//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: the Legend of the Phoenix Queen // Story: On Swift Wings // by Jade Ring //------------------------------// The interior of the train car was dim, the sun had long since set. Up ahead, the mighty engine chugged along, drawing its cargo to its destination in the Far North, all the way to the Crystal Empire. The dinner plates had been whisked away by gracious staff and the three mares had been left alone to their own devices. They were relaxing now on plush cushions, watching their shadows dance on the wall from whence they were cast by the sole flickering candle in the whole of the space. Around the candle were spread seven others, yet to be lit. The air was still, the room silent save for the distant grinding of the engine and the occasional squeal of metal on metal from below. Golden Haze and Luna watched as Celestia sat with her eyes closed, clearly gathering her thoughts. Her breaths were deep and rhythmic, almost meditative. Without moving an inch, she lit her horn and lifted the burning candle into the air. It floated close to her face, and now she appeared to be as so many believed her to be; the very embodiment of the sun, the sole light in the darkness. “These candles will represent the past few centuries. Together, we will cast the light back upon them as we travel towards our destination.” She finally opened her eyes and stared unwaveringly at the flame mere inches from her eyes. “This is the century in which we currently live. We were devastated by an attack from a foe we had long thought defeated. Old enemies returned and became allies. A simple unicorn ascended both the deeds of her supposed peers and the boundaries of her own flesh and blood to become something more.” The candle dipped towards the first unlit candle and set the wick ablaze. “Two hundred years past now. A cult rises in the west, but after a bitter political struggle it is struck down. Descendants of the supposed spiritual leader now teach philosophy in universities around Equestria.” Another dip, another light. “Three hundred years past. A pegasus general is possessed by a powerful relic and declares herself the Perfect Storm. She is defeated, but the cost is great. The heroes of that terrible final struggle are venerated as heroes even to this day…” So it went on. With each lit candle, Celestia told of the most important events of the past century. Golden Haze and Luna watched, spellbound, as the small circle of candles began to increase the light in the room. At last, Celestia lit the seventh candle, creating a perfect circle of dancing light. “Eight hundred years past. The second Court of the Full Moon is convened and attempts a coup. They are defeated, but not before many innocent lives are lost. Their leader, Stone Heart, becomes the first mortal pony in history to be imprisoned in Tartarus.” She looked across the circle at her companions and smiled gently. “Eight candles. Eight hundred years. The Second Golden Age of Equestria.” “But the First Golden Age ended when Luna was banished.” Golden Haze looked at her lover and princess in confusion. “You make it sound like there’s a two hundred year gap.” “Sister.” Luna swallowed hard. “What happened after I was banished?” At first, Celestia said nothing. She stared at the ring of light, like she was praying for it to give her the strength she needed to continue. Three unlit candles floated over from some dark corner. The first was identical to the rest, but the other two were split and uneven. “This represents the true beginning of the Second Golden Age.” She said, lighting the taller of the two stubby candles and placing it along the perimeter of the circle. “And these?” She nodded towards the last two unlit candles. “These are the years that I have tried with all my heart to bury. They are my greatest shame, my most unforgiveable sin. These candles represent the reign of the Phoenix Queen. For one hundred and seventeen years, nearly four generations of the ponies I swore to defend, she reigned over Equestria and nearly destroyed it.” “But how?” Luna leaned forward. “Who was this mare who bested you?” Celestia sighed and lit the two candles, then placed the original candle in the center of the circle. The two remaining candles began to slowly float around the perimeter of the circle in a counter-clockwise motion. “When Twilight ascended and became an alicorn, she published a thesis on the nature of the tribe she had just joined. In it, she posited that the reason you fell and became Nightmare Moon, Luna, is that you allowed yourself to be consumed by a single, strong emotion; jealousy.” “I’m not sure I understand.” “Twilight’s theory was that since we, by our very nature, are tied to the greater magics of Equestria, the potential lies within us for two extremes; great good and great evil. She suggested that if we succumbed to the opposite of our nature, we could become corrupted. For you, you allowed jealousy to break apart our sisterly bond. We came to this world together, and together we shall leave it. The idea that you would be envious of me to such an extreme as you did allowed you to be corrupted.” She sighed again. “And now I fear the same is happening to Cadance.” “You’re saying this like it’s not a theory.” Golden Haze offered. Celestia nodded. “I couldn’t tell Twilight how right she was, how perfectly she’d mirrored my own findings just after you fell, Luna. Everything Twilight ‘discovered,’ I had discovered already.” She looked at her sister, tears in her eyes. “I was lost in those first days without you, sister. I sealed myself in my lab and poured myself into my research. I had to understand what had happened to you, so that maybe I could bring you back when the thousand years had ended… and so I could ensure the same did not happen to me.” She slumped on her cushion. “And, in my hubris, I created a monster.” “The Phoenix Queen.” Golden Haze breathed. “The Phoenix Queen.” Celestia repeated. “The Day Breaker. The Nightmare Star. The Flame Eternal. The Fury. The Doom That Came to Avalon.” Golden Haze raised an eyebrow. “Avalon? The earth pony city of gold? That’s just a legend.” “Oh no, it was all too real. As were the tens of thousands who lived there.” “Tia, what did you do?” Luna was holding herself now, her sister’s tone of voice unlike any she had heard her utter before. “As I said, I was terrified that what happened to you would happen to me. If that happened, then there would be no one to stop me as I had stopped you. Once I discovered the possibility for great evil lay inside me, I knew I only had one course of action.” She grinned, bitterly and without humor. “I had to purge it.” “You tried to purge part of yourself?” Golden Haze gaped. “I didn’t try. I did. It took weeks of preparation. I acquired one of the few crystals we still had from before Sombra had cursed the Empire and altered it so that it would hold my proverbial dark half. On the chosen day, I sent all the staff from the castle and sealed the doors. I cast the spell… and I drove the darkness from my heart. I’d originally meant to simply imprison it in the crystal, but I altered my plans at the last instant. I gave it form and substance. I gave it consciousness.” Luna gasped. “But why?” “Because I was desperate to save you.” Celestia looked at her sister pleadingly. “I reasoned that if there were two minds such as mine, we could double our thinking power and solve the problem even faster. But I miscalculated. My darkness had no interest in saving you. It just wanted what I never did; domination.” “What happened?” “I’d miscalculated how weak I would be after the separation. My shadow easily locked me away in the very prison I’d meant for it. I was reduced to simple consciousness, my body broken down to atoms and merged with the crystal. It took what was left and created a vessel for itself, one that looked like my own reflection. She made a few cosmetic changes, of course, such as crowning herself with a flowing mane of magma and flame. And she named herself the Phoenix Queen.” Celestia lowered her head. “And then she made me watch as she ruined the land I loved.” She fell silent for a while. Golden Haze and Luna waited patiently for her to continue. After a few minutes, Luna’s magic fetched over a bottle of wine. “Tia…?” “Please.” Luna smiled a little before pouring three glasses of the dark red drink. When all had been served, she settled back once again. Celestia brought the glass to her muzzle and took a deep sniff. “As you can imagine, the ponies of Equestria were quite shocked when a mare that looked so much like their beloved sun princess emerged from the castle and began issuing new decrees. At first, they were small and inconsequential. An additional tax here, a drafting of stallions to bolster the military there… but as her confidence in her new powers grew, she began to revel in the power she wielded. While I drew my greatest pleasure from the happiness of my subjects, she relished the opposite. The more miserable the populace, the happier she was.” She sipped. “She wanted an excuse, you understand. A reason to show just how powerful she could really be. She wanted a conflict. So she purposely began to go out of her way to spread pain and misery across the land. She taxed the poor to starvation, and when they appealed she suggested they rid themselves of those who had become too elderly to contribute. She instituted prima nocta, and would not bless a marriage unless one or both of the ponies submitted themselves to her. She made the smallest transgressions punishable by death or petrification.” Golden Haze started, almost dropping her wine. “The statues in the garden! They aren’t…?” Celestia nodded sadly. “I freed as many as I could, but some had been driven mad by the process. I had no choice but to leave them as they were.” She took a long gulp and drained the glass. “And when all these things had been done and still the ponies had not risen up against her, she finished what you started Luna.” She tipped her empty glass. “She took away the sun.” Luna gasped. “For how long?” “Long enough for the season’s crops to die. Long enough that more than a few small villages simply froze to death in their entirety. She finally returned it to the proper place in the sky, but by then she had what she craved.” She refilled her own glass. “A rebellion.” “How badly did it go?” Golden Haze asked, already dreading the answer. “Well, there’s a reason that Avalon is still believed to only be a myth these days.” Celestia sighed and gazed into the red abyss. “The earth pony city of gold was the rebel’s base of operations, and in a single day and night of misfortune it was wiped from the face of the earth. There were no survivors, no single pony left to tell the tale. Only the ruined, scorched earth that I sank into the sea myself so that nopony could ever find it. Hundreds died, but the Phoenix Queen finally had what she wanted. Now everypony knew who the strongest alicorn really was. And, as an added bonus, her actions at Avalon caught the attention of an admirer.” “Grogar.” Haze and Luna said in unison. “Doom called to Doom. They were drawn to each other and became lovers almost immediately. Now she truly had everything; a world that feared her, endless misery, and an immortal monster to rule by her side. And that’s how it was for one hundred and seventeen years.” Celestia’s breath caught in her throat. “And I could do nothing for all that time but watch.” “How did you escape?” Luna hated seeing her sister like this, and she knew that the sooner the tale was told she would be better. “It took over a century for me to gather my strength while trapped in the crystal. I drew upon its ambient magic and leeched off of whatever magical artifact the Phoenix Queen stashed in the chamber in which my prison was held. When I believed that I was strong enough, I shattered the crystal from the inside and restored my physical form. That action alone took nearly all of my strength, and I was forced to hide in the castle for nearly a year while I recovered my strength and restored my magic.” “And the Phoenix Queen never once noticed you’d escaped?” Haze asked. Celestia shook her head and actually managed a small smile. “That was her mistake. She’d grown bored of forcing me to watch the actions of her rule around fifty years before. That was when she’d taken my prison out of the throne room and stashed it in a storage chamber. If she had even thought to seek me out even once, I would be dead and Equestria would still be under her rule.” She tipped her glass to Luna. “Or be destroyed in the inevitable conflict wrought by the returning Nightmare Moon.” Luna smirked bitterly and tipped her own glass. “I hid and bided my time until I was able to secure the Alicorn Amulet. The thing had been intended by Clover as a means of studying the effects of alicorn magic when wielded by normal ponies. In my possession, it amplified my own powers to the point that I was able to stand on even footing with both Grogar and the Phoenix Queen simultaneously.” She drained her glass and waved off another refill. “Our battle was terrible, but brief. In the end, I stood victorious over both the necromancer and my shadow. I sealed them both in Tartarus, far from each other, and set about repairing the damage they had done over the past century.” “Why haven’t I heard about any of this?” Golden Haze asked. “Wouldn’t this be in the history books somewhere?” “It would be, but I allowed myself one final sin to close off the story.” Celestia stood and stretched, her wings spreading behind her. The shadow she cast was huge and imposing, and Golden Haze suppressed a shiver. “I instructed Brother Veritas to purge the historical records. No written account of the Phoenix Queen’s reign was allowed to exist. When every scrap had been collected and burned, I cast a powerful charm on all who had survived that rendered them unable to speak of either her or her foul deeds. Within two generations, none lived who could recall those terrible days.” She lowered her wings, and her shadow followed suit. “And thus did the Phoenix Queen pass into the abyss she deserved.” Her magic blazed, and the two circling candles melted to nothing. “It’s as though she, and the years in which she ruled, never existed at all.” “Threats have escaped Tartarus before.” Luna pointed out. “You would be in a poor spot indeed if she managed to get free and Twilight had no idea what she would be up against.” Celestia nodded. “This is why there’s a special charm on her, one that I’ve only cast once. So long as I live, she cannot pass the gates of Tartarus.” She smiled. “And I’m not planning on dying anytime soon.” Golden Haze and Luna shared a look, remembering the terrible day of the Changeling invasion. Remembering how Celestia and Luna had been bedridden during the final battle with King Carapace. How they were recovering because their hearts had stopped beating. How close had they been to this monster’s liberation? Celestia saw the look and shook her head quickly. “Even if she did escape, she has no power left. She would have to do as I did and hide, bide her time. But she hasn’t the patience for such things. She is pure id, pure drive and ambition. She would reveal herself almost at once and be returned to her prison. Believe me, the Phoenix Queen is gone.” She put a hoof to her chest and bowed her head. “She is my greatest sin, and I alone must carry her memory and the memory of her deeds.” Luna stood and embraced her sister. “You aren’t alone anymore, Tia.” “Luna’s right.” Golden Haze flapped over and wrapped her forelegs about her lover’s neck. “I know it wasn’t easy, telling us all of this, but I’m glad you did.” Celestia sniffed. “I’m… I’m so sorry. I never told anypony what she truly was. I never told anypony before now that her reign was entirely my fault. I never… I never apologized…” “You’re forgiven, my love.” Haze whispered into her neck. “Thank you.” Celestia sobbed. Her knees buckled and she collapsed to the cushion, her sister and her lover not breaking their embrace. “Thank you so much...” They stayed there as Celestia rocked herself and cried. Nearly a thousand year’s worth of tears poured out and still they remained. When Celestia had finally calmed herself, it was past midnight. Luna finally pulled away and looked at the clock. “You need sleep. Both of you. We will need all of our strength for tomorrow.” Celestia wiped her eyes and nodded. “Yes. That’s really why I told you everything, you understand? Because I fear that what happened then may be happening again.” Luna nodded solemnly. “I had my suspicions when I talked to her at the memorial.” Golden Haze looked back and forth between the much taller sisters, understanding dawning. “You don’t mean… not Cadance?” Celestia looked at her with red rimmed eyes. “It happened to Luna and I. It could happen to her. We aren’t just going to the Empire to search for Starswirl.” She gave a determined look to her sister, who returned it. “We’re going to ensure that another Phoenix Queen isn’t rising.” Haze shuddered at a sudden chill in the air. “And if there is?” Celestia said nothing. She leaned over the circle of candles and blew out a small breath. The light was gone at once, the flickering flames extinguished, and the three mares were left in the darkness, blanketed in the unknown.