Equestria is a land of rainbows and pastel-coloured ponies, where friendship is a tangible force and villians are redeemed as often as they are defeated.

It is truly a land of magic, but even more than that, it is a land of stories, from the mundane anecdote between friends to the world-spanning epic. And every story has a happy ending.

But a happy ending doesn't always mean a happy beginning, and it certainly doesn't mean a happy middle. Celestia has manipulated Equestria for over a thousand years to ensure that the dark times are as short and as painless as possible - though doing so may mean breaking every one of the tenets of harmony she preaches.

When faced with a choice between seeing Equestria fall to darkness with the promise of salvation, or fighting to stop the catastrophe by sacrificing the guarantee of a happy ending, Celestia holds the fate of her little ponies in her hooves as never before.

A behind-the-scenes look at Celestia and Luna's actions throughout Season Three.