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// Alicorns - Essences 
// Story: The Alicorn Book 
// by Nova Star Sparkle 
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* Chapter Three - Part 5 *





"However, that's just by the Way, you probably already further researched said topic and found a similar answer to the question. It's after all quiet common knowledge, gone through in biology in middle and upper classes. Therefore, I think, we should get back to something much more interesting for now. Something I’m sure, dear Twilight, will have pleasure to know. You see. There's something else very exciting you should know about the elements of harmony, Twilight."

"Oh, and what would that be, Luna?", Twilight wondered curiously with high excitement in her voice. Her ears pricked to the max and the corners of her muzzle bordering close to the physical impossible.

Luna acknowledged the young mares enthusiasm, as she began to speak. "You and your friends are in truth not only the representatives of the elements, but each of you also embodies them - in essence and all. For good start, I would like to begin telling you what the elements, or specific essences of harmony, are in truth. But don´t worry, I will come back to it later on another topic. When it will fit much better and you can understand more easily what it is all about. Agreed?"

Twilight just nodded, but otherwise remained silent and listened.

"I'd best start by saying that the elements of harmony used to be known by different names than you might be familiar with. In the very long past, the first names were sorcery, bravery, healing, hope, strength and beauty. But as you might already suggest, after thousands of years, these names slowly faded into obscurity and were replaced by the names we know today: magic, allegiance, kindness, laughter, honesty and generosity."

"Furthermore, sorcery or now rather magic is the binding part among the elemental essences. Without this component, the other five can only wield a fraction of a percent of their true power. They either way, remain very strong, but nowhere near as much as they should be."

Pausing for a moment to reflect, Luna went on, as she stretched one of her wings in Twilight's direction, pointing to the lavender mare.

"So, like you clearly can see, you also play a not insignificant role among your friends, when it comes to the elements of harmony, apart from the fact you are their unanimous voted leader. For only the strongest-willed and most capable ponies have been able to command the elements in the last millennia’s - in particular, the element of magic. I propose I will tell you the rest of the story and afterwards we can both answer your questions." Luna indicated to her sister and herself. "Because it is best, if you let me finish what I wanted to say first. Maybe then some of your questions will become clear by themselves, as your combination skills by far exceed expectations."

Nodding yet again, Twilight perked up her ears and tightened her body in joyful, curious anticipation.

"As stated before, you all not only represent the elements, you are them literally in every sense. The gems, from the moment you were born are just that. Beautiful pieces of jewelry - nothing more than symbols of what friendship stands for. The gems are from this moment on not anymore, the actual wielders of said power. You may wonder, what's so special about that. For you, it's probably as if this process is normal for every generation of element bearer. But you are wrong to assume that. What you and your friends are currently doing, is something that has never happened before. As even Celestia and I were only representatives of the elements - But you! You all six, embody the purest form of the aspects within yourselves. Well...and as an alicorn, you in addition have the privilege of possessing the six basic aspects of harmony in by far magnified quantity for a pony - nevertheless, your friends embody them even more strongly.”

"Before we used the elements about one millennium ago, there had been dozens of generations of ponies who wielded the elements. And even when we took control over a thousand years ago, it was only for a short time - a couple of hours at most. As technically, even at that time, there were six ponies who embodied the essences better than we did. Only thanks to our appearance as alicorns and already mentioned fact that an alicorn has above average values of magic, loyalty to others, empathy for everyone, joy in just being, honesty in doing daily business and generosity in helping others. It was possible for us to borrow the elements from the current representatives for a limited period of time. Whether it would still be possible for us to borrow the elements or rather the essences from you from now on, I can't answer you unfortunately. But considering, what you six together have accomplished with them so far, we could not keep up anyway. There I must confess, we are beginners."

Luna turned her head to her sister Celestia and signaled the snow-white alicorn, if she could take over. Her sister gladly accepted without further ado.

"Normally, over the millennia, the essences have always chosen new representatives, and with each passing of the old bearers, they passed on to new ones. Furthermore, prospective for self-protection, the elements have always ensured that all representatives physically age and pass away at the same rate. Increasing the life expectancy of the other bears if necessary. Only, when each of the six ponies had progressed past the actual life mark a pony could get, did the carriers die. And as an Earth pony can live up to 300 years, even the pegasus or unicorn representees were able to live way longer than 100 and around 230 years.

"Truly, we don´t know why it is like it is. The essences never quiet worked along known laws, only that the representatives were always present in equal numbers of two each. But we highly suspect that this all was a passive safety mechanism, fetched by the essences themself, they seemed to be passively cognitive, but didn´t happened to have a really mind on its own. We both believe, that was to prevent the purifying powers of the elements from being weakened or contaminated by grief, despair, or the like. Additionally, the essences are pure, flawless sources of Power, known to negate any negative effects in the bearers after acquisition and heal wounds that would prevent the bearers from performing their task", now Celestia was grinning slightly in Twilight's direction. "One could say, whoever wielded the elements was the closest one could come to being a superhero. Well - and in most cases, that was indeed the case, as the wielders have performed magnificent acts throughout the millennia’s. They helped to shape the World and Equestria into what it is now."

"Probably we three, you excluded as I’m speaking about hundreds and thousands of years ago. Of a time, you weren’t born yet - but I think you already knew that, didn´t you? - Would have been able to achieve a similar effect. Nethertheless, letting it be achieved by other pony’s than alicorns, was clearly a significant better and also wiser way to go in the long run. After all, it wouldn't really have lifted the spirit of the ponies if the only major achievements to protect and advance our world had come from us alicorns. For so, it was assured that everyone can make a contribution. No matter whether this may be large or small."

Celestia focused on Twilight once again, as she was interested to see if the youngest princess could follow so far - an endeavor that was theoretically obsolete, since as was stated, an alicorn was not exactly known for low comprehension and intellect.

"I'm assuming you noticed for yourself, that even without exposure to any healing magic, wounds, disadvantages and general injuries of you and your friends, regenerated faster than they normally would - truly powerful artifacts in every sense of the word, but understandable given their divine origins."

Twilight was about to comment and had already opened her muzzle to speak, but was stopped with a friendly hoof gesture from Luna.

"Please listen to my sister fully some more, there is not much left before you can ask what you desire to know".

So, Twilight just fluffed her wings and remained silent for the time being. Nodding her thanks to her sister briefly, Celestia began to speak anew.

"But of course, that all previously told by me changed about twenty years ago. Because you gathered control over the essence of magic then. And since you are an alicorn and we are physically fully grown at the age of 25, we no longer age in that area either anymore. You all but started to change the course of action. Only our magic and abilities continue to mature, like you might have imagined - and that forever, mostly in overall strength and quantity. What you also might have already figured out on your own, is the fact  that your friends, who are bound to you through the elements and generally your strong friendship to each other, will not age any more. Therefore, you don't have to worry about losing your friends through time. Or your immortality driving a wedge between your friends and you, as you previously might have feared. Before I even forget, above all considering your abilities, I also believe not through any other means", Celestia winked mockingly to Twilight.

"But enough of the talk on my part. Do you have any more questions for us, or have we been able to clarify them all?" Celestia questioned curiously with a tilt of her head sideways to Twilight this time. And Luna was also eager to hear the young, lavender alicorn's reply.

With an expressionless face, Twilight returned the two mares' questioning looks with a brief straightening of her wings by firming her shoulders. Whereupon afterwards she exhaled slowly two or three times.

"Questions not really, speaking of which. Not that I can think about any at the moment. But seriously? I take it you're telling me that by some paradox that I'm an alicorn and therefore can't die, moreover being the element of magic. My friends will stop aging physically as soon as I do? Since I embody the link between the rest of the elemental essences, without that they can only exert a fraction of their strength? Yeah...But hey! Why not? Not everything has to be so complicated all the time. Dash's dream as the eternally fastest Wonderbolt isn't in the equation any more, I reckon."

Luna and Celestia both couldn't help but start chuckling. For yes, the statement, when spoken loudly, did sound rather implausible and overly simplistic - well, for a non-alicorn at least.

Luna was the first to recover her voice.

"Yes, precisely that", she chuckled once more. "And oh boy yes, I can perfectly relate to you. Even with my age, Rainbow Dash is the most ambitious pegasus pony I've ever had the pleasure to come across. So, I would highly recommend you keep one of the windows of the throne room tilted when you tell your finding to the girls. Because otherwise, I can't guarantee anything, and even your home insurance will not want to pay for everything that gets broken. Nevertheless, I must confess, Flipper Live would be quite a spectacle. Because, for what I have heard and seen so far of your cyan friend. Leads me to believe she'll have done close to 200 laps around your castle by the time she's finished being freak out."

Afterwards, Luna couldn't help but smile all over again at the thought of a rainbow-colored ring around Twilight's friendship castle, releasing its joy amidst loud shouts. That, would certainly give one hell of a headline in Equestria Daily the next day. But she would wait and see, there wasn't virtually much she could do about it anyway.

Originally, Luna was about to continue, but was interrupted by a question from Twilight.

"Wait a minute! Now I got a question I have to ask the both of you. We discussed a good hour ago that we alicorns have an extremely strong will. That for starter, allows us to withstand the thought of an immortal/eternal life in the first place. Wouldn't that mean, that my friends would have to suffer from the thought of eternal live at some point? If so. Please, there must be a way to make that not happen. I will NOT DARE to sleep, eat and drink until I have found a way to release my friends from this torturing thought - eh, okay that was ill voiced, no pun intended, but I think you get the point"

Twilight concluded with a slight edge, but either way ultimate confidence for her previously mentioned path of action, in her voice. Her wings about halfway cocooned protectively around her body and her deep purple eyes shrunken noticeably to only small dots. Her feathers once again gave off hundreds of multicolored sparks of magic. Some white lightning also flowing, as it had once before, over the entire wings from the approach to the tips. This time Twilight definitely noticed the unusual tingling of an unknown force, but her concern for her friends far outweighed it. So, she forcefully pushed the thought to the back of her extensive mind, even if she was thrilled to seek the answer - it was probably just some magic-emotion thing that alicorns got from time to time. Surely Luna and Celestia had something like that weekly, if not daily.

Luna Notice Twilight's odd behaviour as well, but so far didn't give it a real thought. Twilight clearly cares very deeply for her five best friends and would be willing to do whatever it took to shelter them from any harm. Luckily, the answer was most likely the simplest one she could give.

But before Luna could comment, Celestia spoke up and simply waved off the idea with a hoof gesture, as she readied herself to give Twilight the desired response, with a motherly, relaxing smile.

"Oh, don't worry Twilight. The elements themselves would, purely theoretically as the elements are still kind of a mystery - nevertheless that’s the best explanation we got - already ensure that no one would have to suffer from psychological torment. But since we alicorns ourselves function as protectors of everything that is important and close to us. You don't have to worry about that in any way."

"Your bond, loyalty and care for your friends will protect them from such a terrible fate. As well as many other. And I believe you without any doubt you would break every limitation we still got to ensure upmost protection for your friends."

Celestia made an around four second pause, before she talked further. "Please, take this as a joke, but I honestly wouldn't dare to stand between you and your friends, or attack them. Your friendship-care enforced fury would be terrible."

Twilight was utterly speechless and simply rolled her eyes. Celestia, you just had to say that, didn't you?

Luna took over the leadership of the speech without further ado. As it didn't seem like one of the other two was to speek up anytime soon.

"And if I may guess. You have probably unknowingly protected them more times than you might think. Possibly by noting certain words that, in retrospect, caused decisions to be made slightly differently than normal. Or by unnoticed, but effective protective spells aka. buffs that prevented injuries your friends would have otherwise suffered - I don't honestly know for sure, but I'd bet some money on the theory."

Thinking briefly, Twilight lifted her hoof towards Luna and pointed at the deep-blue alicorn with a grin.

"Good to know! Good to know! At least that saves me the horrendous therapy costs for starters!"

Laughing, Luna returned Twilight's statement.

"Though I doubt therapy could take care of that. But the general point stands. That Credit I must give you."

"But enough of that. I'd say we move on. Shall we?"

Celestia indicated with a motion of her head that she would fetch herself another cup of tea and offered a second one to her and Twiligt. Something both other mares genuially accepted and took the cups swiftly into their grips.


* End of Chapter Three - Part 5 *