Celestia in Excelsis

by Kolwynia

Rating: teen
Tags: Other, Romance, Adventure, Princess Celestia, Dark, Sad, Main 6, Princess Luna, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 57171

One heroic princess is all that stands between the Arch-Enemy of Friendship and all her little ponies.

"One day, I swear to you, I will stand in the ashes of the Elements of Harmony themselves and proclaim a new world." -Starswirl the Bearded.

This is the story of Princess Celestia: her origin, the battles she fought, her betrayals, her adventures, the friends she made along the way, her one great love, and her ultimate destiny.

Now on Equestria Daily!

[Thanks to _Medicshy for his faithful editing and input. And to Heliostorm as of chapter 13.]

[Cover image by tamponandtwilaloop on deviantart, used by permission.]

Warning: updates irregularly lately.

Published 2012-10-14 02:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-10-08 00:30:24 UTC

I. The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Celestia in Excelsis

The light shines in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.

One:
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

The door to the old wizard’s study creaked open and Celestia poked her head in. Master Starswirl was out on what he had said was important wizarding business. Which meant he did not tell her what it was that he was doing, but it was sure to take awhile. She had the run of the place, and she had no intention of letting this opportunity slip by.

If there was an Element of Curiosity, that would have been her. Of course there wasn’t, and Celestia did not even know what the Elements of Harmony were yet. In fact, today was the day she would first learn those words. And that word, Harmony, would write itself across her heart in blazing letters.

She would learn a lot of things today.

But right now, she only wanted to explore her teacher’s study and see if she could find out any of his magical secrets. Her motives were innocent. She was not a great magician. Why the greatest wizard of the age would have taken somepony like her for an apprentice was a mystery to her. She wanted desperately to impress him. And maybe, just maybe there was something in this study, like a secret spell that she could learn in order to prove to Master Starswirl that she really was worthy to be his student.

Worshipful awe settled over Celestia as she entered her teacher’s study. It was the concentrated form of the feeling that had been pulsing through her soul ever since the wizard had taken her on as his student a year ago. A year… had it really been that long? Already she could barely remember what her life had been like before that. As far as she was concerned, her life started the day Starswirl the Bearded took a ragged little unicorn from the streets of Canterlot. Before that day was—

Nothing. Nothing worth remembering.

A jar stared at her from the great desk in the center of the study. It literally stared. A bunch of eyes floated in clear liquid inside it like a cluster of grapes and watched her carefully. Celestia swallowed and looked away.

Her gaze fell to the bookcase behind the great desk. Some of those books were bound to contain magical secrets. A sunny smile brightened her features and she made her way around the desk.

“Hey!” a voice called to her. It sounded muffled, like it was coming from another room.

“Who’s there?” asked Celestia, her smile fading into a worried expression. Finding a secret spell and impressing her teacher was a good thing. Getting caught before she could manage it was not.

“Over here.”

Celestia looked. There was only a wall. And on that wall, mercifully covering a large oval patch of Master Starswirl’s carrot wallpaper, was a mirror.

“I can’t see you, whoever you are,” said Celestia.

“I’m in the looking glass,” said the voice.

Celestia stood in front of the mirror and peered inside. All she could see was her reflection, a white unicorn filly with a dull pink mane. Nothing special. There were a couple faint ink stains on her muzzle from her writing exercises. Those spells for moving quills with magic were harder to pull off than they looked. To her at least.

“I don’t see anypony but me,” said Celestia. Her reflection’s lips moved along with every word.

“You’re not looking right! Look harder, more magically. I’m right here!”

Celestia stared at the glass, focused on it with the same intensity that she used when she was casting a spell. Only unlike her usual pitiful attempts at magic, this time her intensity paid off. The image in the glass shimmered like the surface of a puddle. Her reflection was gone, replaced by a very different little unicorn.

“Hi!” the other unicorn filly said. She was dark blue, with a mane the color of the sky just before evening and large aquamarine eyes.

“Who are you?” asked Celestia. “And what are you doing in a mirror?”

The blue unicorn grinned. “I’m not a who. I’m a what. This looking glass was created with fairy magic. I’m a reflection of whoever looks into it. I guess you could say I’m kind of like a copy, created out of your magic.”

“Do you have a name?”

The reflection’s blue ears drooped. “No. I change depending on who looks into the glass. Today I’m a copy of you. Tomorrow maybe somepony else. I was created to be fluid. A name would work like an anchor for something like me. It would give me a single form.” She sounded wistful.

A pang of sympathy stung Celestia. Some part of her knew that she should be more careful. Fairy creatures were strange, and some of them dangerous. Like the changelings, a rare race that fed on love and could drain a pony of every drop of emotion until she was dead inside. But this creature, whatever she was, seemed good.

“I’ll give you a name, then,” Celestia announced.

The blue unicorn went pale. “Don’t! You don’t know what you’re saying. Names are powerful things. Magical things. They are not to be trifled with.”

“I wasn’t going to trifle.”

The fairy creature’s eyes narrowed. “What if I told you that giving me a name would be casting a spell. Half your life and half your magic would become mine.”

“I don’t have much magic anyway.”

“I said your lifespan would be cut in half too.”

Celestia averted her gaze. “Well, I’m young. It might not be so bad…”

The blue unicorn filly’s mouth dropped open and her eyes widened, sparkling with the sudden threat of tears. She tried to say something, then clamped her lips shut and shook her head. The mirror’s surface shimmered again and Celestia was left staring at her own reflection once more.

“Don’t ever say that again,” the blue filly’s wan voice came from the glass. “Never again.”

“I’m sorry,” said Celestia. “I just wanted to help you.”

There was no reply. Celestia looked down at her hooves. She’d messed things up again. Was there a kind of magic she wasn’t a complete failure at?

As it turns out, there was. It was the most powerful kind of magic of all. The moment she made her offer to the little pony in the glass it began its work. And like a seed planted, one day it would bloom.

Celestia continued to speak to the mirror but the pony in the glass, whatever it was, did not return. Alone once more, she returned to searching her teacher’s study.

The bookcase behind Master Starswirl’s desk was crowded with dusty texts. Any one of them might contain the magical secrets Celestia was looking for. There were all seven volumes of Unicorn History, Commander Hurricane’s Airborne Warfare, one of the only known copies of Clover the Clever’s The Heart of Magic, and Master Starswirl’s own Elements of the Arcane. There were many others. Celestia flipped through The Windigo Prophecy, A Catalogue of the Spirits of Chaos, The Canterlot Tales, A Tartarus Field Guide and even Changeling Sorcery. There were dozens of books about magic and the history of Equestria and all the fantastical creatures that lived in the Everfree Forest. But none of these seemed to hold the magical secret she yearned for in her heart.

She glanced up at the desk. Several scrolls hung over its edges. Celestia jumped up into his chair for a better look. Two books rested on top of the scrolls. They both looked ancient. A half-finished letter was rolled up next to an hourglass with black crystal sand pouring through it in reverse. The floating eyes in the jar followed her every move as she picked up one of the books.

“The Book of Harmony,” she read aloud. As if she had cast a spell, the air in the study grew warmer. She tried to magic the book open, but couldn’t even manage that simple spell. Frustrated, she swatted at the book with her hoof and flipped through its pages.

The torch that stood in the corner of the room near the bookcase flared brighter, making it easier to read. “The most powerful magic known to ponydom…” Celestia’s voice was a whisper. Her lavender eyes lit up as she read the legends of the Elements of Harmony, which were supposed to be the key to magic. The words Harmony and friendship appeared over and over again.

She read through the entire book, losing track of time.

At last she sat the book down, a satisfied smile on her face. This was it, this was the magical secret that she had been searching for. Harmony. Why hadn’t Master Starswirl ever talked about it before? The word seemed to expand within her, filling her entire being with light. From this moment on, she would learn all she could about Harmony and the kind of magic that was born from its power. She would teach its secrets to generations, and one day she would know it more intimately than any pony in the world, with the exception of one.

“Friendship is magic,” she said out loud. It was the first rule of magic, according to The Book of Harmony. Real magic took more than study and practice. It required friendship.

Celestia’s only friend was Starswirl. He was the one who took her in when the rest of the world had turned its back on her. He made her his student, taught her to read and write and do magic. If magic needed friendship to work, she had all she needed. As she concentrated on what the old wizard meant to her, her heart lifted. She felt like she could do anything.

Heart in the clouds, she used her magic to float the other ancient book over to her and open it. She cast the minor spell without so much as a hiccup. Yes! she thought. Yes, yes, yes! It’s working! I’m doing it! She kept her composure, afraid to break the spell.

The torchlight dimmed as she pronounced the name written on the book’s cover in deep ruby letters: “The Sea of Night.” Celestia glanced at the flickering torch. But it wasn’t a torch at all.

It was a bird. A bird made of fire.

Celestia knew what a phoenix was. She had read about them. Why hadn’t Master Starswirl ever told her that he had one? The phoenix ruffled its flaming feathers and peered at her with one blazing orange eye. Somehow she felt even more uncomfortable than she did when the jar of floating eyeballs was watching her.

“Hello,” she said.

The phoenix chirped something in reply.

Slowly, Celestia lowered her gaze from the phoenix’s and started reading the book she was levitating over the desk. But as she read, an uneasiness began to fill her. The Sea of Night was nothing like The Book of Harmony. There were secrets in this book, but not the kind Celestia was looking for. What was Master Starswirl doing studying a book like this one? Everything it said about magic felt wrong. A grim suspicion grew in her mind and a frown began to form on her face as she read, lavender gaze scanning page after page. Dark secrets unfolded themselves before her, like black flowers blooming in the shadows. A bit of the light went out of her eyes as she read, and the book wobbled in the air as her spell weakened. Her expression remained stoic as she turned the pages, as if her face had been chiseled from marble, but her heart raced. And her blood ran cold as she came upon a name that was only written once in the entire book. Every other word in the text was written in smooth, flowing ink. This one was written as if the quill that scrawled it trembled. Cauchemar. The Arch-Enemy of Friendship.

The levitation spell broke and the book tumbled from the air onto the floor with a thump. Celestia’s dull eyes fell upon the rest of the scrolls on the desk. The dark suspicion that had taken root in her heart drove her. She didn't want to believe it, but she had to know. She read every scroll. This can’t be true, she thought. Then she read her teacher’s half-written letter. His weary quillwriting was unmistakable. When she was satisfied, she sat down in the wizard’s chair and waited.

After only a little while, she heard the bells.

“What have we here?” his rich voice queried when he noticed the door to his study was open. He entered the room.

Starswirl the Bearded had lived for more than a century and looked it. His grey fur was a wrinkled map that charted the experiences accumulated over a hundred years. He wore a cloak and pointed hat embroidered with astrological signs and constellations. Bells hung from their rim and fringes. There was a legend that the bells he wore once decorated the cloak of the arch-mage of Tartarus, whom he had defeated in a wizard’s duel that lasted a week. The sounds they made were said to ward off evil spirits. Or was it summon them? Who could remember these things?

“Celestia, my faithful student,” he greeted her.

“Starswirl,” she said. Not ‘Master Starswirl’ as she would have before. Never again. Her voice was iron. It was the same tone she would one day use when sentencing criminals.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked. His own tone of voice was not unkind. Nothing about him was unkind, ever. Not even his cruelties.

“I know everything,” she said.

“I very much doubt that,” said Starswirl, amusement glittering in his eyes.

“I know what you’ve been planning, I mean.” The books and letters had revealed everything to her, his whole dark scheme. And there, sitting in the shadow of his plan, terrified by its scope, there had been only one thing she could do.

Starswirl nodded slowly. “And you disapprove.”

“I do.”

“Whatever for? Even isolated from the world as you have been lately, you know what has been happening in Equestria for generations. War. The tribes have been at each other’s throats since the days of Princess Platinum. My plan might seem cruel to a filly who has been raised on fairy tales, but it will save lives in the long run.”

“Liar. You’re going to ruin everything.”

Starswirl took a step toward her. “Do you think I left my notes and letters out in the open by accident. I wanted you to see them. To give you a choice.”

“It wasn’t a choice at all! Do you think there was even a chance that I could have sided with you against the rest of Equestria?”

“Of course. You are a unicorn, a child of magic. Born to rule.”

Celestia shook her head. “I don’t want to rule anypony. I want the tribes to live in harmony.”

“Harmony…” Starswirl sneered. For a moment it seemed as if he wanted to say something more, then he seemed to change his mind. “What does it matter? I have lived long, child. When you have a hundred years behind you, let us see whether you still believe in the power of Harmony.”

“I will! I would if I lived to be a thousand!”

The old wizard smiled sadly. “Oh Celestia, my precious student. So be it. You said you didn’t have a choice. I give you one now. There is nothing you can do to stop me. My followers and I will bring all of Equestria to its knees. The pegasi and earth ponies will fight, of course. They will bring their earthquakes and their storms, and blood will be spilled… but in the end, they will kneel. I go to war. Join me or you will discover how merciless I can truly be.”

“I already know that,” Celestia whispered. “When I said I knew what you were planning, I wasn’t talking about your plan to win the war between the tribes. I meant that I know what you’ve really been planning.”

Starswirl’s red eyes searched her. “You do, don’t you? Interesting. You are the first, then. I am not surprised. You have always been brighter than you gave yourself credit for.”

Celestia’s voice cracked. “I can’t let you do it.” Her heart ached. Warm tears welled up in her eyes.

“You cannot stop me. I have powers you cannot even imagine. Even if you brought every drop of your magical power to bear against me, it would not so much as give me pause.”

Celestia wiped her nose with a hoof. She forced her voice to remain steady as she said, “I challenge you to a duel.”

When she was living on the street, Celestia learned that anything could be stolen, even your life. Back then, she had retreated into herself and found there the one thing that nopony could ever take from her. Not then, not now. Starswirl could take away her life. He could not take what made her who she was. It burned at the center of her, a flame that could never be quenched.

One of Starswirl’s white eyebrows raised. “A duel? Stop this foolishness, Celestia. You don’t stand a chance.”

She knew that. It didn’t matter.

The little unicorn leaped onto the desk and locked eyes with her teacher. “I will die before I stand by and let you have your way.”

The old wizard sighed. “Very well. A duel it is. The stakes?”

“All that is.”

“Then you do understand.”

The two unicorns faced one another squarely. Their horns began to glow with eerie light. For a pregnant moment, neither one of them cast. They just stared at one another, something precious and unspoken passing between them.

Celestia cast first, but there was a flash of purple light and a noise like a thunderclap as Starswirl’s magic discharged. It blew through Celestia’s puny spell as if it were nothing, striking the filly in the chest and knocking her off the desk. Books and scrolls went flying. The phoenix flapped its fiery wings and shrieked.

Then it was silent in the study. Celestia’s body lay sprawled out on the floor, her lavender eyes wide open.

Starswirl stood over his apprentice’s warm corpse and looked down at it, his expression unreadable.

“Farewell, my faithful student,” he whispered. Then he went his way unhindered, to make war.

A stillness settled over the room in his absence. The body of the little white unicorn grew cool on the floor.

The phoenix looked down at the little pony for a long time. It seemed thoughtful. Eventually the creature made its decision. It flew down to Celestia’s body and covered her with its wings. Flame engulfed both of them. Then the fire spread across the floor, over the desk, crawling up the walls and the bookcase. Everything burned. The entire study was an inferno. Swirling orange flames crackled and roared.

In the heart of the blaze, a flash of pure white.

II. The Phoenix Court

Two:
The Phoenix Court

Celestia fell like a star. She passed through doors of fire, wide eyes drinking in realms that no living pony had glimpsed. Like a filly in a fairy tale, tumbling down into another world, she had time for no emotion but wonder. In the years to come, the centuries, she would only ever breathe of what she saw there once, and only to one.

Eventually her descent slowed and she alighted gently upon a stone dais. There were symbols carved into its surface that were in no language she had ever seen before, not even in the ancient texts in Starswirl’s library.

A thousand phoenixes surrounded her on golden perches, a fiery stadium of immortal creatures. Crowns adorned their heads. They watched her with eyes of yellow flame. Celestia shrank beneath their gaze.

A chorus of voices whispered among themselves. Celestia caught a few scattered sentences. “Is she the one?” “No, not her.” “But poor Euphemia…” “Is she worth it?” “Who can say?”

Celestia waited, afraid. She listened but did not understand. “Excuse me,” she said at last. Her voice was quiet.

The firebirds fell silent. All eyes were on her. She felt herself peeled away in layers under their terrible scrutiny.

“I just wanted to know… where am I?”

One of the phoenixes, the one nearest her, burst into a ball of orange flame. In a flash, the flames dissipated and standing in the place of the fiery bird was a scarlet unicorn with a mane and tail of fire. Burning eyes looked deep into hers and just when Celestia felt like running away as fast as she could, the creature smiled tenderly at her.

“We are the ever-living ones,” he said, dipping his crowned head in her direction. “And you are the first visitor we have had in a long time.” Something about the way he said the words ‘long time’ called to Celestia’s mind stone cliffs being worn down into beaches by the waves, continents shifting, stars burning out.

“I just saw my first phoenix today!” blurted Celestia. “It was in Starswirl’s…” She fell silent. Starswirl’s study. Where we dueled. Where I…

“Yes,” said the pony-shaped phoenix. There was a sadness in his voice that went beyond mere sympathy. Celestia realized that the creature was in the kind of daze that comes with only the greatest of heartbreaks. She looked toward the rest of the phoenixes in the stands. One by one, in swirls of flame, they took pony form. She could see the agony on their faces. That was the reason they appeared to her as ponies, she realized. They wanted her to be able to read their expressions, to know how they suffered.

“I… think I died.” Celestia barely got the words out.

The phoenix nodded. “We are sorry, child.

Celestia looked down at herself. Her body was translucent, its lines glowing with a ghostly blue light. It was true, then. She had died. Starswirl had killed her.

Her eyes narrowed and when she looked back up at the phoenix, it was hard to say whose eyes had more fire in them. “But I cannot die,” she said. “Not now.”

The phoenix frowned. “And why not?”

“I have to…” (save the world) “…do something. Something important.”

“Everything is important.”

“Yes,” Celestia agreed. “That’s why I have to stop him.”

“Your wizard teacher, you mean. Starswirl the Bearded. Yes, Euphemia has told us about him. She has watched that one for a long time.”

“Euphemia?”

“The phoenix you… met.” There was something besides sadness in the creature’s voice. Anger perhaps? Directed at her? And something else too. There was something crucial going on here that she wasn’t getting, and it involved her somehow. Celestia couldn’t keep fumbling blindly with these creatures. She needed to know.

She sat down. “What is it?" she asked. "Tell me."

A sigh came from the phoenix. “Our kind do not die. Not the way you mortals do. When our time comes, the flame takes us and we are reborn. Life gives way to new life. There is only one thing that can break the cycle of rebirth.”

He paused. Celestia said nothing.

“We serve the spirits of Harmony. To save a life that belongs to Harmony, a phoenix may choose to give up her immortality. If she does this…” the phoenix’s voice cracked, “…she can never return to us. She dies forever. Do you understand?”

Celestia’s mind reeled from the implications. In her heart, wild hope blossomed under the cloud of her pain. “You mean…the phoenix I saw…”

“Euphemia. She sacrificed herself to save you, child. You must have shown great purity of spirit for her to choose you. Will you accept her gift and return to your world?”

Oh yes! thought Celestia. Impossibly, she was being given another chance. She didn’t know whether to be happy or sad. A phoenix had given its life to save her. It was tragic. But she needed to live to prevent Starswirl’s terrible plan. There was only one thing to do: she had to make this gift count.

“I will,” answered Celestia. Thousands of ponies cried in her heart. Unicorns and pegasi and earth ponies. She didn’t know their names, but she knew they were waiting for her. She would return to save them. Somehow.

“No!” a shrill cry cut through the solemn atmosphere. Celestia stared as a young phoenix leapt onto the stone dais with her, eyes flashing. The phoenix was in the form of a little golden pegasus. Molten tears filled her blazing eyes. “You can’t do this!” she cried.

Celestia stepped backward. “I…” She didn’t know what to say. Was she doing something wrong? Equestria needed her, and she had a chance to go back. What was wrong with—

“She’s a mortal. Mortals are supposed to die!” the young phoenix said harshly.

“Come away from there, child,” said the unicorn phoenix. He was not addressing Celestia this time.

“But she can’t! She doesn’t deserve this! Not this!”

“Your mother chose her. She must have proven herself.”

Oh. Celestia understood. This creature was the daughter of the phoenix whose life she was being offered. Stealing, she thought. That is how she must see it. Because of me her mother will never come back to her. Never. And she is immortal. Centuries separated from somepony you love… it is unimaginable. Celestia did not even want to think about how painful such an existence would be.

The day would come when she would know that pain as deeply as any.

“My mother was wrong! She’s nothing special!” The phoenix filly was in tears. She glared at Celestia and begged, “Don’t take her from me! Just stay dead. It’s the way it’s supposed to be!”

“I…”

“Your mother is already gone, Philomena,” said the phoenix. “She made her choice. And now… we honor it.” In a swirl of flame, he was a firebird once more. A curtain of fire swept across the stadium and all the phoenixes shed their pony forms.

“No…” wept little Philomena. Pure hatred shone from her eyes. “Why should you get to live forever, when I’ll never see her again? Somehow I’ll find a way to make you suffer for this. I swear it.”

The young phoenix took flight, leaving Celestia alone on the dais. A feeling of absolute helplessness took hold of her. She had messed things up again. But she wanted to live! She had to get back to Equestria. Everypony was counting on her! The symbols beneath her hooves began to glow with fiery light. It washed over her.

A piercing cry came from the phoenix court and the air around Celestia caught fire. She cringed amid the flames. There was a tremor beneath her hooves. The dais cracked. Celestia looked down and found that she understood the glowing words now.

In the name of Harmony,

For the sake of all things,

I give you all my life,

My power and my wings.

The stone broke into pieces, disintegrating under her hooves, and Celestia fell down into a well of pure light. She felt the light filling her, changing her. The ghostly blue color she had been glowing with bled out of her, replaced by a burning gold.

What is happening to me? she thought.

You are no longer a unicorn, a voice spoke in her head. It was a phoenix. Which one, she could not tell.

What do you mean?

Life is one. You cannot touch the flame of life and remain the same.

What am I going to be?

Something new.

Light blinded her, but as she looked into its heart she noticed a dark spot, a shadow crawling on the surface of the pulsing brightness.

What is that?

Chaos, the shadow of the Enemy.

Whose enemy?

Yours.

The darkness swelled and stretched over the light. Somehow Celestia knew that it was poisoning the light, twisting the power of life that poured out of it. Because of that shadow monsters would be born. Cockatrices and timber wolves and manticores. Magic itself would be corrupted to oppose Harmony.

Can anything stop it?

The spirits of Harmony and their Elements.

Where are they?

Gone.

Celestia tried to say something more, but her voice was drowned out by a rushing sound. She disappeared into the heart of the light. Her eyes closed. It was like falling into a storm. The light took her apart, consumed everything she was except for that one unassailable thing. Naked, her soul took flight.

She was reborn.

* * *

Night had fallen over Equestria. The stars twinkled and shivered in the sky above like ten thousand tears waiting to fall. The glowing ruin of a great wizard’s house smoked and smoldered under their mournful gaze. Flecks of ash fell like black snow.

Miles away, two armies clashed. The first drops of blood were spilled, falling to the ground in nearly silent splatters. But in the ruin of Starswirl’s house, a pair of white ears perked up at the sound.

A heartbeat. Then lavender eyes opening. Somewhere a pegasus cried. She heard. Rousing herself as if from a deep sleep, the white filly stood up on her hooves. Her horn glowed with a gentle golden light and her magic dusted the coating of ash off her ivory coat. She flexed her wings.

Wings!

There was no name for what she had become. A pony that did not belong to any tribe. Or rather, belonged to every tribe. Unicorn and earth pony and pegasus. And phoenix, she thought with awe.

Far away another scream. Celestia felt it like a lash. For the first time in her life, she jumped into the air and did not come back down again. The ruins of her old house disappeared beneath her, along with her old life. After today, nopony would remember the little unicorn that used to be Starswirl the Bearded’s clumsy apprentice.

Celestia ascended, her heart burning with fury. War had come to Equestria. Countless flames of life were flickering under the night sky, a breath away from being extinguished. It was unforgivable! Her fury was catching. The stars seemed to glow brighter as she flew up to meet them.

The heavens welcomed their newborn goddess.

III. All Her Armies at the Rising of the Sun

Three:
All Her Armies at the Rising of the Sun

As soon as she sets hoof in the door he can tell that something is wrong. She doesn’t have to say anything. He can tell.

“Celestia, is everything all right?”

The little white unicorn lies with a nod.

The old wizard frowns. “Come here and tell me about it.”

“It’s just something some kids said. Nothing important.”

“Oh, I find the things children say to be of supreme importance. What was it?”

“They called me a blank flank.”

“Ah.” That would explain it. In the hundred years he had lived, children had not changed. Nothing ever changes, he thinks. Nothing.

“When I was still…” Something flickers in the filly’s eyes. There are still things she avoids talking about, even with Starswirl. “I mean before I started living with you it wouldn’t have bothered me at all. It’s just words, after all. But today it felt different. It hurt.”

Starwirl smiles warmly at his student. “It’s okay to feel hurt about things like that. It is the little things that we think are petty and unimportant that sometimes turn out to have the most impact on us.”

“Do I have a destiny?” she asks. She is wearing her expression of utmost seriousness. It is the same look she gets when she sits down to study magic, which she is not terribly good at yet.

“Of course. Everypony has a destiny.”

“What is mine?”

Starswirl stares at her with the same fondness with which he looks through a telescope, contemplating the heavens.

“Something special, I’m sure.”

* * *

Starswirl the Bearded looked tired, which was unusual for him despite his advanced years. Often ponies who met him for the first time remarked about his vitality, the way he moved, as if he were a younger pony wearing an older body. But this night he looked his age, all one-hundred-and-who-can-remember-how-many-more years of it. He scanned the map of the battlefield that was laid out before him, red eyes dancing over the lines and figures representing the troop movements of the converging armies.

“Sir…” a young voice called from behind him. He turned to see a messenger pony standing in the door of his tent.

“What is the news from the front?” asked Starswirl.

“I’m not sure, Sir,” said the young unicorn, blushing. “I’ve come to tell you that… um… that is to say, we’ve received word that… well…”

“Go ahead and tell me. I promise not to incinerate you on the spot.”

The messenger gave a wary laugh. “I’m afraid that… your house has been destroyed.”

Starswirl raised one fuzzy white eyebrow. “Destroyed? Interesting. Do you know how?”

“Fire, Sir. It burned down. I… I’m sorry…”

“No, don’t be,” said Starswirl, and he got a faraway look in his eyes. There was not the slightest drop of emotion in his voice as he said, “It’s quite all right. I did not leave anything too valuable in there.”

* * *

A thousand years after the last battle of the three tribes, classrooms full of fillies and colts would put on school plays about it all over Equestria. They would wave streamers of scarlet paper to show the bloodshed, and the little ponies would fall down on the stage in adorable mock deaths that would send their parents into a frenzy of picture-taking. Those kinds of school productions invariably focused on the ending of the battle, the moment when the beautiful Princess Celestia made her glorious appearance and rescued the three tribes from the horror of war forever. But so many details were lost in the haze of the past. Nopony remembered which tribe started the war, or what they almost did in their pride and greed. The unicorns’ dark plot was never recalled. Starswirl the Bearded never even made an appearance in those plays. Neither did a young earth pony named Victory Song, who was completely forgotten by history, though the fate of generations was decided by a choice she made on the battlefield that day. A thousand years after her brief life, she was only remembered by one.

Victory watched as blood poured from the wounded pony lying in front of her. It was the first time she had seen anypony bleed more than a drop or two. It looked nothing like a paper streamer. Her complexion paled as she watched the doctor apply the salve she had brought, made from special earth pony herbs that were supposed to be as good as a unicorn’s healing spell. Except they weren’t. The bleeding lessened, but not enough, not nearly enough.

Eventually, the doctor shook his head. “Too late for that one,” he said.

“I came as fast as I could,” Victory said, her voice hushed in the presence of death.

“Not your fault, little one. Many of us earth ponies are going to die this night.”

“More than unicorns and pegasi?” Victory asked.

“I’m afraid so. The pegasi will call upon their storms and the unicorns will cast their magic and we earth ponies will hope to hold out long enough for them to grow hungry.”

Stupid unicorns and pegasi. If any of them ever need my help, I won’t give it, she vowed. A vow she would break within the hour, and once more, much later, at the moment of her greatest triumph. She felt a fierce loyalty rising within her, and though she thought it was loyalty to her tribe, the ones Victory was really loyal to were the weak.

The unicorns were the ones who deserved her hatred the most. They were the ones that started the war. Princess Dewdream delivered her ultimatum to the other pony tribes: submit or die in darkness. There were rumors that her court wizard was really the one pulling the strings. He was the one who led an army of unicorns to use their magic to force the sun from the sky. The other tribes watched helplessly as unnatural night fell on the land.

There would be no sunlight until all of Equestria was ruled by the unicorn tribe.

It is said that a hundred years ago, the tribes were at one another’s throats when the windigos came with their terrible Frost, to make the land as cold as ponies’ hearts. And for the sake of the friendship of a few pure hearts, the power of winter was broken. But now the hearts of the tribes were colder than ever and the only thing covering the land was the unicorns’ darkness.

The pegasus and earth pony tribes united to fight the unicorns. But more earth ponies died than pegasi. And the unicorns were not easily defeated. Their dark wizard summoned fiends from Tartarus and awakened the dread Ursa Minor to fight the free tribes. It was a bloodbath.

Victory ran back into the fray to see if she could find any wounded earth ponies that might be saved. She wore the vest of a medic-pony to show that she was a healer, not a combatant. A lightning bolt cut a bright gash through the air next to her, nearly striking her. She trembled and kept going, ducking stray spells and dodging great hail stones. Everywhere the bodies of the fallen lay unmoving.

“Help!” a weak cry, carried on storm winds, found its way to Victory’s ears. Heart racing, she ran toward the voice.

It belonged to a unicorn.

“Please… help me,” the unicorn groaned. She was a blue filly with a mane the color of violets. Her cutie mark was a cluster of stars, but there was a gash over them where she had been wounded, Victory couldn’t tell if by unicorn magic or pegasus lightning. Her eyes were pleading. Victory stamped her hoof in frustration when she saw that it was a unicorn, then sighed. Somewhere deep inside her, a little ice fell away from her heart. She treated the filly’s wound as best she could, then helped her up and started to head back to the medical tents. They moved slowly through the battlefield, the wounded unicorn filly leaning on the earth pony every step of the way.

And so young Victory Song saved the life of Page the unicorn, the granddaughter of Starswirl the Bearded.

The moment wove itself into the thread of history without any fanfare.

Before they could escape the battlefield, the armies sent another wave of troops to crash against one another. The air was full of icy wind, and lightning, and glittering beams of deadly magic.

And then…

* * *

No history book, no heroic song, no schoolchild play could ever do the moment justice. As the armies surged forward, ready to pour out more of their lifeblood on the thirsty ground, as the wind howled, drowning out the cries of the fallen, as hundreds upon hundreds of hateful, frightened ponies surrendered the last wisps of hope from out of their hearts…

…she appeared.

A star fell from the blackened heavens into the middle of the battlefield, right at the point where the three armies were about to converge. Thousands of soldiers stopped in their tracks as a wave of power rippled through their ranks. They stared as the star reared up on her hind legs and spread her great white wings, every feather glowing like an enchanted blade, horn shining like a beacon of pure gold.

“Enough!” cried Celestia, and the armies stood still.

Her eyes flashed as she surveyed the battlefield. Hundreds of ponies lay dead. Feeble moans came from the wounded. White fury roared inside her. She felt every death. Their air seemed thick with ghosts whose presence she alone sensed.

For a few soldiers, the initial shock of seeing her wore off and they rallied themselves against this new enemy. She has wings, thought a few unicorns and launched a wave of deadly spells. Celestia’s horn glowed and the unicorn spells fizzled out like the flames of worn-down candles. She has a horn, thought a few pegasi and threw hail and lightning down upon her. Celestia shattered the hail stones into harmless chips of ice which fell around her in a glittering shower as she caught the lightning and flung it back into the sky. The armies watched her in awe.

“What are you?” a unicorn soldier breathed.

Celestia fixed him in her fiery gaze. “Where. Is. Starswirl?”

The unicorn army parted to make way for the old wizard, who walked slowly, the bells of his cloak tinkling softly with each step, shadows pooling around him even where no shadows should be. When he saw her, his eyes lit up.

“Look at you,” he said.

“You did this,” she accused. Her voice was an executioner’s blade.

“You were dead,” he said wonderingly.

“Not anymore.”

Starswirl regarded his former apprentice coolly. She was more than a unicorn. Perhaps more than a pony. And she knew of his master plan, if he was to believe what she had told him right before he put a spell through her heart. Was she powerful enough to interfere? He doubted it. But he had learned not to underestimate the power of the White Light. He who opposed Harmony dared not take his opponent lightly.

Celestia felt power surge within her like a rising tide beneath the moonlight. She wanted to unleash it on the wizard. And she could. If she wanted, she could rip him apart as if he were a drawing on a roll of parchment, and set fire to the pieces, until he was nothing more than ash, and scatter the ashes to the pitiless winds. She had never felt a hatred so vast before. She might not have been capable of it before. But she was now.

“Are you going to try to stand in my way again?” asked Starswirl.

“If they knew what you intended, every pony here would stand in your way.”

“They don’t concern me.”

“No,” Celestia agreed. “But they concern me.”

Starswirl shook his head. “Will you not reconsider? It broke something in me to kill you once. I don’t know what killing you a second time would do to me.”

“Something was broken in you before we ever met.”

A shadow passed over the old unicorn’s face. “It’s not just me you face. I have an army of unicorn magicians at my back.”

Celestia lifted up her eyes and saw the sea of faintly shining horns stretched out behind Starswirl. They were not her enemies. They were angry and afraid and they were all being played like cheap instruments by the ancient wizard.

“No,” she said softly. “They are not yours. They are mine.”

“You are not part of the unicorn tribe anymore. You are a freak.”

Life is one, the voice of the phoenix whispered in her memories. “I am part of every tribe. And I won’t see another pony dead from any one of my armies.”

“Then tell them to stand down, if they’ll listen to you. For my army has pulled the very sun from the sky and cast the whole world into darkness. Without us, the crops will fail and your precious ponies will starve. If you really want to save their lives, you only have one option.”

Celestia smiled. “Do I?”

And her horn began to glow.

Like sunlight…

Starswirl felt the tug on his spell. Hundreds of unicorn magicians felt the same. She was trying to raise the sun. By herself.

“Impossible!” he gasped. His horn blazed with violet light, like a signal flare in the darkness. His magicians followed his example, strengthening their hold on the sun.

Celestia pushed off from the earth and spread her wings. Come to me, she called out with her magic. A thousand chains of unicorn magic were broken in a flash and the effort did not even cause her strain. As if I were born for it, she thought. The heavens turned overhead. The horizon began to glow…

And there was light.

Three armies stood blinking in wonder, all their armor glinting in the morning light. Starswirl stepped backward away from the white-winged filly as she descended back down to the earth, beaming at all three tribes gathered around her. The sun was shining in her mane, which gleamed with every color of the morning sky.

The unicorn army knelt before her. All except one.

“It’s over,” said Celestia.

“I suppose so,” said Starswirl, dipping his head. “It looks like you’ve finally found your destiny.”

She glanced at her flank, where the new shining sun was emblazoned, then back at Starswirl. “To stand against darkness forever,” she said. It was a solemn promise.

“Poetic, I admit,” said Starswirl. “But even the sun is only one tiny star in the great sea of night. You think you’ve won, but what do you think is going to happen now that one tribe has threatened the other two? Dark days are ahead for the unicorns.”

“If the tribes could learn to be friends before, they can again.”

“How can you believe in friendship? Don’t you remember where I found you?”

Of course I do, she thought.

“No,” she said. “But I remember where you left me.”

“So you see where trusting in the power of friendship gets you.”

She smiled and flexed her new wings. “I do.”

“I’ve lost you, haven’t I?” He seemed genuinely pained. “You belong to Harmony and the power of friendship. And you’ve never even had a real friend.”

“I thought I did,” she said, remembering his kindness that day, as he carried her home. “For a little while.” She felt very near tears, but she would not let herself cry in front of him. Never again. They were enemies, now and forever.

In the middle of three armies, on that field of blood and death, they seemed to face each other alone.

“Farewell, my faithful student. We will meet again. One day, I swear to you, I will stand in the ashes of the Elements of Harmony themselves and proclaim a new world.”

Celestia shook her head. “I won’t let you escape. Not after what you’ve done here.”

Then Starswirl smiled one of his rare smiles. “My dear Celestia. You may have learned far more about magic than you ever knew before, but you still do not know everything.”

And with a flash of violet light, Starswirl the Bearded was gone.

Celestia was alone. Hundreds of ponies surrounded her, a third of them on their knees before her, and she was alone.

“What happens now?” a pony asked.

“A long time ago, three ponies made a promise,” said Celestia. “Now its up to you to keep it.”

“My sister is dead!” cried a yellow pegasus. “The unicorns have to be punished.”

There were murmurs of agreement from the soldiers of two armies.

“I won’t allow any more bloodshed today,” said Celestia. “The battle is over. Nopony else dies. Not a pegasus, not an earth pony… and not a unicorn.”

Her words cut through the angry voices of the crowd. They were whispered from pony to pony until those in the farthest ranks had heard the news: the one who had raised the sun would not allow any more lives to be lost. Not even the lives of the unicorns.

“It was Princess Dewdream and Starswirl, not all the unicorns,” somepony reasoned.

“But Starswirl has escaped.”

“And besides, they all helped him to bind the sun.”

“Dewdream cannot be allowed to remain princess of the unicorns. The other tribes won’t accept peace while she still reigns.”

“But she is the last of her line. If she is deposed, who will rule in Canterlot?”

The question hung in the morning air. Then a pale unicorn magician rose from his kneeling and approached Celestia. “My lady… what should we call you?” he asked.

“Celestia,” she said.

“I have an idea, Celestia, if you will hear it. None of our royalty are without guilt. Would you be willing to protect the tribe that tried to bring darkness to the world?” Behind him, the other unicorn soldiers raised their heads and listened.

“What are you asking me?”

“This is an emergency. The unicorn tribe faces its greatest crisis. Our most powerful wizard has abandoned us. Our rulers gambled everything on his scheme. None of us are innocent anymore. If we are to live in peace with the other tribes, we need somepony to rule us who has no pegasus or earth pony blood on her hooves.”

The unicorns murmured their agreement.

“You can’t mean…” Celestia’s mind reeled.

“If you would have us.”

She thought of Starswirl, scheming his dark scheme for Equestria. It would not be long before he returned to finish what he began here. She thought of what would happen if she denied the unicorns, how the other tribes clamored for justice for their fallen soldiers. The ghost of war hovered over the armies. Thousands of ponies stood trembling in the dawn. And she was all that stood between them and the powers of darkness.

“I will,” she said.

A cry went up from the unicorns, and even though they had lost the battle, you would have thought they won a great victory. Celestia couldn’t help but blush, though she was beaming at her army. At all her armies, for the other tribes realized that an innocent on the unicorn throne was the only chance for future peace. And the cry was picked up by some of their number as well, until the air over the battleground vibrated with the sound of their joyous cheering. A name, glorious in its newness, shouted to the sky over and over again:

“Princess Celestia!”

IV. Starswirl in the Underworld

Four:
Starswirl in the Underworld

Once, the black gates of Tartarus were guarded by three terrible demons. They were scaly, hulking creatures who would attack viciously any who tried to pass through the gates except during the night of the Winter Moon Celebration.

This was not that night.

“I’m hungry,” one of the demons complained.

“Didn’t you just eat a pegasus not too long ago?” asked another.

“Ah, but she was so scrawny. And her feathers got stuck in my teeth.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have eaten her raw.”

“Quiet both of you,” said the third demon. “Someone approaches.”

It was far away, but they could hear the tinkling sound of bells.

One of the demons strained to see who was coming. “It looks like a pony,” he said.

“Only one?” There was a disappointed note in the creature’s voice.

“It will have to do,” said the hungry demon. He grabbed his massive club, which was stained with the blood of woodland creatures, and went out to meet the pony. The other demons sat down in front of the black gates and waited for him to return.

He didn’t.

“I still hear those bells,” said one of the demons.

The demon guards of the black gates got to their feet and waited as the traveler slowly made his way toward them. As he drew nearer, they could make out his features. He was old and gray, with a white beard so long that he had to take care not to trip over it.

“Greetings,” the pony said as he approached them. “I have traveled a long way. Do you mind if I rest here a moment?”

One of the demon guards narrowed his glittering eyes. “This is no place to rest. These are the gates of Tartarus.”

“I know,” said the old pony. “That is my destination.”

“And we’re its guards. No one gets by us except on the night of the Winter Moon Celebration.”

“I’m afraid I cannot wait that long.” The old pony took his eyes off the demons and looked down at his starry cloak. He frowned as he noticed a stain on it.

“By any chance did you meet a demon on your way here?” asked the other guard.

“Oh, was he a friend of yours?” asked the old pony.

The demon snorted. “Friend? We ain’t got friends. He’s a guard like us. When we heard your bells he went out to… see who was coming.”

“Ah. Well I’m glad you were not friends, because he tried to eat me. So I’m afraid I killed him.”

“You… killed him?” the demon asked, incredulous.

“Murdered him, truth be told. I know a sleeping spell that works on your kind, but I was in a mood.”

“You expect us to believe that you killed a demon of Tartarus? By yourself?”

“No. I expect you both to behave with incredible stupidity and try to stand in my way. Then I expect one of you, maybe both, to attack me, either for food or for sport. After that I expect you to die without ever knowing my name, which if you had known, might have led you to a wiser decision and allowed you to keep your lives.”

The demons exchanged an unimpressed glance, then both fell upon the old pony at once to tear him apart.

And that is how the gates of Tartarus came to need new guards.

* * *

Grimly, Starswirl the Bearded entered the sunless realm. It had been many years since he had last come this way. With a flicker of magic, he conjured a ghost lamp to light his way through the dark. Its blue light was a cold comfort in these damp caverns.

The old wizard’s thoughts were troubled. His takeover of Equestria had been ruined. By Celestia, of all ponies, his own student, a mere filly. A dead filly, he reminded himself. She had been dead when he left her after their magic duel in his house. Had the White Light somehow intervened? My faithful student, he thought, have you been saved by Harmony? He chuckled darkly. It was his own fault, if you thought about it. For a year he had tried to teach her magic. Not the magic of friendship, but real magic. And after a whole year she could barely levitate a teacup. So he had let her see his plans. He even let her read the book. Both of the books. He had to give her the choice, to prepare her for what was coming. And he had been so certain that she would choose his side. She had never known friendship’s power her whole life, and she was in his debt for rescuing her from the streets. She should have sided with him. But no, she had decided that she would serve Harmony and the magic of friendship. And what he had not been able to do in a year of teaching her, the mere idea of friendship had done in an hour. She had wielded magic like one born to it.

He had killed her for daring to stand in his way. Then, impossibly, she had returned to life. Fear had crept into his heart when he stood before her on the battlefield, and something else. Relief. Some part of him had been glad to see her alive.

Celestia was alive, and now she was a threat.

The cold caverns opened up into a vast subterranean land. Black rivers wound their way across the landscape like wet scars. In the distance, the faint lights of the black city burned. Starswirl had trained there in his youth. It was there, in the grand hall of Castle Midnight that he had won his first magic duel. If he returned now he would be welcomed. He could take power. A few short years and he could be standing outside of Canterlot with a demonic army at his back.

An army is nothing to her, he thought, frowning. She raised the sun by herself. Starswirl shuddered when he thought of the power that such a feat required. And she had done it as if she were levitating a pebble. No, if he was going to stand against his former student, he would need more than an army.

The Withered Wood was a tangled forest of the kind of trees that hate sunlight. Starswirl ventured deep within the wood, creeping along paths that nopony but he knew. The darkness closed thick around him. For miles he traveled in blindness, until the veil of shadows parted and he arrived at his destination.

Colored lanterns hung from the branches of the twisted tree, their flickering light keeping the shadows at bay. At the foot of the tree was a worn gravestone. An epitaph, carved with unicorn magic, glowed pale as moonlight from the face of the stone.

My life has been measured in Friendship

Starswirl stared for a long time at those words. A hundred years had not dimmed them. It was his own spell, cast long ago, that had cut them into the rock. They were the words his prize pupil had requested. Starswirl had never seen such blazing conviction in the power of Harmony in any pony… not until Celestia had stood atop his desk and challenged him to a duel she knew she could not win. All my students have been foals, he thought.

But only one of them had come back to life. How was it possible? Starswirl needed answers, and there were few places he had not already searched for them. But if he could not find what he was looking for in the land of the living, he would turn to the land of the dead. He knew a spell that would let him speak with the spirits of the dead. It was dark magic, the kind of spell no wizard of light would cast, but he had crossed that bridge long ago.

His horn glowed, throwing back the shadows, which slithered around his magic circle in serpentine twists and coils. Sweat dripped from his wrinkled forehead. A stale breeze blew across the gravesite. Starswirl’s bells tinkled.

“Clover the Clever,” he called softly.

The air above the gravestone rippled and a glowing unicorn shimmered into sight. The ghost of Clover the Clever floated above his grave. He wore his familiar hooded cloak, or a ghostly copy of it. There were chains around his hooves.

“Starswirl,” said Clover. “Have you fallen so far, my old mentor?”

“Has the news of my war against Harmony not reached the land of the dead?” asked Starwirl.

“I did not want to believe it. You are the one who taught me the magic of friendship, the power that once saved the world from the icy hatred of the Enemy.”

“I have changed. A century of life will do that to you.”

Clover’s look was faraway. “I wouldn’t know.”

“I did not summon you to argue philosophy. I have questions, and you are bound to answer them.”

The ghost sighed. “In life, I was a servant of Harmony and the True Magic. In death, I have become one more slave of the Enemy. His power over us is nearly absolute. So yes, I am bound to answer your questions and aid you in your foalish quest.”

“I thought Loyalty was one of the spirits of Harmony. If Harmony was as loyal to you as you were to it, it would have saved you.” Starswirl felt an old anger, one he had buried long ago, rising within him.

“One day, it will.”

Starswirl shook his head. “You know why I have come? You know my intention?”

“I do.”

“And do you know that somepony has come to stand against me?”

The first smile touched Clover’s lips. “I do.”

“I killed her. She should belong to her now, like you.”

Clover’s smile widened. He was nearly beaming now, and his ghostly light seemed to brighten. “Celestia will never belong to the Enemy. Harmony has claimed her.”

“So what? Didn’t Harmony claim you and your friends as well? And now all of you are dead.”

“Celestia is different.”

“How?”

“She has been chosen…”

“For what?”

“…to bear one of the Elements of Harmony.”

Starswirl’s eyes narrowed. He could feel the blood pulse furiously in his ears. “An Element of Harmony? Celestia?”

“Princess Celestia now,” said Clover. The ghost looked as if he were about to laugh.

“What?”

“Didn’t you hear? The unicorn tribe begged her to take the throne of Canterlot. Even now she pores over the books of magic you left in your archive, growing in power. Friends are drawing near to her, though she does not know them yet. Friendship will lead her to the Elements. And when the Elements of Harmony return to Equestria, the power of friendship will bring together all the ponies everywhere and drive hatred from the land forever.”

The ancient wizard found himself almost smiling. Princess of Canterlot? His Celestia? Good for you, my faithful student, part of him thought. But he said, “I will see her ripped from the throne. My demons will cut the horns off of every traitor that bends his knee to her.”

“She has become far more powerful than you.”

“Yes. That is one of the things I came to ask you about. What is she?”

The chains tightened around Clover’s hooves and his joy faded. “A being so rare that she is only the second ever to exist. An alicorn.”

“And what is an alicorn?” In all his studies, he had never come across the word before.

“An undying one. The phoenixes belong to Harmony, just as the windigos and the dragons belong to the Enemy. It is possible for one of them to give its immortality to a pony, if she proves worthy.”

“So… Celestia is immortal?” A foe that cannot be killed. Interesting.

“More than immortal. The source of phoenix immortality is the flame of life. There, lives bleed together, becoming one. She has within her the powers of every creature of light that lives. Every tribe of pony is a part of her. And like every pony, she is destined to have a special talent.”

Starswirl remembered her cutie mark. “She can turn the heavens by herself.”

Clover dipped his head. “All hail the princess of light.”

“So how can I defeat her?”

“You can’t.”

“Oh, you are clever, aren’t you? I can’t. But she can be defeated, can’t she?”

Clover was silent for a moment more. The chains squeezed his hooves. “There are ways to defeat even an alicorn.”

“Like what?”

“The Elements of Harmony, for instance.”

Starswirl growled. “What else can defeat an alicorn?”

“A being even more powerful.”

“What being is this?”

“I do not know. I only know that it exists. The phoenix court keeps its secrets, even from the dead. Especially from the dead.”

“How may I find it?”

“Only a phoenix can tell you.”

Starswirl’s heart fell. His own phoenix was gone. Treacherous fowl! It was she who had saved Celestia from death. But even if she were still alive, she would never give him information that would help him to fight Harmony. Phoenixes were creatures of light, servants of Harmony. It was hopeless.

“And is there a phoenix anywhere that would help me?” Starswirl asked hollowly.

Silence. Starswirl searched the ghost’s face. Clover was straining with all his might against the power that held him bound, but he could not hold back the answer.

His ghostly light dimmed. “There is,” he admitted at last.

Starswirl’s lips curled in a savage smile. “Show me where.”

The ghost touched the tip of his horn to Starswirl’s. A vision exploded in the old wizard’s mind. He saw a dark and tangled forest spreading out beneath the sun, hiding awful secrets. Deep in that forest, a young phoenix sat perched on a twisted branch, staring up through the canopy at the noon sky. Golden tears poured from eyes that burned with a hatred so fierce it would consume even the sun in its fury.

“What shall I call her when I meet her?” asked Starswirl. For he was going to find this creature. She would give him the key to a power that was greater even than Celestia.

“Her name is Philomena.”

V. The Princess of Canterlot

Five:
The Princess of Canterlot

Sunlight gleams on the armor of the royal guards as they march, a spectacle to dazzle the ponies who come to watch the procession. At the heart of the parade is the princess’s palanquin, carried by four muscular stallions. The ponies lining the streets strain to get a glimpse of her.

The princess peers outside, her gaze sweeping over the crowd. Her eyes are like polished sapphires, beautiful but hard. She does not really see the ponies in the crowd. To her, they are a blurry smear of color, like scenery passing by.

A cheer goes up from the crowd. “Princess Dewdream! Princess Dewdream!” They call her name and she beams at them, but her smile is light without warmth. The ponies on the street do not notice what’s missing in their princess. They shout her name and stamp their hooves and smile and wave, oblivious.

The palanquin passes an alley. A small, filthy shape moves in the shadows there. It picks up its head and gazes out with flat, haunted eyes. The princess stares into the darkness of the alley for a moment, never seeing the little unicorn filly. But a prickling crawls over her body and she knows she has been seen. Which is silly, of course she is being seen. A thousand ponies have come out to watch the procession. But they are merely watching her. Somepony in the darkness is actually seeing her. She shivers and lets the curtain fall over the palanquin’s window. The royal procession heads toward the palace, and by the time they enter the gates, the princess has forgotten.

The unicorn filly looks down at her dirty coat, which should be white but has never been clean her whole life. So that was Princess Dewdream, she thinks. She’s beautiful. Warm tears fill her eyes and she blinks them away fast. It’s no use crying. Some half-forgotten part of her starts to daydream, her bleak surroundings fading as she curls up inside herself. I wonder what it would be like to be a princess…

* * *

“Princess?” The voice of Duly Noted, her court advisor, brought Celestia back to the present, where she stifled a shudder.

“I’m listening,” she said. A lie. She had no idea what he had been saying for the last five minutes. Something about foreign dignitaries…

Duly Noted raised an eyebrow. “If you wish, we can continue this later. You seem distracted.”

She gave him a grateful smile and noticed that he relaxed a bit. He was not comfortable around her yet. Neither was anypony else. Nopony in Canterlot knew what to make of her. Every look was filled with the unspoken question, what are you?

Celestia wished she had an answer.

“I should return to my research,” she said. “If something urgent comes up, you know where to find me.” She had spent more time studying Starswirl’s archives than she had ruling. There was a mountain of decisions that she had to make, and so far she had pushed almost all of them onto her advisors. What did she know about being a princess? They were so dazzled by her strange powers and the way she had swooped in to save the unicorn tribe that they never even asked themselves if she was qualified to wear the crown. Eventually the mystique would wear off. Part of her wished it would happen sooner rather than later, then maybe they wouldn’t all stare at her like she was a freak.

“I do,” said Duly Noted. “And that reminds me. The position of court wizard is empty now. Traditionally the princess appoints a talented and respected magician to the post.”

Celestia blinked. “I have to find Starswirl’s replacement?” She thought for a moment. “Are there any magicians qualified for the position?”

A bleak smile crossed Duly Noted’s features. “Many. There must be several dozen hoping you will choose them. In the magic academy it is all they are gossiping about these days.”

“And I suppose they all helped Starswirl to keep the sun from rising.”

“Every one. As did I, your highness. You will have a hard time finding a magician in all of Canterlot that did not use her magic to fight for unicorn supremacy in the battle.”

Celestia nodded. She didn’t want to appoint somepony to such a high position who tried to threaten all of Equestria, but there didn’t seem to be any choice. “Are any of them as talented as Starswirl?”

Duly Noted’s eyes widened. “As talented as—goodness, no! Princess, he knew more about magic than the entire academy put together.”

“No.” Celestia’s voice hardened. “He knew nothing about real magic.”

Her advisor took a step backward, swallowing. Celestia looked down at her hooves and realized that she had started to hover so that she could stare him down at eye-level. She touched back down on the floor, blushing.

“I’ll try to find a suitable candidate for the position,” she promised.

“Very good, Princess.”

He’s frightened of me, thought Celestia. Of course he’s frightened. He was using his power to hold down the sun, along with an army of unicorn magicians, every genius of the magic academy, and the most powerful unicorn wizard of the age, and I broke every one of their spells as if they were nothing, and tore the sun away from them without even breaking a sweat.

She gave him another smile, but he didn’t relax this time. “See you in a few hours, Duly. We can start making plans about those foreign dignitaries.”

“I look forward to it, Princess.”

Celestia doubted that.

She left her advisor in the throne room and headed toward the wing of the castle where Starswirl’s old archives were. She was so lost in thought that she barely noticed the stares of the unicorns she passed. How can I be a good princess if everypony is afraid of me? They see a freak, a pony that doesn’t really belong to their tribe, to any tribe. But I’m…

What? Even she barely knew what she was. I’m a bit of everything. She could feel the life flowing within her. If she closed her eyes she could imagine it, a river of golden light running through her being. It was strange and wonderful. She felt connected to everypony she met, as if she were somehow friends with the whole world. When she thought about that, she couldn’t hold in her smile. She actually felt physically lighter. Was this part of the magic of friendship? She didn’t have friends, not yet, but she felt a kinship with everypony. Was that enough? The lightness filled her entire body. If she were outside she would have taken flight.

On the way to Starswirl’s archive was a golden door. A song floated out from behind it. The voice was beautiful, as high and clear as a bell. Celestia paused outside the door and listened to the last few lines of the song.

"…Would you fly to me if you had wings?

For you I take this world apart.

And from the ruins a Question sing:

What can break a crystal heart?"

In the silence following, Celestia waited, wondering. She took a breath and tapped the door with her hoof. For a few moments there was no answer. Celestia raised her hoof to knock again.

“Enter.”

With a gentle push, Celestia opened the door to a lavish chamber filled with lush cushions, scattered baubles, and ornamented mirrors. A white unicorn stood at her window, amethyst mane tossed by a light breeze. Though she was older than the filly whose parade had passed a dark alley more than a year ago, she had only grown more beautiful. Celestia would have known her anywhere.

“Princess Dewdream,” breathed Celestia.

“I’m not a princess anymore,” said the unicorn, turning from the window. When she saw Celestia she froze, eyes wide. Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

Celestia did not know what to say. Ever since she had taken the throne she had been avoiding the deposed princess. There were those who had cried for her blood after the battle, but Celestia had made it clear that Dewdream would have the same amnesty as the rest of the unicorn tribe. She had lost her crown and title. That would have to be enough. Her brief, cruel reign marked the end of a dynasty that had lasted for hundreds of years.

Dewdream stared at the new princess with amazement. It was the first time she had laid eyes on the winged unicorn up close. She had been avoiding Celestia as much as Celestia had been avoiding her. Now her eyes wandered over Celestia’s white coat, her ivory horn, her wings, her shimmering mane. This was the pony who could raise the sun by herself, who stopped the battle of the three tribes, from whose face even Starswirl the Bearded fled.

“Princess Celestia,” said Dewdream with an awkward bow. “To what do I owe this… visit?” She couldn’t bring herself to say pleasure.

“I… heard your singing,” Celestia said lamely. “I’ve never heard that song before.”

“It comes from the Crystal Empire,” said Dewdream. “I have been learning some of their music lately. I am… was… going to be betrothed to King Sombra. Did you know that? When I was old enough, the wedding would have united our kingdoms.” She kicked a gaudy trinket across the floor.

“Did Starswirl set that up?”

Dewdream was taken aback. “I… he may have suggested it, but I am—was—princess of Canterlot. It was my choice.”

Did she think that when she ordered the sun to be held down? Starswirl has manipulated her like everypony else. I wonder what he wanted to accomplish by marrying her to this King Sombra. The Crystal Empire is supposed to be a kingdom of Harmony; what would be the advantage of joining it to a corrupted Canterlot?

Celestia frowned. “There are some things I have wanted to ask you.”

“Ask then. I am not going anywhere.” There was boldness in Dewdream’s tone, maybe even a touch of defiance.

“How much did you know about what Starswirl was doing?”

Dewdream snorted. “I’d heard you were obsessed with the old goat. You may not wish to hear this, but I was the one who commanded him to keep the sun down. I was the one who wanted to overthrow the other pony tribes. Starswirl is a useful magician and a sound advisor, but he was never the one wearing the crown.”

Could the former princess really be so ignorant? “How much do you know about him?”

Dewdream shrugged. “I know the same as everypony. He is the oldest magician in Equestria. He helped to found Canterlot. Clover the Clever was his apprentice. Every unicorn in the Magic Academy studies the book he wrote, Elements of the Arcane. They say he studied in Tartarus, which I don’t know if I believe. He’s served as court magician since the days of Princess Platinum, a post which is now empty for the first time in a century. Has anypony approached you for the job?”

“Not yet.”

“They will.”

“I’m not going to appoint somepony who was involved in your little war.”

A tile cracked beneath Dewdream’s hoof. “My little war, your highness?” Somehow she managed to fill the title with enough venom to make it a curse word. “It is our war. All three of the pony tribes have been fighting for a hundred years. You didn’t save us from this war. You stopped the battle that would have ended the war.”

Celestia had to fight the urge to set the ex-princess on fire. “Is that what Starswirl told you?”

“He didn’t have to. I was born a princess. I have always known my responsibility.”

“Your responsibility was to protect life. To bring ponies together. You could have made friends with the other tribes.”

“Friendship? Is that the way you plan on ruling, now that you sit the throne?” Dewdream threw back her head and laughed, a bitter, musical sound. “That kind of thinking died with Clover the Clever. Friendship doesn’t work.”

Celestia felt her blood run cold. That’s what he wants you to believe. Whether she realized it or not, Dewdream had adopted Starswirl’s twisted philosophy. Where did those thoughts lead? Celestia knew. Starswirl’s master plan would ruin everything if he were able to accomplish it. Everything. And here a royal princess was already corrupted. As is most of the unicorn tribe, thought Celestia. If I don’t find a way to change their minds, Starswirl will win in the end.

“I need to go,” said Celestia.

“Don’t be too aloof, your highness,” said Dewdream. “The unicorns might need you now, and you might be a powerful magician, but if you don’t stop reading those dusty old books, you’ll never be a good princess.”

Celestia slammed the door behind her as she left. I’m not taking advice from her about how to be a good princess. She had half a mind to throw Dewdream out her window. Well, not really, but it felt good to think about doing it.

Starswirl’s archives were vast. His little study in the house he and Celestia had shared did not have the hundredth part of all the books and scrolls he collected. In the days since she was crowned princess of Canterlot, Celestia had spent more time in this part of the castle than anywhere else. But in all her time studying, searching for answers, trying to anticipate her old mentor’s next plan of attack, she learned nothing that would help her find what she was looking for. Until today, when she entered the old archive to find that somepony was already there.

A little blue unicorn sat at a desk in the archive, drawing in one of the books. She wore a pair of round glasses and her tongue stuck out of her mouth as she worked, magicking the quill across the surface of the page in slow, graceful strokes.

“What are you doing?” Celestia demanded. In the silence of the archive, and with her emotions still stormy after her conversation with Dewdream, her voice came out louder and harsher than she’d meant it to.

The blue filly started, her magic flickering, and she dropped the quill she had been using. She looked up at Celestia and her eyes grew wide. She dipped her head.

“I beg your pardon, Princess. I am making an illuminated copy of this book.” Her horn glowed with soft violet light and the book she was copying floated in the air between them. It was a book about enchanted places and things.

“I don’t think I’ve read this one yet,” said Celestia.

“It is full of ancient legends from the old country, before the eternal winter forced the three tribes to leave. And there are some stories about Equestria too. Did you know that ponies lived here before the three tribes settled here?”

Celestia did not, but she wasn’t ready to give up any of the mystique she had in the eyes of her new subjects. “You are interested in enchantments, huh? What is your name?”

“Page,” said the blue unicorn, setting the book back on the desk and curtsying as well as she could. “Page Sparkle. I’m studying for my entrance exam to the Magic Academy. I’ve been coming here for months to learn all I can.”

“Months? Why haven’t I seen you before? I’ve been doing some research of my own, and I’ve come here every day.”

Page blushed. “Well, I’ve been in the infirmary ever since the battle.”

Celestia’s eyebrows shot up. “You fought in the battle?”

“F-Fought?” Page shook her head. “No, not me. I was actually trying to study combat magic techniques when I got hit by a lightning bolt. Well, I think it was a lightning bolt.”

“You were in the battle… to study?”

The blue pony blushed and nervously pushed her glasses up her nose. “Basically.”

Some of my subjects are… less than sane it would seem. “I see. And what did you learn?”

Page grinned sheepishly. “Quite a few things, actually. But the mostly never to go into a battle to study.”

Celestia smiled. Her old teacher would have loved this one. “You sound like the perfect student. I suppose that’s why Starswirl allowed you to study here.”

“Well, he also wanted some of these books copied and illuminated. Also…” Page looked away.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. It’s just… there’s a rumor going around that you hate him for starting the war.”

That was pretty accurate. “I don’t know about hate. He’s dangerous and I have to find a way to stop him from doing some very bad things.”

Page nodded. “Well, the reason I’ve been allowed to work and study here is… he’s kind of my grandfather.”

Celestia could not hide her surprise. “I didn’t know he had children.”

“He only had one child. My mom. And she died years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

Page shook her head. “I barely knew her or my dad, so it’s okay.” Celestia rather thought that was the opposite of okay, but she didn’t say anything. “To tell the truth, I don’t know my grandfather very well, either. He didn’t have anything to do with raising me, but he made sure I was taken care of. And when I did see him, he was always kind.”

Yes, thought Celestia. He was always that, even when he put a spell through my heart. This poor girl, I probably saw more of Starswirl than she ever did.

She looked down at the young unicorn’s work. The illuminated page of the book shone with deep reds and sparkling golds. “You are very talented,” Celestia remarked.

“Thank you very much,” said Page. “I can take a break from it if you want, so you can read the original. There might be something in there that can help you.”

“Oh? You want to help me find information that I can use to defeat your kind old grandfather?”

“Yes.” Page was staring right at her. Her eyes, behind her glasses, were bright and hard, like polished steel.

Celestia frowned. “Why?”

“He tried to conquer the pegasus and earth pony tribes.”

“So what? Most unicorns I’ve met don’t seem to understand why that is a bad thing.”

“I do. An earth pony saved me during the battle. And then you came and saved us all. Hundreds of unicorns flinging their spells and I owe my life to an earth pony and… whatever you are, Princess.”

Celestia bowed her head, eyes filling with tears. At last, she thought, somepony understands. “If I could make all of Canterlot see that,” she whispered, “we might have a chance.”

Page stood there in awkward silence, not knowing what to say to the princess. She was good with books and magical formulas, not emotional stuff. And this was not just any regular pony, this was the princess. Finally she said, “I can show you some of what I’ve been studying, if you wish.”

Celestia blinked her tears away. Part of her wanted to tell the young unicorn everything, about Starswirl, about how she got her wings, about how she really wasn’t qualified to be a princess at all. But she said nothing. Every atom of her being cried out for a friend, but this was one of her subjects, one of the ponies she had to protect and watch over. There seemed an insurmountable gulf between them.

“Yes,” said Celestia. “I’d like that.”

Light shone from Page’s horn as she lifted the book into the air with her magic and began turning the pages.

“Here, these pages tell the story of a magical amulet that can make a unicorn much more powerful. Hmm, but it’s dark magic. I don’t suppose that is what you are looking for.”

“Not exactly,” said Celestia, but she looked over the legend anyway. The book said that anypony who used the amulet would be corrupted. She didn’t need something like that. “I am searching for powerful artifacts of good magic.”

The pages turned. “Here, this is the most powerful magical artifact there is: the Crystal Heart.” There was a picture on the page to go with the legend. It showed ponies bowing to a floating heart-shaped object.

“Hmm… I should look into this,” said Celestia. “And some of the other magical places and objects as well. But what I’m searching for is something even more powerful than the Crystal Heart. They may not be in this book, but you say you’ve been doing your research for a month, so maybe you’ve found something about them. They are called the Elements of Harmony.”

Page’s brow furrowed. “The Elements of Harmony? I think they might have been mentioned in something I read. Hold on…” She stood up and went to the shelves, sifting through scrolls and books and loose scraps of dusty paper, her princess all but forgotten.

“Ah, here it is. It was in this book of legends and fairy tales from Old Equestria. I told you that ponies used to live here before the three tribes came to this land.” She sat the book on the desk next to the others. It was old and faded. It must have been compiled a century ago, when Starswirl the Bearded was young.

“If there were ponies in this land before the three tribes, where did they go? Equestria was empty when the three tribes arrived.”

“Nopony knows, but there are ruins of old castles and villages scattered throughout Equestria. Some ponies in the magic academy are trying to study Old Equestrian magic.”

“What about you? You seem interested in this.”

“I am interested in finding out the truth about things. And the history of the ancients is fascinating, mostly because what we do know about it just leads to more questions. And a lot of the theories they talk about sound like, well, fairy tales.” She stopped and gave Celestia a strange look, her cheeks coloring. “Actually, I was studying this before the battle, before you became our princess, so I didn’t think anything of it, but there are a couple of the legends you might find especially interesting, your highness.”

“How so?”

“Well, in some of the stories it sounds like Old Equestria was a kingdom where different kinds of ponies lived together, not separated according to tribe like we are. And there is an old poem about a prince who could fly and use magic. It’s the kind of thing that sounded like a story for fillies… until you came.”

Celestia wondered. Could there have been another pony like her, somepony a phoenix gave its immortality to? But then, where did he go? He couldn’t have died. Maybe it was just a fairy tale after all. But what if it wasn’t? Was there another pony like her out there somewhere?

That is what she desired more than anything. Somepony like her. An equal. Somepony who she could really be friends with. An idea began to take shape within her. It would be risky, but it might work…

“A kingdom where different kinds of ponies lived together…” Celestia murmured. “It sounds wonderful.”

“It really does,” said Page. She looked like she was thinking of something in particular, but Celestia didn’t want to pry.

“What about the Elements of Harmony?” asked Celestia.

“Oh, yes. Right here. There’s a passage that references them.”

And here is what she read:

The darkness cries this fateful hour
At the heart of Friendship’s power

Stand those with spirits all agreed
The chosen Elements of Harmony

One is born to laugh and sing and smile
Another holds fast to truth without guile

One will give and love with all her heart
One shows devotion when all falls apart

And one is made of kinder, gentler stuff
But to save all that is, five won’t be enough

A circle long broken must be mended
Then shall this present darkness be ended

“That’s it? It doesn’t say where they are?”

“I’m sorry, Princess. I’m pretty sure that’s the only place I’ve even read about them. And I didn’t know they were magical artifacts. I thought they were ponies, some kind of mythological heroes.”

“They are both,” said Celestia. She was thinking. Starswirl’s Book of Harmony said so much about the Elements that Celestia had assumed there would be more information about them. How could the most powerful magic ever known to ponydom be so completely lost?

“And… you’re sure they’re real?”

Celestia smiled at her. “Of course. Some fairy tales are true.”

“If you wish, I can take on some of the research. I’m good at that, actually.”

Celestia thought about it. She was sure that finding the Elements was of utmost importance, but even Starswirl had not been able to locate them. And now Page, a born scholar, had only come across a single reference to them in months of study.

Meeting Page made Celestia realize something. She had been so focused on finding a way to stop Starswirl that she was neglecting the very ponies she was trying to protect. She wasn’t an apprentice magician anymore; she was a princess. And if she wanted to be a better princess than Dewdream, her ponies needed her to be an example of the magic of friendship.

And just like that, the princess knew what she had to do.

“Thank you for the offer, Page, but no. You focus on your own research. I’m going to need magicians like you at the academy.”

“Th-thank you, Princess! Are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you?”

“Well…” Celestia hesitated. They had only just met, but she felt like she could trust Page. “There might be one thing. If you want to, that is.”

“Oh, I do. Whatever it is, I do.”

“Do you know the house your grandfather lived in?”

“Yes. It burned down the night of the battle. There’s a rumor going around that he did it himself, to keep anypony from finding out his secrets.”

“I don’t know if it survived the fire, but he had a mirror in his office. It was magical, so it might not have burned.”

Page’s interest was piqued. “A magic mirror?”

“If you can find it, I would be grateful.”

“I will do my best, Princess.” The little unicorn beamed.

“Thank you.”

Leaving the archive, Celestia went to the throne room. It was empty except for a pair of royal guards. They snapped to attention when she entered.

“Please find Duly Noted and send him to me,” she instructed them.

They left her alone, staring at the throne. Her throne. Once, when she was small, she had daydreamed about being a princess, the way most fillies do. In her fantasy, she was a beautiful unicorn whose coat was pure white, without a single speck of dirt on it. And when her loyal subjects bent their knees to her and asked her what she desired, she had always said the same thing.

“Princess?” Duly Noted approached her with caution.

“I have a wish, Duly.”

“Whatever it is shall be done, Princess.”

Celestia took her place on the throne. “The alleys of Canterlot are filled with starving fillies and colts.”

Duly Noted nodded. “It has always been this way.”

“No more. Use whatever resources we have. Empty the treasury if you have to. Let my wealthier subjects know my intention. If they want my favor they will follow my example. Make giving fashionable in Canterlot. By the time the Summer Sun Celebration comes around, I don’t want a single child left on the street in my city.”

With that decree, the reign of Princess Celestia began in truth. And by the time the throne of Canterlot was taken from her by force, you could not have found a single child in the city that was not being cared for.

Duly Noted swallowed. “Is… that all, your highness?”

“No,” said Celestia, “but it’s a start.”

VI. The Pony in the Glass

Six:
The Pony in the Glass

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Victory Song asked her companion as they approached the ruins of the old house. It was night, and they were alone. “I heard he set all kinds of magical traps. Even though the house burned down, we still might trigger one.”

“You don’t have to come,” said Page. “The princess gave me a mission. How can I face her again if I don’t come back with that mirror?”

Victory’s lips curled in an amused smile and she rolled her eyes. “And we can’t have you unable to face her again.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Only that you haven’t shut up about her all night.” Her voice became high-pitched, and took on a bad unicorn accent. “Princess Celestia said she needs ponies like me at the magic academy. Princess Celestia studies as hard as I do. Princess Celestia gave me a mission…”

“I do not sound like that,” Page sniffed.

“You should listen to yourself.”

“It’s just…” Page’s cheeks colored in the moonlight. “I never thought our tribe would ever have a princess we could be proud of. Not with Dewdream on the throne. But now we do. And so I am.”

“I get it,” said Victory, looking away. She felt the tiniest prick of jealousy, like a thorn. Why can’t the earth pony tribe have an amazing princess? She didn’t know much about her tribe’s politics, but she knew that Chancellor Sweetmeats was about as inspiring as a pumpkin. And since the battle she was doing her best to discourage earth ponies from having any relation with unicorns. Which wouldn’t have been a problem for Victory before, but now that she had a unicorn friend it bothered her a lot. She didn’t tell Page, but their friendship was straining her relationship with the other earth pony children.

“And since we are doing this for her together, you’ll get the chance to meet her yourself!”

The idea was enough to make Victory a little bit braver. Not that she was scared before, of course. “We’re here,” she said, swallowing.

The silver light of the full moon transformed the ruins of Starswirl’s house into an alien landscape, riddled with shadows. The fillies stepped into the wreckage cautiously, looking around.

“What if somepony already came and took it?” said Victory.

“I doubt it. The magicians at the Magic Academy are still afraid of Starswirl. Anypony who would be interested in coming here would be too smart for it.”

Victory gave a weak laugh. “Yeah. Good thing we don’t have that problem.”

They began their search through the charred wood and blackened stone. Their hooves were soon covered in ash. There didn’t seem to be anything valuable to find. Even metal objects had been melted into hard puddles.

“Hey, did Starswirl live with somepony?” asked Victory as she searched through the wreckage of yet another room.

“Not that I know of. Why?”

“It’s just, I think this used to be a bedroom, and I’m pretty sure I already searched through one.”

“Maybe it was a guest room.”

“Yeah. Makes sense.” Victory’s hoof kicked something and she bent down to examine it. It was burnt almost beyond recognition, but it looked like it used to be a wooden toy, the kind earth ponies made for their colts and fillies. Curious. She looked up at Page, who was wandering through the ruins of the old house as if she were in a dream.

Eventually, Page stepped into what used to be Starswirl’s study. She could not have said what she was feeling at that moment. For years her grandfather had been her hero. Even now she could not bring herself to hate him. She stepped lightly through the ruins of his house, a place she had always dreamed about visiting. It’s all gone now, she thought sadly.

“Look here,” said Victory. With her teeth she pulled something from a pile of black, crumbling wood. It was an oval mirror.

Page used her magic to stand the looking glass up. Its surface was blackened, but it appeared otherwise undamaged. Which means it’s magic, she thought. “I think you’ve found it,” she said.

Then a voice came from the glass. “Is that you? Oh, I’m so happy. I didn’t think you would ever come back.”

Page’s horn sparkled and the surface of the mirror was wiped clean. A pony looked at her from the other side with an expression of surprise. It was a unicorn filly like her, but her coat was an even deeper shade of blue. Her eyes, behind a pair of glasses like Page’s own, were a piercing aquamarine.

“Oh,” said the looking glass pony. She pushed her glasses up her nose. “I’m sorry. I thought you were somepony else.”

“Who are you?” said Victory.

The looking glass pony turned her attention to the earth pony, and as she did so her unicorn’s horn vanished, as did her glasses. Now she looked like a dark blue earth pony. “Always the first question they ask,” she said with a sigh. She shrugged. “I don’t have a name.”

“This looks like fairy magic,” breathed Page. “She’s like a copy of whoever looks in the mirror.”

“I didn’t think fairies were real,” said Victory, leaning close to the glass, where the blue pony mimicked her action until their noses were only inches apart.

“Strange that an earth pony can see me,” the looking glass pony remarked.

“They’re real,” said Page. “Have you ever heard of the changelings? They are a kind of fairy race. That’s where their shape-changing powers come from.”

Victory blushed. She didn’t want to admit it to Page, but she hadn’t thought changelings were real either.

“What happened here?” said the looking glass pony, shifting once more into Page’s double. “Where is Starswirl?”

“Nopony knows,” answered Victory. “He ran away after the battle.”

“Battle?” The looking glass pony frowned. “So, he succeeded in turning you ponies against one another, after all. And you say he ran away? Why?”

“Our princess scared him off,” said Page.

“I doubt that,” said the looking glass pony. “I have been Starswirl’s reflection, I know how powerful he is. If he left after your battle, it was because he wanted to.”

Page and Victory exchanged a glance. “She beat him in magic. He was trying to keep the sun down, and she raised it.”

“Did she now? Interesting…”

“Glad to know you’re interested. Because we are taking you to meet her.”

“Oh,” was all the looking glass pony said.

Victory licked her lips. “Um… Page? I don’t mean to doubt your princess, but are fairies good or bad? I mean, this mirror belonged to Starswirl the Bearded.”

Page stared for a long time at her darker reflection. She murmured something.

“What?” asked Victory.

“I said neither. They are not good or evil. They live in a totally different world from ours. Usually they take on the character of whatever pony summons them.” At least, that’s what Page’s books said.

Page was only half right. It was true that fairies had changeable natures, but on some level they were capable of preferring one mode of existence to another. And the being that lived on the other side of the mirror had recently felt what it was like to reflect a pony that was so selfless that she offered to sacrifice half her life to give her a name. That kind of goodness didn’t just disappear. It left a mark that even the fluid nature of the fairy realm could not wash away. It was the touch of Harmony, the faintest quickening of the power of friendship. And the creature in the glass wanted to feel it again.

She didn’t want to meet a princess. All she wanted was to see a little white unicorn filly once more.

“Then are we doing the right thing?” asked Victory. “What does the princess want with something like this?”

Page didn’t know. “She said she is trying to stop Starswirl from doing something bad. Maybe this creature is part of her plan.” But try as she might, she couldn’t think what the princess would need the dark mirror for. It might not be evil magic, strictly speaking, but it was unpredictable. Dangerous, even.

A violet glow surrounded the looking glass as Page levitated it. “Come on,” she said, looking around one last time. To think she had once begged her grandfather to take her home with him. “Let’s get out of here.”

But as they were leaving the study, Victory tripped over something. She bent down and pulled it out of the ashes with her teeth. Page threw an annoyed glance her way.

“What is it?”

“It’s a book.”

“A book? How did it survive the fire?”

“How should I know? You’re the magician. Maybe it’s magic.”

A magic book? She had the unicorn’s attention. Page cast a small light spell over the book so they could see it properly. As she did so, something caught her eye.

“There’s another one,” she said, picking it up with magic. She held both books under the light.

“The Book of Harmony,” read Victory.

Page felt her pulse quicken. Did this have something to do with the Elements of Harmony? The princess would be so happy if it did! She could not have known that Celestia had already read the book, and that it did not reveal the location of the lost Elements. Excited, she read the title of the other book to survive the fire.

“The Sea of Night.” Some feeling Page could not describe swept over her, and she had a sudden impulse to drop the book, to open up the ground with her magic and bury it so deep that nopony would ever find it. She didn’t do it, of course. An unread book would haunt Page Sparkle like a ghost. Had she known what reading the book would cost her, she would never have touched it, not even with her magic. But there were forces working that night that nopony could have guessed, not even the one who lived on the other side of the dark mirror.

“Careful. Those books belonged to Starswirl,” the voice from the looking glass cautioned. “They might be dangerous.”

VII. Half of Forever

Seven:
Half of Forever

“What does stargazing have to do with magic?” the unicorn filly asks.

Starswirl has brought her to a lookout point on a cliff near the city. She doesn’t want to be here, out of the safety of her new home. Not after dark. An old fear seeps like poison into her new life, spoiling what should be a happy moment with her teacher, but Celestia can’t help it.

She doesn’t like the night.

“The heavens hold many secrets,” says Starswirl. “And to those with the will to find them out, the stars themselves will give their aid.”

The old wizard shows her his brass telescope. It is the first time she has ever seen such a device. They pass an agreeable hour studying the night sky, and Celestia begins to learn the names of the stars.

“Does every star have a name?”

“Every one.”

“But there are so many! It would take a hundred years to learn them all!”

Starswirl chuckles. “More than a hundred, I’m afraid.”

The moon climbs over the horizon, spilling pale light over the landscape below the lookout. For the first time since they came out here, Celestia begins to feel at ease. Starswirl notices the change in his apprentice, and the fond way she glances at the moon as it ascends, throwing back the shadows.

“You don’t like the dark, do you?”

Celestia shakes her head slowly.

“But we cannot see the stars during the daytime. Even the moonlight will get in the way of our studies if it’s too bright. Without darkness we would never appreciate the light.”

Celestia doesn’t care. Her entire body drinks in the light and her shivering stops.

“Does the moon have a name too?” she asks. “Like the stars?”

Starswirl watches her carefully. “It does. An ancient name, and powerful.”

“Really? What is it?”

He tells her.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispers.

* * *

The warm night wind blew through Princess Celestia’s mane. She stood on her balcony, looking out over the sleeping city. It was only a few hours until it was time for her to raise the sun, but she wasn’t tired. She didn’t seem to need much sleep anymore.

“Princess?” a voice called to her through her chambers.

“I’m here,” she called back.

“Sorry to disturb you, but there are two young ponies who claim you want to see them.”

Celestia walked into her chambers and magicked her door open. Brightmane, one of her royal guards, stood in the hallway. He wore a stoic non-expression on his face. Celestia had not seen him smile even once since she was crowned princess. At first she thought that he didn’t like her, but she was beginning to realize that he was that way with everypony.

“You didn’t disturb me,” she assured him. “Who wants to see me?”

“Page Sparkle and a young… earth pony.”

Her insides fluttered. “Show them in.”

Brightmane left the young princess standing in her doorway. Moments later, Page and her companion appeared.

“Princess Celestia, we found it!” said Page. She was beaming. A flat shape, wrapped in cloth, hovered in the air beside her. “And that’s not all…”

“Was it… undamaged?” inquired Celestia, hiding her worry behind a smile for the excited unicorn filly.

“It still… works,” said Page. Celestia noticed the uncertainty in her voice.

“You looked in the mirror, didn’t you?”

“We both did.”

Celestia looked at Page’s friend. The earth pony was the color of an autumn leaf, with a mane of amber and a healing herb for a cutie mark. For more than a minute she just stared at Celestia without blinking, her mouth hanging open.

“I see. And who’s your friend?”

“Oh!” Page blushed. “Princess, this is Victory Song. She’s the one I told you about, who saved me during the battle.”

“Hi there,” the young princess said to the earth pony.

Pleased to meet you, your highness, Victory meant to say, but what actually came out of her mouth was a long “Uuuuuuuuhhh…”

Celestia gave her a warm smile. Is she okay? she wondered. She was beginning to get used to the way her strangeness unnerved those around her, but she still did not realize the effect she could have on the ponies who admired her as deeply as Victory did.

Victory’s mouth snapped shut and she averted her eyes. She mumbled something Celestia couldn’t quite catch, though she thought she heard a highness in there somewhere.

“Did you have any trouble?” she asked them.

“No,” said Page. “I don’t think those rumors about magical traps on his house are even true. All we did was sift through the ashes. The hardest part was getting it to you without catching the attention of nosy magicians.”

“Thanks for that. I’d like to keep the Magic Academy out of this.”

“I can imagine,” said Page. She looked at the floor in front of her hooves. “Princess… I know it’s not my place to say anything… but I hope you know what you’re doing with that.”

I really don’t, thought Celestia. She looked from Page to Victory. Neither pony was looking her in the eye. Why would she think it isn’t her place to say something to me? I’m not going to be the kind of princess who doesn’t listen to her subjects.

Her subjects. That was the problem, wasn’t it? And that was why she needed to do this. It was selfish and dangerous and she had no idea what the consequences would be, but she needed more than subjects.

Her horn glowed with gentle golden light as she lifted the wrapped mirror out of Page’s magical grasp. “We’ll find out soon enough,” she said. “In the meantime, I should reward you both for doing this for me.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Page. Victory echoed her friend’s sentiment, shaking her head urgently, but remained silent.

“I’m going to be hosting a celebration in a couple of months. A few of my royal decrees are starting to have an effect, and I want a big event for the rich and powerful of Canterlot to be able to rally around. My advisor assures me it is a sound plan if I want to inspire generosity in them.”

“That sounds fun.” said Page. Victory nodded.

“I want you both to come.”

“Oh, Princess, I really can’t…”

“We’ll be there,” blurted Victory. She and Page exchanged a glance.

“Wonderful!” said Celestia, delighted.

She bid both of them farewell and retreated into her chambers with the mirror. The door closed between them. Page and Victory left the castle. The night’s efforts were starting to catch up with them, and they headed to Page’s house to get a few hours of sleep.

“What was that about?” asked Page, once they were out of earshot of the royal guards.

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I’m talking about. You were acting weird in front of the princess.”

“I was not.”

Victory couldn’t tell Page what had just happened, because she didn’t understand it herself. Standing in the princess’s presence, close enough to touch the one who had saved them all during the battle, she had felt a fierce and sudden loyalty toward her, which made no sense. Victory was an earth pony, and Princess Celestia was the ruler of the unicorn tribe. Being friends with Page might annoy the other earth ponies, but devotion to the unicorns’ princess, that would be treasonous. The chain of her thoughts frightened her.

“Oh no!” said Page suddenly.

“What is it?”

“I forgot to tell her about the books!”

* * *

Alone, Princess Celestia placed the looking glass on the wall, the cloth Page had wrapped it in still covering its face. She paced back and forth in her chambers, turning her decision over in her mind. Eventually she found herself back on her balcony, looking over her city.

Thousands of unicorns slept soundly in their homes below. As their princess, she was responsible for them. She couldn’t do something just because she wanted to anymore. And what she intended was dangerous.

But a princess who doesn’t know friendship will never be able to teach it to others, she thought. And if she could not show her subjects the magic of friendship, Starswirl would win. It did not matter that she was more powerful. Without Harmony on their side, Canterlot—all of Equestria, even—would fall. It was only a matter of time.

Anger stirred within her, and with it determination. She would show her subjects that Starswirl was wrong, that the kind of magic he wielded was not true magic, which was born in friendship. She would bring Harmony back to the unicorn tribe. All she needed was one friend, a single pony she could share real magic with, and she would wield a power Starswirl could never match.

The moon was drifting over the city, full and bright. Celestia looked into its light and smiled. Her teacher’s voice came to her from out of the past, like a ghost: “There’s no such thing as moonlight,” Starswirl had said. “What do you mean? Of course there’s moonlight.” “The moon has no light of its own. It reflects the light of the sun. Like a mirror…”

Celestia took her place before the fairy mirror and took a deep breath. Her horn glowed and the cloth was pulled away, revealing the dark surface of the looking glass. She saw her reflection staring back at her, no longer the helpless little unicorn who had last gazed into this glass, but a royal princess. Tonight, I make a friend, she thought. No matter the consequences.

“Are you there?” she asked out loud.

* * *

Beyond the looking glass, a nameless being heard the voice of the princess who would summon it. The one they say even Starswirl the Bearded fears… it thought. But it could not believe it. It had felt the old wizard’s power when he had gazed into the glass to seek out the secrets of magic. It knew the tide of dark magic that swelled within him. Generations had passed since it had reflected such a pony. It was certain that generations would pass again before it encountered Starswirl’s equal.

From out of the depths of a realm of pure magic, the nameless being answered the princess’s summons. As she gazed into its looking glass it took form, reflecting her beauty and her power. It became she… a dark blue filly… a unicorn… wait, but she had wings too… that was different…

Before she opened her eyes, the nameless pony gasped. Hundreds of creatures had stood before her glass at one time or another, but she had never felt such vast power reflected in her mirror before. All her doubts were shattered. The blue reflection was certain that this princess could turn the heavens by herself, that she could break the bonds of hundreds of unicorn spells, that even the great wizard Starswirl had fled from her presence.

“What are you?” the blue pony asked in awe, opening her aquamarine eyes.

“I’m not a what. I’m a who,” said the white pony, smiling. “Princess Celestia.”

Their gazes locked. Eyes that had beheld the world of wild magic on the other side of the glass met eyes that had looked upon the realms that lay beyond the gates of death itself. And then the blue pony knew her.

“It’s you!” she cried.

Celestia grinned. “Notice anything different about me?” she asked.

“What happened to you?”

“I died. Then Starswirl’s phoenix gave her life to bring me back. Now I’m… like this.”

The pony in the glass looked like she was about to cry. “I’ve been thinking about you.” This was an understatement. Since meeting her, she had thought of nothing else.

“I’ve decided on a name for you,” said Celestia.

The pony in the glass took a step backward. “No!” she wailed. “I told you never to say that again!”

“Things are different now. I’m different.”

“Listen to me, Princess. Nothing has changed. When I saw you in Starswirl’s study, I knew you were special. You were shining, like a torch in a world of shadows. I have been the reflection of so many ponies that were full of ambition and cruelty. Meeting you was like… coming up for air. And then you offered me a name, even after I told you what it would cost you. You will never know how much that meant to me.

“To have a name of my own, to be a single thing instead of the changing depending on who looks into my glass, I want this more than anything… except your life. I wouldn’t steal a single tomorrow from you. And that is the price. No matter how much life you have ahead of you, I would be cutting it in half. And I can’t do that. I won’t ever be able to do that. So please don’t ever offer it to me again, I beg you.”

Celestia felt a surge of emotion. She put a hoof against the glass. “Can you cut eternity in half?” she asked softly.

The blue pony stared. “What?”

“I don’t know what I am anymore. You don’t know. I don’t even think Starswirl knew. It’s like there’s this wall between me and every other pony in the world. And now that I’m a princess, there’s that between us too. I have subjects and servants and even enemies… but no friends. Not even one. If it cost half my life to gain a friend, I would pay it, even if I only had a single day left. Even if I had a single hour.

“But when the phoenix gave me her life, she gave me all of it. I am going to live forever. What is half of always?”

The pony in the glass staggered. “You mean…”

Celestia took her hoof off of the glass and stepped backward. She looked at the pony in the glass with hopeful eyes. “Will you accept my friendship?”

Nopony who has not felt the pain of an impossible wish devoured by the joy of a dream come true can know what the pony in the glass felt at that instant. Liquid tears shone silver in the moonlight and she all but threw herself against the glass. Life, real life beckoned from the other side of the glass, a world full of wonders that somepony from her realm could only ever dream of.

“I will!” she cried. “It’s all I want!”

Celestia called her by name. As soon as the name passed her lips, a crack appeared in the ancient mirror. In the heavens above the city, the stars flared brighter for an instant. The living constellations that walked the land, the great Ursas and their kin, turned their starry heads toward Canterlot. Far to the north, the great king Sombra shuddered on his throne as he felt the shadow of his fate stretch toward him. And all across the land of Equestria, ponies glimpsed in their dreams a blue filly with the horn of a unicorn and the wings of a pegasus and gentle eyes that looked at them as if they were the most precious thing in the world.

“Luna!”

As she heard her name for the first time, the blue filly’s heart broke, and with it, the looking glass that held her. The first crack split into a web of crooked lines, then shattered into a hundred spinning fragments as she came rushing into the world, shadow made flesh, barely registering the feeling of the night air on her coat, the wind in her feathers, the single clack of her hooves against the stone floor, before she crashed joyfully into Celestia, who was waiting with open arms, and they tumbled together in a flurry of wings and hooves and tangled manes, to land in a giggling heap together on her chamber floor.

“Nice to meet you,” said Luna.

“Y-You’re…” Celestia tried to say.

“Free. Thanks to you.” She spread her wings and leapt into the air and hovered. “Oh, is this what flying feels like? It’s wonderful!”

“Isn’t it?” said Celestia, getting to her hooves. She felt unsteady, as if a breath would knock her over. The pony in the glass… Luna… her friend had come to her. This was more than she had dared to hope for.

“I want to see the sky,” Luna declared.

Excited joy bubbling up within her, Celestia flapped her wings and shot past the blue pony. “Come with me. We’ll do more than see it.”

Together they flew out Celestia’s door, onto the balcony looking over the city, then over the railing and into the open air. The moonlit sky welcomed them and they ascended into the silvery clouds.

Celestia shivered with pleasure as her wings caught the air and she glided, circling Luna in wide loops. The pure joy at the freedom of flight was magnified a thousand times because she was sharing it with another. Laughing, Luna caught her and they fell spinning through a cloud. Then they separated, droplets of water flying from their wings, and climbed even higher.

Luna felt everything for the first time. Like a newborn, her eyes drank in the world around her. Each sensation was like a magic spell cast over her body. And every passing second made her think again, so that’s what that is like. The centuries she had spent as a reflection were drowned in the first moments of her new life. She did not lock her past behind a door in her soul that could not be opened, the way Celestia did with the memories of her life before Starswirl took her in. Everything before that night simply faded, every second making it less real.

Like a dream.

They did not talk much. They did not need to. The bond they shared was forged in magic. It was as if it had always been there, from before either of them had existed, waiting for them to meet. And now that they had, the circuit closed around the two of them, locking them in one another’s hearts.

Eventually they alighted upon a drifting cloud. It was almost morning, but not yet. For a few precious moments the city below, the castle, maybe everypony in the world was still asleep. Everypony except us, they both thought.

“I need to raise the sun,” said Celestia.

“Wait a moment more,” said Luna. They spent a few more minutes in the darkness. Then Luna sighed and her horn glowed sapphire. “I think I’m doing this right…”

Celestia felt the spell pull on the heavens and her eyes widened. The moon obeyed the wish of its young mistress and bowed under the horizon.

“You can move the heavens by yourself too!”

“Of course,” sniffed Luna proudly. “I can do everything you can do.”

“You can?”

“We are one.”

There was something solemn about the way she said that. It reminded Celestia of the way the phoenix had said to her, “life is one.” As if there was something connecting them that even she was scarcely aware of.

Nothing in Celestia’s past, from her time on the streets to her betrayal by Starswirl, had prepared her to understand the mystery called Family.

On Luna’s flank, the sign of a crescent moon appeared against inky clouds.

“Look at that!” said Celestia.

Luna looked, but instead of the joyful expression most fillies would have upon noticing that they finally got their cutie mark, her ears drooped and she frowned.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I thought I would have the same cutie mark as you.”

Celestia shook her head. “I don’t think it works like that. You aren’t going to have the same destiny as me. You’re not just a reflection anymore. You’re you.”

Luna’s ears perked up at that and she cocked her head and gave her cutie mark an appraising look. “Actually… it looks kind of cool.”

“It does,” Celestia agreed.

Then she summoned her magic and raised the sun. Something felt different. Luna had said that giving her a name would cost half of Celestia’s power. It did not feel any harder to raise the sun, but she felt a kind of weight to her magic that had not been there before. Half her magic now resided in the other pony.

What does that make us?

The horizon caught fire and light melted over the white city.

“Why is it still dark over there?” asked Luna afterward, pointing with her hoof.

In the distance, heavy gray clouds were gathering over the Everfree Forest, the only place in Equestria where the pegasi had no control over the weather. Celestia’s sunlight did nothing to brighten those clouds, which cast an impenetrable shadow over the forest. Beneath that shadow, sheets of silvery rain fell and crooked lightning flashed. She could hear the monstrous growl of faraway thunder.

“A storm,” said Celestia. “I don’t think we need to worry. It’s a long way off.”

VIII. The Prisoner of Harmony

Eight:
The Prisoner of Harmony

“This is folly,” the wizard says, shaking his head. “The Elements of Harmony are a legend, a fantasy for colts and fillies.”

Clover the Clever smiles tenderly in a way that infuriates his mentor. “Master Starswirl, you know more about Harmony than anypony I know. Can’t you see it?”

They are sitting together in the wizard’s study. It has been a long time since they have sat together like this, the wise teacher and his faithful student. Clover has been so busy lately with his responsibilities to Princess Platinum. It has been obvious to everypony that he is going to be the next court wizard. He has surpassed Starswirl’s fondest expectations. There is nopony else the wizard would have as his successor.

“There’s nothing to see,” says Starswirl. “The power you and your friends wielded that day was a special case.”

“I don’t think it was. I think that’s the way magic is meant to work.”

“You think magic is supposed to be powered by…” he raises a graying eyebrow, “… friendship?”

“Well… yeah,” Clover says, his smile fading into something more serious. “I guess I do.”

“Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds?” Starswirl can not imagine it. It is the kind of thing a child would come up with, not a magician as brilliant as his faithful student.

“Yes I do. And I think that’s part of the problem. We aren’t even capable of imagining a world where friendship has that kind of power.”

“If you are right, why does magic work the way it does? Even if other pony races have magic of their own, only unicorns can cast spells. And we have to study and practice to be able to do it.”

“I’m not sure yet,” says Clover. “I think something happened, and magic itself was… broken somehow. It’s like how sometimes when a pony breaks a leg and doesn’t get to the healers, and it heals crooked. Ponies will use a crooked limb if it works. That’s what our magic is: a broken, bent power that works like it is, but was meant to be so much more.”

Starswirl sighs. He has always believed in the power of friendship, but Clover is talking about something far more tangible than the friendship he knows. Nothing he can say will dissuade his apprentice.

“You know, I was looking forward to you taking over as court wizard so I could take a nice long vacation.”

Clover grins. “Just keep that seat next to the princess warm for me. I’ll be back soon.”

They continue to talk into the night, saying their goodbyes before Clover the Clever sets out to look for the legendary artifacts of magic. They talk of trivial things. They do not realize it, but it is the last time they will be together like this.

The next time Starswirl sees his precious student is the night of the storm. The night Clover the Clever is killed by Harmony.

* * *

A piercing cry cut through the hiss of the rain, pulling Starswirl out of his memories before his thoughts could travel too far down the dark road to that other stormy night. He knew that sound. At last, he thought. He ran toward it, his drenched cloak clinging to him, his hooves caked with mud.

He found the young phoenix perched in a burned tree. All around her the forest was scarred with scorch marks. A trail of steam rose from her as the cold rain poured over her feathers. Her burning eyes watched Starswirl as he approached her tree.

“Hello there,” he said as he walked slowly toward her.

Who are you? Starswirl’s eyes widened as her words blazed across his mind. How many years had he lived with a phoenix, and never known they were capable of communicating this way.

“My name is Starswirl.”

The one who defies Harmony. I know all about you. My mother watched over you for years. You are the one who killed Celestia. My mother sacrificed herself to bring her back to life. I should burn you to ash where you stand.

Her threat did not frighten Starswirl, but seeing a creature so wrecked by grief moved him to pity. And she was younger than he had expected. She reminded him of Celestia back when unicorn filly had been living on the streets. Another lost child in the path of a heartless wizard, he thought.

“I take it you are Philomena then,” he said.

How do you know my name, wizard? Her blazing eyes narrowed at him.

“I am looking for a way to destroy Celestia, and I heard that you would be willing to help me.”

I hate her more than anything that lives, the firebird said. She spent so much hatred on Celestia that she didn’t have enough left over for anypony else, not even Starswirl. But she has become an alicorn. She has a phoenix’s immortality. Nothing can kill her.

“I’ve heard that there is a being even more powerful than an alicorn. And that you phoenixes know where to find it.”

Philomena’s fiery eyes widened. A being more powerful than… you can’t mean… If he were freed, the whole world would be in danger!

Starswirl took an eager step forward. “So you do know of it. Tell me, can this mysterious being defeat Celestia?”

The phoenix stared silently down at the wizard. There was a flash of lightning, followed by the rumble of thunder. For a moment she did not answer him. She seemed to be thinking over her choices, trying to decide how far she was willing to go.

Yes. He can defeat her. He could turn the entire world upside down if he wished. You will not be able to control him.

“He can turn the world inside out for all I care.”

You really do fight Harmony.

“I fight for a different kind of harmony.”

Philomena shook her head. I don’t know. I just want Celestia to suffer for taking my mom from me.

“If you take me to the one who is more powerful than an alicorn, I will make sure that happens.”

A moment more she waited. On the scales of her heart she weighed the whole world against the memory of her mother.

Okay, she said at last. I can take you to where the phoenix court has imprisoned him.

The phoenix spread her wings and glided down to Starswirl. As soon as her talons touched him, a flash of scarlet flame engulfed them both, vaporizing thousands of raindrops in a hiss, and leaving the place where they stood empty, but for one more scorch mark.

Starswirl had traveled by magical means many times in his long life. He had levitated by unicorn magic, ridden on an enchanted rug from Saddle Arabia, passed through the shadow-gates of Tartarus, had even been swept away in a dragon’s flame. And there was his teleportation spell, the one only he could use. But traveling by phoenix fire was not like any of those. He felt as his body was burned up painlessly, then recreated somewhere else. And in between there was light and fire and endless music.

Once it would have left him in awe.

The phoenix flame deposited them in a great passageway, high and arched and covered in gold. It was lit by torchlight and lined with polished golden statues of phoenixes in armor. Starswirl was no longer wet, or cold. The rage of the storm had been left behind. Even his starry cloak was clean. He took a step, the sound of his hoof echoing in the quiet of the vast hall. Philomena perched on the brim of his hat, setting his bells to tinkling loudly.

“Where are we?” he asked.

This is the Eternal Precipice, built on the edge of the afterlife. It is the closest you mortals can get to the next world without dying. We’re in the hall of heroes. Here’s where the champions of Harmony are remembered for what they were once, long ago.

Starswirl examined one of the statues. The golden firebird held a spear in its talons. Its helmet gleamed in the torchlight. Something inside him coiled and hissed. His scarlet eyes narrowed.

“Are all your kind warriors?”

The old ones. The ones that remember the War. This way… An image of the way they were going flashed in Starswirl’s mind the same way Philomena’s words did. He began to walk down the great hall, his hooves clacking on the golden tiles.

“What war?” he asked as they went. Starswirl had never heard of a war in which phoenixes fought as soldiers.

You are not the first to fight against Harmony. Once there was an Enemy, one who hated Harmony with all her heart. Her name was—

“I know her name,” Starswirl said softly.

Silence stretched between them.

I guess you would. I only know what the old ones say. They say she came from the Dark to wage war against the White Light. And Harmony chose us as its champions and made it so we would never die, but always be reborn, forever and ever. They say she did things so terrible that they cannot be told, not even in stories. The call her the Arch-Enemy of Friendship. And they say that in the end only one thing could withstand her power…

“The Elements of Harmony,” said Starswirl.

Yes. But they are lost now.

Starswirl tried to imagine the war the young phoenix described: the immortal army of Harmony clashing against the ghostly forces of the one they called Enemy. It must have made every war that followed, no matter how terrible, look like a schoolyard skirmish between foals. And he had never known about it. It was humbling, after more than a century pursuing knowledge, to be reminded in a single day the scope of all he still did not know. One day, if he ever managed to get his time travel spell working right, he would like to travel to that lost age, to witness with his own eyes the war that started it all.

The hall of heroes seemed to go on forever. A thousand pairs of golden eyes glared at them as they passed between the rows of statues. Starswirl felt a cold contempt for the firebirds. As far as he was concerned, the light of Harmony had blinded the creatures.

As for Philomena, shame filled her as she passed under the statues’ gaze. Defensively she let a curtain of anger fall between her and them. They had no right to judge her. The phoenixes whose images stood sentry in the great hall were all still alive. None of them would ever truly die. Not the way her mother died. They would never know what it was like to be alone.

“Where are the other phoenixes?” Starswirl asked.

The phoenix court dwells near the well of the flame of life, where mortals cannot go. The rest of us are out in the world of the living, watching over it.

“Then what was this place built for?” Starswirl asked, gesturing with a hoof.

After the War of Light, the races of Harmony lived in peace. The phoenix court built the Eternal Precipice so that ponies and the other races could come here and remember. But they forgot. Only the ever living ones remember.

The hall ended at a set of doors. They were engraved with seven symbols that Starswirl did not recognize. When Philomena did not offer a translation, he pulled on them with his magic. They swung open with ease, revealing a domed chamber decorated with a jeweled depiction of the heavens. At the top of the dome a single violet gemstone, carved into a six-pointed star, glowed with warm light.

Several sets of doors led out of the domed chamber. Each was engraved with a different scene. One set had a forest carved into it. Another had a lighthouse on the edge of the sea. The entrance Starswirl had just stepped through closed behind him. From this side it was engraved with a host of armored phoenixes with swords and spears in their talons.

Over there, said Philomena, indicating the doors on the far side of the chamber. The engraving was of a winged unicorn with a blindfold, one hoof tipping a set of scales.

“Where do all the other doors go?”

Empty halls and chambers. The Eternal Precipice is a museum now. The age of Harmony ended a long time ago. All that’s left are statues and torches burning in rooms no one cares about. Young phoenixes are brought here to listen to the stories of the old heroes, a bunch of legends and prophecies.

“Prophecies?” asked Starswirl. The future interested him even more than the past.

They’re just stories. Fantasies.

Starswirl smiled. “Once, a friend of mine left to go looking for something I considered a fantasy.”

Did he find it?

“No. But he learned that some legends are true, and I learned not to dismiss stories and fantasies.”

Philomena shrugged with her wings. Our kind believe that one day, the Elements of Harmony will return, and with them, friendship’s greatest champion. The phoenix’s voice became bitter. Some of my kind believe that Celestia is the one we are waiting for. Others say no, that we wait for another. All of them agree she has been touched by Harmony. I am supposed to love her, but I hate her.

Starswirl considered what she was saying. It echoed what Clover’s ghost had told him in Tartarus. Celestia was somehow key to Harmony’s design. If his plans were to succeed, she would need to be dealt with. If he had to unravel her destiny to do it, he would.

I’ve never been beyond this door, Philomena murmured. I am afraid…

Starswirl’s horn glowed. A slit of light appeared to slice the winged pony engraving in half, then the two halves were pulled apart as the doors opened on a brilliant white passageway. Starswirl did not share the young phoenix’s apprehension. Just down this corridor was the reason he had come here: a being more powerful than an alicorn. He felt no fear, only dark desire.

As he stepped through the doorway, Philomena crawled under his starry hat to hide. Starswirl did not stop her, though he wondered what could frighten a being that could not be killed.

They advanced down the passageway, the wizard and the cowardly firebird.

Long ago the well of life was poisoned by the Enemy, said Philomena. Its light was stained with the shadow of Chaos. Life itself was twisted into new forms and combination creatures. That was how monsters came to be, like cockatrices and manticores and other, darker things.

Up ahead, Starswirl could see the end of the passage, not a door but a glowing opening.

And it wasn’t just the bodies of living things, their souls got mixed up too. That’s how the spirits of Chaos were born.

They reached the end of the corridor, which opened onto a ledge looking out over a gaping chasm, full of light. Starswirl stared down into the warm pink glow of Chaos, which pulsed like a great heart.

Of all the spirits of Chaos, one was the most terrible. A creature put together like patchwork out of the bodies and souls of countless beings. The draconequus.

In the sickly light, something stirred.

“A visitor?” a deep, smooth voice echoed out of the chasm. “It’s been such a long time. Oh, but you should have let me know you were coming…”

The pink light expanded like a balloon, enveloping everything. Starswirl felt Philomena tremble underneath his hat. The ledge turned to liquid beneath his hooves and poured itself like a waterfall out of the white passageway. Starswirl started to fall, but cast a levitation spell on himself so that he hovered in the air as the world changed around him. The corridor vanished into the cliff side, which grew fur. The waterfall turned into milk, which immediately spoiled and fell into a steaming bog where the light used to be. Out of the bog rose two great stone trolls, which pulled from the swamp a black throne and held it between them, lifting it up high until it rose above the hovering wizard and phoenix.

Upon the throne sat the one who was made of different kinds of creatures. Just like Celestia, thought Starswirl, and he felt the same awe that he had felt the first time he had seen her with her wings. This, though, was no alicorn. He had the shape of a dragon, though there was something pony about him as well, a gryphon’s talons, a lion’s paw, a goat’s horn and an antler, a pair of mismatched wings, scales and fur and hooves… and that was just on the surface. His eyes were as red as burning coals and they regarded Starswirl with neither kindness nor malice, but an unfathomable amusement.

“…I would have cleaned the place up a bit.” He gave a fanged smile.

Starswirl looked around at the changed scenery, tried to imagine the kind of magic that could effortlessly transform the world around it. It was awe-inspiring. It might even be enough to stand against a being that could raise the sun by herself. This is the one I seek, he thought. This spirit of Chaos.

“What is your name, young unicorn?”

Starswirl felt his skin prickle. He had not been called young in nearly a century. “I am Starswirl, the wizard.”

“And I am the Lord of Chaos, the Prince of Pandemonium, the Mixed-Up Master of Mischief…” Lightning flashed out of the clear sky, brightening the draconequus’s gargoyle face. “…Discord.” He reached out with his lion’s paw and snatched a glass of some dark liquid out of the air. As he sipped from it, the swamp beneath them dried up, becoming a desert. Wind swept across the sand and the stone trolls that held his throne sank up to their knees, bringing Discord’s throne down so that he was at eye level with Starswirl. “Tell me, to what do I owe the honor of this visit?”

“Is it true that you are powerful enough to defeat an alicorn?”

Discord raised an eyebrow. “An alicorn? Oh is there one of those walking the land of the living? I’ve been out of the world for too long. And you want it dealt with, do you? Interesting…”

“Can you do it?”

“And why would you want me to?”

“She is standing in my way.”

The draconequus frowned. “Oh, I see… you belong to Cauchemar.”

Philomena felt the name of the Enemy like an icy wind blowing right through her body. They all did.

“I belong to nopony,” said Starswirl. His war against the White Light may have brought his destiny under the shadow of the one the phoenixes called Enemy, but the lost wizard did not belong to her. Not yet.

Discord yawned. “Another misled puppet. Oh, but the darkness is so boring in the end. You should serve me instead. I would at least make things… interesting.”

Starswirl smiled. “I’m counting on it.”

The draconequus leaned forward. “What are you proposing?”

“I free you from this place and you bring down an alicorn princess.”

Discord held out his mismatched arms and iron shackles appeared, binding them. “It’s a nice thought. Unfortunately, the phoenix court foresaw young servants of darkness like yourself who would be willing to loose the Lord of Chaos upon the world once more. The spell that would let me out of this place is a simple one. There is only one catch: none but a servant of Harmony can free me, and only if his heart is pure. I’m afraid you do not qualify.”

Starswirl’s eyes glittered with triumph. “Is that all?” He magicked his hat off of his head, revealing the cowering phoenix underneath. “Discord, meet Philomena.”

What are you doing?!

“It’s time for you to do your part.”

I can’t do this! My heart isn’t pure! All I want is revenge!

She has no idea, thought Starswirl. The little phoenix might have brought him here to help him wage his war against Harmony, and she might despise Celestia, who Starswirl knew was as innocent a pony as had ever lived, but all of Philomena’s hatred sprang from a well of fiery love. Though she did not realize it, and Starswirl would not tell her because he needed her for his plan, she really was a child of Harmony.

“Just try, Philomena. Isn’t it worth trying, for your mother’s sake?”

Philomena nodded.

Discord watched this exchange with a curious expression. “A phoenix child? I’m impressed. I thought the whole phoenix court feared and hated me.”

They do, said Philomena.

“Well, if you can say these words and mean them, the spell that holds me here will be broken. I don’t see how you will be able to though.”

He reached out one clawed finger and scratched a glowing spell into the air. Philomena watched. When he was finished, the words hung there between them, light shining from every letter.

Philomena glowed with golden light as she read the few short, simple lines.

At this hour of Friendship’s need,
According to the Phoenix Creed,
The wish of Harmony’s servant heed,
And let this spirit of Chaos be freed.

She said the words and meant them. The love she had for her mother, the pain of that eternal loss that her young heart did not know how to deal with, her furious hatred of Celestia… all these things mixed and blurred within her, becoming a single shining emotion, filling every single word that her soul spoke.

Discord’s red eyes widened as he felt the power that bound him released. He let out a long sigh. For the first time in hundreds of years he could return to the land of the living. He quivered with sudden excitement as a universe of possibilities erupted inside him. He could go anywhere, do anything. And he would. Oh yes, he would do everything. He would make rivers run backward and make the weather edible. He would pour his sticky madness over the world like syrup. Every day would be a holiday to celebrate the beauty of insanity. The light of Harmony that shone in the world would not fall to glum darkness, but instead be splintered—shattered into a million fragments that he would pick up and recreate in his own piecemeal image. He would build a kingdom of Chaos without borders, a stormy sea of disharmony to break against the secret realm that lay on the other side of the sky. Yes, he would do all of these things…

But first…

“Tell me more about this alicorn princess."

IX. The Toys of Chaos

Nine:
The Toys of Chaos

“Traitor!” cried a pink filly. “If you like hanging around with unicorns so much why don’t you go join their tribe!”

“If they’d have you,” another filly jeered.

Somepony threw an apple at Victory, which struck her hard in the head and set the world spinning around her like a carousel filled with angry faces. She held her heart-shaped box tighter. The other earth ponies hated her so much now. Well no matter what they said and did, no matter how much it hurt, she would never give up what she had found.

“Give it to us!” they screamed.

“No!” she yelled back at them. She tried to make herself very small, to wrap herself around the heart-shaped box with all her might, but they were so strong. All those fillies with earth pony strength… they pried her limbs from the container and ripped its lid off. Victory cried as Page the unicorn came tumbling out. The fillies snatched her away before Victory could grab her, pulling her into the spinning crowd until she was gone, gone, gone forever…

Victory curled up into a ball and wept. The spinning crowd faded and vanished, along with Page, and the heart-shaped box lay on the ground, crumpled and empty.

A warm hoof touched her shoulder. “Don’t cry, Victory,” said a voice. It was familiar, but Victory couldn’t place it. “You’re just having a bad dream.”

She looked up, her eyes meeting a blue filly’s gentle gaze. “Who are you?”

“Luna.” Joy broke across her face as she said her name, as if she thought it were the most wonderful word in pony language.

Victory knew that name, had heard it often enough in Canterlot these days. Princess Celestia’s sister! Though, she wasn’t really her sister… Page and Victory were certain they knew what she really was, though they would never tell anypony.

“I’m dreaming?”

“Yes. You don’t have to be afraid. They can’t take your friend away from you. Look.” She pointed at the heart-shaped box with her hoof. Victory walked over to it and picked it up. She looked inside. There was Page, safe and sound. Victory looked even deeper into the heart-shaped box. There, way down in the deepest part of it, hidden where no angry earth ponies could ever reach, was another pony. She was shining like the dawn, there in Victory’s heart. Like a secret.

“Thank you,” said Victory, carefully putting the lid back on the box.

“I have to go,” said Luna. “There are other ponies having bad dreams tonight.”

The winged unicorn faded, until there was nothing left of her but those watchful eyes. Then they were gone too, and Victory was alone.

Then she woke up.

“Page?”

“Mmmmnnn,” said the young unicorn, who was lying in the bed on the other side of the room. “What is it, Victory?” she asked in a groggy voice.

“Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you were still there.”

“Go back to sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

That’s right! The princess’s party was tomorrow. And they were both invited. Princess Celestia had not forgotten that she asked them to attend, as Victory had worried she might. Their golden tickets had arrived a week ago. She had even known that Victory was staying at Page’s house.

Victory smiled in the darkness. Things were okay. It had been hard since her old friends had found out about Page, and her entire village seemed to have turned on her at the moment. Victory had been spending more and more time in Canterlot since then, at Page’s invitation. Page’s aunt did not mind having another pony in the house. She was almost never home anyway since she was a librarian at the Canterlot library, and preferred to spend her time there.

“Page…”

“Mmmnnn…”

“You won’t ever leave me, will you?”

The unicorn murmured something, but it was so faint Victory could not make it out. That was okay too. She didn’t need to hear her. Page wasn’t going anywhere. They were friends. Best friends. And would be forever…

* * *

After leaving Victory Song’s dream, Luna wandered for a while, waiting for the next pony’s terror to cry out to her. Suddenly she felt a wave of emotion ripple across the Dreamscape. Her ears perked up. This one was not a nightmare, like so many of them had been tonight. Someone was having a happy dream. She wouldn’t have gone to see what it was, but there was a name in all that happiness, a single name shining at the center of all that rippling joy.

Princess Celestia.

She had to see.

It had only been a couple of months since she had been born, and Luna was still so full of curiosity. She had discovered her ability to walk in dreams by accident, and when she had told Celestia about it, was surprised to find out that her sister could not do it too.

Her sister. They had decided that was the best way to explain Luna’s existence to Canterlot. They didn’t want everypony knowing that she was born from fairy magic. The unicorns were suspicious enough as it was, especially the magicians at the academy. But Luna was actually very pleased that they were pretending to be sisters. In fact—and she did not tell Celestia this—but she did not feel like she was pretending at all.

“Careful, Sister,” Celestia had said. Luna loved how she called her “sister” even when nopony else was around. “Dreams can be dark places.” She had such a strange expression on her face when she said that, and Luna had wondered what kinds of dreams her sister had, but she never had the chance to find out because Celestia almost never slept.

And she had been right. Luna found that out the very first time she had started traveling the Dreamscape and visiting ponies’ dreams. There were a lot of sad and lonely and frightening ones. She would have to be careful. But she also found out that when she visited the ponies that were having nightmares that she could make them feel better. So she did. Every night she went to help them. And they seemed to love her then.

Not like when they were awake.

“They will come around,” Celestia promised, but she hadn’t looked too certain. Luna noticed that most of the unicorns were wary of their winged princess, even though they were starting to get used to her. But after weeks in Canterlot, nopony seemed to be getting used to Luna. It didn’t help that she had discovered something new about herself since she had escaped the fairy world.

She was shy.

Whenever a pony approached her when they were awake, Luna felt her insides go cold and her face warm and she couldn’t look them in the eye. And it didn’t seem to get any easier, even if she knew the pony. She still couldn’t look Brightmane in the face, and she saw him every day. How did Celestia do it?

She drew near to the happy dream. Something felt familiar. Did she know the pony whose dream it was? That’s how it had been for Victory and her nightmare. The dream was always louder when she knew the dreamer. Oh! Yes she did know him. It was Duly Noted, Celestia’s royal advisor. And his dream, his bright and joyful dream was…

* * *

Duly Noted allowed himself a smile as he looked out over the garden, which was filled with colts and fillies at play. They ran and tried to hide, shrieking and giggling as their princess chased them. In moments like these he almost found himself thinking of her as the filly she was, and then she would glance his way and their eyes would meet, and he couldn’t help but shrink under that gaze, which seemed to look right through him, as if he were a ghost.

“Duly Noted?” a quiet voice spoke.

Surprised, the royal advisor turned to see Luna standing behind him. He had not heard her approach. His smile faded. There was something unsettling about the princess’s younger sister.

“Is there something I can help you with?” he asked.

“I… just wanted to see what you were doing. You seemed so happy.”

Happy? Is that what he was? Duly Noted glanced back toward the garden, where the children continued their game with Princess Celestia. “I guess I am.”

“Am I… bothering you?”

Duly Noted shook his head. “No. I was just watching your sister and the orphans playing.”

“Oh.”

A thought occurred to Duly Noted. “I’m dreaming, aren’t I?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “I heard you could do that. Visit ponies in their dreams.”

“I did not mean to intrude. I just… yours was the happiest dream I found tonight. And I knew my sister was in it, so I…”

“She frightens me, you know. Even more than you do.”

Luna’s eyes widened. She looked down at her hooves and pawed at the ground. “Really? Her?”

“Indeed. I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I expect it has something to do with the fact that I’m dreaming.”

“What is so frightening about Celestia? She is wonderful.”

“She should not exist. Nopony can be as… as good as she is and be real. And the way she talks about friendship and Harmony, as if they were things that had power in the world. If you had told me before that goodness was something to be scared of, I would have laughed. Not now though… your sister is a good princess. And she terrifies me.”

“She is special,” Luna agreed.

“I never thought I could be so proud to serve a royal princess. I thought I was proud to be a unicorn before, when Dewdream marched our tribe against the pegasi and the earth ponies and we pulled the sun from the sky, but that was all in vain. Now I see a city where the orphans are cared for. I have heard singing in the streets. Can you imagine such a thing? A world so full of joy that ponies break out in song?” He shook his head. “Maybe that’s why I didn’t even know I was dreaming just now. My life has become a dream.”

Luna smiled at the old unicorn. “Let’s hope it’s one we never have to wake up from.” And with that, she faded from his sight.

“Yes,” said Duly Noted. “Let’s hope.”

* * *

I will try to act a little braver around Duly Noted from now on, thought Luna as she left his dream and returned to the darkness of the Dreamscape. But it was easy to be bold in dreams. In the waking world it would be harder.

“No!” A cry of terror sounded from the darkness ahead. Another pony was having a bad dream. Luna steeled herself and dove into it.

* * *

Dewdream cringed from the apparition, tried to retreat into the darkness and hide from it, but the light penetrated, cutting through the shadows and leaving her exposed. She scooted backward until there was nowhere left to run, and faced the blazing specter with every drop of courage within her.

“Do you see?” a sharp voice stabbed at her from the light. “You are nothing anymore. I have taken your crown and your throne… all that remains is your life.”

Celestia stepped from the light and advanced on Dewdream, who shivered and waited for the inevitable.

“You thought you could defeat me? That your little plan had a hope of success? Wretch, I am invincible! And you… you are not.” White lips parted, revealing a mouthful of sharp teeth. Celestia’s eyes burned with hungry flames.

“Don’t be afraid, Dewdream,” said a voice. And somepony stepped between Celestia and the trembling ex-princess.

“Th-thank you,” Dewdream stammered, but then the dark shape she supposed to be her savior turned and she saw that it was the demon’s sister! A strangled scream tried to escape her, but died in her throat.

“What is the matter?” the dark pony asked. The voice sounded concerned, but her face split in a horrible grin, revealing the same sharp teeth that her sister had. And her gaze, red and hateful, seemed to rip into Dewdream. “It’s just a bad dream. You don’t need to be afraid of her. She’s not the real Celestia.”

Lies. All lies. At last Dewdream found her voice, just as the sisters descended on her like wolves and tore her apart.

She woke screaming, scrambling in her sheets, coat drenched in cold sweat. It was not real. Only a dream.

Heart still racing, she climbed out of bed and walked over to her desk, where the golden ticket Celestia had sent to her—an offering of “friendship” if Dewdream were to believe her, which she didn’t—lay on top of her letters from the Crystal Empire. She levitated the ticket and turned it over in the air, considering it. It was a generous gift, and it would certainly not go to waste….

* * *

Luna tumbled through the darkness of the Dreamscape, not caring where she went. Dewdream had been too terrified of her to accept her help. The unicorn’s white face, mouth stretched open in a wordless scream, haunted Luna. Her dream may have been a lie, but it was one she believed in the deepest part of her heart: that Celestia and Luna were both monsters.

She wondered how many other ponies in Canterlot had dreams like that hidden in their hearts. How she wished she could be more like her sister. They will come around. But would they really? Was there anything either of them could do to erase such fear and suspicion from the minds of the unicorns? Celestia would say yes, that it was just a matter of time. And Luna loved her for that.

From the shadows came dark laughter. Luna spread her wings, finding her balance, and faced the direction it came from, peering into inky space. Then there was light. White light arced around her like brush strokes against the dark canvas, painting a large chamber full of ponies. All of them were white and Luna couldn’t see their faces. Looking closer, she realized that they were all made of paper. In fact, the whole chamber was paper.

Whose dream was she in now?

At the end of the chamber, on a paper dais, stood a paper princess with wings and a horn and a paper crown. Celestia! Luna started toward her. Then there was a flash, and the paper ponies went up in flames, turning to ash in a moment, except for the paper princess.

Paper Celestia cried white tears silently as Luna slowly approached her. As Luna looked on, a pair of dragon hands, their scales as black as tar, reached for the paper princess. A silver object gleamed in their claws. It was a pair of scissors. Before Luna could shout a warning to her sister, the scissors came down, opening and closing in two quick, awful snips.

A pair of white paper wings fell to the ground.

And the paper bled.

Luna woke with a start.

* * *

“It was just a dream,” said Celestia, when Luna told her about it.

They were in her dressing room, getting ready for the party, which was in just a few hours. Celestia was struggling to get into one of the gowns that had been provided for her to try on.

Riiiiiiip! The princess’s lavender eyes went wide. She looked down. Something had torn, she just didn’t know what.

Luna watched her with amusement. “Shall I send for the royal… hmm… what do you call the pony that helps princesses into their dresses? The royal dresser? Fitter? Stuffer?”

“Shush, you. I did need somepony to help me last time, for my coronation. I never had to wear dresses when I lived with S—before, I mean.”

“Hold on. I’ll help you…”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t think my dreams are ordinary.” Luna’s voice was soft.

“I never said they were. But they’re nothing to be scared of.”

“I… think they might be.”

“Why?” Celestia held her breath while Luna magicked the laces of her dress into perfect bows.

“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling I have.”

Celestia looked at herself in the mirror. It’s beautiful, she thought. The gown shimmered as the light was caught in its folds. It looked as though she were wearing a dress of liquid gold.

“This is the one,” she breathed. She turned to face Luna squarely. “I had them made in pairs. I can help you into yours.”

Luna sighed and submitted to the ordeal. She did not get the fuss over dresses. If she wanted, she could wrap herself in dream-stuff. A cloak of shadows would be an appropriate garb for the guardian of the night. She was good at illusion magic. But Celestia seemed to love this stuff about dresses, probably because when she still lived on the streets she could never have imagined owning one.

“It’s… very nice,” said Luna when they were finished. Her dress was flowing silver. Nice? It was splendid! But she didn’t want to get distracted by frivolities. “Don’t you believe me? About my dreams?”

Celestia made a face. “I wish I didn’t. But even if you’re right, what do you suppose it means? I mean, it’s not like I can really lose my wings.”

“I just think you should be careful.”

“I will, but you need to cheer up. Tonight is going to be wonderful. It’s our chance to celebrate how Canterlot is finally starting to get it. We should be happy.”

Luna shrugged. “I am happy.” Because I’m with you, sister. If anything were to happen to take you from me, I would…

But there were some things that didn’t warrant thinking about.

* * *

The first Grand Galloping Gala opened beneath a shower of colored fireworks. Hundreds of ponies looked on, eyes drinking in the sparkling lights as music from the famed Siren Sisters washed over them in warm waves. The castle courtyard had been transformed into a lavish wonderland for the event, and ponies mingled happily, sampling exotic foods and gossiping about trivial things. The air was thick with their careless innocence. Few of them had truly begun to understand what Celestia was trying to inspire in them, but a beginning had been made. That is what they were celebrating: the first gentle breath of Harmony.

Ruby Drop did not belong there.

Everything about him was false, from his smile to the fake unicorn horn that jutted from his mane, all the way to the golden ticket that got him past the guards. That ticket had been given to him by the ex-princess Dewdream, who had her own reasons for wanting him to accomplish his mission.

Ruby Drop was not really a unicorn. He wasn’t an earth pony or a pegasus, either. He was a crystal pony, the child of an empire that existed long before these southern ponies had claimed this ancient land. And his king had entrusted to him a solemn task that only he could fulfill.

He was here to kill a princess.

Even now, in the moments before Princess Celestia made her appearance at the Gala, Ruby was haunted by doubt. The princess was said to be very young. He had never slain a filly before. And there were the prophecies… even a pony as loyal to his king as Ruby could not forget the stories he grew up with. The voice of his grandmother spoke to him from out of the past: “One day a true princess of Harmony will sit the crystal throne… a beautiful winged unicorn to reign over the Empire in peace… and this is how you will know her when she comes: her power will be love.”

“This Celestia is not the princess of promise,” King Sombra had assured Ruby Drop before sending him on his mission. “She is deceiver… a monster…”

Do I trust my king? Ruby asked himself once again. There were awful rumors floating about the crystal castle these days. Some said that the king heard voices, or talked to the air when he thought he was alone. But rumors were not enough of a reason for disloyalty. King Sombra had ruled the Empire in wisdom for years, and if he said that Celestia was a monster, then as far as Ruby Drop was concerned, that is what she was.

He felt the cold magic of his weapon, a shard of black crystal hidden in his false horn. He had never needed such powerful dark magic to kill a pony before, but Celestia was no mere pony.

“Where’s the princess?” asked an earth pony filly. Ruby raised an eyebrow. How did an earth pony get a golden ticket?

“She’s coming, don’t worry,” her unicorn friend said.

“This place is so crowded. Are we going to get a chance to talk to her?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

“But you need to tell her about the—”

“Shhhh! Not here!”

Ruby Drop walked past the two fillies. He wondered idly what these common children thought they had to say to a royal princess. Another pang of doubt pulsed in his heart. He was about to assassinate a princess whose subjects thought they could just walk up and talk to her. He shook his head. Princesses like that only existed in fairy tales… or the stories his grandmother told him. But the king said…

“Oof!” Ruby accidentally bumped into one of the nobles milling around the party. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s quite all right,” said a deep, rich voice. The pony wore a dark cloak that covered his face so that Ruby could not see it.

“It’s the princess!” somepony said. There was a collective gasp as the white-winged filly descended from the evening sky and alighted on the stage next to the Siren Sisters. She said something to them and the trio of unicorn singers blushed. Then she stepped forward and faced the crowd. Her gown sparkled in the light of the rainbow lanterns. More and more unicorns gathered in front of the stage to hear her.

Seeing her for the first time, Ruby Drop felt his conviction waver. She was as beautiful as they said. A monster, a monster, he told himself. Trust your king. But she didn’t look like a monster. And the words that came out of her mouth…

“My friends,” said Celestia, beaming at the partygoers. “Thank you for coming here tonight…”

Even the ponies that were uncomfortable with her, or outright critical of her rule, listened in silence as their princess went on.

“…I know I’ve not been your princess for very long, but even in this short amount of time I’ve come to love all of you so much…”

Love. Ruby staggered at that word. This couldn’t be allowed to go on. If she really was a monster, then he had to expose her once and for all. And if she wasn’t… if King Sombra was wrong and everything Ruby Drop had come here believing was a lie, then she would somehow survive, wouldn’t she? If the crystal prophecy was right, then something would have to stop him from doing what he was going to do, and right now, because he could not stand there listening to her any longer or he wouldn’t have the nerve to do it at all.

He walked forward, through the crowd. He reached out with his mind and grabbed hold of the hidden shard of black crystal. Its cold power filled him and for a moment he really was like a unicorn: one with the power to cast a single deadly spell.

“…and that love is the power at the heart of magic,” the filly princess said. “I am talking about something much greater than a unicorn’s magic. Beyond spells and enchantments is a kind of magic that any pony can wield if she wants to… if she has somepony to share it with… and I’ve been so happy to share it with all of you.”

Ruby Drop lowered his horn, prepared to fire the dark magic…

…and couldn’t. His eyes widened. He hadn’t had a change of heart. He really couldn’t cast the spell. The shard wasn’t working! And his body couldn’t move! Sweat dripped from his coat as his limbs hardened. To his horror, things were growing out of him. Branches! And his hooves melted into roots, which dug into the soft ground of the courtyard, fastening him in place.

Princess Celestia’s eyes fell on him and she fell quiet. The ponies surrounding him pulled back and watched with mingled fascination, disgust, and terror, as his body turned to wood, his branches grew leaves, and then sprouted red flowers all over. A few of them fainted. Ruby Drop’s fright gave way to a peaceful feeling, almost like being drugged. And then he thought no more.

Dark laughter rolled over the gathered ponies. They trembled and clung to each other, and some cried out. Their eyes went from the blossoming tree that had only a moment ago been a red pony, to the princess, who was no longer smiling. Her eyes narrowed to blazing lavender slits.

“Who’s there?” she demanded.

The cloaked pony staggered forward, nearly doubling up from laughter. The crowd of ponies parted right down the middle and he stood in the empty aisle between them, cackling. “Oh, Princess… I am sorry, but this is hilarious…”

Celestia glared at the cloaked pony. He dared, on this night of all nights, to harm one of her ponies? She felt her magic, power enough to move the sun in the sky, flare up within her, and fought the urge to unleash it on the pony before her. “What is so funny?”

“You! I mean, I heard that you believed in this Harmony and the magic of friendship stuff…” he said the words in a high, mocking tone, “but you just sounded so serious when you said that. I couldn’t help it.”

“Who are you? Did Starswirl send you?”

“I am no wizard’s pet, Princess. I’m just here to pay the world’s newest alicorn a visit.”

Celestia felt her blood run cold. Alicorn. Even though she had never heard the word before, she knew instantly what it meant. He knows the name for what I am.

“You really are pure of heart, aren’t you? But you are wrong about magic. Magic works just fine without friendship. Allow me to demonstrate…”

The sleeve of his cloak slid up, revealing not a hoof, but a paw. He snapped his clawed fingers and there was a flash of light, followed by a shrieking wail as the Siren Sisters were transformed.

Celestia stared openmouthed at the ponies floundering on the stage before her. They were no longer unicorns. Their hooves had been turned to fins, their legs to serpentine tails. They flopped on the stage uncontrollably, like fish out of—

Water! The princess shook off her shock and summoned her magic, picking the Siren Sisters up off the stage and carefully depositing them in the water fountain. They stopped struggling as soon as they touched the clear liquid. Whatever they had been transformed into belonged in the water. They clung to the edge of the fountain and cried to Celestia to help them.

She faced the cloaked figure. “What are you?”

Another laugh. The ponies that surrounded him cowered. “What am I?” The dark cloak he wore was shed and something slithered out of it, something so long it shouldn’t even have been able to fit inside the cloak in the first place. Celestia had never laid eyes on such a creature before. He was a mixture of all kinds of living things: dragons and ponies and more.

“I am Discord, your highness, the spirit of chaos,” he introduced himself with a mocking bow, lips curling in a mischievous smile.

Chaos. Celestia remembered what the phoenix had told her during her rebirth, when she saw that dark stain on the light. Chaos, the shadow of the Enemy.

“I don’t remember sending you a golden ticket,” the princess said. How strong is he? Are my new powers enough to defeat him? She was dealing with a complete mystery.

“Not to worry,” said Discord, “I made my own.” A fan of golden tickets appeared in his talons, which he tossed aside. “Believe me, you’ll be glad I crashed your little celebration: I’m the life of the party.” There was a flash of light and a party hat appeared on his head, right between his horn and antler, followed by a rain of confetti.

“All the ponies here are under my protection. I won’t let you hurt them. And the ones you transformed… change them back.”

The creature rolled his fiery red eyes. “Are you always such a bore, Princess? Come on, you’re an alicorn! A creature of life and fire and enough power to shake this entire city to its foundations. Don’t you ever feel like cutting loose a little bit?”

“If you don’t turn my ponies back… I will.”

Discord made a pouting face and pointed his fingers at the water fountain where the Siren Sisters were. There was a flash of light.

And the fountain’s water turned to chocolate milk.

The sisters cried out in disgust.

Celestia bowed her head and pointed her horn at Discord. A beam of glittering light shot toward the creature, spearing him through his abdomen. He looked down, face twisting in an expression of horror as he was cut in half. Both halves of his severed body collapsed to the ground where they twitched and squirmed.

Celestia’s eyes widened with shock. Her spell wasn’t supposed to do that! Her stomach seemed to fall down to her hooves as she stared at the dying creature, mouth hanging open. I didn’t mean to kill him!

Discord burst out laughing. “Just kidding!” His two halves reconnected and he stood up. “That was a pretty weak attack, though. I don’t think you’re taking this seriously enough. What do you say we raise the stakes a bit?”

Even as relief flooded Celestia that she had not actually killed the creature, she found herself wishing she had. What am I going to do? She looked around for Luna, but her shy sister had not made her appearance at the party yet. The partygoers were all cringing and trying to make themselves very small and unnoticeable, so the creature would not do to them what he had done to the singers and that poor red unicorn.

All in vain. Discord rose to his full height and cackled, lightning flashing out of the clear evening sky. Sudden fear gripped Celestia. Whatever he’s about to do, I’ve got to stop him! She felt her entire body light up with power.

Then the world came unraveled around her.

Gravity seemed to stop working as the castle was turned upside down. Unicorns were suspended in mid-air, hooves grasping helplessly. The rainbow lanterns came unstrung and floated, still burning with colored light, through the courtyard, which wasn’t a courtyard anymore…

A giant chessboard unfolded beneath them and Celestia alighted on a red square. Discord rose from the inky depths of a black one, then stood upon it as if it were solid. The castle was breaking apart around them, its upside-down pieces hanging in the air like Hearth’s Warming ornaments. The fancy food that had been served for the party was moving, come to horrible life, trying to swim through the air and chase the ponies that had, only minutes ago, been intending to eat it. A cake chewed harmlessly on the leg of a mare, which screamed and tried to shake it off.

“Let’s play a game, Princess,” said Discord. “You believe in the power of Harmony, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Celestia said weakly. How am I going to fix all this?

“Good. Now, you have three chances to prove to me that your White Light is greater than my Chaos. Every time you fail, I will take a turn to try and convince you otherwise. If you can’t defeat me in three turns… I win.”

Celestia faced her adversary. “Why are you doing this?”

“It’s my nature,” said Discord, a shadow passing over his features. “You have your precious phoenix court to thank for that. Go on… it’s your move.”

Celestia closed her eyes and took a breath. Prove that Harmony was greater than Chaos? How was she supposed to do that? Isn’t it, though? The power of friendship banished the windigos and saved ponykind from the eternal Winter. It has found homes for the orphans of Canterlot and started to soften the hearts of the unicorn tribe. It made me able to use magic when no amount of studying could. It raised me from the dead. It gave me wings.

Her horn began to glow. Harmony can fix this. All I have to do is draw upon friendship’s power… the love I feel for all of these ponies… for Luna… (Where are you, Sister?) …for those two. I didn’t see them in the crowd, but I’m sure they came…

A bubble of magic surrounded her and started to expand. Everywhere it touched, the power of Chaos was unmade: the chessboard vanished and became the castle ceiling it was supposed to be, which turned rightside-up, the ravenous desserts turned back into inanimate food and fell to the ground with a splat, even the castle started to come back together, to be repaired…

Discord was surprised the little princess had been able to manage this much. Her connection to Harmony was so pure… could it be? Might she become an Element? He stared at her. She was concentrating so hard, eyes shut, but beneath those lids were two slits of shining white light. The draconequus felt a shiver travel the entire length of his serpentine body. This could not go on. He stretched a single talon toward the bubble of magic, flooding it with his power, the power that could twist and warp magic itself.

The bubble burst. All the repairs it made were undone. The world around the princess reverted back to its chaotic state.

No! thought Celestia. The grimy touch of Chaos had proven stronger than her spell. But how? She had powered it with her affection for her subjects and her sister, so how could Discord’s power have overcome it? Sweat trickled down her coat and she stood panting.

“Not good enough, Princess,” said Discord. “My turn. What do you say we let your precious ponies in on our little game?”

A series of white flashes lit the upside-down castle. A group of huddling ponies sprouted long, floppy ears. Two young mares were squished together with magic until they became a single mare with two heads. Coats changed colors. A purple stallion in a fancy suit was transformed into something long and scaly. Ponies lost their minds and began acting like animals. Some were turned into actual animals. It started raining very confused frogs.

“Stop it!” Celestia cried.

“Don’t worry. No harm will come to them. I take good care of my toys.”

A very un-princesslike growl came from Celestia. “They are not your playthings!”

“Oh yes they are. And if your next move isn’t better than your first, they are going to be my playthings for a long time.” Out of the black square he stood on rose a dark throne. He sat on it and flashed a savage grin.

That’s it, thought Celestia, heart aflame with fury. I tried using my magic defensively, and that didn’t work. But nopony touches my… Subjects, not friends. That little truth dampened her power somewhat. Who cares how they feel about me? My love for them will be enough!

Horn shining with power, she turned all her magic against the creature. A cage of blazing light surrounded him. It will hold. It has to. He cannot be allowed to have his way.

But Discord opened the cage of light as if it was nothing, stepped out of it, and with a flick of his tail its light dimmed and it faded into the shadows.

“Ponies like you,” said Discord, shaking his head, “Heroes. You always believe the light is so powerful. That was a nice try, though. I could feel the magical power behind it. I must have touched a nerve, playing with your ponies. But you should be more worried about yourself than them, Princess.”

How did he get free? That should have worked! “What can you do to harm me?” said Celestia. “I was already killed once.” She stood before him, defiant.

He only smiled his fanged smile at her. There was a flash of light and a noise like a thunderclap.

Something was different. Celestia felt it immediately, though she did not know what it was. Has he turned me into something terrible? No, she still felt like a pony, still had her familiar white body, from her hooves to her…

Her horn was gone! So were her wings!

She could not sense magic at all, nor could she sense the lives of her ponies as she could since she became a… what had he called her? An alicorn. It was all gone. She tried to reach out and feel the presence of the sun, but could not.

“What did you do to me?”

“Oh well, it was fun while it lasted, wasn’t it? Having a new alicorn in the world? But now we’re running out of time. Well, not really, but I am getting bored. You have one more chance, Princess. Look at where Harmony has left you. I have taken your throne. Your ponies are mine to toy with. I have even taken your magic and your wings. What do you have left?”

Celestia fought the urge to cry. She was helpless. Without magic, how was she going to defend her subjects? They were counting on her. Thousands of innocent ponies were expecting their princess to save the day. She could not leave them to this creature. But I’ve been here before, she thought, a powerless filly at the mercy of some bully. But I’m not the same as I was then. I defied Starswirl. I returned from death. I…

Made a friend.

She smiled. “I pity you, Discord. All that power… and you still don’t get it.”

The creature frowned. “Get what? You have failed. What has your goodness gotten you? Defeated, that’s what. I tried to tell your wizard friend… good and evil are not the only game in town. They are not even that interesting. One side wants to destroy everything, the other wants to control it. But here… I will build a kingdom that cannot be controlled or destroyed, a world of endless chaos. What do you have that can oppose that?”

“You are terribly lonely, aren’t you? I was too, not so long ago. Then I found magic, real magic in—”

“Not interested,” spat Discord. “I’m going to count that as attempt number three. You lose, Princess.” And he reached out and touched her white forehead, where her horn used to be.

His twisted power passed through her, like soiled electricity.

Before he even had a chance to gloat, something dark and blue crashed into Celestia, knocking her out of the way. It stood between Discord and his prey, wrapped in a cloak of feathers.

“What’s this?”

The feathers scattered, turning into glowing blue butterflies. A horn glowed with sapphire magic. A pair of wings spread out against the dark.

An alicorn! A second alicorn filly. Impossible! He knew how they were made. There was no way two could be born in a single generation.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“I might ask you the same,” said the blue alicorn. “And what do you think you were doing with my sister?”

“Your… sister?” The wizard neglected to mention that. Discord composed himself. “We were just playing a game. She was losing.”

“I won’t let you touch her.”

Discord’s lips curled. “I already have. Now… I wasn’t exactly expecting another princess at this party, but I think I can let you in on our game…

A snap of clawed fingers, a flash of light, and Luna stood without wings or a horn: just a blue filly facing the spirit of chaos.

She gave him a fanged smile of her own. “I am no princess.” And new wings sprouted from her shoulders, along with a new horn on her head.

Discord’s red eyes widened. “How…”

Luna sniffed. “Magic.”

Another flash of light, and a blue rabbit stood where Luna had been, staring at Discord with unamused aquamarine eyes.

Then, impossibly, the rabbit glowed blue and stretched back into an alicorn. “No,” she said.

Discord managed to remain calm in his fury. There was no way his spells could be broken, not even by an alicorn. Not even by two alicorns. He was seeing something that could not happen, which meant…

“This is not real. You are using illusions.”

“That’s right. You’re dreaming.”

“I do not dream!” he hissed. “Ugh. Tricked by cheap fairy magic. I’m almost impressed. Who are you really? Some unicorn adept who has caught a glimpse of the fairy world?”

“I am Luna,” she said.

“The name of the moon? That is too arrogant, even for a unicorn.”

“I did not choose it. And I am not a unicorn.”

“Well, whatever you are, you are standing between me and my little friend.” He said that last word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Actually, I’m not.”

“What?”

“My sister isn’t here anymore.” Luna grinned at him, then began to disappear, from her tail up to her head, vanishing slowly, until only her grin remained. “And neither am I.”

Then she was gone.

Discord stood alone in his twisted castle. He might have tried to catch up to them, but what would be the point. He was furious, but he also admired the little trickster. She knew how to play. Besides, there were a thousand more fun things he could be doing than chasing down a couple of do-gooders. The white city lay pale and vulnerable before him. All that order just begging to be undone. And after Canterlot, the whole country of Equestria just lay there, ripe for a touch of chaos…

* * *

Far outside the city, Luna landed, setting her sister down carefully. Celestia hadn’t spoken to her during the whole flight.

“Did you do it? Did you save her?” Victory Song asked. Her voice was practically a whimper.

“I did. Thanks to you two. Thanks for coming to get me.”

“And… that thing, whatever it was?” asked Page.

“…is too powerful for either myself or my sister to defeat.”

Page nodded. She glanced at Victory, who was saying something to Celestia. “I might have learned something that will help. That is why I wanted to talk to the princess at the Gala.”

“What is that?”

“I think I know where to find the Elements of Harmony.”

Luna’s ears perked up. “The Elements…”

“Hear that, Princess?” said Victory. Then she turned to Page and Luna. “Guys, I think something’s wrong with her.

“That creature took her wings and horn away.”

“Um… I think there’s something else wrong with her.”

“What?!”

Alarmed, Luna raced to her sister and looked at her. Celestia gazed back, but Victory was right; something was very wrong.

“She’s…”

“Her colors are all gone,” said Victory.

It was true. She had no wings and no horn and no colors. Her once brilliant mane now flowed in shades of ash. The others exchanged a worried glance, then stared at Celestia.

The gray princess looked back at them. “What is the matter? I feel fine.” The pupils of her eyes dilated, drinking in the light and swallowing it. She licked her lips and smiled wickedly. “In fact, I feel better than ever.”

X. Heartless

Ten:
Heartless

The Everfree Forest was untamable. It had been that way since long before the ponies had lost their country to the eternal Winter and relocated in the realm they named Equestria. Pegasi had no more control of the weather there than earth ponies had of the twisted plants that grew, and unicorns could sense the wrongness of that place, if they were sensitive; magic itself seemed to be bent and twisted there into something dark and terrible. Nopony in her right mind would spend more than a few hours there.

Celestia and her friends had been traveling through the dark woods for days. Deeper and deeper into the gloom they ventured, following Page’s maps, searching desperately for the only power that might rescue the ponies of Canterlot from the power of Discord: the Elements of Harmony.

“Let’s make camp here,” said Luna, when she saw Page stumble over a particularly gnarled root.

“I-I can go further,” Page protested. She didn’t want to be the weak one in the group, but a lifetime of studying the outdoors from behind the pages of a book had done nothing to prepare her for the sheer physical trauma that was hiking.

Luna smiled gently. “It’s getting dark. I don’t think we should push ourselves.”

“Besides,” said Victory, “I’m getting tired too.”

Page noticed that the earth pony had barely broken a sweat all day, while her own coat was drenched. She wanted to argue, but found she didn’t have the strength for it. I’ll do better tomorrow, she thought.

“What are you talking about?” said Celestia. “There is an hour’s worth of light at least.”

The others exchanged a look. Celestia had been acting strange ever since her encounter with Discord. She had become colder, somehow…almost uncaring. Whatever the creature had done to her had left her changed in ways that frightened her friends.

“We don’t want to be too tired when night falls here,” said Luna. “We may need our strength if something… unexpected happens.”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed. “Fine,” she said, and turned away from her sister.

Luna stared after her. She was more worried than she let on in front of the others. Where was her sister? Her real sister, the one that traded half of her life and power to bring her into the world, the one that gave Luna her name. She looked at the gray pony that had her back to her. Come back to me.

With a spark from her horn, Luna lit the campfire and they huddled around it, all except for Celestia, who stood some ways apart, still as a statue, staring off into the darkness between the trees.

“Do you think the Elements will… help her?” Victory whispered.

“I do not know,” said Luna.

“They are definitely powerful enough,” Page said. She had her maps out, and the two books that they had recovered from the ashes of Starswirl’s house were laid on top of them, open. “The Book of Harmony says that friendship’s power can save a heart that is lost.”

“Is that what happened to her?” Victory asked.

Luna felt her insides tighten. “I don’t know that, either.”

“But even if it is, why would we need the Elements to do that? We are her friends. Why can’t we just… I don’t know… be powerful enough by ourselves?”

Page shook her head. “Magic doesn’t always work like that, Victory. Sometimes friendship alone isn’t enough.”

Victory frowned. “That sounds like something out of that other book. The dark one.”

“It’s called The Sea of Night, and while I don’t agree with everything it says about magic, it is what gave me the clue about where to find the Elements of Harmony.”

“But you said that passage wasn’t even in pony language.”

“I translated it from the original dragon tongue…”

“But you don’t even speak dragon. How d’you know you translated it right?”

Page sighed. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

Luna said nothing. The truth was that they all trusted Page, if only because the Elements of Harmony were their only hope now and her clue was their only lead. She watched Celestia, wondering if she was listening to any of what they were saying, wondering if she even cared…

As it turned out, Celestia was wondering about the same thing. She had felt the change in herself when Discord had touched her, felt her heart go dark in an instant. She had heard her friends whispering about her amongst themselves, knew that they were concerned. I just don’t care, she thought. I don’t. She even tried, as an experiment, remembering what she felt when she stood before Luna’s mirror on that night, but even though she could remember what she had been feeling in that moment, when Luna had crashed into her arms for the first time, she could not duplicate those feelings now.

Not caring had its advantages. Things had never been clearer to Celestia. Before Discord had touched her, she kept countless memories behind locked doors in her soul that she never opened. Things like her time on the streets of Canterlot. Being able to love would surely make some of those memories painful… perhaps unbearable. But not anymore. Now she saw where she went wrong as a filly, back when she refused to fight and steal and kill for her life. She saw how much of a foal she was to be taken in by Starswirl. Really, who takes in a useless filly without any thought for his own personal gain? She should have seen his betrayal coming miles away, and she would have, had she not been blinded by that emotion she had once thought so precious.

Her friends were still important to her, of course. She needed them to help her find the Elements so she could defeat Discord. He had hurt her, taken her magic and her wings, and she would see him bow to her for it. Then she would make Starswirl pay. After that… who could say?

Celestia knew that she was thinking differently. Maybe some part of her even knew that what she was thinking was wrong. But she no longer cared about that, either. And not caring felt painless, fearless… wonderful.

The chattering, whispering quiet of the Everfree Forest was pierced by a shrill cry. The ponies’ ears perked up at the sound and they leapt to their hooves. That sounded like a pony! And it was close. Luna, Victory, and Page ran into the darkness, toward the sound of the scream.

In no hurry, Celestia followed.

They reached the source of the cry. High up in the dark trees, a massive web stretched between crooked branches, silvery threads gleaming in what faint light reached it through the treetops and from the ponies’ campfire, which burned a stone’s throw away. And there, tangled in the giant web, struggling and crying, her wings bent at odd angles in the sticky trap, was a lemon-colored pegasus.

“Help me!” she cried.

“Hold on,” said Luna, leaping into the air and flying up to where the tangled pegasus was. Her horn glowed, illuminating the pegasus’s shocked expression, before her spell dissolved the web.

A spider the size of a full-grown stallion jumped at the pegasus, fangs dripping dark fluid. With a yelp, the winged pony dodged it, just barely. Luna’s horn flashed and the giant spider shrieked as the spell struck it, knocking it back into the branches. There was a rustling noise as it climbed away into the darkness.

“Wait!” called Luna after it, sudden guilt stabbing her insides.

“What are you doing?” the pegasus said. “Let it go!”

“I might have hurt it!” Luna said. She was actually fond of spiders.

“It was going to eat me!” the pegasus whined.

Luna cocked her head. “I… suppose so,” she sighed.

Slowly she and the yellow pegasus drifted down to the ground, where Luna’s friends and sister waited. She noticed that Celestia’s expression showed not the slightest trace of concern and silently cursed Discord for whatever he had done to her.

Immediately the pegasus was bombarded by questions: “Are you okay?” “Who are you?” “What are you doing in the Everfree Forest?”

The pegasus filly shrank back from them, eyes darting from one concerned face to another. “Th-thank you for saving me,” she said.

Luna’s eyes narrowed. “Come on. Join us by our fire. You are safe now.”

Once they were safely back at their campsite, Luna got a better look at the young pony. Her mane was wispy and as white as a cloud, and her eyes, which gleamed eerily in the firelight, were a cold blue. Luna couldn’t help but notice that she hadn’t yet gotten a cutie mark.

“I’m Wind Chime,” she introduced herself, ruffling her wings and forcing a smile. “I’m sure glad you happened by when you did.”

“It was… fortuitous,” said Luna. She and Victory and Page introduced themselves.

Celestia, who looked bored, said nothing and watched Wind Chime carefully. The only question she cared about was whether this new pony would be a help or a hindrance to her in her quest.

“Why were you flying through the dark forest?”

Wind Chime swallowed. Her eyes lowered. “Oh! You’re a winged unicorn!” she exclaimed. “I never thought I’d see one.”

Victory and Page exchanged a glance. “You’ve heard of winged unicorns before?” Page asked. She was thinking of how much studying she had done before she had stumbled upon a reference in a fairy tale.

“Well, everypony in my village knows the legend,” Wind Chime said. “My village… that’s what I was doing, by the way. I mean, in the Everfree Forest. We live here.”

Looks of horror dawned on Page and Victory’s faces. Luna frowned. Celestia’s expression did not change, but her gray eyes sparkled with interest.

“You live… in the Everfree Forest?” Page croaked. “But nopony lives in the dark forest. It’s… it’s…”

“Dangerous,” Victory supplied.

“Exactly! I can’t even imagine a single pony wanting to live here, let alone an entire village.”

“Where is your village?” Luna asked.

“Oh. It’s deep in the forest,” Wind Chime answered. “We live in the darkest part of the forest, where the sun never shines.”

Page brightened. “The deepest, darkest part of the forest? Luna, it’s just like the book says!”

“Book?” Wind Chime asked, uncertainty flitting across her face.

Page leaned so close to the pegasus that their noses almost touched. “Do you know of a castle that the sun never touches?”

Wind Chime shrugged. “Maybe somepony in my village would know that. Where did you hear of such a place?”

“A legend. Maybe I’ll tell you if you tell me about where you heard of winged unicorns.”

The pegasus giggled. “Okay. The night is young. We can trade fairy tales.”

While Page and Luna entertained their guest, Victory’s eyes wandered back to her princess. Celestia had turned away from the group again, but every now and then Victory would see one of her gray ears twitch, and knew she was listening. What is she thinking? Victory wondered.

It would not have pleased her to know the answer to that.

“In my village there are legends of a great prince who used to rule the land… before the Everfree became the way it is now. His kingdom was said to have all kinds of ponies in it: earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns. They all lived peacefully together. In fact, they lived in such harmony that sometimes ponies would have foals of different races. Can you imagine that? A unicorn having a pegasus child? But that was the way it was. And this prince was a winged unicorn. Because he was could not die, his reign lasted for centuries.”

Page listened with interest. Wind Chime’s legend seemed to confirm her theory that ponies had lived here before the three tribes had come to Equestria. What happened to them? Was Wind Chime’s village a remnant of that ancient civilization? Why did they live in the Everfree Forest?

“But if he was immortal, how did his reign ever end?”

“A sad story,” Wind Chime said. “Maybe you can tell me first what you want in a castle in the darkest part of the Everfree Forest?”

Page looked to Luna, who nodded and said, “We need some help. We can’t keep on wandering like this. My sister is…” Her voice caught and she looked away.

“We are looking for the Elements of Harmony,” Page said.

“The E-Elements?” said Wind Chime. Did she just shiver? Page thought. “But they don’t really exist.”

“We think they do, and they had better because we need them. I have a book that once belonged to the greatest unicorn wizard that ever lived, and in it there is a poem, written in the dragons’ language.” She intoned,

“In the heart of the shadowed wood
Where once the greatest power stood,
Before the Light of Harmony’s divide
And Cauchemar had chosen her side
Shall stand in darkness near complete
Stones the sun shall never meet:
Castle Dusk where love once failed,
And the end of Dreams was hailed,
Where fate decrees a choice still waits
The one who passes through Magic’s gates,
And bright Elements once were forged
For hearts that knew them long before.”

As the last line of the poem fell from Page’s lips, Wind Chime visibly trembled. She knows something, the unicorn thought.

“That sounds like something my village headpony would know about,” the pegasus said in a hushed voice.

“Then we would be honored if you would take us to your village,” Luna said.

Wind Chime nodded and flashed a grin. “I can’t let you try to get there on your own, after all. This forest can be dangerous for those that don’t live here.”

Nopony mentioned that she was the one that was nearly spider food.

That night, nopony in their little camp slept soundly. Their fitful dreams clawed and scratched at Luna, who eventually gave up on the idea of rest entirely and joined her sister, who stood watch, facing the darkness.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“I think she will help us find the Elements,” Celestia said without emotion.

“She’s hiding something.”

“I know.”

“Sister…”

Celestia did not answer. She wondered idly why Luna continued to call her sister, even when they were alone. Was she actually deceiving herself into believing the lie they had concocted to explain her existence to the unicorns? Love, she thought, rolling her eyes. It blinds everypony.

They passed the night in silence, bodies close enough to touch, hearts as far apart as the sun from the moon.

“What’s her story?” Wind Chime asked Victory the next day.

The pegasus was leading them to her village, which she assured them was only a two-day journey on hoof. With a tangible goal ahead of her, Celestia set a fast pace. Luna was worried for Page, who struggled to keep up. Wind Chime had a habit of never setting hoof on the ground when she did not need to, and so she flew around them in a way that reminded Victory of a bee buzzing around her head.

“She’s the princess of the unicorns,” said Victory.

“Really? But she’s not a unicorn.”

Victory found herself getting annoyed. “She is more than a unicorn. But she’s…” Oh great, she thought. Now I’m gonna go and cry in front of her.

“Is something wrong with her?”

“Go ahead and tell her, Victory,” said Celestia. She was smiling without any trace of kindness. The earth pony shivered.

“She’s my princess and my friend, but… this monster did something to her, and…” Victory hesitated.

“You don’t need to worry,” Celestia said. “I won’t mind whatever you are going to say. I promise you I won’t care.”

“That’s the problem!” Victory cried. Then, to Wind Chime, “She’s lost her heart!”

And that was when Wind Chime reacted in the last way any of them expected: she laughed. Her laughter was clear and musical, not the laughter of somepony who is finding amusement in somepony else’s calamity, but the sincere laugh of somepony who had just heard a hilarious joke for the first time.

Victory felt her ears grow hot and she asked through clenched teeth, “What is so amusing about that?”

“You can’t lose a heart,” said Wind Chime. “Hearts are powerful. They can be wounded and even broken. They can grow cold and they can be hidden, the way the sun is hidden by the clouds. But even then, all it takes is a strong enough wind and the gray sky will be broken through, and the light will shine again. Hearts are like that.” She was beaming, then she blushed suddenly and looked away. “Nothing as precious as a heart could ever be lost. Whatever has happened to your princess, she still has a heart.”

Victory looked at her gray princess, who was not the least bit moved by Wind Chime’s little speech. Her colorless coat did sort of remind Victory of a gray sky. She gave Celestia a watery smile. Princess… shine again. Please…

“You’re okay, Chime,” Victory said. “I think we could be friends.”

The pegasus blushed an even deeper rose. “All of you need to cheer up. I’m the one who lives in the spooky Everfree Forest and every single one of you is gloomier than me.”

The mismatched band of fillies walked all day. They spent the hours talking. Mostly it was Victory and Page and Wind Chime that did the talking. Her natural shyness and the fact that she felt like the burden of leadership was on her made Luna quiet. And Celestia barely uttered a word. By the end of the second day since meeting Wind Chime, only hours from their destination, they already felt that they were becoming fast friends.

That was when they were ambushed.

It happened so suddenly that Luna did not have time to cast a spell. There was a rustling in the dark brush surrounding them and things leapt out. The fading daylight that filtered through the treetops revealed creatures that were made of wood, with broken branches for claws and teeth—teeth they clamped on Victory and Celestia’s necks before the glow of magic could light the horns of Luna and Page.

“Surrender, ponies!” a sharp voice hissed, Luna couldn’t tell from where.

Luna glared and her horn shone with near-blinding light. A few of the wooden beasts drew back, but the ones that had their fangs around pony necks tightened their grip, piercing coat and skin until Victory cried out.

“They die,” said the voice. It seemed to be coming from all around them. Luna didn’t know where to fire her spell, and even if she did, she might not be fast enough to save her sister and Victory. Even her dream-weaving and illusions needed a moment to prepare. With her friends’ lives in the balance she did not dare attempt it. Bitterly, she let the magic fade from her horn.

“I surrender,” she said with dangerous softness.

Page followed her example, eyes wide with fear. A wooden beast scooped her up and closed her in a cage of jagged claws. A thorny vine wrapped itself around Luna, tightening around her neck like a noose.

“If you summon a single drop of magic…” The voice let the threat hang in the air.

They were caught. Luna blamed herself. They had let their guard down since Wind Chime had offered to guide them to her village, trusting that the pegasus knew the forest around her home.

That was when she noticed that Wind Chime was the only one that wasn’t in the claws of one of the wooden beasts. Her ice blue eyes watched with pity as they were carried off into the darkness.

They were taken to the place Wind Chime had called her village, but it was not a village for ponies. Glowing parasprites hovered in the darkness, giving the dark village its only light, a sickly green glow that covered everything. Page saw manticores and burly minotaurs, scaly creatures from her books that she’d never thought she’d see in real life, a cockatrice that shot her a glance, prompting her to clamp her eyes shut until they were carried even deeper. When she opened them again she wished she hadn’t.

A great black dragon met Page’s gaze and she thought she would wet herself. Its eyes glowed like hot coals, searing their way into her. Drool fell from its slimy lips in thick ropes. The monster flexed leathery wings and stretched a body covered with glistening dark scales that looked like wet stones.

“Welcome to our humble coven, ponies,” his voice rumbled. Then his burning eyes found Wind Chime, who stood before him without any trace of fear, as if he couldn’t devour her with a single snap of his jaws. “Are you certain that one of these is the one? They don’t look like much to me.”

The pegasus filly bowed her head. “I’m sure.”

“Y-You…” Victory’s strangled voice rang out in spite of the wooden teeth clamped around her throat, “…traitor!”

The dragon frowned, his glowing eyes sweeping from Luna to Page to Victory, and finally to Celestia, who stared back at him without feeling.

“Take them to the cages. I will ask the priestess which one she wants.”

Wind Chime nodded and gave an order to the wooden beasts, who took the ponies away. They were locked up in cages made out of the same living wood that the beasts were made out of. Luna felt a twisted magic coursing through every branch and thorn. She drew her wings close and tried her best not to touch the bars of her prison.

“Why are you doing this?” Victory asked.

“You wouldn’t understand,” said Wind Chime. All the joy that had seemed to possess her over the last two days was gone. It was as if she were a completely different pony. To Luna she said, “Don’t try to escape. I know you are powerful, but if you try to cast a spell, the cages will know and they will kill your friends.” As if to punctuate this statement, sharpened spikes that lined the bars of the cages quivered.

“You’re right. I don’t understand,” Victory said. “What is a pony doing living with a bunch of monsters?”

Wind Chime did not answer.

“What do they want with us?” Page asked, finding her voice for the first time since coming face to face with the dragon.

“They don’t want all of you. Just one. A suitable offering for our goddess.”

“Goddess?” Celestia asked, raising one gray eyebrow.

“Yes. She has chosen one of you.”

“Which one?”

“The one whose heart is as dark as her own.”

“That is none of us,” Luna said.

“Are you so sure?” Wind Chime’s cold eyes lingered on Celestia.

“You can’t have the princess!” Victory said.

“I’m not the one who wants her.”

“I won’t let your stupid goddess have her, either.”

“What choice do you have? You are an earth pony. You don’t even have magic to call upon. Tonight, a great friendship will be destroyed. And with its death, our goddess shall finally have a doorway into this world. The power of light will be shattered and the night will las—”

“You want to destroy a friendship?” Page interrupted, shaking her head. “How can you even think about doing that?” She glanced at Victory. “We could have been your friends. We would have. Why would you want to serve a goddess that wants you to be alone? Do you even have a heart?”

“No!” Wind Chime shouted with sudden fury. “I don’t! I’m not like you ponies with your precious hearts and friendship and love. I was born empty.”

“What are you talking about? Nopony is born empty.”

The pegasus filly smiled a horrible crooked smile. “I never told you the rest of that legend, did I? The one you were so keen about hearing before. You want to know the truth, Page Sparkle? About the kingdom of peace you admire from your fairy tales?

“Once there was a prince who ruled a magical kingdom. He wasn’t any ordinary prince, either; he was the chosen bearer of an Element of Harmony. The prince wielded the Element of Laughter. Then the one you ponies call the Enemy struck him down. He died. He should have stayed dead.

“But then a,” she spat the word, “phoenix made a choice. For the sake of Harmony it gave its life to save the noble prince, and brought him back from the dead, an alicorn. The kingdom of Harmony thrived for centuries under his rule. But the power of darkness waited, and one day it found a way to the prince’s heart. He fell in love with a pony that grew old and died, and everything changed. He lost all joy, and the power of Laughter was finally broken. Eventually his heart was corrupted and fell to the darkness. He betrayed Harmony and the power of friendship and led his entire kingdom astray. The once-peaceful ponies learned hatred and cruelty. They fell to the Enemy, who cursed them, turning them into living ghosts without hearts.

“The last scraps of the forces of light fought against the lost prince, but how do you defeat somepony who is immortal? It took the might of the phoenix court itself to subdue him. They cast him into the well of life and the light swallowed him once again, but this time he brought corruption with him. His soul was torn into pieces, but still he could not die. Eventually his spirit was recast from countless twisted lives, not as an alicorn anymore, but something even greater. No longer bound by Harmony, a creature of pure chaos… who once was Laughter.”

“Discord,” Luna growled.

“Yes. But what of his little ponies? The ones your Enemy cursed? I am young, but I have heard the story of how my race was born. How we were made to feed on hatred. You are the smart one, Page. Have you figured it out yet?”

Page’s face had lost its color. “You can’t be. You’re a pegasus pony!”

“A glamour, a trick of magic our priestess taught me so I could find a pony whose heart is as cold as that of our goddess. But don’t be fooled. I have no heart of my own. What I do have is cold…”

The temperature in the air dropped so low they could see their breath. Frost formed on the wooden bars of the cages. And then, with no more use for deception, Wind Chime’s disguise cracked and shattered into thousands of frozen pieces and she hovered before them, a living ghost, her ice-blue eyes glowing, mane streaming.

“What?!” Victory said, unable to accept it.

“She’s a windigo!” Page said.

“Indeed,” Wind Chime spoke in a voice like ice cracking. “Another monster, born to serve the Arch-Enemy of Friendship, Cauchemar.” On her cheeks, Luna noticed two frozen trails. Tears? “Or, as the sad, stupid ponies who became my race called her long ago… the Nightmare.”

XI. My Celestia

Eleven:
My Celestia

Candyspark would have been beautiful, if she’d been allowed to live in a nice house, with enough food to eat and pretty dresses and dolls. Even now there are traces of the beautiful filly she could be, if you could see past the grime and the way her bones are visible under her coat. Her mane is a stringy, matted mess and so filthy that nopony can guess its color.

“You have to eat,” Celestia says to the starving unicorn filly. She pushes half a rotten apple toward Candyspark, who tries to take a bite. The effort is too much for the weak unicorn, who gives up on the food, lays her head down in the shade of the alley and tries to concentrate on breathing.

It’s not just hunger. Celestia knows that the other filly is sick. She’s been splitting half of her food with the poor creature for days, but Candyspark only grows weaker. Then, yesterday, she couldn’t eat at all. And today.

It is night when the young unicorn dies. Her body will be taken away the next morning and thrown into a ditch that some ponies dare to call a grave. It will be unmarked. Celestia wonders if anypony else even knew the filly’s name.

They had not been friends. When she was healthier, Candyspark had been a rascal and a thief. Once she had even stolen from Celestia a moldy half-loaf of bread, the only food that Celestia had found that day. But when she got sick, Celestia tried her best to help her. It was the closest she had gotten to another pony on the streets of Canterlot.

And now that pony is dead, and Celestia is crying, standing over her body as it grows cold, and soon dawn will come to wash away everything that happened tonight, and the only pony that will remember her is Celestia.

“I’m sorry,” Celestia whispers through her tears. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry…”

Morning finds her still holding onto the other filly’s hoof. The ones who come for the body kick Celestia away and she slinks off into the shadows of the city, invisible as a ghost to those who pass her by, cursing her powerlessness.

* * *

“What are you thinking about?” Luna asked.

Celestia turned to look at her sister, who sat in her living cage, as tame as a dog, even though she had enough magical power to destroy the entire monster village if she wanted to. But she wouldn’t, because she cared for her friends.

At the moment, Celestia could not understand that.

“I was thinking of a pony I saw die once. A little unicorn.”

“And?” Luna leaned forward, inches from the spikes of her cage. Celestia never talked about her life before Starswirl took her in.

Celestia shrugged. “And nothing. She died. That was all.”

“Did you care about her?”

Celestia looked upward, past the bars of her cage. The eerie green parasprite glow lit her face, which was wound up in a baffled expression. “I must have. At the time.”

Luna shuddered. They had to hurry up and find the Elements so she could get her Celestia back. But what could they do, prisoners as they were? “Do you think this goddess of theirs really exists?”

Celestia could still remember dying, entire worlds passing her by as she fell through the afterlife. There were more things than anypony knew existed. Things of light and things of darkness. This Nightmare could certainly be real. “Who knows.”

“Starswirl’s book talks about her,” Page said. “It says she is the Arch-Enemy of Friendship.”

“What does that even mean?” Victory asked.

“It means she stands against Harmony,” Celestia said. “Just like Starswirl.”

And for the first time since she first heard those words—friendship and harmony—Celestia herself wondered why she should care about them. Why was she so certain that Starswirl was wrong, that his terrible plan would ruin everything she loved. Loved. Past tense. What do I care any longer about Harmony? If this Nightmare was powerful enough to create the windigos and corrupt the alicorn prince that Discord used to be, then maybe Celestia didn’t need the Elements after all. Maybe there was another way…

“What is Harmony?” Victory asked.

“It’s…” Luna tried to think of the right words to describe it, but all she could think was, Celestia would be able to say it perfectly…

“I think it has to do with friendship,” Page said. “Celestia was trying to get Canterlot to understand it, to stop what Starswirl was planning.”

“But even you said friendship wasn’t enough,” Victory said. And you were right. “Then Discord… hurt the princess. Canterlot was trying to do things her way, but Discord still won. And who’s to say Starswirl won’t win in the end? Or this monster goddess?”

“Victory…” She’s starting to give up, Page thought. Ever since Celestia had come into their lives, Victory had practically worshipped her. And she embraced everything the princess said about the power of friendship. Seeing Celestia like she was now was making Victory question everything she had taught.

“I don’t know if friendship can do all the things Celestia thought,” Page said. “But I know it is important. I didn’t know how important it was until I met you. Even if it turns out to be weaker than the Enemy… I would still rather be on the side of Harmony.”

Was I really such a fool? Celestia thought.

“I guess I would too,” Victory said with a watery smile. She sighed. “I hope I get the chance to tell Wind Chime that she chose the wrong side.”

Page thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think she had a choice. It’s her nature. Windigos feed on hatred. Clover the Clever and his friends defeated her race a hundred years ago with the power of Harmony. Real friendship would probably be like poison to something like her.”

“Yeah? Well she’d deserve it.”

“I don’t think she’s as evil as she seems,” Luna said suddenly.

Victory and Page turned to her cage. The blue alicorn filly was frowning and her gaze was faraway. “What do you mean?” Page asked.

She was crying. “I’m not sure. It’s something she said, about not having a heart. I think she wishes she did.”

“But windigos are evil,” Page said. “And if we believe Wind Chime’s story, they were created by the actual Arch-Enemy of Friendship herself.”

“She’s a traitor,” Victory said. “She pretended to be our friend.”

“I know,” Luna said. “I can’t explain it. It’s just a feeling I have.” She was so cold and sad. Victory and Page would never know what Luna had felt, existing as a shadow on the other side of the fairy mirror, cursed to reflect whomever looked inside, no matter how cruel or heartless he was…

…and wanting to be something more than what she was. Seeing in Celestia a glimpse of the power that could save her from her darkness. Friendship.

Luna put a hoof to her chest. I wanted a heart too.

“I think you might be a little too kind, Luna,” Victory said. “She’s a monster, after all. Even if she can’t help it, she’s dangerous.”

Luna looked from Victory to Page… and finally to Celestia, who was watching her with a bored expression. When her gaze settled on the colorless pony, Celestia shrugged. “I don’t care,” she said.

As if those awful words were a spell, the temperature began to drop. Everypony except Celestia shivered in their cages as the ghostly form of Wind Chime landed before them. Her icy gaze swept over them, chilling them even further.

“It’s time,” the windigo said.

“What are you going to do?” Luna tried to demand. She hated how meek she sounded.

“You’ll find out soon enough. She wants you.” Wind Chime turned to the cage that held Celestia. “And her.”

A pack of wooden wolves emerged from the shadows and the doors of the cages that held Luna and Celestia opened with a growl.

“Remember,” Wind Chime said, “if you use your magic, the cages that hold your two friends will kill them.”

“I remember,” Luna said.

Wind Chime looked over at Page. “You. Give me the wizard’s books. The ones that told you about the castle you believe holds the Elements.”

Page magicked the books out of her pack and through the bars of her cage and tossed them at Wind Chime’s hooves. Two of the wooden wolves picked the books up with their mouths. The windigo turned her back to Page and Victory and floated away, the wolves following with the two sisters, which they had surrounded.

The wooden wolves escorted Luna and Celestia through the monster village, the freezing specter of Wind Chime at the head of the pack. The monsters of the village watched them as they went by, whispering amongst themselves. Luna felt her heart begin to beat faster. She hadn’t felt this vulnerable since Celestia brought her into the world. She could feel the moon arcing across the sky high above, its light unable to find its way through the black treetops. All her power—enough to tear all these creatures to shreds—and she dared not use so much as a drop. And behind her fear for the safety of her friends was another fear, a dread she could not name, but every step brought her closer to it.

They were brought to a clearing. The trees at its edge leaned over it, forming a black dome that refused to let in the light of moon or sun. It was lit instead by the same glowing pale parasprites that lit the monster village, and by Wind Chime’s cold blue glow, and by the gentle silver light of… were those ghosts?! Luna felt her skin prickle. There was something she couldn’t remember anymore, something she used to know, before she came into this world, something about ghosts. She glanced at Celestia, who spared the phantoms a glance, but no more. Her eyes were hard.

“Are they… ponies?” Luna asked.

“Cauchemar rules the land of the dead,” Wind Chime said. “Those who do not find their way into the afterlife are bound to serve her.”

The dead serve the Enemy, thought Luna. That was the truth she had forgotten.

“Can nopony help them?”

“I would worry about yourself if I were you,” Wind Chime hissed. “We are here.”

They stood before an ancient tree. Its bark was gnarled and knotted and it had no leaves, only twisted branches that curled into jagged claws. As soon as Luna set eyes on it, she felt something within her recoil. It’s evil, she thought. From behind the tree stepped a creature of wood, like the wolves and other beasts that had ambushed them. Only this one was a wooden pony.

She had a mane of broken twigs and rotten leaves. The lines in the wood that made up her body crisscrossed into a web of wrinkles. When she set her eyes on them, Luna shuddered and couldn’t meet them. Poison green light spilled from her eyes, casting everypony she looked upon in a sickly hue. A single jagged branch jutted from her forehead to form a broken horn.

“Welcome, children of Harmony,” she said.

“Priestess,” Wind Chime said, and bowed.

“W-Who are you,” Luna asked.

The wooden pony ignored her. The two wooden wolves that held Starswirl’s books set them down on the ground. The priestess licked her wooden lips with a mossy tongue. Her horn glowed with the same horrible green light that filled her eyes and the books floated over to her. She opened them and turned their pages carefully, examining them while everypony stood silent and waited.

“At last,” she said softly, “they have come back to me.” She looked up from the books. “To answer your question, young one, I have had many names. One I have forgotten, but I wore it proudly when the world was new. Then Harmony was broken and I was called Verdania, the fallen dryad. The fairies called me the Witch of the Wood, and feared me. To the ponies who lived at the edge of my forest I was called the Ghost of the Everfree. And when they finally lost their hearts and my forest overgrew their kingdom, they named me after my goddess and called me the priestess of Cauchemar. And so I am.”

“A dryad,” Luna said. Her eyes narrowed. A dryad was a fairy pony whose soul inhabited a tree. She had never heard of one being evil.

The priestess sighed. “That is what you take from my introduction? I guess a phoenix sacrifice doesn’t buy what it used to.”

“What?”

“I know how alicorns are born, dear. I know all about the phoenix court… and they know me.”

Luna felt a tiny sliver of relief. The priestess did not realize that Luna didn’t become an alicorn in the usual way. It wasn’t much, but it meant she did not know everything, no matter how powerful and scary she was.

“What are you going to do with us?”

The wooden pony’s glowing eyes returned to the books she had suspended in the air between them. “Have you read these?”

Luna felt her cheeks grow warm. She had never bothered with Starswirl’s books. All she needed to know about them she learned from Celestia. Or from Page, who was even more taken with them than her sister.

“No.”

“Pity,” the priestess said. She actually sounded disappointed. “Their pages came from my tree, long ago. Two books about magic that don’t agree. One was stolen by Clover the Clever, who died believing that friendship really was magic. The other was gifted to Starswirl the Bearded, on the day he asked my goddess for the power to stand against Harmony.”

“Starswirl came here?” It was Celestia who spoke.

The priestess turned her glowing eyes on the gray pony. “I see you have met Discord, little one. His magic is unruly, and not truly of one side or the other, but this time he has served Cauchemar whether he wished to or not.” She turned to Wind Chime. “Are you sure this is the one?”

“Yes, priestess. I feel my power swell in her presence. She is a void of love that would call to any windigo.”

“For Discord’s touch to do this to her… she must have been a creature of supreme love.”

“Her friends say she was a true believer in Harmony.”

“Ah… those who fly the highest always fall the farthest.” She returned her attention to Celestia. “Yes, child, Starswirl came here. This is the place where Cauchemar’s power is not hindered, and all the wood is twisted by her magic. That is the true meaning of the name of the Everfree Forest: the place that is ever free from Harmony.”

“Why are you telling us all this?” Luna asked.

“Because one of you is about to make a choice, and you must make it knowingly.”

“What choice?”

“To end your friendship.”

“What?” The word came weak from her mouth, which had gone dry. Wind Chime had said the same thing, hadn’t she? A great friendship will be destroyed. But what did that mean?

“That is the price, to finally bring our goddess into the world. She has scratched at the outside for ages, waiting her champion. And look what we have here: an alicorn. Finally, a vessel that is worthy of her.”

“Vessel? Alicorn? You mean… me?” Luna shook her head frantically. “I would never choose that.”

Lips of wood twisted into a cruel smile. “We shall see. Wind Chime, prepare the altar.”

The air grew cold around them. Luna could see her breath coming out in puffs of fog. And beneath her hooves the ground froze over. Then Luna gasped as the ice beneath them rose, lifting them up.

As the altar lifted them up over the priestess’s head, she said, “All either one of you has to do is say the words ‘I don’t love you.’ Nothing more.”

Wind Chime’s ice grew into a kind of tower before the dryad’s tree. Luna and Celestia stood on its top, which was a flat circle. Looking over the edge, Luna saw the priestess looking up at her with those emerald eyes. Around the base of the altar icy spikes grew out of the frozen ground, sticking up like swords. Not that Luna had anything to fear from them, she thought; she could just fly away, and take Celestia with her. Fly, fly away from this place and never set hoof in the Everfree Forest again.

But Victory and Page… and Celestia, too. They could not leave her like this. And where would they go, anyway? Who knew what Discord was doing to Canterlot right now. Luna didn’t know what to do. Fate had brought her to this moment and abandoned her there, with a sister who was not herself, magical powers she could not use, and friends—actual friends—that she couldn’t save. And did they actually expect her to ever say those words to her sister? Didn’t they realize how impossible that was?

“Wind Chime, you don’t have to do this,” Luna said to the windigo as the last icy spike was raised at the base of the altar.

For a moment the cold blue of Wind Chime’s eyes softened. “I… can’t help it.” Her voice was a whisper.

“You can! I know you can.”

And then, so soft that nopony else could hear, Wind Chime whispered, “I wish the power of friendship really could destroy me, Luna. I would be happy to be destroyed, just to know that kind of magic existed.” She dipped her head and floated away, little flakes of snow falling like white dust from her ghostly feathers.

“Cauchemar!” the priestess’s voice called from below. “Accept this offering of ruined friendship and come with darkness!”

Then all was still. Luna faced Celestia on the altar of ice, surrounded by ghosts and monsters. I feel so cold, she thought, looking into her sister’s gray eyes. Celestia stared back at her without expression.

“What happens now?” Luna asked. “I already told them I’ll never say those words. I could never stop loving you, sister.”

“I know,” Celestia said. There was not a drop of emotion in her voice.

“Do you think Cauchemar will really come here?” Luna shivered.

“I…”

“Huh?”

“…don’t…”

“You don’t think so?” Luna cocked her head. Celestia was looking right at her.

Then Luna’s eyes widened as she realized what her sister had begun to say. Her mouth fell open and her heartbeat quickened in her chest to a sudden race. No, no, no, no…

Celestia stared at her sister and tried to recall a time (it seemed so long ago) that she wouldn’t say exactly what she was saying right now. And really, she didn’t see what was so important about those few little words anyway. They were only the truth. She didn’t love her sister anymore. She didn’t love anypony. And why did Luna persist in calling her sister? They weren’t related in any sense of the word. There was no blood between them, no law, no family bonds. It was only ever a lie that they told the ponies of Canterlot so they wouldn’t have to explain the existence of a fairy creature walking among them. Love her? I don’t…

“…lov—”

“Please, sister!” Luna cried.

It shouldn’t have mattered. Celestia wasn’t herself. Anything she said was Discord’s fault. Even if she did say those words, why should Luna care? She should just take them as empty wind and keep on searching for the Elements of Harmony so she could get her Celestia back. My Celestia, she thought. And no matter how much it shouldn’t have mattered, it did. Because this was her Celestia, right in front of her, and Luna could not hear those words from her sister’s lips. She couldn’t bear it. To hear Celestia deny her would destroy her forever.

Luna felt her soul for the first time in her life. She actually felt that eternal part of her awake and tremble within her, waiting for the words to come, like the executioner’s blade. She felt what she would do to make it stop right now, that the whole world and all its ponies, even Victory and Page, that she would gladly sacrifice every one of them if it meant stopping those words before they left her sister’s mouth.

I can save you. Luna was barely aware of the voice, so soft was it. She might have even imagined it. Give your heart to me and I will save you from her.

Who are you?

You know who I am. I have watched you from the darkness between dreams. Now, call on me, my chosen one.

And it would be worth it, she thought, to not lose her Celestia.

“…love…”

Celestia heard the word in her own voice and marveled at its smallness. Such a tiny thing, really. How often the word was spoken, and how carelessly. How meaningless. Is this all she had to give up to obtain the Nightmare’s power? Ha! She had come so far, passed through death itself, seen the worlds beyond this one, returned to life in power, taught Harmony for a time, made a friend for herself—actually reached into another world to make a friend. And it had seemed so important at the time, the most important thing in the world. But now that she was here she would choose another way. No longer would she be the plaything of Harmony, believing in a power that could not even save her from Discord, and good thing, or she would never have been freed of the chains of love. I don’t love…

Luna stared into her sister’s empty eyes. She would give her soul to not lose this love.

Celestia stared back at her sister. She had neither soul nor love left.

“Love…” the gray princess said the word again, like a word in a foreign language. But one you used to know.

While Luna had been searching her sister’s eyes for the tiniest glimmer of their old light—and finding none—she did not notice that Celestia had taken several slow steps backward, even as her mouth was forming those awful words. Now, with the word “love” her hooves had reached the edge of the ice altar.

No, Luna answered the voice at last. I will hear my sister speak. Her words will kill me, but you won’t have me.

“Celestia…” she pleaded, the tears hot on her face.

“Love…” said Celestia once more. Then, “…sorry.”

And she took one more step backward, Luna looking on without understanding.

Wingless she went over the edge, and landed on the ice spikes before anypony even realized she was falling.

Several things happened all at once. There was a cry, so faint that it was almost silent, as the Nightmare recoiled from her chosen one’s defiance. Luna did not even hear it. Her entire universe shrank to the size of the broken pony below and she shrieked, “Celestia!” in a tone that made even the surrounding ghosts cringe. The priestess of Cauchemar staggered in disbelief. Wind Chime gasped and her ice spikes burst into harmless puffs of snow, too late for Celestia though, who had been pierced by two of them. A puddle of red was forming around her as she looked up to Luna, who was flying down to her.

“I’m sorry,” Celestia cried. “I couldn’t say that to you. Some part of me knew, and wouldn’t let me. I’m sorry, sister.”

“Sister!” Luna’s horn flashed like lightning, throwing back the darkness. The gray seeped out of Celestia’s body as her colors returned. Her coat, white once more, was stained with her fresh blood. Luna pressed her face against Celestia’s and held her sister, eyes closed, tears flowing freely.

“Kill them!” the priestess’s voice commanded, and dark creatures closed in.

“My sister, I will always love you,” Celestia said, her voice faint.

“Me too,” Luna sobbed.

The monsters never set so much as a claw upon them. Still holding Celestia, Luna opened her eyes, which burned with white fire. The priestess of Cauchmar hissed as a halo of purest light surrounded the sisters and exploded in the clearing. The onlooking ghosts vanished as the light expanded, carrying away the creatures of darkness in a blazing flood. The dome of black trees was broken open, and pale moonlight poured into the clearing.

Cradling her bleeding sister, Luna floated at the heart of a storm of light, shining tears running down her cheeks. The dark priestess cast a final spell, a bolt of emerald flashing from her broken horn, but it never reached its target. Wind Chime flew into the spell, which struck her harmlessly in the chest. The flood of light carried the priestess away, cursing, and all her wooden beasts with her.

In the monster village, the cages that held Victory and Page fell to pieces, the power that had been animating them banished. The white light rushed through the village like an overflowing river, carrying away cockatrices and minotaurs and hundreds of parasprites. Page even watched, wide-eyed, as the great black dragon that dwelled there brought a leathery wing up to his face to shield it from that light, and growled as it crashed against his body. Unable to withstand it, the dragon hurled itself into the sky and fled.

Only one of the Enemy’s creatures remained. Wind Chime felt the light of Harmony wash over her like fire. The icy power of the windigo melted into nothing. She felt herself being dissolved. For a moment her eyes met Luna’s and she gave the alicorn a sad smile. This is enough, she thought, to have seen friendship’s power just once…

“No,” said Celestia.

Luna looked down at her sister, who was struggling in her arms. “Not her.”

“I… can’t stop!” Luna’s body shook as boundless power gushed out of her.

“Let go of me,” Celestia whispered.

“What? No! Never again!”

“It will be okay.”

With a soft cry, Luna forced herself to let go of her sister, who slumped to the ground like a corpse. But not, Luna told herself. She could hear Celestia’s heartbeat, weak but steady. The circuit of blazing power was broken and Luna felt the white hot magic leak out of her. The light dimmed. The power that held her floating in the air faded and she alighted next to Celestia.

Victory and Page ran into the moonlit clearing to find Luna sitting next to the wounded Celestia, and Wind Chime standing near them.

“Get away from them, you!” Victory shouted at the windigo, who appeared dazed.

“Victory, it’s all right,” Luna said. Her voice was hollow.

Victory started to object, but stopped when she saw Celestia. “Princess?” she said. “Oh no…”

“Page,” Luna said. “I need your help. Can you do healing spells?”

“Some,” the unicorn said, but as she got close enough to see Celestia’s wounds she shook her head. “This is beyond me.”

Luna grimaced. “I have little talent for healing magic. Come help me. We’ll do it together, as much as we can.”

Their horns lit with sapphire and amethyst light and a blanket of warm magic covered Celestia. Her bleeding slowed to a trickle… then stopped entirely. Sweat beaded on Luna and Page’s faces as they struggled to work the spell.

“I-It’s no good,” Luna said, the light in her horn dying.

“Will she…?” Victory couldn’t finish the thought.

“I…” Luna’s eyes swam with fresh tears. It wasn’t fair. Their friendship had been enough to call forth the power of Harmony itself; why didn’t it heal her? Was Luna going to lose her sister, just when she had come back to her?

“We’ve done all we can,” Page said.

“I’m not dead yet, Victory,” Celestia said, smiling weakly. She tried to sit up. “And if I was… it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind. I have no intention of dying out here.” Steel came back into her voice. “Not while Discord still reigns.”

“Princess…” Page said. And now she started to cry too. “We could stop the bleeding and take away some of the pain, but you aren’t healed. We… can’t save you.”

“Victory, help me stand.”

“Princess?”

“Please.”

Victory helped Celestia to her hooves. The princess’s legs were shaky and she was forced to lean on Victory, smearing her blood on the earth pony.

“Wind Chime, come here.”

The windigo had been watching the ponies with concern, but had kept her distance, having nothing to offer. Now she drifted toward Celestia like a cold breeze, coming to a stop before the white pony. She felt a strange sensation, like she ought to kneel or something. She really is a princess, isn’t she? Wind Chime thought.

“Yes?”

Then Celestia smiled at her, and Wind Chime took a step backward. Her smile was like the sun coming out. “We haven’t really met yet. I am Celestia, princess of Canterlot. I’m sorry for the way I’ve behaved these past days. I was not myself.”

“I… that’s all right.”

“Will you be my friend, Wind Chime?”

If windigos could blush, she would have. “Celestia… you know what I am. I belong to the Enemy.”

“Not anymore, you don’t. I saw you protect my sister.”

“I don’t know why I did that.”

“You were doing what your heart told you to.”

“Windigos don’t have hearts.”

“It seems that one does. Look.”

She looked to where the princess pointed with a bloody hoof. There, on Wind Chime’s ghostly flank, a golden heart glowed. “That’s… impossible,” she breathed. A cutie mark?! Windigos can’t get cutie marks! She looked back up to Celestia, but had no words. She wanted to laugh… or cry… or both. Then she remembered that the princess was dying and her ears drooped. “I do want to be your friend. I… I want to save you.”

Celestia actually laughed, then winced in pain. “Good, because I think you can.”

“I don’t know any healing magic, Celestia.”

“That’s okay. I need something more than that anyway.”

“What?”

“The Elements of Harmony. The castle that Page told you about. The one from that awful book of Starswirl’s. Do you know where it is?”

The windigo brightened. “I do!”

Celestia bowed her head, maybe because she was too weak to hold it up any longer. “Will you please lead us there, my friend?

“Yes! I will!”

“Thank you.” Celestia lifted her head and looked at Luna. “You were right about her, sister.”

Luna nodded. She noticed that something was different about her sister. It was small, barely noticeable at all, but it was there in Celestia’s eyes. At the time she wanted to believe it was because her sister was weakened and wounded, but in the days to come she would realize the truth. There was an innocence in Celestia’s eyes, a confidence in her own goodness that she herself had been unaware of—that might have only existed because she hadn’t been aware of it. And now it was gone. Celestia, her Celestia, had come back to Luna, but she would never be quite the same as she was.

“Can you make it?” Luna asked.

“Of course. I have to.”

They prepared to leave the clearing and the monster village behind them. Page found Starswirl’s books lying on the ground and picked them up with her magic. The priestess had dropped them when the light had banished her. With a careful spell Page magicked the dirt off of them and returned them to her pack. Then she walked over to Wind Chime. “I studied windigos, you know,” she said.

“I don’t doubt that.”

“This is all so strange. If you think about it, we’re right back where we were yesterday. We know the truth now, but we’re still depending on you to lead us to the Elements of Harmony.”

Wind Chime looked down at the ground, which was covered in frost where she stood. “I hope so. I don’t know anything about the Elements, but I can take you to the castle from your book.”

“Castle Dusk…” Page said, half to herself.

“You know,” Wind Chime said, “I didn’t tell you before, but you actually mistranslated its name slightly.”

Celestia joined them, Victory and Luna supporting her. Together they faced the darkness of the Everfree Forest, the place where Harmony was not supposed to hold any sway. But they had proved that wrong, hadn’t they? Even here, in the deepest, gloomiest place imaginable, the power of friendship could shine.

“Oh?” Page said.

“Yeah,” Wind Chime said. “The language you call dragon tongue is actually the same as the ancient windigos. Maybe all the dark races know it. But the place named in that poem is one we all know.”

“What is it?” Page asked.

“Castle Twilight.”

XII. Philomena in Chaosland

Twelve:
Philomena in Chaosland

Lightning cuts a jagged gash across the night sky, bleeding pale brightness onto the earth pony army, lighting up the thousands of faces set in grim resolve. Every one of them expects death. They are strong, stronger than any other race of pony, but what is that strength against the fury of the sky? The pegasi have brought the storm, and no matter how hard they fight today, the earth pony tribe is doomed.

In his war tent in the earth pony camp, the wizard sags over his map, wondering how it came to this.

If only Smart Cookie and Pansy were still alive, he thinks, then smiles bitterly in the dim light of his lantern. No, better that they should not have lived to see all they believed in forgotten and their tribes killing each other. How strange that such vibrant young lives would end before his own. It wasn’t fair, but then, what was these days?

The tent opens and somepony comes in out of the rain. A messenger, probably. Starswirl doesn’t even turn around. “Have they started yet?” he asks.

“No,” says a voice that Starswirl knows. His eyes widen and he whips around so fast he nearly tangles himself in his own beard. “And they aren’t going to, not if I have anything to say about it.”

The messenger’s hood falls back and the face of Starswirl’s old apprentice beams at him, cold water dripping from his mane.

“Clover!” Starswirl gasps. “I thought you were…”

They had not seen one another in years, not since Clover took off on his foal’s errand to find the lost Elements of Harmony. Starswirl stared at the unicorn with awe. There was something different in the way he carried himself, a softness—almost a weariness—that had not been there before.

“Not yet,” Clover grinned.

Starswirl shook his head. “I cannot believe this…”

“Looks like I’ve come just in time. I never thought it would come to war in our time… not after the windigos. I thought ponykind had learned, but here the tribes are, acting like foals.”

“Not all of the tribes,” Starswirl says. “The unicorns are not at war with anypony.”

“War.” Clover’s gaze turns to steel. “How can they even think it? Does the Enemy have such power over their hearts already?”

“Enemy?” Starswirl feels the temperature in the tent drop as soon as the word leaves Clover’s lips. The shadows cast by the lantern’s flickering light seem to stretch and grow darker.

“Never mind. I have to do something here or…” Clover frowns and starts to pace, dripping water everywhere. “Oh, Teacher, you can’t imagine the things I’ve found out.”

“Did you find them?” Starswirl whispers. He can’t believe he’s even considering it, but could it be that his old student’s quest had actually led him to…

“No,” Clover says, smiling sadly. “I’m afraid I couldn’t. Not on my own. That was one of the things I learned. The Elements can only be found by friends. A single pony could search forever and never find them, because only the power of friendship will reveal them. But it wouldn’t matter anyway. That is not my destiny, I’m afraid.”

Starswirl stares at his former pupil. Friendship? They stood on the brink of war and Clover still held to his childish views? “What did you find, in the years you’ve been gone?” Starswirl asks. He tries to keep the sting out of his voice, but isn’t quite able to, not completely.

“I found that I was right. The Elements of Harmony are real. And one day they will find their proper wielders. But more than that… do you remember what I told you the last time we saw each other? About magic?”

“You said it shouldn’t work the way it does. You said it ought to work by… friendship.”

“Yes.”

“Do you realize what is going on out there as we speak, Clover? Do you know what is about to happen?”

“I do. It is the reason I came back.”

“It is going to take something more tangible than friendship to stop this.”

“I know. It will take the power of Harmony.”

“Can Harmony stop lightning? Can it turn armies to flight? You’re still dealing with abstracts. Friendship is a beautiful thing, but it doesn’t have the power you think it does.”

Clover looks into the wizard’s eyes so deeply that it feels as if he’s looking inside him. “It did once. And one day it will again… if I can stop this. If I can keep the Enemy’s power at bay just a little longer.”

“What Enemy?”

“The Arch-Enemy of Friendship. Oh, I haven’t time to explain everything. I know it sounds like something only colts and fillies could believe. That’s how she wants us to think.”

“I…”

There is a flash of light from outside, and the crash of nearby thunder. The hills shake with the force of it. And there is a cry…

Clover’s eyes widen. “It’s too late. I’ve got to go now.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Here. Take this.” Clover’s horn lights up and something floats out from under his cloak. Starswirl cannot tell what it is; it’s wrapped up tight. Clover drops it onto the ground at Starswirl’s hooves and races out into the storm.

Starswirl follows, shouting his student’s name. Is he mad? If the fighting has started then it’s over. Is he going to try and fight, to drag the unicorn tribe into the conflict as well?

The sky lights up with white flashes and Starswirl sees hundreds of black dots against it. Pegasi. A flying army. They bring the storm down on the earth ponies, which stand defensive, but Starswirl sees their wooden catapults being loaded. The two armies have not quite met yet. There is still a strip of empty land and sky between them. Only one or two earth ponies have fallen to the weather. But Starswirl sees the lightning arcing between pegasi, tossed from one to another almost playfully, and then hurled down toward the earth ponies.

A flash of emerald deflects the bolt of electricity as Clover reaches the front line. What is he thinking?! Starswirl will intervene… somehow he will bring his student back to safety before anything can happen…

“Stop this!” Clover shouts. His voice, magnified by magic, echoes over the armies as loud as the thunder.

“Who goes there?” somepony shouts.

“A friend!” Clover says.

“A unicorn? Whose side are you on?” one of the pegasi demands.

“Everypony’s.”

“Get out of the way,” an earth pony says. “We have no quarrel with the unicorn tribe.”

“Listen, all of you. Remember the Hearth’s Warming Compact. We should be friends!”

That is how Starswirl will always remember him, the last of the three heroes that saved the land from eternal Winter, surrounded by ponies who grew up hearing his legend but did not know it when he stood before them, soaked with rain and mud, wild-eyed, going on and on about friendship, talking fast and passionately, begging everypony to be friends again.

Then a few impatient warriors from both sides attack, and Clover tries to use his magic to shield both sides. In a fury, both the earth ponies and the pegasi retaliate. Spears of lightning lance down toward the earth ponies, which stand defiant. Great stones are hurled skyward.

Between two armies, the unicorn calls on his magic and rises into the air. His eyes are glowing white and he is saying something, but his words are lost in the storm. And for a moment he is doing it, to Starswirl’s amazement, his magic is protecting everypony. Then the moment passes and he is struck down—by pegasus ice or earth pony stone, nopony can tell afterward—and the white light goes out of his eyes, and he falls. There is a tiny sound, like a tree branch breaking, and Clover lands in the mud in a heap.

Starswirl races to him, crying his name. And he doesn’t even realize it, but the armies hear him and stop their fighting to watch the spectacle: a famous unicorn wizard running through the rain to the side of the magician they just beat. And did the wizard really just scream Clover? A murmur goes through the ranks of the armies as they watch.

“Clover!” Starswirl’s anguished voice breaks as he leans over his student.

“Is it over?” Clover croaks.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh… I’m dying.”

I know. “No you’re not. Don’t say that.”

“Heh.” The laugh comes out with blood. “Honesty is actually one of the Elements; did you know that?”

I don’t care. “That’s… wonderful, Clover.”

“Oh, but I wish I could have seen her…”

“What’s that?”

“Harmony’s champion. The princess of…”

After that, nothing.

Starswirl gets to his hooves and casts a red glare at those around him. The pegasi and earth ponies stare at him. For a moment, only the tiniest instant, he considers unleashing his magic against them—who cares if the unicorn tribe is dragged into war?—summoning his demons and letting them loose, calling on the power of shadow and seeing if the hatred he now felt wasn’t pure enough even to draw the windigos to the land once more.

“Look at what you’ve done!” he hisses at them. Warriors on both sides flinch. “Are you satisfied? He was a hero… Clover the Clever, the last hero of Equestria… and you killed him!”

Astonished shame falls on the gathered warriors. Not a single earth pony or pegasus life is lost that day. In the years to come, it will become known as the Battle That Never Happened. Clover’s sacrifice will become a story for warriors to tell their children, then later it will be used as propaganda for the unicorn tribe when they try to dominate the other tribes. And eventually, centuries later, it would be all but forgotten.

Starswirl is still cradling Clover’s body when dawn breaks, cold sunlight spreading out over the empty battlefield. Finally Starswirl lets go. “My most faithful student,” he whispers, “Goodbye.”

Feeling nothing except for a hollow ache that expands within him, leaving him emptier with every passing moment, Starswirl returns to his tent and picks up the package that Clover left him. He opens it with careless reverence. Inside there is a book and a folded letter. The book is called The Book of Harmony, and the day will come when Starswirl defies every word that is written in it.

The letter is from Clover.

“Dear Starswirl, I am writing this because I have a feeling I won’t be alive much longer. Pansy and Cookie are already gone. I am sorry I wasn’t there for Pansy at the end. Maybe I could have stopped this pegasus war from brewing in the first place, but I hope you trust me that what I have been searching for is worth my absence.

I’m returning now to set things right, so much as I can. But if I’m right and I don’t survive, then you are the only one I can count on. I’m sorry for that too. It isn’t very fair. I should be the one who has to fight against the Enemy, while you should get to retire and shake your head at my silly attempts to bring Harmony back to Equestria.

Please take care of my burial. I thought of a wonderful epitaph for my gravestone. I would be grateful if you would do me the honor.”

Starswirl reads the single line his student wrote to sum up his life, and his eyes fill with fresh tears.

“Now to the important things. The book is a treasure. I stole it from the Enemy. Please pass on the things it says about friendship and magic to others. Had I lived, this is what I would have devoted the rest of my life to doing. I beg you to do what I can’t. I know you can do this. You are the one who set me on the path of Harmony, what seems like ages ago.

I have been thinking a lot about the future lately. I suppose this is because I won’t be there to see it.

Last night I had a dream. I was walking in a garden and there were all these statues. I recognized some of them. Pansy and Cookie were there. I got this feeling, like I was seeing all the heroes of Equestria. Not just the ones from our time, but the ones who are yet to be born. I remember a mare with a pointy hat like yours, only there weren’t any bells. And there was a pegasus with some kind of helmet on her head, not like the ones from our time. I felt so peaceful there, I didn’t want to leave.

There is so much I wanted to say to you. You were the one who first showed me the power that comes from friendship. Without you, I never could have made friends and wielded the magic that saved Equestria from the windigos, or found the courage to search for the Elements of Harmony. And though I could not find them, I have come to realize that they are not as lost as we have believed. Friendship’s power has always been there, for those who would dare to reach out and take hold of it. If only somepony can make them see this, it would be a better world. What I do now, I do for the sake of Harmony. Thank you, my teacher. I am now, and will always be,

Your faithful student,

Clover.

When he has finished, Starswirl stares at Clover’s letter, unable to believe it. “And they called you clever,” he says, tasting the bitterness of his words. Where was the power of friendship when it mattered most? Clover is dead, and all his talk about peace and friendship and Harmony could not save him. Real magic would have been able to protect him. It wouldn’t have cost him his life.

The wizard sits for a while. The emptiness grows in him like a lengthening shadow.

* * *

What are you going to do? Philomena asked.

“About what?”

The old wizard sat at the top of a tower of giant cards, looking down at the transformed landscape. The little phoenix was perched on the rim of his hat, and she looked down as well. She wondered if they saw the same thing.

Chaos was rampant. The city of Canterlot was unrecognizable. Gone were the white spires and sprawling ivory buildings. Now it resembled nothing so much as the jumbled inside of a child’s carelessly packed toybox. Everything was out of place, and nopony cared. Some weren’t even capable of caring any more. Madness was everywhere. Philomena wondered if there was a family that didn’t have at least one member who had been affected with Discord’s insanity. Some thought they were animals and acted like it. Others had been reduced to drooling puppets. And some thought even they were lucky, for others had been transformed by Discord’s magic into twisted creatures. Chaos was rampant and misery reigned.

And it was all Philomena’s fault.

She never could have imagined that it was possible to feel worse than she did after losing her mother, but even grief was easier to bear than this. She hadn’t even had time to enjoy the pure satisfaction of seeing Celestia dethroned, Discord had turned on everypony else so quickly. Philomena tried not to watch, tried not to hear the cries of children even younger than she was as their world came unwound all around them.

And the thing was, she’d known what would happen if the draconequus was freed. She couldn’t pretend she didn’t know. I just didn’t think it would be this bad, she tried to tell herself. But no, she had known. I just didn’t care.

But she cared now. Too late she cared. Too late she asked herself what her mother would have thought of her daughter being the one to turn the Lord of Chaos loose on all those innocents. And only now she realized that there was something even worse than losing someone you loved: losing yourself, so that the person they gave their love to no longer exists. That is what I’ve done.

Now Philomena had someone she hated even more than Celestia.

About Discord, Philomena said. Her voice in Starswirl’s head was toneless. This isn’t what you wanted either, is it?

She couldn’t see his expression under his hat, but there was something amused in his voice. “Even if that were so, what makes you think I can do anything about him at all? He is even more powerful than Celestia was, and I didn’t dare to face her, either.”

But… didn’t you have a plan?

“As a matter of fact, I do. But defeating Discord is not a part of it. Not yet, anyway. Eventually the chaos will have to be reined in, but for now he can have his fun.”

But…

“Are you starting to have regrets?”

Philomena flushed with heat. I…

Starswirl sighed. “Get down from there so I can look at you properly.”

The phoenix flew off his hat and turned to face him, hovering in the air on her fiery wings. Their eyes locked and he gave her an empty smile.

“I have lived for more than a century, little bird. And one day, to you, that will be nothing. That’s a long time to hate yourself.”

I don’t…

“I’m afraid this is where we part ways, Philomena. I hope you can find happiness in the world you helped to create. And if not, don’t worry. Chaos will not last forever. A new world is on the horizon; these are only the pains signaling its birth.”

Wait, what do you mean by—?

Then there was a flash of violet light, and the old wizard was gone.

And Philomena was all alone.

* * *

When Chancellor Sweemeats heard the news that a monster had conquered Canterlot, she immediately named the day a holiday and called for a feast to celebrate it. A few of her advisors tried to talk to her about strengthening their tribe’s military defenses or sending spies to investigate in order to find out how the earth ponies might protect themselves, but she paid them no mind.

The word spread throughout the villages, and the earth ponies followed their leader’s command and threw parties celebrating the fall of their enemies. The revelry and high spirits lasted for days, though a few earth ponies wondered why they were supposed to be happy, since the tribes had a truce and they had heard only good things about the unicorns tribe’s new princess, who was said to be as much an earth pony as a unicorn, as incredible as that sounded. But the popular notion was that the unicorns were an evil tribe—almost as bad as the pegasi—and disaster for them was good fortune for the earth ponies.

They were still celebrating when the villages on their border were overrun by forest animals that had gone insane, heralding the arrival of Discord to their land.

* * *

“…and they say he turned the chancellor into a pile of candy and ate her alive in front of her subjects!” a quivering pegasus told the Sky Commander.

“Is this true?” Commander Typhoon asked the messenger. The Commander was an old pegasus, with a snowy mane and a heart like chipped ice.

In fact it wasn’t true. Discord was never that horrible, even at his worst, but the rumor created fear, and the fear led to more chaos, and that pleased the draconequus.

“All the reports coming out of the earth pony kingdom say…”

The pegasi readied themselves for war, retreating high into the clouds and ignoring the pleas of those who dwelt on the land below. But they could not escape Discord, who turned their floating cities into great clouds of cake that rained donut sprinkles on a thirsty ground.

As the last pegasus city fell to chaos, dark laughter echoed in the heavens.

* * *

All of Equestria fell to the mad power of the draconequus, and it seemed nopony would ever know happiness again. The ponies were his playthings and every day he dreamed up some new game for them. And with each passing day a little color seemed to leak out of the miserable ponies.

When she realized what her hatred had wrought, Philomena wept tears of fire.

And finally, begging her mother’s memory to forgive her, she went to the twisted city of Canterlot to confront the creature she had loosed on the world. If the once-white city had resembled a box of jumbled children’s toys when she left, now it was a box of broken toys. The sides of chocolate buildings melted onto chessboard avenues. Ponies that were unfortunate enough to have been magically shrunken raced out of the way of giant animals stomping down the street.

Further in, the craziness gave way to something even worse. Listless gray ponies went about in a daze. Here even the candy buildings and board game streets were the same colorless gray. And there at the center of the ashen heart of the city stood a great black throne. Discord slouched upon it.

He smiled as he saw the phoenix approach.

“Welcome, Philomena!” he said. “Tell me, do you like what I’ve done with the place?”

Discord. There was resolve in her fiery eyes. He must have seen it, because his smile faded.

“I hope you’re not here to try something heroic. That would be boring…”

She had one chance. The legend said that the phoenix court imprisoned him in the well of life because they could not kill him. She had no doubt that he would shrug off her flames, but she could still use her phoenix fire to travel, the way she did with Starswirl. If she could just get close enough, she could wrap her phoenix fire around them both and send him back…

Like an arrow loosed from its quiver, Philomena flew true. She closed her eyes and reached out with her flame…

…and with a flash and a snap of clawed fingers, bounced off the draconequus and tumbled onto the ground.

Discord sighed. “I am disappointed. Didn’t you ask yourself why the other phoenixes have not come for me since I’ve been released from my prison? Because I am no longer a mere alicorn. An entire army of firebirds could attack me, and they would end up right where you are.”

Philomena tried to say something psychically, but her powers weren’t working. Something was wrong. She felt… colder somehow. Horror fell on her as she looked down and noticed that the lower half of her body had become something reptilian.

What am I? she thought. And even though Discord couldn’t hear her, he must have understood her confusion because he answered her. And she would have given anything to unhear what he said.

“A most lovely cockatrice. I may have outdone myself this time.”

She glared at him, but he did not so much as flinch.

“Poor Philomena. Maybe one day I’ll get bored and change you back… or at least, change you into something more fun. But I’ve never had a pet cockatrice before, and I’ve just had the most wonderful idea. You see, ever since I started taking over there have been some ponies who… and I know this will surprise you… don’t appreciate my rule. Every now and then some poor soul feels the need to come begging, Please, Lord Discord, change my daddy back into a pony! Or, We can’t grow crops without rain! I think the next few times that happens, I’ll have them take a look in those pretty eyes of yours…”

A golden cage materialized around her and Philomena stared out of its bars without hope. Tears welled up in her eyes and her colors started to fade. It was over. Discord ruled all of Equestria now, and eventually he would spread his chaos to the world beyond. There was no one who could stop him. A colorless forever stretched before her, and in her misery Philomena found a single drop of bitter cheer: since she was no longer a phoenix, one day she could at least die. But there was little relief for her in that. There was no one waiting for her in the afterlife.

The lonely cockatrice shivered in her cage and her tears fell. I’m sorry, Mother.

XIII. The Lost Element

Thirteen:
The Lost Element

Pain shot through Celestia’s chest and she came to a stop, sweat trickling down her face. No, I have to keep going, she thought. This pain was nothing compared with what her subjects must be going through under Discord’s reign. He had taken her heart from her just for his own amusement. She shuddered to think what was happening in Canterlot right now.

“Are you all right, Princess?” Victory’s concerned voice asked from beside her.

“Yeah. Let’s keep going.”

It had been more than a day since Celestia was wounded, and their progress was slower than any of them would have liked. Wind Chime assured them that they had to be careful. Dark creatures lived in this part of the forest, and even though Luna could probably defeat most of what lurked in the shadows of the Everfree, it was best not to draw too much attention to themselves. It was the Nightmare’s wood, after all. They walked in pairs, Wind Chime leading the way with Page at her side and Celestia following, leaning on Victory for support. Luna brought up the rear, watching over all of them.

“How much farther is it?” Victory asked, not for the first time.

Wind Chime stifled a sigh. “We are very close now.”

“Have you ever been there?” Page asked the windigo.

“Once.” There was something guarded in Wind Chime’s tone.

“Well, what is it like?”

Wind Chime frowned and glanced over her shoulder. “Empty,” she said. “Its once-great towers are broken, and its halls are ruins where nopony walks. Nopony living. I only ventured within its walls out of curiosity, because I wanted to see the place where my race was born.”

“Why is it named Castle Twilight?”

“I don’t know. That’s the name it’s always had, even long before the prince of laughter fell. The dragons say it was built during the war, as a bastion against the power of Harmony. But I’ve heard that others say it was built to stand against the Enemy. But in all the stories it is a place that stands between the darkness and the light.”

Page had so many questions. She had been badgering Wind Chime almost constantly since yesterday, asking about Cauchemar and the war with the forces of light. Even though she was a windigo, Wind Chime was still basically a filly, and only knew stories that she had been told. But since her stories were different than the ones Page had studied, she asked question after question, trying to put together a picture of the past. It seemed wise, since they now knew that the Arch-Enemy of Friendship was very real. Neither Celestia nor Luna had spoken much about what had happened to them when Celestia was wounded, but Page had figured some things out on her own and Wind Chime had filled in some others.

It was Starswirl’s book, The Sea of Night, that had sparked Page’s interest. Celestia didn’t seem too interested in what the book said, since it denied the power of friendship, but something attracted Page to it. In it, Cauchemar was described as something heroic, standing against Harmony. Celestia was fixated on Starswirl, but Page was starting to wonder if the Enemy wasn’t the more dangerous threat. She wanted to find out everything she could about her.

Wind Chime came to a stop.

“What is it?” Page asked.

“We’re here.”

In the shadows, the dark castle loomed before them. Once it must have been beautiful, but centuries bore down upon it, and it had broken beneath the weight of time. Holes gaped in its walls, and its stairs were crumbling. Only a few of its towers remained standing, reaching up like the rigid hooves of the dead.

“Looks… cozy,” Victory said.

Page snorted. “I don’t know how we are going to find the Elements here. The book never gave specific directions.”

“Let’s just go look,” Celestia said. She didn’t know if it was just the lightheadedness she was feeling since being wounded, but for some reason she wasn’t without hope. They were close now; she could feel it.

Wary, but somehow excited too, the friends ventured into Castle Twilight. Wind Chime was right when she said it was empty. Every hall, every chamber was nothing but bare stone. They walked in silence, eyes scanning every room by the light of magic and Wind Chime’s cold blue ghostlight. But they found nothing.

“Um… what do you suppose the Elements look like?” Victory asked.

“I don’t think anypony knows,” Page said. The books and poetry I’ve studied seems to disagree on what they even are. They could be magical objects, or legendary heroes, or… I don’t know…”

Wind Chime fought a shiver. All her life she had been taught that the Elements of Harmony were magical weapons that could destroy creatures like her, and here she was actually searching for them. It was… almost funny when you thought about it. She smiled to herself.

“Think we should split up?” Page suggested. “Maybe cover more ground… faster.” She gave Celestia a meaningful look.

Celestia shook her head. “I’m not at death’s door yet.” But I am not so very far from it. “And I don’t think we should split up. I think we need to be together.”

Her friends exchanged glances. “Okay, Princess,” Victory said.

They traveled up a flight of stairs, Celestia straining with each step, to the upper chambers of the castle. They were just as empty as those below. As the minutes turned into hours, the friends started to lose patience.

“We don’t even know what we’re looking for!” Victory said. Her voice echoed loudly in the quiet of the empty castle.

“Calm down, Victory,” Celestia said. But she was starting to worry too. What if Page had been wrong all along? What if the book was lying, the way it lied about magic?

“But I can’t be calm! If we don’t find them, you’re gonna… you’re gonna…”

Celestia smiled weakly. “Hold on a minute. We can go back to looking in a moment.”

They stood in a large chamber, one that could very well have been a throne room long ago. There were no thrones now, just a long, empty chamber with arched windows. The darkness of the Everfree swelled beyond those windows, but the light of the friends’ spells kept it at bay.

“If we don’t find the Elements in time—”

“Don’t talk like that, Princess!” Victory was trembling, perhaps with anger, but Celestia thought it was more likely fear. She was terrified of losing her princess. What have I ever done to earn such devotion?

“He is going to ruin everything,” Celestia said.

“You mean Discord? If we can find the Elements, he—”

“Not Discord. Starswirl.” The patchwork healing spell that Page and Luna had cast on her was coming unraveled, and Celestia’s wounds were beginning to reopen. Fresh stains were appearing on her coat. She felt weak… “We have to stop him.”

“Stop him from what? You already stopped him from conquering Equestria. He ran away from you!”

“Ruling Equestria is not his goal.” She winced noticeably as a fresh wave of pain rippled through her body. For a moment her vision blurred, then her friends came back into focus. “What he’s trying to do is…” How could she explain it? Looking over his plans that day, the books and notes he left for her to find, to give her a choice between Harmony and… “He wants to ruin magic.”

“What?” Page said, alarmed.

“There are two kinds of magic, or two ways of looking at magic. You know this, Page. You’ve read his books. One view is that friendship is magic. Magic is supposed to work because of the power of friendship.”

“Isn’t that… a little childish?” Page asked.

Celestia grimaced. “That’s the other view. Magic is just a force to be studied and controlled by those who are smart enough, or powerful enough. There is no inherent goodness in it.”

“But… isn’t that true? I mean, magic can be used to hurt…” Page’s eyes fell to the wet spots on Celestia’s coat.

“Because ponies have forgotten what True Magic is. The tribes are always fighting, and the ponies in the cities let fillies starve in the streets, and everypony is convinced that friendship is so weak. They have forgotten the power that once banished the eternal Winter and saved the world.

“I don’t know why, but Starswirl actually prefers a magic that is empty. He believes with all his heart that the power of friendship is weak, and he is fighting against Harmony because he wants a world where magic has no connection to friendship.”

“Can he do that?”

“I think so. If he can make ponies not believe in the power of friendship. If the Enemy is as powerful as I think she is. And if he ever gets his hooves on the Elements of Harmony…” Celestia shook her head vigorously. “No. That’s why we can’t let that happen.”

“We won’t,” Victory said.

“Of course not,” said Wind Chime. “If a windigo like me can choose the power of friendship, then Equestria isn’t so hopeless.”

“I would like to see a world where spells are made out of friendship,” Page said.

“Sister,” Luna said. “You and I have touched real magic. There is no power that will ever be able to destroy our friendship.”

Celestia beamed at them.

The quiet of the empty castle was broken by the sound of tinkling laughter. The friends stared at each other, eyes wide. None of them had laughed. Indeed, none of them even felt like laughing, with Celestia in the state she was. Then another laugh, clear and silvery, filled the empty chamber.

“Five fillies that believe that friendship is magic?” a high, musical voice surrounded them. It had a ghostly quality, like Wind Chime’s, but was gentler, more like a warm breeze than a cold wind.

“Who’s there?” Victory demanded. The friends drew together in a tight circle, facing outward. Was this another dark denizen of the Everfree Forest?

“Once, there was another who believed that.”

Light filled the ancient room, a golden radiance that glittered on the columns and the walls. As Celestia and her friends watched, the holes in the walls filled, the windows were restored, and a deep red carpet ran down the length of the floor. The light bent and took shape. Two great thrones appeared at the end of the room, and the ghostly forms of ponies long since gone filled the floor, talking and laughing.

“What’s going on?” Page asked.

Luna took a step forward and examined one of the ghostly ponies. “I think this is illusion magic. They aren’t real.”

“They were, long ago.”

“Look there!” Wind Chime said, pointing to one of the thrones. Upon it sat a winged unicorn, a stallion, with a silver coat and gleaming horn. A jeweled necklace adorned his collar. His eyes sparkled with joy. He leaned down to his princess, a cream-colored earth pony. She whispered something in his ear and he laughed.

There was something familiar about his voice.

“Discord,” Celestia whispered in awe.

“Not yet,” the mysterious voice said. “Watch, my little ponies.”

A wind blew through the castle and the scene changed. The golden light turned a cold blue. The crowd of ponies that filled the great hall vanished, along with the earth pony princess. The silver prince sat alone on his throne. He was no longer laughing. His eyes were hooded and his expression grim. The golden necklace that he wore was gone. Instead, he wore a silver amulet carved in the shape of a winged unicorn, and set with a red gem. Frost spread over the ground and walls, and the hall filled with windigos, who bowed to the shadowed prince.

“This is how my race was born,” Wind Chime said softly.

“This is the past,” Celestia said. “This is what the Enemy did. Why are you showing us this? Are you trying to help us somehow? Are you a friend?” She felt no malice coming from the mysterious voice. She hoped it was friendly, whatever it was.

A crystalline giggle. “Follow me, children.”

The illusion faded and the light left the room, all but a single sparkling trail that glittered faintly and led out of the great chamber, through a door and up a flight of broken stairs. Celestia followed it.

“Are you sure about this?” Luna asked her.

“I have no idea!” Celestia tried to laugh, but it turned into a pained cough. She forced a grin through the pain. “This just feels right, doesn’t it?”

They followed the trail of light up the crumbling stairs, which were outside. They looked out into the blackness of the Everfree Forest. The sun really doesn’t shine here, Celestia thought. But then the light spread out before them in another vision.

The alicorn prince struggled against a band of phoenix warriors, which were carrying him in a dive. His amulet slipped from his neck and disappeared into the darkness. The firebirds dragged him into a bright light. Celestia’s eyes widened. She knew this place. It was where she was reborn in the afterlife, the well of light where the lives of creatures of every kind swam together and intermingled. There the alicorn prince was unmade—dissolved, the same way the unicorn filly that had been Celestia was dissolved—only… something was wrong. A shadow seeped into the light, soiling it. And when the alicorn prince was recast, he was not just a composite of the lives of pony and phoenix and creatures of light, but also of the twisted monsters that were born out of chaos, and the dark races of the Enemy. Dragon and gryphon and manticore. His eyes opened, and they gleamed red with a terrible hilarity.

“This is how it all began,” Celestia said.

“No,” said the voice. “It began long before this. Come and see.”

The illusion faded once more into the trail of light, which led them into a ruined tower, and a vast chamber. As they looked on, the chamber was transformed the same way the other one had been, restored to the splendor it must have had centuries ago. Only it was not a throne room. It appeared to be an observatory.

Two young mares stood before what looked like some kind of astronomical device. Both were unicorns. One had a coat of pale violet and a mane that was the color of an ocean wave. The other shimmered in various shades of pink and gold, like a walking sunset. They were talking about something, but their voices were silenced in the vision, so Celestia couldn’t hear what they were saying. They seemed to be very close, judging from their body language, as comfortable with one another as Celestia was with Luna. Celestia wished she could hear what they were talking about. Then, for the briefest of moments, the eyes of the violet unicorn left her friend’s face and she seemed to look right at Celestia. A smile touched her lips for an instant, then it was gone, and she was once again engrossed in her conversation with the golden unicorn.

Then the scene changed. The observatory fell away and open sky stretched out beyond. The unicorns that were just conversing so happily now faced one another in fury. Behind the violet unicorn was an army of phoenixes in golden armor. They stretched across the horizon like a sea of fire. The unicorn’s eyes glowed with white light. There were tears shining on her face as she yelled something at the other unicorn. The golden unicorn stood her ground, an army of ghosts and demons at her back.

The armies clashed and the vision exploded in a light so bright that Celestia had to shut her eyes. Then the illusion was gone. The tower chamber was once again an empty ruin. Celestia and her friends were quiet.

“Who were they?” Celestia asked at last.

“Friends,” the voice answered. “But their time is long past. This is your hour, and the power of friendship. Welcome, children of Harmony.”

Celestia squinted as bright beams of colored light surrounded them. The rainbow spectrum converged at five different places in the chamber, and bent to reveal what looked like ponies made out of pure white light. They were too bright to look at directly. They surrounded Celestia and her friends.

“Wh-Who are you?” Celestia asked.

“You should know. You have searched for us,” said one of the pony-shaped lights. It wasn’t the same voice as the one that had led them here. It had the same warmth, but it was richer somehow, like flowing water. “We are the spirits of the Elements of Harmony. And we have been waiting for you for a long time.”

“You’ve been waiting for us? Why?”

“We are mere shadows of friendship’s power. To show the world the magic of friendship, to bring Harmony back to the land, we require living champions. Only hearts forged in friendship and chosen by Harmony can wield our power. You have been chosen because the five of you represent the five Elements of Harmony.”

“C-Can it be? The Elements of Harmony…” Page breathed.

“Yes,” said one of the voices. “You, Page Sparkle, who are always searching diligently for the truth, and are unafraid to find it in unexpected places, whose friends trusted your words enough to follow you into the darkest place in all the land, represent the Element of Honesty.”

The pony-shaped light floated toward the trembling blue unicorn filly, who clamped her eyes shut behind her glasses. When it touched her, the light melted into her and wrapped around her like a cloak, lifting her off the floor. Page gasped as the light narrowed into a single shining band around her neck, then faded, revealing a golden necklace with a jeweled pendant shaped like her own glittery cutie mark. She floated back down to the floor, breathless with wonder.

“And you, Victory Song,” another of the voices said, “whose devotion to your princess is unmatched, who would brave the scorn of your own kind to hold onto a friendship with a pony from another tribe, represent the Element of Loyalty.”

The light swept the little earth pony off her hooves and claimed her the same way that the other light had claimed Page. Victory glanced back at Celestia, smiling, eyes brimming with tears.

“Wind Chime,” said a voice. It was the same high, musical voice that had led them here. “You were born as one of our Enemy’s children, doomed to feed upon hatred and never know happiness, but for the sake of friendship you have come out of the darkness and into joy. You whose sadness has been broken forever represent the Element of Laughter.”

When the spirit of Harmony melted into Wind Chime’s ghostly form, the windigo’s light turned from a cold blue to a burning gold. And even when it passed, and the white-gold light faded into a necklace just like Page’s and Victory’s, the blue of Wind Chime’s form didn’t look as cold as it used to.

“Dear Luna,” said a voice like falling rain, “so gentle and full of love, always willing to show mercy, and never to do harm, represents the Element of Kindness.”

The young alicorn almost seemed surprised to hear her name. Celestia watched as soft light pulsed through her sister’s entire body, down to the point of each feather, then gathered around her neck like the others, forming a moon-shaped pendant.

“And Celestia,” said the last voice. It reminded Celestia of a phoenix’s voice, full of fiery life. “The one who is willing, time after time, to sacrifice her own life, in half or in full, for the sake of her friends, who would give anything and everything to protect the ones she loves… you represent the Element of Generosity.”

The pain left Celestia as soon as the light touched her. Her whole body filled with warmth and she felt the deep wounds of the ice blades healed. This is the power of Harmony, she thought. It’s even stronger than the power Luna and I touched in the monster village. Her Element solidified around her throat, the emblem of her own sun glowing like an ember.

I’m wielding one of the Elements of Harmony! The thought trumpeted inside Celestia’s mind. And so are my friends. Why, together we can confront Discord! We can… Her smile faded a little. Something wasn’t quite right. This was… amazing… wonderful even, but it wasn’t perfect. Something was missing.

“Wait…” she said aloud.

“What is it?” Luna asked.

“Page, do you remember that poem? The one about the Elements of Harmony that you read to me when we first met?”

“Yes. Of course I do.”

“It said that five Elements weren’t enough.”

“I…” Page frowned. “You’re right.” She cocked her head quizzically. “What does that mean? There are only five of us.”

“I think there’s a sixth Element.” Celestia looked upward. The lights were gone, turned into the jeweled necklaces they wore, but she had a feeling that the spirits of Harmony were still around, somewhere. She addressed them: “Am I right?”

For a moment there was silence. Then a voice filled the ruined observatory, “Five Elements are found. One remains lost…”

“But five Elements aren’t enough to bring true Harmony back to Equestria! We need all the Elements of Harmony! Are there really six of you?”

A sorrowful voice answered. “Once… we were seven.”

“Seven?!” Celestia could hardly believe it. The elation she felt when the power of Generosity was transferred to her was fading fast. “I… thought you were waiting for us! I thought this was meant to be!”

“We have been waiting for you. One of us waits still. And the other… she does not wait, but hunts for her own chosen one.”

“What?”

“Seven spirits of Harmony. So it was when the world was young. Then the Dark came and the Light was broken. And one of us fell.”

“Fell? What do you mean, fell?” A horrible suspicion was forming in Celestia’s mind.

“Dreams… the last Element of Harmony, the one who was meant to give friends hope for the future… she fell and became something else.”

Celestia’s heart was beating very fast. “The Nightmare. You are talking about the Nightmare. Cauchemar. The thing that tried to steal Luna from me, the Arch-Enemy of Friendship… she’s an Element of Harmony?!”

“No. She is not that. Not anymore. She is absolute darkness, our opposite. The Enemy.”

Celestia slumped to the ground. “The battles we saw… the War… how long has it lasted?”

“Ages. We choose our champions, and she chooses hers.”

“So she can choose anypony?”

“No. The Dark Element must choose a bearer that represents her in full, the same as we. Only a noble soul, fallen to the darkness, can bring her power into the world.”

“Like she did with that alicorn prince.” And she tried to do with me and Luna. A chill ran down Celestia’s spine. Then her terror turned to anger. “What about this other Element of Harmony?”

“Our lost sister. She waits for her chosen one.”

“What do you mean? The world must be full of ponies that have the qualities we do. One of them must represent… what is the last Element, anyway?”

“The one that binds all the others together: Magic.”

“Magic…” Celestia whispered. Friendship is magic. “She’s the one we need.”

“She is lost…”

“No!” Celestia stood to her hooves. “You were lost and we found you. If there’s another Element then she’s here. She can hear me. We need her.”

“She is beyond our reach.”

“I don’t care! We came all this way, we suffered and trusted and loved, we defied the Enemy. We need her. I know you can hear me, Magic! I demand to speak to you! If you really are an Element of friendship, if you really care that this world’s magic is being twisted, then show yourself!”

“Um, Celestia…” Wind Chime said. Her pendant started to glow. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea…”

The jewels in the Elements of Harmony all started to shine with light. The light leapt from one necklace to another like electricity, forming an incandescent circle. In the center of that circle stood Celestia. Her friends tried to step backward, or face away from her, but the power surging through their Elements held them in place.

Then the power discharged, like a spell from a unicorn’s horn, four rays of colored light converged on Celestia, and reacted with her own Element. She was lifted bodily from the floor, a halo of blazing light all around her. The power exploded, scorching the ground and throwing her friends backward.

And Celestia was gone.

* * *

Where am I?

“Welcome, Princess,” said a voice. It was calm and sad and hummed with gentle power.

Celestia felt something soft and warm under her body. She opened her eyes and found that she was lying on what looked like stars, thousands of them, all spread out under her hooves like flowers in some kind of celestial meadow. Slowly she stood up, the lights bearing her weight, and looked around.

It was like being inside the night sky instead of under it. The clouds that loomed over her head were actually colorful nebulae. Shining galaxies spun in the distance, and occasionally a star came loose. These glowing stars drifted through the air like summer leaves. And between all the lights of the night sky was the night itself, the inky darkness that roiled between the stars. Celestia had never seen anything like that blackness, but it reminded her of the way Luna described the place she went when she traveled into ponies’ dreams.

“Is this… the Dreamscape?”

“No, Celestia. This is not a place the darkness could ever enter.”

Celestia looked around, but there was nopony. “Are you… Magic?”

“The weakest and mightiest of the Elements of Harmony.”

“I…” Celestia’s mouth was suddenly dry and her legs wobbled under her. Magic! She was talking to Magic itself! Awe settled over her. She remembered the long hours she had studied under Starswirl, trying in vain to grasp the edges of that indefinable power. And here she was, still reaching for it. “We need you…” There was more she could say, but she got the feeling that the Element was already aware of it. A plea for help was enough. It was what she came here, wherever here was, to say.

“I have watched you for a long time, little one,” the voice of Magic said. “And I am not the only one... Always you have proven yourself a lover of friendship. Of course I will help you—I have already lent you my aid more than once. Just remember, my power belongs to those who cherish friendship. But I cannot return to your world. Not yet.”

“Why not?” Celestia whined, her hopes fading. She didn’t mean to sound so petulant, but her realm was falling apart. The reverence she felt for Magic was drowned in the suffering of her subjects. “There’s lots of ponies who cherish friendship. Why are you the only Element with no bearer?”

There was silence. Then the voice whispered, “I have a bearer.”

“You do?”

“I have felt her presence across time. The one who is friendship. Whose heart will call me by name when she stands before Harmony’s Enemy.”

Sudden emotion filled Celestia’s chest and she fought tears. “And there’s nopony else?”

“None. Only one shall stand between the darkness and the light, and call them friends. You must find her.”

That shook Celestia in her disappointment. “What?! Why me? How would I know the difference between the one who is friendship and all the other ponies that care about their friends?”

“She will be weak. Unless the light of friendship shines on her, then she will be magic incarnate.”

Celestia’s ears drooped. “You know… it’s strange, but I feel jealous of her,” she admitted.

“Celestia…”

“When I first learned about Harmony, and the kind of magic that comes from friendship… I wanted to be the one to know you—Magic—better than anypony. Then when I found Luna, I thought I did. I didn’t think it was possible to know friendship better than I know it with her…” She shook her head slowly. “I never even imagined being chosen to bear one of the Elements of Harmony. And now I’m jealous of some mystery pony because she’s been chosen by the one I wanted without even knowing it.”

“Oh, my precious little pony… you will know friendship deeper than you can imagine…”

With the back of one hoof, Celestia dried her eyes. “If I can’t be the one to carry your power, can you at least lend it to us when we face Discord?”

“My power will always be with true friends. Speaking of which, it is time for you to return to yours. They wait for you. And I will restore what Discord has stolen from you… so much as I can.”

“You mean… I will be an alicorn again?” Fresh hope bloomed within her.

“I can restore as much of your power as you lost, but not what you gave to your sister when you claimed her. That was an act of friendship, and my power cannot undo it.”

I wouldn’t want you to, Celestia thought. “Thank you…”

“You will always be welcome in my realm, Princess.”

With those words Celestia felt her body lift off of the starry ground. Suspended in the air, she started to glow like the stars. Layer after layer of warm light wrapped itself around her, like a cocoon. Then the cocoon broke open in a dazzling flash.

And Celestia was gone.

Magic, the last Element of Harmony, waited alone in her starry realm. For ages she had waited here, and would wait for centuries more. She let her power drift along the current of time. Windows opened up in the air, showing scenes from the past and the future: two unicorns stargazing on the eve of a magical experiment… a dashing prince and his four friends leading a company of ponies against an army of the dead… a little unicorn filly dying of malnutrition on the streets of Canterlot, until a kind old wizard stopped and asked her if she would like to come home with him… a blue unicorn with glasses reading a book she shouldn’t… Celestia facing another alicorn, one as black as night…

Celestia… she appeared in so many of the windows showing things yet to come… Magic looked and saw her standing at the bedside of a friend that had grown old and was ready to die… she was talking to Starswirl the Bearded… she was with another friend, a silver unicorn who hasn’t even been born yet… and there she was, locked in combat with a changeling queen…

The future unfolded like the pages of a book. Magic could not see all of it, but she could see enough… until it happened, just as it always did: the Enemy’s shadow fell across the pages of time, and she could see no further. The darkness spread from page to page, window to window, devouring all it touched, swallowing the future.

“Be careful, my chosen one, whoever you are. And you too, Celestia, my unchosen. My sister is more powerful than you can imagine… but she is not more powerful than friendship.”

* * *

A star shone through the gloom surrounding Castle Twilight, its light falling on the broken stones, the first celestial light to touch the ancient palace since the Nightmare’s evil forest swallowed it centuries ago. Like a diving falcon, the star fell from the heavens, blazing pure white with rainbow-colored gleams. Then it slowed its decent, breaking through the darkness that had settled over the castle and drenching its towers with light.

Four little ponies looked up and marveled as the star alighted in the arched doorway of the observatory. The light faded and they stared at Princess Celestia, who beamed at them the way the sun does, warm and glorious.

“Um… was I gone long?”

For a moment nopony said anything, then all of them started talking at once: “Princess, your wings!” “Sister, where were you?! I thought you were…” “You had us scared, Princess…” “Celestia, what happened?”

Celestia blinked and flexed her wings. They were back! Did that mean…? She tried a simple spell on her friends… It worked! They were surrounded with the golden glow of her magic and yanked toward her, where she gathered the four of them in a fierce hug, wrapping her restored wings around them as far as they would go.

“I’m sorry if I worried you,” she said.

“Where did you go?” Luna asked.

“I… I’m not sure, myself,” Celestia said. “I talked with the last Element of Harmony.”

“And?” Wind Chime asked. She was fidgeting in Celestia’s embrace, clearly not used to being hugged. “What did she say?”

A single sentence burned in Celestia’s mind: My power will always be with true friends. The princess smiled. “She told me I have everything I need to defeat Discord and save Equestria right here.”

XIV. The Dawn in Her Fury

Fourteen:
The Dawn in Her Fury

In the colorless heart of his miserable kingdom, the Lord of Chaos reclined upon his black throne. His fiery eyes swept across his court, looking for something to entertain himself, for he had grown bored once again.

Everything was the same rotten gray. Not even Discord understood why, but the longer chaos ruled over a place—or a pony—the more it faded, losing its vibrancy until there was nothing left but a boring shell.

It had always been this way. No matter what he did to entertain himself, no matter how he toyed with reality and the lives of others, the fun would eventually fade and the boredom would return. Discord was never truly satisfied, only temporarily appeased. And that was good enough for him. Every town that fell to his chaos staved off the boredom for a little while longer. So he stretched out his domain, conquered the nations of Equestria with his insane magic, until he had devoured all the land.

Then, when the boredom started to creep up on him once again, he looked to the lands beyond Equestria’s borders. One day, he promised himself, I will make them all my game boards. Every soul will be my toy. Until the whole world is mine. And then… well, there are other worlds, aren’t there? One by one they will fall to beautiful chaos.

And what then? What if he drowned every world there was in his madness… what if he took his power to the secret realm on the other side of the sky, and conquered that too… and what if, once there was nowhere chaos did not rule, he was still not satisfied?

Discord shifted uneasily on his throne. He needed to find a new game quickly, before his thoughts could travel too far down that road.

The doors to the throne room opened and a pair of hulking white-furred creatures in armor entered, dragging a whining mare between them. Discord’s lips peeled back in a savage grin. All thoughts of boredom vanished as his once-adorable bunny guards threw the pony before the throne. It was an earth pony, of all things, a sea-green creature with a drooping mane. She cringed as the draconequus fixed her in his red stare.

“Oh, what have we here?” Discord purred.

The earth pony mare trembled, but did not answer.

“We caught her speakin’ against yer Lordship,” said one of the bunny thugs. “Talkin’ to a crowd of earth ponies about yer imminent fall.”

An amused chuckle rumbled in Discord’s throat. “Is that so?” He slithered from his throne and reared himself up in front of the trembling pony. For a moment he said nothing, just stood there basking in the light of the absolute power he had over the creature. Power he would use in a moment… “What’s the matter, little pony? Equestria has become a land of endless mirth and yet you’re still unhappy?”

The mare took a breath and found the courage to say, “We are all your playthings. You are the only one that’s happy.”

“But you could be happy, if you just let yourself enjoy the all the chaos.”

The mare said nothing, which irked Discord. He didn’t understand what there was to be so upset about? So he turned their crops into gemstones and their farm tools into walking desserts… what was so terrible about that? The ponies ought to be thanking him for bringing some beauty to their lives, and giving them something delicious to eat while he was at it! Could he help it if his subjects didn’t know what fun was if it bit them? (And sometimes it did bite them, but they never saw the humor in that, either.)

“Fine,” Discord growled in annoyance. He was perilously close to boredom. “You want to be unhappy, so be it. Take her away! But I’d get used to the chaos if I were you, little one, because it’s here to stay.”

He did not turn his back on her. He stood in the same place and the whole castle spun around him, until he was facing away from the mare.

“Not for much longer,” the mare whispered as she was being dragged off.

Discord raised a talon. “Wait.”

The bunny thugs stopped. The sea-green mare winced.

The spirit of chaos descended the steps of his throne, floated over to the mare and loomed over her. “What was that?”

“N-Nothing!” the mare said, flashing her teeth in a terrified false grin.

“That’s right… they said you were caught spreading lies… something about my fall.”

He traced a claw down one side of the mare’s face. She did not meet his eyes, no doubt regretting her foalish words, perhaps wondering what awful game was in store for her. Then, to his annoyance, a gleam came into her dull eyes and she looked at him defiantly.

“That’s right. The Elements of Harmony are going to defeat you.”

Discord blinked. He must have misheard her.

“What did you say?” His voice was low. Dangerous.

The mare beamed at him. “I don’t care what you do to me. The Elements of Harmony will defeat you.”

“And where did you hear about the Elements?”

“I’ve seen them. They freed my family from the curse you put on them.” Curse? What was she talking about? Discord didn’t put any curse on any earth pony family. Unless… was she talking about that little farmhouse where he swapped the bodies of the ponies with their pets? That wasn’t a curse. That was just a game. “Their magic is stronger than yours. And they are coming for you.”

“The Elements of Harmony are lost.” I would know if they were found again, he thought. A memory flitted on the edges of his mind, like a half-remembered dream of something that had happened to somepony else… a prince who had lived long ago wielding dancing light against a foe that ought to have been terrifying, but wasn’t, because what power could stand against the White Light? But no, he couldn’t be remembering that right. The Elements weren’t that powerful. They worked by friendship of all things. What was weaker than that?

“They’re not lost,” said the mare with a confident little smile. “They have come to us.”

Discord fought off a shudder. With a snap of his clawed fingers and a flash of light, the mare was turned into a ladybug, which flew away in sudden fright. Let’s see your precious Elements rescue you from that.

He turned to his bunny thugs. “You two… spread the word to the rest of my beast army. I want you to search every corner of Equestria. Find out everything you can about these new Elements of Harmony, if they exist. I have to work on my… other plans.” The bunny thugs left Discord to whatever distraction he could think of to take his mind off the possibility that the mare’s warning was true. He pulled a scroll out of thin air and unrolled it in front of him. It was a map of the lands across the eastern sea, where a kingdom of gryphons was waiting, its fowl citizens whispering fearful tidings of the terrible chaos that had swallowed Equestria and praying that it did not come to their land.

It didn’t take long to learn that the mare had spoken the truth about the Elements. From the distant villages of the earth ponies to the soaring cities of the pegasi, and even closer, in the outlying unicorn towns, the rumors were spreading. Somepony was breaking Discord’s chaos enchantments. A group of friends from different tribes, led by a young white princess with a mane the color of the morning sky…

Celestia, Discord thought, lips curling. And to think, for a moment there he had almost been worried. The ladybug-mare’s words came back to him. They are coming for you. The sound of his laughter echoed throughout the gray castle.

He wasn’t bored anymore.

* * *

“They’re late,” Victory said. “Are you sure nothing’s happened to them?”

“I’m sure,” Celestia said. “I can feel my sister’s presence heading this way.”

Celestia, Victory, and Page were waiting at the place they had all agreed to meet: the ruins of Starswirl’s house. Celestia looked around at the charred remains. It was a wonder that Discord’s chaos had not transformed the whole area, as it had most of the mountainside, but it appeared untouched. As if chaos itself wanted nothing to do with it. Bitter memories—and sweet memories turned into bitter ones by Starswirl’s betrayal—crept unwanted into Celestia’s thoughts.

Page and Victory couldn’t know what she was thinking. They knew almost nothing of her past, how she was reborn as an alicorn in the very same fire that burned this house down, how before then she had lived with Starswirl as an ordinary unicorn. She thought about telling them. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust them. She knew she could trust them with her life, especially now that they were all bearers of the Elements. But she had grown comfortable with her secret by now, and maybe even a little happy with the mystique it gave her, even to her friends.

Her friends. Celestia allowed herself a satisfied smile. Why should she let her lonely past haunt her? Here she was, standing in the literal ruins of her old life, with two true friends beside her. She was fiercely proud of the two fillies. They had been so brave in the earth pony villages, especially Victory, who Celestia knew still carried the wounds of her village rejecting her. Another pony might have turned her back on the rest of the earth pony tribe, but Victory could never turn her back on anypony in need, no matter what they had done to her. It was that quality that would decide her fate, in the end.

A sudden gust of cold wind heralded their arrival. Or rather, it heralded Wind Chime’s arrival. The temperature in the air dropped as the windigo landed in their midst. She was wearing her glamour, and looked just the way she had when she first met them in the Everfree Forest: like a lemon-colored pegasus filly with a cloud-white mane. The only difference was that she had a cutie mark now.

“Ask me how it went,” Wind Chime said, grinning broadly.

“I’m guessing well.” Celestia breathed a sigh of relief. The pegasi were notorious for their pride.

“It went better than well. The pegasus tribe has a new hero.”

“And she’s so modest, too.”

“Ha! Actually she is. I wasn’t talking about me.”

“You mean… oh.” Celestia giggled. “Where is she?”

“Here, sister,” Luna said, descending and alighting gracefully upon the blackened earth.

Wind Chime gave her a deep bow, and it was only partly mocking. “Princess Luna,” she said.

Luna blushed a deep indigo. “I told you to stop that,” she said.

“Did I miss something?” Celestia asked. “Princess?”

“Everywhere we went,” Wind Chime laughed. “Every cloud town was…” Then her voice died and her ears drooped as she became serious. “First… it was really bad up there. I don’t know what you guys found in the earth pony villages, but up there…” She shuddered.

“We know,” Victory said in a hushed voice. Nopony needed to elaborate. All of them had seen first-hoof how cruel Discord’s idea of “fun” could be.

Wind Chime took a breath and went on. “So… everypony is suffering under some horrible chaos spell. There are pegasi with warped wings who can only fly in circles, and fillies who think they’re birds and fly away from their mothers, and whole cloud towns frozen into ice—not that I minded those, but the real pegasi hate it—and all the clouds are pink and stick to your hooves when you try and walk on them, and… everypony is just miserable everywhere we go.

“Then they see your sister, and the first thing most of them think is that she’s you, and Discord has done something to you, like dyed you blue for some reason. I don’t think she really liked being mistaken for you, by the way.”

“I didn’t mind,” Luna said, looking away.

“But then they find out that she’s actually a completely different alicorn…” The smile sprang back onto Wind Chime’s face. “And she does her magic thing…” The windigo moved her arms in a mysterious gesture. “…and breaks the chaos magic that has them all twisted up. And the next thing you know they think they’ve got an alicorn princess of their own!”

“They just want somepony to help them,” Luna said.

“They were calling her ‘Princess Luna’ in every town we visited.”

“It has a nice ring to it,” Celestia said, trying to catch her sister’s eye. But Luna seemed suddenly very interested in her hooves.

“Anyway, so the pegasi are coming around. They believe in us. Mostly Luna, but in the rest of the Elements of Harmony too. They saw how some of the things Discord’s chaos has twisted could be put right, and they have hope. But… there were things that even Luna’s magic couldn’t fix…”

“I know,” Celestia said. “If we want to undo all that Discord has done, all the Elements have to work together.” She gave the windigo a curious look. “You did not show them what you really are?”

It was Wind Chime’s turn to blush, though only a little. “No… I didn’t want to scare them. The pegasus tribe has a lot of stories handed down about my race… and none of them are good.” She changed the subject: “How did it go in the earth pony villages?”

“They trusted me more quickly than I would have thought. I think Page and Victory’s example is what made the difference. The earth ponies are desperate enough to cling to any hope… even friendship.”

Celestia looked up toward Canterlot, the twisted city. Even from here she could feel the wrongness of Discord’s magic. He knows we are coming, she thought. Her eyes narrowed. Good. All the good they had tried to do in the villages on their way was like putting out tiny fires while a great blaze raged in the distance. But now they were coming to it, the source of the flame, and Celestia nearly quivered with anticipation.

There was a streak of impurity in her thoughts. Like a dark thread woven into a bright cloth, it stood out. Thousands of ponies were waiting for somepony to save them, whispers of the Elements of Harmony were spreading throughout Equestria, and Celestia cared—so much—about helping them. But she also wanted to beat Discord for what he did to her.

She could still remember what it was like, to have all her feelings forced out of her, to be left a walking, talking husk. To love nothing, not even Luna. And she could have lost her forever! Discord had done all of that to her. For fun. He deserved to suffer.

“Will it be enough?” Page asked.

Celestia wondered. They were still only five. To defeat Discord they would need the power of the Element of Magic. They had each other, and they had tried to stir up the hearts of the pegasi and the earth ponies, to give them hope, but was that enough?

“It will have to be,” Celestia said at last.

The little company of friends prepared themselves for the trek up the mountain from Starswirl’s house to the city. They were headed into the heart of chaos. The sky overhead shifted between night and day so fast that they entire city was bathed in the dim glow of a perpetual flickering twilight. The mountainside turned to solid chocolate in places, but when Celestia and her companions drew close enough it changed back into stone beneath their hooves. A shield surrounded the Element bearers, protecting them from Discord’s chaos.

Nopony said much of anything as they went. Each of them was lost in her own thoughts. Celestia was trying to think of all the ponies Discord had tormented, to keep her mind off her own secret desire for personal revenge. Victory was thinking about the earth pony tribe, and wondering if they would really be friends with the unicorn tribe. Wind Chime felt a cool confidence. They would win, and she would come to live with the ponies in Equestria, and she would see her friends every day, and nothing would ever separate them again. Page was more afraid than the others. Would the Elements really work against Discord? She wished there were some way they could have practiced before facing him, maybe approached this whole enterprise a bit more scientifically. Luna worried for her sister more than anything. She had already seen Celestia lose to Discord once. They could not afford to lose again.

The city of Canterlot was a mess. It didn’t even look like a city anymore, so much as a foal’s cluttered playroom. Mad ponies spilled their way through the crooked streets, chased by twisted creatures that used to be animals. And sometimes it was reversed, so that the animals ran, and the crazed ponies chased them. The buildings were all upside-down, or made of giant cards which fell apart as the group drew near, revealing huddled families of transformed ponies. A few still had enough of a memory of what they were to cry.

The tears of her subjects found their way inside Celestia, into her heart, where they fell like rain, soft and sad and weak… the gentle beginnings of a terrifying storm.

Further in, the madness of the city gave way to something worse. The heart of Canterlot was completely drained of color. This was the end result of Discord’s chaos, which treated the world like a toy, but like a careless child went too far and left it broken.

“What’s wrong with them?” Victory asked.

Celestia knew. “They are like I was.”

“It’s horrible,” Page said.

They entered the courtyard of the castle, which was empty except for the tree that used to be a pony, the first of Discord’s transformations. It was gray and wilted now. As they drew near to it Celestia felt the life within it cry out to her, a silent scream. She shuddered but pressed on, not even sparing a sideward glance now that she was so close to her goal.

The friends entered the throne room, and stood before the Lord of Chaos.

“Welcome home, Princess,” Discord said in a honeyed voice. “Do you like what I’ve done with the place?”

“I do not,” Celestia replied.

Discord opened his mouth to say something, but just then his eyes fell down to Celestia’s neck where the Element of Generosity gleamed, and a shadow passed over his face. “So… the rumors are true after all.”

“It’s over, Discord.”

A crooked smile. “Still the valiant princess of light? How dull. For a moment there, I thought I’d taught you a thing or two about loosening up. It’s not too late, you know. You could still join me. I’ve got plans for the gryphons that will make you laugh so hard you’ll cry. And after that, there’s an experiment I’d like to try in the Crystal Empire. What do you think would happen if my chaos should touch their precious Crystal Heart?”

Celestia imagined all the color washing out of the Empire in a moment, and felt sick. “Nopony is ever going to find out.”

Golden light pierced the gray gloom of the throne room. Celestia’s horn glowed with incandescent magic. The Element she wore around her neck blinked and pulsed with soft sunshine-colored light. Luna’s moon-shaped pendant glowed a gentle blue. For the first time in a thousand years, the Elements of Harmony awakened. Discord’s eyes widened as he stared at the five lights gathered against him. And for a moment, he worried.

But only for a moment.

A flimsy rainbow thread glittered faintly between the glowing pendants, but Discord saw its weakness. His face lit up with joy as he measured the power that stood before him and found it lacking.

“Is… is that all?” he crowed.

Celestia concentrated, felt the emotion flowing from her friends like rivers that mingle together and become a mighty flood. It reminded her of the way lives melted together in the phoenixes’ well of light. They were connected. But the flood wouldn’t come. The power was there, an ocean of it, but it swelled on the other side of a vast gulf. It would take a bridge to bring it into the world. That was what the Element of Magic was, she realized. It was what made the other Elements work, the key that opened the floodgates of Harmony. And without it…

Discord laughed. “What a hilarious joke, Celestia. Maybe you’re not as boring as I thought. All these whispers that the Elements of Harmony have returned to the world, that my defeat is imminent, and this is the best they can do? Why don’t you all sit back and let me bring a touch of chaos into your little lives.” He slipped from his throne and approached them, reached for Page, his claws extended…

“Celestia…” Page whimpered. They knew too well what his awful touch could do to a pony.

Celestia growled and summoned her magic. You… will… not… touch… them! Tinged with rainbow hues, her spell discharged and struck the draconequus in the chest… but was deflected, thrown up into the ceiling of the castle. The force of the spell blew a gaping hole in the gray ceiling and all the floors above it. Stone crumbled and fell into the throne room in a cloud of dust. Through the hole the sky above Canterlot was visible, its flickering day-night-day-night light pouring into the gray chamber.

Discord was unharmed. He reached out with a claw and touched Page’s head. She swayed on her hooves and for a moment Celestia thought she might faint. But she stood.

“N-No!” she said, shaking her head as if she were trying to clear cobwebs from it. “You can’t take my colors away from me.” It was true; she was unaffected by his touch.

Discord took a step backward in surprise. Then he realized that it must be the power of the Elements protecting them. But even if he could not poison them with chaos, that didn’t mean he was powerless. Their gambit had failed, even though it offered them some limited protection. The five of them were not enough to defeat him. Even Celestia’s alicorn magic he had barely felt. Her sister, the blue one, might try something, but after their last encounter he would be ready for her illusion magic. They were not getting away, not this time.

“Oh? I bet I can,” Discord said, and drew a rabbit out of thin air. Like a twisted magician he reached down the creature’s throat with his gryphon’s talons and drew out a hat that was somehow bigger than the rabbit. And from the hat he drew a cage with a cloak thrown over it.

Celestia and Luna felt the twisted life force within the cage and knew what it was instantly. They averted their eyes.

“Careful! He’s got a—” But Celestia’s warning was too late. Discord pulled the cloak aside and three ponies met the eyes of the cockatrice.

Victory, Page, and Wind Chime stood still and gray, as colorless as if Discord’s chaos had infected them. Their faces were frozen in expressions of shock—a look of horror on Page’s, who had known what she was looking at the moment she saw it, which was a moment too late.

Luna paled. “N-No!” It was too terrible. She couldn’t look. She turned away from their petrified friends.

Discord howled his triumph. The gray castle was filled with the noise of his dark laughter. “Oh, the look on your face!” He doubled over in a fit of giggles. “Let’s see if your Elements work now.”

Luna stared helplessly at her sister. Celestia’s breaths were coming out in shallow bursts. Her lavender eyes stared ahead at nothing.

Hours before, Celestia could not have imagined it was possible to hate the draconequus more than she did for what he had done to her. Now that hatred was swallowed, like a mere raindrop fallen into the infinite sea. Her own pain was nothing. All the dark anger she had felt before paled and ran before this new, brighter fury. Discord, Celestia thought. He had made all of Equestria miserable, had made her subjects cry, and had turned her friends to stone where they stood… but this made all those crimes seem almost forgivable.

Discord continued to laugh, ignorant of the danger. Luna saw, though, and took a frightened step toward her sister. All five Elements of Harmony continued to glow, even the ones on the necks of the statues.

“That child…” Celestia whispered. She meant the cold-blooded creature in the cage. “What have you done to her?!”

The life force of every creature is unique, like a cutie mark. No two are alike. Though Discord’s power had twisted it, Celestia recognized the life force that burned within his pet, and she knew it belonged to no cockatrice. She could never forget the one who sacrificed herself to bring her back to life. Nor could she forget her daughter, the heartbroken phoenix child Philomena.

And no one harmed an orphan in Celestia’s kingdom.

The princess reached for the heavens in her wrath, the sky that chaos had left flickering between day and night, and brought their cycle to a sudden stop. All across Equestria, from distant farms to towns built in the clouds, ponies looked up and saw that order had returned to the heavens. Hearts filled with wild hope. Celestia’s noon sun blazed in the sky. Its light shone down through the hole in the castle, a beam of amber that swam with flecks of gold.

Discord’s noticed none of this in his ecstasy. He had done it! He had broken Harmony at last, turned three of its Element bearers to stone. The upstart princess could do nothing to him now. He was more powerful than the mightiest alicorn, and if her magic was any indication, she was far from that. The spell she shot at him was only half as strong as he had expected it to be. Equestria was his, and soon the gryphons and the Crystal Empire. And Celestia… she was just so angry in her powerlessness, could nopony else see how hilarious that was?

Eyes closed to the naked daylight streaming into the throne room, Discord threw back his head and howled his laughter.

Celestia rose into the air, held aloft by magic, then spread out her ivory wings and looked down on the draconequus with eyes of flame.

Suddenly afraid for her sister, Luna flew up to her. “Sister?”

I will undo him, Celestia thought, and the thought was made of fire. “I can…” she whispered.

No, she couldn’t, Luna realized. Even at the zenith of her power. Celestia had fury and magic in abundance, but she needed one thing for her power to be complete.

Somepony to share it with.

“We’ll do it together,” Luna said. There was a brief flicker of surprise in her sister’s eyes as Luna pressed her forehead against Celestia’s, crossed horns with her, their magic intermingling. Both their eyes closed. For a moment, they were suspended in the air, a halo of sunlight around them…

The Elements of Harmony came alive and burned with color. Rainbow light shimmered between the airborne alicorns and the statues of their friends. And there, in the heart of all that light, a flash of violet as the power of Magic found its way through the souls of Celestia and Luna. Their eyes fluttered open, full of white light. They looked from one another to Discord, saw how weak a thing chaos really was, and loosed all their passion against it.

A storm of fury and love slammed into the draconequus while he laughed, silencing him instantly. All his colors fled, like shadows from the dawn, and his serpentine body turned the same gray as the poor creatures under his spell. The ever-shifting spirit of chaos hardened into a cold statue where he stood.

The power of chaos shattered. The cold blood of the cockatrice Philomena boiled and her scales and feathers caught fire. In a flash, the cockatrice burned away into ash and the phoenix spread her wings and leapt into the air in a streak of flame. With her dark spell broken, the statues of the Element bearers cracked and dissolved, freeing them.

A sizzling rainbow surrounded the wielders of the Elements and exploded. The horrible gray was washed out of the castle. In the courtyard, a tree became a red pony once again. Everypony in the castle was restored, then the city. On and on. Prismatic light leapt from pony to pony, building to building, between animals and plants, ran along roads and rivers, soared through the air. All of Equestria was aglow with it.

* * *

Far away, in a tower in the Crystal Empire, Starswirl the Bearded looked out his window saw the horizon aflame with color. So, even the Lord of Chaos has fallen. A weary smile crossed his lips. My faithful student, you found the lost Elements of Harmony. He watched in wonder for a time before turning back to his work. But will it all be for nothing in the end? A large hourglass filled the center of the room, surrounded by scrolls that were filled with the scribbles of a magic formula. The wizard sighed. Time will tell.

* * *

The light of the Elements dimmed at last. Their work was done. The friends collapsed into each other’s arms and wings. It’s over, Celestia thought. We’ve won.

Celestia looked over to where Philomena was perched. She couldn’t tell what the young phoenix was thinking. Celestia disentangled herself from her friends’ embrace and opened her mouth to call out to the firebird, but before she could get a word out a flock of phoenixes poured through the hole in the castle and surrounded the child.

Forgive us, Princess, said a phoenix with a golden helm. We could do nothing against Discord. It shames us that one of our own released that horror onto your world.

“You mean…?”

The draconequus was our prisoner. Philomena let him out… to destroy you.

“Oh.” Celestia’s ears drooped. Even after all she had been through, she could not find it in herself to be angry with the little phoenix. “What are you going to do with her?”

She will be tried by the phoenix court. Do not fear… she will not be able to harm you again.

“I wasn’t worried about that.”

The phoenix bowed its head toward Celestia and her friends. The others followed suit. Wielders of the Elements of Harmony, we have waited for your coming for a long time.

“They can talk!” Page said in excitement. Of course that wasn’t written in any of her books.

The phoenixes took Philomena away, vanishing in a swirl of red flame. The whole time, the little phoenix never took her eyes off of Celestia. Fiery tears fell onto the castle floor, though whether they were tears of guilt or rage or some other emotion, Celestia couldn’t tell. She felt a twinge of uncertainty and worry which spoiled what should have been the moment of her greatest triumph. No matter what the child had done, Celestia felt responsible for her. Would the phoenix court be merciful? She wondered, and her doubt grew.

We will take the draconequus with us as well, the phoenix said. His powers are sealed for now, but I doubt you want him anywhere in your realm.

“Wait,” Celestia said, as several of the phoenixes moved toward the statue.

What is the matter?

“What do you mean, his powers are sealed for now?”

The power of Harmony has imprisoned him, but without a true bearer of the Element of Magic, the prison is imperfect. It is possible that one day he will find a way to escape.

Celestia shivered. “How long might that be?”

Centuries at least.

“That is a long time.”

Not so long for a phoenix. The firebird gave her a meaningful look. Or for an alicorn.

Celestia took a breath and shook her head. “Thank you, but no. I have a better place for him.”

Princess?

A glint of the fury she had felt earlier came back into Celestia’s eyes. “I will place his statue in the center of my garden. The one the orphans play in. He can watch, every day, throughout those long centuries. He will stand in the very center of their happiness and know what our victory meant. That is his punishment: to see their joy and hear their laughter as generations play their games in his shadow.”

As the princess commands, the phoenix said, and with a bow and a flash of flame, he and the others were gone.

“That was amazing!” Victory said.

“Are you sure about this?” Wind Chime said, prodding at the statue of Discord with a hoof. “You could just throw him in a cellar of the castle to gather dust.”

Celestia shook her head. “I don’t want anypony to forget.”

“I don’t think anypony will ever be able to forget him,” said Luna.

But of course, they would. Peace casts its own spell, and eventually Discord’s mad reign would be lost to the minds of ponies. Even Celestia would think of him only occasionally over the centuries. The petrified draconequus would wait, frozen in dark laughter, for the day he would be free once more.