//------------------------------//
// Three Stories (Rewritten) 
// Story: SAPR 
// by Scipio Smith 
//------------------------------//


Three Stories


And so it came to pass that the hand of God alighted upon the woman Mary, and the spirit moved within her, and his blessings fell upon her, and she was consumed with the divine grace.
Sunset adjusted the cushion behind her back. Since putting Sun to bed, she had returned to the common room to do what she had intended to do before she found Sun: take the books Twilight had provided and read up on what was known of magic in this world. She wasn't entirely sure what was true and what was religious embellishment, but already, she could start to see what Twilight was talking about: this was a Valish story, one of many lives of the saints from the Valish Orthodox Church, and not only did it begin in the same way as practically every other saint's life that she'd read so far, but there were clear similarities to their equivalents from Anima and Solitas. Sunset had even started keeping track, scribbling down the similarities on a notebook that sat beside her on the sofa.
All women. Age not stated but cultural context (unmarried, often under some kind of parental authority) suggests young when they came into power.
They all come into power. None of them are born with it. Possibly this is the religious element but perhaps truth to it.
Weird dichotomy: either know the previous prophet – or whatever – very well, so well as to be present at her deathbed, or they are complete strangers to one another. I have yet to see any middle ground.
In each tradition, there is never more than one at a time.
That was interesting. If her observations were correct – and if the accounts could be trusted upon this point – then it suggested that magic in Remnant was not something one was born to as a unicorn was, but rather something bestowed upon one like... like ascension, to be frank. It wasn't an exact parallel – you couldn't replace God or the gods with Princess Celestia and the holy spirit with a pair of wings or a horn and a crown and have the whole story still make perfect sense – but it was a better fit than Sunset had expected at first. It made sense, though, the more she thought about it; Equestrian magic was not, the occasional prodigy like Sunset herself aside, a catch-all or a force capable of shaking the foundations of cosmos. It had more in common with a semblance in that it reflected your personality and could range from great to staggeringly limited in its utility. It made sense to her then, when she stopped to think about it, that magic in Remnant would be something else, something on top of that, something reserved only for the chosen few.
The biggest difference – or at least the one that struck Sunset, coming from the Equestrian tradition as she did, as the most bizarre – was that none of these girls seemed to demonstrate their aptitude or worthiness for power until after it had been bestowed upon them.
But who was doing the bestowing? If it was not gods (Sunset wasn't prepared to say for sure, one way or the other) then who? If anyone?
Sunset returned to the story.
And Mary found that she had dominion over the fire and the water and that the gardens would bloom at her desire, and she was sorely afraid, for she did not understand the blessing of God. And the people were sorely afeared, for they comprehended not, and they shunned Mary for the changes that had been wrought upon her.
But then the old man came to the village of Providence and said unto the people there 'Where is the girl, Mary, daughter of a carpenter? I have come from afar seeking after her.' And the people of the village urged him to turn back, for the carpenter’s daughter had been transformed, and they did not comprehend what she had become. Nevertheless, the old man asked again where she might be found, and with reluctance, they pointed him the way.
And then the old man went to Mary and said unto her, 'Be not afraid. Rejoice! For you have been chosen.'
Of course there was an old man. There was always an old man. Often, he played this kind of role, telling the chosen one what they'd gotten themselves into and giving them their mission from God, or the gods. Interestingly, he was never named. He was just an old man, but everybody seemed to trust him anyway. Was it the same man? No, that was impossible due to the broad span of time across which these stories took place; a better question to ask was it whether there was only one ‘old man’ at a time. After all, if all of these religious traditions were just syncretic additions to explain or cover up the existence of magic, then it wasn't too much of a leap to say that there only needed to be one old man at a time flitting across the world explaining the rules.
Although that begged the question of how he was getting around. One herald per chosen one made just as much sense, although that didn't explain why said herald didn't stick around for longer.
Who is the old man, and who told him what was going on? Sunset scribbled, before reading on.
And the old man took Mary away from Providence, and in the wilderness, he taught her to understand the blessing that had been granted to her: to command the fire and water, wind and lightning; to make the desert bloom and bring forth life where before there was only aridness; to comprehend what had been and what could be; to understand that she was now more than she had been, that she had been chosen and a great purpose now lay upon her.
As a rundown of what magic could do in this world, it was pretty comprehensive, and pretty consistent not only with Sunset's reading up to this point but also with Twilight's childhood recollection; flying wasn't mentioned, but that could easily fall under command of the wind. Sunset had already written down a list of her best guesses: based on these somewhat archaically worded statements, magic in Remnant possessed the following attributes or capabilities: 
Elemental control (plus lightning)
Fertility?
Divination?
It wasn't a hard and fast list, and the only ones she was sure of were the ones that Twilight had confirmed with her childhood eyes. The rest were plausible but unconfirmed interpretations; although the narratives were consistent, they were consistent in unfortunately couching everything in turns of phrase that were open to dispute in what they actually meant. Sunset read on.
And the old man saw how she had grown as a flower blossoming amidst the weeds, and he was well pleased, saying unto her 'My child, I send thee forth to spread the good news to all nations; be resolute in the face of wickedness, be compassionate in the face of weakness; be wise, be brave, and be kind in equal measure. Go forth, for you are ready.'
Sunset frowned. This was the bit she didn't understand. Assuming that there was some force that was choosing to bestow magic upon these young women, then why? What was it in aid of? What was the point of it all?
Why does Equestria make princesses? To provide leadership and inspiration.
Yes, in the service of harmony and of Princess Celestia. In what and to what are these saints and prophets in aid?
God? Gods? If there are as many gods as there are faiths, then why are all their prophet-figures so similar? If there is no divinity but only magic, then from whence comes it and, again, to what end?
Why does the old man send her forth? What does he want or expect her to achieve?
Sunset had read a dozen similar accounts, and the accounts of what the girls did once the old man had decreed that they were ready: accounts of miracles, battles against the grimm – and in one memorable instance, with a trio of monsters who seemed themselves to have more than a touch of the magical about them – of how they had converted cities and peoples, or driven wickedness out of them; still, she felt that she was missing something. Perhaps Twilight would have a theory when they spoke again, for the existence of this system that seemed at once discernible and yet also to possess a quality that was tantalisingly outside of Sunset's reach.
I am groping in the dark... but I can feel something beneath my fingertips.
If this is magic, if magic exists in Remnant, then it is not the magic that I know; it is a kind of ascension, once granted for a purpose that is not clear and, if Twilight is to believed, still being granted albeit now hidden from the world for reasons which, again, are not yet clear to me.
By whom, and to what end? Answer those questions, and all will become clear.
And I will know how to obtain this power for myself.



Even though we only got back from our last training mission a week ago, Professor Ozpin has already assigned us another one.
“Raven wasn’t kidding,” Yang muttered. “Two training missions in the second semester, and before they’d even gotten to Armistice Day? Professor Ozpin did push Team Stark hard.” She glanced at Ruby. “You’re not going anywhere again, are you?”
“I haven’t heard anything about another mission,” Ruby said. “Sunset hasn’t talked about it; I don’t think she’d keep something like that to herself, either.”
“Good,” Yang said.
“It wouldn’t be such a big deal,” Ruby said. “What’s wrong with getting out of Beacon and helping people? And besides, you went on a mission too.”
“There’s nothing wrong with helping people, but my mission didn’t involve me stowing away aboard an Atlesian military train so I could try and do what the police and the Atlesian military couldn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of you for helping to catch Torchwick,” – Yang wrapped one arm around Ruby’s shoulders and squeezed her little sister tight and close – “but it doesn’t change the fact that it shouldn’t have been your job.”
“Well… Professor Ozpin didn’t exactly know that we were going to try and catch Torchwick on our way back, so…” Ruby trailed off, waiting for an expression of sisterly disapproval for her recklessness.
“Professor Ozpin knows more than you think he does,” Yang said. “I think he knew exactly what you guys had in mind.”
“You’re starting to sound a little like Sunset,” Ruby said. “She thinks the Professor might be up to something as well.”
“Then Sunset Shimmer might be smarter than she looks after all,” Yang said. “Come on; let’s see what this second mission for Mom and her team was."
But everyone was up for it, and Professor Ozpin said that it was a mission that he could only trust the four of us with; I’m still not sure why that is – there must have been pro-huntsmen or even older students he could count on – but the way he said it made it very hard to refuse. 
And besides, it kind of beats Professor Port’s class.
“It’s kind of depressing, don’t you think?” Yang said. “You’d like to think Professor  Port had been a good teacher when he started, even if he isn’t any more.” The events they were reading about took place in Professor  Port’s first semester, having been promoted following the retirement of his aged predecessor. 
“Sunset says we’re just bad students.”
“Sunset says she can understand what Professor Port is trying to do,” Yang corrected her. “I don’t think even she says he’s doing it well.”
We went up to the top of the tower to see Professor Ozpin in his office. Professor Goodwitch was there too, although she didn’t look too happy to see us. Professor Ozpin introduced us to a woman named Auburn; he called her an old student of his and a friend. Our mission is to escort Auburn to the village of Seclusion, where a girl named Merida lives; we’re then to escort both Auburn and Merida back to Vale. Professor Ozpin won’t say why this girl needs to come to Vale, and Auburn pretty much told me not to ask. Raven is suspicious about it, but I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation. We set off at dawn tomorrow. We’ll be moving through wild territory, so there’s a chance of running into grimm, but if we don’t go looking for trouble, then too much trouble shouldn’t find its way to us.
The two sisters flipped to the next page, crossing the night and arriving at the next day in the blink of an eye.
I’m not sure what to make of Miss Auburn. She laughs a lot, and seems pleasant enough, but there’s something about the way that she laughs that seems forced, strained somehow. It’s like she’s pretending to be a lot more genial than she actually is. She drinks a lot too; every time I look at her, she has a skin of wine in her hand; I think we’re all amazed she can still function, although only Qrow had the nerve to actually call her out on it.
“Did I just read that?” Yang asked. “You read that, right? Uncle Qrow took someone else to task for drinking too much.”
“I guess some people really do change,” Ruby murmured, trying to remember the last time she had seen Uncle Qrow without a flask in his hand.
“Yeah, he went from calling this lady out to following her example,” Yang summed up.
Anyway, as weird as it seems, she can still function, and pretty well actually. We were attacked by grimm this evening, just before twilight. More grimm than I’d expect to see so close to Vale, to be honest: beowolves and ursai. It got bad for a moment. Tai and Raven both had their auras broken, and I had to save Raven before a beowolf took her arm off. 
I was going to use my silver eyes to destroy the grimm, but before I could, Auburn did something, I don’t know what she did, but it didn’t look like any semblance that I’ve ever seen. She was using fire and lightning and wind; at one point, it looked as though she was freezing leaves to make knives. 
She took out the grimm, not me, and then she healed Raven and Tai’s injuries; they were only minor cuts and bruises, but still, she just touched them, and they were gone. And while she was fighting, and while she was doing whatever it was that she did for Tai and Raven, it was as though I was looking at a completely different person: the real Auburn, not the one who pretends to laugh and hides who she really is. Someone serious, but maybe a little sad, too.
“The hell?” Yang said. “Does this make any more sense to you?”
“Mom… could be wrong,” Ruby said, trying to steer the conversation away from the idea of magic; she didn’t like lying to her sister, and more to the point, she wasn’t very good at it, and she was worried that if they talked about this too long, then she wouldn’t be able to keep the words ‘Sunset has magical powers’ from tumbling out of her mouth. “It could be a semblance that Mom had never seen before.”
Ruby doubted that, however. She might have believed it before she’d started reading this diary and had Sunset confirm for her that magic was a real thing that really existed, but now… and Mom had magic too, so she probably knew it when she saw it, even if she didn’t know that she knew it, if that made any sense. Had this Auburn been somebody like Sunset? Mom hadn’t mentioned that she was a faunus, but that didn’t mean that she hadn’t been one; maybe she came from the same place Sunset did and they all had magic there.
Although what Mom had written about didn’t sound like the kind of magic that Sunset did; Auburn wasn’t throwing energy around or making shields by the sound of it. It sounded almost more like dust, only without the dust. 
Another kind of magic, maybe? Ruby decided to ask Sunset about it; if anyone knew, then she would.
“I guess it could be that,” Yang said. “Or it could be something else. Something like her silver eyes, maybe?”
“…Maybe?” Ruby said. “Maybe… maybe we should just keep going. Maybe she’ll tell us… eventually.”
I would have asked her just how she did that, but I had bigger problems tonight:  Raven completely lost it with Qrow, yelling at him that this was all his fault, that he’d nearly gotten them killed. She said something about their family. I didn’t understand it. I just wanted her to stop. I did stop her, but Qrow took what she’d already said to heart. He walked off. I went and talked to him, and I told him that of course it wasn’t his fault, these things happen, that he fought well and that he’s a valuable part of this team. I wish I could be sure that he believed me. 
I’m worried about him. He seemed so upset about what had happened. He seemed to believe that it really was his fault, like he was a danger to the whole team, and he wouldn’t even really explain why he felt that way. 
I wish I knew why Raven had said what she did.
I wish I knew what to say to Qrow to make it better.



The obscurity into which Rudi Antonio has fallen is as undeserved as his ideas are impractical.
Blake sat in the library, reading the Prison Journals that Twilight had gotten her. Tukson was gone, having bustled off somewhere else in the library to… well, to do his job, not to put too fine a point on it; she supposed that since Professor Ozpin had been good enough to offer him shelter from the White Fang, the least he could do was earn his keep while he was at it. 
Besides, having a job made it a lot easier to explain Tukson’s presence on campus; Beacon hadn’t had a librarian before, but that was no reason why it couldn’t have one – it had a library, after all; employing someone to maintain it made perfect sense – while the sudden appearance of a strange adult just idling around the school might have prompted questions. 
Plus, Tukson would have been bored; at least this way, he got to spend time around books, which he loved, so being at Beacon probably wasn’t a hardship for him. 
To be honest, he might even be happier here than he would have been in Vacuo.
Meanwhile, she was sat in the library, reading Sienna Khan’s introduction to the book. She had debated – long and hard – in her head as to whether she ought to bother with the introduction or not. Blake didn’t really need to read Sienna Khan’s words from long ago in order to understand the way the High Leader thought; she had heard her speak, received Sienna’s plans and policies from her own lips, sat at her feet and learned from her. Blake thought – and not without at least some justification – that she could probably guess what Sienna Khan had to say about the idea of peacefully working one’s way up the ranks of institutions dominated by humanity in order to seize control of them from within.
But people could change, or at least Blake devoutly hoped they could, and this introduction had been written a long time ago. It was possible that Sienna’s views had evolved over time, for all that they had evolved for the worse. She had, after all, worked alongside her parents for quite some time before the split in the movement. It was possible that the Sienna contained within these pages was not the Sienna whom Blake knew. 
And she had been curious to find out. 
It wasn’t looking all that hopeful.
Considering that these are his personal journals, Antonio is very guarded about his personal history, preferring to propound his ideals and philosophies. That is all very well for a philosophical and historical text, but at the same time, a cursory examination of his fate shows the naivety of his chosen methods. 
It is important to bear in mind that this advocate of working within institutions, to dismantle their racism from within, was arrested as he was on the cusp of election to the Mistral Council because the other councillors were unwilling to countenance the election of a faunus to their midst. They were unwilling to even brook the possibility that their racist supremacy might be challenged by a member of the despised underclass. 
And yet, Antonio, who spent the rest of his life incarcerated to prevent him from working to achieve change, would spend that time writing of the need to work within existing structures of power as he had singularly failed to do. How are we to explain this startling naivete?
Blake found herself frowning. It was impossible not to see and understand where Sienna was coming from. This was someone who had been locked up by the powers that be, and still, he advocated reform from within those same powers that had imprisoned him? Faunus had been radicalised by a lot less than life imprisonment. 
And yet, at the same time, thinking about that fact – that much less severe offences had produced much more severe reactions from so many faunus – made Blake think that there must be more to it than simple naivete. After all, being thrown into prison to rot would make anyone a lot less naïve about the world works… wouldn’t it? But there was a difference between being naïve and being idealistic; Ruby was the latter without being the former; she knew that the world could be a harsh place – how could she not? – but she chose to see the good in it and in those who lived in it regardless. She chose to see it as something worth preserving and protecting. Perhaps Rudi Antonio had been the same: not blind to the flaws of the system that had imprisoned him, but unwilling at the same time to write it off as so many faunus did. 
She would have to read on and see, but first she would have to finish with the introduction. 
However, this should not be taken as saying that the ideas that Antonio espouses in his journals are without merit. Indeed, I would recommend this book to anyone wishing to better understand the plight of the faunus, for Antonio’s analysis of the structures that maintain the inequalities under which we labour is without peer.
Funny, Blake thought. You never recommended this book to me.
It is only when Antonio comes to the discussion of solutions that his thoughts become absurd. 
It is true to diagnose, as he does, that it is cultural institutions more than coercive power that maintain the system of the world that so disadvantages us. We are not held in chains by the guns of Atlas alone but by the fact that all the world tells us we should be in chains and it is unnatural that we should be free. 
However, Antonio places his faith to effect change in those same institutions and in changing them to change society. Ironically, in his reasons for doing so, he succumbs to the same cultural hegemony that he so presciently identifies: having been conditioned to take the status quo as normal and even desirable and to see the arc of history as a progression out of barbarism and into the light of civilisation, he cannot see the way forward save by becoming part of that progression. 
In reality, if we are to challenge the institutions that constrain us, it will be by building our institutions and establishing our own culture, imbued with a deep belief in the equality of faunus-kind until it is intolerable for any faunus to accept less than what is given to a human.
But you didn’t! Blake thought, with a vehemence that surprised her. It was just… the irony of it was so thick that she could almost choke upon it. Here was Sienna Khan, mistress of the White Fang, writing about how the true obstacle to the equality of the faunus was not coercive power, and yet she had refashioned the White Fang into an instrument of nothing more than coercive power! Blake had heard Gilda tell her about ‘the old days’ of the White Fang in Atlas, when the Belladonnas, her parents, had led the movement. The official history was one of peaceful protests that had failed to garner much support – or, indeed, any great results; that was what Blake remembered of her childhood: rallies, marches, waving placards while her parents spoke. Gilda had remembered something different: the breakfast club that had fed her and her friend – Blake wondered if that consistently unnamed friend had been Rainbow Dash and how she felt about having once been fed by the White Fang – before school when her parents couldn’t; the neighbourhood watch who had kept crime down; the hall where all the moms met to talk shop and help each other out if they were struggling. All gone, under Sienna’s leadership, replaced by a single-mindedly martial focus. Blake’s parents might not have paid much attention to the social or self-help aspects of the White Fang, but Sienna Khan had trimmed down the movement until it was essentially the Atlas military reflected in a fractured mirror. 
And now they’re stealing Atlesian weapons so they can fight even more like Atlas.
If there was any building of alternative institutions going on, it was happening on Menagerie, under her parents. 
Blake blinked, realising that might have been the most positive she had been about her parents’ political accomplishments in… in years. 
Huh. 
Of all the possibilities when she sat down to read, Blake definitely hadn’t been expecting that. 



There are many who came to be known as the Red Queens, bloody-handed women who carved a place for themselves in the unhappy history of Remnant, but there was only one who ever called herself the Red Queen: the first and vilest of them all, her real name lost to history for all that it deserves to stand alongside the worst examples of mankind as an exemplar of cruelty and malice. 
What is known is that she was once a common brigand, the leader of a small band of miscreants hiding in the vast, wide lands of Mistral, preying upon helpless travellers and fleeing in terror from the knights whom the Empress of Mistral, Pyrrha, the Second of Her Name, despatched to keep the peace across the span of her dominions.
Sunset couldn’t help but smile; she couldn’t imagine what Empress Pyrrha, the Second of Her Name, had looked like, so her mind supplied an image of her Pyrrha sitting upon a gilded throne, looking awkward and uncomfortable as she dealt with the petitions of the court. 
She’d hate it, though I daresay it would please her mother.
I wonder how many Pyrrhas there are in her family tree.
She had moved on from the lives of the saints and prophets and was now skimming through an account of the so-called Age of the Red Queens who had brought the Age of Miracles to a close with their barbarism. Twilight said that this was the point at which magic went underground as it were, and Sunset was about to find out why. 
One day, this bandit queen met the Dark Mother
Sunset blinked and read it again. 'The Dark Mother'? That wasn’t a name that she had come across before, and yet, it was used so casually that the author evidently presumed a familiarity with it. 
Sunset scribbled the name down in her notebook as something to ask Twilight about before she read on. 
One day, this bandit queen met the Dark Mother, and the witch offered her the power to do more than to raid defenceless villages and farmsteads: she offered her the power to take all of Mistral for her own.
‘What would you have of me, O creature of the night, in exchange for this great gift you offer?’
‘Nothing but a certain trinket in the possession of the Empress, which was rudely stolen from me in days long ago,’ the witch replied.
And so, the bandit laughed, and with a light heart, she agreed to the Dark Mother’s bargain, thinking little of it.
'Trinket'? An enchanted object of some kind? Sunset hadn’t come across them yet either, but then, she had only just started reading.
And then the bandit hearkened to the witch and listened to her counsel with ears as keen as a fox.
And so, taking only a handful of her most skilled and trusted companions, the bandit queen lay in wait upon the road where the Prophetess Helen would be travelling, and when that good and virtuous lady came riding by, the bandits waylaid her. Though great power had been bestowed upon the prophetess, and she was bold and kind and wise beyond her youthful years, those vile vagabonds took her by surprise and cut her down, lovely as she was and virtuous. The bandit queen cut off her head, and as she smote the fair prophetess down, the gods bestowed all the power that once had belonged to her upon the villain who had laid her low.
Huh? Sunset stared at the page with such a blank expression on her face that if she hadn’t been all alone in the dorm room, someone might have thought that there was something wrong with her. They couldn’t… that couldn’t mean what it said, could it? She was being stupid; there was another meaning to it. There… there had to be. Otherwise it meant… the text itself, the narrative voice, just called this unnamed woman a villain. She was a bandit. She cut off some poor woman’s head, and for these kindnesses, she was rewarded with power? The power that, in Sunset’s previous reading, had been bestowed upon the virtuous even if their virtues had not revealed themselves until after they came into the possession of great power? 
You know, there are plenty of problems with the way that ascension works – starting with the fact that the gift was never bestowed on me – but at least you can’t become an alicorn by murdering another alicorn! Sweet Celestia!
The image of someone cutting off Twilight’s head in an attempt to ascend filled Sunset’s mind and sent a shiver down her spine besides. 
Killer of previous prophet gained her powers; who decides, and what criteria are they using? Sunset scribbled in her notebook. Her brow remained set with a deep furrow as she continued to read.
And when the old man came to her, as he had come to all the prophets who had come before her, to instruct her and to guide her upon her path, the bandit queen scorned him, saying unto him, ‘Fall to thy prayers, old man, I have no need of thee or of thy council. The power is mine, as mine own will be mine, and I will not be the catspaw of thee nor any other living thing that breathes upon this earth. Rather, being now possessed of might unchallenged and unchallengeable, I shall from this day forth order all things as I will, yea, even across the whole of Mistral. For is it not fitting and proper that the powerful should rule, and those that have no power should slink low and obey as the sheep obey the shepherd? This world has beaten me with whips and chains, but I shall flay them in their turn with scorpions.’
Sunset found herself unable to suppress a wince. Stripped of its old-fashioned verbiage, it was the kind of thing that she could imagine herself saying, the kind of thing that she had thought more than once. 
There but for the grace of Team SAPR go I. I mean, I’d hope that I wouldn’t cut off anybody’s head in order to get to the top, but…
She had been so lost when she came to Beacon; Atlas had done so much to grind down upon her, to step on her, to twist her with bitterness… if it hadn’t been for her team, who knew what a few more years of crap might have done to her? It was an uncomfortable thought, that she might be little better than someone who was being lambasted as one of the worst monsters ever to draw breath, to feel that their words would come – or would have come, at least – very easily out of her mouth. 
I am not her. I didn’t become her, and I won’t. My friends will keep me on the right road and will not let me fall.
My deeds will be of a nobler sort; provided they define me, I should be okay.
And so she sent the old man away, and he departed with much sorrow in his heart. It was then that the brigand cast aside her old name and began to call herself a queen, for in her pride, she believed that the power that had been granted to her had granted, too, the right to rule over all Mistral and the lands beyond. Many credulous peasants flocked to her banner, awed by her power, eager to do her service.
Either that, or they were terrified of what she’d do to them if she didn’t.
Towns and villages who resisted her were put to the sword utterly, save only for a single survivor from each settlement to which the she and her host laid waste, whom they sent to Mistral to bring word of these calamities to the Empress. ‘Lady, where are your warriors?’ the people cried. ‘Why do you not protect your people?’ And the Empress Pyrrha wept to hear of the devastations that were being visited upon her subjects.
And the so-called queen began to be called the Red Queen, for she not only drenched the land in blood but herself also, and she found the name pleasing to her ears and took it for her own.
The Red Queen led her army, growing each day with villains sharked up from every low place in the land, to the gates of Argolis and laid siege to it, and at the same time, she sent a messenger to Mistral with a challenge to the Empress: to meet her in single combat before the walls of Argolis and decide the war at a single stroke with both their crowns upon the hazard. 
Pyrrha the Second was fair and virtuous, with a heart so great that it burned at all the sufferings that the Red Queen was daily inflicting upon the people of Mistral. She was yet young and proud and a most puissant warrior of whom it was said that none could withstand her arms, and she determined at once to accept this challenge and put an end to the Red Queen’s villainy once and for all. Yet the heart of the Emperor her husband was filled with sorrow, for he had heard the reports of the miscreant’s inhuman power, and he feared she could not be withstood by any mortal. 
At the gates of Mistral, where Pyrrha’s horse was saddled and waiting, he held their daughter in his arms and begged her not to go forth to this battle, saying to her, ‘My brave wife, this courage of yours dooms you.’
‘If that is my fate, then I cannot avoid it but must meet it with all the valour in my heart,’ said Pyrrha, victor of the people.
‘You have no pity for your child or for your husband whom you shall soon make a widower,’ he replied. ‘This Red Queen shall destroy you, and would that I were better dead, for there will be no more joy for me without you, but only sorrows without ending. Pyrrha, you are wife and sister and mother to me; I have nothing but you and nobody but you; take pity on me now and on your little girl and do not go forth to a battle where there is no victory.’
And Pyrrha of the flaming hair replied, ‘My lord, I, too, am filled with trepidation, but I would be shamed before the great-hearted men of Mistral and their wives in trailing robes were I now to shrink thus from the fighting like a coward. My foe has sent for me, and I cannot refuse. Nor is it in me to hide between the high walls of my city, since from my earliest youth, I have striven to excel in arms and win great glory for my house and for myself. I must go. For me, there is no other path.’ And so, great-hearted Pyrrha reached out to take her daughter, but the child, frightened by the bronze of her helmet and the tall burning crest of crimson horsehair that stood tall upon it, took fright and cried out, clutching at her father’s chest.
Then her great lady mother laughed aloud, and her lord father too, and Pyrrha swept the helmet off her head and took her daughter in her arms and kissed her, saying, ‘Grant that this girl may like me be foremost amongst the Mistralians, as strong, and a greater leader of this city and this land; and grant that they may say of her ‘she is a better prince than her mother ever was’ that her father’s heart may rejoice.’
And with those words, she mounted her horse and rode away and was never seen again by mortal sight. Long they looked for her coming from the high towers of Mistral, but she did not return by mountains or by sea. Instead, it was the Red Queen who arrived at the Mistral gates and laid the Empress Pyrrha’s broken sword before them as a token of her victory.
Pyrrha’s broken sword. It wasn’t her Pyrrha, of course. Pyrrha wasn’t dead, she hadn’t ridden anywhere, no monster possessed of powers near to divine had challenged her to single combat, but… perhaps it was the way that the names being the same had caused Sunset to imagine the Mistrali Empress as her teammate, but what had started as the amusing image of Pyrrha sitting awkwardly upon a throne… it didn’t seem so funny any more. For just as Sunset could fit the sentiments of the Red Queen, if not the language itself, into her own mouth, so too could she hear the sentiments of Pyrrha the Second echoing out of the mouth of her Pyrrha in the right circumstances. She could see her, before the gate, Jaune holding their daughter in his arms as he begged her not to go. And yet, she went anyway, turning away from him and mounting her horse, riding away, never to return. She would go, in those circumstances, just as her ancestor had. She would go because… because that was what a hero did.
And in the going, she would be lost to them.
I won’t let that happen. We won’t let that happen.
Pyrrha isn’t going to die. I won’t let her.
Sunset started to skim through, past the bit where the Red Queen seized control of Mistral to the reappearance of the Dark Mother – whoever she was – demanding her pound of flesh.
But the Red Queen laughed at the bargain they had made, saying to her ‘Get you gone, old crone; the sight of you offends mine eyes. I have no need to honour any bargains, for all that I have is the fruit of mine own strength and what my bold heart has won for me. Go, lest I should strike you down for your impertinence to make demands of me.’ And the Dark Mother departed with her heart full of wrath.
Sunset skimmed a little further, to when the Red Queen died, peacefully in bed at what, all things considered, could only be called an unfairly old age. 
And no sooner did the eyes of that most wicked of queens close than did her daughter stride out and say unto the people, ‘The Queen is dead! I am your new queen!’ But when the people cried out to her to show them her power, she could not, and all knew that the gods had forsaken her.
But the sorrows of Remnant were far from over, for in every corner of the world, new red queens would rise and set the world to bleeding.



No philosopher should fear that his work will be superseded by those who come after them. Indeed, I feel that they should welcome it. 
Perhaps it will seem to you who read my words in some later time that I protest too much when I say that I look forward to the day when future scholars will write in introduction to my work ‘Antonio makes a trenchant point, but also talks a good deal of rot, as later events have shown’.
Blake smiled. Perhaps Rudi Antonio did protest too much, perhaps he was trying to convince himself of something that he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe, perhaps he was even using the mortality of his work as a proxy to confront his own mortality in prison, but the fact that he could even write such a thing was, in its own way, quite charming. Sienna Khan had, indeed, done exactly as Antonio had wished that someone would, but somehow, Blake thought that she wouldn’t be so charitable to someone daring to critique her own thoughts in such a manner. 
Even more do I look forward to the day when my thoughts, set down here in this little book, have been rendered completely obsolete by events, when the faunus no longer have to struggle for equality, no longer have to fight to hold place with men, when a faunus sitting on the Council of Mistral or commanding the armies of Atlas or being headmaster of Beacon is as unremarkable to human and faunus alike as a rainy day – a rainy day anywhere but Vacuo, I hasten to add. 
The smile remained upon Blake’s face. Alas, that they were not there yet. Even if all of Rainbow’s dreams and ambitions came true, her succession to General Ironwood’s dual seats of command would still be a great novelty, a talking point, something for bigots to mutter angrily about and those who wished to be thought virtuous to point to and say how wonderful they were, that they had permitted a faunus to hold such high offices of state. 
We’ve got a long way to go.
That day may be far off now, but I dream of it nonetheless. In this place, I have little to do but dream, and yet, the fact that I can dream – and write – makes the absence of other diversions bearable.
My cell is eight feet wide and six feet deep; walking up and down it gives me little exercise; I fear I am becoming unfit, even on the meagre diet which is the lot of a prisoner. And yet I can still dream, and in my dreams, I am free to imagine the better world which, I trust, future generations shall create by their labours. 
It is my hope – a proud hope, but a hope nonetheless – but the thoughts I pen here may be of assistance in that endeavour. 
All of which is a long digression from my point, which is that no philosopher should fear or be insulted if some later writer impugns him somewhat or does not accept the older notions wholeheartedly and without critique. Thought must advance, even as technology does, if society as a whole is to move forward. 
All of which – forgive me if I repeat myself; I have not the services of an editor in this place – is to say that I mean no offence to Karl Feuer when I say that I disagree with him and that, in fact, a part of my intent is to explain why, in my humble opinion, he is mistaken.
Feuer was a human, but that should not stop him being read by all who care seriously about the oppression of the faunus – indeed, of all oppressed peoples, for the human who labours in the Mantle mines in these days is no less a slave than the faunus who risks death beside him. 
Blake had, in fact, read Feuer, and she would even agree with Antonio’s assessment: if one wished to understand, at least in part, the plight of the faunus, then Feuer’s diagnosis of economic inequality could not be bettered. And yet, at the same time, she had felt as though she was reading the work of someone fundamentally mistaken in ways that she could not explain.
Perhaps Antonio was about to elaborate on that. 
And yet there is a deep vein of historicism in Feuer of which we should be deeply sceptical. Feuer sees a revolution of the underclass as inevitable: at some point, the workers will tire of their oppression and rise up to establish a more equal society. That is why the working class are ‘the class to whom the future belongs.’ 
And yet, this has not happened. The elites who control the kingdoms – at least the kingdoms of Mistral and Mantle-Atlas – have suffered military catastrophe, the collapse of the old monarchies and many of the ancient legal privileges of the noble caste, the loss of much territory to the creatures of grimm, have presided over loss of life on a scale unseen in history, have in their pride and folly brought our world to the brink of ruin, and yet there has been no revolution to tear them from their high places. Indeed, with the literal and metaphorical rise of Atlas, they seem more entrenched now than ever before. Even the Faunus Rights Struggle – to which I hesitate to attribute the word revolution – was an attempt by the oppressed not to overthrow the system but to join it, and to do so moreover at a level not greatly removed from their previous condition as slaves. 
That’s a little unfair, don’t you think? Blake thought. I think we should give the faunus who fought in the war the credit of accepting that they knew exactly what they were fighting for. 
How are we to account for this? Why is it that, far from being the inevitable, the revolution predicted by Feuer appears now to be an unlikely occurrence?
The answer is not to be found in coercive power. Turn your gaze away from those Atlesian airships! Impressive as they are, harbingers of the future of warfare as they may be, they are not the cause of our condition. Indeed, even when technology advances farther than it has presently, there will never be a fleet or army so vast as can hold a people in subjugation against their will.
No, the answer lies not in coercive power, but in the hegemony that the establishment enjoys over culture and, though culture, thought. Put simply, the ruling elites develop a hegemonic culture so that their values, self-serving though they may be, nevertheless become the commonsense values of all. So successful have they been at this project that even a faunus may identify their interests more closely with the ruling elite than with their own people striving for change.
Blake had to laugh. She couldn’t help it. She knew that you weren’t supposed to laugh in a library – although apparently you were allowed to play loud board games in there – and she also knew that it was probably a little cruel to laugh at a good person trying their best, but even so, she had to laugh. She had to laugh because Rudi Antonio had just described Rainbow Dash to a T in this book that was supposed to persuade Blake that Dash was right. 
The unthinking, reflexive patriotism, the thoughtless assumptions about ‘the way things are,’ the inability to see change except in increments within an established framework, the identification of herself more with the Atlesian elite like Twilight and General Ironwood than with poor struggling faunus… it was all too perfect. 
And yet, this was supposed to vindicate Rainbow Dash in Blake’s eyes. Perhaps Twilight had simply misunderstood the book. 
Or perhaps I need to read further on.



I feel a lot better about Auburn now. It’s like, now that she's shown us some of what she is – although she still won't explain; even when Raven asked her straight to her face, she wouldn't answer – she doesn't feel as though she needs to hide who she is. She doesn't laugh so much, but considering how fake and forced her laughter sounded, I think that's probably a good thing. She was a big help to me with Qrow. I talked to her, and she helped me find the words to tell him what I was trying to make him see: that he's my teammate and he matters to me.
I'm sure he matters to his sister too, even if she was mad at him.
I haven't spoken to Raven about it, but when we get back to Beacon, I'm going to suggest that she should apologise. I'm sure that her aura breaking with all those grimm around was scary, but there's no way that it could be Qrow's fault.
I can't understand why Qrow seems to believe it was. It was just bad luck is all.
Qrow seems a little better now. He still blames himself, but he doesn't seem quite as bitter about it as he was, which is something, even if it isn't perfect. I’ll take it for now. I wish that I could make everything better, but if all I can do is make him feel valued in this team, then I'll do that and hope it helps. It's little enough, but from the way Qrow talks, I'm afraid it might be more than he's gotten from his family.
"We should skip this," Yang said. "It feels... wrong, reading this, don't you think? Like we're prying into Uncle Qrow's secrets."
"Yeah," Ruby agreed, feeling a weight of guilt at what they had already read settling on her stomach. "It's not like Mom, where... you know. Uncle Qrow... it doesn't feel right."
"Let's try the next page," said Yang.
We arrived in the village a little after first light, having encountered no more grimm than the ones that attacked us on the first day out of Vale. The girl Merida lives near the centre of town, and to be honest, I was expecting her to be younger. Professor Ozpin, Auburn, none of them talked about her age, but I assumed she'd be a child. She's actually older than I am, if not much. It seems wrong to call her a girl. The woman Merida.
She still lives with her mother, though, and her mom wasn't too happy to see us.
Well, when I say 'us,' I'd say she wasn't very happy to see Auburn. She barely seemed to notice us at all, but she gave Auburn a real earful about taking her daughter away. Merida herself was quiet; she seemed a little scared of something, though I'm not sure what, and I won't find out because when Auburn went inside the house to talk to the pair of them, she left us outside. There wasn't a lot to do until they came out except listen to Qrow and Tai complain about it until Raven told them both to shut up. Then there was enough for me to do in stopping an argument from breaking out. I actually agreed with Raven about that – the guys were getting a little annoying – but she didn't have to say it like that.
Since we had time, I took her aside and tried to talk to her about her attitude.
Raven didn't laugh in my face when I suggested she ought to tone it down. I guess that's something. She did look at me like I was a bit of an idiot though. We ended up talking a lot about Professor Ozpin; Raven thinks he's keeping things from all of us, but from me especially.
“She reminds me of Sunset sometimes, the way Mom writes about her,” Ruby admitted. “I don’t… I’m not sure that’s a good thing.”
“Hmm,” Yang murmured wordlessly.
Ruby winced; it probably hadn’t been a good idea to say that out loud. “Let’s, uh, let’s keep going, okay?”
“Mhmm.”
I think she's right. The professor is definitely keeping things from us, and from me specifically. The difference between Raven and I is that I don't think that necessarily has to be a bad thing.
We're just kids. We're still in our first year at Beacon, and already, Professor Ozpin has shown us so much trust, even what you might call favour. He's given us training missions ahead of any other team, and unlike Raven, I see that as a good thing. I don't know about her or Qrow or Tai, but I'm here to help protect the world against its enemies, to save it if I can; if I can do that instead of sitting through Professor Port's class, I'll do it. And that's without mentioning the way that he's helping me with my powers; why would he do that unless he wanted to help me reach my full potential as a huntress? Why should Professor Ozpin tell me anything? Who am I? Who are any of us that we deserve all of his secrets?
Maybe he is using me – maybe he's using all of us – but if he is, then it's in a good cause, a cause that I would gladly be made use of in.
"See?" Ruby demanded, looking up at Yang. "Mom gets it."
Yang frowned, and a huff escaped her lips. "Ruby, I... never mind."
"What?" Ruby asked. "Come on, you can say it."
The frown on Yang's face deepened. "We have to hear this from Mom through her diary because she's not around to tell us herself," she said, the words galloping out of her mouth as though she were in a hurry to get rid of them. She grunted. "I don't know exactly what happened, and I don't know that it had anything to do with the professor or silver eyes or any of this stuff, but... I don't want that to happen to you."
Ruby stared at her elder sister for a moment. "I'm training to be a huntress, like Mom. It could happen."
"That doesn't mean I want to think about it, and it doesn't mean that I want to encourage it!" Yang cried. She shook her head. "It's not wrong of me to want to keep you safe for just a little while longer."
What does 'safe' even mean, really? Ruby wondered. She wasn't surprised at what Yang had said. Even Sunset, for all that she was really smart, didn't seem to quite get all the time what they were doing here. The way Sunset talked about glory and being heroes and their fame, it was almost as if she thought that they were going to live forever, like it hadn't occurred to her that they might die at any moment. As though she hadn't quite realised that death stalked their profession more persistently than any grimm.
Ruby hadn't been able to believe that since the day that her mom hadn't come home.
But she was here anyway, here at Beacon, learning to follow in Mom's footsteps because she knew, the same way that her mom had known, that this was right and just and necessary.
Yeah, she'd be lying if she denied that the coolness of being a huntress didn't excite her, she'd be lying if she'd said that wasn't a part of what attracted her to it, all the stories of great huntsmen in the books and all the awesome things they did. But there were a lot of cool jobs. Being a movie star was cool, being a singer was cool; being the voice actor in a cartoon was pretty cool too, but Ruby had never wanted to be one, or a singer, or even a movie star. She wanted to be a huntress because the world needed help of the kind that Ruby Rose could give it.
"Yang," she said. "I don't know what happened to Mom either; but whatever happened, I'm sure that she didn't regret a single decision that she made-"
"How can you say that?" Yang asked. "You don't think that she'd want to be here now, to watch us graduate-?"
"Not at the cost of turning her back on the right thing," Ruby replied firmly. "That's not who she was." That wasn't the person she remembered, however vaguely, and it wasn't the person she was reading about in this journal.
Yang sighed. "I don't want to see you get hurt," she said. "Is that a bad thing?"
Ruby shook her head. "I don't want to get hurt either," she replied, "but if that's what it takes... do you want to stop or shall we keep going?"
Yang hesitated for a moment. "Let's see what else she has to say."
Anyway, eventually Auburn came out and told us that Merida had agreed to come back to Vale with us. I don't understand why, or rather I don't understand why Merida decided to come; I talked to her and learnt that she used to be a Beacon student, but after graduation, she decided not to become a huntress but to come back here and defend her village instead. She wanted to be able to help the people she cared about without being given orders that would take her away from them. I think that's fair enough, even if it does mean she has to live with her mother because she can't afford a place of her own.
But it means I don't understand why she's leaving her village now. She told me that Auburn and Professor Ozpin were going to help her protect her village in a way that she never would be able to otherwise. She wouldn't say more.
I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that there are other kinds of magic that Professor Ozpin knows about and I don't; Auburn and Merida probably don't know about silver eyes.
If these are the secrets that Professor Ozpin chooses to keep from us, then fine by me; I don't need to know everything. And whatever the professor does, and whatever he tells or doesn't tell, there isn't a doubt in my mind that it's all for the greater good.



We cannot build counter-institutions.
That’s bluntly put, Blake thought. No wonder Sienna doesn’t think you give the idea enough consideration.
One need only cast a cursory glance over the history of the kingdoms that have risen and fallen in Remnant to understand that no ruling class will tolerate the emergence of a state within a state, especially one that is composed of an underclass deprived of rights in the ‘mainstream’ society.
Okay, you’ve got a point there. A point underpinned by your own life, sadly.
Even though the supremacy of humans is established through hegemony, the elite will not hesitate to use coercive power against any challenge to that hegemony.
I can believe that too, unfortunately.
And besides, so great is the hegemony that the elite have achieved, so complete is their control over all existing cultural institutions, that any attempt to establish alternate institutions of any kind would be a hard task indeed. In what soil would these institutions root themselves, how would they sustain themselves, what audience would they find? One need only look at the – universally low – circulations enjoyed by counter-cultural journals, magazines, and newspapers, especially when compared to the popular media, to understand the scale of the proposition confronting such a path. When the ideas that underpin human supremacy are so entrenched in the popular imagination that even to suggest that the faunus ought to be given a measure of equality is to be treated both as a figure of ridicule and a dangerous menace to polite society, who would partake in new institutions that challenge everything that is commonly believed to be ordinary, respectable, or decent? 
A few idealists cannot create a new culture single-handedly. There must be an audience eager to consume it, and I do not see such a thing.
No, our best chance – I would say our only chance – is to work within the strictures of the society that we seek to change. 
Okay, now you agree with Rainbow Dash.
It will not be an easy task. In fact, I must confess that the march through the institutions of power and influence – dominated by elites as they, and geared as they are towards our oppression – will be a longer one than that undertaken by any general in any war ever fought in Remnant. But it must be undertaken. For the good of all faunuskind, it must be undertaken. We must enlist in the military and serve in the police forces; we must get jobs in the vast bureaucracy of state that turns the lofty directives of the Council into actions that touch upon the lives of ordinary men. We must send our children to the academies, combat and cultural. We must report the news, we must appear on film, we must write the movies and direct them too. We must ensure that there are faunus present in every part of the life of the kingdom and in the cultural life of those who live in it. 
It is not enough to have a single faunus in a single room, though they be the most highly placed faunus in the room. We must be everywhere, until the outspoken amongst our enemies rage ‘not another damn faunus!’ Only then can we begin to change the culture.
And only once we have changed the culture can we change the world.
Blake shut the book and pushed it perhaps an inch away from her. 
It was not quite what Twilight had led her to believe it was, but then, that wasn’t too surprising, since apparently Twilight had never read it. 
All the same, it had become something other than what Blake had accepted, something that, if it did not condemn Rainbow’s ambitions, at least thought them… naïve, if that was not too unkind a way of putting. She might succeed; she might even succeed General Ironwood, but the words were written right there in black and white: it would not be sufficient to have a single faunus in a single room, though that room was the Headmaster’s office or the Atlesian Council Chamber or the heart of a warship. 
It was not so surprising to her that General Ironwood and Twilight didn’t see it that way; it wasn’t even a surprise that Rainbow Dash herself couldn’t see that her rise, much as it might gratify her and her supporters, was not enough by itself. They were all, as Antonio would say, caught up in hegemony, brainwashed almost into accepting the status quo with all its flaws. 
Blake meant no arrogance by it when she thought that one advantage of growing up outside the kingdoms was that she was less marinated in the culture of those kingdoms and all the assumptions that went with them. 
One faunus was not enough. 
Which is why it needs more.
Blake frowned. The thought had stolen into her mind unbidden, but now that it had so crept in, it proved very hard to dislodge. And who was to say that Rainbow didn’t already know what Antonio had proclaimed, and that was why – or part of the reason why – she sought Blake’s help in Atlas? Just because she hadn’t said it out loud didn’t mean that she was unaware. 
One faunus was not enough. Two faunus wouldn’t be enough either. 
But it could be better.
Blake frowned. She hadn’t made a decision. She wasn’t sure what she wanted. 
But she couldn’t deny that… there was a temptation. 



In the four corners of Remnant ruled four queens. Four queens and no justice.
Never more than four, Sunset thought. She was nearing the end of the book that Twilight had given to her, and as well as the end of the text – large chunks of which she had admitted to skipping in order to get a general feel of events too far back to have been covered in history classes – she had a feeling she was nearing the end of the era of the so-called Red Queens. 
There were no more prophets now, no saints performing miracles or carrying out the commands of the old man to spread the good news of whatever faith was promulgating these accounts. They were all gone now, hunted down and slain, and in their place, there were four queens – only ever four queens – who toppled ancient thrones and tore down the walls of storied kingdoms to exalt themselves above their fellow men in orgies of violent bloodshed. 
Only ever four queens. Never more, never less.
Four queens, Sunset scribbled. Seems like a hard limit.
She was coming to believe that there was no omniscient being bestowing these gifts, whatever the legends might say. No God, no gods, no spirits choosing to pass down their blessings upon anyone. Receipt of the gift of magic was not the ascension to which Sunset had sought to equate it in her head; there was no Celestia looking down upon the young, ambitious unicorns and deciding that Twilight Sparkle was worthy to ascend while Sunset Shimmer was not. Had they both been born in Remnant, then Sunset could have ascended via compassing the death of Twilight, and the fact that she would have made herself a murderer would – if these legends be true – have proven no obstacle.
Sunset didn’t want to believe that there was a god out there who thought it was a good idea to bestow power on the people who had just cut down the previously chosen recipients of it; if they existed, then she never wanted to meet them.
Let us assume then, for the benefit of my sanity if nothing else, that the magic is not bestowed. No one is chosen for it, except in a metaphorical sense that the magic must go to someone – there cannot be more or less than four people, all young women who have the power – but no being with a consciousness makes a decision on who should get it. 
It just goes to someone. 
From that perspective, the wonder isn’t that it went to someone unsuited for it, the wonder is that it took so long.
How does the magic transfer? Sunset wrote. Kill equals get power. Power sometimes went to someone at the previous holder’s deathbed. Other times to strangers. 
Does this have rules? Power to the last person you see if eligible?
Sunset decided to keep reading, although there hadn’t been any answers to this question yet, maybe there would be more to come.
The wizard
Sunset read that again. What wizard? Is that the same as the old man from before? Or an old man from before? Why suddenly call him a wizard now?
The wizard was filled with despair, as he saw the gift that the gods had given to mankind turned against them and become a tool for wickedness, and as he despaired, so did the world despair, and the grimm fed off the despair of the people and multiplied.
And the people, harried by grimm and tormented by their four queens, cried out ‘Please, save us!’
And the wizard set forth to answer their prayer.
He gathered around himself five faithful companions, warriors renowned both for their skill at arms but also for their virtue, pure in heart and without a trace of wickedness in their souls: the Crimson Death, swift of foot and great of valour; the Summer Flame, whose heart did not burn less than the fire in her hair with rage at the pitiless cruelty that stalked the land; the Gilded Knight, whose courage sprang from a fearful heart; the Marble Girl, renowned for her honour as much as her peerless skill; and the Shadow, a humble faunus whom the others had freed from slavery. 
Sunset’s eyes narrowed. Perhaps it was unbearably egotistical on her part, but she couldn’t help but feel that there was something familiar about those descriptions. 
Well, I already knew that people recur across universes; is it really so surprising to see them recurring across time as well?
I wonder how many Celestias there have been in Remnant across the thousand years Princess Celestia has ruled Equestria?
Together, they made a sacred vow, that they would hold fast to their fellowship with one another come what may and that they would redeem the world from the cruelty of these queens or perish one and all in the attempt. 
And so they set forth, these five heroes and the wizard who had assembled them, journeying under cover of night and hiding their faces from the spies of the queens, travelling through the lands of the grimm and enduring all the perils of the road.
Sunset skipped ahead to the interesting bit: that these six heroes had, one by one, hunted down the queens and killed them all… and that, to all appearances, was that. No new queens rose up to take the places of the dead ones. No new prophets, no more saints. The age of miracles was over, and when the Age of the Queens, too, passed, nothing else replaced it except, perhaps, something approaching modern history of the kind that would have been familiar to Doctor Oobleck. Magic was done. 
And if Sunset had believed that some divine or divines was controlling who got magic, then perhaps she could have believed that; it would have made sense that any god handing out such gifts would have turned away at the sight of what had been done with them… except that they would have done that long before the wizard and his companions hunted down the last red queens and brought the time of magic to a close. And then there was Twilight’s eyewitness account and the fact that there was a subculture of true believers tracking magic through the ages. All of which indicated that it hadn’t gone away it had just… what? Stopped being so obvious? Why? Why would everyone who was fortunate enough to receive this gift just suddenly be okay with hiding their light under a bushel?
I wouldn’t, in their place.
Why hide? Sunset wrote. Why hide your own magic? Why hide magic more generally? Was someone forcing them to hide? That made a degree more sense than all the inheritors of magic deciding on their own to keep it secret, but then, who would have the power to compel them, and over such a long span of years, how would such a policy be faithfully maintained? You’d have to assume a vast global conspiracy stretching down through the centuries, and that… that was just a bit farfetched; you’d need to be Celestia in longevity as well as wisdom in order to set up something like that. 
I’ve been reading too long, Sunset thought. I have some answers, but mostly, what I have are even more questions.
Why do I feel as though the answers are so far away… and yet at the same time right under my nose?