"WHAT?!?!?!?"
The simultaneous inquiry of all the ponies in the room probably risked blowing their hiding place, but fortunately, the direction of the sound was quickly lost in the labyrinthine tunnels.
"Tis true, she is indeed Solaria, the conqueror of worlds," Luna stated. "I would recognize our mother anywhere.
"She had left for her old homeland in the west millennia ago, leaving us to rule this territory. Rumor has it her original subjects found a way to kill her, but we never investigated for fear that they would do the same to us. We ruled here together and took turns maintaining our satellite territories."
After a pause, Twilight looked up. "What happened?"
Celestia sighed. "It is a long story, but in short, it was ages ago, centuries before even the time of Discord."
She paused a long time before she spoke again. No one interrupted her.
"It all happened shortly after the events now known as Hearth's Warming. Solaria had left to check on the old kingdom only a few decades ago, leaving us in her place.
"We were young then, and we followed in her hoofsteps like foals. The Heroes of Harmony had met while we were away maintaining other territories. When we got back, the ponies here were not only reunified, but had also gained a patience with us that allowed us to rule them a little longer."
She hung her head.
"I wish I could tell you that I've always been a perfect ruler, but... but I can't."
While the confession was producing the first inklings of relief for the princess, it did little to help her student.
"Celestia, if all that's true, what happened?"
The guards had finished escorting the laborers back to their district and were about to head off to find some escorts of their own when a stallion came wandering unsteadily out of the forest. They smelled him long before they saw him; the very air in his presence reeked of vomit.
The stallion was unlike any they had seen before. He had no fur except in tufts and patches scattered across his body. One of his ears was cut short, and his skin was scarred white with acid burns. There was no doubt that he had, at one time, looked like any of them would, but now he would never be the same again.
There was a miracle in his presence, but the miracle was not that he was walking among them. The true miracle was that he was alive in the first place.
"Take me to the city. I have an urgent message, and time is of the uttermost essence."
The guards were too dumbfounded to argue. They were near the outskirts of the city already. As soon as they reached the interior of the city, he announced his message for all to hear.
"Forty days, and then this land will be overturned, and shall perish in fire and water! This is the order of the Tau Sunflare, who reigns from beyond the stars."
The guards were, needless to say, stunned. That is the only reason why they didn't arrest him on the spot.
He repeated this message throughout the day, and it was not long before echos of his message spread throughout the city, whispered on the street corners and in the alleys. After they had nearly been overturned in ice, threats of floods and fires had gotten everypony's attention.
Nopony wanted to be caught sharing such rumors, but they couldn't help but tell. They were spread even among the guards and the royal servants, until finally, they reached Queen Celestia herself.
"WHAT IS THIS?!?!?!?!?"
She was not happy.
"BRING HIM HERE AT ONCE!!!!"
The stallion came without complaint. He was escorted to the throne room and instructed to wait. Celestia was not there, of course. The first step to dealing with troublemakers was to remind them just who was in power and who was not. With peals of thunder and flashes of lightning, she teleported into the room in front of him.
"WHO DARES SOW DISSENT AMONG..."
She stopped upon seeing the pony in front of her. She was about to speak again, but upon breathing in, she nearly gagged on his smell.
"Who (ack) art thou?"
The scarred, weak, putrid thing looked up at her with the eyes of a servant, but spoke with the voice of an equal.
"I am Firm Sign, sent by the one who reigns from beyond the stars, to warn of disaster against this land."
His voice carried no malice, although he clearly did not enjoy her presence. She analyzed the stranger before she spoke.
"Dost thou wish to see us destroyed?"
"Indeed. I almost refused to send your people this message, in hopes that you would not find it until too late. I found, through many trials, that such messages are impossible to not send. As thou can see, the method by which I was brought here was extreme."
Celestia tried to hide her surprise, but despite years of practice, she could not help if some emotion had leaked through.
He obtained those injuries just coming here? How could anything be that urgent? Why wouldst he try to destroy us by not giving us a divisive message? Is it possible...?
She motioned to two of her guards. "He is free to go. Give him a mark of my immunity so that the other guards will know he is free to do as he will. I must give this matter some thought."
She paced towards the library, giving instructions to the guards to leave her alone. As she approached, a disturbing series of thoughts filled her mind, trickling in at first, but slowly increasing until they were all that remained.
The windigos had not been the first disaster to fall on the land. They merely had been the most dangerous and the most recent. Before them came the out-of-control storms that had ignored every pegasus that tried to tame them. Before that was the invasion of Everfree beasts that had forced them to move their capital. And before that was the scarlet plague that had killed young and old alike...
As she neared the library, she stopped to write a letter to her sister, asking her to come posthaste from the new territory to aid in the matter. She then pulled out the ancient scrolls and began to read.
<•>:<•>:<•>
Luna teleported into the throne room, confused to not see her sister there. She searched the castle for some time, finally finding her sister behind the servant's quarters, sitting in the dirt and covering herself with a blanket fit for a pauper, a pile of scrolls in scattered around her.
Her sister looked up from the ground. "I believe we have made a terrible mistake," she finally said, "and I don't know what to do."
<•>:<•>:<•>
The next day, the following sign was posted in each square:
There is an ancient law given by one in authority over us. We have refused this authority, and now face destruction as a consequence.
A copy of this law has been found in the library archives, and copies of it are being made.
By order of their highnesses, Queens Celestia and Luna, the copies of the law shall be made available to all who request them. Should anything be found to contradict our own law, the ancient law shall supersede our own, and our own shall be changed to match.
This is a time of mourning. No pony, herd, or flock is to taste anything. They are not to eat or drink water. Everyone is to cover themselves in sackcloth and to call on her Majesty, and they are to turn, each from his evil way, and from the violence which is in their hooves. Perhaps she may relent, and turn from her anger, so that we will not perish.
"We spent the next few years studying the ancient texts. The heroes of Heartwarming, Clover, Pansy, and Puddinghead, ruled in our stead during that time. We learned much from them and still employ their lessons to this day.
"We fear that our mother has come to reestablish the kingdom as it once was, when it was under her rule."
There was silence in the cave for a long time.