Risen

by ElementOfKindness

II: Darkness

Darkness

---

Celestia dashed around the corner back to the old courtyard. She glanced around, trying to orient herself in the relative darkness, before looking towards where the pillar of light had stood. Little remained of it. The central part of it had disappeared instantaneously, leaving a few small wisps of outlying energy floating in the air, forming a circle of light reaching only a few meters in any direction. As she watched they blinked out one by one, leaving everyone blind with the sudden lack of illumination.

She heard running hooves and more than one thud as ponies bumped into each other or tripped over unseen obstacles.

"Stop!" she called in a loud yet still controlled voice. The majority of the noises ceased and she cast a basic light spell, a faintly yellow glow emanating from her horn. The light revealed a number of ponies in the courtyard. Some were standing or sitting, while others where lying where they had fallen as they tripped over rubble or each other. One mare had a serious looking laceration where she had fallen against some rough stone, her own weight dragging her down the wall and tearing away her skin.

Celestia moved over to her quickly, taking a closer look at the wound, from which blood was dripping in no small amount. The mare shied away briefly, before realizing that there was no point and deciding Celestia was only trying to help. Celestia scrutinized the torn flesh, before raising a hoof and running it over the injury. The mare flinched again at the touch, but her eyes widened in wonder as the flesh stitched itself back together where Celestia's hoof ran, leaving very little to show there had ever been anything wrong with it. She looked up in shock at the alicorn.

"Y-you..."

Celestia just smiled at her, before turning to face the other ponies in the courtyard. They all looked equally shocked, both at what she had just done and at losing their source of light. Surprisingly, Dawn was the first to speak.

"What... what happened?" she asked in a soft voice, almost a whisper.

I... don't know. "The pillar has served its purpose. There is no longer any need for it; It was created as a beacon for any ponies that may have been out there, and here you are." I really hope I am right, Celestia thought as she gestured towards the ponies in front of and around her. One earth pony, his coat a shade of brown, looked dissatisfied with her explanation.

"Oh, and being a beacon was it's only purpose? You may not have noticed, but not all of us can create light at will!" he said in an harsh tone. Celestia's eyes flashed dangerously as she rounded on him.

"Forgive me," she said in a scornful tone. "I clearly didn't think of that. After all, I have only languished all on my own in this darkness for ten millennia." She paused a moment to ensure she kept her temper in check. "I realize you need light, but there is nothing I can do about..." She gestured to where the pillar had been. "That."

"Oh? And how did the pillar appear originally? I saw it form with my own eyes from a long way off, so if you have been here for so long, surely you would have knowledge of how it came to be?"

"I don't... I wasn't in a... coherent state of mind for much of that time."

Her opponent snorted. "Here you are, a great royal alicorn, and you don't even know how to bring us some simple light." He sneered at her cutie mark, the sun on her flank still exactly where it had been for the majority of her life, mocking her ever since she had learned she could no longer raise the celestial body that it depicted. "Well, I know now not to ask help of you again."

The mare who Celestia had just healed gasped quietly and looked to run after him as he turned and walked out of one of the courtyard's exits, but was held back by one of Celestia's hooves on her shoulder. They both looked after him with similar expressions of regret, watching as a few of the older ponies followed after him. The pair could tell from the looks on their faces, subtle though not unreadable, that they were not going to rebuke him.

***

"We cannot rely on her to provide for us, and Canterlot is too dark without a local source of light. Either we find a solution or we leave."

The brown earth pony Steel Venture left no room for disagreement, though he doubted anyone currently in this room would dare to disagree even if they did hold a different opinion. This meeting wasn't even entirely necessary, but it was the quickest way to set in motion the things he needed done.

"We're not all fighters like you, Steel." It was a dark green pony who had spoken, and he was gesturing towards Steel's cutie mark, a sword and a scroll. "Canterlot is the safest spot we've ever found, and I think it would be best if we found a way to stay here."

Steel nodded, looking at him across the stone slab that served as a table. "I can see the logic behind that. But, how can we continue to live here? The princess cannot be trusted, and there are not near enough unicorns to provide the light we need to be productive."

Another pony spoke up. "I dislike the princess as much as you but... is there really anything wrong with letting her help?"

"We survived just fine before we came here." Steel gritted his teeth. "Why should we start relying on others to do our work for us now? She has done nothing to earn our trust, so we will not ask her for help." He sighed in exasperation, then silence filled the room. There was only one solution he could think of, other than moving on. They would leave the city if he asked them, but as long as there was another option...

It would be difficult, but all he had to do was play his cards right and everything should fall into place. Steel turned and walked over to the entrance of the room, leaning through the door frame and fixing Celestia and his wife with a glare where they had been trying to eavesdrop.

"You can come in now."

He turned back to face the others in the room, waiting while the newcomers entered and took up a place along one wall.

"There is a way for earth ponies to obtain their own light. I have no doubt that is is magical, but it is certainly no unicorn magic." He hid none of his contempt for unicorns and the way the world forced earth ponies to rely on them. Some of the others in the room began to look nervous, shooting glances towards Celestia. Others held his gaze, beginning to realize what he was referring to. He flashed a predatory grin back at them. "What? It's not as if I've never killed one of the beasts before."

In his peripheral vision, he saw the alicorn frown slightly in his direction. "Oh, don't worry, princess, these creatures are naught but evil. I'll be doing Equestria a service by ridding it of a few. Then again..." He paused a moment, pretending to think. "I think I may need some help. Any volunteers?"

Not one pony in the room responded. While at least half of those gathered didn't even know what he was talking about, they picked up from the others that it was something to be feared. Steel's gaze flicked to Celestia for a moment before returning to the group gathered around the makeshift table.

"Nopony wants to come? It's a dangerous place, out there. Not somewhere a pony should venture alone." He smirked at his own joke. "You know I'm going to go either way. Surely one of you is brave enough to join me? Safety in numbers and all, you know."

A long period of silence followed, stretching out until Steel began to doubt his assumption had been correct.

"I'll do it."

His face broke into a grin. Celestia just couldn't let one of her precious little ponies go running off on their own. He was confident, but not stupid, and having an alicorn along on the trip would make it almost too easy. Just as a safety net. He had not survived this long by taking unnecessary risks.

"Why thank you, princess. I'll be leaving in ten hours. See you at the gate."

He turned and exited, leaving a room full of ponies shocked at his boldness.

***

"But I WANT to go with you!"

Celestia recoiled a little, surprised at the volume in Dawn's voice. "You cannot come. I would not be able to protect you out there. It is exceptionally dangerous, as you well know." she replied, firm but not unkind. Normally she wouldn't dare to say such things to the mentally scarred filly, but she had no fear of triggering another event with Dawn in her current state and Celestia needed to win this argument.

"I can take care of myself!" Dawn shouted back, her one good eye affixing Celestia with a look of fury.

"You are not going." Celestia was beginning to get uneasy. The last argument she had had was with her sister, shortly before she died, and her inability to win that fight may have been responsible for The Fall itself. The filly didn't respond, but just continued staring at Celestia. The alicorn sighed. It was time.

"Dawn, I know you're angry, but you just can't come with me." Dawn looked to start yelling again, but Celestia held up a hoof to stop her. "There is something I want to give you. I wanted to wait longer, to be sure first, but now is the right time for me to try." The filly gave her a confused look, totally unaware of what Celestia was talking about. "It once belonged to a dear friend of mine, but I'm sure she wouldn't mind me handing it down to you."

It was sometime in the fourth millennium of her isolation that she had figured it out. In a rare moment of clarity, she had been focusing on a rock, studying it, simply because she had nothing else to do. All of a sudden, she had felt a connection to something inside her, something seemingly familiar but at the same time something she knew she had never touched directly before.

She had probed at it and received no response. When she tried to contact it more directly her horn had began to glow with a purple light, unlike her usual color, and a shimmering, sparkling mist of the same hue had flowed out of it. When it had finished, a sizable cloud floated before her, though it quickly began to dissipate. Celestia had realized she could no longer feel it and, panicking, drawn it back into her horn. She had been baffled for a few moments, but then it had occurred to her. She knew what it was.

"Which friend?" Dawn asked quietly, her anger not forgotten but put aside for a moment.

Celestia smiled down at her. "She was my student, just like you. I should never have gotten this from her, but I did, and now there is no reason not to give it to you. I am still not certain of the energy transfer spell, but I think we will be fine. Are you ready?"

Dawn's ear's perked up as she tried to make sense of what Celestia had just said, then she nodded. Celestia leaned down, her horn glowing a soft purple, with wisps of energy floating around it. She held it a short distance over the filly's head and a purple mist started to flow from it, washing over Dawn's still form below. To Dawn, it felt like a cool breeze, cold but not unpleasantly so. It was refreshing.

Celestia, looking down at her, saw the mist stick close to the filly's body, becoming concentrated at a few points. It flowed into her, passing through her skin with a slight tingling sensation, particularly on her forehead and ruined eye. The mist at these points increased in brightness, becoming almost pure white in the center and fading back to purple near the edges of the concentrations. It kept flowing into her until naught but a glowing white cone of energy protruding from her forehead remained, her unseeing eye also glowing pure white.

The filly's mane lifted up a little, the power of the magic at work setting small currents in the air and causing her hair to float around her head. Celestia watched on in awe, never having seen such a thing in all her long years. She waited, the filly's expression unreadable as the magic worked, until the filly's hair fell back down and the light faded out. Dawn blinked several times, before reaching up to touch her face.

"I... I can see properly. My eye..." But her eye had not been the only thing she had felt the magic touch. She reached up with her foreleg and waved a hoof past her forehead. When she felt no resistance her face fell and her eyes began to tear up. "I thought..."

Celestia didn't let her continue. She reached down a hoof and guided Dawn's back to her forehead. This time the filly felt something.

Her horn.

Dawn flicked her head back up from it's downcast position, her eyes sparkling in wonder, and Celestia had to jerk her head upwards to avoid having her face gouged by the newly formed horn protruding from the filly's head. Dawn touched it again, feeling all the way up and down it's length, before glancing around and noticing a small rock nearby. She focused and after a moment the rock shot into the air, flying over the pair and landing a good few meters away. Both ponies blinked in surprise and a moment of silence followed before Dawn spoke.

"...How?"

Celestia understood what she was asking. Besides wondering why her attempt at levitation had contained so much power, the filly was visibly desperate to know where the magic had come from. Celestia had explained to her before why she could not simply heal Dawn as she healed some other ponies, because her wounds were too old and too severe. This was something different and Celestia had not known what to expect, but it appeared to have turned out to be more than she had ever hoped for.

"Raw magic is a very... unpredictable thing, so I can only guess exactly what happened. When not in a raw form, unicorn magic can only be focused through a horn, so it makes sense that it would repair yours once it chose to bestow itself on you. As for your eye..." A slightly pained expression came over Celestia's face. "Twilight was blind in one eye too. She couldn't heal it herself by using magic through her horn, but raw magic follows different laws, so it was able to recognize and regenerate the injury even though you are a different pony."

"Did you say Twilight? As in, Twilight Sparkle?"

Celestia sighed. She had slipped up and mentioned Twilight by name once before and had been forced to tell Dawn about her. She hadn't revealed everything, especially not anything at or around the time of The Fall, but the filly knew who Twilight was and a little about her. Celestia nodded in response to Dawn.

"But she was so powerful!"

"Yes. I suspect that is why the results of your spell were so unexpected, for you now hold that power. When you cast the levitation spell, I noticed your horn glow purple, which I assume is not your natural color. In time, it will return to how it was before, as your own magic recovers and asserts itself. Because you are not Twilight herself, you will never be able to harness the full potential of her magic, but you will still be able to use some of it in addition to your own. Do not abuse this."

Celestia made eye contact with Dawn, her expression showing how serious she was. Dawn nodded, then surprised Celestia by throwing her hooves around one of Celestia's forelegs in a heartfelt embrace. She whispered something, so quietly the alicorn could barely hear her.

"Thank you... mommy."

Celestia blinked, unsure she had heard correctly. Had Dawn just called her 'mommy'? Surely she couldn't think of Celestia like that. But, Celestia thought, it made sense in a way. Dawn had no parents and no other relatives that Celestia knew of. She spent most of her time with Celestia, and Celestia cared for her like any good parent would. So what was she, if not the filly's mother?

The alicorn leaned down to nuzzle Dawn. "You are most welcome."

The moment passed, eventually, and they separated. Celestia steeled herself and said the words she had been dreading.

"It is time for me to go."

The filly sighed sadly but, much to Celestia's surprise, just nodded.

"I know," she whispered.

"Thank you," Celestia replied, tears forming in her eyes for some reason she couldn't discern. "I'll be back before too long. You should practice and get used to your new magic. And maybe try to make some friends, hmm?"

The filly nodded and Celestia leaned down to kiss the top of her head before walking towards where her traveling companion was waiting. There was one thing nagging at the back of her mind, one thing she hadn't told Dawn about the gift she had given to her, but she dismissed it. She would tell her later. Celestia turned her head back to the filly, speaking over her shoulder.

"Goodbye, Dawn. See you soon."

Comments

[Flowey]

Yay a sequel ^^, can't wait to read it.