School of (Restoring) Harmony

The penultimate day of the Summer Sun Festival was coming to a close, and while thousands of ponies were tucking into their beds below, their princess could not help but pace in circles in her private tower of the castle. She continued her route frantically checking the astronomical clock that sat in her study, but the results never changed.

“One year...” she thought to herself. “Will it be enough?”

She couldn’t bear the uncertainty, but she knew better than to risk the future by peering into it. She needed help. Some comfort of familiarity that could provide her reassurance that this would all be okay. But she wouldn’t find that here in her study. She would have to look beyond her room, beyond her castle, beyond her ever-shrinking kingdom to find somepony, anypony who would understand what she was going through.

She descended every step of her palace’s stairs quietly by hornlight, walking the lonely halls until she reached the very bottom floor of the building - at least as the public knew it. There she found a hidden door, and went deeper still into the mountains until she reached the Royal Vaults, unlocking the complex door with her magic and stepping inside. Among all the treasures and dangerous artifacts she had collected over the years, with her sister and alone, one room could hold the answers she sought.

As she strode through the hall of mirrors, she found herself surrounded by reminders of her greatest mistake. A banner still hung from the far wall, of sun and moon entwined in an eclipse. A gift from Luna - and the first warning to the other universes that once hid behind these mirrors. Now they sat with only faint glimmers of magic sustaining their shattered panes, offering mere glimpses into other worlds. Celestia passed one she had long admired, and saw within it a version of herself that had her sister back, saved by her most faithful student a few years ago. A simpler, happier world, but one so different from the one she found herself trapped in. She reached out as if to touch it, to try to escape to a happier ending, but only sharpened glass met her hoof, gently cutting a bitter reminder that she could not leave. For what they had done, she and her sister had been cut off over a millennia ago, most universes shattering the mirrors from their side to isolate and trap them in a mix of fear and disgust.

But a few still glowed with true connections, still held hope of reaching other worlds. One was functional but dormant, a reminder of her second greatest failure and another loss that still stung. Still more were filled with roiling chaos, divergences that were still forming, new branches of this reality that could have given her the best chance of finding peace - if only they would settle into specific realities. Whatever events were so crucial they would form these new worlds had yet to pass, so she could only wait. But one loomed near her surrounded with dozens of layers of magical wards even she was not certain she could safely dismantle, but humming with power. If this was the only mirror that remained she could safely use, so be it. She summoned her writing supplies, and began a letter.

“Dear Princess Celestia.” She chuckled to herself. She had wanted to open a letter with that for a long time. “Or do you still prefer Solar Flare? I know it has been long since I last wrote you. I know it is difficult to maintain communication through letters and we have never been particularly close. But I must share my feelings, and I know you still check for these letters from time to time. As unfortunate as it is you may be my only friend left I can write to about these… struggles I am facing.”

She struggled to find the words to continue. Was there really anything for them to relate over, after their paths had diverged so much? Maybe not, but she had to keep trying.

“Tomorrow marks the 999th year since I banished Luna. But I am afraid that it also begins the countdown to the end. Only a few years before our fights boiled into war we used the elements before to cast out Sombra and the entire Crystal Empire from the world. A millennia later, he reappeared, and now wages war across the north. We used them to petrify Discord, and a thousand years later his statue shatters and he runs free, leaving Equestria to cause chaos elsewhere only because it has become “too sad and pathetic” for him to have any fun. It’s become clear that even the elements have a limit on how long their power can contain a creature, and my time is running out.”

Her pacing continued as she thought of the elements. She hadn’t even seen them since she banished Luna, leaving them where they fell to the ground. Should she retrieve them? No. Not yet. The Castle was… too painful to revisit.

“I know you claim you don’t care for her, you were happy to subjugate her to your will… but if you truly are a version of me you must at least have some care for your sister. You mastered your elements better than I ever could. Please tell me there’s some chance they could still save her, if I can only find the right ponies to use them. Please give me just a shred of hope for the future.”

She stared at the letter thinking of all the things she could say to herself. She already knew how Solar Flare would respond.

“Take command, be strong, conquer and master the world around you as it all belongs to you, “ she’d say. “Become like me. Stop holding back.”

But Celestia knew she did not have that strength in her to even hold back anymore. She had let her magic wither and fall out of practice, even as she tried her best to teach others. Her will had been worn down by the years, and if she had to face Nightmare Moon again alone, she wasn’t certain she could even muster enough to bother resisting at all. Perhaps this was her fate, to surrender the world to her sister and hope she would be spared and allowed to live in her shadow.

Celestia had nothing more to say so she simply signed off the letter “Yours truly, Princess Celestia.” and sealed it in a letter. Carefully she levitated it to a device which flung it through the mirror, independent of her magic. She would have to wait and see if she got a response tomorrow.

Drained and disheartened, Celestia began the long journey out of the vaults and back up the stairs to the palace. She had a big day tomorrow, a new school to open, and so many students to meet after all. Maybe when she had met them she would feel better, more confident in this desperate plan.

But as she left the vault in darkness, the mirrors filled with chaos began to shimmer gently. New timelines began to materialize within them, each marked with a flash as somewhere in this world, nearer than she could ever imagine, a Star was born.