The Gray Dames

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.