//------------------------------// // Chapter Five: Meadows of Heaven // Story: Essenza di Amore // by Cerulean Voice //------------------------------// Kaviyayu slowly moved her legs from side to side, feeling the ground beneath her. It was… surprisingly smooth, gentle even, like the surface of the river yet somehow solid. The air softly tickled her coat. It was warm, like a night by the fireplace in early fall. Her eyes creaked open as the pulsing warmth in her barrel disappeared. She ran a hoof along the Crystal Pendant, still around her neck. What… is this place? Am I trapped inside the Pendant again? She shook her head and tried blinking. No, this had to be someplace else; instead of an all-encompassing cerulean, the world beyond stretched into a seemingly endless blue and white void. Twinkling motes of light floated overhead, some passing by her while she rose. As she looked at the ground, she screamed and scrabbled her hooves at the apparent lack of anything to stand upon. She took to the air instinctively, hovering in place. Wha-huh? I can fly? But my wing was broken… Unsure where to place her hooves in the transparent atmosphere, Kavi lowered one further than the others until her hoof found solid ground, then set herself down. She spread her wings, turned her head, and grasped the left one in her mouth, giving it a gentle tug. Far from the searing pain she expected, it felt… normal. Frowning, Kavi released the wing and took a deep breath, walking forward carefully. She looked around the void as she trotted through it in no clear direction. “Hello?” she called out. Hello? “Is anypony here?” ’Pony here? The echoes came back, her only companion in the swirling, sparkling void. “Where am I?” Am I? “Well, well, well. This is a pleasant surprise.” Kavi’s breath caught in her throat, her eyes widening. The deep, feminine voice had come from behind her, intimidating and yet somehow soft at the same time. It was laced with authority, but something else too… curiosity perhaps? She slowly turned around and took in the unreal, impossible sight before her. Her knees wobbled; her legs gave out, dropping her back to the ground. With slender legs and an arcing neck, the pony stood twice as tall as even Kavi’s father. Her body—white as Prismia’s—was topped with a horn over twice the length. A long, glittering mane and tail of many colours flowed around her. A majestic pair of wings, dwarfing Kavi’s own, rose from her back. Golden shoes, a peytral with an inset amethyst, and a tiara adorned her hooves, neck, and crown respectively, all complimenting the blazing sun on her flank. “And who might you be, little one?” the giant asked. Kavi slowly lifted a trembling hoof. “Are… you’re… you’re the S-Sun Goddess. A-aren’t you?” “‘Sun Goddess’?” The pony smiled and closed her eyes with a chuckle. “My little pony, you flatter me. While it is true that I do control the sun, I am no ‘Goddess.’ I am a Princess.” “Princess.” Kavi closed her mouth and shook her head. “Princess… Solest… Sirlest… oh, I’m sorry!” “Never fear, my dear. I could hardly allow myself to be offended by a young filly like yourself tripping over my name.” The princess kept up her radiant smile as she strode forward; Kavi eyed her approach, unsure whether to freeze or flee. “My name is Celestia.” She leaned and crouched down until both of their pink eyes were level. “May I trouble you for yours?” “Um… m-my name is Kavi, Princess. I mean, Kaviyayu. Kaviyayu Samanka.” Kavi bowed her head. “I come from a v-village named Zahara.” “Kaviyayu, from Zahara.” Celestia rolled the name around on her tongue as if tasting it. “Such a pretty name, for a pretty filly like yourself. Hmmm. Kavi… ‘song?’ ‘ballad?’ Yayu… ‘us,’ or ‘our,’ perhaps? Kaviyayu—would you prefer Kavi?” Kavi nodded. “Hmmm.” Celestia lifted her eyes and brought a hoof to her chin. “‘Our song,’ ‘Our ballad’—” her eyes opened fully “—no, ‘Our Cadence.’ My, you do have a gorgeous name. Tell me, Kavi, were you adopted?” “I, uh, yes, Princess Celestia.” Kavi looked up, pink meeting pink. “I actually only learned that myself, just yesterday. I was raised by… well, I’ve called them my parents my whole life, I suppose I shouldn’t stop now… my Mother’s name is Samanka, and my Father is Stamska. I have a big sister, Kartanya, and a little brother, Avran.” “Fascinating,” Celestia said. “All ancient Hordi names. I would very much like to hear more about you all, that is, if you are willing to share?” She smiled, showing off perfect teeth. “Okay, um, yes.” Celestia rose and beckoned with her wings. “Come, Kavi. Walk with me, and share your story.” Kavi nodded and got to her own hooves. She fluttered her wings and tentatively stepped up to Celestia's right side. “Well,” she began, “the first thing I remember about anything was the time I stubbed my hoof on a tree root…” Celestia and Kavi walked on through the endless realm. Celestia listened patiently as the filly spilled out as much of her life story as she remembered; not once did the princess interrupt her, instead only urging her to continue whenever she faltered or asked if her life's recount bored her audience of one. Only upon Kavi's tale reaching the point of Eva's arrival did Celestia stop walking and furrow her brow. “It was really something. She sure scared—Princess?” Kavi looked back at Celestia. “Is everything okay?” Celestia closed her eyes. When she opened them, the smile had returned. “Yes, Kavi. Forgive me if I alarmed you. Please, continue,” she said, retaking her place at Kavi’s side. “Um, sure. Well, after that, Eva told me a whole lot of things about other ponies…” Eventually, Kavi reached the point where the monster escaped from the Crystal Pendant; once more, Celestia stopped walking. Standing still as a statue, she stared straight ahead into the unfathomable distance. “This creature… did it offer you a name? Any kind of word that we might use to identify it?” “Um, well, not exactly,” Kavi said, shaking her head. “It was a really tall mare, just like you. Except it was black, a blue mane… what else…” She tapped her chin. “Oh, its horn was all twisted, and I could see right through its wings.” “You mean it was an alicorn?” Celestia asked. Kavi titled her head. “Yeah, I guess it was. But it was so… I mean, please forgive me but you’re, um… sorta beautiful, Princess.” Celestia raised an eyebrow, the ghost of a smile creeping across her face. “Well what I mean is, this mare was really scary looking—not like you at all. And she could change into any other pony she wanted.” “A smoke monster that looks like me except black, feeds on love, and can change its shape…” Celestia closed her eyes for a moment then opened them. “Truly I have never experienced such a creature before. It’s settled then—I shall call her a ‘Changeling.’ Using your description of her, and anything else Prismia can tell me in later days, I will add her to the Royal Bestiary and try to track her movements.” Celestia sighed. “There is always another foe…” She shook her head. “Forgive me, Kavi. Let us move on. Where did we get up to?” “That’s all I remember, Princess. One minute, Prismia and I had driven the changeling away from our village, and the next, I collapsed and woke up here.” Kavi took a deep breath and looked around. “Actually, I’m still not even sure where ‘here’ is. Where are we, Princess?” “‘Where are we,’ indeed,” Celestia said. “Let me ask you instead, Kavi—where do you think we are?” “Um…” Kavi peered around at the sparkling atmosphere, the endless nebulae, the starry skies that stretched on forever. “Am… I in a dream? I mean, I know my wing is broken, but—” she flapped her wings and looked at each “—here they both work perfectly fine, and I don’t feel any pain. And… I’m talking to the pony who rules all of Equestria… who I’ve never met before.” “Perhaps you are in a dream, then. How are you finding it so far?” Kavi stared at the ground. “I feel… calm. Like nothing can bother me at all. I… I think everything is fine. I’ve been talking for a long time, telling you about myself, and yet I don’t feel like any time has passed at all.” She glanced down at her neck, her pendant shining like the shimmering surroundings. “I feel… loved. And it’s all because of this.” She looked up and stared at Celestia. “What makes me so special, Princess? Why can I do amazing things with this pendant?” Celestia looked off to her right and closed her eyes. A golden glow enveloped her lengthy horn and spread out to conjure up an image: a gleaming, shining city with a towering central spire at its heart. The image zoomed in further until a glowing jewel became visible beneath the spire: a jewel identical in shape to Kavi’s accessory. “Is that… my pendant?” She fondled the jewel at her chest. “You have told me a truly remarkable story today, Kavi,” Celestia said while they both stared at the image. “I have heard your testament of events, but now it is time for me to share a story with you.” “Y-you have a story for me, Princess?” Celestia nodded. “It is one of the greatest stories of all time… except it is no mere myth. It is, in fact, a tale from ponykind’s most ancient history—one not told for many hundreds of years. It ended in tragedy, but I have reason to believe that now, almost a thousand years later, it can finally begin again with you.” Kavi’s eyes widened. “A long, long time ago, before even my time,” Celestia began, the images in front of her flickering and changing, “there was a vicious snowstorm that covered all the land…” The three tribes of ponies, long divided by the barriers of race, blamed each other for the horrible winter. The Earth ponies blamed the pegasi, the pegasi blamed the unicorns, and both unicorns and pegasi accused the Earth ponies of hoarding all of their food and not sharing. Everypony was cold, miserable, and starving. The cruel winter raged on, growing ever more oppressive. After a meeting between tribes failed to yield any effective resolution, two ponies from each tribe set out to find a new land not plagued by winter. But I will come back to them later, for while what they achieved became the stuff of celebrated history, there are few who know and remember the tale of a particular young unicorn filly with a pink coat and a rosy-red mane. This filly came from a loving family who enjoyed each other’s company every day. Everypony who knew the family claimed them to be the most caring ponies in the land; her parents were always welcoming to visitors and strangers. They were very generous with their skills and would often give away portions of their food and wealth to other less fortunate ponies, even allowing their visitors to stay overnight in their home. Unlike most other unicorns, they did not favour any race more than any other, even treating earth ponies with the same respect as their unicorn friends and relatives. But when the blizzard hit, the family began to change. They became as cold as the snow that covered their house. They stopped offering ponies a place to stay. They hoarded their food and refused to share with others, and they even began to accuse each other of taking more than their fair share. While the blizzard raged on, the filly pleaded with her family to stop being so mean and to remember what was important, that they had to work together. Her pleas fell upon deaf ears. She knew in her heart that she had to do something. After she watched her father strike her mother across the face, she made up her mind—she left her town in the early hours of dawn while everypony else was helping to raise the ineffective Sun. She loved and cared about her family so much that she thought only of breaking the winter... at whatever cost. She struck out toward the frozen north, searching, seeking, reaching always for a way to end the winter. The winds bit and gnawed at her coat as they swirled around endlessly. She trudged through field after field of deep snow, her hooves numb. The small pouch of food that she’d filched from the family’s private pantry quickly ran low, and though an icy white ocean swirled around and blanketed everything, her throat quickly became parched as she failed to catch any of it in her mouth. Still, she refused to give up. She loved her family so much that she was willing to do anything to save them from themselves. With the blizzard’s intensity reaching new heights, the filly’s progress slowed. She lost track of just how long she had been walking. Her breathing sped up even as her hoofsteps grew heavy. When it seemed she could go no further, a mountain emerged out of the blizzard in front of her. At its base was an arched entryway that led inside. With her heart in her mouth, she found a burst of energy and ran for it. Out of the freezing winds and numbing snow, she took a few moments at the entrance to catch her breath and look around. Instead of snow, the walls were lined with sheets of ice. Shining blue stalagmites and stalactites grew from the ground and ceiling. The further into the depths she walked, the darker and colder it became. With what little energy she had left, she used her horn to light her way. She felt in her heart that something up ahead could hold the key to bringing an end to the storm. When she came to a wide opening supported by icy pillars, she stopped and gasped at the sight before her. Flying and dancing through the air were many pale white horses, twisting around each other, prancing in circles. She had met the Windigoes: evil spirits of cold hatred. Stepping up off his icy throne at the rear of the cavern, the largest of the Windigoes rose and stared down at the warm pink being that dared to enter his domain. With a rallying cry, he summoned all of the others to his side and rushed down through the air to completely surround the filly. Although she trembled inside their freezing dance, they could neither harm her nor feed on her emotions; all she could think about was her family back home and how much she loved them, and how she craved to see them again in happier times. It was in that moment that a small spark of warmth flowed out of her horn from within her heart and began to swell. The Windigoes galloped, faster and faster, neighing louder and with more urgency, but they could do nothing to stop the growth of the spark. Soon, they and their cries faded away completely and the cavern filled with the warmth of the filly’s love. The cavern’s foundations crumbled. With the ice pillars shattered, boulders and smaller pieces of rubble came crashing down around the filly. Turning around, she fled the cavern, her hooves splashing through the rising water. After leaping through the entrance, she gasped and twisted her head around, witnessing the entire hill collapse upon itself. For a long while, naught reached her ears save for the continuous winds. Her senses returned, her stomach growling, her eyes drooping. With nothing but desperate hunger and desire for sleep as her company, she forced herself to trudge on. The winds gradually died down, and the ground thawed wherever she walked. To her dismay, even with the land returning to normal, it had been dead for far too long, imprisoned beneath the avalanche of despair. No grass grew, no trees lined the distant lands, and even though the snow should have left water everywhere, no trace of it remained. With no food in sight, and her mouth dry as the wasteland she walked through, she finally succumbed to weariness and collapsed. She knew she was about to die. But even with that realisation, she was happy knowing that the unnatural winter’s end had finally come. She had succeeded. The power of her love had overcome the greatest of adversaries. Her family would return to how they had been before. Nothing else mattered. As she accepted her death and lay still to embrace it, a light shone on her from above, piercing her closed eyes. Against her desire to ignore it and welcome the abyss, she lifted her eyelids and gasped. A tall pony stood above her with a radiant smile. Her pure white coat made everything else around her seem dull and colourless. Her sky-blue eyes shone with the light of the sun. Her perfectly straight, short-cropped red mane and tail, deeper red than a rose, hung about her face and rear legs. The immaculate mare lowered her head and smiled as a blue aura surrounded her incredibly long horn. The aura split apart, shooting off in multiple directions before burrowing into the ground around them. The filly gasped again, looking around as the ground vibrated her into a standing position. From every point where the magic had entered the ground, crystals and shrubs of various hues shot up. Within seconds, an entire city’s worth of crystal had sprouted. The scent of a bush with small red growths wafted into the filly’s nostrils. With a glance at the tall pony—who simply nodded—the filly leapt upon the bush and gobbled up a small number of berries. Their juices dribbled down her chin as she munched happily on the life-saving fruit. Her stomach sated and her thirst quenched by the raspberry juice, she sighed and sat down, still taking in the nearby scenery. As she lifted a hoof to wipe away the berry juice, she paused; her hoof shone like a sparkling river in dawn’s early light. Turning in a few circles, she realised her entire body glowed pink. Mouth open, she again faced the majestic pony, who said nothing but reared up onto her hind legs and lifted herself into the air. Suspended in place by the movement of her gigantic wings, the mare’s barrel glowed together with her horn. A bright flash lit the area, forcing the filly to cover her face. When she lowered her foreleg, the filly gazed upon what remained of the mare: a short blue stalagmite topped with the most beautiful crystal she had ever seen. Shaped like a heart, it gleamed and rotated slowly. Curious, not knowing what else to do, she reached out to it with her magic. Another flash lit the area, and she felt a sudden weight. Glancing down, she saw a small sapphire of identical shape, suspended around her neck on a string of beaded amethysts. The pendant shone with the same brilliance as the larger crystal before her, which started to spin faster. A third and final flash—though not as bright as the others—drew her attention just as her flanks tingled. On each side of her rear, yet another crystal heart revealed itself. The filly squealed with delight and fled to the south, guided by the sun once again visible in the blizzard’s absence. When she returned to her family’s dwelling, there was much rejoicing, crying, and wonder. Where had she run off to? When had she acquired both the image on her flanks and the pendant about her neck? Why was she glowing? But most importantly, how could she have worried her family to death like that? After the filly answered all their questions, she learned that six brave ponies had conquered their own demons: Windigoes, exactly the same as the ones she had encountered alone. Facing certain death themselves, the ponies had formed an unbreakable bond, igniting the Fire of Friendship to drive the monsters away. The winter was over, the Windigoes defeated. When the filly met with the Six, she told them her tale. For her bravery, her determination in the face of death, and for displaying the strongest love for anypony ever known, King Bullion—father of Princess Platinum, one of the Six—granted the filly the title of the first Crystal Princess. She would rule over her new crystal kingdom, spreading the essence of love to the world through the power of the Crystal Heart. The images faded away. As Celestia’s tale came to a close, Kavi stood up and closed her eyes. She inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly before again fondling her Pendant. “Princess, you said the filly in the story wore a sapphire pendant. Was this one right here… the same one from the story?” Celestia nodded then held out her leg. “I believe it is. Now, let me point something else out to you.” Kavi turned her head and gaped; a familiar Crystal Heart covered both sides of her rear. “But… but… what? Where did… when...” “There is no doubt about it, Kavi.” Celestia walked over and draped a wing over the stammering filly. “You are here because Destiny recognised you. Think about the story I just told you. Why, you recounted something of a very similar nature to me not long ago.” “What do you mean? I never helped to end an eternal winter,” Kavi said, still staring at her crystal-emblazoned flank. “Well, let us look at the facts—” Celestia held a wing in front of her and began lowering her pinions one by one as she spoke “—you fled your home, realised you had made a mistake, tried to correct it, and defeated a powerful enemy with the strength of your love for your family in the process. You then faced down certain death while thinking only of how to save them all, and inherited the power of this pendant you bear.” “I…” Kavi fell to her haunches. “It’s… really true, isn’t it?” “For true, final confirmation—” Celestia gently pressed a hoof to Kavi’s barrel “—think about the lesson you learned, and how it relates to the magic that powers your Pendant.” Kavi furrowed her brow. “Well, I’ve learned a lot over the past two days, about many things I never imagined were possible. But I think the most important thing I learned was that… when it comes to family, you don’t need to share the same blood to share the same love. F-family will... l-love you… no, no matter what.” The tears came freely. “I love my f-family, Princess. And I always will.” A glimmering ball of light appeared in front of Kavi and began to circle her slowly. It sped up, becoming a solid ring before closing in on her. With a small gasp, Kavi felt herself lifted into the air, despite her wings being pinned to her sides. As it had thousands of years earlier with a different pink filly, a flash of light temporarily blinded Kavi. Pressure built in her forehead, and she gave a cry as she felt something shoot out of it. The light dissipated, dropping her back onto the invisible ground. She lifted her eyes, shook her head, lifted her eyes again then turned to Celestia, shining eyes accompanying the widest pearly smile on her face. “Princess… what just happened?”