Recent events have set me down a path I never before assumed I would travel. It has been filled with trials and hardships, but I have overcome these—alone and with others—and through them gained both power and understanding. The vast vistas of knowledge upon which I once viewed the world have been shattered. Whether I shall be flung to ever higher heights or sent plummeting into an endless pit below remains to be seen. However, it is best to start at the beginning, as close to pertinent events as necessary.
It was nearly two weeks ago, precisely eight days before the Summer Solstice Celebration. This year was to be a special occasion, the one thousandth of said festival which pays duty and sacrifice to The Princess, She whose eternal gaze watches over all of Equestria and the denizens thereof, and who protects us from Her kin that would see our harmony or sanities shattered. It was one thousand years ago that They descended upon our world. The Cycle had been completed, the Stars had aligned, from heaven and void and unknowable elsewhere the Ancient Ones had come.
To each of their progeny They went, and to each They proffered power, knowledge, riches, and other more tantalizing delights in exchange for one thing: fealty. For some it was accepted peacefully and for others it was extracted through blood, but in the end all served.
It is said that before Her coming, two sisters had command over all of Equestria. The Princess, powerful, glorious, and resembling us in all ways, asked that they cede their rule and take up their rightful place beneath Her. They refused, wielding artifacts of magic against Her. Some tellings say they wounded Her and others lie, but the ending is all the same. For their refusal, they were banished to the Moon. Their forlorn visages would look down upon Equestria and the world each night, they would weep at all they had lost, and it was no more than they deserved for their blasphemous rejection of Her.
The tale is told to fillies and colts alike, wrapped up in bed awaiting the hopeful peace of slumber to take them. It was told to me more times than I can recall, and each time it fed my fascination with The Princess and the gifts She bestowed upon our nation in that millennium since. I hungered for knowledge, to learn of Her. It is why I came to study at The Princess’s School for Gifted Scholars. It is why I became The Princess’s personal protégé. It is why I sought to master every school of knowledge imaginable: mundane, arcane, eldritch, and dozens more besides. It is why that fateful day in the castle gardens, I read a book that documented that legend in scholarly detail and found something which alarmed me.
More details than my mother ever said to me flowed from the pages. The book spoke about how the youngest of the two sisters shepherded the Moon through the heavens, watchful in the dark over dreams and stars alike, and how the eldest ushered the Sun from horizon to horizon, bathing the land in light and grace. Every day since Her reign began, both have been controlled by The Princess. It is by Her grace that any creature, serving any of the Ancient Ones, is not lost in darkness or burned by malignant light. It is by Her grace that Equestria remains mostly neutral in the squabbles of gods and creatures both mortal and ageless alike. It felt, rightly, odd to imagine a pony commanding such power.
It also named the artifacts that they wielded in a foolish endeavor to challenge the divine right of The Princess, arcane tools called simply "The Elements." A drawing showed two shadowy equine shapes raising six stones towards a gleaming aura of divinity. A bolt of something, likely arcane magic, arced out from the stones, striking The Princess on her chest.
What alarmed me, however, was not anything printed in the book—for nothing there challenged what I already knew—but quill marks within the margin. They were faint, and flipping through the tome on a casual perusal I might have overlooked them. I wonder how it all would have followed if I had. All the same, they said:
On the Longest day
of The thousandth year
they Shall return
with Fury and Flames to sear.
through kinship and Will
they slip Their bonds
to search for Power
before the Almighty responds.
But she will not See or dread
the Sextant that seals Our fate
and that Beyond Her will
the Stars had aid in Their escape.
I shut the book as quickly as I could, my eyes glancing about the gardens. There was only a single guard standing watch at the archway that led to the main courtyard. The Princess’s gaze, however, was eternal and everywhere. Even with preparations and duties occupying Her for the week to come, there was no way to keep a secret from Her forever. How then, had this book come to be marked with such a seditious message, only to end up in my possession?
I kept as calm as I could manage, even as my mind raced. I packed my things in my saddlebag and trotted out of the castle. Past guards and statues and paintings and nobles, I kept my focus on the path ahead, my head held high; it was a bearing befitting my station, how I should be. I tried to recall the book's source. My stipend had afforded me a local observatory to stay in. Inside, the walls were lined with all manner of books, novels, tomes, and encyclopedias. A number had come from my personal collection, of which this book was surely not. That left the possibility that it had been sitting inside the observatory or that I had purchased it. I thought that Spike, my assistant, might be able to aid with looking over records when I returned.
My mind then drifted to what I was to do with this information. Could it be dismissed as hearsay, ignored and torn and burned from those benign pages? Perhaps, but it would still leave me with the knowledge. The Princess would know, eventually.
I lost what decorum I could manage as soon as I left the castle grounds, and galloped through the streets of Canterlot. My quarters were but a few minutes’ canter away. As my eyes darted to spot agents of Her rule, spies and enforcers alike, it seemed far longer. When I finally reached the stairs to the observatory, I allowed myself the chance to rest, climbing them at a gentler trot as my lungs ached and my heart began to calm.
I paused at the door, taking a few deep breaths before opening it with my magic. "Spike!" I called out, looking amidst the discordant piles of books and scrolls that littered much of the main room. The drake always did his best to outpace my penchant for frantic study with his cleaning, but he had not yet managed the feat.
It was after a few more cries that he shuffled up the stairs from the lower level. Peering out from behind a precarious stack of books in his arms, he frowned. "I thought you were going to be out all afternoon. Did something happen?"
I made my way past discarded scrolls to the closest desk, taking my saddlebags off and setting them on the floor. "Yes, something urgent has come to my attention. I need you to find where we purchased this book from." I tugged the book of legends from my bag and held it up for Spike.
Spike sat the books he was carrying down near the stairwell and hurried over to me. On the way, he grabbed a quill and fresh parchment from a drawer. "Legends of Equestria, 3rd edition," he repeated aloud as he wrote the title down. He gave a nod and smile before running back downstairs.
I placed the book on the desk and closed my eyes. Wherever it came from was a matter for my own sake, and of little consequence in the end. What mattered more was the information within. Such a prediction could shake the foundations of The Princess's rule in Equestria, and if the threat was credible the implications were unthinkable.
Rising to my hooves, I began to wander the stacks of books, checking their spines. Most were related to my recent studies of runes, comparing ancient arcane ones to the more powerful eldritch contemporaries; they would be of little help. Instead, I moved to the shelves, pulling out tomes in search of something. Augurs, oracles, and prophets of our time and ages past; one of them might have told a similar prophecy.
I recalled reading one such book during my study of soothsaying years before: Cantations of Clover the Cryptic. Clover, personal student of unicorn sage Starswirl the Bearded, assisted in the foundation of Equestria, and was said to have seen the signs in the stars and void between that would lead to the Ancient Ones' return. I found my tattered old copy and carried it back to the desk, along with several other pertinent works.
Sadly, my search only found mention of the sisters or Elements in regards to The Princess's arrival. There was absolutely nothing related to the Mares in the Moon escaping, or any sort of fury or flame that would accompany them. But I read on, determined to find something, anything that would help. It was an hour later that Spike returned to find me still engrossed in my work.
"There's nothing in the receipts," he said, dejected. "I double-checked them all."
I could find no mention of the prophecy nor trace the origin of the book past it simply being at my residence. Perhaps an earlier occupant left it, but a quick check of the book showed it was printed over three hundred years ago. How many ponies could have occupied that building since then?
I sighed. There was only one course of action to take.
"Spike, take a letter. Address it to The Princess."
As he grabbed a blank scroll, he looked at me. I could see the spines on his head tremble and his claws shake. "Are you sure?" he asked in a whisper. "This year's celebration is a big event, right? Won't She be busy?"
I leaned down, placing a hoof gently on his shoulder. "She is, but it's imperative that She be told of this. Spike, you have nothing to worry about. I'm Her protégé, not you." I smiled, at least as much as I could manage while the worry built up in my stomach. I couldn't help but doubt the half-truths I said.
Still, Spike seemed to gain some resolve and nodded, putting quill to paper.
"Dear Princess," I began. "I hope that preparations for the one thousandth Summer Solstice Celebration are proceeding well. I have been occupied with my studies, but if any task arises that you have need of me for, I will gladly assist.
"However, in my studies I have stumbled upon something that I believe should be brought to your attention. I have found a prophecy, one which I cannot corroborate with the works of great oracles and prophets I have in my collection, yet. I found it scribbled in the margins of a book of legends, at the end of the story of your ascension."
I felt my throat go dry and paused for a moment. Closing my eyes, I took a slow breath. "It speaks of the Mares in the Moon, the sisters that you banished one thousand years ago. It claims that on the longest day of the thousandth year, the Stars will aid in their escape, and that they will return to Equestria with fury and flame."
I saw Spike pause at my words and bade him to continue writing. "I have done what I can to try and trace its origin, but have been unsuccessful so far. I will do all I can to continue my work, but it seems the book was at the observatory when I took residence. I beseech you to take this prophecy under advisement if you are unaware of it and to allow me to assist in any way that I can to determine its validity or source.
"Sincerely, Your Personal Protégé and Royal Scholar, Twilight Sparkle."
Spike finished writing, folded the parchment, and placed it into an envelope before applying a wax seal with my cutie mark. Then, with a puff of dragonfire, the letter vanished. I went to turn back to my books, but stopped as Spike began to cry.
"Is… did you really find that, Twilight?"
I nodded, closing a book by oracle Genuine Gaze. "I found it in Legends of Equestria, while reading in the castle garden. It might be nothing. Not even Clover the Cryptic predicted anything about The Princess's rule ending. It's supposed to be as eternal as She is."
Spike twiddled his claws in front of his belly for a moment, before clenching his fists and looking up at me. His eyes had dried, steam rising off of heated scales. "What can I do to help?"
"Well, not burn anything for starters," I said, pulling a smoldering scroll away from his feet. "Try to find anything you can by oracles, prophets, soothsayers, or fortune tellers. After you've—no, go check the library. I don't want them to be closed if you check here first." I pulled a small card from a stack on the desk, passing it to the dragon; it had my cutie mark and the royal seal, ensuring access to anything which I, or those that I sent, requested. "And if you get a reply, return immediately. Do not open it."
He took the card and rushed for the door, grabbing a spare bag on the way. I returned to my books, desperate for answers. However, a part of me wished to be ignored, to have my worries dismissed as nonsense. Perhaps then the price would have been smaller.
Spike returned in the evening, after I had exhausted a third of the resources available to me. Nothing spoke of an end or challenge or threat to The Princess's reign from anything but Her kin, and even then the language was always the same: "In strange aeons, when our world and the Stars alike have become naught but dust…"
Of course, even as I focused on research, my mind wandered. I began to consider what was simply an impossibility: that this prophecy, so brazen in its defiance to a rule that had lasted one thousand years, was left in plain sight. True, it was written into, so far, a single book and hidden in an observatory, but it was not kept in code. Did the diviner or unveiler of such a prophecy believe their life forfeit as soon as they discovered it and that encrypting it would only delay the inevitable? Perhaps they expected it to be dismissed, by somepony less driven than I? Did they assume nopony could trace it to them at all? If they held this residence, it would be an easy feat to narrow them down. Perhaps they slipped it inside these walls when it was vacant, which would certainly have eliminated a direct connection to them.
Regardless, Spike brought me new sources to comb. Even as the sun started to set and my stamina faded, I kept working. Spike assisted, not just in fetching me coffee, food, and writing supplies from downstairs, but also in reviewing some of the more simplistic works and compiling notes. My mother always scorned me, often within earshot of the drake, over how I treated him.
"It is a servant, not a child. Teaching it more than it needs is foolish and wasteful," she'd say. I've found in the years since that it would have been more wasteful to leave him illiterate given my intended profession.
Long ago, dragons were said to grow quite massive in size. There's many ancient tomes and historical accounts of dragons towering over ponies' houses and burning them to a crisp for the joy of it. When The Eternal Wyrm returned to them, they refused to serve. A "Dragon Lord" rallied an army against Him. They lost. Now, from Wyrm's Rest, He breeds and bears them as nothing more than servants and pets: weak and frail compared to their former glory. He gifts them to His brethren and royalty alike, and they require eldritch magic to birth. I was the youngest in recent memory to successfully hatch one, and it is the reason why I'm The Princess's protégé at all.
I would not and will not condemn the life to which I owe that position to mere tricks and yapping at my heels.
By the time the moon rose and its twin mares gazed mournfully down upon us, I received my response. Spike began to hiccup and then belched forth a scroll in a green burst of eldritch fire. There was no mark upon it, for it could only come from one source. I took it from him before he could open it, for I did not want his eyes to rest upon grave resolutions to this affair.
"My Most Faithful and Precious Student,
I appreciate you bringing such portents to my attention. However, you, like all my little ponies, have nothing to fear, nor to lose. This prophecy is folly and false, as the Stars aid only my kind. The mares in the Moon will look down upon my land for eternity. Their watch will end when they, and all, is dust.
However, I do have need of your assistance. This, the one thousandth year of my rule, is an important celebration of the Summer Solstice. Plans have been in motion in a town that will bear sacrifice this year, and I require a royal servant to ensure they are seen to perfection.
Included is a ticket for the night train to take you to Ponyville. Over the next week, please assist the locals and see that their celebration is one of joy and duty alike. Bring my radiance and comfort and gaze to them.
Solemnly,
The Princess
P.S. The local town library has been set aside as your lodgings. I have made sure the key and directions will be available to you at the Ponyville station."
I could not believe the words as I read them, I still do not now. The Princess had dismissed it all at once. Not where the prophecy had come from or even what it truly meant mattered to Her. She had not heard it. She had not known who could have made it. She didn't even regard my desire to continue my research.
There was a glimmer of defiance within me. She had not told me not to research further. Who was I, a mortal mare, to conquer my boundless curiosity about such a strange and disastrous warning of things to come? I compared the ticket to the time and made calculations in my head. I had Spike pack as much of our research materials as he could in my suitcases while I continued to read, marking off three more volumes as dead ends. By the time we made the train, it was nearly midnight.
As we settled into our compartment, Spike drifted to sleep while I continued to read by candle and moonlight. Sadly, my research would have to wait when slumber and nightmares alike overtook me.