A Future's End

by Valinye

Recollection...

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   “The Broken Leylands” is the name of an odd bit of land just north of Roanoak, and one that is known for strange magical effects and bizarre phenomena.

   While Roanoak is the realm of the Empress Aurora, and is a kind and gentile land of endless bounty for the ponies that live there, the Broken Leylands are a bit more of a petulant little brother; it is a land given to both temper tantrums and inexplicable behavior at the drop of the proverbial hat. It is a place where undulating curtains of iridescent unshaped magic flow slowly across the landscape and occasional portals to distant lands come and go without warning…

   The Empress’s special talent is working with these portals, or ‘rifts’ as they are called. They are gateways between two places that might be a mere ocean apart – or much, much further. They are a bit like teleportation in fact, as they can get ponies from place to place magically - with the difference being that the magic user need not go as well.

   But they also have one major drawback; like a mathematical equation, both sides must remain in balance at all times. Whatever goes through from one side must be balanced by either a similar mass moving in the opposite direction or be offset by the casters power.

   While an accomplished magic user can easily handle sending a pony or two one way through a rift, a rift could never be used for much more than that; it simply requires too much magical power. And while moving a like mass through the rift in the other direction can offset the magical effort – this also becomes exceptionally cumbersome very quickly for large numbers.

   But out in the Leylands wild magic flows freely, and in this way the naturally occurring rifts in the Leylands can occasionally, without warning, deliver one or two strange things to Trostsdale’s doorstep by way of a wild rift. Fortunately the Empress’s talent makes her uniquely qualified to deal with these problems by being able to send them back home… Once the location of their home is found, of course…

   This proximity to the Leylands also serves to make Trotsdale a very interesting town. It is a place where the slightly strange is common and ponies from all over the world, and elsewhere, can be found living and working here. Some are mere accidental visitors awaiting a trip home; others have found a niche in Roanaok and have created a life for themselves.

   And it is not just ponies; Dragons from the Southern Marches routinely use Trotsdale as a trade gateway with the Northern Pony Lands such as Equestria, and the Camelu and Zebrican kingdoms engage in spice trade through the busy port on Roanoak’s eastern shore.

   With so many varied beings of wildly dissimilar cultures in one place prosperity is easy to come by and chaos is ever at the gates.

Aurora in her study at Morgan Castle

   Aurora looks up from the book entitled “A Treatise on Roanoak” and smiles. It is an approval copy given to her by the Unicorn writing it, and she is rather enjoying the outside view of things she takes for granted.

   She lies upon the large pillow in her study and is surrounded by bookshelves filled with random tomes and rolled parchment – even the low desk before her is mostly covered in scrolls. The three stained glass windows behind her allow a diffuse light into the room that is quickly absorbed by the dark woods of the shelving and trim, but the room somehow remains welcoming.

   The writer of this work has desired an audience with her for several weeks now, but their schedules never seem to align and this meeting just never seems to happen. He is looking for an actual recounting of the rift event that brought the group of ponies known as the “Wastelanders” into Roanoak, and even though this was only some ten years ago, already the stories had skewed a bit.

   She nods; it was probably best to get the tale directly from her.

   A thick tome of loose parchment is surrounded in a lavender glow and lifts gently from a nearby bookcase, and then lands on the desk before her as the pages begin to turn. Inside are delicate silverpoint drawings that she made during her first meeting with one 'Starbuck' and his band of Wastelands ponies shortly after they had met.

   Aurora looks through the drawings and thinks back to the event that started it all…

   It was a positively titanic event out in the Leylands and it shook the ground in Trotsdale for several hours that night. The northern sky was lit with flickering and flashing lights and rainbow-hued explosions danced across the horizon well past sunrise.

   The very next day Aurora and a half-dozen other ponies had arrived to assess what had happened – and stood amazed at what they saw…

The Wastelands Rift

   Along the western edge of the Leylands, where there were normally low rolling hills of green, was now a ridge of obsidian hundreds of meters high and that stretched from horizon to horizon. Most interesting though was a ten-meter wide hole that had been blasted clean through the middle of the ridge – a rift, and the biggest one anypony had ever seen…

   It was this hole was what worried Aurora the most, for it positively seethed with raw power and a magical potential of a scale she had never encountered before. This was indeed a rift, but unlike the common and mostly harmless gateways to some distant place in her world – this was something of a completely different scale, and one which led somewhere else…

   An event like this was unprecedented and, of course, Aurora was keen to discover what lay beyond this mysterious hole in the mountain. While the powers at play here were not something she could ever hope to control – she might be able to stabilize them for a short time; enough time for a group of explorers to go through, look around, and report back.

   Three ponies went through with explicit instructions to do just that – and upon their return further plans would be made.

   Unfortunately, they arrived in the middle of a firefight…

   The three explorers were quickly captured by a group of strange creatures that seemed to be rather intent on eating them. It was fortunate for them that a small band of three ponies led by one Starbuck Cloudhoof had seen this, eventually rescued them, and returned them to the rift. And after some quick discussion it was decided that Starbuck’s band would return with the explorers to speak with the Empress…

   Aurora spoke with Starbuck at length as the other ponies listened on. It was discovered that on the other side of this hole was a desolate and harsh world where ponies lived by their wits - and large weapons, where the Royals had failed the land and the ponies that were their charges… And where friendship was measured by the hour and always with a wary eye…

   This was pretty much the worst possible existence a pony can imagine; yet here were these ponies of a definite good nature and noble bearing… And this intrigued Aurora just as much as the rift itself. These were natives of a hellish world and with the exception of their strange accents and even stranger gear, they would pass for any Roanoak citizen.

   Aurora offered to let them stay and to live in the relative peace of her lands for as long as they desired after she closed this rift forever. But while they found the offer of a verdant paradise through the hole in the mountain to be a blessing, they could not leave their people behind… And there were a hundred or so of them in the town Starbuck had founded about ten kilometers from the rift.

   This complicated things.

   While Aurora could indeed hold the rift steady for a few ponies, the more who traversed it the greater the imbalance and the harder it became to keep open. Moving a hundred or more ponies might be all but impossible, and at best would be dangerous to attempt. For if Aurora lost control of the rift it could collapse, trapping anyone inside in the void between, or worse expand exponentially and consume all of Roanoak.

   But a week later, a rescue mission was well underway…

   Aurora smiles at her own impetuous nature. It was only ten years ago – but she seemed so young then…

   She had indeed decided to risk the dangers, for it was better to try and fail, in her mind, than to not try at all.

   It took a few days to prepare, but soon a full camp was set up to aid the refugees and there were ponies everywhere helping any way they could. This was a completely selfless act on their part to help ponies they not only did not know, but who came from somewhere most could not even conceive of…

   Another rag-tag band of ponies stumbles through the portal between worlds and into the thin starlight of the Broken Leylands.

   They huddle together, scared, and look about as two mares in medical garb approach and gently lead them away to a set of nearby pavilions. There are maybe a dozen such pavilions set up nearby, each full of both ponies and supplies that are here to aid in the effort. Medical ponies see to injuries, a column of the Empress’s Imperial Guard see to camp security, and many of the townsfolk have brought food and water from Trotsdale – to aid the refugees however they can.

   Nearby the rift howls with an unearthly sound and illuminates the landscape in strange flickering colors from the magical maelstrom it contains… The actual tunnel entrance is surrounded in a purple glow, and it twists and pulses like a living thing as Aurora's spellcraft struggles to contain the elemental energies that separate the now from the then.

   Aurora stands as still as a statue near the event horizon of the rift; head high and eyes closed as she concentrates on her spells and tries to keep the rift open just a little while longer - just a few more ponies... The barely contained forces of causality pouring from the hole in the mountain whip the Alicorn’s mane and tail about her, but she is unmoved by its fury.

   Suddenly a muffled boom echoes from the tunnel as a cataclysmic outburst ripples reality. Concentric rings of force flow outward from the tunnel, and where they touch the verdant here and now becomes the dying there and then for a brief moment.

   Aurora winces, but does not move as the lavender light surrounding her horn intensifies. Her spells flash brilliantly and the greens and blues of Roanoak return once more…

   She is channeling essence from the very land under her hooves to power the magic that holds the portal together in these last moments, and the effort has blackened the ground around her for some ten meters in all directions – Roanaok giving its very life to fuel her efforts.

   In the nearby camp a black-coated Pegasus mare with a thundercloud cutie-mark swoops into a pavilion and lands lightly. She shouts over the din from outside as the flap closes behind her, “Five more!”

   “How many? Five?” A white Unicorn mare with a shocking yellow mane looks around a levitating clipboard. “I've got a count of one hundred and eleven. Can you get that to Aurora?”

   The Pegasus shakes her red-maned head, “No can do – the whole area is a no fly zone at this point, I can’t even get close. Besides, last I saw she didn't look like she was up for much talking… Or much of anything else really…”

   The Unicorn nods, “There is so much magic being flung about I’m doing good to levitate my quill. But we have to be getting close – their leader, that odd orange pony, he said there was only a hundred or so…” She waves the clipboard around, “This is a hundred or so. She needs to know.”

   Sitting on the ground next to Aurora is a Celestial Canis, a wolf-like being nearly as big as the Alicorn and made entirely of what appears to be night sky and stars. It stares intently at the portal, alert ears twitching ever so slightly as it analyzes the situation with ageless intelligent eyes.

   A sky blue Unicorn suddenly appears next to the Celestial in a burst of magical energy, and is instantly set back on her haunches from the gale of otherworldly power emanating from the rift. He calmly reaches out a paw to steady the mare, “Be careful m’lady, the rift is far more unstable than it was an hour ago.”

   She nods as she struggles against the gale. “They say there are a hundred and eleven through the rift now… How is she holding up? She’s been at this for hours…”

   He looks over to the Empress and states flatly, “She is weakening. It will not be much longer – she will either have to close the rift or let it expand... She plays dice with powers far greater than her own, and if they notice that she is cheating it will not bode well for her – or us.”

   The Celestial Canis was always so infuriatingly calm… It could be the return of Discord, and he would discuss it over tea as if it were the morning paper.

   “There… is one more – in the rift. No, two more…” The Alicorn whispers through clenched teeth.

   The Celestial turns his piercing gaze on the Unicorn, “It is now your moment in this event.”

   She blinks, “Me? But… I can’t… It’s too strong now…”

   The portal flares again, making the perceptions of the Unicorn turn sideways briefly. Aurora makes a small pained sound as her spells flicker under the impact. Within the glaring lights of the rift the glowing form of a pony can barely be seen moving ever so slowly to the mouth of the tunnel.

   The unicorn lowers her horn, grits her teeth, and vanishes – reappearing next to the pony in a flash of magic. She gasps as she is assaulted by the raw energies from the rift, the wash of causality forcing her back several paces.

   He is an orange colored Earth pony in the typical gear of a Wastelander – leather helmet, goggles, and a few bags tied to a tactical saddle – and he is dragging another pony slowly towards the exit. The other pony, a Pegasus by her size, is covered entirely in form fitting black fabric and seems to be unconscious. The Unicorn watches the earth pony take another deliberate step backwards, and with tail in teeth he pulls the unconscious pony another pace. The forces of the rift hammer at him, staggering him to and fro. He stumbles and goes down with a grunt, then slowly gets back to his hooves to resume pulling.

   The Unicorn leans into the gale; the elemental forces of time and space claw at her as she takes one difficult step and yells, “I’ll take care of her, run!”

   Outside the tunnel another explosion thunders and shakes the ground. The spells suddenly flicker brightly and wink out in unison as a slowly expanding sphere of rippling, scintillating light spreads outwards from the rift... Aurora staggers backwards and raises a wing to shield herself as reality all around splinters and shatters as the sphere passes; the trees are instantly rendered dead and twisted, the grass vanishes and is replaced with barren, blackened rock, and the dark starry sky overhead is replaced with a thick brown haze.

   At the camp below everything stops and everypony looks skyward… They all watch as the blasted hell that is a thousand years in their potential future flows across the verdant landscape of Roanoak.

   The white Unicorn lowers her clipboard and simply stares… “Temporal incursion… But, it’s just one of Star Swirl’s theories, not a real thing… See that sphere Nimbus? That isn't a ‘thing’, that’s just the only thing our minds trapped in the lower dimensions can process… A hyperspherical bubble of expanding space-time… Fascinating!”

   Nimbus, the black Pegasus next to her just nods, agape, not really understanding the magical babble from the white Unicorn mare.

   Aurora stands splay-legged and wings drooping, and her head hangs low with exhaustion as the now quietly shimmering hole in the mountain, no longer restricted by her spells, slowly consumes the Broken Leylands. The Celestial rises to his feet and nuzzles her neck, “Now is not the time to mourn my Liege. You knew you could not save them all. You must close it now, before both realities are lost and there is nothing left to mourn.”

   She closes her eyes, nods, and the Celestial can feel her pulling magic to herself.

   At the camp a slight breeze is felt flowing gently through the pavilions, around the ponies gathered there, and up the hill towards where Aurora stands. It is a spring breeze, full of the scents of flowers and warm earth – full of the promise of renewal.

   On the slight rise Aurora gets her hooves back under her and lowers her head, touching her long horn to the earth.

   It begins as a few small glimmers; mere sparks of blue and green light rise slowly from the ground and float gently around the Empress. She suddenly lifts her head and flares her wings, her horn pointing straight to the heavens above, and she stamps a forehoof upon the ground.

   At her hooves several concentric rings and geometric lines appear in glowing blue light – superimposed upon the barren stone she stands upon.

   She stamps again and a slightly larger ring appears, layering the spell, and the breeze flowing towards her begins to shake the pavilions as the barren stone at her hooves begins to glow with the flow of power.

   She stamps upon the ground a third time, and as that ring appears a column of bright blue-white scintillating light springs up around her as the wind roars around the encampment.

Aurora Closes the Wastelands Rift

   With a shudder that shakes the ground, the momentarily placid portal ignites once more and roars to life as Aurora’s spells blaze around it – containing and controlling the flow of energy between worlds. She winces again, her coat damp with exertion as she struggles to reverse the damage.

   The expanding sphere of the Equestrian Wastelands stops and begins to fade, drawn inexorably back to its own reality, and as it fades the land returns to what it once was; green of grass and tree with a beautifully clear moonlit sky.

   The rift emits several explosions and erupts in a brilliant flash, and instantly a mountain’s worth of granite vanishes, consumed by the collapsing rift to balance the equation, and leaves behind only a short valley of pulverized stone and thick, choking dust…

   A simple ring of obsidian, perhaps fifteen meters across and three meters thick, sits in the middle of the valley. The core of the ring appears to recede into the distance further than the ring is deep, and its center is a pulsing, glowing crack in the stone’s surface… It is the last remnant of a titanic event that spanned two realities.

   And lying at the base of the ring of stone, on her side, is a battered Pegasus pony. Her black coverings nearly burned from her, her tail and mane singed to the skin… Instantly two Unicorns from Trotsdale Medical appear next to her and start triage.

   Aurora collapses onto the waiting shoulder of the Celestial as her spells flicker a few times and fade. “Wh… Where is she? The Unicorn mare who went in to help?”

   Painless shakes his maned head, “It is up to her now…”

   Time passes as everypony stares at the remnants of the rift, and the silence after the hours of magical battle that was waged is deafening...

   it is in that silence that a slight crackle is heard - a quiet sound yet clearly heard - and suddenly a ring of blue fire springs up from the area directly in front of the now closed portal. With a ripping, tearing sound and a bright flash a glassy circle is burned into the ground as the sky blue Unicorn mare reappears...

   She stands there a moment, breathing heavily and slightly singed, and holds the harness of an orange Earth pony in her teeth.

   An entire herd of ponies descend upon the spot where she stands; one medical Unicorn examines her burns while another examines the orange Earth pony.

   “Layoff will ya!? I’m fine! I gotta get back…” The Earth pony shouts at the Unicorn before brandishing a crowbar from one of his packs. Two Wastelanders approach through the crowd, “Starbuck. STARBUCK! Cool it! It’s okay, we all made it… Everyone who was in the barracks made it out…”

   The Earth pony turns to the other Wastelanders, “What about the school? Did we get the school evacuated?”

   Two heads shake in unison

   “What the… !? Why the hell are you standing here?” Starbuck wheels and bolts for the portal – and pulls up short at the sealed ring of stone.

   “No…”

   He reaches out and touches the smooth obsidian with a forehoof for a moment before falling to his knees. The others walk over to him and quietly console him.

   Aurora looks off into the distance beyond the collapsed portal for a moment, and then looks back to the Celestial, shaking her head. “I can no longer see the Wastelands…” She nods with a sigh, “I did know we would not save them all going into this – it does not lessen the pain.”

   He nods, “Remember always the ones who fell this day, but remember those that were saved as well. Many were given a chance they would not otherwise have had, and for them new chapters of a long and glorious story begin in this here and now.”

   “You are right as always my friend. Lives were saved that would otherwise be lost… I shall focus on that.”

   Aurora once again returns to herself and her study. Her eyes are wet with tears as she whispers, “Painless, thou wert more right than though couldst know.”

   She repeats the Celestial’s prophetic words; “She plays dice with powers far greater than her own, and if they notice that she is cheating it will not bode well for her – or us.”

   Another book is illuminated in a lavender glow and lifts from a nearby bookshelf, to land upon the desk before the Empress. This book is a hoof-written journal of an Earth pony wheelwright who was in town the day those words came true…

   Weeks had passed since the closing of the giant rift that had appeared in the Broken Leylands. The Empress had sealed the breech and we thought everything was returning to normal… Well as normal as Trotsdale ever got.

   We, the regular townsfolk, were in wonder at the things we saw come through these rifts on occasion, and we met many ponies from strange places in our world… But chief among these were the refugees of the Wastelands.

   Their world was dying, and it had something to do with their Alicorn rulers from what they said. As near as I can tell the will of something far grander than a mere pony can comprehend determined they were worth saving, and so their entire world washed up on our shores. This happening wasn't without consequence though, and I’ll never forget the lights in the sky and the ground shaking that night… The next day an entire mountain range had just appeared with a huge shrieking hole in it… This was a hole in reality from what I’m told, and it’s how those Wastlanders escaped their dying world.

   So for a week, or thereabouts, we housed them in town before they were ushered off to the Everfree by the Princesses of Canterlot. A few stayed on with us, ones who had managed to calm their demons enough to get on with our rural lifestyle at any rate.

   These Wastelanders had brought with them a few wonders of technology unlike anything we’d ever seen. A lot of these things no longer worked of course – something about the ambient magics of our world or something – but the simpler stuff tended to work just fine with a little fiddling. These broken bits, salvaged from a dying world so alien to us as to be fantasy, sparked a bit of technological revolution for Roanoak.

   Now, truth be told we’d always had some technology about – but it was all small things powered by Unicorn magic mostly, like little flying toys for the foals and such. The trains were the real fancy bits of technology – a real example of just what pony engineers could dream up if left to their own devices. But the stuff we got to see from the Wastelands? Well, it got pony-folk thinking about things in a whole new way.

   While all of this was happening though, things were not as peaceful in the Broken Leylands.

   No one I've talked to really knows what happened. All we know is one early morning while the sun was still low on the horizon and the mist still clung to the grass the Empress had called her advisers to her side. They all stood around the Empress, looking off towards the north while the enigmatic Thrash Darkforge stood a distance away eyeing the horizon through his thick square glasses. A brilliant white Unicorn mare with a bright yellow mane and tail stood in front of the Empress operating a collection of gizmos and reciting something about ‘magical variances being way above baseline’.

   There typically weren't many ponies around at that hour of the day, just those of us opening our shops for another day of trade; but it was obvious something was up – and we all stood still as statuary as the Unicorn spoke.

   “That’s it Aurora – the numbers are off the scale. My equipment is blind…”

   The Empress of Roanoak closed her eyes, dropped her head, and just … sighed. It was a thing more felt than heard, and it carried with it a finality that made my mane stand on end.

   “Get them out.”

   It was a mere whisper, but the voice was one used to command – and those gathered around her immediately sprang into action. The two Unicorns instantly vanished as the Pegasus raced off towards the castle.

   Thrash turned to the Empress; the strange black Pegasus rarely said a word to anyone, in fact most had never even heard his voice, but now he spoke. “No promises…” and she nodded.

   He looked up at the leaden sky where the clouds had been gathered by the local weather team over night. Any other day we would already be past the time for the morning shower; but as bluish lightning split through the cloud cover with a flash and boom I had the distinct feeling rain wasn't on the menu today.

   As the clouds above stirred into a storm, they twisted and churned with a decidedly unnatural look and began to take on a greenish tinge. Lightning danced around the sky in brilliant flashes of blue, and as each flash faded another dark form hung suspended above the town… Each was a huge oval shape, highlighted in blue fire and obscured by the clouds.

   The sky was rent with lightning and thunder for a span of minutes and then, slowly, the first of the shadowy objects began to descend from the cloud cover trailing behind it wisps of foggy storm... And they were huge…

   Airships! Some thirty of them began to settle around the town and nearby neighborhoods. Each was identical and flew flags emblazoned with Thrash’s cutie mark, but not a one had a crew…

   Thrash looked to those of us standing around the town square dumbfounded and simply said to pack light. He then turned back to the Empress, tipped his hat, and proceeded to the nearest airship.

   She just nodded, not taking her eyes off the horizon.

   At her hooves I saw spellfire in a complex pattern of blue and violet light, and pale greens and blues glowed between the flagstones in the pavement. She had flared her wings and was leaning forward ever so slightly, a look of concentration on her face. The sun had risen well over the horizon, but had taken on a strange red hue as it shimmered – as if there were a lot of smoke in the air in the distance… Everything was eerily silent…

   And that’s when the first explosion hit.

   Just beyond the town, where the bridge over the river once sat, was a scintillating curtain of rainbow hued light. It stretched impossibly in all directions and shown with such intensity the entire world seemed bathed in shifting colors. Just on the other side of that barrier was a roiling mass of shape and color that I just couldn't quite wrap my brain around.

The spell wall and airships over old-town Trotsdale

   My hooves instinctively took me towards my home without my prompting, but that last vision of the Empress was etched into my memory – she stood in a sphere of magical energy that was a miniature of the field that stretched from horizon to horizon. The flagstones beneath her hooves had cracked; the spell making the jagged edges glow as the stone began to melt. The edges of her blue tipped wings were smoldering from the intensity of the magic she was using… But she did not waver. It was at that moment, as she stood there with her mane and tail whipping in an arcane storm that even my meager Earth Pony bones could feel… That’s when it really hit me… We know the Empress is immortal and quite powerful, but right then and there? I really understood what that meant…

   I was a veritable arrow shot from a bow as I flew over the cobbles to get to my family. The ground bucked like an angry Manticore as explosions rippled through the sky overhead. The main bridge out of Trotsdale had collapsed, but I chanced the leap and made it with a hoof to spare - I can be pretty spry when the need arises - and I made it home, got my family and a few small things in a travel sack, and all of us onto one of the waiting airships.

   My last view of Trotsdale was from that airship. As we flew to the south I could just see a tiny black pony in the middle of an expanding sphere of magic that had grown to encompass the whole town… It was too bright to look at long, so I didn't see much. I do remember seeing the big Celestial Wolf running at a full gallop towards town though - as if all of Tartarus were on his tail...

Aurora consumed by her spells

   It was about ten minutes later that the sky changed.

  The sun just - vanished, replaced by stars that wheeled and spun above us madly... Looking up from the deck of the airship resulted in near instant vertigo and everypony was completely terrified. There was a light in that darkness though – behind us a column of brilliant purple magic flowed upwards from the town and spread slowly across the sky. Soon we were under a faintly scintillating globe of thin purple light that seemed impossibly large… But it did stop the stars from spinning…

   Mere seconds later there was an incredible flash from town, and just as we let out that startled breath a clap of thunder hit us that made the airship bounce around like a foal’s kite. As the airship righted itself and sailed onward, somepony noticed the sun was rising…

   That was the first sunrise in our strange new world.

   It was later that evening, as the community was assembling pavilions and creating a communal meal, that the Celestial Wolf staggered into our midst. He was typically the deep blue of an evening sky and studded with stars – but here he was almost transparent, looking like the night sky just before dawn – and held carefully in his jaws… The Empress of Roanoak.

   He laid her so, so gently on the grass in front of a group of us; she was – broken. She seemed so much smaller, and ghastly thin. The feathers of her wings were blackened and curled, and her mane and tail were singed. Even I, magically mute, could sense the difference – there was no magic within this broken body.

   “Care for her. I will – return…”

   The Celestial collapsed; as the thin outline of his form faded, the dim stars his shape still contained floated gently upwards to vanish in the night sky.

   The Empress was taken carefully into a pavilion where two of the Trotsdale physicians examined her. We collectively waited for what seemed like hours, but eventually one returned and stated flatly that she was alive. But they really had no idea what to do for her other than treat her injuries as any other pony and make sure she was comfortable.

   Whatever had happened, it had messed her up pretty bad... There was internal damage as well, but there was no way to ascertain what, how badly, or to fix it in a tent. Many were shocked to hear that this ever-present immortal pony we’d simply assumed would always be there, was so close to death… And thus began the daily rotations of seeing to Aurora’s care.

   A few days later everypony who once lived in or around Trotsdale was now living in a tent or pavilion some few hours to the south. A couple teams were recently sent back to Trotsdale proper, but the entire town has been destroyed and there is a large glowing crater where the Empress stood. They said a half-mile in all directions had simply been literally blown apart, even Morgan Castle was a smoking ruin.

   We’ve also figured out what happened to bring us to this point; an oddly flickering field of magical energy, which was intensely painful to the touch, now defines the boundaries of Roanoak... All of Roanoak. To the south and west the field is very strong and shows as an iridescent shimmering hanging in the air. But in the northeast, where Trotsdale once stood, the field is failing and daily more and more of the town simply vanishes. It is as if an enormous ravenous beast is consuming the very world, slowly.

   Some of the more magically inclined ponies have ascertained that the field around the Empire is a powerful spell that is separating Roanoak from a whirling maelstrom just beyond the barrier. From what anyone can figure out, when the Leylands erupted the explosion must have been some sort of gigantic rift, and Aurora’s last act was to protect us all from simply ceasing to be. To do this, she has effectively removed Roanoak from the reality we know…

   Roanoak, and everyone living here, is cut off from everything. And the Alicorn who can fix it is hanging on by a thread.

   The Empress looks up from the book for a moment. So much had been written about this bit of time, but the parts few knew were her thoughts and memories. She had written little of her personal points of view – she was still upset that she had allowed this to happen in the first place and did not relish the retelling.

   She knew the dangers and she knew the risks, but she still allowed the short-term needs of a hundred and eleven ponies to impact the fates of thousands more.

   She shakes her head, “The flaw of heart.”

   But, if she were to be interviewed she would need to examine her own role in this tale – and there was no better time than the present…

   Aurora yawns and stretches a bit, looking down at her pillows and blinking in the low light of the dawn streaming through the window.

   It had been some two months since the event that had isolated the land of Roanoak from the world and landed her unconscious for several weeks. It has only been recently, the last ten days or so that she’s even been able to stand on her own…

   She looked up, her focus beyond the wall on the other side of the room to something she could not see – but she could feel it there, on the edges of Roanoak, pulsing slowly as if breathing…

   There, a spell of almost unimaginable power encircled her lands and held back the ravages of time and space incarnate, just as it held her people trapped within. A vast wall of slowly undulating and scintillating violet and blue lights stretched the length of the horizon – on one side the verdant green lands of Roanoak, with its fields of wild flowers and ancient trees looked perfectly normal. On the other, a swirling maelstrom of causality silently twisted and flowed along the barrier.

   Her consciousness pressed against the barrier, testing it once again as she had a dozen times, and found it just as impenetrable as always. Whatever this magical construct was, it was perfect; nothing, absolutely nothing, got through it…

   Back in her room she sighed.

   She lay there for a few minutes, dreading getting up. Sudden movements made her woozy still and getting up was no different – but the day would simply not wait for her to feel better and there was much to do.

   She surged to her hooves and instantly the room turned sideways. She grimaced, instinctively her wings went out to balance her as she stumbled, and suddenly she found herself leaning on something warm, soft, and as immovable as eternity…

   “You should seek assistance getting to your feet your highness…”

   The great form of the Celestial Wolf stood at her shoulder, holding her weight as one of her wings drooped over him.

   “I do not wish to be seen weakened Painless,” she said crossly, then dropping her head a bit, “but you are correct as always.”

   The Celestial beast merely nodded his great shaggy head as he slowly helped her into the main room of the makeshift hospital.

   The Empress winced as the taste of the brew faded. “In all of my years, in all of my travels, I have sought and not found a reason why everything that fixes an ailment must taste so absolutely horrid…”

   The zebra chuckled, “That is how one knows the brew is good. Nature herself makes the medicine taste foul to prevent foals from misusing it.”

   Aurora smirks, “I’m certainly no foal…”

   The zebra busies himself packing up his supplies, “To us, maybe not. But to the world around us, you are a foal; we are all foals, therefore the medicine is foul. That is all there is to know.”

   She can tell by his voice that he is smiling, and she follows suit, “I suppose you are correct – my span has become a forest of identical trees all running together for so long I often forget to look up to see the wide sky above me. Thank you for some perspective.”

   He nods once to her, a sort of bow, and leaves the room.

   “Painless? I am hungry. Please walk with me to get something from the kitchens? Afterwards I need some time alone, and then to see my council…”

   The great blue Celestial nods, “As you wish my liege.”

   It is early afternoon and Aurora lays under a large oak in the shade.

   The space around her is silent, save for a slight sighing of the breeze whispering in the leaves. The local animals seem to have found reason to be elsewhere at the moment so that she may have peace. She feels the breeze play with her mane and tail briefly before something else catches its attention, and it too moves on, leaving her still and centered.

   Head up, eyes closed, she feels the world around her – Roanoak sleeps, fitfully; like a restless child… But it slowly recovers.

   A faint smile graces her features.

   She turns her attention back to the barrier and her brow furrows around the base of her ebon horn…

   The barrier appears before her mind’s eye; it pulses slowly in its purples and blues as various lines and symbols float slowly though it. She reaches out magically and gently touches one of the symbols, one commonly associated with shielding, and watches it change ever so slightly and move away from her. Suddenly the entire spell before her shifts; the symbols fade as it compensates for her power, shielding itself from her.

   “It… Sensed that?” Her ears twitch involuntarily at the sound of her own voice.

   She does not want to draw power from the resting Roanoak, but she must divine the mechanism of this barrier, so she must risk the expenditure of her own power…

   She tilts her head ever so slightly as her horn ignites with violet energy. She reaches out to purposefully manipulate the barrier spell – no more gentle examination…

   The sky above begins to darken with grey clouds as the breeze picks up and she squints. Nearby, the barrier glows brightly with arcane circles of spellfire that flash and spark along its surface.

   The wind begins to pick up and leaves from the trees swirl around in the gale as the sky is rent with small flashes of lightning. In the center of it all Aurora’s horn blazes with her magics, lighting the nearby trees with an eerie purple glow.

   “You… will… show me…” Her words are forced through clenched teeth.

   A few moments pass as a veritable hurricane lashes the area… And as quickly the clouds part, the wind ceases, and the air is left thick with falling leaves. She pants from her magical exertion, head low, and whispers, “It… It cannot be…”

   Aurora and Painless lay across from a black Pegasus and white Unicorn on the soft grasses of a small clearing a short walk from the camp.

   Aurora looks towards the barrier visible over the nearby trees, “So yes, the barrier spell I cast to attempt to save everyone did in fact separate all of Roanoak from the world and cast us all adrift in the Aether…”

   She looks back to the gathered ponies, “I’m unsure how the spell actually works, and believe me I’ve tried to divine its mechanisms... While I was the conduit for the combined energies of myself, Painless, and Roanoak, the spell itself is a wild thing born of my desperation. My intent was to simply shield us from the explosion in the Broken Leylands… But I quickly discovered that the magics of Roanoak and I were only strong enough to delay the inevitable – and so I called for Painless.”

   She nods to the Celestial Wolf next to her.

   “When I tapped the latent power he contains, my desire to keep Roanoak from harm and to shield it from the destructive forces at play was amplified to such a point that the magic took on a will of its own – and Roanoak was completely removed from harm…”

   She looks at her forehooves stretched out before her. “All three of us are still recovering from the effects of being so completely drained. And being so depleted, Roanoak is somewhat independent of my will now and is doing as it wishes. The land sleeps, and is unlikely to respond to my desires for quite some time.”

   “But, as my strength returns I should be able to once again bring things back to some semblance of normal.” She looks back to the gathered ponies. “This is all completely unprecedented. Nothing like this had ever happened before.”

   She looks directly at the Pegasus and the Unicorn. “But, for us to get back home two things need to happen; I need to concentrate my efforts on recovering and getting Roanoak back under control. And I need you two to figure out the spell that has become our gilded cage.”

   “I cannot help with this it seems – for me the barrier is like looking into a mirror and whatever I try is turned back on me. It is as if the barrier is me, seeking to figure out this strange body of fur and feathers. Any defense I use to protect myself from the magic of the barrier, it uses to protect itself from me…”

   Some minutes pass while the three ponies start discussing ideas back and forth rapidly, but eventually Aurora has to excuse herself. “For me, it has been quite a long day and I am exhausted. I must bid you both a good evening. Painless? Might I ask you one last favor this day?”

   The blue Celestial nods, “Of course, my liege.”

   She smiles, “I – I need help getting to my hooves…”

   “And thus it is discovered that I, too, can in fact learn a lesson…” The Empress laughs lightly and returns her attention to the wheelwright’s journal. A few pages flip past under her emerald gaze; notes about crops and other work related items, commentary on a few notable ponies, and finally the part she is looking for…

   Spring became summer and summer became fall… Right before winter settled over the land the foundations for what would be the new town hall were laid.

   As you know Roanoak has a thriving farming community and we grow a great many things that are sold elsewhere in pony lands, and back then it was no different. Fortunately for us the incident left most of the fertile farmlands unharmed and intact, so food was never a worry during that first long winter. We were as prepared as anyone could possibly be I suppose, but it was still a long, cold few months… Our first Hearth’s Warming was wonderful though; through it all our community had become remarkably close.

   The next spring a lot of Unicorn and Pegasus Ponies learned a great deal about farming… You see, right after the incident many farming families took in folks to help keep them out of the particolored refugee camp… Well, spring is a busy time for farming and when it came time to plant, all available hooves were made busy.

   While all of this was going on, the freshly kindled fires of industry had not been extinguished – in fact, ideas for mechanisms that were seen as mere curiosities or simply too cumbersome to bother with before the incident were now perfectly viable and even useful.

   ‘Doctor’ Zap Vandergraph, Unicorn and Wastelands refugee, had taken up tinkering with odd Wasteland’s tech and had made a bit of a personal crusade out of it. He’d had Thrash Darkforge making intricate gears and frames out of brass for a few months, all for the complexities of inventing he had become known for. Mostly old Zap was heard lamenting his lack of a power source better than simple springs though…

   In this regard he had also been experimenting with what we were calling Aetherstone. This strange ore was a product of regular rock that had been exposed to the energies beyond the barrier. The only place Aetherstone could be acquired was around the old town, where Aurora’s spell was weakest, and then it needed to be pulled in via Unicorn telekinesis in the short span between exposure and evaporation.

   It wasn’t easy stuff to get, even dangerous when you think about the hazards of even being in the area around old town…

   But the risks had a reward. Zap discovered that the stone could express two elemental properties, namely fire and water, when given the proper magical push. This of course created copious quantities of steam with practically no fuel.

   The “Thaumatic Steam Engine” was invented.

   That spring the Thaumatic Saw was built in the middle of what would become the town. This iron and brass monstrosity used belts, flywheels and gearing to spin a really big saw blade day and night without pause… And with it we framed, floored, and roofed the entire town in record time. The saw was also put to use building nearby houses, and with it houses were springing up in the surrounding forest like mushrooms! In no time at all families got settled and life for us started to get back to normal… Well, as normal as it could be given our unique circumstances.

   In typical pony fashion, the first business to open in town that spring was a bakery. I still remember the first smells of fresh baked breads wafting through the town square in the crisp morning air. For me, that day marked the first day of the town being open for business.

   Over the next year things really changed for us – central boilers were installed in some of the newer homes in order to make hot water and steam heat… Even the town got a big central steam plant that all of the various buildings are tied into for heating.

   Eventually somepony got a scale model of a locomotive engine running on Aetherstone, and somepony else hooked it up to some Wastelands gizmo that makes ‘electricity’ – again, not my field of expertise, but it does seem interesting – if they can ever get it to go.

   Above all, literally, were the airships. Lifted and driven by the new engines these floating behemoths quickly became the mass transport of choice, mostly because they did not require rails or any of the work involved with laying them – like tunnels.

   So our first five years adrift started difficult, but we quickly overcame all adversity and even excelled.

   But during all of this the spell around old-town continued to shrink, not very quickly mind you – but some were beginning to wonder if we would make it back before all of Roanoak was lost to the aether…

   I personally didn’t think about it much… As my sire would say, ‘leave the worryin’ to them what knows why they need ta’ be worried.” I figured the Empress would figure out something – she always did.

   Eventually the lands that had once been old-town and the villages around it were gone – and the barrier, just a mile distant from town, was still shrinking.

   Every few weeks we would see the Empress’s advisors headed north out of town to try some new spell or gizmo in an attempt to just try and figure the barrier out. Sometimes the Empress and Painless would accompany them as well. And every time they’d come back just as perplexed as when they’d left…

   Eventually though they figured it out and managed to put a hole in the barrier… They tried explaining it to us but land’s sake; those two egghead ponies don’t even speak the same language as us when they’re all worked up!

   All I got out of the meeting was that Roanoak hadn’t really moved anywhere, we were just somehow off kilter a bit – ‘out of phase’, whatever that means – and they’d figured out a way to fix it.

   The ‘fix it’ part we all understood plain enough and there was quite a bit of cheering.

   Three weeks later they executed their plan and without much fanfare the barrier simply faded away as the lands around Roanoak appeared as if out of a thick fog…

   Time is a fickle critter, and one no-pony really understands too well. But apparently what was five years adrift for us was a mere few weeks for the rest of the world – and few knew anything had even happened. One day the lush forests of Roanoak were there, then next everything was gone – and a couple weeks later it was all back pretty as you please.

   The lands we thought were lost to the aether, old-town and Morgan Castle, have reappeared as well – but it appears that hundreds of years have passed there. The river has carved into the land, leaving a bit of a canyon and the fork has dried up completely. The whole place is now covered in dense forest.

   All in all though, it sure is nice to be home…

   The Empress smiles as she closes the book, and it floats back to the shelf where it was sitting. “In the end, it has worked out for the betterment of all I suppose.”

   The Celestial Canis had appeared in her study while she was reading and taken his usual place beside her desk. He surreptitiously glances over to see what the subject of her attention is, and then nods his great shaggy head. “Indeed, my liege. The Long View, always.”

   Aurora chuckles, “All things in their due time – and time is something we have in plenty.”