The room was silent after Valey's announcement. "Repeat that, please," Princess Celestia said.
"I said, I'm the dead mare who you were saying everyone was over. Alive and fuzzy. Just wanted to point that out because if this is a terrible temptation that's gonna get us to mess up the world... Being alive honestly feels pretty great to me, so if we're making a mess, I'd like to know."
Princess Celestia frowned. "How did this happen?"
"Leftover parts from Sparky's basement." Valey audibly shrugged. "I'm technically still stuck in moon glass. Just wearing this pendant Shinespark made a while ago for something completely different that happens to allow captive cutie marks to be like you have them normally, as long as they're compatible with your body. I'd been using it to see what was inside other moon glass for a while, and talk to someone I lost to the stuff years ago. And someone had the bright idea to try slapping it on me with my piece in there."
Celestia listened throughout the story. "Is this true?" she asked the rest of the ponies in the room.
Shinespark nodded.
Maple did too. "I was there when it happened. It was just a little after you left."
Princess Celestia took a slow breath. "And you say that it 'just happened to be what you need'. This pendant was made for another purpose entirely."
"Yes." Shinespark didn't flinch, but it looked like it took effort. "I can go into detail about the old project it was originally for?"
"...Not yet, my little pony. There is something more pressing I wish to know." Celestia shook her head, not breaking eye contact. "Earlier, you talked about discovering the use of windigo hearts to bottle power for your ship." Her gaze flicked to Gerardo. "You described it as an accidental convenience needed too badly to question. Please, elaborate."
Gerardo did a marginally worse job of keeping his composure under the sudden pressure, but it was still admirable. "We were in the city of Ironridge, staring down rising tensions and a brewing war. We already knew of the ship when we saw the flame, and at first wondered if it could make a prudent escape route. Instead, we used the ship to navigate the city, and many lives would have been lost had we not. Might I ask what this has to do with Miss Valey?"
"...I see." Celestia turned back to Shinespark. "I had been wondering, my little pony, what sort of prodigy you must be to have created a machine that could borrow souls for power, technology that has been lost forever to the world. And especially at your age... I still suspect you are brilliant. Perhaps even good enough to be a personal student of mine, had your circumstances been different. But now that I hear these two impossibilities being described as flukes, I suspect something else."
"They're not really flukes, you know," Valey cut in. "We're being creative and just trying to survive by taking advantage of everything we have. If there is a way, we'll find it. That's how we roll."
Celestia stared at the sound stone. "And what about when there isn't a way to find?"
"Well, then we find another."
"You misunderstand." Princess Celestia frowned. "What would you have done if your circumstances had been anything other than what they were? Perhaps you were intelligent enough to recall the existence of this pendant and synthesize a new use, but what if its function had been marginally different, such that this result was impossible entirely? Or what if you had been on a different ship not captained by an inventor who had made such a thing in the first place?"
"Then I'd either have died long before this, or been somewhere completely different in the world."
"You are still missing my point," Celestia corrected. "You may have had the wherewithal to use the cards at your disposal, but you could have not had the cards at all. You could have acted on this hunch that it would work and discovered you were wrong. And yet you have done this multiple times, always when feelings are high and you are desperate to find a way. Do you see the unusualness of it?"
Shinespark cleared her throat. "Maybe we've gotten lucky, then. But as Valey said, without that luck, we'd be dead. There are probably countless other ponies out there who have all had similarly desperate times in their lives, especially when Varsidel is at war and the Empire and Ironridge have been visited by calamity within the last year. Perhaps the odds are one in a million that we would have these cards. But if hundreds of thousands of ponies give their all for survival, someone could eventually become that one in a million. Yes, it could have failed, but it didn't. And thinking too much about how we should rightfully be dead isn't healthy."
Princess Celestia watched her. "And the north has a million other ponies who accomplished the one-in-a-million task of inventing the machines that power your ship, yet perished because they weren't the one-in-a-million who had a pendant that could bring their friend back to life?"
Shinespark finally winced. "So we're very lucky instead of somewhat lucky. For your information, we're also the ones who didn't stop that monster from attacking the Empire, even though some of us knew her before that. And I'm the one who gave everything she had and more to bring back her hometown from economic irrelevance and despair, only to see it crushed and obliterated by a flood when her plan backfired. We've had just as many failures that are just as big as our successes, Princess. No unnatural track record. If our luck is anything, it's terrible, not stellar. We just dream big and don't know when to quit."
"What she said."
Celestia watched her for a moment more. "I never said anything about luck," she eventually began, a curious tone to her voice. "Though it does sound as though none of you have had it easy. My little ponies, just as a river with a constant source cannot be forever dammed, you fervently strive for a way forward, and sometimes find one, even where it could be least likely. This is not always a hallmark of chance. We discussed earlier the strength of souls, and how bodies and machines can be used in ways that bypass reason to execute your will upon the world. It sounds as though you are powerful enough that this sometimes even happens without your direct action. You merely need a way, and it is there..."
"Can that even happen?" Felicity asked quietly.
"Ours is a world where even things that perhaps should not be, still can be," Celestia sighed. "I understand this runs contrary to what I told you last month, about returning your friend from the dead, but in this world, nothing is impossible. You say your own measurements of the strength of your soul were unusually high? Perhaps you have strength enough that sometimes, when you need it, there will be a way."
Shinespark's ears fell. "Then why do I find myself in these situations in the first place? My home threatened and dying, or my best friend dead? Couldn't those just be averted like this?"
Princess Celestia shook her head. "No. Death is part of the natural order of things. Mortals flourish and pass away, and territories rise and fall with the changing tides of war, leadership and economic fortune. Attempting to hold the world in a perfect stasis, completely ordered and free of pain, would only be stifling to the spirit of what it means to be alive. The harder you try, the harder you will be resisted. And though those who seek a perfect world may bring it closer and closer to perfection, they will always see the details they have missed, and have more work in their unending journey." She let out a breath. "You lament the passing of your home, yet you are not the only one for whom it is gone. Your friend had perished, but she was not your friend alone. To truly change this, you would not merely have to part the tide of fate, standing against it to protect a few things you love, but change the natural order of things altogether. And this is the type of power I wish to never see awakened."
"Maybe that's easy for you to say," Shinespark whispered, "but we do die. I don't see myself as a dust mote in the wind. I want my life to mean something, not be over as quickly as it started."
Celestia's face turned adamant and soft all at once. "It is not easy for me to say. Though I have lived for two thousand years, I do not rule from an isolated rift in time. I do not keep my home in stasis around me, though the temptation to try is great at times. Even with my powers, I could never truly succeed in preserving all that I love... no matter how much it pains me when a dear friend passes on. You have lost much in the short span of your life, but in all my years I have lost so much more. And that does not make you a dust mote in the wind. You are transient, all of you, yet you are still beautiful. I sense old wounds still sting you deeply."
Shinespark slowly re-inflated her chest, meeting Celestia's eyes again. "They do. I apologize, though. This is an official meeting, and I shouldn't..."
Celestia watched her. "You have no decorum to preserve, my little pony. Not while I am here. I have no expectations of those I consort with to be emotionless golems. This is a weighty subject, and emotions are the most natural thing there is in the world."
Shinespark sucked in a breath. "Be that as it may, we've been avoiding discussion of Writs of Harmonic Sanction so far, and I need to be at my best when that comes around."
"That will be a difficult discussion," Celestia warned. "I have not said no, but these are hardly given for free. Are you sure you wish to talk about this now?"
Shinespark nodded.
"Then I have some questions for you." Celestia straightened her shoulders, and her bearing instantly became more regal. "If I offered all of you Writs of Harmonic Sanction for free, on the condition that you would all live in different parts of Equestria and never see each other again, what would you choose?"
"Bananas, no!" Valey burst out through the sound stone. "I have not tried this hard to keep my friends safe to bail on them now!"
Shinespark frowned resolutely. "I... could make that sacrifice myself for their sake, but I could never split them apart. Not Valey and Maple and Amber."
"I see." Princess Celestia nodded, betraying no hint of approval or disapproval. "Your next question. You asked me for asylum, because a life here would be better than what awaits you back home. Yet you possess great determination, as well as an airship. Imagine that you returned to the north, using your privileges of crossing. Imagine that you find another group of ponies more in need of refuge than yourselves, ones without powerful friends who can keep them safe, or an airship home they can take wherever they please. If you could, would you give up your writs on their behalf?"
Everyone winced. "What kind of question is that?" Valey complained.
"A difficult one," Celestia replied.
"We would..." Shinespark squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. "I can't speak for everyone else. But I... might. I used to give everything I had to protect my ponies, but I learned early on that if you give too much to one, you'll have nothing left for the others. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't a last resort. But in the end, we have other ways of getting those writs back... and if they truly needed it more... I couldn't live with myself if we left them to fend for themselves. But I'd try to find a better way first."
"We've given upon dreams of travel before," Amber whispered. "If we did it, I could show you how to get by... or try my best, at least."
Celestia nodded again. "Next question. Suppose I gave you your writs, and you settled down together in a town somewhere in Equestria and built happy lives for yourself. Then, imagine those lives are torn down in a similar fashion to things you've experienced before, and you are left with nothing but your lives, your airship, and the pony who caused the tragedy... perhaps a new friend, or a complete stranger. What would you do with them?"
Everyone looked around uncertainly. "That... depends on a lot of things," Shinespark said. "You've seen Prince Gazelle. He can take the blame for everything that happened in the Empire, since he antagonized the monster that ended everything and made her lose her mind. For now, we're just keeping watch over him until we can figure out what to do with him." She shook her head. "It might be different if he was more lucid. We haven't killed him, and if we have to imprison him, it will be for his own good."
"I see." Princess Celestia looked around. "All of these have been somewhat open-answer, but this one is specifically for you, Shinespark. Tell me a joke about your hometown."
Shinespark gaped. "...What?"
"Perhaps it's more of a request than a question," Celestia admitted. "But still. Answer."
"With all due respect, Princess," Felicity cut in, "that's not very... nice of you to rub it in."
Celestia raised an eyebrow at her. "Did I say this conversation would be easy or nice?"
"I..." Shinespark took a breath. "I can't. I'm sorry, everyone. It's still... too raw." She slumped, defeated an apologetic. "I'm sorry."
Celestia's poker face broke, and she finally smiled. "Then finally, if you thought answering one of these questions truthfully would cause you to fail this test and deny you the writs, what would you say?"
Shinespark blinked.
"This was a question that could not be asked until it was answered," Celestia said, standing up. "Your loyalty, generosity, kindness and honesty are credits to your name. I have a sixth question."
Everyone had just started to breathe easily, and immediately tensed again. "Another?" Shinespark stood as well. "Ask away."
Princess Celestia nodded. "What is the true meaning of Harmony?"