Risen

by ElementOfKindness

I: Lessons

Prologue: Reflections

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It was not always this way.

Once, these halls were teeming with earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns, where now little but dust remains. Once, this place I inhabit was more than a ruin, was a beautiful piece of architecture, the greatest in the land. Once, I did not have to carry this terrible burden, the knowledge that I was responsible for all the death that occurred that day. The fault was mine alone.

And yet, in this wasted land, hope remains. Ponies live on, despite her attempt to kill them. They are a tough race, one that will live for a long time to come. Though natural selection has been unkind to the pegasi and unicorns, with time I hope, I know, that they will once again be a common sight in Equestria.

But I fear the recovery will be very slow. Society had regressed so far. Few of the ponies who now live in Canterlot are willing to change from their ways, despite the safety they have found in the city. Few are willing to connect with me, as well. Only one has truly accepted me.

When I first met her, she had no name and no one else to protect her. I sometimes fear that she only likes me because she had no other options, but after all the time that had passed, I was willing to accept anything, and I still am. She reminds me so much of Twilight Sparkle. Though she is very young now, I hope one day that she will become just as great as my faithful former student.

I also worry for the knowledge that ponykind once held. All records have been lost and my own mind often fails me; I can recall few memories other than those etched in my mind for one reason or another. I fear the ponies will have to start from the beginning, learning as their ancestors did how the most basic of things work, and this will only hinder the recovery of the species.

One thing troubles me most of all. I still cannot raise the sun. The world remains in the same limbo it has been in for millennia, and there is no greater hindrance than this. The ecosystem had been ruined. It takes a huge input of time to aid plant growth magically, and the scarcity of unicorns only adds to the problem.

Besides these problems, there is another reason about the sun that bothers me. The size of the problem pales in comparison to the others and yet it weighs on my mind just as much, if not more so. I promised Dawn when I first met her that I would should her the sun one day, show her her namesake.

I fear I cannot.

Celestia, hearing the scuff of a small hoof on the ground, looked up from the piece of paper she had been recording her thoughts on. Framed in the doorway of the chamber she was using was a small, white-coated filly.

"There you are," she said matter-of-factly, a comically serious look on her face. "It's time for my lessons."

Celestia smiled. There wasn't really any way for the filly to know what time it was, but Celestia didn't want to down her spirits. She carefully put aside the paper she had been writing on, face down, casting a simple spell that would prevent anypony from being able to pick it up to read it should they wander in here.

"Okay Dawn, I'll be right out."

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Risen

Written by ElementOfKindness

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Lessons

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Celestia walked down the passage, with Dawn running ahead of her. She smiled as the filly dashed around the corner, able to keep up a respectable pace for her small legs, despite her limp. Dawn was always so excited to learn, just as Twilight had been, and her eagerness brought a smile to Celestia's mouth, uplifting her damaged spirit for a time. She stepped through the doorway into the main corridor of the castle, giving the familiar surroundings a glance as she turned towards the courtyard.

Many more passages led off this corridor, though not a single one had a door in its opening. They had all long since rotted away, leaving the hinges grasping mere remains and eventually nothing. The ravages of time had affected the rest of the building, too. The stone was faded and worn, and there were holes in the ceiling and walls where collapses had occurred. Under many of these holes were pools of light, unmoving throughout what passed as day and night in the limbo that the world had entered millennia ago.

All of the beams of light leading to the pools could be traced back through the holes to one source: a great pillar of energy, which Celestia laid eyes on as she stepped out into the open. Though she had been the one to cast the spell, she did not know what is truly was, or how it had come to be. She had done it instinctively and she suspected the Elements had influenced her to create it for some purpose. All she knew was that it had brought some ponies to her and for that she was eternally grateful, even if some of the ponies didn't feel the same way at times.

Even as she walked out into the courtyard, a couple of them spared her a glance, before turning back to their conversations without so much as a nod. She couldn't really blame them. Though she had managed to dispel their belief of her malevolence, the memory of the path of destruction the one wearing her form had carved across the land was still a large part of their lore. In this world trust was incredibly hard to come by, even when one had a clean slate to start from.

Not all of the ponies acted that way to her. A few gave her a smile and one even waved in her direction. It was mainly the younger ones, those who had seen less of the world and the horrors it contained. They were much more accepting than the older, more experienced ones, most of which had learnt the hard way what life was like in modern Equestria. Despite this, there was only one who completely trusted and relied on Celestia and only one she really had a soft spot for. A certain little filly.

Celestia crossed the courtyard, heading toward an archway that had once lead out into one of the castle gardens. Now most of the wall around it had crumbled, causing the two spaces to merge into one. It was the same as every other time. She rounded the corner and saw Dawn sitting against the wall in the shade of the pillar's light. She always tried to act patient, but as always she gave herself away by fidgeting with her front hooves. Her face lit up as Celestia came into view.

"What are you going to teach me this time?"

She always let Celestia pick the first topic, but soon enough it would be Dawn controlling the lesson, asking relevant questions at first, before branching off in a decidedly non-linear fashion to completely new topics. Her thirst for knowledge was insatiable and her mind was always thinking up new things to ask about. Celestia always did her best to reply, but some of her memories had faded over time and she was not always able to provide an answer to the young pony. This time, she hoped to avoid those questions, for she had picked out a topic close to her heart, one she still knew well.

"You remember the Everfree forest?"

Dawn waved a hoof in its general direction. "You mean that one over there?"

"Yes, that one." Celestia smiled. "Well, there is something very special about it, as you can well imagine given it's current state. I'm going to teach you a bit about its history."

Dawn's head bobbed up and down eagerly. She knew well how difficult it was for plant life to survive in Equestria. The tiny amount of sunlight available was woefully inadequate for photosynthesis to occur and few plants could grow without magical assistance... But Dawn didn't want to think about that too much, for fear that she would trigger other, more painful memories.

"A long, long time ago, more than eleven thousand years past, we ruled Equestria from our castle inside the Everfree forest. It was small, a reflection of the relatively few subjects we had at the time, but it was still a grand building. Originally we built it in the forest simply because it was central, but over time we came to find that the forest was much more than it seemed. Through it and around it flowed magical currents of huge power, much greater than any one pony could ever possess. We tried to tame it, but even as alicorns we were unable to harness it's immense strength. It was purely wild, and we named it Everfree.

"Naturally, the forest took on the same name and in the years to come the magic itself was forgotten, with all of the tales of it's power and mystery being attributed to the forest itself. Though we no longer attempted to harness it, we remembered it when everyone else had long forgotten."

"Why do you keep saying 'we'?" Dawn asked, interrupting Celestia. Her mentor's expression flickered, too fast for the filly to notice, and there was a moment of silence.

"I'm referring to myself and my... sister," she eventually replied, the final word barely more than a whisper.

"Oh," Dawn said, picking up on the tone in Celestia's voice. "She's...?"

"No longer with us."

They sat for a few moments, before Celestia broke the silence. "It's ok Dawn. It was... a long time ago." She considered for a few moments more, not wanting to reveal too much about Luna to the filly and unsure how to proceed with the next part of what she had been saying.

"We ruled peacefully for a long time, but then... something happened. An evil being rose, and we were forced to fight. Much damage was done to the palace during the battle, so much that it was no longer safe to inhabit. The evil was defeated, but at a great cost. After all that had occurred, I could not stand to remain there, even though the castle could be repaired with time. So I moved, picking a new suitable spot for the capital, which happened to be here."

She was deliberately ambiguous and carefully selected the moment when she changed from 'we' to 'I'. Dawn would simply think that her sister had been slain in the battle, not that she was the evil Celestia had fought and defeated. It was better off that way; Dawn did not need to know the truth behind what happened with her sister and later, with Celestia herself. Not for a long time did Celestia think she would be ready to know that, an odd instinct telling her to protect Dawn from such terrible knowledge. The dangerous part passed, Celestia continued with her story.

"But, over time, I came to realize something was wrong. Darkness had seeped into the forest during the battle, and had begin to cause a change. Monsters took up residence in the forest, and a seemingly ominous atmosphere pervaded the trees. As always, the ponies only thought of the forest itself, and they began to fear it, to avoid it. But I knew better. The wild magic, the Everfree itself, had been corrupted. By the time I realized it was too late, though I doubt I could have done anything to prevent it in any case, probably even as I am now.

"So I let it be. I kept a close watch over the forest and over... over the village nearby," she said, avoiding saying the village's name. "The Everfree did not try to leave the forest and the monsters rarely ventured outside its borders either, so I thought it safe. It proved to be as such. Few incidents occurred, and those that did were handled by ponies from the village, without need of my or anyone's help.

"And then came The Fall. The sun went down one day, but never came back up. Much plant life died, as did every pony I knew of at the time. But the forest endured. The magic was so powerful, it sustained the trees over ten millennia and though the borders of the forest have moved since then, it is still as large and nearly as dense as it ever was. The Everfree is truly an amazing thing."

Celestia fell silent, her story finished. They both took a moment to contemplate until Celestia spoke again, putting on a light-hearted tone.

"Was that a satisfactory lesson, my student?"

Dawn nodded quickly, happy to learn but already eager to start a new topic. "What will you teach me next?"

Celestia paused a moment, unsure. Normally Dawn thought of something herself, so Celestia had only prepared one subject in advance. Well, she thought as long as I stick to something I know well.

"Why don't I teach you about pony magic? I could-" She cut herself off as Dawn crumpled to the ground, hiding her face behind her hooves and trembling uncontrollably. The alicorn started speaking again, her voice full of concern. "Dawn? Dawn!"

Run run RUN. Not far behind. Getting closer. Running. Running. Almost got me. Almost... STOP. No no no. NO. Trapped. Nowhere to go. Getting closer. Getting closer...

Beyond the terror replaying in her mind, Dawn heard someone calling out to her. Dawn!

It's here. It's going to, going to...

Abruptly she was pulled out of the memory as Celestia grabbed her by her shoulders, gentle but firm.

"Oh, my little pony, I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking... Hush." Celestia pulled Dawn close, wrapping her wings around the terrified filly. She had no idea how she had triggered the flashback: the few she had witnessed had seemed to occur almost at random, with the slightest of provocations. After a short while, the shaking stopped and Dawn began sobbing quietly as the horror of the memory receded. "It's ok, it's ok."

After a few more moments Dawn removed her hooves from her head and wiped her cheeks, revealing the shattered horn that just poked through her straight, pale orange hair. "I, I d-don't want to learn about magic. I c-can't even use it any more."

"That's fine. Why don't you pick something then?"

"Tell me about the sun again," she whispered.

Celestia nodded. 'Lessons' was more or less synonymous with 'story time', but everything she told Dawn was non-fiction and she called them lessons nonetheless. Though she couldn't tell Dawn everything about the sun, the filly still always loved to hear Celestia talk about it.

"The sun was a great ball of fire, many thousands of times bigger than Equestria. It gave off immense heat and brilliant light, but it was so far away from Equestria that mortal ponies could survive under it. It provided the perfect amount of light for plant life to thrive and for ponies to work.

"Every morning I would lower the moon and raise the sun to bring forward a new day, and every night I would lower the sun and raise the moon to begin the night." She had explained the concepts of day and night to Dawn before, even though she didn't believe Dawn would ever get to see them herself. "The moon's presence provided just enough light for ponies to see, but they always slept through the night, waiting for the sun's return. They loved the sun so much that every year they held a summer sun celebration, where all the ponies woke up early and gathered around to watch me raise the sun."

She paused a moment, realizing her speech was heading in a dangerous direction between the topic and Dawn's inquisitive manner. Seeing Dawn open her mouth, she winced mentally.

"Why..." She seemed to be gathering her courage to ask a particularly difficult question. "Why don't you raise the sun anymore?"

Celestia was dumbstruck, completely unprepared for such a direct question. She had been bracing herself for a question that might have led to her sister, and nothing worse. "Dawn, I..." I can't.

The light coming from behind them flickered once, returning to a level more alike to dusk than midday as it had been before. Then they were plunged into darkness.

Comments

[ElementOfKindness]

This was written for National Pony Writing Month and is a sequel to Fallen. Reading Fallen first is not required.
Thanks to ProsaurusRex for editing help and doing the cover art.
Rated Teen for darker themes and some descriptions of injuries. Nothing too heavy.

[Crisslunarflame]

Wow... I can see this is going to be pretty intense! Interesting to see where this shall lead.... Drat, now I have to go read Fallen!