//------------------------------// // The Root of Power // Story: Powdered Snow Falls Softly // by libertydude //------------------------------// The rest of the way down was smoother than every other part of the cave. Carved steps followed the tunnel down, damp but bumpy enough to prevent any slips should one catch the occasional wet stair. The light likewise brightened and illuminated everything as clearly as any ceiling light. Pinkie’s mood likewise picked up, with her rambling about all the ponies she would invite to the World Premiere of Powder Cookies party that she’d be throwing once this was all over. While others might’ve grown annoyed with the rambling, Celestia took the talk with a knowing smile. She knew this to be one of Pinkie’s coping methods with scary situations. Who am I to judge how she deals with these traps? Celestia mused. I roped her into this. After a few minutes journeying down the steps, a large archway appeared before them. Pinkie stopped right at the cusp and stuck her head in. Before her stretched an arena, one hundred feet tall and two hundred feet wide. Four different levels made of stone moved downward to the main stage. Where curtains should be on the stage stood only blackness. Sitting in the center of the stage, atop a wooden table, laid a small sheet of paper. “At last,” Celestia said. Pinkie looked left and right. “I hope this room isn’t booby-trapped too,” she said. Her voice echoed across the room. Celestia scanned the room carefully. Aside from the table, nothing but the stone steps and stage filled the room. “It isn’t,” Celestia said, before hopping down the levels. Each one was twice as long as her, and she resisted gliding all the way down. Closer and closer the table came until she was upon the stage and staring down at the paper. She didn’t bother trying to read the directions or ingredients; she’d forget them in a minute anyway. Instead, she looked to the top of the paper where two words sat in bold type: POWDER COOKIES A hoof eased forward to grasp it. “Wait!” Pinkie Pie cried. She hopped up on the stage and started to root through her tail. A bouncy ball and accordion fell out before she managed to pull out a camera. “I want to try something,” she said. Celestia lowered her hoof as Pinkie readied her camera. A bright flash and a loud poof filled the arena, before a soft whir filled the room. Pinkie plucked the picture rolling out from the bottom of the camera and squinted. A few moments passed in silence, before a frustrated grunt escaped her. “No use,” Pinkie whined. “The camera didn’t pick up any of the words.” “It’s the curse,” Celestia said. “Apparently Kalamandra had the foresight to make the curse cover anything that could replicate it, even technologies that didn’t exist yet.” She gave a mirthless chuckle. “I almost want to applaud her for such talent.” “Then why aren’t you?” a low voice called out. “We are in a theater, after all.” Celestia and Pinkie whipped themselves around. The archway, much like the cave opening, laid covered. The sole difference was the archway had been filled by stacked stone, carefully placed as if architects from long ago had walled it off in the original construction. “Who said that?” Celestia demanded. She pushed Pinkie back behind her outstretched wing. “Oh, your memory really is going, Celestia,” the voice chuckled. “Who do you think it is?” Celestia’s eyes narrowed for a moment, before expanding in horror. “Kalamandra!” At the word’s very utterance, the blackness behind the stage shot out and snared the two ponies. Upwards they flew until they hung ten feet above the stage. Celestia found her limbs and wings encircled by three black tentacles each, while a lone limb encircled her neck. Pinkie hung upside down, gripped by one large tentacle that bounced her up and down. Her breathing labored and limbs feeling like they were about to be torn off, Celestia stared down at the stage. From the blackness stepped a shadow in the shape of a pony. Each step forward caused a small portion of the blackness to fall off, replaced by a brown coat. More and more equestrian did the shadow look until it stood directly beneath them. A copper mare stared up at them, her turquoise eyes staring up at them in malicious amusement. Thick bangs of black hair fell down her face. A red dress adorned her body and flowed freely onto the stone below her. “How nice of you to visit, Celestia,” the mare said. “Did you want some Powder Cookies? I’m more than happy to give you a few.” “How is this possible?” Celestia sputtered. “You’ve been dead for seven hundred years!” “Oh no, Celestia. See, unlike you and that nocturnal sister of yours, we regular ponies don’t get to live a thousand years. The best you can give us is a cookie recipe.” She waved her hoof. “But no matter. That recipe was the key to my immortality. Because it didn’t just twist animals and inanimate objects to do my bidding.” A sharp gleam filled her eyes. “It kept me alive forever.” Pinkie Pie shivered, and Celestia did everything she could not to shake herself. “I have you to thank for that,” Kalamandra said, nodding. “Your Powder Cookies recipe had just the right amount of sentimental value. All those years of baking them with your sister gave the recipe such deep, emotionally-charged magic that I could feed off of it for three more millennia.” “Wait, you baked them with Luna?” Pinkie gasped. Kalamandra raised an eyebrow. “Ah, you didn’t tell your pink friend here about why you want this recipe so bad, did you?” She laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, my little pony. It’s quite simple. See, all the way back to foalhood, Celestia and Luna would share Powder Cookies on the Winter Solstice. It was their little tradition of sisterhood. But one day…well, let’s just say they had a little disagreement and Celestia saw fit to exile sweet little Luna to the Moon.” Celestia’s face filled with rage. “You thought I wouldn’t know that, Celestia?” Kalamandra cooed. “Of course you didn’t. It wasn’t public knowledge seven hundred years ago. Don’t bother asking me how I figured it out.” She gave a flippant wave of her hoof. “Let’s just say a lot of research and a little hard work made your Royal Archives tell me everything I needed to know. Including what the mythological Lunar Princess’s favorite Winter Wonderday dessert was.” She turned to Pinkie. “Anyway, poor Celestia could never have a bite of Powder Cookies again without thinking of her absent sister. Each bite would just bring a torrent of once-pleasant memories flooding to her, now soured by little Luna’s moonbound flight. So she had to get rid of it. Had she been smart she would have burned it, but bleeding hearts can never destroy things. She had to give it away, so I stepped in and asked for the recipe. I’d done all the right curtsies and said the right lines, so how could she refuse?” Facing Celestia again, she grinned. “You should’ve been a crueler Princess, Celestia. You might’ve survived longer.” “Cruelty is for tyrants and monsters like you,” Celestia spat. Kalamandra shrugged. “Monster or magician, it matters not what I am now. For once I absorb your power, I shall gain physical form once more. With the wings and horns of an alicorn to match! No longer constrained to this forsaken cave and free to conquer Equestria! And unlike you, my reign will be eternal. An undying queen rules forever and punishes without mercy!” A look of wry amusement crossed her face. “But I suppose I should allow some leniency. The griffin kings of old always let a prisoner free whenever their reign began, just to show their subjects that they had some small bit of mercy in them.” She brought Pinkie Pie down toward the stage until the tendril held the party mare before her. Still upside down, Pinkie felt like a bat staring at wolf. “Miss Pinkie Pie,” Kalamandra cooed. “I’m more than willing to spare you should you pledge yourself to me. You defeated my bear in combat and Celestia trusted you to navigate this cave, so obviously you’re a mare of some resources. I could use somepony like you in my court.” She shot a glance up at Celestia and shook her head. “Besides, if she was willing to drag you into a death trap over some cookies, I don’t think she has your best interests in mind.” Pinkie looked up at Celestia. A twinge of guilt seemed to fill Celestia’s face. Looking back at Kalamandra, Pinkie’s face hardened. “She told me enough,” she said in a tone just above a whisper. “She told me the recipe was important to her and told me I didn’t have to come. That was enough.” Her chest puffed out in defiance. “In fact, knowing now that she wanted to relive a memory with her sister, I can say I’m glad I helped her! I would do the same thing all over again!” Celestia smiled. I hope we survive this, Pinkie, she thought. I want to cook you the best batch of Powder Cookies in the history of Equestria! Kalamandra likewise smiled, her grin unearnest. “Such a shame,” she tutted. “I would’ve liked to have a party pony like you when I marched into Canterlot. It will be a party for the ages…” “Why wait?” Pinkie said, beaming. “What?!” Kalamandra’s face scrunched in confusion, before widening in horror. Sticking out from Pinkie’s curly mane was a light-blue cannon. One strand of hair wrapped around the barrel, while a smaller strand pushed down on the trigger. PWEEEE! Kalamandra stumbled backward, an onslaught of confetti and pies smashing against her face. The black tendril around Pinkie Pie loosened and she fell face-first onto the floor. The party cannon pushed itself back into her mane upon impact, and Pinkie bounced off her head directly back onto her hooves. “Celestia!” she hollered. “Let’s hoof it!” Celestia grinned and closed her eyes. “The power of the Sun has not left me!” she screamed, engulfing herself in a blast of light. The tendrils around her vaporized in an instant and she swooped down to pick up Pinkie. Grabbing her, Celestia readied another blast to blow open the arch’s doors. ZWOOOM! The blast hit against the stone with a thunderous crash, but Celestia stopped. A black mark stood where there should be a hole. Kalamandra’s laugh echoed behind them. “You’re too late, Celestia!” she howled. “You’ve spent too long in my cave! I’ve absorbed enough of your magic that I can resist any attack you throw at me!” A sinister grin filled her face. “But if you want to keep trying, feel free. The more magic you use, the faster I’ll digest you and your little pink friend!” Celestia growled and sent a blast of fire directly at Kalamandra. The sorceress made no attempt to even move as the flame crashed against her. After the flash subsided, the stone around her flickered with flame, but not a singe was upon Kalamandra. “Yes!” she screamed in ecstasy. “Keep fighting! I’d rather be a goddess sooner rather than later!” Gritting her teeth, Celestia panted. She knew Kalamandra was telling the truth; already she felt her strength leaving her body. I can only put up one more strong attack, she thought, gazing at the black tentacles starting to snake out from the stage. But where to? She has to have a weak spot that- Her eyes wandered to the wooden table. Atop it sat the recipe gleaming an unearthly glow. The shine was just like the cave: light green and bright. Pulsating with power and dark magic. A tear began to form at Celestia’s eye. I’m sorry, Luna, Celestia thought. She turned to Pinkie. “I’m sorry, Pinkie,” she whispered. “There won’t be any Powder Cookies this Winter Wonderday.” Pinkie stared up at her in confusion, then realization. Before she could say anything, Celestia launched another fire attack. This time, however, it was not aimed at Kalamandra. The sorceress’s eyes went wide when she realized the path. Had she been a split-second quicker, she might’ve been able to direct the tendrils to the defense or cast a quick telekinetic spell that would knock the table over. But she wasn’t, and the recipe burst into flame upon the spell’s contact. A high-pitched scream filled the arena, and the black tendrils disappeared. Kalamandra herself began to dissipate like a cloud being blown away by the atmospheric winds. Large boulders began to fall to the floor as the cave-in started. Celestia grabbed Pinkie Pie and teleported. Pop! Celestia and Pinkie tumbled into the snow. They looked up to see themselves outside the cave once more. The blizzard had stopped, but the howl of the wind had been replaced by another screech from inside the cave. The jagged rocks that had locked them within rumbled and crashed inward. Now the passage remained even more blocked than it had before. “She’d tied the recipe too closely to her,” Celestia sighed. “The only way to freedom was to destroy it.” She stared sadly at Pinkie Pie. “I’m sorry you didn’t get anything out of this, Pinkie.” She hung her head. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything.” Pinkie shrugged. “It’s alright. You told me enough. And…” She let her hoof wander over the desolate mountain. “Better to let a recipe be destroyed than the whole world.” Crash! Both ponies’ eyes shot toward the entrance. A panting bear thrust himself out through a crack in the rocks just big enough for his body. He pushed on until his last paw came outward. A new rumbling started as more rocks fell to fill in the crack. Soon, even more rocks tumbled downward to cover the cave opening in another layer of impenetrable stone. Clear of the new avalanche, the bear stopped and looked toward the two ponies. Celestia’s horn glowed a deep golden color. Even the few moments outside had restored her to full strength. The bear sniffed towards them, then stumbled off toward a nearby treeline. Whether he understood the implicit threat of Celestia’s magic or just wanted to escape the place of his enslavement, Celestia could not tell. She suspected the latter. Celestia sighed. “Alright,” she said. “Let’s go.” “Back to Ponyville?” Pinkie asked. “No. To Luna.”