyes and lit her horn with blue magic. Opening her eyes again, silver light poured out of them. Magic in motion filled the room with a breeze and the tabletop convulsed with endless lights as the high-rises in downtown Manehattan grew from it. The tallest buildings reached several hooves above the table and filled with the magical lights coming from the windows. Streets made squares and brimmed with light and movement as ponies pulled carts or trotted along the walkways. A party happened at one of the many plazas and music sounded distant, coming from the map.

The windows in the room blurred with motion and images formed, as though the room now found itself on one of the city’s countless and busy streets. Even at night, ponies trotted in every direction. A happy yellow earth pony pulled his cart toward the windows to disappear and reappear on the opposite windows. Pegasi flew overhead and chatting ponies sounded through the windows with their excited voices muffled and distant. And perhaps even more impressively, an airship flew in the distance, lit by its own lights. Its stylish triangular wings held the magical induction engines which kept it airborne, lazily crossing the sky above the city.

Celestia spared the ponies a moment so the mares could absorb the surrounding view, and the impossibly tall buildings the windows showed. Only the cartographus remained fully focused on the map. Trained from a young age, the unicorn tapped into the powerful magic of the astral bodies. She used their privileged position to anchor a powerful scrying spell. Controlling the table and imprinting on it exactly what the Moon saw was the easiest part of the process.

“The scouts did not lie.” One of the great mares mumbled amid the hushed comments from her peers.

“Of course, they did not.” Matriarch Radiance immediately regained control of the situation and their collective attention. “This is Manehattan, thousands of years after we secluded ourselves to sleep. We expected the world to have changed, thus I see no reason for astonishment.”

With those words, she turned her hind to the table to look at Celestia as all the eyes fell on the alicorn. Save for the cartographus. She still sat at her podium, minding the map, shifting her gaze to different parts. As though she corrected minute details on the spell beneath it.

‘Somehow, the Harpy returned.’ Celestia almost told them. Chocolate Velvet would have loved to see her saying that. Instead, she held her eyes to the white and gold of the marble floor, and her lips pursed. The alicorn cleansed her mind of distractions, such as the memory of her beloved consort and champion.

She didn’t doubt their loyalty for a second. But things had become so complex and so outside of the sphere of the mundane Celestia might lose them if she was not careful. Perhaps abridging the information for the time being was a good idea? Avoiding unnecessary details until they become necessary?

The mares kept staring at her, waiting for her to say something already, but Celestia needed to organize her thoughts. She hadn’t had the time to prepare a briefing. What did they already know? Their vault had been sealed during a peaceful period after the start of the reconstruction efforts. Countless of their cousins from other legions perished through the grueling battles and the remaining ones had been relieved of duty. The Gray Dames were out long enough to know that they had adapted well and lived happy, fulfilling lives.

They saw the world recovering not only from the devastation of war, but from the Holy Griffon Empire’s abuse. They witnessed the Diamond Dogs crawling back from the crippling loss of life. The hippogriffs overcoming the hatred and distrust against griffons. The warring between the mighty dragons, suddenly without a leader. They saw King Grover become king of the griffons and saw the mostly successful consolidation of his rule. The fragile peace Celestia settled with Empress Geneviere after Emperor Grigor’s death too. They knew of the northerner griffons’ duty of guarding Griffonia from the Frozen North. What they didn’t know, and neither did Celestia at the time, was that Grigor’s goddess, the Harpy, was real. Or at least that she had not been destroyed, as Celestia believed.

The alicorn sighed. That was as good as any subject to start their conversation, and the beginning was the best place to start. She frowned and could see the worry her expression put on the faces of those powerful mares.

“Heralds of the present often make fun of me. My enemies seem to return from the past after not being dealt with accordingly. They neglect the fact that I have learned that not all enemies deserve destruction. That not everything happens within the lifetime of a pony. However, this one time, they would be right. Worse, this enemy returned by means completely out of my understanding and my power to control. What I will tell you now may take some time for you to fully grasp, given the severity and the complexity of the situation. These are things I have only discussed with my sister and with the Archmage. So, lend me your patience and I will unfold before you the nature of Creation itself and the origin of a war older than time.”

With a grim stare from Celestia, the cartographus extinguished the magic emanating from her horn. Celestia had to restrain herself. There were no words which could properly describe the feeling of her already powerful magic almost flying out of her control. The recent influx of sheer magical force almost led her to overpower and corrupt the spells and enchantments in the room. Fortunately, her mind was quicker still than it already was, and restraint came easy, timely, and spontaneous. In fact, Celestia felt completely recovered from her ordeal at Griffonstone and at the facility entrance.

But those too were distractions. The windows darkened at her command and sprinkles of light manifested as the map formed Equestria as seen from impossibly high above. A rugged and mostly flat land mass hanging in the Aether. The mighty sun and the beautiful moon replaced the candelabra and, again, she let the mares look around and reorient themselves for a couple of seconds.

“The world we call Equestria has existed several times before.” Getting confused stares under the sun’s light, Celestia kept explaining after she delivered the initial kick. “Our entire universe exists to maintain Harmony. Every time it is threatened with extinction, a magical singularity annihilates all and returns time to the moment of creation.”

The room and the images darkened. A disconcerting hole in the sky formed where the sun and moon shone an instant ago. A crown of incandescent dust surrounded and bended around it, spiraling into it with a dull rumbling sound resonating into their bones. Celestia could see in the reflections on their eyes. They recognized it at some subconscious level, which only the soul itself remembered. It was always interesting to see.

“I don’t understand.” One of the pegasus mares on the younger side of the present ponies frowned under the faded light, looking at Celestia. “How can it save something from being extinguished by annihilating it?”

Decorum kept the others from voicing their agreement to the younger mare’s question. Celestia gave them some more time to process what she had told them before continuing. “Luna and I have called it the Black Sun. Swallowing light and magic instead of showering the world with it. I have studied it all my life, and I still do not fully understand it. I know, however, that it exists as a fail-safe.”

“The extreme density of magical flux causes bizarre effects upon the magical components of reality. Space and time decouple and cease to have any meaningful significance. The magical singularity connects a single point of origin, when Creation started, with all the endings that have ever happened. Causality is not entirely shattered.”

“It stores information, memories seared into the souls of every creature and the magic of every object in existence.” Celestia frowned, thinking for a second before putting her understanding into words. “It is the gestalt consciousness of Harmony looking at itself through the collective experience of all things. Trying to understand what happened and how to correct it.”

“The result was cycles of creation and annihilation, repeating themselves. Seeking for the answer to how to sustain itself indefinitely. The details are less important. It is sufficient for you to understand that the very first and the present cycles are special.”

Equestria, represented in the tabletop map, became a lifeless wasteland covered in a terrible magical storm. It showed no thunder or lightning, only violent winds. Clouds so energetic they shone upon the land, and raindrops exploded with uncontrolled elemental magic. No sun or moon occupied the primeval skies, only mad colors of chaos hovered above the board. Rocks freed themselves of the mass and floated above and undid themselves or crashed back to the land as though gravity remembered what it was supposed to do.

“As the universe first came into existence and Harmony was born, it created a being with…” Celestia paused for a second, trying to find the right words. “A being with the proper magical authority so it could start life on the planet. It was necessary because Harmony is magic, and magic cannot act on its own. It needs a moving force. I don’t fully understand the processes which created it, but it was the fruit of Harmony’s need to perpetuate itself. It was ‘survival’ in its purest, and not necessarily smartest, form.”

“It was an immensely powerful being with the power of Creation itself and filled with passions and eagerness. It started life by creating the griffons. She made a valley for them and called it the Stormy Eyrie.” Celestia spoke as the tabletop changed. A valley grew out of it. A circle of mountains with a river and a forest cradled the largest mountain in the middle and plains surrounded by a mountain chain.

“As they grew, the magic of Harmony reacted to them. She created them with the necessity for specific sustenance, which they would only find in the flesh of other animals. She made them so in an elegant maneuver to send Creation spiraling away in the direction she wanted.”

“Echoes of her creation, Harmony created ponies with a special domain over nature. They moved across the world, shedding their magic and bringing life to the lifeless husk of a world beyond the mountains of the Stormy Eyrie. Plant life blossomed, insects followed and then complex animals. The world stabilized as ponies went where the world needed magic and, in their wake, followed the magic of Harmony. Life. A perfect paradise for her litter. A world which catered to their needs.”

As she spoke, the table shifted. The valley shrunk, and the table showed soft hills, which became delightful meadows as ponies arrived and mingled there. They walked in herds and grazed on the new grass surrounded by small animals and birds. Playful little ponies running and flying around, simply living their simple lives.

“But griffons and ponies are different.” Celestia frowned. “Harmony created ponies with purpose and their minds were in kind. Harmony made them with the goal of fulfilling the world’s needs, which strived to fulfill the needs of griffons. A feedback cycle set in motion by the Harpy’s will.”

“Understand that Harmony is not intelligent. It reacts, so it took what existed and made ponies so they would fulfill their role. From body, to magic, to the very functioning of our minds which grew around the Animus Imperative. In the present times, we perceive the Animus Imperative as our calling. Our talents, our Destiny. Our cutie marks. It is the reason braver ponies will be born in times of war and farmers will during famines. We are the Living Harmony, reacting to changes in the world. We are a semi-intelligent magical force, seeking to balance itself. It became a gargantuan magical machine as we became more and more complex. A system which was used to drive our minds and became a fac-simile of free will. It emerged from the growing complexity and the network of emotions and instincts it is.”

“Griffons were different. The entire architecture of their minds differs from ours because of that. At its core, it is all the Harpy’s vision, and Luna could explain it better, but I’ll do my best. Lacking purpose, griffons derive their sense of drive from suffering. If they lack something, they will seek it and their body rewards them for achieving it. Without social polish, an uncivilized hungry griffon will seek food and stop at nothing to get it. The problem began when griffons, tired of all the creatures they could torture for food, turned to ponies.”

“Ponies, in the very first cycle of Creation, were helpless creatures. Innocent and extremely powerful, they carried Harmony itself down to the world. Their minds functioned much as that of griffons, driven by emotions, but with a directive they must follow instead of free will.” Celestia explained, frowning at the moving images on the table. “One could infer there is no true free will, but that is besides the point. What mattered were the experienced emotions. It is still what matters.”

“Upon meeting griffons, ponies tried making friends as it was what they did among themselves. All other creatures in the world, including predators, enjoyed their company. They reciprocated their attempts at friendship. But griffons had no restraint, with no instinct to maintain Harmony. Remember, griffons possessed the closest thing to free will. No instruction inside their minds told them ponies were to be left alone. Unlike other creatures, ‘subordinate’ to ponies in the magical hierarchy.”

“And ponies… They cried when hurt. Instead of fighting when threatened, they cowered and fled. Griffons immediately recognized them as prey and became addicted to the immense amounts of magic in their flesh. They hunted ponies in the immediate areas of the Stormy Eyrie and extinguished them, causing nature to whither. The dying throes of nature summoned more ponies to the area, and griffons hunted them too.”

Celestia paused for a second. “Perhaps it would be better to say that they slaughtered them.”

Groups of griffons on the table descended upon a herd of ponies who barely fought back. They threw themselves to the ground and covered their faces. Those who tried to flee enticed the griffons to chase, and griffons were faster, stronger, and larger, both running or flying. “It was as though she intended for easy and harmless prey for her children to master the art of murder.”

“Where other animals would avoid the dangerous areas, ponies had no choice. Not even the notion of choice. In the beginning, they didn’t know to flee, and as they learned, fleeing only enticed the griffons further. Fighting back didn’t help, as they lacked the instincts to defend themselves. But as ponies met traumatic ends, their souls carried with them all the fear and sorrow. All the pain and the and the anger of the oppressed.”

“It turned to resentment. The simple minds of ponies, which understood little more than the rhythms of day after night, the bonds between mates and friends, urged for protection. Their souls, imprinted with terror and sorrow returned to the Pool of Souls and Harmony responded to their urges.”

Eyes around the room focused even more on the table as it showed a blue pegasus mare birthing a white, horned pegasus. “My first memory of existences ago is of killing griffons. I was born into the world with little instruction other than an instinct to protect my pony herd. There were four of us and we used all the power Harmony granted us to hunt and kill griffons whenever they hunted pony herds.”

Celestia stopped for a second before she spoke again with a sigh. “Please, understand. There was little intention behind it all. It was magic reacting to mindless emotions. We had no true intelligence. Perhaps the Harpy was the only intelligent creature in the world, and she failed to control it properly. Or maybe it was what she wanted, and the situation escaped her control. I am not sure.”

“But, as griffons became wary, we hunted them down and I am grateful my memories are old, sparse in the details. We were creatures fueled by resentment, fear, and hatred, but we learned. It became easy. We became skilled griffon hunters. All we wanted was for griffons to stop hurting us, but they didn’t, and we understood no measure, much less compassion and spared no one. At some point, it became a crusade to reach the Harpy. We raided nesting grounds and exterminated them. The adults, the lame. The cubs and the elderly. Every single one of them.”

“When the griffons fled back to the Stormy Eyrie, we summoned all the creatures to help us end them. Nature rebelled and followed us. There I killed the Harpy. The overwhelming loss of life on both sides caused souls to find their way back to the source, carrying their magic with them. Her immense magical powers, once disembodied, returned to the Pool of Souls, and caused the process of the Black Sun to trigger. It undid existence, but when Creation started anew, I was the one responsible for starting life. I assumed she was dead, but then again… I was barely more intelligent than a bundle of confused emotions and instincts.”

Celestia stopped for a second and let them breathe. They shared a few concerned stares and murmured quietly to one another as the table returned to its flat, usual self. “For the following cycles, what happened was a painstaking process of trying to make the world function as it was supposed to. I gained insight with every failed cycle, and my sisters joined. We became rational beings, as four parts of a whole. And in the fourth cycle, we achieved success. Ponies were resilient, intelligent, capable of reproducing, and herds were strong in unity. We set them out on the world, and they took the Magic of Harmony to the Chaos-stricken world and brought Harmony to it.”

“Until the previous cycle, I believed we were still in the fourth cycle. This is the seventeenth cycle, because through means I don’t understand, the Harpy has caused every cycle to fail, summoning the Black Sun. Forcing us to start all over and nearly repeat our lives over and over for all the previous cycles.”

“The details are not important. All that matters is that in the present cycle, I have learned of her interference earlier. I believe the Griffon Empire, which was exclusive to this cycle, may have been an attempt on her part to destroy me. If she garnered enough support among the griffons, she could use their faith as a weapon against me. Obviously, she failed, but she remained hidden until recently when I examined one of her spells.”

“Evidence points to several issues within the griffon society. She may have engineered them to garner support among the griffon population and turn them against my rule after the empire has failed. She may be plotting to rebuild the empire as we speak.”

“Remember. I have erased from historical records the existence of the Griffon Empire and many other things. I needed it to craft a believable lie. You should know that the version of history I have used to fill the gaps belongs to the previous cycle. The sixteenth.” Celestia frowned, raising her eyes to look at the gathered mares. “Until the present cycle, I could not remember my past lives. Again, details are not important, but I and Luna took over the sun and the moon in an event far less traumatic than the one you know of. In the previous cycle, the Republic never existed, and the populace never recognized the Alicorn Goddesses. There was no war, and Discord never attempted to destroy Equestria. Battlehorns never existed, and history was more forgiving of creatures. The echoes of memories from past lives eased creatures into believing my lies. If you must interact with creatures outside, their version of history is not to be challenged. It may cause them extreme anguish if they believe, and it may have rippling effects which may trigger a Black Sun event.”

It should scare her that she could talk so openly to those mares on the matter of lies and tampering with history. But she supposed gods require no excuses. She continued since they would listen.

“Through events which are not relevant, know that alicorns you would recognize as the goddesses of your time have been born into bodies of flesh and bones. Like me and Luna.” A minute effort formed copies of Twilight and Cadance for the surrounding ponies to see upon the table.

“She is the spitting image of Matriarch Grimoire!” Someone commented in the back, and only after a series of shocked comments Celestia continued.

“They are Mi Amore Cadenza and Twilight Sparkle. I have good reasons to believe they are both in this city with several friends and they must be located with all the celerity possible. But we must be careful. Ponies will recognize them as figures of authority and are likely to protect them in any situation.”

One of the unicorn mares approached the table as it showed the image of the two alicorns. She frowned at the image of the two smiling ponies. Celestia almost hoofed at her own face when she noticed she couldn’t help but picture the two as happy, smiling ponies. Fortunately, none of the present mares seemed to mind that.

“I believe our scouts can infiltrate the city.” The mare said as she approached the table and examined the couple of princesses. Farseer Fellbane, every bit the battlehorn as the others, but with a blueish highlight on her purple mane and a perpetual frowny stare. She commanded the centuria formed by their scouting teams who, by necessity of their job, also handled all the cloak and dagger skullduggery on behalf of their sisters. Battlehorns were not known for their subtlety. Except for Farseer’s legionaries.

She had lost her left eye in a battle far in the past and it had been replaced by one of the many overly aggressive magical talismans employed by the battlehorns. A silver frame had been grafted into her skull and it held a purple crystal, hiding a complex magical machine behind it. It required Farseer’s magic to work and would kill a normal pony but fit a battlehorn with barely the inconvenience of a hat. Typical of Battlehorns and their mentality. If she lost her eye and it couldn’t be grown back, she wanted something which would perform better. And the legion’s doctors and artisans delivered.

“Show us the city in its entirety, cartographus.” Farseer turned back to the map as it raised from the table, scanning the image of the massive city. Even with the magical contraption in her face, Farseer still had a fresher visage than her sisters. Bangs of her mane fell in front of her eyes, and she shook them away, grinning. “Foal’s play.”

“Wait.” Somepony in the middle of the congregation called as she too approached the magical scrying table. “Things are seldom so easy.”

She was a tall unicorn mare. Although not as bulky as the soldiers of her family, her coat and mane had the right colors for a Fellbane. Her horn and a bang of her silver-specked mane poked from under the hood of her red, gold-rimmed cloak as she limped on her left leg. It had been replaced by an arcane contraption that mostly imitated a pony leg like golden bone and sinew.

Domina Ferraria Hammer Fellbane. There used to be a running joke that the Ordo Ferrarius worried more about the Leaf Plate armors worn by the battlehorns than about the ponies wearing them. Hammer was one of those who other battlehorns used for evidence that the saying was not a joke. At least that was the impression she wanted others to have. Family was everything under Celestia for them.

“Our Armamentarium is filled with ancient weaponry. While I do not doubt the trueness of solar steel, we ought to proceed with caution. Although I am convinced of the capacity of my ferrarii to tend to our weapons and armor as much as that good old magic is still a force to be reckoned with, times have changed. I see a vessel which soars through the air as though Harmony has graced it with the magic of pegasi. I wish to understand the magic behind this and I can only imagine what advances in the fields of thaumatology happened since our time.”

For an instant, Celestia shuddered at the thought of what they could do with modern magic and arcane technology. One thing was certain: she could harness it to fight the Harpy.

“I believe not enough time has passed that hitting creatures with sharp metal sticks no longer works. Or that the underworld has stopped accepting Bits for information. This time we even speak the same language…” Farseer showed a coy smile.

Celestia interrupted before a discussion might arise. She raised a hoof and spoke with the authority she knew she had among those ponies. Both were correct. It was up to Celestia to reign in their efforts in the right direction. And old habits returned frighteningly fast indeed.

“We shall do both. First, Hammer is correct. There is new weaponry you should understand before setting out. Prudence is advisable. However, time is limited. Both of you remain with me. Domina Ferraria, I will tend to your concerns. Farseer, I will provide some insight into how to infiltrate the city, deal with the local law enforcement, and details about your targets. There is more we must mind too, and I would like you to stay too, Radiance. The others have already heard enough.”

With that, the legion’s Matriarch legatus clopped her hoof on the floor twice. “This meeting is over. Bring your subordinates up to speed and reign in any overzealous or overexcited upstarts. You know the deal, make it happen. And be prepared, you may be needed sooner than you expect.”

Author's Note

Chronologically, the next chapter would be chapter 43 of Piece of Parchment. But this story will continue to follow Celestia as she prepares while Twilight and Cadance try to escape Manehattan and Gilda continues on her journey to Griffindell.

Mess, pt, I

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

A throne room.

When the vault was first idealized, Celestia was sure it would be nothing more than a waste of resources. An unneeded luxury. Especially in a tomb filled with sleeping ponies never to be awakened. A waste of wealth which, even in her worst feverish dreams of conquest, seemed superfluous. Even in the nigh impossibility of the vault being opened, the Strategium should more than suffice as a command center and meeting room.

Even then, it was a testament to the shifting times. Even before the Battlehorns were no longer necessary. During the time of the republic, ponies took a dislike for throne rooms and the consuls would use pedestrian seats on the floor of the senate’s assembly hall. Decorated with purple linen and silk, but only wooden seats, nonetheless, surrounded by the marble grandstands of the senate hall.

In a graceful description of their jobs, the Consuls assisted the noble senators in reaching agreements. They would validate laws as the wielders of the executive power. Even if what drew them was their power of veto over parts of the text and each other. In the end, their job was to bring order to the cacophony of angry shouts and, sometimes, insults hurled from one side to the other.

Ultimately, it worked. The will of the majority prevailed. Such was the point of the system. As the Republic grew, its different peoples chose their leaders under the stewarding of the Senate itself. Leaders and representatives were no longer supposed to be chosen by any means other than the will of the people. And then, eventually, came the time when more than ponies sat in that venerable hall.

The Senate, as a unified body, spoke with the voice of all creatures, of all regions of the Republic. It could be no other way as, with the end of the conflict between the Three Tribes, ponies had learned to cooperate. And that was what brought the other races. Creatures, tired of tyrants, flocked together and became powerful in numbers. They grew mighty because they watched over each other. Both to assist in their needs and to beware of excesses.

Until the sin of the Old Unicorn Kings reared its head. They needed to own the Republic. The creatures of the time should have known better. They became too rich. They became too powerful. And no creature is so vulnerable to the corruption of entitlement as unicorns whose sole existence was dedicated to magic and statecraft. Generosity became a joke.

Like retribution from the hurt they unleashed upon Creation, Discord almost brought the world to an end. It appears the world was always on the precipice of annihilation. Forever a slip away from oblivion. The sun refused to move, and the Black Sun once again loomed just beyond the sight of the mortals. Panic and distress became fodder for machinations. And the Bluebloods were as good at scheming as the Brightmanes were at paying for intrigue.

Democracy died. They took its corpse and fleeced it. Made a throne for the Alicorn Sisters with its bones and showed it to the populace like their golden calf. They barfed hubris, and the plebeians drowned in it.

They ignored the warnings of the Griffon Scourge, eager to peck at the corpse of their precious Republic. They ignored the meaning of it all, hidden behind the veil of mortality. The War Older Than Time leered from the unimaginable past. Yet they never saw the Predator looming over them. With a savage smile on her beak and glee on her stormy eyes.

They almost had it all. But never expected the Sisters would sit on the throne they had made. Shocked at how well it fit them. Horrified at the ruthless efficiency with which they cleansed their evil from the magic of Harmony. And they wept at how beautiful it became without them.

When they passed away, Celestia told them to relish the fact that all that they had done had been remade anew. She told them all their malice and pride amounted to nothing. And that all that they were would be undone in the Pool of Souls. That the magic which animated their bodies would be scoured, and a new creature would be born. A pure being, without knowledge of their evil, born into a world which had forgotten them. Harmony would keep immortality to those who deserved it.

The last Brightmane died swallowing a bowl of shattered glass, and his Blueblood friend perished soon after. His heart failed as news reached him, with a missive that he should expect the High Queen’s visit soon. The last Unicorn King died later, though. He was unfortunate enough his newly fledged kingdom sat upon the thaumatonite mines of Shatteredhoof Valley. The reformed Battlehorn Legions needed it. In the end, he begged for mercy. If not for him, for his four sons. But Celestia had none to spare during that time.

A discreet smile formed on white lips under the dim light. How would the Mother of Storms die? Would the proud Lady Gwendolen of Griffindell beg? Would the Harpy’s pride allow for her to implore the white alicorn not to end her existence? Celestia was almost happy she could vanquish that vile creature a second time. She would erase that vile blood smear off Creation, and only the chosen of Harmony would remain.

The doors before her groaned. Far from her throne, down the red carpet, like the doors in a haunted house immersed in silence. They let light creep in from the hall and the shade of a fully armored Battlehorn mare pushed the door open. The magical lights in the throne room came alive with their white glow and the dark room unshrouded itself.

An audience hall as a statement of wealth and power. Unlike the seats of the Consuls, Celestia’s thrones were always golden as the light of the sun. White as herself and red as the luxurious carpets on the floor. It reached high as to show the power she wielded and ostentatious to recall her wealth. Behind, the wall showed the immaculate cerulean of Equestria’s sky, ruled by the source of light that bathed all in equal measure.

Marble, white as her coat, covered the cave walls and pillars, broke the milky panorama, themselves ornate with gold. They held purple curtains up to the ceiling, as well as the crystals lighting the central walkway. Everything in that room was a testament to Celestia’s power and presence.

All her majesty broke with a wide smile when the purple and green dragon walked through the door. His mouth hung open and his eyes scanned the room, looking to one side and the other and the ceiling. His small body seemed insignificant within the surrounding immenseness. They had even dressed him in a toga praetexta, with its purple finish and pristine white.

Spike wouldn’t like to know that infants wore it as a symbol of their innocence. Next to him, one of the many foals of the Fellbanes wore a similar toga and carried a bowl filled with a rainbow of shiny gems. Celestia used every ounce of restraint learned through the millennia to undo her smile and don a respectable, neutral expression.

The armored mare by the door gave a respectful nod to her matriarch and returned to her position next to the door. The elegant mare that was Radiance Fellbane walked just behind Spike and the excited filly.

“Have another one, Spike!” The small, cheery pony piped.

Celestia’s lips twisted, and her brow knotted. “Where in the world did you find all these gems?”

Radiance gasped at her words while Spike grabbed a green, round crystal from the bowl. About the size of his fist, he bit it in half like it was a crunchy candy, finally looking at Celestia as the mare replied.

“Domina Ferraria Hammer has provided them. They are spares for repairing magical devices. She decided we need not hoard them so much, as they are more easily found nowadays. According to Farseer’s report, anyway. Although I believe Hammer has become infatuated with the young dragon.”

Spike coughed and grinned upon hearing a reference to him and gave Celestia a pursed smile. “Ah. Hi. You look… Uh, shiny.”

Celestia blinked at his words and looked down at herself. “I suppose I do.”

“I guess they didn’t bring me here because you were feeling lonely and wanted to talk, huh?” Spike crossed his arms and frowned before Celestia at the top of the stairs.

She shook her head and stepped down from her throne, step by step, to stand next to him. “I’m afraid not, Spike.”

Her expression became less soft. “Do you understand what happened at the Break of Dawn?”

He let his arms hang from his shoulders. “Yeah. I mean, I know there was a fight. A bad one. And we lost the airship.”

He winced and hesitated. “Your airship. I’ll bet you are not happy Twilight and Cadance got away either. Much less that the griffons got away. I suppose that is why I am here, huh?”

“I am not angry at Twilight or Cadance, Spike. Much less the others, or you.” Her expression returned to the patient softness it always held for an instant before becoming a pained mask of worry. “They are walking into a trap and have been dragged into a situation that may already be irreversible.”

The little dragon blinked at her. “Oh… Uh… Are you sure? Because that’s pretty bad.”

“I still don’t know how many creatures died because of the mutiny aboard the Break of Dawn, but they share the blame with Grigory.” Celestia shook her head with a sad frown. “I understand they believe the risks of their every action is worth finding the truth. I admit, I have lied. I used my power to obscure the truth about the Griffon Empire. And more. But I did it to save Equestria.”

“However, griffons will not care. They will see Grigory’s actions as instrumental in their faux liberation. He will be lauded a hero.” Celestia cocked her head as she too realized. “Even that may be part of the Harpy’s plan.”

“I can bear the consequences, but…” She took a deep breath and sighed, her head canted to the side, her majesty crumbled before the same worry as before. “The full weight of what happened will fall on Twilight and Cadance. The Hall of Friendship and a multitude of civil institutions and associations will demand that I hold them responsible. Especially Griffonian institutions looking to shift the blame away from their future King for no other reason than earning a favor or two.”

Ironically, she had thought Lord Gilad above such things. But after the events in Griffonstone, all the faith she had in the griffon had evaporated. Curious how politicians always tended to disappoint her. But that was a matter for another time.

“They will demand that Twilight and Cadance abdicate their position. They will try to force me to punish them. Given the chance, some creatures would demand capital punishment. Although, that cannot be… We are not normal creatures. The situation will create a further derangement of the Federation and of the natural order of the world. As things stand, I may have to rely on tyrannical measures to keep the Federation from fracturing, and that will also further the issue. We will take the span of entire generations before this wound is healed, if it can be healed.”

Spike’s mouth gaped, and he shook at the weight of her words. Fingers strumming together, his eyes shifted from one side to the other. “But! But surely you can do something about that! Can’t you?! You can do anything!”

She let out a loud and tired sigh, finding the gold-lined gypsum squares in the ceiling. “Creatures must trust me to do my job. If I fail to uphold the law, as per the will of the peoples of the Federation, that trust will crumble. More than that, creatures must trust ponies with their privileged position. Else, the system upon which our world sustains itself will crumble. Alicorns, most of all, are held to a higher standard. And rightfully so. It is the reason I have hidden so much about our past. So much of the evil of the Unicorn Kings. You are fortunate you had never heard of them, Spike. And so are the rest of the world. That knowledge is dangerous.”

“This situation violates the virtues of the Elements of Harmony. You may not understand this, but you feel the weight of such words. They are the pillars upon which the magic of Creation sustains itself. I cannot put Twilight and Cadance, even with all my love for those ponies, above the survival of Creation. There is an Ancient Pact which must be upheld, or we flirt with annihilation.”

The gray mare and the filly remained silent while Spike frowned. His eyes aimed at the red carpet, and he bit his lip. One could hear the gears spinning inside his little head.

Celestia’s voice came soft, and her words slow. “The further this goes on, the worse it will become. And that is one reason the Harpy beckons them to her domain. She means to sap the trust the population has on me and drive us apart. To manipulate Twilight and Cadance. Make them into disposable pawns in a war so old only I and She remember it.”

“She will use the broken unity to advance her plans of reigniting Her cult among the griffons. Then the Harpy will set them loose on the tall ponies of Saddle Arabia with the excuse that those lands belonged to the Empire. Next will be the hippogriffs, under dark pretenses of purification. Our federation, once fragmented, will fail to respond in kind. Creatures will lose their faith in me. She will lie, dissimulate, and obscure. She has already disguised hatred and xenophobia for honor. All so She will weaken and eventually destroy me. Then she will be unstoppable.”

The irony that Celestia herself has lied, dissimulated, and obscured did not escape her, but the fleeting thought made way for more important matters. After all, if one must prevail, all the better she be the victor in that insane war of theirs.

“As the situation stands, we are either moving towards a future where a new griffon empire rises again, or one where the world ends. We face bondage as livestock for the most vicious of mistresses and her spawn, or the Black Sun and yet another cycle. A new cycle of Creation where we will be forced to go through it all again, but one where the Harpy may be too powerful to be contained.”

“We cannot bear this burden. I must reign Twilight and Cadance in. Without them, the others will resign from this misguided quest and deny the Harpy her victory. And, with the unity of Equestria secured, I will destroy Her.” Celestia scowled. “This time without a cosmic fail-safe to spare that monster oblivion. We can fix everything else later.”

“But I will not ask you to betray your friends.” Celestia towered above him and stared squarely at the little dragon’s trembling green eyes. His hands clasping at his chest, her height and grandeur dwarfed the young dragon. “I will not force you to tell me what you know, but I will ask you to help me protect them from furthering the damage they have caused. And I will demand that you fulfill your part in protecting our way of life. It is expected of me.”

His first reaction was a gasping wince which shuddered his scales. Muscles tensed like she had hit him with a bat. His eyes found her hooves and then he shifted away from her gaze. He swallowed and held his tail in a hug, stumbling on the words, missing them entirely.

“The world has forgotten, but I have not.” Celestia’s voice grew low. “I love you as my own, Spike. But your resentment cannot compete with visions of endless lines of crying slaves, and the weeping at the stakes. Ponies used both for livestock and property. Brave zebra warriors carved open; hearts offered to Her as a delicacy. Streets turned to rivers of blood in orgiastic festivals of death and suffering in honor of Her ego. Neither that, nor the horror of a dying world. In my dreams, they go on and on and they haunt me more than any sorrow my actions could cause.”

Eventually, he looked up at her again and he squeezed his tail tighter. “The port. The griffons have… Ah, friends in Manehattan. They arranged a meeting with somecreature that has a part that Twilight’s airship needs to fly again.”

“Do they mean to fly all the way to Snow Mountains?” Celestia frowned. Would Spike lie to her?

He loosened his shoulders with a defeated sigh. “We wanted to use the teleporter and get it to Thunderpeak. Then fly it north. To Griffindell.”

Radiance shot Celestia a curious stare. “Even then, monsters will attack their flying vessel.”

“The griffons have certainly prepared to escort them.” Celestia’s voice softened, and her hoof brushed the spines at the top of the little dragon’s head. “Thank you Spike.”

“Your grace.” Radiance’s voice drew Celestia’s eyes from the dragon again. “Our scouts captured Spike while he was in the company of a pony. A unicorn they have identified as Starlight Glimmer. At a park known as the Clock Plaza, they seemed to be looking for someone. Waiting for a meeting. The name ‘Naminé’ came up during their approach. Starlight Glimmer escaped, however, when the local law enforcement responded to the commotion.”

Celestia’s stare shifted over to Spike, who barely reacted this time. “We went there to meet somepony who was supposed to take us to see Naminé. They made it difficult, but the griffons got her ponies to meet us provided no griffons would be there. They never showed up, though.”

“Thank you again, Spike.” Celestia smiled at him again. “Your help was significant. I cannot send you back to your friends, but you can rest now. I guarantee the Gray Dames will take good care of you.”

As she spoke, hooves clopped the marble at a hastened pace, echoing into the room. Another pony entered. One of the cartographi trained to operate the magic of the map in the Strategium. The white-robed mare stopped once past the door, and waited until Celestia acknowledged her presence with a nod, under the eyes of the others.

“Your Grace. Forgive me the disruption, but we have located a wreckage corresponding to the airship you have described.” Once she had Celestia’s undivided attention, the young mare continued with her head raised and a stiff posture. “On the hills south of Baltimare. Elements of the Royal Guard have secured the wreckage, but a force of nearly one hundred griffons approach.”

“If we are to intervene, we must act immediately.” Legatus Radiance whipped her head, training her stare at Celestia.

“Ensure Farseer receives all relevant information.” Celestia’s voice raised. “She is to capture any creature at the harbor. Preferably before we need to concern ourselves with the teleporter facility. I will join the Prima Centuria at the Teleportarium immediately.”

Both mares acknowledged her orders with restricted bowing salutes and then left. Celestia turned her attention back to Spike and the filly as the two adult mares rushed away in the corridor.

“Thank you again, Spike. I will not hurt Twilight nor your friends in any way unless I must. I promise you that. Young lady, kindly take Spike to the others and ensure he has access to everything he needs. Accompany him if he wishes to tour the facility, but he may not leave.”

“Gee. Thanks.” Spike’s mouth bent with a sarcastic pout, but it soon shifted into a concerned, lost puppy stare.

The excited filly excused herself, much in the same way the adults had, before she turned to Spike and invited him to follow with an excited grin. Only after an instant of worried staring, Spike reacted and followed. Not before excusing himself with Celestia with a respectful bow, though.

The alicorn watched, maintaining her warm smile until both had left. Then she waited a couple of seconds, as little clops distanced themselves. Only then Celestia made her way to the door. Once outside the room, in the marble and gold hall, her hooves carried her with an urgent trot.

This time, her presence barely disturbed the normal goings and comings of the place. She preferred it like that. Mares and stallions had things to do. They wasted less time in idle adoration of her. Paradoxically, most of the activity had died down as they returned to normal and busied themselves in the more functional parts of their hideout. What ponies crossed paths with Celestia gave priority to their tasks and wasted little time. They stopped, bowed as she hurried by, and went on their way.

Wasting little time, Celestia reached the deeper parts of the facility. The architecture resembled something more practical than a mansion. It still kept the same luxurious decoration, with marble and gold, but the clanging of hammers and weapons echoed in stark contrast. Drill instructors barked reprimands and orders, taking her back to Palace Canterlot and the Royal Guard headquarters next to it. The usual noises of a military installation within the luxurious halls.

Like they had roused in the morning after a long night, the Gray Dames settled into the routine they knew. There were armor sets to refit, magical weapons to test, and recruits to train. Others had quasi-religious texts to recite, and some singing infiltrated the noises. If the main hall was the hub of the living area, the corridor Celestia trotted into was the hub of the day-to-day grind of the military operations. But heavens forbid the Gray Dames forget their heritage or allow their neophytes not to understand it.

Ponies scampered out of the way as the rhythmic trotting of a hundred ponies rumbled against the marble. Four lines of fully armored mares, each one as large as Celestia, marched at a rapid trot through the center of the corridor. Even Celestia stopped and watched the mares marching through the corridor. In near-perfect unison, they streamed through a wide door, as she watched with a sense of pride and a smile. Then she followed them into yet another grand room, albeit with a dignified, princess-like stride, carrying her golden toga like the symbol of her position it was.

Clear, functional lighting from the corridor spilled over into the shadowy room. A white haze, at hock height, poured out, evanescing a few hooves into the corridor. The marble hid beneath it and Celestia’s hooves still clopped at it as her breath came out a white puff. Their legs disturbed the mist while the mares never faltered in their gait and climbed a straight ramp up to a platform occupying most of the room.

A small army of less physically inclined unicorns wearing red and gold robes surrounded the massive platform. One poked his head out, surrounded by pink-illuminated fog, and talked about realigning gold coils with his colleague. Others minded the exposed magical machinery inside the platform’s foundation. Small groups convened or lit their horns and poured magic into the crystal and gold circuitry of the arcane machinery.

Past them, the statues of battlehorns of the past guarded the room and barely hid the polished stone. Crystals in all shapes and sizes, interconnected with thick tracks of gold, lined the domed wall and ceiling. They pulsated with multicolored light every while.

Large crystal spikes loomed over the platform like jagged teeth. But unicorns’ horns would be a better analogy than the canines of a crystal monster or threatening pillars out of a horror piece. They fulfilled the same function, after all. Although, they always reminded Celestia of crystalized and tinged sugar more than anything.

Her mouth twisted, just a smidgeon, looking at the things. Once again, Celestia shuddered at a glimpse of what the Gray Dames’ unicorns might do with modern magic and thaumatotechnology.

As she too climbed the ramp, the battlehorns quickly organized themselves into a square of ten lines at the top of the platform. Shadows filled the walls and vaulted ceiling, cutting the pink glow coming from beneath them. Hooves rapped against the solid crystal on the floor in counterpoint to the hum of the extremely powerful magical machine. The crystal just barely vibrated, filling with mana. Preparing to teleport them a couple hundred miles away.

The mares, the Prima Centuria, the First Cohort, were grizzled veterans even before their entombment in the facility. Some of them were probably older than Celestia. Barely distinguishable between themselves, other than a couple of old cuts or wrinkles under their green and gold helmets. Bodies covered in their mighty Leaf Plate armor, each one carried their leaf-shaped shield and a long, curved blade on their backs.

Clear magical steel, Solar Steel, tinted green and adorned with gold. Layers of protection for the body and for the many magical artifacts which made the Leaf Plate even more formidable than it seemed. Wearing the thing and allowing it to draw the magic it needed to function, was the line which separated the neophytes from the mainline warriors of the Legions.

Their weapons and helmets were a combination of skillful forging and powerful magic. Celestia’s favorite part was how their helmets turned their manes into elegant decorative crests. Their style was left to the individual battlehorn to wear as they wanted, though. One could take the pony from the pretty things but couldn’t take the pretty things out of the pony. Although there was only so much creativity one could afford with purple and green, gold and gray.

The warrior mares stood in silence, eyes forward, not a movement or clinking of metal plates. But far from the silence surrounding them, the outer rim of the platform brimmed with activity. More pink glowing crystals needed checking by the red cloaked unicorns under the panels. The magical chiming of unicorns casting spells was ubiquitous. Others walked around, also casting spells. Others still waved censers around, filling the air with the smell of myrrh and saturating it with spell components. Large unicorn mares sat in their corner and their red hoods covered solemn expressions. Peaceful closed eyes and focused minds.

At the top of the ramp, Celestia stopped close to their commanders. The Centurion spoke to the Domina Ferraria. Or rather, listened as Hammer kept admonishing her about their armor and the griffons’ ominous weaponry. The head blacksmith wore her red, gold-rimmed cloak of her subordinates. While the only thing differentiating the Centurion from her subordinates was her gray, purple hemmed cape. And perhaps an additional wrinkle or two on her face under the helmet and a slightly more glorious mane.

“Be mindful. These griffons carry modern weaponry. We have no way of knowing how will they affect the Leaf Plate armor. Expect a fight from a distance. Use overwhelming force and give them no chance to act. Our greatest strength is magic and theirs are their firearms.” Hammer spoke, and the other listened, but both turned to Celestia when she approached. The Domina Ferraria’s metal hoof clacked at the crystal floor as she turned to look at Celestia.

The alicorn felt sticking out like a sore hoof, wearing a gold and purple toga, but she didn’t have armor to wear. “Mares. I am aware you will find many things different from the world you left behind when you entered this place. I also trust you will not allow this to be a distraction. An important airship carrying vital artifacts has been downed and our Cartographi have located it.”

She stopped in front of the assembled soldiers, earning their attention and that of the red-robed ponies surrounding the crystal floor. “There is a detachment of Equestria’s modern military protecting it, but they are to be overwhelmed by five score griffon dissidents.”

“Criminals. Cultists. I am having trouble finding a word for them. They want to bring back the Holy Griffon Empire. Undo all the work your sisters from the Twelve Legions did in the past and I will die before I allow that. Ultimately, what matters today is that no griffon may escape and that we assist the ponies in protecting the wreckage. We will teleport to the vicinity and intervene, and I would like the situation resolved with all celerity possible.”

They didn’t respond, but their attentive eyes left no doubt that she had their full attention. And just as Celestia finished speaking, the Centurion took her place next to the first line of Battlehorns. Hammer stepped out of the crystal floor and gave Celestia a cautious stare. “Try to bring me some of their weapons. I’m dying of curiosity.”

While the red-robed mares of greater size placed themselves around the platform. Celestia took her place before the armored unicorns, turning to look at Hammer with a deadpan stare. “It’s nothing too exciting, really. I miss the times of apprentices blowing half the Guild’s tower while experimenting with magic.”

“I remember Star Swirl decided that no combat magicking was to be made within the palace’s halls and the Sparkles set up a little test range for the initiates. It was fortunate nopony blew their legs off with explosion magic.”

“We will cast the teleportation spell.” One of the red-robed mares declared.

The robed, battlehorn-sized mares stood and surrounded the crystal floor. Its glow intensified as the magi chanted and their horns sizzled with magic. An incoherent singing for the untrained ears. One mare tasked with coordinating the spell passed along instructions to her subordinates. The magical formulae for the teleportation spell. Details that only unicorns would understand. Mental images, such as mana flux, spell intensity, coordinates, details about the location. Like trying to explain to a pegasus how to open their wings. And, more importantly, how to join their magic with that of the machine and guide its tremendous power. It helped them focus, literally think in unison.

Magical energies displaced the air in the room, an impossible breeze moved the mist and a rising chiming filled the air. It saturated Celestia’s coat, crawling on her spine and itching in her horn and wings. Her bones vibrated with it. The crystal beneath them shone brighter and brighter, as did the crystals hanging from the ceiling. Finally, their intense pink light filled Celestia’s eyes, and a white flash exploded in all directions.

In the heartbeat before the spell broke the space-time continuum and sent them to another place, Celestia surrendered to a small smile. Imagining what the Legion’s Magi would do with the modern engraved spell matrixes. What they could make with the arcane technology of the teleporters and the airships.

Mess, pt. II

Cold air seeped into Celestia’s coat, and her gold-weaved toga flagged as violently as her mane. The clinking of armor plates behind her showed the Battlehorns reorienting themselves. She was at the top of a small cliff. If Celestia’s understanding of the region was correct, they should be above the soft rolling hills south of Baltimare. Beneath, campfires shone limited auras on a relatively plain area among the mounds of grass. They illuminated pieces of a broken airship. Golden metal sheets, chunks of crystalized metal, wood steel beams, and shadows fed the imagination of what the wreckage site looked like. It laid at the heart of a make-shift fortification.

Shapes of ponies in the dim patrolled the area, mostly keeping to the edge of the lit areas. A sharp bang echoed. Shouts raised, following more bangs. The distinctive noises of the griffon rifled weapons and that of the Royal Guard’s issued muskets became a cacophony. Luminous stars shedding smoke and sickly yellow light rose over the land and reflected on the cloud cover. The wreckage became a mess of shadows and hastily joined parts inside the improvised walls.

Improvised barricades filled with naked or gold-clad ponies. They wielded muskets and pistols, halberds, and improvised spears behind the makeshift battlements. Flying griffons crested the hills surrounding the site. Bright flashes evidenced both firearm discharges and combat magic being hurled from the improvised fort. Nothing fancy, as training urged Royal Guard combat spellcasters to keep it simple. Packets of magical flux known as magical missiles, the eventual lightning and fireball too. Magical beams lit the terrain as much as the flares descending from the clouded sky. Soon enough, the repetitive drumming of automatic weapons dominated the sounds.

“We have arrived just in time.” The Battlehorn Centurion walked next to Celestia, speaking with urgency.

Her white hoof pointed from beneath her toga. “Charge them from the south side; I will provide a distraction. Use overwhelming force and drive them from the hills. They will expose themselves or surrender. Standard tactics, but do not take any prisoners you are not absolutely sure you can control. They are dangerous and volatile. Beware of any bulky weapon on a mount. Destroy them immediately from a distance. Do not give them a chance to use those damned things.”

After she acknowledged Celestia’s command, the mare commanded the battlehorns down the sloped side. Turning from the racket of clanking armor plates, Celestia looked down the cliff again. Losing no time, she sprung from the edge and flapped her wings, gaining altitude over the rolling hills. Her horn ignited with her golden magical light. Again, the immense magical potency of her loyal battlehorns fed her, bursting from her chest. Almost out of her control.

The lengthy and complex spell which summoned her magical armor flowed through her thoughts like a broken dam. A formula she had perfected and memorized since the time her spell casting skill had surpassed any enchanted armor or artifacts. Much like a released river, her horn delivered all the magical flow her mind demanded and channeled the spell into reality.

Her gold and purple garment burst into flames, consumed by a magical flare. What others have called ‘sunfire’ shaped into plates of light, fire, and lightning. Blinding light and searing heat in the shape of a heavy armor. It covered her from horn to hoof in protective fire and light. Shoulders to wingtips with ethereal blades. It covered her head and let her crown of hardened sunlight shine brighter still.

An unexpected sun surged in the sky. It lit the clouds from below and the dark hills revealed themselves, covered with scorched grass, strips of exposed soil, and burnt airship pieces. The Break of Dawn laid on her side, disfigured by the force of impact and torn in two, reflecting the light back from her golden hull. Most of it had been used to make the shelter, though, and exposed structural beams rose like ribs on the carcass of a dead beast.

The host of griffons had already surrounded their quarry before they launched the flares, which became utterly pointless. With the firefight halted and eyes turned to her, Celestia used the opportunity to avoid a bloodbath. It was the least she could do. Even if her hatred for griffons had reignited in the last days.

“Cease hostilities and surrender immediately!” She barked. “As defined by the Equestrian Constitution, Paragraph Zeroth I will—”

“Shoot her!” someone cried, but she never identified them in the middle of the busy group of griffons.

The battlehorns crested the distant hills, in formation and ready to charge. Up and down the rolling slopes, positioning themselves to attack. Celestia left them to their commander’s orders and hails of magical projectiles rained upon the griffons south of the wreck. Surprised, the assailants needed a few seconds before someone took command and reorganized them. They flew fast and repositioned as battlehorns howled a resounding war cry, hooves already thundering on the ground.

Still overwhelmed, Royal Guards ran everywhere to cover every exposed side of their flimsy fortification. Others looked at Celestia. Confused ponies trying to understand what was happening before they caught themselves and returned to the defense.

Celestia’s further demands of a ceasefire went unheard. From her pegasus’ eye view, she had the privilege of seeing it all. A pair of royal guards worked on the laborious process of reloading their muskets while their companions fired theirs. Their professional training made the coordinated firing and reloading seem easy. They had spent hours upon hours practicing that in formation, after all. Even under attack from all sides, they kept the motions the training had ingrained into them.

Unicorns, with their magic, had more flexibility. And yet, were difficult to train for combat situations and likely to tire in sustained battles. That was the whole point of the Battlehorns. But that was during a time when battles meant whacking each other with metal sticks and shields were effective against volleys of arrows. The griffons and their new firearms maintained constant pressure with all they had. Laying against the grass, shooting their weapons multiple times before being forced to stop and to feed them ammunition.

More disturbingly, wars were supposed to be a thing of the past. Standing armies were supposed to guarantee sovereignty of the individual nations. At worst, hold the line when monsters attacked population centers until the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony arrived. Like Life was supposed to be protected and wanton loss of it was unacceptable.

Celestia winced at her thoughts. She should not have allowed the situation to reach such gravity. The Hall of Friendship should have set a limit. She should not have given the northerner griffons so much space nor allowed the myth of the Lion to grow. She should not have trusted them.

Celestia had no time to mull over losing the perfect balance Equestria had found itself in. Her mouth hung open and her eyes widened at the sight of mighty battlehorns falling and tripping on their legs. Their companions leaped over them and still charged, unleashing magic. Their Leaf Plate armor’s magical shielding flashed where the projectiles pinged them. Firearms kept shooting as the griffons remained confident.

“Stop fighting and you will not be harmed!” Celestia’s cheeks blushed. A sense of naivety washed over her. She reminded herself of asking griffons to stop fighting mere days ago and failing spectacularly.

This time they were better prepared, too. A hail of bullets flew straight at her to evaporate on her armor of magical flames. The powerful impact of each projectile quickly drained magic from her armor as it drew from her. Her immense magical reserves could not hold it impervious much longer, so powerful the abomination was.

Much like the one in Griffonstone, they had fitted the machine gun to a cart and protected it behind sandbags. It had a water tank connected to it, but Celestia couldn’t be bothered to understand its function. The box and belt feeding it with ammunition was easy enough to figure out, though she cared little for anything about it. It was a metal monstrosity. Born out of ingenuity and malice. Summoning images of wicked necromancers instead of crafty and industrious blacksmiths.

The drumming noise of that aggravating thing hurt her ears and took her back to Griffonstone. The image of her lover and consort, covered by a wet, bloody sheet, sunk her heart. A foreboding sense of déjà vu filled Celestia. Frowning, she found her bottomless well of patience lacking.

It happened so fast it surprised even her. Her soul overflowed with magic and her horn channeled it into making real her emotions. It was a spell she hadn’t used since the times of war, dread, and suffering had ended. Her horn flared as a lance of light, filling the air with an undefinable tension, but it snapped so fast others must have barely noticed it.

A deafening boom filled the air. Blinding light descended from the sky as a pillar of pure, elementary magical energy. It undid the clouds and turned the hill where the machine gun was to a crater covered with brittle glass. The odious weapon evaporated. Griffons changed from biology into physics in a flash. A heat wave turned the surrounding catbirds into carbonized skeletons. All that remained was the screaming over the roaring flames that shrouded them. Amid panicked screams and pleas for help and mercy, Celestia’s eyes snapped wide open with the caustic smell in the air mixed with charred flesh and ash.

Her mind filled with the piercing screech of souls torn apart by the reality shattering power of her spell. She jerked backwards, gasping, and shook her head, pursing her eyes. A salvo of magical missiles followed. It showered over whichever griffons remained on the south side. The following explosions of magical might tore to pieces what remained of the hills and the griffons occupying them. Chunks of soil and burnt grass, along with barely recognizable griffon parts, flew into the air.

It should have been horrifying. The consequences of her barely unrestrained magic should have given her pause. Celestia didn’t recognize herself as her body remembered what to do in a flash. She had no time to think, much less feel sorry for the griffons. They were trying to escape.

Firearms still rang in the night turned into day as griffons flew in every direction. Confused shouts and screams accompanied. The battlehorns had separated into two groups, flowing around the flanks of the wreckage site. Fortunately, the royal guards recognized they were on their side and busied themselves shooting at any griffons that drew too close. Some unicorns even attempted restraining spells. They ranged from bubbles to red wrapping ribbons and chunks of sticky bubble gum.

None of the Royal Guard pegasi were in position to pursue, and none of the Battlehorn Auxilia Alae had come with Celestia’s hasty departure. The fire-clad alicorn dived and flared her wings with a wave of flames. Hovering a dozen hooves above the ground in the path of a group of retreating griffons. “I commanded you to surrender!”

She received wide, frantic stares, and panicked flight in every direction for an answer.

“What a bucking disaster!” She swore under her breath, bringing her horn to shine with magical energy and unleashing magic upon the fleeing griffons.

Tendrils of light broke the grass, sprung from the soil and lashed into the air. Sizzling with magical energy and whipping lightning. Reaching and grabbing whatever limbs they could coil around. From legs to wings and necks. Burning fur, breaking feathers, and coming just short of snapping bones. Filling the air with hissing and burning hair and plumage. Seizures and screaming followed as they brought a dozen griffons down and combat magic rose from below. A combination of lightning, magical missiles and shiny shards of glass-like ice tore gashes and ripped the fleeing griffons apart.

Bloodletting without an end in sight. Ripped muscles and exposed ribs. Collapsed lungs and bent legs. Those in enough control over their faculties used them to fight back rather than surrender. With the fabled griffon agility and feline grace, griffons twirled in the air and turned on Celestia and the ponies on the ground. A variety of firearms rang. Nothing as uniform and standardized as the Lion’s Army, but a band of griffons who should be doing better with their lives than seeking war with their friends.

Targeted again, Celestia defended herself. Her telekinetic magic jerked rifles and pistols off their paws and tossed them away, leaving wrenched fingers and broken bones behind. A blue griffon yelled. Wide-eyed and frantic, trying to flee the magical tendrils delivering a subduing shock at him. He cried like a panicked cub, pulling a hind leg and jerking his wing, failing to free himself.

“Mother!” He shrieked amid spastic quakes, smelling of burnt fur and urine.

Another griffon lunged at her from behind. Their weight jerked her, and someone screeched. Furious, frightened, as loud as the sizzling the magical flames caused against their skin. Talons flashed at the corner of Celestia’s eyes but never struck her. Their paw glanced off after activating half a dozen defensive spells. Only a desperate mother would attack a living sun with her bare paws.

The alicorn spun in the air, twisted around herself, and tossed the griffon from her back. In the middle of all the screaming, flying, magic and lead, she turned to face her assailant and found a gorgeous, navy-blue griffon lady. Half burned, but screeching fiercely at her. Completely ignoring her bloody burns and mangled paw, twisted and bended unnaturally. Celestia’s defensive spells crushed it with a sledgehammer’s worth of magical force. The griffoness still lunged, talons first, at Celestia.

“Wait!” the alicorn squealed. “Stop!”

She beat her wings, pulled away from the griffoness and bumped against another griffon in their frightened flight. Celestia turned around to see a brown male in a reinforced leather duster. Scared, he flew from her, and in the next instant, movement caught the corner of her eye.

Her screech froze Celestia’s blood. A fierce visage in her face brought back too many memories of recent and old times. Sharp talons like daggers flashed before Celestia’s eyes and summoned ancient memories. They unleashed butterflies in her stomach. Filled her mind’s eye with the red of ripped flesh and pools of blood over the emerald of grass and splashed on a rainbow of pretty flowers.

Complex magic came easily, but simple magic became reflexive as catching a falling book. As it was in the years she fought wars and killing was menial work. Her own agility surprised her. As a pony shielding themselves with a hoof, her telekinetic magic held the griffoness’ good paw mid strike. And as Celestia’s eyes barely caught the griffoness’ broken paw moving to attack, a scatter of magical projectiles shot from her horn. Countless pellets of magic fulminated through plumage, muscle, bone, lungs, and heart. It turned half of her body into gory, charred, minced meat. Dead. Even before her pieces fell from the sky. Before Celestia had even realized what had happened and resisted her stomach, lurching at the smell.

“Enough!” Celestia’s exasperated voice boomed with magical amplification. “Cease your resistance or your lives are forfeit!”

Between hails of combat spells and shots, they finally listened to her. Some surrendered to the restricting spells. Others landed of their own volition, to be restrained by royal guards and battlehorns alike. As things calmed down, Celestia’s hooves trembled. She noticed her quickened breath and how it hurt her nostrils with hot and dry air.

The blue griffoness kept returning to her mind’s eye. Her fierce scowl, terrifying. Her sharp claws, flashing like lightning in the clouds. The dark clouds above Griffonstone looked back at her. Then she shook her head. There was no storm. Only the clear sky through a hole in the middle of the clouds. That and the lives she had ended when she unleashed her magic. The fierce incandescence her magical armor radiated had subdued with her wrath and unbridled emotions now under control.

“Get a hold of yourself, Celestia.” She whispered to herself, aiming her eyes away from the griffons.

Still beating her wings and hovering in the sky, she found the battlehorns scattered on the battlefield. They assisted their injured sisters while others minded injured ponies or secured prisoners. Landing with her hooves on the grass, she kicked it softly. It brought a frown to her brow. A strangeness she couldn’t put her hoof on. Looking to one side and the other, she saw more than her battlehorns and Royal Guards securing the captured griffons. It was one of those veiled sensations, hidden behind the mundane, that only she could feel.

Patches of burnt grass striped the ground where the light from the bonfires and her resplendent armor shed light. The wind was gone, and a hole gaped in the clouds above, showing Luna’s stars. No crickets chirped; no owls hooted. Nature had silenced and its silence, unnatural and oppressive, transcended the noises of the ponies and griffons around her. It shook Celestia’s legs. It made her head heavier and further dimmed the shine of her magical armor.

“Princess.” A pony in Royal Guard armor approached her. A cyan pegasus with blue eyes and a gray mane that his helmet turned into a multi-shaded decorative crest. It was heavy armor, not the usual, every-day service barding. The one with the proper protective plates and weapon fittings. His were empty, though.

“Are you injured?” He didn’t seem to be. At least no gooey red dripped from the gaps in his armor. He shook his head before she responded. “I am just glad to see you here. We heard some pretty bad things in the last few days.”

“We will sort this out.” She assured him with a serious stare.

One of the mighty mares in heavy armor approached them from behind Celestia and properly greeted her with a bow. Then she turned to the gold-clad pony. “Are there any injured?”

“Who, in the ever-loving hay, are you?” He held his head up like a little lost colt, looking up at an adult, with a similar expression of confusion and worry. He even cocked an eyebrow at the battlehorn, unsure of how to address her.

Celestia waved a hoof between them. “That is complicated, and I would rather neither of you wasted time with unimportant details. You can trust these mares as you would trust me, and you can trust these ponies much in the same way. I will leave both of you to the immediate care of the prisoners and injured ponies. I must see your commanding officer.”

He gave her an acknowledging nod and turned to point a hoof at the walls of their makeshift fortification. “Corporal Shining Beacon is in charge. It looked grim in here for a while, Princess. Although I think he’ll tell you all about it. I think he’s injured.”

Celestia held him with an inquisitive stare, but ultimately, concluded he was right. And busy too. She turned to the battlehorn. “Have the shelter teleport anything they can to assist us. If possible, get Domina Panacea here. I will be in the fortification, talking to Corporal Shining Beacon. Remember, we must leave no evidence of our presence.”

She received a double assertive nod of acknowledgement from the pair. Then, she took a short flight to the wreckage turned into makeshift fortification. Her poor airship, the mighty Break of Dawn, amounted to a pile of scrap. Golden metal and metallized crystal sheets, burnt wood, and steel beams. Crystal remains and golden wires of magical components had been recovered and piled in their own area. All bearing cracks and scorch marks. Celestia didn’t know the specifics of how the griffon rebellion downed the airship, but the evidence pointed to something dramatic.

She crossed paths with several ponies. Busy royal guards helping the injured or repairing the barricades made of pieces of her fallen airship. Just in case there was another attack. They enthusiastically welcomed the princess and sent her on her way to meet the pony in charge. Diligently returning to their work, they trusted her to figure her way around the place.

She could probably have found him by herself, as their shelter was not large or complex. Sheets of the golden metallized crystal from the airship’s hull isolated areas within the reinforced walls. A small arsenal had a pair of guards dismantling and cleaning muskets and pistols. Two more prepared the paper cartridges with powder and crystal balls. For better or worse, they had plentiful supplies.

A fifth pony in golden armor, without his helmet, cleaned and organized griffon weapons over a sheet on the ground. Rifles, most of them, but also some revolvers and even some of the older revolver muskets. The most iconic of those were the stocky, portable automatic weapons which name eluded Celestia. Its larger cousins were not present. One of them, at least, Celestia knew she had reduced to its base components. The battlehorns must have followed her advice and obliterated the things upon sight.

“The more I look at these things, the more I am convinced that the time of the pike and shot is gone, Princess.” He told her mindlessly, rinsing the blood off a griffon firearm with a wet, strong-smelling cloth. Low brows of a tired pony accompanied his hard voice of a resentful servant. “Nice fireworks, though. It’s a shame not all can do that.”

“If fire and iron would win us the day,” Celestia told him tenderly, “the Three Tribes would still be fighting each other until the Windigos froze them to their cores.”

He didn’t react, keeping to his meticulous work of cleaning the intricate parts of the firearms. Celestia hated her own words. They sounded like the words they have always lived by. Friendship is Magic, and it was going to make it alright. Not untrue, but something that served the placid civilians more than a soldier, disheartened at the perceived superiority of the enemy. But she had cast the dice cast in that conversation.

An earth pony. He had little trouble negotiating the chinks and gaps of the weapon with his pieces of cloth. The sort of thing most unicorns from Canterlot might think was impossible. Still, as far as weapons were concerned, his hooves depended still on the lever design used by the pony firearms.

Although, that was not the reason ponies still used muskets. The crystal balls carried a multitude of enchantments and modern griffon rifles couldn’t shoot them. They shattered under the higher pressure. Or so Celestia had been told by the forge worker ponies of Manehattan Ironworks years ago. The lead failed to hold the magic, and thus wouldn’t take the stun spells ponies were supposed to use in law enforcement and peacekeeping.

That was, of course, only true for the Royal Guard and local militias during normal times. Celestia was no fool to let the griffons develop their fancy firearms and sit on her wings doing nothing. Oh yes, the catbirds were due for a harsh awakening once she recovered the experimental magical weapons.

She felt so silly again. She had intended to have the airship fire its magic-based weapons with a proper ceremony. Not only to show them to Twilight and Cadance, but to remind their griffon friend of how far-fetched their dreams of conquest and tyranny were. Shining Armor would have loved the flashy experimental weapons. Chocolate Velvet would have loved them. Celestia had even thought of gifting each with one.

“I suppose your highness is looking for the commanding officer.” The pony stopped his work, paying her due attention before pointing a hoof. “He’s in the infirmary. He got shot through his armor with one of these useless things.”

She thanked him with a small smile before turning and going her way without further words. The infirmary was, in fact, the largest of the isolated areas and had an influx of ponies seeking treatment. The line of ponies with bloody armor sitting in a line was the best sign she had found the place.

On the other side of the isolating pieces of hull was a triage area, a care area, and an infirmary. The latter comprised a sequence of foldable field medical beds supplemented by folded cloth. Those likely had come from the airship’s sails. Injured ponies laid there. Some rested, others recuperated from threatening bullet wounds. Others still recuperated from bloody medical procedures. Bags filled with bright pink liquid hung from improvised holders and dripped into the injured ponies and an unconscious griffon under guard. Teams of doctors and assistants helped the more urgent cases, as did two battlehorn mares.

Out in the corner, a surgery was being performed and one of the large mares laid on an improvised bed and let a royal guard doctor examine a gory wound in her foreleg. With her armor removed, so the doctor could properly examine her, the mighty unicorn mare blushed furiously. But the reason for her distress seemed to be lost to the royal guards, used to seeing naked ponies all the time.

Unfortunately, Celestia had no time to mind that. Nopony had time to coddle the Empress-Princess, and busy ponies walked around her with a curt greeting. At least a couple of them hauled supplies off, likely to assist the griffon prisoners. The place had a rhythm which mostly ignored Celestia and allowed her to make her way around the action. Despite being left to tend to herself, she found the pony she was looking for. Lying on his improvised folded sail cut, he raised a hoof to greet her as he stood to sit. Celestia approached and told him to be at ease.

An earth pony, deep gray and cyan, he wore the Royal Guard barding while his helmet remained on the trampled, grassy ground. A bloody bandage covered his left eye and across his head. A weak smile formed as he made himself comfortable on his piece of naval cloth. It hardly seemed comfortable at all. Someone had hung a magical lamp at the steel beam supporting the wall. It provided them with light, superseding the glow from his bag of magical fluids going into his neck.

“I don’t think I remember ever seeing your highness wearing this stuff.” He gave her a quizzical frown, pointing and guiding her eyes to the gold-weaved toga she was wearing again. It had returned once her magical armor waned, no longer needed. Celestia hadn’t even noticed, so intuitive even such powerful magic had become in the past days. “I don’t think I've ever seen anypony wearing this stuff, ever. Outside of silly parties.”

“It is complicated.” Initially, she frowned with amusement, but then brow wrinkled deeper. “What happened?”

“Well, after you sent our escorts away, the griffons got bold. We didn’t have enough ponies to keep them under control. And that really is all. Please tell me it was Chrysalis, not you. I have two hundred Bits in the bet. Winner probably gets enough to buy a private airship by now.”

Before she could respond, he groaned and forcefully pursed his eyes. Enough to turn into a grimace. “Apologies. Doc gave me some alicorn-grade stuff for the pain.”

“I’m Corporal Shining Beacon, First Air Group, serving at the Break of Dawn. I was already in charge when ponies from the First Canterlot ‘ported within the hour and brought the Baltimare Locals in force to help us. The griffons were too busy skedaddling to be an issue, though. Those were the professional guys and are probably half-way to Thunderpeak by now. The Princesses, Master Grigory and their friends escaped on Princess Twilight’s airship. They used the griffon airship teleporter or something. I don’t have a clue how they got it from their wreckage, though. Or how they got it into the Princess’ airship. I didn’t see a lot of details. I was busy trying not to die and keep others from dying.”

“You did well, Shining Beacon.” She reassured him with a smile.

“Truth is… I saw Chrysalis’ big, dummy soldiers helping the griffons, but most of the guys didn’t believe me. They think you covered up for Twilight and Cadance, and that is why half the armada split away with our combat effectiveness.”

“I left for Griffonstone before someone gave Admiral Gloria such orders.” She scowled. “It was Chrysalis, pretending to be me. Or one of her agents. What happened to her?”

His eyes darkened, and his brow creased grimly. “We found the admiral dead among the debris. This is dumb. I don’t know what is going on, princess. But those not too injured stayed to guard the wreckage and collect any survivors that showed up. A lot of stragglers found us, and we were still searching when these birdbrains showed up for the first time. Intel is that they are Baltimare residents, and the Local Militia is raising their files. The Lord Protector thinks they’re a local cell of Griffonian separatists. You know how it is… Working for the Lion, but independently so he can deny any connection. It’s like these catbirds just found out the spies are a thing. Bunch of hoofing terrorist plotholes.”

He shrugged, and Celestia nodded. The griffons probably thought they would be easy prey and that they could profit from the wreckage. Although they seemed more organized than a group of scavengers. Local cell sounded right. They were looking for the experimental weapons stashed on the Break of Dawn. Maybe to recover the weapons that were confiscated after the battle with the Sköll.

Worryingly enough, they could recover the teleporter device and install it on Twilight’s airship within days. They must have infiltrated the griffon airship’s wreckage hours after it was downed. Maybe the mercenary, Mister Flying Snake, was involved, being a griffon and not being around. Of course, all that was before Celestia knew the Harpy was involved, and that explained a lot. It even explained why they would attack Royal Guards protecting an airship wreck. They just put too much stock on their filthy new weapons and the catbirds were a touch too bold.

The old adagio that a weapon is as good as the creature wielding it was still valid.

Like he could read her mind, Shining Beacon spoke again. “The airship is gone for good and the shipboard weapons on the first gun deck are all gone.”

“We can probably refit the others, but the experimental ones didn’t survive the crash. Turned to a large glowing pile of pink crystal dust. Shame... I wanted to see them firing. Ah, the crates with the personal weapons were perfectly fine, though. For an airship that got her mana batteries turned to bombs, the Break of Dawn did pretty well, honestly. I’m gonna miss her.”

“The emergency response teams hauled the Elements of Harmony off to Canterlot.” He threw his hooves. “Along with the princesses’ and their friends’ gear and the experimental weapons. The rest went to Baltimare. The changelings evaporated into thin air, though. Ah… We got the ponies from Ponyville’s local militia safe, though. They’re probably already home by now.”

Celestia nodded at his words. The Royal Guard had performed exceptionally well. And if they followed procedures, they sent the experimental weapons to the Canterlot Archives, the inner vault. Fortunately, secured by the Royal Guard, and hopefully away from Chrysalis’ sneaky hooves. And thank Harmony, away from the Harpy’s bloody talons.

“Princess, Captain Armor has gone rogue, hasn’t he?” His voice had turned meek, and his exposed eye lost its shine.

“That is a harsh word, Corporal.” Celestia shook her head at him.

“Shining Armor is doing his best to protect his sister, his wife, and his daughter.” She smiled. “Not to mention his friends. That is a good thing. One reason he made it to Captain of the Guard. And I will do everything in my power so that he remains when this terrible situation blows over.”

Especially considering a competent commander will be invaluable if there is war in the future.

Shining Beacon nodded his satisfaction with her words quietly. “Anyway, what are your orders? Word on the street, according to the guys that came to help us, is that Sergeant Crucible Wings went to Canterlot. The Hall of Friendship wanted somepony to explain the situation and since your highness is awol…”

That was the first time someone said she was ‘awol’. He continued despite her inquisitive, curious stare. At least his eye had recovered its shine. “They say that you took Prince Velvet’s death really bad. And that there are some weird griffon magic shenanigans going on. I didn’t even know that griffons could do magic.”

“They did not lie to you, corporal.” Celestia hardened her stare, and he hardened his, directing all his focus to her. “I will take all the prisoners. If anypony asks, their survivors vanished into the night. You never met me, nor these mares.”

Her eyes drifted to one of the battlehorn mares holding down a thrashing pony while the Guard’s doctor performed some sort of medical procedure in his groin area. Blood everywhere and screaming, but at least it helped Celestia maintain a discreet conversation with the corporal.

He nodded, turning back to her. “Well, the fact you saved our tails may just as well be all I need to make it happen. Some of them aren’t thrilled, though. Morale is quite low. But we’ll make do. Is it alright if we bury these griffons? Give them a proper Snow Mountains burial?”

In practical terms, burning the corpses could fix several problems. That was how those griffons would want to be buried anyway and what their families would do. Respectful and practical, unfortunately, their families would not be able to attend. She nodded at the guard and that was enough of an answer for him, who nodded back in silence.

“If you wanted ponies not to know what happened here,” one of the ponies lying on a cot with a leg over his eyes talked. “Might not want to use the death beam from the sky.”

He was one of the larger earth ponies. His white leg was wet with hastily washed blood and a reddening dressing wrapped around his shoulder. But the grimmest of his situation was his tone. It prompted Celestia to look around the improvised infirmary.

Blood, complaining, some crying and tired ponies. The large mares in heavy armor, not to mention Celestia herself wearing gold, drew a lot of attention, but what stuck with her were the desolate stares. A young unicorn, gray and blue, wore his armor with a couple of dents on the chest and shoulders. His eyes shifted from hers. His expression was a stoic mask over confusion and sadness betrayed by his nonchalant avoidance of her gaze.

Among them were about a dozen griffons. Burn marks striped their fur where her magical tendrils had wrapped around them. Belts pressed into their feathers and chains allowed their limbs little movement. Still ponies cleaned their cuts and rinsed blood away with wet cloths and more patience and care than griffon wardens would dispense. They seemed ashamed, or angry that they were captured.

The young blue griffon sat in the middle of the silent, sullen griffons. Silent sobs jolted his shoulders while the burn marks on his forelegs went ignored. Celestia frowned, and then her frown deepened into a scowl as she turned to face Shining Beacon again.

“Have these griffons transferred to the battlehorns as soon as first aid is taken care of.” She ordered with her firmest tone. “You have done enough. More than enough.”

“I want you and your subordinates relieved from protecting a dead husk of an airship; there is nothing of value here anymore. But I am supposed to never have come here, and I have already stayed too long. With the griffons dealt with, you should be able to remain in peace until the local militia arrives to investigate the skirmish. Please, pass along to your subordinates that I will remember your commitment to duty when these trying times have passed.”

“What is happening, princess?” A meek voice distracted her. The light gray pony who earlier avoided her gaze spoke, sitting on his cot. He talked to her, but his eyes never met hers, and his right hoof kept massaging his leg. “I don’t remember you ever acting like this.”

“That is not for you to worry about, private.” Shining Beacon promptly reprimanded him. “The princess is supposed to care for Equestria, not your insecurities.”

The corporal set up a situation where the ponies and griffons in the area who were not too busy silenced. Drawn to the conversation by his tone, they provided Celestia with an invaluable resource: attention.

She bumped her hoof twice against the trampled grass. “We are under a threat like never before. I realize my words are trite, but we face an insidious enemy who has struck unseen and effectively. Although I cannot share the details right now, I can ask that you help me. My presence here must not be disclosed, much less of these mares.”

As she spoke, the centurion approached her, but Celestia still had more to say. “I have not sent the Break of Dawn’s escort away to help Twilight and Cadance escape. I am not trying to protect either of them, much less the Lion’s son and his friends. What happened was a deliberate attack by griffon separatists who want things which are honestly worse than anything than you can imagine. And for reasons I still do not understand, the Changelings, or at least a faction within them, assisted the griffons.”

“To do my job and protect Equestria, I need your help.” She stopped for a second and swept her eyes over the recovering ponies. Some provided medical help, others gathered there, drawn by her presence. The captive griffons, still receiving curative spells and balms for their injuries too listened. “If it comes to that, I will submit myself to any scrutiny from investigative bodies within the legal system and the will of the Hall of Friendship. But until then, until the situation is resolved, I will make use of my special powers, granted by the hall of Friendship, for the good of Equestria.”

Her last words. She delivered them straight and direct to ponies and griffons. That was how she has always talked to them, and they recognized her honesty. That was all she could hope for in that situation. Until a unicorn, one of her Royal Guards raised his hoof and took the word, green eyes loaded with contempt. A scrawny one, the kind that should land on a clerical job, was it not for showing skill in combat spell-casting. His gray coat had a long double gash on his neck and left shoulder, making it seem a griffon attacked him without his armor.

He sat on an improvised cot of folded cloth next to a tired and grimy cyan pegasus with gray eyes. His sarcastic tone convinced the alicorn her speech may not have had all the effectiveness she’d like.

“So, these griffons are going to be taken to Baltimare and delivered to the local militia. They’ll be in custody until confrontation and then sent to the judge for a fair trial. Right?”

The centurion took offense at his words and turned to face him, but Celestia took a step forward in front of her and responded before they could exchange any words. “The Equestrian Constitution allows me to take any action I feel is necessary to protect Equestria. Responsibility is mine, and I said I will submit myself to any decision of the Hall of Friendship afterward. That is all that I can do to assuage your fears.”

With that said, the pegasus wing-slapped a groan out of the unicorn. “Shut it, dumb pokehead. She just saved your life. You sound like those dummies complaining when the Crystal Empire appeared, and they accused Celestia of money laundering.”

A giggling griffon lady, tan and white, with half-lidded eyes among the captives, apologized. “I’m sorry. I thought only we called them that.”

Morphine-induced silliness aside, Celestia turned to the battlehorn next to her. “Take them to the carcer and make sure they are well-treated, despite it all. We leave as soon as we can take them, and we cannot tarry.”

With things moving on their own and ponies either busy or minding their wounds, she walked out of their camp. Her orders given; some distance discouraged anyone from thinking more than they should. The battlehorns took to guarding the camp on their own while the Royal Guard licked their wounds. They watched Celestia walk by from the battlements and distance herself but said or did nothing.

The night had returned to normal, as far as the temperature was concerned, and she wasn’t wearing powerful magic for armor anymore. Clouds grew, closing like a knitting wound. The ground would remain charred, and the rolling hills broken for far longer.

She looked at the crater her magic had opened on the ground. Green glass tinkled under the moonlight. The royal guards would recover the bodies, but that might be a mess too large already. Family members would miss them. Friends too. Worse yet, some would know what they were up to. The whole situation was a powder keg with a fuse burning alarmingly fast towards it.

Her ears flopped, and she closed her eyes. The silence distracted her. The oppressive silence returned. So egregious there was no ignoring it. Dozens of lives ended, literally in a flash. No. Not dozens: they probably numbered in the thousands, although only a dozen had invited death.

She eyed the ground, covered in burnt grass, and hoofed at it. It kept residual heat from the firestorm her magic caused. Carbonized plant matter undid itself at the softest touch. A soft gesture with her wing shredded an entire swath. It made a soft wave in the stagnant air, silent and dead. It washed over the singed bones of a griffon, and they too undid themselves. A small forest of flare-consumed bones crumbed before her into ashes so fine they vanished into the desiccated soil. Sprinkling unsuspended in the dull air.

She sat on the ground. Her toga would be dirty, soothed, but she did anyway. Eyes pursed, trembling, she turned to the sky and her horn came alight. An empty void, stygian as the Black Sun and devoid of everything but emptiness surrounded her. It sucked the golden glow of magic out of her, and it dissipated into nothing. A battlehorn approached her with a veritable wind washing over the alicorn. Magic, lavender light flowed from her, and it too dissipated into the gaping abyss that surrounded them.

Celestia opened her eyes and the sight of activity in the camp behind the centurion banished the gaping maw of nothing she had immersed herself in. Mundane sensations returned. But only the sounds of the camp. The air remained as dormant as it was before. No crickets made music; no owls hooted.

“Are you injured?” The gray and purple mare shone her worried eyes, like a foal fearing for her mother’s distress. Perking her ears, willing to listen. Baring her soul. Ready to do anything for her sake.

What was the point? She wouldn’t understand. The world was simple to her. But Celestia explained, nonetheless. “My spell tore their souls apart and damaged the magical matrix of the world.”

The mare smiled as she frowned. “It really was quite a powerful spell.”

Celestia didn’t react. Instead, she asked the mare a question of her own. “Did you come to report?”

“The griffons are ready to be teleported. Our telepath has contacted the Teleportarium and they are ready for us to return. Given the need for secrecy, I imagine we should depart as soon as possible.”

“You are correct. We should depart.”

The mare excused herself from Celestia with a bow and took a pair of steps back before she turned to walk with a brisk trot. Celestia watched her distance herself before she stood. Her toga was, indeed, besmirched with soot and dirt. But she was sure the Gray Mares would have a pristine one waiting for her.

Theory of Mind

“For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun? And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.”

Celestia never lost her bad habit of hoping for the best after each battle. In the chaos of machine gun fire and destructive spells, she had already seen that the griffon weapons had claimed the lives of at least a couple of battlehorns. Later, she saw them injured and witnessed the Royal Guards assisting one of the first to be recovered by her sisters. Experience told her that for each initial one, she could expect at least two or three more. But the night had a more capricious punishment for her hopefulness.

Soon after she had settled with allowing ponies to do their job and distanced herself, one of her warrior mares came to her. It was a good thing, as Celestia caught herself feeling sorry for herself, despite her privileged position. That was never good.

They had found seven battlehorns so injured they needed urgent medical assistance. Thirteen had already passed away when their sisters found them on the red grass and dirt. Twice more had lesser injuries. Among the former was an old veteran, even among the mares of the Prima Cohors. She laid on a congealed pool of bloody grass, dirty with soot and soil and a line of blood crept down her muzzle. Her sisters urged the Royal Guard’s medical officers to assist, but the sorrow in the old mare’s eyes, those beautiful Fellbane purple eyes, showed she knew it was pointless. She called instead for Celestia.

The white alicorn closed her eyes and rested beside the warrior mare, allowing the battlehorn to hold her hoof. There was no knowing how many bullets her Leaf Plate had warded off, but Celestia found gnarly dents and in the chest plate and pauldrons. Five went through the green and gold work of art that was the armor. Blood had clotted around the holes and pieces of gore stuck out. The veteran rested on her side with shallow, quick breathes, and a distant stare. Her purple eyes focused and her silver-specked, pearly gray muzzle made a tired smile when she noticed Celestia had arrived. A normal pony would not have a shred of consciousness anymore, but the battlehorn held on to life for just a little longer. Perhaps it would have hurt less if she had begged Celestia to save her. She did not. She simply wanted to see the alicorn of the Sun one last time.

The biological processes of her body had deteriorated too far, and she would not survive teleportation. Somehow, the mare knew that. Even before Celestia had found her, she knew she would not be returning alive to their compound, and that was why she called for her. How did she know? She simply knew and the others respected it.

And then her magic was gone. Washed away in the cosmic flow of mana, the last smoke out of a snuffing candle. Behind remained a broken body. Organic machinery no longer fit to perform its purpose. A little piece of Harmony started on its final journey. The others would survive. The legion’s healers would take care of them. They never let go, as though they knew it was not their time yet. Domina Panacea’s physicians would find ways to heal them and replace what they couldn’t fix.

They put fourteen of the Zeroth Legion’s First Cohort Battlehorns to rest in the Mausoleum. It was a somber room, covered in the same luxurious marble and gold as the rest, but the magical lights were sparse. So large it could easily and comfortably hold a hundred ponies, enough to hold the closest sisters of a fallen battlehorn. The air smelled of myrrh, dense from the censers and statues of old battlehorns crowded the walls, solemnly casting their eyes over the deceased. The ceiling showed the moon, glorious against the velvety black and the shimmering of the stars, each one of them a rare gem incrusted into the ceiling.

Their sisters covered the fallen with luxurious sheets made of silk. One blue, another black, and a third made of weaved silver. They covered faces and hid the grievous wounds left behind by the griffon firearms, but also meant so much more than that. A final honor, wearing the colors meant only for the Goddess. A caring gesture meant to deliver them into Her care, even if their souls were long gone. No matter how late, they would perform the ritual. Nopony wished to imagine their loved ones had lost themselves on their way or had fallen prey to the Nightmares in the sea of stars.

Celestia was the first in a line walking among the funeral tables, and Matriarch Radiance Fellbane followed. The white alicorn, covered in gold, purple, and red, silently led the procession. Nopony would know what their sisters told the fallen battlehorns in their last goodbye, and all of them knew that those battlehorns had died already, but meeting them one last time, even if late, calmed their hearts. In a way, they had died the ‘right way’ for a soldier to die, but to Celestia, those were souls scattered from the world because of the griffons. Because of that unnecessary conflict. Because of the Harpy. More ponies that did not need to die, gone.

Soldiers often lacked the luxury of meetings and peaceful partings. Their friends too often died amid pain, despair, and noise. Watching the powerful battlehorns saying their goodbyes, Celestia sighed and closed her eyes, reminded that some died in burning libraries.

She had spent the last millennia teaching creatures that, once separated from their bodies, souls traveled the ethereal flow of magical energies back to the source. A few pressed her further to tell them such a source was the Pool of Souls, and the truly inquisitive ones would hear that it is the sun’s equivalent of a soul. As everything in Equestria carried Magic with it and they called ‘soul’ the Magic of Life. A little piece of Harmony each creature, plant and little pebble carried into the world.

Among the civilians, family and friends would gather. They offered somber refreshments, often things the pony on the deathbed liked. Everycreature would greet their dying friend and share a few words. Once they were gone, a solemn vigil would watch over until daybreak when, the folklore went, they completed their journey.

And the damnedest thing was that it required some knowledge. They knew their bodies were failing and their souls were preparing to leave. But how did they know? Sick ponies recovered from diseases, but some did not, despite receiving help, and they knew it was time to say goodbye. Old ponies at the end of their natural life just knew, and the old, undying Celestia was left baffled.

It bewildered her. She knew all there was to know of souls and the workings of the Cosmos, and despite that, it nagged at her in the countless times she’d attended a friend’s funeral. Just as it did during the funeral of her Battlehorns. Celestia had asked Luna once, and she was just as clueless. Both had studied the phenomenon and found no answers. Their minds had no process, their souls no mechanism which could communicate that it was helpless. That they should tie any loose ends as the clock was ticking.

Maybe it was simply something her old soul was not meant to know. One final grand mystery Harmony reserved for itself and wouldn’t share even with the Matriarch of the Great Herd.

Ponies cared little about what happened to their own bodies or those of their deceased friends and family once they were gone. Quick burials sufficed in cemeteries filled with trees and greeneries, where remains would follow the normal course of biology.

Different races developed different funeral rites. Diamond Dogs would bury their own in crypts, and then families would gather over paintings or photographs in the family’s home to remember. Zebras followed similar rituals, but replaced the solemn atmosphere with festivities, plenty of spicy food and remembrance of the best moments of one’s life after burial in respectful, but sullen cemeteries. The yaks would combine overt displays of sorrow during burial. Then followed with copious amounts of alcohol and true, heartfelt celebrations of the life of their loved ones that had gone away. And then they would nearly destroy the mourning hall with festivities in honor of the dead. The more damage, the better the party, the Yak saying went.

Changelings liquefied their dead in a practical and quick ceremony. The hive was more important and each changeling merely a piece of it: their nutrients would feed the eggs on the Queen’s Chamber. It was a comforting thought for them that the Swarm would live on. It was their last contribution.

The Dragon Lord presided over sky burials, leaving the bodies exposed to the environment and carrion-eaters after decorations and donations of gems. The great wyrms who could not care less about the Dragon Lord passed away surrounded by their mountains of gold. Their loved ones would garnish their bones with their loot, to become their most valuable items.

In the Gray Dames’ underground fort, they lacked such a place for interring. All must return to Harmony, but they lacked a place for their bodies to undo itself into nourishment for plants. Their Matriarch performed a spell which released the magical energies of matter into the Aether. Their bodies undid themselves into motes of multicolored magic. They shone like the stars above and vanished. No better analogy possible. In the end, it was all Magic.

Once the ceremony was over, Domina Hammer added salt upon the wounds. She had deemed half of their suits of armor irreparable with the resources inside the bunker. Unless they reactivated the thaumatonite mines and solar forges, they had lost those suits forever. Celestia dizzied once she calculated the damage the griffon machine guns had inflicted, even in defeat. But she also lacked the luxury of free time, and she ought to be with Radiance to receive Farseer’s report.

She had returned from the operation in Manehattan and the news was grim with a silver lining: none had died. What followed was probably the biggest dressing-down those underground halls had ever witnessed. The loudest and most vociferous reprimand a centurion ever received. Ironically, that sort of verbal scolding was relatively new within the ranks of the Battlehorn legions. Before Farseer was born and, while Radiance’s grandmother was still the Gray Dames’ matriarch, their scout’s failure would have been handled differently.

Physical punishments had been falling out of fashion for a couple of decades as some matriarchs noticed they diminished morale and did little to correct the problem. In retrospect, when your soldiers were the toughest, meanest, and strongest equines to have ever existed, trained to endure the pain, physical punishments really sounded rather silly. Thus, matriarchs took to hurting their sense of honor, conformity, and their ego.

Celestia still found it mildly amusing to see how many ways Radiance could tell Farseer she had failed. All she was supposed to do was collect two ponies and bring them in. How could she fail? Angry explanations of how much of a disgrace her performance was, and how disappointed their ancestors and Celestia herself were at her followed. Sitting next to the two mares, before Celestia’s throne, Domina Panacea let escape a yawn while Radiance went on and on, waiting for Celestia to tell her it was enough.

The chief physician of the legion was supposed to take Farseer to get a replacement for her destroyed artificial eye. The fight at the harbor had escaped control, it seemed. A youthful face with such a bloody injury was grueling to look at, and the doctor was right in wanting to take her to the valetudinarium. But Farseer had not only failed in her mission, but she had also hurt Twilight and Cadance. Celestia felt she could afford to think about her actions a little more.

Eventually, a guard entered the throne room. Celestia wondered for how long she had waited, but it seemed she just couldn’t afford to stay the whole day watching Radiance discipline her soldier just because she had hurt Twilight. After Panacea cleared away with Farseer, the mare reported.

“The griffon prisoners are restless. They insist they must bury their fallen in a specific manner they do not trust us with. We have assured them you instructed us, but they refuse to settle down. They insist on seeing you about this matter.” The mare explained. “The Claustritumus has asked that Your Radiant Grace intervene, fearing a rebellion and loss of the prisoners.”

Unlike most positions in the Legion, the keeper of the prisoners was not a specific pony, but a position high-ranking officers rotated in and out of. The prisoners usually were Battlehorns in need of a timeout and a conversation. Most enemies of the Battlehorn Legions would not survive long enough to be put under arrest. Those mares really did not know how to handle prisoners and Celestia decided she should see to it as morale would be lowered as news of the confrontation spread. They did not need a prisoner revolt.

In stark contrast to the rest of their hibernation bunker, the Carcer had simple brick walls painted white under dim illumination. There were no smells, though, and the food was of decent quality. Much better than what Celestia had endured in her youth, and better than the murderous catbirds deserved. They even had bathrooms.

As she entered the hall with the cells, Celestia and Matriarch Radiance drew all the aquiline eyes behind the bars. Four of five griffons in the closest cell, and three more in the next one glared at the princess like her very presence was an offense against their kind. The fifth prisoner showed a more diplomatic stance, with a greeting nod and holding the bars in her paws. Not friendly, but not openly hostile.

“Greetings.” Celestia stood before the bars, watching the three griffons behind her, none particularly interesting, before fixating on their representative. “My mare tells me you have requests.”

“I appeal to you as someone responsible for the welfare of my people. Our dead have not received the proper funeral rites.” The griffonness, an older, but vibrant blue with black and white natural markings and fierce yellow eyes, told her while her blue paws held the bars. “I am sorry to bother you, but it is an important part of our culture, and you must let me care for them.”

Celestia’s sagacity, which kept her in power for as long as Equestria has existed in its present form, did not fold easily. Sometimes, though, she needed more than shrewdness to navigate the wickedness her opponents threw her way. Sometimes it was easily noticeable, a bare suggestion and an obnoxious wink, or the blunt magic of a suggestion spell. Other times, it came in poison-laced honeyed words or devilish charms woven into the spell matrix of a gifted item.

Once in a lifetime, it came in the shape of subliminal manipulation. In a particular way that worked despite all the pseudoscientific ‘win your crush’ charlatanism of modern days. Celestia had witnessed nothing like that in literal ages.

It differed from anything a pony would normally experience. The griffoness’ words were present and Celestia heard the sound of her voice, but there was more. One of those things which one could not truly explain to another, like a unicorn’s ability to sense magic at work, or her own unique sense of perceiving the magic of Life. Or even the subtle magic she had dispelled in the thunderstorm over Griffonstone. For one, it explained why the Claustritimus cared about the griffons’ request to begin with.

‘Submit.’ The griffoness commanded under her voice like she could speak twice at the same time. ‘Yield’, she whispered to the inner parts of Celestia’s mind, commanding her to acquiesce. Her efforts not only fell in infertile grounds, but Celestia detected her use of the specific ancient discipline of subliminal manipulation. Instead of opening her mind to obey, the griffoness enraged Celestia like Canterlot’s nobility had failed to anger her in a thousand years.

The alicorn felt touched against her will. Like the griffoness had prodded her despite her attempts to cover herself. Rather than a finger between the feathers, words and magic reached into her mind. ‘Violated’ barely described the convulsing disgust and searing anger.

“What exactly do you need?” the alicorn kept her blank expression. Celestia’s voice came out the same as it did when she talked to her little ponies: soft, caring. “We will respect and accommodate any reasonable requests.”

“Three of our brethren have expired while in the care of your ponies. We must cremate our dead in the open air, and we must sing our funeral songs. Preferably in private, if that is acceptable.” The griffoness said calmly and straight, hiding her powers of manipulation beneath civilized words.

Thousands of years ago, during the war, Celestia and her friends dealt with many Loremasters of the Harpy. She never truly understood where their uncommon power came from. Now Celestia knew the Harpy had returned and she was the source of it. She probably had been before the times of the Griffon Empire and taught that odious art to her chosen. In retrospect, all the trouble the northerners had been giving Celestia’s Justiciars and officials seemed explained.

Griffons, like the other races, too had their funeral rites. They divided the inheritance. During funeral vigils, they were often too busy calculating how much they could steal from one another. After sharing half-hearted praises about the deceased, they would politely fly at each other’s throats. Family members who had not been seen for decades popped from behind the tables and readily defended their right to infinitesimal increases on their part of the inheritance. Griffons built entire schools of lawyers out of the need for law-savvy griffons offering their services to the highest bidder. Griffons simply did not care what happened to the dead, only to what they left behind.

Except the griffons of Snow Mountains hold. They burned their dead in stone funeral pyres and sang. For centuries Celestia had accepted they were simply different. More honored, she had foolishly imagined. Any sane creature would expect such worries to be purely cultural. Folklore that remained in the ancient land of the northerner griffons, customs older than the Windigos.

Now one of the Harpy’s loremasters had just attempted to use her power of worming words into another’s mind so Celestia would agree to their unique funeral rites. One did not need lifetimes’ worth of political sagacity and experience to know something was up.

Wrath was not something Celestia was used to experiencing, but it came with the fury of the sun in her veins. Her expression showed absolutely no changes as she nodded at the griffoness’ words. “Granted.”

With no further words, the alicorn turned from the bars and addressed both the battlehorn officer escorting her and the legion’s matriarch. “Note all this one asks and prepare an escort. Have the cartographii find a secluded location where the griffons can perform their funeral rites. Take all of them.”

“Your Radiant Grace,” Radiance whispered with a frown, “is this wise?”

Celestia’s expression remained blank. “Do as I say. Make sure all battlehorns understand they are to leave the griffons alone to perform their rituals. And do not wait for me.”

Still frowning, the mare nodded and simply watched as the alicorn walked down the corridor in between the cells. Radiance would follow her command, but needed time to prepare and distribute orders to the battlehorns who would be involved. Celestia had preparations of her own to mind, and time would be limited.

Her apartment was vast as the accommodations for an entire centuria. Never one to mind the luxury, or lack of it, Celestia simply accepted it. It also had her own alchemy laboratory for personal use, and it would come to be very handy. Thank Harmony for Star Swirl’s forethought that she might need to do things without her battlehorns’ scrutiny. Maybe he had thought of healing potions or items and concoctions for personal use, but it was a well-equipped and stocked laboratory. It smelled of cleanliness, an obvious testament that the preservation spells had kept everything from spoiling.

As soon as she dismissed the guards in the throne room, Celestia went to work. First, she needed a sheet wide enough to cover her and preferably made of a noble material. The linen and silk bed sheets more than sufficed. The purple dye and golden inlays added to the magical capacity of the materials, and she smiled as her magical senses scanned the flow of magic while her telekinetic spell held the fabrics for inspection.

Domina Hammer’s eager subordinates promptly delivered several magical components to her quarters. Replacement items meant for repairing the mighty Leaf Plate armor sets of the battlehorns and more specific materials. Including Spike, who romped into the laboratory along with the three fillies tasked with keeping him company. The guards closed the doors to the laboratory as the four tiny creatures ogled at all the shiny metals, crystal devices, and bubbling, boiling liquids. She provided them with a couple of seats so they could share and see what she was doing.

Just as soon as she had their excitement under control, she used a mortar and pestle to mush a few pieces of aloe vera into a paste. Once filtered with a linen cloth, she dropped its syrupy essence into a bowl made of white marble. Freshly distilled water followed and waited while she cut a mesh of her own mane and used it to rinse the bowl. The rest discarded; the bowl waited on a stone table. Celestia’s horn shone with golden light, and the marble gradually became red, then orange, then yellow. A column of sizzling steam rose when the alicorn poured distilled water into the bowl.

Five petals of eyebright enveloped in golden light dropped to the boiling water and undid themselves while the princess grabbed a small box from the shelves on the other side of the room. From it, she added thick gray hair into the liquid, watching as it fizzled into nothing, vanishing into the blend.

“Demiguise hair, harvested with a silver shear. It will add deceiving qualities to the mixture.” She declared to her wowing young audience. A smile pulled at her lips while she opened a crystal vial and its contents sparkled into the bowl. The concoction turned into a milky froth. “Moondust, for its magical conduction and optical properties.”

“And this is a variety of calcite, the ‘griffon spar’ from northern Griffonia.” She spent a moment staring at the clear crystal. “Actually, it is called the ‘sunfinder spar’, but they would not call it sun-anything, anyway…”

She dropped what looked more like a chunk of glass than a glorified rock into the mixture while the fillies giggled, and the dragon chuckled. A small cloud blew from the bowl, and the liquid fizzled for a couple of minutes while Celestia stirred it with a golden spoon. Spike and the three fillies wowed at the completely invisible liquid it all became.

“Now, I need a drop of your blood, Spike.” She said, turning to the little dragon and his immediately souring expression. “Just a drop. I promise.”

The golden dagger, the same Celestia had used to gain entrance to the facility, spun in the air, held in golden magical light by the handle. The adorable pegasus filly cheered Spike onward with all the childish enthusiasm one could summon and the other two followed her lead.

“Come on, Spike! Be brave!” she squealed with a foalish delight not even the life of a battlehorn neophyte could snuff.

How could he not put on a brave face and stick his finger out? A quick poke between two tiny scales with the very tip of the magic infused dagger sufficed for a bud of red blood to sprout. He didn’t even squirm. Without further drama, Celestia held a thin glass slide, typically used for microscopes, and let a trio of drops gather. Working quickly, she grabbed another crystal vial and let a shiny powder sparkle onto it, causing a tiny blue flame and minute sparks to erupt.

“What’s that?” The dragon in question asked, holding his finger while watching curiously what she did.

“Ground diamond.” She said, mixing blood, dust, and fire with the help of a delicate golden spatula before sliding it into the bowl. The liquid became visible again and gained a bluish silver gleam. “Dragon blood is a powerful magical catalyst, and so is diamond dust. It will give the spell a higher potency. Only one thing remains now.”

She smiled, offering Spike the dagger’s handle. The intelligent gentledragon frowned as it reached for it. “I suppose that alicorn blood would be too.”

But still frowning, looking up at her, he held the dagger in both hands. “Can’t you do it yourself? I’m kinda not comfortable doing this sort of thing.”

Celestia hummed. “Being with Twilight Sparkle all the time, I would have assumed you to be comfortable around laboratory work, Spike.”

“Yes!” He cried, “but not with cutting her, much less drawing blood for magical experiments! Or whatever you are doing!”

“Point taken.” Celestia smiled warmly. “Magic is a finicky thing. One’s intentions can influence the outcome of spells and enchantments. Your good intentions, helpfully wishing to assist, ought to do it.”

Unsure, he contemplated the dagger and the hoof Celestia offered before tentatively holding the golden instrument with purpose. She urged him into action, reassuring him it would not hurt her. Finally, he pierced her skin and a bright red bud of gold-speckled blood sprouted.

“Whoa.” The earth pony filly gasped. “I didn’t know that Your Radiant Grace actually had golden blood!”

“This would take a while to explain…” Celestia excused herself out of any clarification with her eyes fixated on the small budding golden rose. “Please, let me be now. This requires focus.”

Spike’s eyes remained on the golden, richly ornate dagger and he seemed to not have heard when the earth pony filly called his name to leave. He eyed Celestia with a confused frown. His lips moved, but he never asked whatever question was on his mind or resisted when the fillies herded him out of the laboratory.

Celestia’s smile melted into a frown as soon as the door closed. Sometimes she would curse all her knowledge, but this time she supposed there was no point. She was changing, and it was necessary. The more ponies turned their devotion and worship to her, the more powerful she would become, and more such physical manifestations would present themselves.

She was taking another step towards a past she would rather not relive, but did she really have a choice? Celestia’s opponent brokered no choice, her Destiny offered no options. She must defeat the Allmother. She must be what Equestria demanded of her, and Creation called for the Matriarch of the Great Herd again. The chants of thousands upon thousands of creatures calling her ‘Sunheart’ reached from across the ages. A crusade of all creatures joined under her wings against the cruelty of the Griffon Scourge. Celestia forbade memories to take her to another time. She had things to do.

The gold-crimson liquid trickled down her limb to the bowl and, upon contact, the liquid ignited with a burst of hot air. Once the flames died, a perfectly transparent liquid filled the bowl. A quick smile soon died on Celestia’s lips again. While such a concoction had an untold potential for fun, the graveness of the situation marred her spirit. Kingdoms rose and fell in the time after she had made it for the last time and thinking of her sister reminded her of the current situation.

In the end, all Celestia hoped was that the addition of her magic and her blood ought to give the concoction an extraordinary potency. Enough to fool the senses of the Raptor Queen herself and that of her servant.

Piece by piece, she drenched the bedsheet in the invisible liquid until it was a knot of nothing she could pull from the bowl. It slipped from her telekinetic grasp and her eyes saw through it. Her magical senses completely ignored the fabric, the quickly drying liquid, and the magic it should be emitting. It was effectively gone, except for her sense of touch as it covered her hoof and made it vanish.

Considering how ungodly silly it would be for her to lose her newly minted Veil of Vanishment, she donned it straight away. The powerful magic the fabric held was barely perceptible, even as it settled against her body. It should work. Thus, Celestia left her quarters with no guards to worry about a door opening and closing by itself.

No sound or even a breeze marked her passing through the white and gold halls of the Gray Dames’ base. It was as if, under her magical cloak, she had completely ceased to exist as far as they were concerned. Matriarch Radiance dutifully commanded a selection of six battlehorns to escort the griffons on their way through the halls, and nobody reacted to her presence. She quietly followed them as the others walked out of their way and provided her with an easy path.

A pair of carts waited in place on the teleportation platform. One carried a pair of amphoras and several logs, the other had three bodies hidden under white sheets. While the battlehorns positioned the griffons on the platform, Celestia stopped and stared helplessly at the massive magical machinery. The Teleportarium would not recognize her under her magical cloak. After a sigh, her ears perked when the magi started chanting and their horns spilled mana into the air.

She closed her eyes and repeated the magical notes in her thoughts. Correlating them to her knowledge of teleportation magic should be enough, even if it required extraordinarily quick thinking and improvisation. A formula drew itself in her mind, likely far from a perfect transliteration, but a usable one of where they were supposed to reemerge into the space-time continuum. She would rather not copy it too perfectly, anyway. She ought to not reveal herself to them at arrival and a teleportation spell was likely to make enough of a racket to the acute senses of a Loremaster of the Harpy.

Halfway through casting her own teleportation spell, Celestia realized she had yet another problem. The invisibility cloak would distort the mana flow and her magic would not connect correctly to the magic of space-time. If it didn’t outright fail and the magical feedback didn’t cause her horn to explode, she’d end up miles away from her intended destination.

A silent but frustrated nicker escaped her as the magi concluded their spell and its effects manifested: the griffons, battlehorns, and carts were gone with a flash. Hurrying, Celestia rushed out of the Teleportarium, back into the wide hallway. The princess skipped out of the way of two red robe-wearing blacksmiths on their way somewhere, and quickly trotted along the corridor, searching for an empty room. An out of the way corridor. A service passageway. Anything.

The first open door into a dark room sufficed. She slinked past a half-opened doorway into a spartan room with nothing more than a simple sparring ring. Hastily walking out of the way and from the light pouring from the corridor, she found a corner behind the sand arena. Nothing truly hid her in there, but the out of the way dark ought to be enough.

Her hoof wrapped the cloak around itself and pulled it to reveal the white alicorn wearing her gold and purple toga. She shut her eyes and strained her memory. Phrase after phrase, note for note recounting the Magi spell-song, at the same time translating it into a spell formula she could use. No time for second guesses. The complexity strained her memory and she must meet the immense power of the magical machine, but Celestia was powerful too. Her mind was agile, and none understood magic better than she did.

The mental engrams of the spell streamed through her thoughts as she cast it and her horn filled with the tingling warmth of magic. The flow of ethereal energies coalesced into her will manifested upon the world, space-time stretched and snapped around her. A flash, a bang, and a piercing headache later, the silver light of Luna’s moon bathed her golden and purple garment.

A chill penetrated the metallic weave of her toga. The wet cold at her hooves was worse, and she shuddered at the unpleasant iciness. Voices made her ears perk. A griffon complained of vertigo less than thirty hooves away. The Loremaster-without-her-cape held a young tom by his cheeks and examined him under the attentive eyes of the other griffons and the battlehorns. The golden, stylish carts waited, each with their own patiently waiting mare still hitched.

Celestia squealed to herself. She forgot the cold and the unpleasant wetness in a panic and threw the Veil of Vanishment over herself just in time before an inquisitive battlehorn looked her way. Her lack of reaction, again focusing on watching the griffons, caused a small sigh to escape Celestia.

One griffoness, a large, rugged lady covered in deep gray and silver, snickered, raising her eyes to challenge one of the battlehorns. Her voice, more than the whistly northerner accent, carried disdain. “Feh. Most of our brothers and sisters are beyond our reach. I doubt the equines in the Royal Guard gave them the proper rites, anyway.”

“Quit you whining, hairball.” Matriarch Radiance, not in the mood to entertain complaints, perhaps confused by her orders, brokered no patience. “We buried them in the customs of the Old Griffon Empire, and that is more than what my fallen sisters have received. It is only by Her Radiant Grace’s mercy that we grant you anything other than a crucifixion.”

Hidden under her cloak, Celestia winced at Radiance’s words. The fierce northerner griffoness gave her a cocky smile, but the older griffoness interrupted them. She had finished examining the tom and spoke. “Hush, Gjertrud. Such complaining is for cubs, not mature queens. We appreciate Her Majesty’s grace.”

Her words disarmed any tension and both griffons and battlehorns exchanged austere glances before the Matriarch of the Gray Dames took the word again. “Very well. Our orders are to leave you here. I will not pretend to understand, but heed me. Make whatever good of this you must. I killed enough of your ancestors to not have forgotten the horrors of your late emperor.”

“Move!” she commanded once the others had finished unloading the carts. They turned away from the griffons and walked a dozen steps before the Teleportarium retrieved them back into their underground base along the carts. Left alone, fluttering feathers in the breeze, the griffons exchanged a combination of elated and confused stares, grins, and a few excited hops.

“Uh… What is keeping us from just going back to our cats?” One of them chuckled. An orange and yellow tom with an excited grin and an enthusiastically swaying tail.

“Our duty to our fallen brethren, my prodigal brother.” The older griffoness spoke with the patience of a mother. “There is no time or resources for much. They must forgive us, and we must be glad the equines offered us the supplies. We shall send our dead brethren on their way to the Stormy Eyrie before anything else.”

The alicorn frowned under her magical cloak, but patiently sat and watched as griffons obeyed. The larger hen took the lead and two strong toms helped. They prepared a bed of logs while the others carried their kind. The dead griffons had already gained the rigor mortis, but that didn’t bother them. White sheets, a graceful concession from the warrior mares, covered the three of them and Celestia was happy at their decency while she watched the griffons prepare the pyre. They wrapped their kin with the sheets before pouring oil from the amphoras.

The whole time, Celestia kept frowning. She had wanted to test the griffons, and they really wanted to give their brethren a proper funeral. She had imagined the griffoness used her arts to escape, but no. The funeral really was the important part for her.

The biggest issue, their conversations showed, was that they lacked a proper stone base, and it was a poor practice to burn anything directly on the grass. They concluded they had no other options and that getting their funeral rites going was more important.

Unicorns could have done it trivially, but the large northerner hen left little to be desired in her survival skills starting a fire. Before long, it had grown and started consuming the mortal remains of their friends. The loremaster sat with the others behind and started chanting, but her song had no words. She merely hummed in lugubrious tones that the others mimicked, hanging their heads in deference. The large hen was different. She inhaled profoundly and looked to the sky, murmuring words to herself that Celestia could not understand, but did not dare approach. One griffon threw a trio of improvised spears into the fire, barely more than sharpened sticks.

Rather than trying to understand the song, the alicorn focused on the magical happenings in the environment as something happened and roused her senses. While the more traditional magic barely made it through her cloak to touch her senses, the Magic of Life she was so attuned to made it through.

Something had stayed behind upon their death and only the fire released it. The fire itself changed like a spell had acted on it. Curiosity overpowered Celestia’s near constant angsty anger of the last days. If only the circumstances were different.

During the fight in Griffonstone Celestia had witnessed the death of several griffons, and nothing happened out of the ordinary. What trickery was that? How was it even possible? Death, as she understood, equated to when the stream of consciousness, in all its forms, broke because of damage that overwhelmed the body’s ability to compensate. And yet, she saw with her own eyes as the smoke, charged with ancient magic she barely understood, carried three souls away into the Aether. Then her eyes widened when their souls vanished. Poof. Gone into nothingness. Now, Celestia may be used to advanced thaumatodynamics and slightly out of touch with the basics, but magic simply did not vanish into thin air.

The details went on and on, and she knew them all. The system was designed that way! She took part in designing it that way! There was no place for such deviation; it was an abomination bordering on necromancy and what she had just witnessed challenged all she knew of souls and the workings of the Cosmos! Celestia ground her teeth and her legs shook. The cursed catbirds kept finding novel ways to aggravate her. She could almost hear the Harpy’s odious laughter, mocking her lack of understanding.

Their voices distracted her from the anger. The large hen complained they had no weapons to offer, but the other griffons started discussing whether they should return. Someone laughed, another mentioned they did not even have a way back. The loremaster put a swift end to the conversation with her decisive commands.

“Go.” she said, watching the modest flames slowly consuming away the bodies. “Find our cells in the nearest city and avoid the authorities until you are safe. You know how to take care of yourselves.”

“What about you, Madam Loremaster?” The large gray northerner hen asked.

“I will stay.”

The large female nodded and turned to walk away towards Manehattan without another word or second-guessing the older hen’s decision. There were no city lights visible yet, behind the terrain, but Celestia knew the direction and the northerner hen certainly knew too. The others followed with differing levels of confusion and hesitation, but they all followed. A couple hesitated, not eager to abandon an old lady, but eventually Celestia saw herself alone with the Loremaster.

Time passed, and the mare remained silent, unmoving, waiting for the beautiful blue, white and black griffoness to do something. Anything. It might be some elucidating part of the ritual she ought to keep even from her allies. Maybe some additional incantation? Minutes more passed, and the griffoness said or did nothing. Tired of waiting, Celestia let her eyes drop for an instant, mentally reviewing what had happened, trying to find anything she might have overlooked.

“Stop this game. You are predictable, like a cub.”

The griffoness’ words drew Celestia’s eyes again. She did not speak in the Snow Mountain’s High-Griffonese, but in a heavily accented Common Equestrian, filled with whistles and hisses. A scowl formed on the alicorn’s brow, and she pulled her invisible cloak, tossing it to the side. The hen still sat before the fire, calmly watching it.

“Explain to me what I just witnessed.” Celestia politely asked, approaching, and speaking in the High-Griffonese as perfectly as one could without a beak.

The griffoness never turned to look at her, much less graced her with a response in her natural language. Instead, she still spoke with the Equestrian everyday language. “The Allmother has reserved knowledge about Her craftsmanship for a select few. Even among her Children.”

“Please spare me of your arrogance.” Celestia said, gingerly sitting next to the griffoness to watch the fire. The smells of burning fur, fat, flesh, and waste had lost their impact on her over her ages and didn’t seem to bother the hen, either. But the sheer hubris was both unnecessary and aggravating. Especially after all the deference from the Battlehorns. But why did those words cause such pain in Celestia’s chest?

“You accuse me of arrogance?” The griffoness’ voice filled with amusement. “You are a magical string of instructions meant to move the sun along the sky. You were never meant to have any power over Creation. Much less this sad version of free-will.”

“That is a pauper way of describing a being tasked with creating life and seeding it upon the world.” Celestia tilted her head, looking at the griffoness whose eyes remained on the fire. “We fought the Harpy, and we defeated her. It is why Harmony created us so. To protect the ponies from your excesses. After Creation began anew, we were forced to remake everything, without knowledge, only instinct to guide us. Harmony tasked us with steering Creation, and it worked. If it was not for the Harpy’s meddling, it would have turned out perfectly.”

“Perfect? The world was perfect before. You simply did not understand Mother Harpy’s design. It is a magical system devoid of intelligence which reacts to your actions, and you attribute intention to it. Do you truly believe you have freed creation? You have not. All you did was rob them of their purpose. You took from them the driving force which gave them reason to exist. You wanted a world without conflict, but it is the verb of creation. Birth is a probation, living is a struggle, death is painful. Creation itself rejected your notion, and the perfect world you envisioned is rife with monsters and dangers aplenty.”

“It is because of the inherent chaotic nature of Magic. It needs to be harnessed. Then the Windigos came. Because of the selfishness of some creatures. Harmony only seeks balance.” Celestia retorted, looking down at the griffoness. Why in Tartarus did she even feel the need to defend herself? “In it, all things have the right to exist, but there need be no struggle. There needs to be no suffering. It is selfishness which brings both.”

“Nonsense.” The griffoness chuckled, still staring at the fire. “The very mechanics of life require that one take from another and I am yet to see a creature which will lie down and allow itself to be consumed. Even the plants will defend themselves with poison and thorns. Predation is the defining moment of Life. The greatest honesty in a creature’s existence. One loses all, and the other wins. It is a deadly ballet for which everycreature spends every moment of their life preparing for. To deny it of them is to miss the point of existence.”

Celestia frowned, and her lips twisted a little while she looked at the fire again. “She really has taught you a lot, hasn’t She? All to justify the things she has done. But the Harpy would never let you see I want a world that is better for everycreature. Including your kind. You can create beautiful things if you are not constantly fearing for your life.”

“This is where you fail to understand the beauty of My Mother’s creation.” The griffoness looked up to the clear, starry sky and closed her eyes. “Need is the mother of invention. Therefore, we are the way we are. She made us fierce, vengeful, and cruel. We make each other better, constantly pressuring the other to be faster, stronger, more ruthless. We cannot lay on our victories, we must always improve, or we will lose it all to another. Your vision of the world is a stagnant puddle that only gathers rot and disease.”

Celestia kept an unbroken expression of neutrality and her eyes aimed at the fire. “Hubris so dense you will not see that we find our motivation in the lack of our next. You cannot accept that a different solution exists that is not your own. You truly are Children of the Harpy.”

The princess made a pointed pause, listening to the cracking of the wood. “Much like you, we dislike suffering, but unlike you, we do not take pleasure in the suffering of another. We cannot stand seeing another suffer, and this is why we defeated your dear psychotic mother, your emperor, and your Empire. Because the good creatures of this world will suffer to see another in bonds, starving, or in pain. We cannot stand it and we must fight it.”

Celestia looked to the griffoness and found her staring up at her. “What you have is not strength. It is selfishness. It is the source of evil and She has taught you that because She cannot bear to imagine being wrong. That is why she hates me and my little ponies. We proved a world without her is not only possible, but better. Even for your kind.”

The griffoness looked at the grass with a wrinkle in her brow, and Celestia spoke again. “Such an intelligent creature, such a devoted being, dedicated to teaching those you loved the most the wrong lessons. All your life. You have invested it into being a Loremaster of the Harpy. Intelligent and wise, beautiful, perfect as the Allmother’s creation that you are. All a lie to feed the ego of a failed goddess.”

She was part of those griffons responsible for her lover’s death, and Celestia wanted to relish her pain, but she failed miserably. Instead, her heart ached, and she extended a wing over the old griffoness. Celestia knew Loremasters for being unbreakable, unyielding. The inescapable inquisition of the Harpy. But they still had a heart.

“Please. Tell me about the ritual. I must know. For the good of all creatures, I must stop the Harpy. Why is cremation so important? Is she doing something to your souls? What happened to them?”

“Figure it out on your own.” The griffoness responded noncommittally. “If you are sure you have saved Creation from the Creator.”

“Why must you be so difficult? There is no secret which will withstand scrutiny. If you do not tell me, one of the others will. I will study the phenomenon until I unravel its mystery and then it is going to be worse for everyone.”

“Betraying My Mother is not something I will do. There are fates worse than death and there are boundaries I would not cross.” Celestia turned to the griffoness to see her staring up at her with a mocking grin. “And if I told you, you would not believe it. You might as well try whatever other methods your highness desires.”

In the seconds Celestia spent staring at the griffoness’ mocking and challenging stare, several thoughts passed through her head. It seemed every single villain and aspiring tyrant thought she was available to be teased, but the loremasters of the Harpy… they were different. Celestia had learned thousands of years ago. Their bravado was seldom empty and their threats rarely vapid. Finally, knowing the Harpy was behind them explained a lot of their privileged knowledge, insight, and capacities back when. It also explained a lot in the present, because the Harpy knew what to keep to herself, and what to teach, and whom to teach. It was their sponsor’s understanding of the functioning of the universe, the mind, and magic that made them so dangerous. Ultimately, it made the griffoness a victim. A pawn in a very dangerous game. A pawn who could not see how wrong she was, nor understand how deranged her master was.

The thing was that both understood something about that encounter. The serene silence between them, sprinkled with the sounds of the tiny life around them, hid reflections. Celestia knew that no matter how long the griffoness thought about it, she would find no way to stop her from getting what she wanted. Celestia would examine that ritual. She would extract information from the griffoness. And she knew the griffoness would reach that conclusion too.

A lesser griffon might panic, despair, lose their composure once they realized there was no way out of that silence. No words they could utter, no deception or knowledge which would change their fate. Not a Loremaster of the Harpy. Another thing that Celestia understood was the mind of such a creature and, better than the loremaster, would give her credit. She knew that griffons were petty, greedy, and vengeful creatures, and once all possibility of victory evaporated, they would turn to violence and vengeance. Machinations and plans would bubble up inside her head and she would imagine all the ways she could hurt the alicorn. The Harpy’s lies of how all the sugar and miscellaneous ‘pony food’ dulled the senses and slowed the mind may have had an influence when the griffoness’ powerful muscles tensed. When she jumped at Celestia, fast as lightning, talons aimed at her neck.

The griffoness’ neck snapped like a twig with her head forced backward as soon as Celestia’s telekinetic magic held her. The bones broke apart and her brainstem teared like a ragdoll. Awareness was gone before the griffoness even noticed what had happened. Had she ever had a chance? The point was now moot. Chocolate Velvet and his medical training would probably find better ways to understand, but Celestia shoved thoughts about him to the back of her mind and ignored the nastiness of death in favor of a more clinical analysis. It was no novelty, anyway.

The alicorn squinted, holding the griffoness in her telekinetic magic, letting it transmit to her all the details. The trauma wreaked havoc on her body. Directionless lungs and muscles would fail in their task and starved tissues would die. Actual death should soon follow when her brain no longer received sustenance. It should take a while as another thing the odious catbird goddess did right was ensure her servants were exceptionally physically fit. But this time, that would work for Celestia’s intentions.

With the griffoness alive and well, prodding into her being would prove difficult with all the barriers and fail-safes the Harpy was likely to have put in there, even beyond those of all living creatures. But Celestia’s place in the grand magical machinery of Creation afforded her privileges.

Celestia’s eyes focused after laying the griffoness on the grass and her horn’s golden light again bathed the grass and the twitching griffoness. Nobody else would have noticed it. Her magic prodded and poked, looking for a way in. It was not even a conscious process, more like something the most ancient parts of her magic almost knew how to do by itself. It kept probing, nudging the crumbling barriers here and there, just a little to wiggle inside every crack she could find.

Once inside, her magic ‘connected’ effortlessly and Celestia opened her eyes to find herself on a beach. A lakeside of black, fine sand and golden light made into liquid. It webbed at the sand and receded rhythmically like a breathing animal. Petrichor made Celestia sneeze, and her wings fluffed at the distant thunder. She shivered and shook her head to focus. A black tower occupied a stone outcrop rising from the water, but a hefty part of the battlements at the top fell and crashed at the base before the water swallowed it.

Celestia jumped into the air and flew towards the tower. The golden light from the water lost its shine by the minute and longer cracks appeared in the tower’s foundation, snaking their way up. She flew hastily to a landing before the black tower. Her hooves clopped on smooth black stone polished to a mirror sheen. Black iron doors adorned with matching etchings of griffon wings blocked her entry. They had a handle, a round doorknob that seemed ridiculously small for the fortified doors. Celestia’s magic simply ripped one half from the hinges and tossed it to splash on the water.

Inside, stone walls and a rustic hall met her. Tables covered in white cloth flanked a hearth fire in the center, but the fire was gone. Only the dimming embers remained. Plates on the tables held food, but it had all fallen into disarray, like a cadre of misbehaving foals had gone through the room and left food and sauces everywhere. Celestia paid all that little attention other than a passing glance.

Framed paintings hung from the walls, but their images had darkened or washed away like someone had doused them in water after setting them on fire. The floor of sturdy, well fitted planks shook and one of them snapped under the weight of Celestia’s hoof. Grimacing at the quickly deteriorating scenery, she took the stairs up with celerity. A spiral snaked inside the tower, separating the inner and outer wall, and the alicorn climbed it with a quick trot. The cracking stone competed with her clopping hooves, and she ignored pieces of stone tumbling down after another crack splintered the solid stone. Eventually, she reached the room above and it ought to be called a library.

A dizzyingly tall collection of bookcases took over the walls while the wood floor was empty, except for the ash throne in the center. Griffon glyphs, polished pieces of iron, and black satin decorated it, but it held no importance to the alicorn. Celestia strode into the room, eyeing the bookcases on the walls. Innumerable volumes filled rows upon rows, enough to compare to the Canterlot Archives. The sheer quantity of knowledge a loremaster could fit inside those bird brains of theirs astounded. But when Celestia’s magic reached for one, it simply failed to pull the book out, like it refused to interact with her magic. She huffed impatiently as the white griffon letters on the spines flaked off them at an alarming speed.

The princess grimaced and took the spiral stairs further up with all the celerity she could afford, passing by a gaping hole in the stone wall to the outside. The top room, past a circular wooden wall, had a painting of the Harpy about the size of her ego. It caught the princess’ eyes and made her ears perk. There she stood, just her bust, showing her profile with sharp lines, black beak, gray eyes, silvery-to-jet fluffy chest, and her crown of black feathers.

The room had far more detail in it, illuminated by iron sconces and their dimming torches. Several alarms kept ringing, frantic little bells alongside shining lights everywhere. Panels with black screens showed only one central flickering dot and bizarre anatomical pieces out of Dr. Hoofenstein’s laboratory showed parts of a ‘disassembled’ griffon. Entire systems of organs floated in clear liquid like exposed works of art for inspection. Entire anatomical blocks, like the entire cardiovascular system, a dense mesh of blood vessels with a slowly pulsating heart at the core. The complete dermis of the griffoness was open on a board, complete with all the annexes, from fur to feathers to her beak. A brain with her eyes and then the full tree of nervous ‘wiring’, not to mention the nasty tear and red-stained swelling at the top of the spinal cord.

Celestia bent her muzzle, looking at the collection of meaty tubes and annexed liver and pancreas, from tongue to anus. It squirmed, and Celestia had to control her shivering amid red lights and insistent ringing bells. She had no time for foolery, but why, oh, why did everything the Harpy touched had to be creepy? Doctor Hoofenstein’s laboratory probably would have less obnoxiously medieval surgical instruments laid on a metal table in the center.

The alicorn let out a relieved sigh when she found what she was looking for. Something a common pony might consider an excessively fancy typewriter machine connected to the ceiling by a multitude of cables passing under the painting. But unlike the usual pony typewriters, the one in the condemned tower had no comfortable, large keys meant for hooves and combinations of strikes. The one Celestia sat before was a gloomy, black contraption of metal, wires and hundreds of keys organized seemingly at random upon six lines and at least two dozen staggered columns. Each one with a unique symbol of the High-Griffonese alphabet.

“Stupid, backwards, mouse-guzzling…” she mumbled, glaring at the machine.

Celestia knew the design, but after millennia, it still boggled her mind. A passing thought acknowledged it probably made sense if one typed with thin griffon fingers, but a grumpy groan escaped her, anyway. She had no time to mess with the thing, and a chiming yellow glow enveloped the machine as she sat before it. It was possible her magic would interfere with it and make her job harder, but time was limited. The keys depressed and raised on their own in rapid sequences while the glass screen above the machine turned on with a loud click and a headache inducing buzz. A sequence of griffon characters streamed in green against the black background and a broken disembodied voice of female timbre spoke in High-Griffonese.

“Critical failure: deprecated homeostasis.”

Celestia ignored it, frowning at the streaming characters on the screen, squinting at their enigmatic meaning and the sequence of characters she needed to interact with the machine. She grimaced, giving it commands as strings of symbols. Lists, long streams of griffon characters appeared along images and graphs few other than Celestia could hope to understand.

“Gisla.” The princess whispered to herself, frowning. “It happened too fast. Huh… Of course.”

Her body became tense, and her wings shuffled. Slowly, a grimace formed in her muzzle. Her eyes turned to the keys beneath, and her magic pressed them in quick succession once again. After an angry buzz, and red blinking letters on the screen, she winced and tried something else. After another combination of keystrokes, symbols claimed the glass screen, in a combination of text and images. Celestia’s eyes frantically scanned the screen under the flashing lights and noisy bells.

“Critical failure: decerebration.”

“I know!” She shouted at the room. “I’m sorry, but it’s your fault!”

Shutting down many mental barriers that way was easier than battering them down from the outside with intrusive magic, but that didn’t mean it was actually easy. Especially with all that noise and so little time. Celestia mumbled to herself, but kept trying until she finally gasped and grinned. A few more keystrokes caused the griffoness to materialize into the room next to her, out of thin air. The griffoness flared her wings and her beak hung open. Eyes wide and shifting, she looked around the room in shock, before turning to Celestia.

“What is happening? What did you do to me, abomination?!” she yelled with a raging grimace.

“Tell me what happens to the griffon souls once they disembody.” Celestia urged.

“No!” the griffoness screeched.

The griffoness complained some more that she wanted answers, growing more and more agitated with every word, but Celestia paid her no mind. She turned to the terminal and several keys clicked under her magic.

“What is this place? What are you doing?” The griffoness insisted.

“Tell me.” Celestia turned to her again. “Where do the griffon souls go? What is the Harpy doing to them?”

“I will not tell you! Mother Harpy would loath me.”

Celestia groaned. “She won’t know! You won’t remember! Your bird brain is not even capable of fixating memories anymore, obnoxious hen! You are dying!”

“You killed me!” The other accused, louder than the alarms.

“Tell me, or I will go after the others and one of them will tell me!” The alicorn flared her wide wings and yelled.

Most of her words went unnoticed. The griffoness grimaced with a gasp and her eyes became unfocused. “Critical failure: neuronal decoherence.” The disembodied voice complained.

“Gisla! Tell me!” Celestia scared the griffoness back into consciousness. Shutting down mental barriers, changing subliminal processes, nothing had worked. The princess sighed and her voice softened. “I will… I’ll lay you to rest with the others in the fire. And I will allow the others to go unscathed. I promise, but I must know.”

“Curse it all…” The griffoness’ eyes filled with tears. “The song and the fire. The magic in all griffons… Lighting the fire for the funeral triggers our innate magic to affect the fire and receive the magic in our voices through the song. It changes the fire, and it releases and marks our souls. Mother will capture them and send us on our way to the Stormy Eyrie.”

“The Windigos destroyed the Stormy Eyrie!” Celestia accused with a wrathful scowl amid the alarms, snapping rock and crumbling, breaking glass in a deluge of strong-smelling water. “Even if the new cycle of creation remade it, the Windigos always destroy it in every iteration of the world! Speak the truth, hen!”

“It is the truth, stupid grassbreath!” The griffoness grimaced back at her, putting a paw on her chest. Her grimace turned fierce again in a second. “My mother loves me! She will not allow me to wash away into nothingness! I will live in death to glorify the Mother of Storms and dare the Eternal Winter! I am not livestock to be forgotten once their use is over!”

Her words failed with a grunt. She stared at Celestia, one last time, wrathful and defiant even with her wet eyes. ‘Critical Failure: cessation of consciousness imminent’, the voice declared. The light was gone, and the blaring alarms silenced.

Celestia opened her eyes. The noises of crickets and a small foraging fox accompanied the rustling leaves in the dark. It yapped and wagged her tail once before going about her routine. The princess sat on the cold grass, staring at the lifeless griffoness. A fierce grimace showed her teeth and her brow scowled, but a sigh escaped, and she let go of her wrath. Her golden light enveloped the griffoness and gingerly deposited her amid the flames.

“My ponies do not vanish away into nothingness…” she whispered and lowered her eyes. “We see ourselves as part of the world, not above it. We flow along with it.”

Words lost to the breeze, they failed to fill the hole in her heart. Her throat burned, and she told herself the griffoness might as well be lying. Her brain was not even functioning properly. It was impossible that the Harpy had set up a completely different and clandestine system for griffon souls to rest and recuperate before returning to the realm of the living.

Celestia’s eyes found her hooves, and her ears flopped. The loremaster had to be lying. How would that even work? If they died and then the Harpy sequestered them away, would they simply exist in the Stormy Eyrie until they were ready to return? Consciousness requires both soul and physical body to emerge. Could the Allmother know some secret Celestia did not? Because pony souls not only lost their individuality upon death, but they also fell into a slumber within the Pool of Souls, as souls could not maintain consciousness by themselves. Her thoughts circled around to the same problem. The griffoness had to be lying, like the dishonest, greedy, vile, murderous catbird she was.

Her white ears perked once she noticed the wisp of magic leaving the lifeless body of the griffoness. Celestia glared at the great open black void rather than the stars, like someone had chutzpah-ed their way through the laws of the universe. She would not have it and her horn filled with magic. She ran her thoughts through the formulae of a particular teleportation spell and slipped in between the threads of spacetime again.

The stars no longer twinkled and simply shone. The verdant prairie was gone, along with the sounds of wildlife. All replaced by pealing and a blue steel platform above a sea of glowing, multicolored light. In all directions, far in the distance, rose jagged walls of white and silver, collecting the twinkling, barely perceptible rain that fell from above. The verdant plains, blue seas, and rugged mountain ranges of Equestria replaced the moon in the zenith and eclipsed the sun behind it. Its powerful light washed the stars away.

Before Celestia, the platform stretched for three-hundred hooves. Blue and silver spires surrounded a central crystal tower, eerily reminiscent of the Crystal Empire. It radiated with a vast magical power, and a downdraft made her mane dance. She trotted through the distance; teleporting through the length of the walkway always felt disrespectful. More than that, the place filled her with a reverent peace that eased her breathing and calmed her anxiety.

Massive, crystalized metal doors capable of defending a fortress moved their hulking size, opening for her. Beyond, white lights turned a gloomy corridor into a garish, clinical passageway, but it was short as it opened into a massive internal hall. A crystal floor showed the sun beneath the hall, but it was not the sun creatures saw from the surface of Equestria. It was a gaping void crowned with a bent halo of incandescent matter. It laid silent, like a dormant beast, feeding off what trickled inside. In the opposite direction, above where all the crystal and blue metal met, was glorious Equestria, shedding its drizzle of light upon the vast windows of the palace. Smack in the center of the room was a tall ‘Luna-sized’ chair floating above the floor like it balanced at the tip of a needle-like spike. A long circular table surrounded it with only an entrance that Celestia used.

She pushed the chair to the side as the room acknowledged her presence. Most of the lighting shut off, leaving a calming atmosphere while a magical image manifested over the circular table. It showed a long stream of magical engrams. Notation for visually registering spells, like musical notation. They vanished from the image, and a chime accompanied it. A logo with a crescent moon cradling Luna’s smiling bust manifested along with pony ideograms.

‘Throne of the Mind v4.35’

‘PonyOS 4.2’

‘Mare Serenitatis Soulstice Facility’

‘Likelihood of Systemic Cascade Magical Failure: negligible / Black Sun Event: safe’

‘Aetheric flow – Nominal’

‘Primordial soul detected, M. A. G. I. C. – standing by’

Celestia’s horn filled with golden light, and the magical system recognized it. It filled with more magical notations and a stream of griffon characters. Then pony ideograms again dominated the image, and some would be completely foreign to anyone else.

‘Khet Sah Ib Ka Ba Shut Sekhem Ren Akh - match’

‘Animus Imperative: Sun. Throne of Life authority recognized’

‘Welcome, Matriarch of the Great Herd. Equestria bows before the Firstborn of Harmony’

First, Celestia’s eyebrow rose at the cheesy message, but she had no time to worry about that. Her eyes jumped from image to image as the floating magical windows came to life. Information filled them. Graphs, images, maps. One of them showed the relative position of the rough disc of land which was Equestria, relative to the moon and the sun, while others showed different, detailed maps over a single giant map of the world. The main window showed dots without number over a map of the entire world. Under Celestia’s magical command, it spun to show the landmass on its side, with the moon above and the sun below. A small bar appeared and the name ‘Gisla’ wrote itself in scratchy griffon characters. Once it vanished, three dots blinked in red on the map. Two of them firmly planted on the surface and another soared towards the moon.

‘Tracking – Creature added to watchlist’ the screen wrote in pony ideograms. Several magical windows changed. A portrait of the griffoness in question appeared, smug as a griffon could be, along with information about gender, age, and a blank list of incidents. Another image said ‘Decoupled’. A third showed a little multicolored cloud with several indications and pony ideograms. Many images showed nothing at all and a graph with the different ideograms for the Elements of Harmony showed blank readings. A list of terms for the pieces of one’s soul followed with words denoting a lack of issues to report. A double line of red ideograms blinked, though.

‘Sekhem Class Violation: unexpected decoupling’

‘Ka Class Violation: curse’

Celestia ignored the first. The second was a good sign the griffoness may not have lied after all. If the fire truly did something to their souls, it would read as a curse. Celestia growled at the floating magical image, but after such realization, time passed with no event while the princess waited.

Not one for sitting pretty doing nothing, Celestia again directed a magical command at the system. The black bar appeared again, and the name ‘Twilight Sparkle’ wrote itself in it. The magical images changed to show a portrait of the smiling purple alicorn. Her cutie mark, lines and graphs showing mostly normal values and a graphical representation of the six Elements of Harmony, each one with a different value. The larger map showed her in Manehattan, as well as alerts for diminished blood volume and several minor traumas. The magical system would not show Celestia who she was with, or most details about the surrounding area, but she seemed to be inside a cart with other creatures. Blobs of bound mana M.A.G.I.C. identified as griffons, ponies and another alicorn whose intense pink could only belong to Cadance.

Directed to focus on Cadance, M.A.G.I.C. informed Celestia of a semi-fracture on her nose and minor brain contusions of no significance. It seemed both had been involved in a fight and Farseer was lucky Celestia had not seen M.A.G.I.C.'s report before letting Radiance scold her. And while both seemed fine, if injured, something in the report bothered Celestia. The window tasked with showing information about the various parts of Cadance’s soul had one warning.

‘Ren Class Violation: Animus Imperative corruption’ the cyan pony ideograms said with cyan in the deep blue background.

Celestia made a mental note of it and added another name for M.A.G.I.C. to seek. ‘Luna’. The map scrolled all the way to the north of Griffonia, but gray clouds and eventual lightning plumes obscured the entire region all the way to the Frozen North. The entire set of magical windows froze for a second, and a message took the larger one. ‘Query failed’.

Before she could command M.A.G.I.C. to look for Luna again, with a most displeased frown, a warning popped up in the center of the window. ‘Watchlisted creature lost – querying’. Following that, the map showed the entire magical storm covering northern Griffonia. The red dot blinked there, and there, all over before the ‘Query failed’ message flashed again. All the information M.A.G.I.C. previously showed Celestia about the griffoness and her soul turned to error messages and vanished.

“What the…” the alicorn whispered to herself. She knew the entire thing was quirky. It was, after all, a magical representation of an unfathomable magical system of immeasurable complexity. Chocolate Velvet’s ideas, along with advances in modern magical studies, plus the Sister’s immense knowledge about magic and the Cosmos had helped Luna remake the magical constructs they used into something more streamlined and autonomous. Error messages were a way M.A.G.I.C. had to tell her that something happened that it was not prepared to understand.

‘Error report filed.’ M.A.G.I.C. declared, showing at the same time a list of error reports, each made of the name of a creature and a date. And that was another useful addition, thanks to Chocolate and his memories of his original world. Almost all of them represented griffons, several in the last few days. The time readings spanned quite a long time. With a frown, and growing worry as her jaw dropped further, Celestia made mental calculations. The system had started logging such errors almost as soon as she and Luna modernized it with Chocolate Velvet’s ideas. All was the same: griffons, which died in the most diverse ways a griffon could die, all with the same notification of ‘Ka violation’.

Why had M.A.G.I.C. never alerted them to those happenings? The shocked alicorn had no idea. It was a thing of moral integrity that Celestia would never use M.A.G.I.C. and her privileges, be they political or supernatural for personal gain. She would refrain from using it even if it could give her an edge for dealing with serious situations, unless it was necessary. Maybe she should have kept closer eyes upon it.

Regardless, Celestia materialized a small notepad and a pencil. She noted down the names and time stamps before commanding M.A.G.I.C. to show her the normal records. And those happened concomitant to other griffons and creatures which simply died away, and their souls followed the normal path back to the Pool of Souls. The detail was that in the northerner lands, where the griffons supposedly performed the burning funeral, and their souls ended in the error report.

Celestia’s hoof slammed at the desk with a furious, frustrated, and almost foalish whinny and a snort.

Behind her anger was fear, and what scared her the most was not that the catbird extraordinaire was slipping away with souls. No. It was worse than that. It was the fact that the Harpy could have been doing that for an immeasurable amount of time. Celestia screamed and slammed her hoof at the console again. It all fit together. Grigor I, the Emperor died, and the Harpy hid away, so Celestia never found her. Now his soul probably returned through means Celestia couldn’t even fathom, and the Harpy put in motion her plan to wedge the Princesses away. She started her campaign of hatred against the hippogriffs and the ponies. Through the Lion she was gathering support and mobilizing an army of weathered monster hunters. She even used the idea of an afterlife to garner griffons to her side, like the boorish local militiagriffon from Griffonstone. The chancellor’s loyalists will stand no chance and she will conquer Griffonia. More and more griffons for her to indoctrinate. A legion of fanatical zealots the Harpy could use to summon all the magical power she would need to destroy Celestia.

What if she could, somehow, summon all the souls back from the Stormy Eyrie and put them to fight too? Old griffons who could have been training for as long as their souls held on just waiting for the gates to open and join the Lion’s revolt against the Griffonian government. But how? They were just souls without bodies. They should not exist anymore. Anyway, the Harpy waited for the last dozen cycles of creation, perfecting her plan, and in the present cycle, she would strike.

And in the middle of all that, Chrysalis had betrayed her and caused the Break of Dawn to be destroyed. Fortunately, it was unlikely the Harpy and Chrysalis were working together. One was too proud and the other too dense. Chrysalis probably meant to gain something for herself and inadvertently helped the Harpy.

Celestia’s muzzle turned into a delighted grin, though. Because Hairball did not expect Celestia to be prepared this time around. The Harpy almost won, but Celestia had reacted in time. The catbird became too cocky and Celestia now had the time to prepare and excise the evil of herself and her little murder kitties from the world. She would have to cleanse the Griffonian government. Celestia could not allow it to fall to the northerner griffons and the Harpy. And then eradicate the northern griffons from existence.

Triumphantly, Celestia stood and turned on her hooves to leave. She stopped and turned to the magical images floating above the circular table. They did as they should, showing what the ‘soul of the universe’ looked like, what it was doing, and helpfully waited for any commands. The princess approached the desk again and sat before the primary image. With her horn lighting up again, she entered another command and M.A.G.I.C. searched for the creature she had asked.

A red blip filled her eyes, hanging just below the moon, an instant before the rest of the information manifested as several magical windows. They showed the brown alicorn of an exuberant dark-chocolate mane and his easy, overconfident smile. All the images meant for bodily functions said ‘Decoupled’, but M.A.G.I.C. made all information about his soul available. Only one relevant red-flashing message appeared, and it said, ‘Ka violation – unknown variable’.

The princess tilted her head, eyes fixated on the red pony ideograms. It meant the connection to the Pool of Souls had a problem, but M.A.G.I.C. did not know what it was. Celestia did. They had created him using her as the model. Therefore, his soul lacked the ‘part’ which would allow him to finish the journey into the Pool of Souls. Measurements of mana levels showed diminished values, and little activity occurred. His soul had decayed from his exposure to the cosmic winds of the Aether and to nightmares, latching on to feed on his life force. It was also natural.

She smiled and her eyes watered. She had not simply dreamed it. It had not been a bizarre, dying hallucination of an alicorn brain. She had indeed talked to him when she first arrived at the doors to the bunker.

Her hoof reached for that little red blip in the magical window. He was so far out of her reach; it was folly to even entertain any silly notions of ever seeing him again. But at least he was not suffering.

That she could intentionally start the process of the Black Sun, restart creation again and see him in a distant future crossed her mind. But that was selfish, and that was not what he would have wanted her to do. In the next cycle, Celestia might also not have the chance to strike the Harpy in time.

Her smile turned into a sour frown, and she closed her eyes. Her throat ached. It was not fair. Star Swirl, all their friends. So many ponies, great and humble. So many lovers and consorts vanished in the winds of the Aether. Their souls laid to rest and made anew as all magic should. They became new beings, and all they were was destroyed. But the Harpy considered herself above that.

Was it to fix something that was broken? Was it justice or petty revenge Celestia wanted, staring at that red, blinking blip in the magical image? She wanted him back and could not have him. All of them, but they were beyond her reach. She had behaved while the Harpy violated the very laws of existence, clinging to her loved ones. Her son. The Lion. She had had her Emperor again.

‘My mother loves me! She will not allow me to wash away into nothingness! I am not livestock to be forgotten once their use is over.’ The loremaster’s dying words haunted the dark recesses of her thoughts and a frown creased her brow.

“I will bring Twilight and Cadance back, Chocolate. I will bring Luna back, and I will wrestle Griffonia from the Harpy and I will take the Gray Dames to Canterlot. We will recover the experimental weapons, and I will end her. I will destroy her hold on griffons, and I will avenge you. I will avenge us.”

Envy

“Envy implies conscious inferiority wherever it resides.”

Silence. It reigned over the barrage of hooffalls on stone and the eventual rushing of water merely whispered to her. Celestia’s march through the caves felt eerily familiar. She threaded the stone in the mines under Canterlot countless times
before it was closed, but that was not the reason her mind wandered. It had become a habit for her quickly sharpening mind to use the shroud of darkness to dust the aged memories of her old soul. She blamed her journey through the sewers, and would rather dream, but never resisted. The princess understood it instead: her brain was used to activity and the morose dark invited thoughts, and those carried memories. Especially the ones she should not remember anymore. Those that brought strange longings to her heart and clasped at her throat like Mother Harpy’s own talons.

Envy is a very mortal emotion. Gods are supposed to have everything, or at least, the means to satiate any flight of fancy or need they have. Therefore, Celestia never considered herself a god. There were many things she wanted outside of her reach. The most infuriating of all, she often failed to achieve her goals for the sake of others, and her own desires—sometimes needs—went neglected.

Celestia wanted a world free of pain and fear, but not a world without thrills, excitement, and uncertainty to spice the many years of a creature’s life. What she wanted was a world where creatures would be free not to suffer. A world where creatures would not hunger, for there would be no lack of food. An existence devoid of murder and violence, where beings could savor life to its deepest depths, without an abrupt end to their journey.

She saw a world where foals could run and play, and their parents needed not to worry about their safety or whether they would have food for dinner. A world that belonged to them, and all a pony would need was to enjoy their life. No pain or hunger. No fear or demands. A world full of cute doggies and kittens to run around and play with the foals. Of beautiful singing birds and wonderful vistas for all the creatures to discover and enjoy. A world where one could do what they
loved. Where they could find happiness without the need to struggle for survival. For if none struggled, they would not need to impose it upon others.

The Harpy laughed, and She was right. Celestia’s little ponies stood no chance against the monsters born of magic or the simple eventuality of accidents. They lacked common sense; they lacked fear, a teacher to keep them alive. It was horrible,
a massacre. It could not have ended too soon.

She tried again with her sister. Made smarter, her little ponies built shelters, but still they failed. They simply could not withstand eternity. Not only did biology find novel ways to fail and magic faded with time, but accidents happened despite
every caution. There was no foal-proofing the world. She could not make the rocks soft, and gravity could not be kinder. Bones would break, veins and arteries would tear. Muscles and tendons would rip and organs shatter. And sometimes, even the most perfect of machines would let imperfection slip through.

Not only were they not made for eternity, but they needed to replenish their numbers, or their fledgling society would not sustain itself. As the third goddess came into existence, she taught them love and how to bring forth new life. That ensured their numbers would grow without end, so the sisters designed them to expire. They traded immortality for reproduction, and the Harpy laughed again, and She was right again.

Celestia’s sister, in the Time Before Time, called it the ‘Mortality Anomaly’. It resulted from the combined effects of limited lifespan and resources. How could you convince a creature, driven by emotion, they would not lack when they saw both
their time and resources vanishing before their eyes? The Harpy laughed again as Celestia’s little ponies became selfish and drove themselves into conflict. The Windigos came to end it all. Once again, Celestia sat in the middle of the ruins of her sandcastle.

When creation started again, the arrival of the fourth goddess heralded the creation of the Elements of Harmony. She gifted them to the little ponies, and the Harpy did not laugh anymore. Their monumental project was complete. Celestia’s little
ponies were happy, and she was no longer necessary. None of them were necessary anymore, as no new cycles should begin.

But the Mortality Anomaly remained, for they were still mortal, and resources finite. It clashed with the Elements of Harmony—such was the price of free-will—and some of them could not resist. An ancient and powerful pact was broken. The Windigos returned like the wrath of a slighted god. But Celestia was there, and she understood. There was no god nor wrath. There was no slight, only unbalance, and Harmony yearning for it. Then came Discord, and all pretense of balance flew out the window.

Perhaps even the worst moment in Creation was Harmony’s way of seeking balance. Because then the Unforgotten Gods wandered the land of mortals again. But could you call such beings gods? With the capital G? Celestia did not know. Maybe that was the problem: the Harpy was a God, and Celestia was a humble gear in the wondrous Creation-Machine of Harmony. Perhaps you need a God to kill a God. That was the Harpy’s plan, after all. The point is, the Harpy did not laugh anymore. She tried to destroy it all.

One way or another, Celestia was good at being what Harmony needed her to be. And now, she was the Warrior Goddess of Everfree once more. The Matriarch of the Great Herd. The High Queen of Equestria, once again at the front of a host of warrior mares, not marching against the gates of a fortress, but reality was similar enough. They navigated the labyrinth of mirrors where Queen Chrysalis had once imprisoned Princess Cadance.

Her faithful battlehorns followed close. One did not fear the dark when the sun itself led the way. A million stars twinkled in the crystals hanging from the ceiling, and malformed mares in magical armor stared back at them. Their hooves filed through the same paths the miners had opened thousands of years ago when Canterlot was first built.

Their training kept their mouths shut and attentive eyes scanning the dark passages, avoiding the abandoned carts and broken railways. Except the mares at the front, the only ones who would dare walk by Celestia’s side. Legatus
Radiance Fellbane, speaking softly and keeping her eyes moving, and Domina Ferraria Hammer Fellbane with most of her face hidden under the red hood of her order. Her cloak showed a collar of golden tools at the tips of little articulated arms: from delicate magnifying glasses to small brushes and even a couple of precise drills and pincers. It all rested immobile, tiny arms folded on top of its base. An expensive yoke with utility tools rather than an implement for transferring force.

“Do you expect any hindrances?” Radiance asked while Hammer remained quiet, more interested in the crystals than in the conversation.

“In the absence of all four princesses, rulership should fall to the Archduke and a council of trustworthy ponies in association with the Hall of Friendship.” Celestia explained in a somber tone, keeping her eyes on the path, barely glancing at the branching passages. “Blueblood is too conscious of his incompetence to do anything while the Majesties and Representatives in the Hall are too quarrelsome to agree on doing anything. The government has basically stalled,
and that is what our enemy wanted.”

“We are infiltrating what sums up to be a ship without a captain whose sailors agreed to not do anything out of the ordinary,” the princess concluded, focusing on the path to follow.

“Not much has changed, then?” The warrior mare kept her serious tone, but smiled at Celestia. Even if the princess was not looking and she received no answer.

Celestia stopped when the narrow, winding corridor opened abruptly. Hooves silenced, and armor pieces stopped clinking. The magical chiming from her horn increased tenfold into the rushing roar of a hurricane, and the purest of lights dissolved the gloom to uncover a grand hall of unpolished, natural stone. Dark walls gleamed with minute streams of infiltrated water, but more with the different colors from the crystals. They sprouted from the stone, and even fogged by untold years of abandonment, they responded to her magic with a light of their own. Ancient stone tables still held chunks of glass and old tools, shining under all the colors in the rainbow.

The mares watched in silence, but their eyes sparkled, overflowing with wonder while they let their sisters spill into the gallery. Celestia directed her magic to the wall across the room. A stone door, not unlike the one which had sealed her
battlehorns in their dungeon, filled with golden light. The lines of the sculptured Sun and Moon of Equestria gleamed like the sun had turned liquid to fill its grooves like liquid gold. Stony doors creaked and parted to make way to a staircase made of marble and covered with a red carpet. White walls beyond held blue flags hanging from silver holders. Celestia’s light disclosed the steps going up to a right turn with enough space that twenty of them could pass shoulder to shoulder.

“A hidden magical passage under the palace. How… original,” Hammer proved neither the Battlehorn training nor old age could beat the sarcasm out of her.

Celestia raised an eyebrow at her comment but decided against replying. Hammer was right. Instead, the princess started towards the stair while Radiance turned to the centuriones, which hurriedly gathered as soon as she turned to them. With their strategy previously agreed upon and distributed to the others, all Radiance was doing was performing a formality. Meanwhile, Celestia climbed the stairs slowly until Radiance and their escort caught up. A group of the less armored scouts rushed past them and Celestia pretended not to have seen Farseer avoiding her stare.

At the top of the stairs, after a couple of U-turns, they arrived at another hall. Despite the same architecture from the inhabited areas of her palace, it was devoid of anything other than cobwebs, dust, a couple of old oak barrels and magical
light fixtures. A normal sized door, and a modern one too, painted with white, closed a passage. It did not have a knob, or a keyhole, at least not in the common sense: Celestia knew the spell which would open the door and cast it immediately upon approaching. A chiming sound and a clicking lock confirmed it opened for her and revealed a wall of clear barrels.

“Hurry along.” Celestia hushed as Farseer’s mares hurried through the door and immediately began moving sloshing barrels out of the way for her to pass. “Our mission is simple, but we must finish it. Do not tarry, for the night will end too soon.”

The barrels hid the door from servants fetching wine in the cellar and contained nothing but water and provided no challenge to the battlehorns. The rounded ceiling and pillars of polished stone seemed ancient compared to the modern aesthetic of the palace above, but Celestia quite liked the olden appearance of the hall. She was told by engineers and masons of the time of its building it would better keep constant the humidity and temperature for storing wine.

The hidden door was more like an accident because somepony had dug deeper than they should have. But it served as a secret entrance.

“Fortunately,” she told the others, stepping into the cellar as Farseer’s scouts moved the barrels out of the way, “there should be nopony in here at such a late hour.”

Celestia stopped just as she walked in between the barrels. Barrels without number, open space, and pillars greeted her, along with a group of surprised ponies. A yellow unicorn stallion stopped in the middle of rolling a barrel of wine with his legs draped over the round wooden container. He stared at her through his navy mane with the same eyes of a deer surprised by a hunting griffon. A mare, creamy and white with violet roses on her bonnet, stopped in her tracks while floating a barrel in the air and into the cart. The third unicorn had just pushed another barrel into place on top of their cart and hid behind it.

The fourth jumped in the air and screamed when he saw the white alicorn.

Celestia knew all of them, as they often took part in the court proceedings. The very rich magnate of luxury pastries, Viscount Rollin’ Dough and his wife, Viscountess Éclair. The third was the very rich banker, Moneybags. And the fourth was
Celestia’s own adopted nephew.

“Are you stealing from my cellar?” She yelled at the scared pony before turning his associates, more surprised, outraged, than angry. “And you are all helping him? What travesty. I never… How… I cannot believe this!”

“It is not what it looks like!” the pony in the cart squealed. He was still wearing his black court dress and wig over his honey mane.

“In what context is raiding my cellar acceptable?!” the outraged princess asked, while Radiance and Domina Hammer walked past her to flank the invading ponies and block the stairs up. Meanwhile, the warrior mares in armor filled out of the door, curious and amused. Celestia could only imagine the effect of seeing the formidable mares in armor and cloaks had on them, but it was entirely deserved.

“He told us you were dead!” the mare’s hoof shot at Blueblood, and he squealed again.

“Not at all like that!” he promptly defended himself.

“What was I supposed to do?!” Blueblood whined, turning back to Celestia. “All this perfectly fine Sang’real was gonna go bad!”

“Restrain these thieves!” Celestia barked while pointing a hoof at the back of the cellar.

“An inauspicious start to our mission…” Hammer complained.

“It will be fine,” Celestia assuaged her while their warriors herded the four ponies into a corner and promptly magicked bonds and gags. “Leave two mares to take care of them. We’ll lock the access from the palace and once we are done, I’ll figure out what to do with them.”

“I suppose a time under the Royal Guard’s hospitality will do them some good,” the princess said as she glared at her nephew squirming against the magical chains of magical light. “Things are going to change around here when this mess is over.”

The noble ponies’ complaints went ignored, while Celestia led her soldiers up the stairs out of the cellar. The door was open, as though Blueblood and his harebrained friends expected the palace’s guards would not bother them.

In fact, Bluelood certainly had strong-hoofed them out of the wing, or even the entire palace, to cover for his little heist. After checking the empty corridor, Celestia turned to the higher ranked mares with her and grinned. “This works! Radiance, have our mares secure the palace. Tell any maids or housekeepers that you are here with me, and they should not create any difficulties. They would probably be in their quarters if my nephew kindly removed the guards for us.”

Rather than simply keeping her mouth shut and obeying like Radiance did, Hammer raised her mechanical leg. “Nephew? You have a Blueblood nephew? Of all the noble houses from our time, the hoofing Bluebloods survived?”

Behind them, Radiance dutifully relayed Celestia’s orders, but the Princess’ smile scrunched into a frown and a grimace. “It’s complicated. They are not like they used to be.”

“We just caught him trying to loot your cellar after telling his accomplices you had died,” Hammer deadpanned at Celestia. “Complicated does not seem to do the situation justice, and I do not know what part of that amuses me more.”

“We’ll deal with that when we must.” Celestia offered her an appeasing hoof and serene lidded eyes. “For now, we must focus on reaching the archives and finding the prototypes.”

“You changed a lot, Celestia.”

“And for the better,” the Princess fixed a stare on the mare under the red cloak. “Otherwise, you would not still be talking to me like that.”

“Point taken.” The hooded mare let a frown creep into her muzzle, peeking out from under her hood.

Satisfied, Celestia led her, Radiance, and their escort of twelve armored mares through the corridors. The others would spread around the palace and ensure nothing surprised them. During the night, public areas of the palace remained uninhabited save for guards or housekeeping staff, both of which Blueblood seemed to have gotten rid of for them. Their steps echoed in the labyrinthian corridors, quickly past the closed doors of offices, meeting rooms, storage, the substrate for the machinery of the government.

Were Shining Armor on duty, Blueblood’s trick would have backfired so spectacularly they would have awakened Celestia and Luna just to watch. And speaking of Luna, that would have been a spectacle on its own. To the point Celestia doubted they would have attempted their little stunt if she was around. Her mood soured at such a tiny, yet powerful thought. Hammer was right: Celestia had changed. But she had changed for the better, right?

The princess rolled her eyes at her own thoughts. Although, even if her self-pity was misplaced, it was not necessarily unjustified: ponies knew not to test Luna’s patience. Unlike Celestia, whose patience was often misread. Instead of kindness, they saw leniency in her, didn’t they? With a huff, Celestia almost laughed at the idea of the northerner griffons tempting the Harpy so. She didn’t even know what the Harpy would do if someone tried to steal wine from
her.

By the time they reached the long and wide corridor connecting to the Royal Guard headquarters, she had already tired of her self-pity and envious thoughts. Right on time. The pair of pegasus ponies on guard gasped and flared their wings at the sight of her. Protocol spoke louder than shock, as the golden armor wearing pair bowed respectfully and then stood, waiting for her commands.

“Good evening, my little ponies,” she told them. “I am sure there are multiple questions in your heads, but I must talk with the commanding officer.”

Fortunately, they understood she was in a hurry and the one on the right rushed through the door while the other stayed, looking up at her and the mares with her. “We were… all of us were worried to death, Princess. What in Tartarus is going on? Who are they?”

“The situation proved to be more complicated than I had assumed when I left for Hippogriffia.” She gestured to them. “These are Radiance Fellbane and Hammer Fellbane. We have to deal with a new enemy, and we may need an unorthodox approach to solve this situation. I suppose they are the unorthodox approach.”

“When is it ever not?” The guard deadpanned inside his golden helmet.

The other guard returned with a third pony in armor. A frail unicorn, yellow with a pretty caramel mane. Celestia was used to seeing him busy with coordination and control rather than command. She raised an eyebrow before she remembered Blueblood and his heist.

She sighed. “You are relieved from your post, Aether Quill. Where is Crucible Wings?”

“Thank you, princess.” The unicorn said with a sizable dose of relief before regaining his composure and showing the confidence Celestia knew him for. “He traveled to Whinnyapolis to address new recruits over the recent rumors. We’ll summon him back immediately. He left orders for that and has a team of unicorns standing by.”

Celestia nodded. “Meanwhile, summon all available guards and reserves. Do so with as little fuss as possible. Put all headquarters on alert and inform all local militias to halt all unrelated operations and wait for further orders. Nopony needs to know what is going on yet, just that I need them to be ready. What is the situation in Griffonstone?”

“We passed law and order back to the local militia once we had the situation under control. Crucible’s orders were to wait for your return,” little Aether told her. “Things got bad there, though. We thought that the Lion’s sympathizers had all left, but the military installed martial law. Observers are reporting a heavy presence of northerner agents within the military and some ghastly persecution of hippogriffs and certain griffons. Lord Protector Gilmara is helping them, even though nocreature is sure what is going on. Nopony wants to find out, either.”

According to her little pony, in the ensuing chaos, the northerners came up on top. Celestia scrunched up a grimace and raised a hoof. “Two more things. I need access to the armory in the Archive, and to the griffon prisoner from the Lord Protector’s escape attempt.”

“Already at Shatteredrock, Princess.” The unicorn told her before Domina Hammer interrupted.

“There is an armory inside an archive?”

The pony shrugged. “It is where we stash everything that is important, ma’am. All that needs to be kept out of the wrong hooves. Like prototype manaflow weapons.”

Celestia smiled at his perspicacity. “Precisely.”

“Well, the guards along the way ought not to bother you of all ponies, and your highness can open all the locks,” he spelled out the obvious with a shrug. “Things kinda ground to a halt everywhere. The Hall of Friendship is not even meeting anymore.”

‘Typical,’ Celestia thought. She had become the government. The Mare. Without her everycreature with a smidgeon of power just turned to their own interests and the truly altruistic creatures saw themselves left without leverage. It was almost like the old times already. The alicorn didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Aether Quill’s eyes bulged, and his muzzle scrunched in a grimace. There was something else he wanted to say, but an arriving pair of guards brought a pony under custody. A unicorn, wearing a fancy cyan suit to go with his gray pelt and white mane, including a blue top hat. His nose was so high in the air, Celestia remembered an old joke among the servants. That the maids must keep the carpets straight and clean all the time or the nobles would trip on them.

“Your highness, thank Harmony, you’re back.” The officer said as soon as her eyes were on them. “We caught this one doing mischief.”

“Thank Harmony, indeed! I will say, this is outrageous!” the overly pampered up unicorn stallion complained. “Can a pony not wait for his friends by the palace gates anymore? Just as soon as your highness was gone, these thugs took advantage of every privilege they could afford. The gates used to be a popular meeting place, for pony’s sake!”

“Aye,” said the earth pony guard, unimpressed. “Waiting for your friends while they were raiding the palace’s cellar.”

Any complaints never left the pony’s lips as Celestia raised her hoof. “Radiance, have our mares escort him to the cellar and keep him with Blueblood and the others. I don’t want them talking too soon.”

Further complaints from the pony never manifested. Something about the irregularity of the situation. At a nod from their Matriarch, horns shone, and the pony found himself with his mouth shut by magical bindings. He offered no resistance when a pair of armored, alicorn-sized mares herded him along the way.

“If I ever have to suck up to another noble because your highness vanished again, I swear I’m going to resign,” the pony said nonchalantly, and Celestia simply acknowledged his complaint. It was valid, after all.

Her attention turned to the large mares following her. “The Royal Guard will take care of things around the palace. Come.”

She could trust her ponies to take care of things now that they knew she would have their backs and swiftly made her way to the Archives. The more she dallied, the higher the chance news of her return would make it all the way to Snow Mountains. She wanted to talk to the northerner agent, but the unicorn efficiency proved too good for once. What was his name? Grufnor? Getting him out would require a lot of red tape or the use of executive powers, both of which would draw too much attention. That would have to wait. At least until she had her Battlehorns fighting their way up north to Griffindell and surprise was no longer a factor.

The mares made their way to the Archives, leaving the main building through a service door. Celestia led them to the entrance under guard by two of Luna’s loyal thestral Royal Guards. They bowed to Celestia and saluted the Battlehorns, much as they would salute one of their own. It was amusing to see, not only because they had assumed they should, but also because the mares had no idea how to respond. The awkwardness washed away in the common ground that everypony was bound to serve the princess, anyway. The two thestrals offered no resistance when the twenty-odd of them followed The Mare inside.

A small corridor allowed Celestia’s battlehorns to line up while she worked the spell that unlocked the inner door. It took her only a dozen seconds. Past the doors, magical lights lit a hall with a giant hourglass and radial bookshelves. Nothing too extraordinary, mere books and scrolls; not necessarily dangerous, as it was the knowledge which they held she wanted to safeguard.

Past the bookcases, hidden behind more bookcases, and under a soft illusion spell, was a staircase. The hoard of books wrapped around the underground hall, taking a visitor upstairs to where more books, scrolls, and a selection of mildly powerful artifacts waited. But those were not the ones Celestia wanted. She guided the battlehorns down the hidden stairs, skillfully navigating past a powerful space-folding spell which concealed them from anyone unaware of their location, even if they had seen past the defensive illusion.

“Clever,” Hammer commented casually from under her red hood.

“Luna made it.” Celestia acknowledged her words absentmindedly. “She was always much better than I am at spacetime manipulation.”

A mere flight of stairs took them to the lower floor under the hall. A single bookshelf with a thousand niches covered the walls in a round room. Three doors opened outward into a surrounding corridor. A blue and white carpet covered the cold floor with a star and swirls of magic while a candelabra of ancient magical lights provided enough light, but just barely. The myriad objects exposed in the niches flooded the room with sufficient magical energies as to make it slightly warm, with bouts of cold from evil magic in between.

“There are several rooms surrounding this hall. Find the weapons; you will know when you do.” Celestia ordered the mares as she occupied herself with the wards over the stored objects. Her horn shone as she directed her magic to examine the powerful spells protecting them.

Once satisfied, she started looking for a certain report that, hopefully, ought to have made its way to the Archives. Only Radiance stayed with her, patiently waiting for any command or request that never came. Even Hammer had left, curious about the weapons they were meant to retrieve. Staying behind with Celestia, Radiance kept staring at the alicorn and her radiant armor of sunlight.

“Is anything the matter?” the white alicorn asked while her horn gleamed at the objects on the shelves and her eyes bounced in between them.

Celestia knew ponies, and they were particularly good empaths. Even battlehorns. While she supposed Radiance saw that she was not ‘fine’, decorum would not allow her to voice her concerns within earshot of their subordinates. The princess was fine with that: her worries were her own to mind and she was satisfied that Radiance replied negatively.

Finally, she found what she was looking for. Not a vanilla folder or a neatly rolled up scroll, it was a small book with a dozen pages and cured leather covers. Deep scorched letters punched into the leather told the title.

ON THE POLITICAL SITUATION OF SNOW MOUNTAINS HOLD, GRIFFONIA

BY HER ROYAL HIGHNESS’ JUSTICIAR, MALLET GAVEL

Sparing not a second, Celestia yanked the booklet from the shelves and opened it. Her eyes scanned through the lines with the agility of millennia spent thoroughly reading official documents from the plainest reports to the most hermeneutical and arcane legalese. Miss Mallet’s report was not only concise and precise, but it thoroughly unfurled all the chicanery that was involved.

The Blackfeather Division—the griffonian military’s intelligence branch—had been spying on the northerner griffons with little success for years. Long enough that they must have smelled the rot almost as soon as Lady Gwendolen married Lord Gilad. To Celestia’s surprise, there was a classified operation where they hired a mercenary to find out what was going on with the iron that stopped reaching the south. That mercenary was the griffon veteran from the Second Griffon War known as Flying Snake, who was Celestia’s friend. The same that got himself involved in the situation between Celestia and the younger princesses. And that likely had absconded with the griffon’s airship teleporting device and enabled Twilight and Cadance to escape from the Break of Dawn.

During his mission, Mister Flying Snake infiltrated a northerner military base. It routed the ‘disappeared’ iron to the dockyards responsible for building the previously unknown northerner flying dreadnoughts. An added layer of absurdity was that Celestia only heard of such airships when one of them showed up trying to abscond away with Twilight and her friends from under Celestia’s hooves. In said base, he happened upon a changeling agent on a similar mission who shared information.

After their initial report, the Blackfeather lost contact with Mister Snake. Later, they realized he had betrayed them, working for the Lion after the northerners. They never knew what happened. Suddenly, his appearance at Ponyville did not seem so fortuitous, much less random to Celestia. In retrospect, she should not have trusted him. But she kept reading to find out that the changelings also failed their mission. The northerners captured them at Griffindell and only one escaped with his life.

The Blackfeathers quickly found the changeling and stashed him in a secure home at Beachhome after debriefing. Mallet visited the changeling and what he told her allowed Miss Mallet to draw some connections. He told her the same he had told the griffons. That the iron was being used for their super ships and that Mister Snake had betrayed them, albeit with good reason. He also talked about the airships and that they were supposed to be used by the Lion if Chancellor Gail offered resistance when the Hall of Friendship gave him the Throne of the Griffon King.

Not even at her most naïve, Celestia believed Gail would just let go; she simply did not believe the northerners would be ready for war all by themselves. Since the beginning, the plan was to go to war and those twin dreadnought battleships were much more than needed to guarantee the throne. With all the xenophobic rhetoric against the hippogriffs, their following move was obvious.

Celestia’s eyes rose from the paper. The most important thing was that it was damning evidence that the Lord Gilad and his catbird goddess wife were up to no good and now Celestia could drop the hammer on that whole mess. But there was more, and it made her smile.

The Blackfeathers had made connections between the vulgar griffon lady that attacked the hospital and Lady Gwendolen and how it all had the Lion’s blessings. If those idiotic, paranoid griffons in the Griffonian government had presented her with that information, all that mess could have been avoided. On a happier note, every word in that document felt like a sharpening stroke in Celestia’s shearing blade she could now take to the murderous catbirds without even needing to exceed her authority. Bless Miss Mallet. She had just delivered Celestia the means to deal with the griffons.

Right on cue, one of the Magi mares under Hammer walked from one of the corridors, and as protocol demanded, she bowed to Celestia before addressing Radiance. Even if Celestia was just there to listen and all Radiance did was look at Celestia for her reaction. Silly, but ponies were silly. Even battlehorns.

According to her, they had found the weapons, and Domina Hammer was waiting for her because they decided against forcing the secure chests open. As Celestia walked over, another battlehorn excused herself to discuss something else with Radiance, and the princess ignored them, knowing that the matriarch would address her if necessary. She simply followed the mare in the red robe into one of the connected rooms. A variety of griffon-made firearms sat on display on a table and further inside were large chests covered with white linen and gold and along with the idling waiting Magi.

Hammer had busied herself taking apart one of the griffon ‘machineguns’ and ignored the emptied water tank and hose that connected to it. “This one is intact… The specimen we recovered from the battlefield at the crash site had suffered too much damage.”

Celestia walked closer while the mare extracted the weapon’s main body and barrel from inside the carcass around its barrel and looked up at her, terribly disappointed. “There is not a gram of Astrani steel in this thing.”

“This monstrosity is a tool for killing as quickly as possible rather than something their prouder warriors would use. It is easier to train a bird-brained cat to use one of these things than fight, as their proudest warriors once did. I doubt their more talented warriors would touch a weapon of such lesser quality.” To be fair, Celestia doubted the Harpy had any love for those weapons either.

“Well, quality is not exactly the word. This is quality metal. It just doesn’t like magic very much. There seems to be friction between the projectile and the… rod,” Hammer explained and misnamed the barrel. “It probably heats exceedingly, and the water is a clever cooling system. They probably mix it with something in the colder places. We are talking of heat that is not usual without magic. This thing amuses me as much as it disgusts me, too. Killing should never be as casual. Regardless, we have recovered at least one firearm from the crash site, which probably belonged to one of their elite soldiers, too.”

“The Sky Sentries.”

“It was still mundane steel, but of much better make. We will be at a disadvantage if they can field too many of these, or those quality firearms. The tests we did showed grim results. We simply cannot replenish our mares fast enough to keep up in a potential conflict of attrition, much less repair our Leafplate armor sets, lacking materials from our time,” Hammer said categorically. “But you know this, and that is why we are here.”

Celestia nodded and, once her horn gleamed with its golden magical aura, the lock on the nearest chest clicked. Two mares in red robes stepped back as light radiated from inside, almost comically painting their shadows in the now pink walls. Inside, cork separators neatly organized the magical weapon prototypes. The very same ones Celestia had once ordered stashed on her command ship, completely undisturbed despite everything that had gone wrong.

In its most basic shape and as far as the basic functions of a firearm defined such a thing, they were magical firearms, without a doubt. A gun that transcended the boundaries of the mundane, imbued with the very essence that made the universe. Its magical scope, shaped with floating gold, crystal, and magical energies, manifested once touched by a unicorn’s telekinesis. A long frame, a work of art made of the purest gold, held a pink crystal, twisted by magic to resemble a unicorn’s horn at its tip. Several small dials and needle meters broke the sleek and elongated shape. The weapon resembled, most of all, a pony-made musket with a lever instead of the griffon-preferred trigger.

A selection of gold and crystal cylinders, stacked inside the chest and responsible for the glow, would fit a well on the side of the weapon to serve as its living heart. It was, for all effects, a small mana battery, much like the ones in an airship. How did all of it work? Celestia barely knew the basics, but it was an application of the same arcane technologies of magical induction engines. Layers of complex spells and mechanical components, all working to transfer bare magical energy.

Very few things in existence could amaze an old Magus such as Domina Hammer, but she smiled like a filly with a new toy, levitating the weapon above her eyes and drawing the others to look at it. Every piece and part covered with a spell matrix of multiple layers, interconnected magic ready to spring into action much like the chemical energy in the powder, except pulsating with power, like an artificial living being with a soul of its own.

More important than how it all worked was what would come out of her battlehorns’ heads once they examined those. Celestia allowed the old mare all the time she needed to soak in what she was seeing. If only Celestia could read minds. What would she see? An old mare amazed by the advances beyond her time, or an envious filly looking at the new toys she could never have in her youth? She was not a filly with a new toy; she was an old researcher and engineer of means to put down the enemies of Harmony seeing the new paradigms from millennia of advances in the magical sciences. The shine in the old mare’s eyes was that of her brilliant mind, already concocting all she could with her new tools.

It ripped open a hole in Celestia’s stomach. Like in the story Chocolate Velvet had told her, from his old world, of when the king of the gods gave the woman a box. Radiance entered the room and interrupted Celestia before any further thoughts of repentance manifested. The look on her face was even worse.

“You must come see this, Celestia. Now.”

Celestia turned after one last stare at the old mare and the giant grin on her usually stern complexion. Telekinetic magic had moved a monocle with a crystal filter before her eyes to examine the weapon and she mumbled excited words while examining the fascinating weapon.

The die was cast. A quick trot carried the alicorn along with Radiance’s hurried pace to another corridor. As she passed the threshold into the room, the warmth of the spells hanging in the air enveloped her. No more than the presence of the spells gave her warmth; the sight tore her heart into pieces. A single table occupied the center of the room, flanked by six tall golden candlesticks. Each held a single candle, casting a lugubrious light over a casket on the table. It cradled a large body that remained unmoving under a sheet of pristine white silk and a flag with the phoenix, sun, and moon of the Royal House.

Her mind ground to a halt and her hooves carried her closer, whether she wanted it or not.

The sight was missing the horrifying shock value of the soaked, bloody, and scorched library. Most of all, the grievous wound in his chest. Under the veil, the spells that kept his body from rotting and degrading also kept his face from showing the ghastly grimace of the dead. The brown alicorn seemed to sleep peacefully, and his coat lost little of its living vigor. Celestia sat next to the casket, letting her telekinetic magic hold the veil lifted. If not for her memory of his grievous wound and the efforts to keep it hidden, she could even believe he was still alive.

“Chocolate Velvet…” the words squeezed through the clenching muscles in her throat, and she closed her eyes against the stinging tears.

Another life that did not deserve it ended before its time. Another body to bury, another painful goodbye. Bless her Royal Guards: they wanted to give him a proper burial and would not have left him abandoned in a decrepit library, soaked in
blood and rainwater. In the griffon’s talons. Harmony knew what the northerners would have done. Probably parade him around the hold for the Harpy and her lapdog to gloat.

To think that Celestia once thought of Lord Gilad as a noble warrior of the forgotten old times. An honorable leader the like of which did not exist in the present times. A frown crept over her brow. How naïve she had been.

Trampling hooves echoed from the hall outside the door. A pony called her name and skidded to a stop by the door, where Radiance still watched over Celestia with a pair of silent battlehorn mares. Crucible Wings stood there, missing his golden armor, with his white pegasus wings flared open and a conflicted expression that tried to hold joy, worry, and grief all at the same time.

“Your highness…” the white pegasus whispered. Her ‘sergeant’, the lieutenant, just under Shining Armor, who helped her in all matters of her personal guard. An old friend she had abandoned in the den of catbirds. He approached and allowed her to hold him in a tight hug, not caring she wore a magical armor of magical sunlight that grated against him like metal.

He reached around her best as he could and neither let go for half of a minute before she found the words to tell him. “I’m sorry I left you in Griffonstone, Crucible.”

He looked up at her. “It doesn’t matter. I’m more worried about you!”

“It was taxing, to say the least,” Celestia sighed before she waved at Radiance. “This is Radiance Fellbane. She is… I activated an ancient contingency, and they will help us deal with the griffons.”

“It’s a mess, princess. Creatures are mostly paralyzed, and some have started preparations for an event of apocalyptic proportions. It’s mostly under control as I have, at least, got the Majesties in the Hall to calm their peoples down, but… Well,
Queen Novo has commissioned an increase of hippogriffian military fleet and conversion of civilian vessels. Things that are not likely to be of much help, but she is doing it, anyway.” He paused for a second with a pained stare. “I’m not sure it is helping the populace calm down or just making it worse.”

“We will fix everything, Crucible,” she told him softly, but his eyes followed hers to the casket on the table.

“We brought him here for a decent funeral, princess. I was not about to leave one of us behind for the griffons to do whatever they wanted with him.” He muttered. “He deserved a better burial, more than a footnote on the present situation. And I just didn’t want to do anything without your highness and Princess Luna. Wherever she is.”

Celestia nodded at his words. When her eyes again fixated on Chocolate Velvet’s peaceful expression, she could not help but think of the loremaster she killed. She was only one of the numberless griffons which died recently, not unlike many ponies who Celestia knew and would never see again. Her lover, her knight, her consort included. All that amid dreary thoughts of the betrayal she had suffered. Her closest friends distanced themselves from her, and political allies to whom she had lent her gravitas betrayed her.

Luna was unreachable, doing Harmony knew what, deep inside the Harpy’s territory. At best, the northerners had somehow captured her. At worst, she had betrayed Celestia. No, no. Luna would not. But then, why couldn’t Celestia reach her? Why did she not try to reach back? What of Twilight and Cadance who had spited her ageless wisdom in pursuit of a problematic quest? They reached the extreme of consorting with the Harpy’s agents.

And the worst of all, all those deaths weighted on Celestia’s shoulders. Not because she was to blame for them, but because they haunted her. All the creatures she had lost and would still lose to such a petty and stupid conflict. It amounted to no more than the Harpy’s inability to understand she had lost. Despite that, Celestia was the one who would never see those creatures again, while the Harpy’s friends all returned to her like she was allowed to cheat death on their behalf. It should not be possible. Why must Celestia endure the gaping wounds they left, and that odious monster did not? The Harpy had her son and her husband by her side; Celestia had mourning and sorrow.

A frown, again, took over Celestia’s brow; an idea seated at her sorrowful thoughts like a fly on festering meat. The seeds of a weed took root in the fertile grounds of her imagination. Her idea bordered on necromancy, and it struck her gut as an abuse of her privileged position. And yet, the excuses quickly came to the rescue of her crumbling convictions: had she not suffered enough? Celestia had, after all, earned her position through sweat and blood, but also through entire generations’ worth of a lifetime.

The decision of which exceptions to allow was in her hooves, especially when she fought such an unorthodox enemy. Celestia would need a captain, a general. Someone she could trust implicitly, and who would not trot after Cadance’s tail. It was, after all, high time Celestia remembered who her potential enemies were, and what they were capable of.

“Radiance,” she said somberly, “have Domina Hammer and her Magi move Chocolate Velvet to the bunker and prepare all the life-saving magical implants we have. Send a message to Panacea to prepare the surgery room. Coordinate with Crucible Wings to organize our efforts across the world. I must see someone, and you have a day to prepare his body for a most intensive magical and medical procedure. Crucible, keep our forces waiting in the meantime, but tell our assets inside Griffonia and neighboring lands to prepare for war.”

Queen and Princess

“Power corrupts; absolute power is divine.”

With the mission in Canterlot a success, and as her warrior mares prepared to return to the bunker, Celestia trusted Crucible Wings with instructions on dealing with the nobility and the Hall of Friendship.

“Spread the news to all garrisons, along with my orders. Keep your heads down, remain focused on your daily duties, and be ready for when I summon you. Let the Hall of Friendship address the lack of leadership. The more the enemy believes we are uncoordinated, the better.” She instructed, and the pony listened, focused eyes on hers. Crucible and the officer corps of the Royal Guards, intelligent ponies well equipped to execute her orders until she was ready to move against the Harpy.

Her battlehorns used a casket meant for transporting their fallen sisters back to camp after a battle. Although the fit was tight, it securely housed Chocolate Velvet, preserved by potent spells. It was about time to replace the original ones, anyway. Celestia could see the sadness in their eyes—they didn’t fully comprehend her loss, but mourning a brother in arms was something they inherently understood.

Once inside the bunker, they placed the casket in the center of an empty hall intended for future expansion—a safety measure. Come any eventuality that required Celestia to awaken them, they might need resources unknown at the time of building. The expansive hall was adorned with arching pillars and a spacious open area. It stood a testament to Star Swirl’s meticulous planning. Once again, his foresight had served Celestia well.

It filled Celestia with a reassuring sense that his foresight continued to support her, but her mood was not one for reminiscing about the past. The casket, crafted from noble evergleam oak—silver-streaked gray with a subtle blue gleam—felt incomplete. It lacked the Royal House banner that was the occupant’s right. Uncertain of the proper protocol, the battlehorns had left his face uncovered. It showed little of the damage the lighting spell caused on him.

Celestia stared intently at the stallion’s lifeless form. She couldn’t tell how long she had been there. His expressionless, unmoving face seemed to mock her persistent hope of witnessing one of his smiles again. To hear him say something silly. Her ears pulled back, and her eyes stung with unshed tears. Bitterness coiled around that hope with the thought that Harmony’s miracles were not meant for her, even if she often gave them to others.

The others sat ‘at the minimum safe distance,’ Chocolate Velvet would have said, half-seriously, half-humorously. Two battlehorns in full armor and battle gear guarded the door for no other reason than that it was customary to stand watch over their fallen sisters. They had no protocol for the situation, but they all wanted to do something. Another reason was that so many of the critical mares of the Legion were there. Celestia was there because she didn’t want to leave him alone again. Radiance, with the quintessential light gray coat and purple mane of the Gray Dames, was there because Celestia was there. Both were natural leaders, always at the forefront of significant events. The mare seemed to best understand Celestia’s pain and stood a silent watch both over the stallion and Celestia.

Medica Panacea resembled a younger version of the Matriarch Legatus, lacking her faint battle scars and a touch less physically imposing. She, too, maintained a silent vigil over the stallion. And Domina Hammer, draped in her gold-hemmed red cloak, meticulously examined him. Her golden yoke and its delicate arms held one of the crystal filters between the stallion and her scrutinizing eyes.

“I am unsure of what you expect me to do, Celestia.” The Domina said while a telekinetic spell folded the delicate golden arm back into place with the many other tools. Her blunt practicality and honesty reminded Celestia of her own uncertainty. “As much as I am sure our life-saving magical implants would work on him as they do on the battlehorns…”

She hesitated, revealing a glimpse of empathy she typically concealed. Her artificial leg shifted as she sought the right words. “The wounds caused by the griffon spell are too grievous. His heart was destroyed, and the surrounding tissue was seared. Damage extended all the way to his hind legs. I do not know if we could save him, even if he had not yet expired.”

Much more empathetically, Panacea merely repeated the same with different words. “There is no usable magic in his flesh anymore. And no savable flesh either. It is inert matter. As soon as the preservation spells are lifted, decomposition will set in again.”

Hammer nodded respectfully, but as dry as ever. “Were it otherwise, we could employ our resources. An artifact might sustain him. Given his rank and importance, we could attempt to give him a magical heart, but it is too late, and our craft is insufficient—especially in our diminished state. His alicorn physiology might allow him to endure longer than our sisters, but only under ideal conditions, which are far past due.”

Panacea nodded in agreement with Hammer’s assessment. Celestia kept her gaze fixed on Chocolate Velvet. She could hear their voices. Her rational mind acknowledged their words, yet her heart stubbornly clung to hope. “If his body can be mended sufficiently, and his soul brought back, they might couple again. Animate him enough that we can heal his wounds and make him capable of sustaining his life again…”

Matriarch Legatus Radiance interjected in an imperial voice and reproachful tone, resonating through the empty chamber. Her stern gaze softened slightly as she addressed Celestia. “What you suggest is not only necromancy—and a crime by your own laws—it is madness. Impossible. He is gone, your majesty.”

Celestia listened. Ironically, she knew all the processes of the brain that presented the obvious conclusion to her, as well as she knew the ones that rejected it. And was still helplessly at their mercy. Domina Hammer further reinforced the point. “I have barely begun examining the recovered weapons, and I am thoroughly impressed with the advances in the magical sciences. But magic still cannot do the impossible.”

Celestia’s voice trembled. “His soul differs from that of most ponies. It cannot enter the Pool of Souls and will remain at the mercy of the winds of the Aether and Nightmares. He will fade away if I don’t rescue him, but he is still there.”

Panacea stepped back, shaking her head, and spoke with a voice tinged by a quiet dread. “Even if Hammer could conjure up an artifact capable of replacing his heart, and we could restructure his chest, the intimacies of the flesh are lost. The damage is far deeper—coagulated blood, necrosis, and degraded structures. Even with potent healing magic, even if you could reunite his body and soul, you would condemn him to an unlife of horror.”

The three mares regarded her, not with anger or judgment but sympathy. Radiance, of the three, better understood; her ears drooped, and her voice came out softly. “Celestia…”

The princess’ face had hardened, stripped of the usual calm serenity. “I have served Harmony for millennia. This time, Harmony will heed me. If the Harpy can afford to break the rules of the Cosmos—stowing away the souls of her wretched catbirds—then I will reclaim my Prince-Consort. It is my privilege as the Firstborn of Harmony.”

Hammer raised an eyebrow, her voice tinged with amusement and challenge. “I thought our mission was to stop the Harpy and save Equestria from a cataclysmic demise.”

Celestia lifted her eyes from the casket and met the unicorn mare’s pursed lips. Not a hint of yielding in her eyes or convincing in the other’s. “It is. I need him for that as much as I need you and your obedience.”

Still delightfully defiant and rational, the red-cloaked mare sat on her haunches and crossed her remaining foreleg with her crude, mechanical one. “Unless you possess a miracle worker and a reality-defying laboratory, my obedience is as useless as hopes and dreams.”

Maybe it was that hope had finally drowned the realist practicality screaming ‘impossible’ at her, but Celestia found the mare’s disagreement refreshing. A ghost of a smile danced on her lips. “But I do. Ready all available mares. We will teleport to the Chittering Bog within the hour.”

***

Logistics was a constant theme in every war and warfare treatise. And in crossing terrains, all authors, Celestia included, agreed: hooves were meant for solid ground. They were poor limbs for traversing swamps—a miserable combination of rotten smells, decaying trees, and creeping vines. A difficult terrain that sapped the morale of soldiers, and even the most motivated and well-trained would eventually succumb to the lugubrious filth. But a swamp was more than just filth; it teemed with life that thrived on decomposition. That turned rot into new life. It was Life—as beautiful and vital as all Life under the mighty sun—but unappetizing to the aesthetically minded mares of war and pretty pony princesses. Ponies, being eclectic creatures, found the vibrant yet smelly flora more appealing to flies than themselves, unnerved by the sight of insects bathed in digestive juices.

Celestia was glad she could not see the water in the gloom. It shouldn’t ever be so sludgy as it seemed against her legs. The vegetation poking out of the water grazed her legs too, but their network of roots provided some leverage in the muck. Luna’s light in the clear sky provided enough light for her to maintain direction, but harmless animals and pretty flowers turned into specters in the shade. Celestia silently counted her small blessings in that infernal quagmire.

“Explain to me again how it was that the Changelings invaded Canterlot and Chrysalis ruled it for five minutes?” the red-robed Domina Hammer demanded. The swamp murk probably clung to her fancy robes, but she didn’t seem to mind. Her glare bore into Celestia like she meant to see through a lie. “And how come they now have a king… and also, why is Chrysalis still alive?”

The leadership of the Fellbane legion marched flanking Celestia. Behind them, a thousand couples of pale purple eyes followed. Trusting the mares in charge of their lives even if they were winging it and bickering like a group of old mares throwing petty complaints in a cafe while negotiating the terrain. Aside from the sloshing of their march, the occasional croak of a frog broke the silence, as the mares spoke in a hushed tone. Most animals instinctively avoided the sheer magnitude of magical might they emitted, but the swamp lived on despite them. An unseen creature splashed at the water, and suddenly their noise was gone. Clicking insects also buzzed incessantly. An occasional ululating cry pierced the night. The mares, except for their superiors, remained silent, eyes darting for any sign of danger as it behooved a marching battlehorn. It was the privilege of the officers to converse—or to bicker.

“I promised Queen Farfalla I would not kill Chrysalis,” Celestia explained, ever keeping her ears forward, twitching at any noise in the water. Although she wouldn’t admit it, she envied the others who could not inherently sense the intense magic of Life radiating from the water.

“That monstrous, sororicidal devil does not deserve compassion,” Panacea whispered bitterly.

Funny enough, Celestia mused to herself that compassion was best served to those who didn’t deserve it. And that was precisely what put her in the present situation. Maybe it was time she relearned to put down and bury her enemies once more.

“Why exactly are we here, Celestia?” Radiance inquired with a steady yet probing voice. Celestia considered she might start with nosy mares who asked too many questions. Fortunately, Radiance couldn’t see her expression in the dark. Regardless, the question was fair, and the mare continued it. “The changelings certainly patrol this area. I cannot see the benefit of engaging them, nor do I understand how this pertains to the tragedy of the Prince-Consort’s passing.”

“Also, kindly explain when male alicorns started appearing.” Again, Domina Hammer interjected with a tone nestled between the judgmental and the overly practical. The princess could almost hear the old mare complaining that she wanted to play with her new toys back in the bunker.

“We are crossing through here precisely because the changelings do not patrol this area,” Celestia stated dryly.

“Why not?” the military commander demanded, genuinely baffled.

“Because Chrysalis has more ego than smarts,” Celestia replied with a subtle chuckle, but it turned to a nicker as she unstuck her hoof from a submerged log and shook it. Finally, she sighed and turned around, looking at the leading mares and the troops behind them.

“In an age past, before Nightmare Moon, Luna and I decided we wanted to share our lives with somepony like us. For various personal reasons. The ones you need to understand is that male alicorns do not occur naturally, for whatever Harmony-forsaken reason. But it goes beyond that. We became weary of those who proposed marriage to climb up the social ladder, even if they were not aware they were doing so. We lost too many good ponies to that.”

Celestia’s legs sloshed purposefully on the sludgy water. She ignored all the lumpy matter floating in the dark, much like her mind sifted around timeworn memories she would rather forget. The swamp’s unpleasant smells mingled with the stale scent of her recollections, like sifting through moldy cream. Even ones such as how Twilight herself might qualify had Celestia not learned the hard lessons of the past.

“Not to mention outliving every single one that didn’t,” she muttered, resuming her march. “We created an alicorn, but it is impossible to fit the soul of a pony into an alicorn. We also lacked the means to craft a proper alicorn. Instead, we ended up with unholy flesh golems condemned to a fleeting existence of pain and insanity. Harmony does not take kindly to tampering with the mechanics of Life.”

Celestia paused and turned around again to meet the gaze of a hundred pairs of purple eyes in the first rank of soldiers under the moonlight. “Recently, the changelings have developed surprisingly advanced and powerful medical sciences alongside innovations in both thaumatological and thaumaturgical fields. Their goal… Chrysalis’ goal was to offset their curse. Most changelings are stillborn due to damaged parts of their souls not coupling properly with their physical bodies. Despite all the damage Chrysalis caused, she and her ‘eggmaidens’ made immense advances in the medical sciences.”

The mares listened quietly, and intently as Celestia continued her explanation, avoiding unnecessary movements. “After Thorax became the Changeling King, there was a problem…”

“They needed a queen because that is just how those disgusting bugs reproduce,” Panacea frowned. She spoke with a contempt that Celestia saw mirrored in frowns, grimaces, and hushed comments.

“They are not the same as us, Panacea. That’s how they work.” Celestia admonished them before those feelings escalated. “After some shenanigans, we made a deal with Chrysalis and Thorax. It would not do in our civilized society to keep her under house arrest merely for the means of their species to reproduce, so she kept her title and important duties. Thorax was supposed to rule the hive.”

Celestia sighed, rolled her eyes, and looked at the stars before she continued. “But because Chrysalis is the way she is, and Thorax is the way he is… She effectively remained Queen Regnant. Changelings were always supposed to function within a caste system—working changelings, soldier changelings, and ruling changelings. Once Chrysalis destroyed the other hives and killed her sisters and her mother, she suppressed this structure. We only realized this when Thorax freed some of her children from her control. That alerted us to the fact that Chrysalis had mastered a new field of knowledge. Biological sciences, far beyond my primeval memories and instinctual understanding of Life. At least as far as one can apply those in present times.”

“The deal we made included a seat for the changelings in the Hall of Harmony, even if their political structure doesn’t accommodate representative seats. Effectively, the Changeling Swarm joined the Equestrian Confederacy. Officially, part of the deal was that Chrysalis would share the changeling medical sciences. Under the sleeves, she would help Luna and I with our personal project.”

Radiance, glaring at Celestia with the intensity of a disappointed mother, interjected sharply. “Letting Discord free was not enough. You had to make a deal with the literal queen of deceit.”

“Discord earned his freedom. You do not understand the power Twilight Sparkle and her friends wield.” Celestia glared back at her. “Regardless, Chrysalis will assist us whether or not she wants to. And that is all you need to know for now. I will infiltrate the Changeling Rock and talk to her. If it does not go well, I will signal you to attack. You will seize control of the place and put down any resistance.”

That was something the warrior mares understood. They steeled their eyes, and grim frowns etched their faces. They silenced any unquiet murmurs and followed Celestia across the swamp. Some hooves slipped in the wet dark or tripped on inconvenient, musky logs. Sometimes, a mare or two needed rescuing from being swallowed by the mud. A couple of leeches needed magical burning. A few hushed comments about the fitting filth of the place reached Celestia’s ears, not unlike the colorful smells and eerie noises of the nocturnal plants and animals. Precision and martial discipline reigned above all.

The transition was abrupt and seamless. Equestria’s magical climate could shift as the boundaries of touching bubbles, and the terrain changed in kind with no more than a couple hundred hooves of transitional, dried up swamp in between. The trees thinned and shortened, lending more moonlight to shine on the restricted puddles of algae-filled water. And mud. Inordinate amounts of mud clinging to coats, armor, capes, and manes, but the mares of war marched on at Celestia’s back. The wind picked up and brought smells of sand and the metallic, bleach tang of changeling magic. The lights of the Changeling Rock were in sight, and the practiced mares grouped closer together, staying low behind Celestia and their leaders.

When she noticed, Celestia had already magicked herself clean of the muck and clingy mud. She stared blankly at her pristine white hooves and then at the similarly clean sets of armor and manes that looked at her and wondered what she was so distracted with. One of them even rinsed her purple mane of water from her drinking supply. Ponies will be ponies, Celestia supposed. She coughed dryly and focused on their destination.

Changeling Rock. As much a literal name for a place as Ponyville. Except one was a quaint town, vibrant with joy (sometimes chaos) and full of nice and well-meaning ponies, despite the few exceptions. The other was a jagged tower of black, uncharacteristically magical stone and tunnels as tortuous as the lies and deceit changelings built around them. It glowed like the horn of its de facto ruler and the eyes of its inhabitants. A small sun in the magical senses against the subdued dim of the barren wasteland that surrounded it. A rock filled with bug ponies who turned deception into a racial identity.

Part of Celestia immediately condemned such thoughts. Changelings were not like that because they wanted or liked it. Their king, Thorax, was one of the nicest creatures Celestia had ever known to the point he might have been another potential spouse for her was he not so excessively awkward and naïve. And Chrysalis… Celestia grimaced as similar words came to mind about her, save for her exceedingly malicious and cunning selfishness. Now, Chrysalis was lucky. That was the word that best described Queen Chrysalis. Another thing the changelings did was to elevate the idea of a caste system to the very biology of their cursed race, and she got away with tampering with it.

An ominous beacon of both promises and condemnation, Changeling Rock was home to the changelings, and a dreaded dungeon of horror to ponies. And under the pale light, dots buzzed left and right against the faint glow of the stone. The Swarm never truly slept.

The sight dragged an anchor across the sludgy bottom of a serene lake of memories, stirring what time had settled. Layers upon layers of ugliness challenged the silt of the Holy Griffon Empire’s slavery and barbaric debauchery. Most creatures didn’t know what changelings were under their hard keratin carapaces, much less the civilian caste’s colorful, cute bug appearance. Celestia understood what lay at the heart of their need to feed on love. Celestia knew. She remembered. And it was one of the reasons she had decided Equestria had no need for goddesses and religions. And that was another thing the changelings clung to. Chrysalis defined Queen Mother in every sense of the word.

As Chocolate Velvet would have put it, Celestia should have ‘nuked’ that place.

With the other mares falling silent so she could focus, Celestia sat on the hardened ground of the wasteland. Eyes closed; her mind focused on the magical energies that surrounded her. The magic from the place radiated to her, but she probed into it. The experienced spellcaster discerned layers upon layers of defensive spells etched into the magical aura of the rock. Her mind probed the magical formulae in the air and glyphs of arcane meaning presented themselves in her mind’s eye. Bizarre, eldritch changeling magic threatened to give her a headache with dissonant magical energies, sudden shifts in orientation, and foreign glyphs with mismatched magical meanings. Recurring phrases, like notes on a musical sheet, helped her map the unknown energies and correlate them to her encyclopedic knowledge of the very nature of magic. And familiarity too. Changeling magic was not as foreign as it used to be. Her mind’s eye swam through the levels of magical walls and nimbly dodged the triggers embedded in the depths of age-old defensive spells meant to detect tampering or intrusion.

It was not a map of the physical place, but a mental image of the magical architecture and defenses impregnated upon the magical part of the matter. If she could see it with her eyes, the rock would tower before her, taunting her to brave its innards. Still, she had no time to hesitate before the gargantuan task. Celestia probed deeper into the labyrinthine magical fortress. Focused, determined. Chocolate Velvet depended on her not fluffing this up.

She watched for any spellcasters guarding the magical matrix, and when none presented themselves, she continued her infiltration. Her mind poked as softly as a feather for the way through the maze of magical defenses. Her mind tiptoed into the deeper layers, and she found an immensely complex web of spells above a pool of bleach-like liquid that rested in the heart of the changeling citadel.

Time stretched and bent as she mentally struggled. She slowed down not to run headfirst into any traps. Her closed eyes trembled, and her ears flopped. It was more difficult than she had expected, but she prodded at the magical formulae. She saw both the obvious and subtle triggers and their associated alarms that would summon the guardian spellcasters to shut her off. Or worse: magical feedback traps ready to overload her horn with mana and splinter it into a gory mess. Realistically, it was unlikely that one such trap could match the magical feedback of the sun, but giving Chrysalis an early warning was dangerous.

Ethereal mechanisms revealed themselves to her expert knowledge as the tumblers and cylinder of a magical lock. If you know the spell, you cast it and enter. If you don’t, you must disassemble the ward. A thief in the night, deftly picking an ethereal lock; as one’s hoof might tremble at the danger and exertion, her horn was becoming numb.

Still, she opened the way without a pop or a click of pieces coming apart, nor a magical ripple a spellcaster sentry could detect. She found an immense magical system of complex spells covering what could only be the Spawning Pool and forming the magical architecture changelings used to sustain and monitor Chrysalis’ eggs. Celestia had no time to examine those; the ripples following the wake of the soul of a changeling in the physical place evidenced someone magically probing the spells. Were they probing the wards for intruders, or using the spells to monitor the eggs? It didn’t matter. A dedicated infiltrator spellcaster might remain undetected, but whoever they were, the changeling would notice something unusual given the monumental potency of Celestia’s soul. A very real gasp escaped her physical body. And even as she remained perfectly still, her mind nimbly found its way through the maze of glyphs and flowing mana. Luck was involved, but Chocolate Velvet would say it was in her character sheet. Whatever that meant.

She was no novice to this game and followed the flow of mana up, knowing that Chrysalis would reside at the top and would require the magical systems to inform her of the status of her eggs. Celestia’s gambit paid off and the magical energies took her consciousness quickly to the top. Even as her body remained a statue of focus and discipline, her mind twisted and spun. Millennia of training moved her thoughts like the legs of a soldier wielding a weapon. She disarmed all the triggers along the way and passed untouched by the arcane defenses, dodging the sentry spells, and denying the guards outside any warning.

An office. Its likeness, imprinted upon the magic of matter, filled her mind’s eye. A living room and a bedroom combined. But the magic stirred in the air. Her intrusion may have been detected. Outside the office, a guard extended their magical reach inside like an octopus unfurling a tentacle. Too close for comfort; it needed to end it now! She felt like Daring Do slipping under a closing stone door. Practiced familiarity, skill, and talent allowed her to build the formula for her teleportation spell, complex as it was, on the fly. With a flash and a bang outside, but only a subdued glimmer and a whisper at the destination, she found herself in a dark room.

In the wake of her controlled teleportation, magical energies quickly settled. No shouts came from beyond the door. No magical probing poked at the edges of her soul. Still, heart racing, a serious frown, and hooves at the edges of a desk, she hid behind it. A million subduing spells quickly rushed past her thoughts while she kept staring at the stone doors over the neatly organized piles of parchment. Absolute silence. The double door never opened, no alarms rang, and no changelings screeched.

A triumphant grin flashed on her muzzle as she eased out of her lowered fighting stance. A second later, her ears flagged, and her eyes opened wide, taking stock of where she was. The office she had reconnoitered surrounded her. The image could have been false, but luck was still on her side this time. Soft moonlight streamed through the wide, luxurious windows and bathed the organized desk. But, with the danger in the past, the terrible stench of Changeling magic assaulted her. Rationally, she knew there was no burning smell, nor a vile metallic tang in her mouth, but her senses insisted otherwise.

“Bleh!” she stuck out her tongue in a grimace and flapped her wings to shake off all the magical changeling cooties. Her eyes shut tight, and she blew puffs of air, trying to banish the imaginary taste. Chewing at nothing and wagging her tongue until she blew a sigh of relief. With a final shake of her head, she straightened up. “Ahem…” She swiveled her ears forward.

A trace of lilac and gooseberries replaced the impression of changeling magic. As she had seen, the room was divided into three elegantly organized spaces. A grand, royal bedroom with a canopy bed so large it was tacky. A door certainly led into a bathroom, and grand armoires certainly held all of Chrysalis’ dresses and clothes. Nearby, a vanity held an impressive collection of dissonant perfumes that ranged from the ridiculous, such as swamp flowers, to the lilac and gooseberries Celestia smelled. But that was what a cursory glance showed; an assortment of beauty products crowded the vanity.

The connected office and leisure room shared the rest of the space with barely any separation from the bedroom. A massive desk in black mahogany and fancy spirals for decoration dominated the ambiance, while seats marked the place for her visits to stay, a touch too far away. In the leisure area was a vast collection of books, ancient and old. Finally, a grand piano shared the domain over the room with the bed and the desk. Unfortunately, colors were hard to see in the dusk save for the fluorescent, ‘changeling green’ glowing in the accents and the spines of the books.

“Oh! She is practicing the piano, like I told her!” Celestia let a grin escape her focused examination of the area, only for it to crumble at the memories that the Changeling queen had betrayed her.

Her ears pulled back, and a grim flat overtook her lips as she walked around the desk, minding that the hooves didn’t strike the stone too loudly. Feather Hoof’s Soundproof spell should work, but she could not afford to be discovered by the magical radiation of any spell. The guard outside showed that underestimating them would be a mistake, and the teleportation was bold enough. Someone was bound to be paying attention after that ‘flicker’ in the security spells.

Her wings lowered like her head, sneaking about in the dark. She saw no documents on the desk or the reading table. None of the books, all written in the scratchy changeling language, were relevant. They were translations of popular non-fiction books, some of which Celestia had written and nothing else.

Celestia rolled her eyes, thinking about Chrysalis telling her she had a terrible tendency to educate her enemies.

It was uncouth, at least, for her to be poking around. But Celestia supposed that with Chrysalis’ betrayal, any mutual trust was long gone. The princess walked around the desk again, eyeing it carefully, avoiding the impulse to shine a light over it. She found only the neatly organized papers and writing supplies, except for a locked drawer. Every desk had one, and they were often the receptacle for sensitive but not quite secret documents.

Celestia’s curiosity was piqued. Pouring as little mana as possible into the locking mechanism, Celestia probed it and found a simple cylinder and tumblers. Her horn barely shone brighter at all as she poked inside and wiggled the well-lubricated cylinder. Celestia smiled at the thought that Chrysalis’ temper would not allow her to suffer an unlubricated lock. A good sign she used it frequently. The Princess tried the different positions, gradually locking the tumblers in place. Using her finer magical senses to better sense the lock might make it easier, but that would require more magic, and it flicked open eventually. She made a tiny grin as she pulled the drawer open, imagining a diary, or something of the sort, taken back to the years of her youth once she and Luna were finally taught how to read and write.

A loose piece of paper held a list of ‘I’m sorry I yelled at you’ gifts for Thorax. Of the seven mostly mundane items, three bore an ‘already done’ mark. There was also a dagger. Cold and gray, hardened steel coated in a perpetual magical poison. Examining the thing with her magical senses pierced Celestia’s skull like a nail and made her grimace. She knew that one. ‘Widowmaker’. Chrysalis had mentioned it once or twice and that it had come in handy whenever her mother tried to marry her to somecreature.

An icy shiver crawled Celestia’s back at the thought that she had married Chrysalis with Thorax. But while her duty to the swarm stayed her wrath at the start, she eventually warmed up to him. Still, Celestia grimaced at the thought of such a sweet creature as Thorax ending in Chrysalis’ bad side.

Celestia focused on the notebook. Its cover was a customized piece of art. An abstract, uncomfortable combination of blacks, grays, and greens. Biological motifs were reminiscent of living shapes, with a damp sheen and light evocative of secretions and pulsating matter.

“Yeah…” she whispered sarcastically to herself. “Definitely belongs to Thorax…”

Following that, she pursed her lips and flagged her ears. No response from the guard outside.

The book had no lock, but years of peeking into Luna’s diary directed Celestia to probe it for magical wards. The matter was covered in layers of its own magic, and Chrysalis had covered it with a triple layer of different, synergizing wards. Professional magic, used by changeling spies. More than silly defenses to keep your sister—or husband—out of your thoughts. Unfortunately for the Changeling Queen, her kind’s magic was not as unknown as it used to be. Examining the formulae, Celestia built a counterspell to mask her presence and the fact that the book was opening. Then she carefully examined the book again to find a very personal, informal fourth spell meant to blind whoever opened it. Chrysalis overestimated her skill in mana weaving, and Celestia avoided that one, too, also fooling it with a spell of her own.

Laying it on the desk and opening it, Celestia found it was indeed a diary.

This is so stupid. It is unholily stupid. This is what I must do, anyway, as it was required by the Royal Psychiatrist and the Psychologist. And Celestia held me to it once I tried to appeal. I suppose harsher sentences exist. For shame. I will write every single vile thought into this thing for no other reason than to spite them. I suppose this is enough for a first entry. Just one tiny indignity more to add to the pile. Ugh. (I wrote that so that you would know I groaned.)

Shaking her head, Celestia kept reading and found misbehaved musings and angry rants about everyday issues (such as the removal of her previous throne) and the psychological counseling Chrysalis went through. Through weeks and months, entries showed Chrysalis may never have understood the purpose, but that writing the diary helped her. Eventually, entries came to the night she returned to the Changeling Rock.

Celestia stopped for a second. Her more ancient-than-time memories stirred again. In another life, in another cycle, the Changeling queen had not been so lucky, and yet, much like any other creature alive, she failed to see that. Maddeningly, it was not her fault for not knowing, nor Celestia’s for remembering. But rather than lingering on memories, Celestia read on the next entry.

I feel so different. Maybe it is Cadance and her magic. I feel drunk. Sated, or maybe sedated. Maybe Shining Armor had more of an impact on me than I would dare accept.

Celestia paused and reread it. Then she rolled her eyes at how the last sentence had been struck through multiple times.

The Swarm is all that should occupy my mind. It has lost its edge! A year back, I could not bear to call these creatures my children. My children were strong. Voracious. I had the worker caste under control. The biological threads for the king were right where they belonged: crushed under my hoof. The best traces of the Swarm were honed and distilled into perfection. I had my fierce, love-starved warriors. I was supreme. I was The Queen.

A ravenous hunger made me aware. The burning anger fueled my magic, and my insatiable yearning pulsed through the Swarm, compelling my children to seek our prey and feed. Wolves upon the lambs.

In my absence, the Swarm returned to my mother’s feeble vision of skittish, childishly stupid creatures. I needed a sizeable portion of my renewed magic just to bring my warriors back into the fold, some good lies, and a good dose of luck to hide from the Alicorn Sisters what had actually happened. Just so that the damnable giant anteaters of the wasteland wouldn’t devour us all—our benevolent alicorn tyrants don’t even know they pose a threat. Why did Thorax never inform them? Maybe that was him, growing a clever bone. I will never know for sure. He said we ought to face our own problems. Moron. With a hoofful of incapable non-combatants… They are lucky I have returned.

It is maddening. My body insistently informs me of the chemical signals those unhinged abominations that Thorax arrogantly called ‘freed’ constantly flood the Hive with. It is disruptive. Those happy feelings. Empathy and an unending carefulness with each step, doing all and everything so as not to hurt another’s feelings. It crawls under my carapace. What manner of inane nonsense must dwell inside their heads!

Happy feelings exude and flood the Swarm. They convinced themselves of their safety, that they would not starve anymore. They are making me happy, and I abhor it. This is the opposite of what they should feel. Safety dulls the senses. They should hunger. I should hunger. It was my brutal tyranny that kept the swarm whole.

Enough of this waste of time. I have a royal marriage to prepare for. I must mentally steel myself so I can bear the thought of Thorax as an equal.

Ignorant buffoon. Thought he had rid himself of me. All of them had. But I am the Queen.

Celestia shook her head at the queen’s caustic words. Forever missing the point, it seemed. The marriage though, Celestia remembered it. Chrysalis used all the money the Changelings didn’t have, so it would upstage Cadance’s marriage. Well, for one, hers didn’t have a hostile takeover to make it epic and fantastic. What is worse, to think that Chrysalis would be angrier to have Thorax as an equal rather than the fact that he would sire the following generations of changelings. Again, memories from a previous life threatened to overshadow the present. Chrysalis should count her blessings more often.

The princess’ eyes rose from the paper. The door remained silent and unmoving, so she read the next entry.

Our marriage went reasonably well. As well as it could have. It was a glorious affair, given the Swarm’s austerity measures. None came except Celestia, Luna (begrudgingly), and Cadance. Twilight Sparkle and her minions were invited, but none came. Nor that annoying student of hers, much less Discord. I suspect Shining Armor only came because of Cadance. It matters not. The important thing is that tensions between the castes ceased.

Cadance lent us her blessing. The gall… But it was another injection of Love magic, and it did the Swarm good. I hate to admit it, but I needed every ounce of self-confidence to face the affair.

When Luna asked me why some changelings ‘were back to their old selves’, it was Thorax that cheerily explained about the caste system. I am glad I talked to him beforehand. I suppose he doesn’t like the giant anteaters any more than I do. What matters is that she stopped probing.

Not all was as satisfactory. When I tried to guilt Celestia for making me marry Thorax, she retorted with a long-winded list of previous marriages that helped secure Equestria into what it had become and were pleasantly happy. I swear, I don’t know if she was mocking or reassuring me.

Well, I remember what old Brightmane did to her. As well as what she did to him as soon as the sun-hallowed savior of Equestria donned the sun for a crown. I just wish I knew the details because making a stallion swallow a bowl of broken glass feels symbolic. Not to mention, hilariously, Blueblood died of a heart attack when he heard Celestia was the reborn goddess they never believed but sold to the populace. I suppose I could have done worse than Thorax. But he’d better perform in the nuptials.

Stupid tradition. Stupid changeling biology. Curse my mother that damned our kind. And curse you, Luna. Curse you Celestia. Curse it all.

Celestia pursed her lips. Maybe it was just easier for Chrysalis to process the idea. Celestia couldn’t bear to go through it. It helped that she could not bear foals to begin with, in contrast to Chrysalis, who must. Different perspectives, she supposed. Deep inside, Celestia was just glad Chrysalis was fine with Thorax.

Instead of focusing on memories of old Brightmane, images of the blond Queen Farfalla flooded Celestia’s thoughts. She blamed no one but herself. The birth of a cursed race, the pettiness of a god. Celestia refused to dwell on it. She had ended the Age of Gods and hidden it beneath the tapestry of a previous existence—a happier one—for a reason. That, and the Griffon Empire, but that was another batch of unpleasantness.

Chrysalis’ foalish rants were a pleasant distraction, even if little of importance graced the following pages. For months, nothing more than long complaints, which grew less common, filled them. Promises of improvement followed guilt-ridden admissions related to her vile mood in dealing with Thorax. The pattern replaced her rants about the state of the Swarm until a fateful day months later.

Diary, my confidant, I am stunned, bewildered, and, dare I say, ecstatic.

The Alicorn Sisters came to Changeling Rock today. No warning, no fanfare. None of the interminable lines of reporters that usually stalk them. Only guards accompanying their bosses on a visit ‘that never happened.’

I imagined they wanted to talk about the Swarm’s seat in the House of Majesty and our lack of representation in the House of the Chosen. I prepared, in seconds, a speech about how changelings were different and had no need for senators, much less elected officials. That I and Thorax sufficed to have the will of the Swarm heard by the federation. I was not even lying.

When they said it was not about that, I assumed it was about our agreement to disseminate our medical magical science. Boring, but necessary. I was ready to explain our preparations, already in place. I know I am a liar, but I honor the deals that I like. That was not it either. At all. In fact, I am still stunned. Still grinning. I cannot believe what they asked of me.

They want a coltfriend! They came to me to commission a male alicorn. A tailor-made consort. They explained their reasons, but it all blended into background noise. Off the gate, the amount of resources such an endeavor would require could bankrupt half of the countries in the Federation. And that is if it could be made. It is not just about making a living thing. Making a very complex living thing and keeping it from dying along the way until it is capable of not dying by itself, and then sane. It’s probably not possible. More than the exceeding difficulty, imagining the negotiations to secure the necessary resources daunted me. I dreaded angering them when I explained it.

Celestia sanctioned it on the spot. And we called it Project Genesis.

I feel dizzy just thinking about it. It came out of nowhere, and technically, I know it can be done. Practically, it is impossible. No one can create life. Not like this. Not a copy, not a simple mirror image that would vanish in time or go insane. We are talking about a new being from nothing. Without the wonder of gametes meeting, that already have a flimsy chance of working. Injecting a soul into a flesh golem is known to be impossible without sanity-shattering necromancy, and this project would be a step beyond.

It has to be a trick. Some manner of test. They want to see how far I will go for them. Fine. I can play at that. I will humor them. After all, if any creature in the entire world could pull this off, it would be me. Not even Discord and his maniacal magic of impossibles could accomplish this with lasting success. I will play their game. I have asked for a realistic list of supplies and materials. Let us see how this goes, how it will end when they must admit they asked for the impossible for a petty test.

Celestia stared blankly at the exquisitely written black Changeling scratches on the parchment. Should she laugh or be cross that the queen had taken the project for a joke, or a test in poor taste? Celestia remembered meeting her, expecting skepticism, and now she understood the immediate compliance. Chrysalis didn’t understand. It was a plan left to mature a millennium before they met that day. The Sisters waited, Nightmare Moon came, Luna returned, and the Sisters waited another year. Two. Three years. More… Only then did they travel to Chrysalis’ home and present her with the plan.

When the next entry came into view, Celestia grinned under the restrained light. Chrysalis’ horn penmanship slipped. Too much force on the strokes of the feather. Too quick. Nervous.

Diary, unlike my last entry, today I am truly shocked. It is happening.

It was not a test. Project Genesis is real, and it is happening.

What in the ever-glowing stars are they huffing? A week ago, the Alicorn Sisters visited the Rock. In less than a dozen days, everything arrived—delivered in a commercial galleon. Inconspicuous and still brimming with guns. It was one of the refitted sea-faring vessels converted into an airship. It bore the usual supplies for the recuperating hive, wink-wink. Other than an armed vessel traveling above the safest lands in the world, it raised no suspicions.

Among the private crew were Royal Guard Marines. Even without their armor, one could identify them by the sticks up their asses. One Lieutenant Ironshod talked to the captain and the Hive’s Door Guard—the galleon was so large it wouldn’t fit our berth, so it landed in the front. Crewponies started unloading the ‘valuable goods.’ Fortunately, I was quick enough to ensure that my black carapaces took over the proceedings. Before any of the workers figured out something was out of the ordinary or Thorax stuck his nose in matters none of his concern.

I hastily cleared some space in my laboratory to store our share of the cargo. Thank the stars, Pharynx kept Thorax from finding anything about it. After the hectic rush of transporting and securing the cargo in the laboratory, keeping the royal guards off the Rock, and keeping nosy workers off the way (blasted good manners made them rush to assist us), it was all safe. And secret.

By the end of the day, I finally finished inventorying everything, and I must say, I was surprised. Not only everything I asked had arrived, but the quality was beyond what I had imagined. Metalized crystal and crystal cutting tools, as well as gold soldering and imprinting tools. The good stuff used by the Crystal Empire’s magical induction engine manufactories. Platinum, nickel, chromium, selenium, lithium, and all the specific metals I asked for, mostly from Yakyakstan’s mines. Several specifically cut gems from Saddle Arabia. Precision surgical tools from Griffonia. Magical golden tools from Canterlot’s arcane forges, and several shaped metal parts from Manehattan Ironworks. Quality fit for a Prince-Consort, I suppose. Inordinate amounts of medical materials from all over the Federation, from volume expanders to vasoactive agents and even top-of-the-shelf medicines for emergencies.

Stars above. How in the ever-dark Tartarus did no creature raise an eyebrow at this? Probably because the project is so outlandish, no creature joined the pieces. Then again, maybe nobody bothered with it because this has Celestia’s little hooves all over it.

Why can’t I command such wealth? Such power?

Maybe my way into such fortunes is helping them.

I am the only one who could, after all.

The entry was interesting and… Sweet? No, that was not the right word. Instead of satisfaction at Chrysalis’s admission, Celestia could almost feel the envy dripping off the changeling glyphs. Hear the arrogance in the changeling’s voice. It disappointed, but also made it dawn on her that Chrysalis was never as friendly as she had thought. She saw how much Chrysalis envied her. And she didn’t know how to feel about that; she had never considered somecreature might ever envy her. ‘Sadness’. That is what it felt like.

The Princess sighed a little sigh in the dark and moved on to the next page. The following entry was much shorter. And also, the following ones. Apparently, Chrysalis took her role seriously, because of the challenge or because she looked forward to whatever reward she could reap. What followed were a series of rants regarding the impossibility of the task, followed by arrogant, celebratory comments when she eventually overcame every hurdle. All with sprinkles of jealousy over Celestia’s abilities in between.

The difficulty of the project had surprised Celestia too. Of course, she never expected it to be easy. She and Luna knew what they were getting themselves into, but it appeared Chrysalis didn’t. Many times, Celestia had come to the Changeling Rock to assist Chrysalis, and those visits had not been as heartwarming as the Princess had believed.

I have been sitting at my desk for hours. I finally decided to simply relay what happened.

My eggmaidens and I had been testing the artificial womb for weeks with anteater embryos, as Celestia would not allow me to use a pony embryo. We calibrated the talismans, which control the exchange of nutrients, and I was confident it would work. Ponies, anteaters… They are all mammals.

But I worried, as without a base for a pony, problems ought to arise. It might be difficult even if the support devices worked. Creating a pony—an alicorn, no less—from the egg of an anteater would be too complicated. I imagined Celestia would donate an egg… But I had no idea how we would patch a functional seed of life for the cell.

Turned out I was naïve, and my worries barely reached the depth I would find myself in.

Celestia mumbled something about the diminished capabilities of the magic of Life so far past the primeval era. All the while, she produced from under her wing—I am not joking—a magical briefcase with powerful frost magic and holding seven chilled test tubes. Somehow, she got her hooves on eggs harvested from Cadance, Twilight Sparkle, and her friends. Money? Promises? An appeal to their innocence? A kingdom of their own? How she pulled that off bewilders me, although not as much as what we did with the samples.

Explaining that in the present time, we cannot trivially knit cells together and expect them to work and live. She exposed her plan for us to make a new chimeric cell from those samples. “It shouldn’t matter in the long run as cells rebuild themselves within 30 days,” she said.

I laughed. She did not.

We worked together, and even though I was an active part of the process, I barely understood what we did. She needed my help with the hoofing microscope on top of it all. This mare is making me insane! How can she need the microscope while building things at the molecular level?! How is that even possible?!

Our combined magic made a miracle. A very complex one of joining invisible pieces, keeping alive what was ready until the whole could sustain itself, finished with a tiny poke of Life magic. She guided me and let me help her. Then I understood that the only reason she never created her perfect coltfriend by herself was that she lacked the know-how of keeping something like that alive outside an actual womb. Not to mention modern magic used for bioengineering. Something for which I developed an instinct that worked well along her own. Like two mares playing the piano by ear, we built a cell. We constructed a seed in its heart with pieces from the samples we had. We made the essence of life that is usually inherited from parents. My hooves are still shaking and my horn is still sore.

“Alicorns summon no soul from the Pool of Souls,” she told me, as though that made any sense whatsoever, or explained the festering madness this project has been.

Is this a joke? Her idea of a prank? It would not be the first time I heard of Celestia doing such things. I am not sure what is going on. That thing is now growing in the laboratory, and Shimi will call me if anything goes wrong.

I believed the whole thing was doomed from the start. Now I am scared. I am thrilled! I don’t know for sure if I want this to work. I need this to work! All I know is that I must try to recreate the process. I must have this power. This knowledge. Whatever this is.

Where Celestia had seen a joyful collaboration of two experts, alone at the top of their fields, complementing each other, Chrysalis saw an offense. But Celestia frowned as, in the following entries, Chrysalis’s focus shifted from their shared project to unbridled rants and ravings about the injustice that only got worse after Celestia came another day to bind Chocolate Velvet’s soul to his body. And then again after Luna arrived to ensure his soundness of mind. She bitterly joked to her diary that she would prepare a room for Cadance’s visit.

Her worst came out as she realized she didn’t have enough material or had retained sufficient understanding to replicate ‘Celestia’s stupid power.’ Chrysalis thought about destroying Chocolate Velvet. In several entries that denoted days upon days of reflection and mental struggle, she decided against it. But the diary lacked any explanation as to why.

Conflicting emotions battled in Celestia’s chest against her reasoning mind and the notion of Chrysalis’ ending Chocolate Velvet’s life. Would she lie that something had simply gone wrong? Even as her eyes squinted and her ears pulled back in restrained anger and pursed lips. The fact that it was a moot point eventually won, and all she did was let out a tired sigh and softly shake her head in the dark.

“Chrysalis…” she mumbled as her magic made pages fly from one side to the other.

An entire section of the diary brimmed with a month’s worth of similar rants and misbehaved complaining. One would think the poor diary could fix all her problems. Eventually, months later, after Chrysalis narrated Chocolate’s birth as her success, more complaining followed for three years’ worth of entries.

Celestia remembered Luna keeping his mind sedated, experimenting with it to ensure his soundness. For some reason, the queen failed to properly articulate her anger, and Celestia avoided those entries. After a while, she found what she was looking for, but it was not what she expected. Instead of a focused entry about the unique opportunity their next project had presented, Chrysalis simply made brief entries, mentioning it and making fun of Celestia’s inability to bear foals. Still, one of them was damning.

This is a golden opportunity. The likes of which seldom present themselves. Celestia has gifted me another sample—this time, something more profound. A significant sample of her soul and flesh. I cannot claim to fully comprehend it, but with this, I may be able to recreate our miraculous feat in the past. This time, for my benefit.

It could hold the key to repairing whatever damage the curse has inflicted on Changelingkind. Or to unlock an untold potential. I must study it, and she must never know.

I will fulfill my end of the bargain and help her bear a foal. I already have the inklings of a cure for whatever enigmatic affliction prevents her from summoning life with more traditional methods. But I will use this power for my benefit. For the Swarm.

Curse the bug-horse-extraordinaire! With an indignant neigh, Celestia thought of a thousand curses that time had forgotten. Then she grimaced and her eyes snapped at the door, but it didn’t move. Celestia still grumbled to herself that it would have been so much easier to enrage herself if the damnable Changeling Queen had not mentioned the curse and her intention of helping her own children. Still, betrayal ran cold in Chrysalis bleach-smelling humors, and Celestia winced just at the memory of the intimacies they shared after Chocolate’s birth. And yet, as the pages turned, the most recent entry came into view.

It is preposterous that Twilight Sparkle has an airship—a custom-made one!—and I don’t. If that thing can be called an airship. Mine would have a broadside bristling with cannons and black sails to blot out the sun, and if anything were to be custom-made, it would be the armor, so it looked rugged and tough like me. I would berth it at the top of the tower, and I would hunt all the cursed giant anteaters in the wasteland. There would be meat for years to sell to the griffons.

If I had one, because I cannot. The hive’s coffers run dry, and only because I am Queen am I able to keep it functioning. Thorax is an idiot who would run us aground with innumerable rights and measures to the damnable worker caste. Not only that, but I must suffer that ignorant hen, Queen Novo, babbling on and on about the antiquated political structure of the Swarm. All because she must, absolutely must, find every parallel that she can to complain about the ignoble griffons, their corrupt chancellor, and the brutish northerner governor.

“The Lion would topple thousands of years of refined democratic processes for an antiquated oligarchy based on hatred and discrimination,” she says in every single meeting. It is not enough that in every meeting, we must listen to Chancellor Gail ranting about his political rival. We must also listen to the overly proud hen almost describe her own government when complaining about the damned griffons.

I hate politics. Murder is so much more honorable.

But that is not even the worst. It is Celestia protecting the Lion and the ‘griffons’ right to adjudicate on the future of their nation.’ If only the Lion were not a murderous tyrant preparing for a war that Celestia refuses to see! This is maddening!

And if that was not enough, the cursed ponies invaded the sanctity of the Spawning Pool where I was laying the eggs. I should have had them made into rugs and delivered to Celestia. Her damnable student thinks she can snoop around my nest and poke around my secrets! The gall! In the interrogation, she and her friends betrayed nothing other than their silly little quest for the Holy Griffon Empire. Some things should remain under the rug, and Celestia ought to hammer that into her precious little protégé’s head. Especially when it was the cake-inhaling, overly sugary, always-smiling, insufferable mare herself that (righteously) buried the Griffon Empire under the dirt herself!

Damn it all! I told Celestia. Thousands of years ago. She should have killed all of them. And to think my mother wanted me to marry Emperor Grigor!

Chrysalis’s horn penmanship was elegant and fast, but in that paragraph, it devolved into angry scratches. The changeling alphabet didn’t help, as scratchy and quick as their chittering language, but the queen had poured her wrath into the paper. What came later made the princess’s eyes widen, and her ears perk forward.

I keep telling myself that Twilight and the others knew nothing. That Celestia has not sent them to spy on me. There is no reason. She knows nothing about the Praetorians, and it would be folly. Dangerous. She has better agents for that. But then again, that would be her alibi! If she knew of my Praetorians, she would have sent someone better prepared for espionage, and that they turned out flawed may itself already be because of her meddling! I hate when others try to fool me. I am too good at it, and I keep seeing feints in their incompetence!

All this, while the Lion is recruiting left and right, the Griffonian government is producing muskets, and Novo is renovating the hippogriff armada. I’m scared! I let them weaken me and the Swarm. Did Celestia trick me? Why would she do that? I delivered on my promises! I made her their precious consort. I did what she and Luna asked! I basically let them use my knowledge, accrued on the suffering of a million stillborn changeling larvae, to make their silly dream a reality. I did use the samples they provided for my gain, but that is normal. I delivered on my promises. I worked on the cure for their infertility. I am looking at it right now as I write this.

My life was long, and I finally thought that I had found an ally. Despite it all, her methods worked. The Swarm is deceptively strong, even if they had lost their edge and my military strength is diminished to a third. If it came to a war, Celestia could wipe us off Equestria trivially. Or worse: let the Lion do it for her. Doesn’t that put my Praetorian’s flaws into perspective?

In the end, Celestia achieved all she wanted. She had maneuvered me to trust her. Was it a mistake?

I still remember what Celestia did to the noble families that ruled Everfree after she took the throne. Most ponies do not remember. They wouldn’t believe it. No one old enough to remember remains other than me.

Am I projecting into Twilight? Am I imagining my malice and cunning in the little pony? She might not know Celestia meant for her to spy. Did Celestia mean for her to spy? I cannot say for sure, and it made me lose my sleep.

After all the deceit I survived and wrought upon others… My mother. My sisters. All the wizards and questing knightly fools that tried to kill me… It was Celestia who bested me by turning me into a friend. This is why I care so much, isn’t it? This is why it frustrates me so, and the thought of her betrayal hurts.

I am tired. I want to trust Celestia. I can leave all the masks and lies when I talk to her. There is no reason for her to send Twilight to spy on me. She would not. She needs not. There is nothing for Twilight to see in my laboratory that Celestia doesn’t already know other than the Praetorians, and even then, Twilight went out of her way not to poke around. On the contrary! There are things in there Celestia would not dare let Twilight come to know.

I must not let paranoia blind me. Celestia has not betrayed me. It is Twilight, naively poking her nose into matters she would rather not know who the problem is. I must see Celestia. I shall teleport to Canterlot immediately and inform her of Twilight’s visit. The serum is ready, too, and I must deliver it before long. More importantly, she will lose Twilight if the nosy pony makes it back to Ponyville and teleports to Griffonstone. Her airship should take a day or two. There should be plenty of time, but I must act. For the safety of the Swarm.

In the spirit of the foals playing with fire while mom is away, Twilight and Cadance are flailing about with a flamethrower.

Chaos. It might have been Discord who wrote that entry for her. Those words… that long diary write-up put so much into context that Celestia felt she should commend Chrysalis for not betraying her sooner. Cursed miscommunication and abominable misunderstandings. She had gotten used to being trusted by everycreature. Had Celestia been more open about her way of dealing with the Lion, Chrysalis might not have betrayed her in her airship. Maybe Twilight and Cadance would have been dissuaded from their quest, and whatever plan the Harpy had brewing would have failed already.

“I didn’t know about the Harpy…” she muttered to herself, with her ears flopping, abandoned in the dark of someone else’s office, peeking at their diary like a petty foal. “I believed Gilad’s intentions were honest. The Lion is such a noble title… I thought he meant to bring back the same greatness Grover instilled in Griffonkind. It was a good thing.”

A moment of loathing made her realize with a sense of vulnerability just how well the Harpy knew her.

The princess glanced at the pages again, eyes lingering on the angry scratches. Chrysalis truly believed the injections would work. Celestia sighed. Too much of the blame rested on her. Maybe it had been too soon. Maybe Project Genesis was vanity and selfishness shrouded as ambition and should never have left the drawing board.

But it was too late. With Luna missing, Twilight and Cadance lost in their misguided quest, further and further into the harpy’s grasp, Celestia was alone. Then her ears flicked. Chrysalis, too, had reason to loathe that chimeric monster. In fact, looking at the last entry in Chrysalis’ diary, Celestia saw their alliance had again fallen on fertile soil.

On cue, voices coming from the other side of the heavy stone doors made her ears twitch.

“And then we get some of the top-layer loveshrooms and spend the rest of the evening reviewing worker requests.” Chrysalis’ voice muffled through the doors, silky like the web of a spider, along with approaching hooves and Thorax’s awkward chuckling.

Celestia’s mind got caught trying to fit together and process all that in a sane way as the doors ground open. She squeaked, realizing she was about to be caught. Instead of Chrysalis, the rumbling doors revealed one of her alicorn-like Praetorian guards.

While Celestia didn’t know her specific name, it dawned on her how similar she was to herself and Chrysalis. She got a good look when the tall, black changeling stopped at the door with an empty stare at her. She could almost hear the spinning gears grinding to a halt. Satiny black carapace reflecting the light of the atrium and unsettling keratin plates above her abdomen and a double-bladed sword at her flank. They spent a whole second staring at each other until the changeling blinked her acid-green eyes and turned around, closing the door in the process.

“I have a better idea!” Her peppy voice echoed weirdly through the door, similar to Chrysalis’ after the queen questioned what was wrong. “There is a huge problem with the royal chambers, and you should go to Las Pegasus to eat pizza instead!”

“What’s wrong with you?” Chrysalis roared from the other side, and when the door opened again, it was under Chrysalis’s significantly more powerful magic. “We are not traveling all the way to Las Pegasus just for pizza! Are you out of—”

She never finished the impatient rambling, staring at Celestia from the door. Two more of the imposing Praetorian guards peeked from the edges of the doorway, and Thorax’s head popped from behind Chrysalis.

“You know what, pizza it is!” Chrysalis declared with an awkward grin, as she started to close the door.

“Chrysalis!” Celestia shouted at her. All the awkwardness turned to powerful telekinetic magic. Celestia not only tore the doors from Chrysalis’s command, but almost ripped them from their magical hinges as she made her way around the desk.

Screaming, Chrysalis grabbed hold of Thorax and put him in front of her. “It was all Thorax’s fault!”

He squealed, flailing hooves in the air before covering his face. “I—what? What did you do, Chrysalis?”

While his panicked expression was humorous, Celestia’s eyes went wide, shocked open. “You didn’t even tell him of what you did?”

“He would be happier if he never knew!”

“Alright! Time out, you two!” Thorax stood and waved his hoof in front of Chrysalis. “What is going on?”

“She is a betraying witch!” Celestia pointed a hoof.

Thorax gasped and glared at his queen. “I knew it! It is because of the praetorians! Isn’t it?”

“No, you dummy! She already knew about them.”

“What. Did. She. Do?” Thorax turned to Celestia again. “For pony’s sake!”

Celestia again pointed an accusatory hoof at Chrysalis. “She allowed Twilight and Cadance to escape with the Lion’s son! Because of her, my command ship, the Break of Dawn, crashed to the ground. Not only that, but they crashed the Endearing Kindness, the hospital airship that served as testing ground for the new medical magic! She got Admiral Gloria killed! Hundreds of creatures died because of her game!”

Thorax squealed in shock. “Chrysalis!”

“I didn’t know the griffons would destroy her precious airship!” Chrysalis took a step back, her ears drooping. “Much less the hospital ship! I didn’t ask for this! How was I supposed to know that the damn admiral would get her griffon hindquarters killed? She was a griffon, like them! I just wanted Cadance and Twilight to escape!”

Her rant turned to unintelligible ramblings before she gathered her wits again and snarled at Celestia. “And you! You lied to me about the Harpy! I panicked!”

The two of them stood their ground, glaring at each other. Suddenly, Chrysalis’s snout contorted into a further ferocious snarling grimace brimming with fangs. She stood on her hind legs and punched Celestia in her snout.

“Oh, my gosh! Chrysalis!” Thorax shrieked and rushed to help at Celestia’s pained ‘Ow!’.

“I told you I’d punch you if you were lying about the Harpy!” Chrysalis’ voice rose to an anxious shriek. “I told you you should have killed all of them a thousand years ago! I told you! I literally said this would come back to bite you in the ass! But you didn’t listen to me!”

“I wasn’t lying about the Harpy, Chrysalis,” Celestia responded calmly, sitting on the polished floor and rubbing her nose. “I believed she had been destroyed. And you, by sending Twilight and Cadance with the griffons, have made things much worse. I don’t know what she means to do, but they have…”

She paused, looking for the right words. “Magic. They have magic that one with the Harpy’s knowledge might use to rob griffons of free will, and then, through their devotion, she’d be unstoppable.”

“Are we talking ‘King Sombra unstoppable,’” Thorax raised an eyebrow at the perceived exaggeration. “Or are we talking about something actually dangerous that we can’t just trust Twilight and her friends to fix?”

“The Harpy is unlike anything we have faced before, Thorax.” Celestia looked at him. “It is difficult to explain, but she possesses a kind of magic that transcends normal magic. I don’t know what her plan is. But I know it doesn’t include us.”

“Excuse me!” Chrysalis cried, seeing the open book on her desk. “Were you reading my diary?”

“It is half of the reason you are still alive,” Celestia responded with a half-smile.

“The hoof is that supposed to mean?” the queen glared with a distrustful snarl that turned into a shocked gasp. “Wait. You need me. What for? Oh, no. No way. No!”

“You are the only one who can help me, Chrysalis. I will need him to fight the Harpy.”

“You just want your coltfriend back!” Chrysalis shouted. “You shouldn’t have left him to die fighting a griffon swordmaiden!”

Silence shrouded the room like Chrysalis had cast a curse of muteness. Thorax let his jaw hang, sitting in his corner, and the Praetorian guards grimaced and exchanged stares. Celestia let her eyes aim at the floor again, and Chrysalis exhaled, ears flopping and her crown of antennae bending over the weight of her lack of tact.

“Sorry,” she averted her eyes. “I shouldn’t have said that. I kinda liked him, too.”

She sighed again, turning around on herself as her hooves clacked on the stone floor. Her wings buzzed like her brain must have been buzzing with thoughts. “We can’t do this, Celestia. I—we will help you fight, but we can’t bring back a dead pony.”

She sat on the floor and massaged her temples. “Three years ago, I told you we couldn’t make a pony out of anything, and we did just that. Now, you want to bring him back to life. What I learned about the magic of souls and of life is that once dead, the soul is decoupled and goes to the Pool of Souls. It can’t be forced back without necromancy and proper timing, and as far as I know, you abhor necromancy. It would also destroy his psyche. But I also know we made him by copying you and slamming pieces of Cadance and the Mane Six into him. And you have a weird, damaged soul. So now, you’re going to tell me there is a way. That I won’t understand, but you need my help because of the changeling medical-magical science and the equipment we used in his creation.”

“My soul is not damaged. Well, it is, but…” Celestia sighed her frustration and tossed her head, trying to explain something that she alone understood. “Not only was it ripped apart when the ponies summoned me in the past, but it was not meant to inhabit the mortal plane of existence. It was not meant to enter the Pool of Souls when decoupling. And that is why it is possible to help Chocolate Velvet. His soul mimics mine. He is still there, at the mercy of Nightmares, in the Aether. Slowly fading away precisely because his soul lacks the magical mechanism to enter the Pool of Souls.”

Chrysalis moaned, holding her head, and made an exasperated groan, followed by a sharp, frustrated gasp. “You want me to rebuild his body and make it work again? So that you can hammer his soul back into it and jury-rig whatever magical yadda-yadda makes this whole thing work.”

“We’ll need months.” Chrysalis shrugged. “Maybe years. If it were the same as letting a single cell do its thing, merely supporting it, it would be different. But I supposed we have about a week…”

The queen made a sarcastic smirk. “Right?”

“Well, the answer is no,” she added, letting a proper serious expression wash her face. “If anything, we must prepare for war.”

“Do not push your luck, Chrysalis.” Celestia retorted, letting a frown mar her patient façade.

“You’re bluffing!” Chrysalis’s triumphant grin and snarl turned to a disappointed glare. “Don’t threaten me, Celestia. Just go Snow Mountains and kill the Harpy as you did before if you think yourself so powerful as to make threats. You are here because you need me.”

“It is not so simple. You wouldn’t understand.” Celestia sighed as soon as the words left her mouth, and she saw Chrysalis’ condescending smirk. Fair enough, that kind of secrecy had already caused enough problems. “I won’t lie to you. I want him back. But that is not all. Chocolate Velvet understands a form of magic that I wiped off Equestria. The same kind the Harpy means to earn from her griffon followers and that he will teach to ponies. A kind of magic that can finally destroy me or destroy the Harpy.”

Telling Chrysalis that felt like delivering a dagger to a murderer, but Celestia felt cornered.

“Details,” the queen demanded. “Quit hiding things. Explain!”

Celestia’s ears flopped. “Chocolate Velvet understands that magic! He can teach it to the ponies, and that will help me fight the Harpy. It is what she means to do! She can feed and empower herself from the worship that her griffons will lend to her!”

“And you want him to teach ponies that kind of magic so that you can use it to fight the Harpy.” Chrysalis sneered. “You are lying.”

“I am not!” Celestia yelled. Her calmness devolved into desperate yelling. “Chrysalis, please!”

“You wiped this magic off Equestria? You let go of this kind of power?” The queen twisted her nose. “Who does that?”

“It is dangerous!” Celestia cut her words short, but Chrysalis’ fuming stare prodded her on. “Knowledge… It can be dangerous, Chrysalis. And it often is more binding than is liberating.”

“Tell me everything. No more lies. No more layers of meaning.” Chrysalis stepped a hoof toward Celestia. “Everything, or I am not helping you.”

Well, Celestia didn’t enjoy being threatened, either. Her ears pulled back, and she made a grim scowl, and her sweet voice dripped with the raging flames of a star. “Fine.”

“Countless eons ago, when the universe first started—” Celestia began, only for Chrysalis to cut her off with a grimace and a raised hoof.

“I didn’t mean it like that!”

“Shut up and listen.” The sheer commanding gravitas in her voice made the queen undo her expression and sit on the floor. Thorax and Chrysalis’s guards, too, obeyed.

“As the universe was created, Harmony manifested upon the world, and a being was made with the power to impose Order upon Chaos. She made the land and sky and filled it with a storm, and when her magic poured over the land, she molded the iron in the mountains into the first griffons. Because they needed sustenance from the flesh of other creatures, Harmony responded to her creation and made the ponies so they would spread their harmonious magic and further enforce order upon the world. Wherever they went, the magic of life bloomed, and the creatures griffons craved appeared.”

“Griffons outgrew their irrational beginning and started developing an understanding of their own choices, and that gave rise to free will. It empowered them to go against the natural order of the universe, and the creatures tasked with sustaining life became their preferred meal because of the immense magic their flesh carried. Although irrational, the ponies carried souls, and what are souls? They are the fundamental magic of space and time that animates living beings, mimicking in magic the workings of physiology and the psyche. They can retain memories.”

“Irrational, they were, but their complex mind was an echo of that of the griffons and still gifted with the power of Creation. Their innate magic enabled ponies to create life, as it was their purpose. Threatened with pain, horror, and death they were not equipped to deal with, their undying souls took their sorrow and helplessness back to the Pool of Souls. Reborn in new bodies, these horrors remained as impressions of traumatic memories of their past lives over and over, even as new ponies replaced the ones the griffons had killed, for their purpose compelled them to spread their magic and sustain nature.”

“In cycles of suffering and death, helpless, they clung to the things that they understood: the cycles of day and night that regulated their bodies. The bonds that united them to mate and to group into herds. They cried for help, and their magic of Creation delivered it. Four mighty beings were born, and they protected the ponies from the griffons.”

“Beings of immense power, fueled by sorrow, rage, and fear. They hunted the griffons back to the place of their creation, and they destroyed everything that lived. They killed the Demiurge. Overwhelmed by the flow of magic, the pool of souls turned into a whirlpool of magic and consumed everything. Once it all returned to the source, the singularity that started everything happened again. But this time, one of the alicorns was in charge. “

“The process was painstaking and required multiple attempts, but eventually, the primordial beings tasked with shaping the world created the modern ponies we know today. Ponies called them Day, Night, Love, and Friendship.”

“Are you messing with me?” Chrysalis yelled, but Celestia showed no reaction. Her Praetorian guard that had gone for the loveshrooms had returned and was eating the tiny bits from a bowl as Celestia continued.

“Each handled a piece of their creation, and their works built upon that of the previous. Life gave them cutie marks, bodies and their soul. Night gave them their rational mind so they could best the challenges ahead. Love taught them to reproduce so they could replenish their numbers and Friendship… She tied it all up and elevated them to free will with six moral directives that showed them they could choose between their purpose, their fears, and their friends.”

“With their task complete and ponies let loose to reign in the Chaos into Harmony, the primordial beings left and ponies forgot them. They inhabited the Pool of Souls, which can be seen from Equestria as the sun and the Moon. But also, inside the minds of ponies, helping them in the first steps into complete self-awareness. Destined to become nothing more than magical strands in the complex mechanisms of their minds. Thus bestowing upon ponies the control of the sun and moon.”

“What is the Pool of Souls?” Celestia asked, staring down the completely befuddled changeling queen. “It is the source and the final destination of all. Every rock, every molecule, every mote of magic from the rocks they inhabit to the complex magical machinery that binds soul and brain came from it. And so there they will return come the time.”

Listening to Celestia, Chrysalis frowned, a combination of anger and fear. “What are you?”

“Each alicorn carries the powerful soul of one of the primordial beings. And we are born into the material plane because of the different ways the system breaks as desperate ponies summon us back. But we do not remember anything because our souls were properly integrated into the magic of the pony mind and into our final resting places. In the previous cycle, the magic of unicorns failed to properly connect to that of the sun, and they lost their magical abilities because of the anomalous magical feedback after thousands of years. Harmony corrected by sending Luna and I.”

“When Discord came and stole away the free will of ponies, Harmony granted us the shards of Friendship’s magical heart, and we restored it to them and turned Discord to stone. When Luna succumbed to Nightmare Moon, I lost my bearings and nearly broke my Animus Imperative, my reason for existing, my cutie mark. I could not wield the Elements of Harmony. So they returned to the Pool of Souls and came back, once replenished, as souls do. Six pieces of a shattered soul that found each other and restored the world to what it should be by cleansing the monster and restoring my sister and my will to live.”

“But in the present cycle, something changed. The ponies were supposed to forget us, but they didn’t. Once their civilization started, it made them worship the primordial beings. It made several things happen differently, but the most important of all is that I remembered the Harpy was not gone. That she took part in sabotaging the previous cycles, waiting until the right circumstances to destroy me and reclaim her world.”

“Now that you sent them towards the Harpy, Cadance, and Twilight, are taking their primordial souls to her. She will pick their souls apart and extract the key to free will as it was bestowed upon the creatures of this cycle. She will force all the griffons to love her and weaponize devotion against me. And instead of the smiling goof that likes to eat cake, you will know horror under the black and white wings of the Queen of Talons. Therefore, I need Chocolate Velvet. So I can fight the Harpy, and the immense divine power the Children of the Harpy will deliver unto her with my own, given to me by the Children of the Sun.”

“And he… Somehow, understands how to… Harvest this devotion? He knows how to bring back this magic?”

“He does, but mortals get caught in a war older than time. Gods spin their plans, and you dance.” Celestia lowered her head. “I ended it. Buried our past in this cycle under the past of the precious one. A happier one where I was no goddess, just a big pony with the right magic to fix the sun. This power is dangerous. It makes you petty and vengeful. Daffodil, a priestess of Love, caught the eye of Night, and she wanted the priestess of Love to reciprocate. Love denied it, forbidding the mortal’s heart to love the other goddess. Enraged, Night cursed Daffodil. She damaged her soul so that her body became hard and blackened. Her horn became jagged, and she grew the wings of a fly. She craved the love that would never be given to her hideous form, and she was forced to steal it.”

“This is why a million changelings are stillborn, and you crave love.”

“She never told me that. I only heard of it because of the folk tales ponies spread.”

“She wanted her children to find their own place and not be defined by a curse. And you killed them. You killed your mother. You killed your sisters. You took their broods into your own and crushed any distinctiveness. All because you wanted this cursed power that turns beautiful things into petty squabbles!” Celestia settled and trembled before her first words. “But I cannot judge you, can I?”

“Do…” Chrysalis mumbled, jaw hanging, and her insect wings hanging from her back. “Do they… Know? Do Cadance and Twilight know? What about Luna?”

“Luna remembers. Not so Twilight and Cadance. And I never told them,” Celestia said softly. But then a chuckle escaped her. “I thought they would be happier if they never knew.”

Chrysalis snickered. “You moron.”

Celestia sighed and looked at the ceiling. She had barely noticed that once the doors opened, the balls of light hanging from the ceiling lit like changeling lamps. She looked back at the Changeling queen, looking at her. “Will you help me?”

“I guess we are ponies against griffons now… The Unified Pony Front,” she said, opening her holed legs in a sweeping gesture, but it lost its energy, and she stared at the floor. “Do they suffer?”

“Hmm?”

“The unborn changelings. Do they suffer? Somehow? I know they are too young to fixate memories…. But… Look! Just tell me!”

Celestia shook her head. “No. They don’t… Consciousness is not present until they have coupled to their body. They simply drift back to the Pool of Souls, knowing nothing of the circumstances of their… Rejected life.”

“That’s better.” The queen sighed and stood on her hooves. “Get your coltfriend here. I don’t know the extent of the damage, but if my recollection of fighting the Harpy’s whores is accurate, we’ll need a long time. Months. You better stall.”

“We will use your laboratory and your knowledge. But we will also use my magic. What we cannot heal, we shall replace with lifesaving battlehorn implants. You will have to allow me to bring a few battlehorns in here.”

Chrysalis turned slowly to stare at Celestia. “Battlehorns? I thought they had all died in the Battle of all Armies, and that you had disbanded the legions which survived.”

“All but one. And one you never knew. The Gray Dames… They are waiting outside. Just in case you wouldn’t help me.”

Chrysalis nodded. Silently thinking, still staring at Celestia. “We are both learning, aren’t we?”

“Aah… Is there anything I can do to help?” Thorax rubbed his hooves together.

“Yeah…” Chrysalis showed the door with a nod of her head. “Get to the main entrance and make sure workers don’t freak out.”