//------------------------------// // Epilogue // Story: Rising Fire // by Chengar Qordath //------------------------------// Twilight I knew getting back to Equestria was going to be interesting, considering how much I had to explain to everyone. The instant Rising opened the portal, I realized it was going to be even more difficult than I’d expected. Celestia and Luna were waiting for us at the old ruined castle, each of them decked out in their arms and armor. They must have detected the magic of the portal Rising had created, because rank upon rank of the Royal Guard had gathered and were ready to meet any oncoming threat. My friends were there too, even if Rainbow looked like she’d snuck out of the hospital with all the thick bandages covering her head. My personal guards were on the scene too, though it was hard not to notice that Twinkleshine was leading them instead of Storm. My captain’s absence was an all too painful reminder that solving this peacefully and with everyone happy might not be that easy, especially if she’d... I didn’t have time to worry about that. Both of the Royal Sisters’ horns lit up the moment Rising and I emerged from the portal, and Rising came to a halt. Rising’s gaze swept over the force gathered to fight her, though whatever she was thinking was hidden behind her metal face. We had left the undead Rainbow and Rarity behind both to help de-escalate things, and make sure they didn’t get hurt. If things did explode then there was a good chance Rising would survive to return to her phylactery and rebuild her body, leaving me and Starlight to explain things. That idea seemed even wiser as we faced a full army ready to attack the perceived invader. Celestia leveled her horn on Rising. “Release Twilight Sparkle at once, or—” I placed myself between the Celestia and Rising to stop anyone from throwing the first spell. “No! Wait! Don't attack! Please!” Celestia didn’t immediately attack, but she and her sister kept her guards up. “Twilight! Are you alright?” “Yes, everything is fine.” I took a deep breath and tried to make my tone and body language as calm and reassuring as possible. “We talked it out. There's no reason for a fight.” Rainbow’s bandaged head twitched at the news, and her voice came out even raspier than usual. “So you blasted her with the rainbow lasers and we're supposed to be friends now? ‘Cause after what she did, that’s not good enough!” “Not exactly.” I rubbed the back of my neck, knowing that I had several awkward conversations to not look forward too. “We came to a kind of agreement. We're still hammering out the details, but Rising's agreed to let me and Starlight go.” “Surprisingly,” Starlight said as she took a few steps from Rising. “But yeah, things seem to be working out now.” “I see.” Celestia frowned as she studied us through narrowed eyes. Her gaze turned to Rising, and the scrutiny intensified for several seconds before her eyes snapped wide open. “Sunset? But ... how? I just finished consulting with Archon Shimmer, and she’s already preparing a force of her own to assist us. But ... I would know her magic anywhere.” Somehow, Rising grew even stiller as she stood, meeting Celestia’s gaze. Considering what she’d told me about her timeline’s Celestia dying to save her, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how she felt. “I was Sunset Shimmer once, long ago.” Celestia slowly released whatever spell she’d been holding. “I have a feeling this is going to be a very long story.” “I can explain everything.” I gave everyone a smile that didn’t feel natural. “If we can keep anyone from blasting one another before I finish the story, anyways.” Celestia slowly nodding. “Come here, Twilight. You too, Starlight.” She eyed Rising. “Assuming that will be okay.” Rising didn’t immediately respond. I’d noticed that she wasn’t quick to talk, probably a result of only being able to talk to two other people and the state of her world. Why rush a conversation when you had forever to talk?  Not to mention it wasn’t hard to see why Rising was being careful with her words when she was being faced down by an entire army all by herself. Especially considering who was at the head of that army. But Celestia wanted a response, so I placed a hoof on Rising’s shoulder to try and reassure her. “It'll be okay, I promise.” Rising looked down at me before returning her gaze to Celestia and the army behind her. “I am trusting you to do the right thing.” I patted her shoulder before nodding for Starlight to follow me. We trotted until we reached Celestia and Luna. My friends started running over, but Luna stopped them short with an upraised hoof. Celestia immediately started scanning me for magic, first for compulsion spells and then other forms of magic that might have suggested something was up. “Relax, it's me,” I assured them. Luna started scanning Starlight as well. “We apologize for our caution, but we must be sure you are sound of mind and body, and that the fiend is not attempting to pawn off a fake onto us. She attacked Ponyville unprovoked and hurt a great many ponies. Regardless of whatever understanding you might have reached with her, that is not something we can easily forgive.” “It's ... a bit more complicated than that.” I sighed and rubbed my forehead as a wave of guilt washed over me. “A whole lot more complicated.” Celestia raised an eyebrow. “Then by all means, explain why a lich who appears to be my old student attacked Ponyville with an army of the dead.” I explained everything to them, what happened to Rising’s world, her reasons for coming to Ponyville, and the results of the trial. Applejack blinked a couple of times. “Hold up now, are you sayin’ that hogwash they were spewin’ was actually all true?!” “In a way, yes.” My ears flattened. “I never intended to hurt them, but none of us really understood the mechanics of Starlight’s time travel spell. In the heat of the moment I didn’t stop to think about all potential moral implications of altering time, even if it was just setting it back to the way I thought it was supposed to be.” “This is mostly my fault.” Starlight rubbed the bridge of her muzzle. “I should have known better than to mess around with time travel in the first place. Especially when I’d gotten into a fight with ponies claiming to be time travelers who’d come back to stop me from causing damage by time traveling.. I ... I was so mad at Twilight that I didn’t even think about any of that. Though it’s kind of weird that they didn’t mess with history by time traveling ... though I suppose I didn’t really pay attention to the warning anyway. Still, you’d think...” She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. All I can say for certain at this point is that I’ve just collected myself another sentence of lifetime community service.” Rainbow glanced at Rising and rubbed her heavily bandaged head. “No wonder they fought so hard. I don’t know what I’d do if everypony I knew got hurt like that.” Rarity frowned. “Though they still shouldn’t have taken things as far as they had. Ponyville’s a wreck, we all got terrorized, and innocent ponies got hurt. Maybe they had their reasons for what they did, but two wrongs don’t make a right.” My heart clenched as I thought about all the ponies that had been hurt because of my mistakes. “I know. Rising's agreed to make reparations for her attack on Ponyville, while I've agreed to help her repair her world.” “Reparations?” Rainbow’s wings twitched as she glared at Rising. “Yeah, just helping to pay the repair bill isn’t gonna be good enough.” She took a deep breath. “Storm’s dead, Twilight.” It felt like I’d just been kicked in the gut. My knees wobbled and I fell to my haunches. My friends moved to stabilize me before I fell over completely. Storm was dead. No. That couldn’t be right. I know the doctors hadn’t been optimistic, but Storm was so strong ... I’d been sure she would pull through. My eyes clenched shut as they teared up, and I started sobbing. Storm was dead, and it was all my fault. There were so many things I could have done to avoid this. I could’ve handled Starlight’s time travel differently, so Rising’s splinter timeline never got caught in the crossfire. I could’ve refused to have any guards in the first place. I could’ve faced Rising right away instead of standing back. I could’ve ... I could’ve... But I hadn’t. And now my friend was dead. “Take me to her,” Rising said. I blinked the tears out of my eyes to see Rising standing near us. “I can see to her, as well as any of the other recently dead.” Luna bared her teeth. “Our dead are not to be desecrated by your necromancy, lich.” Rising shook her head. “Of course not. I have had several centuries to study the boundary between life and death, and it is far more flexible than most realize. So long as the tiniest spark of life remains, however faint it might be, I can restore it. Please, give me the opportunity to show my good faith.” Her head fell slightly. “It was never my intention to kill any beyond the two criminals I sought. Though we did all that we could to avoid needless death, there is no such thing as a bloodless battle.” Was this true? It seemed too good to be true, but if she could do it... I looked to my other princess. “Please, let her try.” Luna looked to her sister, and after a moment where they locked eyes, Celestia nodded. “Very well. Consider this a chance to prove your good intentions. Be aware that although we have agreed to a truce—our vengeance will be swift and terrible if you abuse our good will.” “We will be watching closely,” Celestia said. “Though I hope you will show yourself to be the student I once knew.” Rising froze for a moment before nodding. “Of course. Lead the way.” Celestia and Luna fell in on either side of Rising, both of them keeping a careful eye on her as they guided her towards the palace. My friends helped me to my hooves and supported me as we followed. The walk through Ponyville was almost surreal. Rising’s forces might have tried to avoid causing too much damage, but there were still a lot of homes and businesses in ruins. Not to mention what she’d done to my palace. The sight of it listing to the side with a massive gaping hole in one side made me wince. Things didn’t get easier as we headed to the castle infirmary. I knew I should put on a face of firm serenity or grim resolve as we passed by wounded ponies, but after all I had been through, I just couldn’t hold back the tears. So much needless pain and suffering, and no small part of it was my fault. I might very well have stopped and broken down right there if it wasn’t for my friends being there to keep me going. We stepped into one of the infirmary’s private rooms. Storm was lying unnaturally still on a bed, her eyes closed with Cloud and Star watching over her. Blossomforth sat next to Cloud leaning her head against her, and Fluttershy immediately went over to both of them when we arrived. Star’s shoulders quivered with silent sobs as she stared at her dead sister. Fluttershy’s arrival snapped them both out of their grief, though when they looked up, the first thing they spotted was Rising herself. Cloud darted in front of her lovers and brandished her wing blades while Star snapped out several daggers from within hidden sheaths in her armor. “You bitch!” Star snarled. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll kill—” “Whoawhoawhoa!” I teleported between them before things got out of control. “It's okay! There's no reason to fight! She's here to help.” Star clenched her teeth. “HELP?! She killed my—” “She is not dead,” Rising announced over Star. Cloud blinked and her wingblades lowered a hair. “What? But...” She glanced at Storm as she lay  silently on the bed. Star opened her mouth to protest, but Luna raised a hoof to forestall her. “Be at peace, Lieutenant. Everything will be well.” She narrowed her eyes at Rising. “One way or another.” Once Rising was sure she wasn’t going to be attacked, she went to Storm’s side. Cloud and Star held their weapons close at hoof in case Rising pulled something, which I couldn’t exactly blame them for. I really wanted to trust Rising and believe that Storm would be alright, but if she betrayed me ... well, all my sympathy would be gone. Rising touched her horn to Storm’s forehead and cast an immensely complicated spell, the likes of which I had never seen before. I could tell it was something like necromancy, but without the sort of cold sickly sweetness feeling I’d felt from most of her spells. Storm jerked and gasped a lungful of air. Her eyes shot open and they darted about the room. “Storm!” I cried as I rushed to her side. Star and Cloud were just as eager to get there, and all three of us wound up crowding around her. She was alive! Rising had actually done it! Storm’s voice came out very raggedly as her eyes fell on me. “Highness...” I took her hoof and squeezed it. “I-I was so worried.” Storm squeezed my hoof back. “Are ... you okay?” Star snorted, wiping her eyes and trying to put on a shaky smile. “You big stupid skunk. You nearly die on us, and the first thing out of your mouth is asking if she's okay?!” “Duty ... first,” Storm said, her voice weak. “I'm alright.” I sniffed and Rarity handed me a handkerchief that I blew into. “Especially now that you're alright.” Storm’s eyes fell over Rising and she stiffened. I placed a hoof on her shoulder to make sure she didn’t try and bolt up and hurt herself. “Whoa, it’s okay. She isn’t here to start a fight.” Storm settled back down, even if she wasn’t quick to take her eyes off Rising. “It seems I missed a great deal.” “We’ve ... figured out some kind of truce,” I told her. “We’re still working on the details, but the fighting is over.” Storm smiled up at me. “I knew you would find a way. You always do.” That was a nice thing for her to say, though I wondered how true that was this time. So many had been hurt because of my actions, but all I could do was press forward and try and make things better. At least Storm hadn’t died. Even after everything she’d gone through, I don’t know if I ever could’ve forgiven Rising for killing one of my friends. Or forgiven myself. Rising turned to Celestia. “If you will, show me to the other dead, and then the wounded. Once I am done we will sit down and take a full account of the damages caused by the attack, as well as outlining how Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer will make amends for their actions.” Celestia nodded slowly. “Follow us.” She looked to me, and her eyes softened. “You can stay here for now, Twilight. I think some time with your friends will do you good.” “Thank you, Prin—Celestia.” I took a deep breath. “And thank you for helping Storm, Rising.” Thanking her was hard, even if I was grateful. After all, while I appreciated her saving Storm, my guard captain never would’ve been in danger in the first place if not for Rising’s attack. I was still mad about that, but far more than that I just felt ... hollow, and very tired. What would be the point of getting angry? We’d both done a lot to hurt each other, and it was time to heal those wounds instead of making things worse. “Of course.” Rising watched me for a moment before nodding. “We’ll talk later. There is a great deal we need to discuss.” Celestia and Luna escorted Rising out of the room, leaving the rest of us to talk. Once they were gone, Cloud let out a long sigh. “Sounds like we missed a lot. I’d ask if you blasted her with the magical rainbow, but I’m pretty sure if you’d used that she wouldn’t still be a flaming skull-headed lich.” I ran a hoof through my mane as I felt a little bit of the tension leave my shoulders. “A lot happened, yeah. Rising and I talked everything through after she captured us. Now we’re ... addressing the damages, you could say.” Star frowned at the doorway Rising had just left through. “Sure looks like you worked out something if she's going around healing the wounded. I mean, I’m happy to have Skunky back, but it’s still weird to have some lich who just attacked us walking around helping now.” I sighed as I summoned up the energy to explain what happened again. “Turns out she was right, while also being wrong. You remember that misadventure when Starlight attempted to change the past? That both created and destroyed her world.” Cloud thought about that and winced. “Oh. That’s ... yeah.” I bowed my head and sniffed. “I'm going to do what I can to help her and her world. It was part of our agreement, not that I don't want to help them anyways after what I did.” Storm squeezed my hoof. “You will succeed.” “I sure hope so.” I sighed as I felt like I could sleep for a week. “A lot of damage was done to their world. The oceans are all frozen in time, so just about everything is dried up into a grey wasteland. Then there’s tons of damage from the time storms and other temporal anomalies, and with most of the water locked away just about all the plants and animals died off. We’re talking about a project on a scale almost unimagined before.” I bit my lip. “I’ll probably never be able to fix it completely, at least not in my lifetime, but I can at least help them get a good start.” “How can we help?” Storm asked. I squared my shoulders as I did my best to sound confident. “I've got some ideas. It's not going to be easy, and it's going to take a lot of time and resources. But then, the most important things are rarely easy.” Rarity For the first time in goodness knows how long, rain fell on the ruins of Canterlot. It truly was impressive how far we’d come. With sufficient time, resources, and determination, anything was possible. Especially now that Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer were making good on their promise to help us with the recovery. Sunset was the most brilliant mare I’d ever known, but sometimes the best way to solve a problem was to get an outsider’s perspective. Not to mention all the resources they had access to by virtue of being in an intact Equestria. We’d gone through a few changes over the years. Now that we didn’t need to worry about wars and bringing murderers to justice, Sunset and Rainbow had finally allowed themselves a chance to relax a bit. In Sunset’s case, that led to a most welcome makeover. Her old body had been quite effective when it came to filling our enemies with dread, but we hadn’t needed to do that for years. Naturally, I’d had a hoof in helping with her new design. Gold plating gave her a far nobler appearance, not to mention it let me soften her features until they were almost the ones I remembered from when she’d been alive. I suppose I could have asked her living counterpart to serve as a model, but then she didn’t look like the Sunset I remembered. The one whose side I stayed by for all those long years, watching her grow old and work herself to death trying to restore our world. It truly was heartening to see her finally making progress. Someday I would have to work up the courage to let her know how I felt. Neither of our bodies really felt the same biological urges that controlled the living, but that just made the emotional ones all the stronger. Thankfully, Rainbow had agreed to her own changes as well. She had gone through a similar transformation as Sunset to gain herself a metallic body. It had taken quite a bit of work, but with light-weight metals and ferromancy we had made a body that both increased Rainbow’s performance while still letting her look like herself. Though if I’m allowed to say so, we made her new body even more dashing than the last one. We’d colored her mithril frame in the same cerulean blue her old body had been, and in addition to her mane and tail, her wing feathers were also rainbow colored. It made me so happy to see Rainbow finally be proud of her appearance after so many years of her neglecting her looks because she thought it made her a more efficient flier and fighter. I knew from first hoof experience how gaustly it was to be a half-rotting zombie, and wouldn’t wish that one anyone. Really, Rainbow was made to show-off, and it was a delight to get to see her fly around proudly like she was always destined to. My own changes were rather more subtle. By and large, I was quite pleased with the changes becoming a vampire had done to me. It was certainly better than being a zombie, even if my appearance did lack the natural vitality of a living body. Most of my efforts had gone into appearing more like a living pony, and while it took quite a bit of magic to pull off, overall I would say I had succeeded. My mane now grew out naturally, my skin had taken on a more healthy living tone, and my coat glistened without needing too much in the way of care. Sunset drew me out of my thoughts when she spoke. “It looks like they succeeded in breaking the oceans free.” I followed her gaze to admire the touches of carefully nurtured green that had already returned to the city. “It's beautiful, isn't it? If it wasn't for our trips to the other Equestria I think I might have forgotten what rain even looked like.” There was much I had nearly forgotten about. The heady liquid smell of humidity in the air, the feeling of the rain pattering along my coat, the sensation of my mane becoming slick with water. It was strange how much I’d missed when I could no longer had it. When I had been alive I had often considered the weather to be an annoyance, something that risked ruining my mane or outfits, not to mention the risk of getting my hooves muddy. But when the weather had broken down along with everything else, I realized just how beautiful the rain was, and deep in my heart I had missed it terribly. Now it had finally come back, like so many things we had lost. Rainbow’s eyes swept over the skies. She had been a weather pony once, ages ago, and I could see she was appraising the weather. “It is pretty great, though without any weather pegasi we're probably gonna get some crazy stuff. Lightning storms, hail, sleet when it gets cold enough—all sorts of stuff that might damage what we’ve been building.” I frowned as I considered but a few of the many problems we were facing. “Yes, the pillars that we've set up are weakening the time storms, but they haven't stopped them in all the far corners of the world.” Sunset shrugged. “Still, it's progress. Especially now that the seeds we got from Equestria will start sprouting en masse.” She waved at the fields beyond Canterlot where the seeds had been planted. “That will do a lot to start to repair the ecosystem, along with the precipitation.” “I sure hope so.” Old memories of Ponyville drifted into my thoughts. I remembered the sights, sounds, and smells of the farming village as ponies went about their work. An ache formed in my heart as I remembered a time my old and long gone friend Applejack had invited me to her charmingly rustic farm, with its wonderful apple orchards. I wanted that type of thing to return to our world. “Though I must say, part of me would feel better if we had some good earth ponies to help grow seedlings. It really is hard to beat the skill of a good farmer at growing anything.” “The skellies seem to be doing alright at it,” Rainbow said. Indeed, in many cases we had literally turned our spears into plows, and our army had been turned to the work of repairing the foundations of our world. We had gotten quite good at using our skeletons for any number of tasks, and that experience was paying dividends now. Even if part of me looked forward to the day we could retire our undead workers. Rainbow flew out, cupping the rainwater in her hooves to look at it. “Though yeah ... even if we make the world green again, it's still gonna feel pretty empty.” Sunset tipped her head to the side as her eyes seemed to focus on something very far away. “We could always make ponies.” Seeing an opportunity to tease Rising a bit, I started fanning myself as thought I had been flustered. “Goodness, darling! You can't just make an offer like that out of the blue! What would others say if they heard such a thing?” Sunset’s shoulders jerked a bit and she turned her head to me, not immediately replying to my comment. It seemed that I had caught her flat-hoofed with that one. Rainbow narrowed her eyes at me in a flat look. “Pretty sure she didn't mean making ponies that way, Rares.” I covered my mouth with a hoof as I tittered. “My apologies, but I do like to tease Sunset now and again.” I smiled up at Sunset, and a strange sensation that I couldn’t quite put my hoof on fell over me as I thought about the idea of repopulating our world. “Not that I don't think she would make for a fine mother some day.” Sunset spread out her now pegasi-like wings as she looked over the ruins of Canterlot, no doubt seeing the endless possibilities now spread out before us as we repaired our world. “I suppose all three of us would be parents in a sense.” Rainbow’s nose wrinkled up. “Uh, can you actually just make ponies like that? I mean, we’d have to do something really fancy to repopulate the world, especially when we’re all post-equinus.” Sunset shook her head. “Not yet. But given sufficient time, resources, and determination...” I nodded in agreement. “Our dear Sunset is a genius, after all. And Twilight and the other Equestrians have been quite helpful. I have every confidence they can pull off another miracle. Look at everything we’ve already accomplished.” A smile crept onto Rainbow’s face. “Yeah, that is true. And it’d be really awesome if we can do it. After everything else, that should be a snap.” “I’ll bring it up during my next meeting with Twilight,” Sunset said. “Might as well get the ball rolling on that now that the ecosystem recovery project is well under way.” “That sounds like a fine idea to me, darling.” A flight of fancy overtook me, and I wrapped a leg around Rising’s while leaning up against her. Rising arched her eyebrows before her face relaxed into a smile. She wrapped a wing around me, and as always I relished the closeness. “Yes. I think the way forward to a better tomorrow has never been clearer.”