Aftermath
No. They are.
Underneath a black sky, god fought god.
The battle was fearsome. The world trembled as their power shaped it. Echoing booms, the trembling ground - and some ponies cradled around Celestia and Luna. The Sun and Moon let their power run freely, an aura of warmth and cold that mixed and blended into a soft peace calming their ponies. Their ponies.
A rainbow struck. The world went white.
---
Hooves touched down gently by charred grass. The air here was thick and heavy - and it was only through virtue of their divinity that the two sisters did not have their souls crushed under the magical pressure.
Their battlefield was adorned with bones. Decorated with claw-prints and swaths of earth that had been carved up. Charred fragments of stone that looked like they had been burnt then crushed into a fine powder were scattered around in a pile - and Discord's petrified skull sat a-top of a pile of bones.
There was no sign of Tempest.
Celestia spat at the skull.
Luna followed suit.
Neither of them noticed how the leylines seemed to be laughing.
Twenty years.
It had taken over twenty years to repair the damage that Discord had wrought to the world. It had taken another three years to organize the world enough to have a world. The Chained Forest - or, now without chains, the Everfree Forest - was the capitol of pony civilization. Or what was left of it.
Roads were being paved slowly. Houses were being rebuilt. Some of the chaos blighted had even shown signs of improvement. Life was hard. But it was good.
Luna lit her horn. She lowered the moon.
Celestia lit her horn. She did not raise the sun.
This was not for lack of trying, however. When tugging on the sun - she found it stuck. She tugged, she pulled - she did the magical equivalent of standing on a wall and pulling with all of her might on the door-knob. Even when her sister lent her might, they could do little more than make it wobble.
Then, it went rocketing down. And the moon came rocketing up. Confusion - realization - dread - realization - fear.
Discord's sickly laugh echoed in their ears.
---
"Discord," Celestia spoke. It was hard to speak the name of the person who had killed the closest thing she had to an older sister with a tone that wasn't hatred - but Celestia usually managed.
Not now, though. "Thee did explain thy...unique circumstances. T'wast only und'r them that we didst not striketh thee down."
"Aaah, Celestia." Discord - or more accurately, the Shadow of Discord, grinned at her. "We concur I existeth to maketh balance. Thee seeketh peace with me. I seeketh peace with thee. Let us not disrupt this, nay?"
They hadn't believed it at first. He looked like Discord. He acted...mostly, like Discord. He had the same abilities as Discord - if not even greater. They had yet to see him actually struggle to do anything - not that they had been able to release their full power in their brief fight, considering the damage it would wreak.
Yet, he claimed not to be Discord. But rather a fragment of his will. He claimed that he had been created by Discord to micromanage his chaos - but after Discord's death at Tempest's claws, he was reborn as the Avatar of Chaos. It was a tall tale...but Celestia found herself trusting of the strange creature. She remembered that squiggly shadow that had followed Discord's chaos into the Nexus.
Though, he had proven himself to be less violent than his predecessor, which was the primary reason that Luna and Celestia did not take up arms against him.
The other reason was that they weren't sure who would win.
---
It was the first disruption.
But it hadn't been the last. An incident every few months grew tiring - but then every few weeks. Then, days. Until Discord announced his plan to liberate Liogella - by the destruction of all government and absolute freedom. Celestia and Luna tried to strike him down.
They didn't stand a chance. They barely survived. Had he not let them, they would not have.
---
The two sisters stumbled through the one place free from Discord's magic. The last bastion of Order and Harmony in the world - the Everfree. Their castle had been built there for that location, but Discord had kept it very well guarded. He didn't particularly want anyone to find their way out of his liberation, as he had dubbed it.
Unbeknownst to the sisters, they followed the path of the closest thing they had to family - who had walked this path more than a century ago.
Limping. Weak. Broken and damaged - horns cracked, scales bleeding. A single word to drive her.
Rest.
Harmony took her under her roots. She had her rest.
And even as Harmony offered them the power that had defeated Discord once before - they overlooked their kin, sleeping deep below them. But they couldn't help but feel that the Elements seemed familiar, somehow.
---
Scarred. Battered. Bruised, all but broken - their magic weak, their stomachs empty. Forced through trial after tribulation, pushed to the breaking point of even a Spirit.
A strange sound, almost like a whistling bell.
"Playtime is over for you, Discord." No - not the royal tone. They had felt they had no right to speak in that tone.
Seeds of chaos - in the most literal of senses. They began to sprout, wriggle - and dig into flesh.
Harmony's magic fought them back. Tempest still rested.
Discord's chaos was washed away with a pulse.
The storm raged on as it assaulted the Everfree.
The Gryphon King sailed on his warship. His mages had summoned a storm of a size that no mortal had ever seen before. Wind and lightning would even destroy the sisters themselves and leave the world to the Gryphons.
They were not afraid of the storms.
Hours later, the battle ended. The two were unharmed.
"Thank you," they whispered, as the scales that they had incorporated into their regalia seemed to glow.
Luna felt alone.
She had felt alone for a very long time.
They didn't look at her like they looked at her sister. They looked at her with fear. With hatred. They hated her night, despite its beauty. They didn't remember. They didn't remember the pitch-black void of Discord's night. Maybe then they would have a better appreciation.
She tried to speak to Celestia. Celestia shunned her.
"I miss you," she whispered to the scale that adorned her breastplate.
The scale seemed to glitter. Deep below - a half-dreaming drakon murmured.
"I miss you."
It went unheard.
Days later, the elements fell down to the ground.
Celestia wept. And so did the Elements.
---
A millennium later, the Elements no longer lay dormant.
A millennium later, Luna returned.
A millennium later, Celestia rejoiced.
A millennium later, so did the Elements.
A surge of chaos.
And as quickly as it came - it was gone.
Later, another surge of chaos.
This one didn't stop. Harmony took no note of it.
Later - a pulse. Something powerful had entered the world. Harmony felt pleased. Order was satisfied. Tempest was tired.
Later, it was not a surge of chaos. But an unending presence. Long-dormant seeds had begun to sprout.
Vines began to prod into flesh. They grew into scales. Harmony cried out in pain, but she had no power with which to save Tempest. Tempest began to die.
The tree called for her elements.
Power that the world had not seen in an eternity tore the lands apart.
In the distance, the dragons began to roar.
In the distance, bells began to ring.
And deep below stirred the Queen of Storms.
-