Before today, I hadn't cried in a thousand moons. My body simply runs too hot for it. Even if there was anything worth shedding my tears over, I couldn't physically do so.
But now things had changed. My fire was gone. Equestria was gone. Everything was gone. And the tears came, and wouldn't stop.
I'd thought there was nopony more spiteful, more deserving of my scorn and wrath than Celestia, but I had never been more wrong. Twilight Sparkle was a pony more monstrous than I could ever have imagined, and I should have seen it from the beginning. With her dying breath, she denied me everything. She took my magic. She took all magic. She took Equestria. She took my ponies, hid them in a place I could never find, and left me to rot in an entropic wasteland.
I'm not ashamed to say that I fell into complete despair for a time. What else could I do? I had nothing left. Nowhere to go. Even Skyros had forsaken me. No powers to call on, no support, not even anypony to threaten. And since there was nopony left to hold me to account, I felt no shame in feeling sorry for myself.
For a time I simply wandered the endless wilderness without really taking any of it in. There wasn't anything to see. Without magic, without even wild magic, the world was simply a machine winding itself down. Plants grew in unguided disarray, creatures held themselves to account, and even they wouldn't give me the time of day. I couldn't even take out my anger on them.
But although it took a long time, I cannot be kept down forever. It's simply not in my nature. I always bounce back from setbacks. True, this was the biggest thing that ever went wrong in the entire history of things going wrong, but isn't that a challenge worthy of an alicorn? The greatest alicorn who ever lived? I am not mortal, and that means I don't give up. Ever. If I couldn't have my fire, let anger and hate be my fire instead.
Twilight Sparkle was dead, and that was a big, big win. If I were keeping a scorecard, that would be worth, ooh, a million points.
Equestria was gone, but it wasn't gone gone. It was still out there somewhere, waiting for me.
And the magic? The magic also wasn't gone gone. You can't just make magic vanish. You can move it, dissipate it, concentrate it, send it to other realms, but it's always there.
Plus, I knew Twilight Sparkle. She believed friendship was magic, whatever that meant, so if there was no magic, there couldn't be friendship either, and that would have been anathema to her. No, magic was still here, I was sure of it. I could take that too. I could get it all back, and with nopony to stop me this time.
I just needed power. Any power, anything I could get.
I looked up at the stars with some considerable satisfaction. It had taken decades of observation and experimentation to be sure, but now I was convinced: Twilight Sparkle was a complete idiot.
In her final hours, she had set the sun and moon on fixed courses, to maintain the cycle of day and night in the absence of magic. By my count, the cycle had a 10-year wobble in it, but on a grand timescale, it was effectively rigid.
She had no idea what a boon she'd handed me! With such a precise astronomical clock, both lunar and solar astrology were open to me. I could align my rituals to the cycles and build power slowly but surely. It was a painfully slow process, but it would work! Had she really thought I didn't know the ways of the ancients? Ignorant fool! I am one of the ancients!
I still had a couple of pressing problems to solve. The first was the location of Equestria. I had been wandering far and wide for years, but had had zero success in locating it. Yet, I was sure it had to be somewhere. I was starting to suspect it might be intentionally hidden from me and me specifically, because that was the kind of sneaky and hateful thing Twilight Sparkle would do.
The second problem was more immediate, a matter of concoction - another ancient art that she had erroneously thought me incapable of. Vegetation had been growing rampantly since the loss of magic, but I had been carefully cultivating a few fields of it to use as ingredients for potions. Right now, I had a brew bubbling away, my latest attempt to create something I'd been needing desperately for moons.
I sampled the frothy brown potion, but immediately spat it out in disgust. The malting process was working, but the flavor just wasn't quite there yet.
I really missed milk.
My distant wanderings had yet to locate Equestria, but that didn't mean they were for naught. I'd discovered that the wilderness didn't extend forever - there still existed remnants of the missing civilization, strewn across the land like puzzle pieces that had been fit in the wrong place. Sections of road that didn't connect anything to anything, abandoned and half-ruined buildings, fences crisscrossing each other without purpose. It seemed like they'd been excluded from Twilight's spell, but I couldn't figure out why.
But it was progress! It was the first real solid lead I had to go on. Perhaps there was some pattern I was missing. Twilight's spell seemed to have twisted the land into unrecognizability, but clearly it had some imperfections - things that had slipped the net, parts showing through where they shouldn't. It bolstered my hopes of finding Equestria considerably.
I'd spent so much time alone that I started to wonder if it was possible, even for an immortal like myself, to go insane.
"I mean, how would I even know?" I asked Gertrude, who was busily brushing my mane, teasing every kink and split out of my glorious porcelain strands as she did every morning. "Perhaps I've always been mad. Ponies always used to say I was, but I thought they were just trying to insult me. What if they were right?"
"You're not mad," Gertrude reassured me. "You're just having a bad time, that's all. None of this is your fault."
I relaxed under Gertrude's gentle touch and calming words. She always knew how to cheer me up.
"Thanks. I think I needed to hear that."
"Any time, darling," said Gertrude, warmly. "All done now!"
I admired myself in my hoof mirror. Perfect as I could be. Before Gertrude, I'd simply given up on my mane, allowing it to turn ratty and knotted. But the precious maidservant had insisted, quite forcefully, that I take care of myself, or she would do it for me. With her help, I slowly began to reclaim parts of myself I'd long abandoned. Mane care. Hygiene. Etiquette. It was hard to come back to myself, but she never stopped pushing me.
"What are you doing today, my Queen?" Gertrude asked politely. I knew she had no real investment in my plans - she just wanted to be sure I had them.
"I'm returning to the Forgotten Coast," I told her. "I think I'm really getting close now, Gertrude. Equestria is there, I'm sure of it. I can't see it, but everything is pointing to it."
Gertrude smiled. "It won't be long now, your Majesty. Soon you'll take your rightful place once more."
I rapped my hoof on the edge of nothing, feeling the void twist around my foreleg like a mylar sheet. Rejecting me like a petulant foal.
The shroud of Equestria! I'd found it at last! The last vestige of Twilight Sparkle's pathetic, fruitless attempt to resist me.
I couldn't see anything beyond the void. Or to be more precise, the void was showing me something other than what was actually there. A glamor, extending a superficial illusion of my surroundings to fill the missing gap. There might be an entire citadel standing merely feet away, but all I could see were rolling hills and fields of grass. Twilight Sparkle's pettiness was so boundless that she wouldn't even allow me to glimpse my prize.
Further exploration revealed the border of the shroud to be vast, which wasn't too surprising given that I knew it was hiding an entire country. It would take a long time to chart out the perimeter. But that impediment was minor to me. The important thing was that Equestria was still largely fixed to this plane, concealed only by what was essentially the magical equivalent of a tablecloth. All I needed now was the power to penetrate it.
Thunder boomed across the sky as lightning backlit the abandoned watchtower. I trotted across the crumbled stone viaduct that bridged the precipitous drop before the entrance.
Aesthetics? Five stars, easily. Location? Within spitting distance of Equestria, at least when I regained my fully-empowered fire alicorn spit. Condition?
I screamed as the arched front gate toppled off its supports, and dove onto the flagstone just in time to avoid being flattened.
Condition: decidedly not great. Still, better than most of the shacks I'd lived in over the last few centuries. This was it. This was my new home. I didn't care if it was infested with rats or if I had to fight a giant spider for ownership. I'd been without a lair for far too long.
Brandishing a lit torch, I crunched through the dust of centuries. This place had been old even before Twilight Sparkle ruined everything. Not quite pre-Unification era, but certainly older than Celestia's rule. I suspected it had been built to overlook the river and valley below, and project military might in this region. It hadn't been used for many thousands of moons, but I could find savage weapons still in their racks. Beautiful.
The main hallway eventually ended at a large arched door - this one fortunately still on working hinges - and I pushed it open to find the largest room yet, a circular chamber with a ceiling tall enough to be lost in the gloom. At one point it had had an enormous chandelier to light it, but that had fallen long ago and was now sitting in a rubble pit in the center of the room. Dirty stained glass threw a cold greenish hue over the gothic decor, while blazes of gold provided a balancing warmth. And outside, the thunder continued to boom distantly, making me feel warm and safe in my new lair.
"It's perfect."
My face wobbled within the surface of the ominous liquid that filled my new scrying pool, which added a sinister underlighting to the room, along with a faint scent of evil.
Now if I had something to scry upon, that would be lovely. But sadly, even my incredible prowess in divination couldn't penetrate that blasted shroud.
I growled and retreated back to my new throne, throwing myself into it moodily. What could I do? Right now, if anypony were around to witness me, I would be heralded as the most adept shamaness who had ever lived. And yet all my magicks were cheap parlor tricks compared to the real, raw thaumic energy of Equestria. I wanted it so badly.
"Think, Opaline," I told myself. "Every enchantment has a weakness somewhere, unless it's one cast by me. There's always something that gets overlooked."
The obvious way to bypass the shroud was to dig underneath it, but I'd tried that already. The barrier extended downward through the ground. I didn't know if Equestria was completely sealed from underneath, but I had to assume that was the case.
Still, there was potential to that avenue. The fact that the shroud had to intersect solid earth meant that there were things that could pass through it. Inanimate things like dirt and rocks, those would be exempt from its effects.
My eyes opened wide as I had a brainwave, then wider as I lost my balance and toppled off the side of my throne.
"I don't understand," Gertrude said, looking at me with doubt and uncertainty, then at the shallow hole I'd dug in the dirt beneath Arcana Keep. "My Queen, I am not a gardener. I don't really think this is something I can help you with."
"Of course it is," I told her, taking the manebrush from her hoof and gently guiding her to the soft, purplish soil at the edge of the hole. Inside, a single seed was placed, glowing and slightly shuddering with all the magic I'd infused into it. "You're the only one who can help me, Gertrude. I'm going outside of my comfort zone a bit here."
"I'll do what I can, my Queen."
I nodded grimly, and gestured to the hole. "I'm going to grow something called a Together Tree. It's a special kind of plant that feeds on unity magic and..." - I paused, trying to sound more like I was being dramatic and less like I was throwing up in my mouth - "... friendship."
Gertrude nodded. "And what do you need me from me, my Queen?"
I tilted my head at her, puzzled by her question. "Well, we're friends."
The maidservant's expression shifted from doubt to sudden nervousness. "Um, my Queen, I don't know if we really have the kind of... relationship that's required for something like this. I am of course your loyal servant, and -"
"You don't like me?"
"My Queen, it's not a question of like, nor dislike. The problem is more a metaphysical issue which lies rather outside of my remit, I'm afraid."
I couldn't figure out why my usually-helpful maidservant was so suddenly reticent, but with some cajoling I eventually secured her cooperation, and I performed the ritual to activate the magic within. The soil surrounding the seed shimmered pink with potential. "Now we just wait, Gertrude."
As an alicorn, I am as much earth pony as I am unicorn or pegasus, but I have to admit, agriculture and horticulture don't come as easily to me as my other talents. Perhaps it's the tradeoff of being a fire alicorn. Because, to my intense annoyance, I could not get my tree to cooperate with me in the least.
I mean, it grew - that was promising, at least - just not in the way I expected. For whatever reason, the tree objected to being outside in the shadow of my keep, and refused to sprout anything more than a sickly seedling out there. It wasn't until one day I found myself unable to close my pantry door, that I realized the tree had been snaking its way through my castle behind my back. Every floor of every tower, I found branches growing up through the stonework, displacing bricks and making use of every gap and crevice available to climb higher and higher.
Sneaky and ambitious. I guess it really was a tree after my heart. Eventually I got tired of trying to corral the thing, and just let it grow where it wanted. I can't deny that it lent a certain organic warmth to the place.
"Gertrude!" I yelled, my hoof mid-brush through my mane. "Gertrude! I've done it!"
I stared into the illusory image above my scrying pool, barely noticing as Gertrude dutifully took over and continued brushing my mane. "What is it, my Queen?"
I poured another tiny phial of hematite essence into the pool, trying to turn the flickering, dancing image into something meaningful. "I saw Equestria, Gertrude! For only a second, but it was there! I saw ponies... hundreds, thousands of them! But I don't understand how..."
My heart leapt as the image came back again, this time in greater clarity. I was looking down on a golden city from above, onto a wide avenue lined with thousands of ponies on either side. I leaned forward to get a better look, but in an eyeblink, my vantage point changed to somewhere else, and I was suddenly in the crowd at eye level, looking toward a tall palace.
It was clearly a special occasion, and I didn't even have to guess what it was. Lettering in a bold script beneath the image proclaimed: "CORONATION OF QUEEN HAVEN".
"They're all pegasi, Gertrude," I said, squinting at the crowd. "This must be Cloudsdale, or whatever Cloudsdale is now."
"Congratulations, my Queen," Gertrude said. "I knew you would succeed."
"That's just it, Gertrude, I don't think I did. I'm not scrying anything. These images are being sent to me. Or, well, no, that's not right. I think they're being sent everywhere. Aetheric waves emanating from within Equestria. I've just found a way to receive them."
"That's still a spectacular achievement, my Queen," Gertrude insisted.
"It is, isn't it?" I said with a proud grin. "If nothing else, it proves that Twilight Sparkle's stupid spell isn't completely impermeable. I may not be able to get in, but that doesn't stop me getting things out. This could be it, Gertrude. The breakthrough I need. With this new source of information, I'll be able to find out all kinds of things I couldn't before. Perhaps even locate a weak point in the shroud."
"It's wonderful, my Queen," said Gertrude. "I wish you the best of luck."
"Don't brood," Gertrude admonished, picking up the manebrush at my side and gently grooming my mane back into order. "It's not healthy."
I closed my eyes and continued to slouch on my throne as the brush slid through my mane. "But I like brooding. This chair is good for it," I argued back sulkily.
Suddenly the brushing stopped, and I pouted in surprise, opening my eyes to see the maidservant looking down at me with a very disapproving expression. I didn't like it. It made me feel small.
"You have to do something, my Queen. You're so close to your goal. You can't give up now."
"I haven't given up!" I yelled at her, before shrinking back apologetically. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you."
"There's no need to apologize," Gertrude insisted. "But you do have to get back on track."
"I need more time, Gertrude. My magic is but a feather compared to the enchantment protecting Equestria." I sighed. "I've waited so long. I can wait a little longer. Now, finish brushing my mane."
Gertrude defiantly held the brush aloft, out of reach.
I frowned and tried to remember that word, the one mortals used sometimes. "P-Please?"
She didn't relent.
"Time isn't the problem, my Queen," Gertrude said, as I sulkily sat up in my throne. "Nor is magic. You have enough. What you need is help."
"I do not need help!" I hissed at her. "I need nopony! I am Opaline Arcana, Queen of the Flame, and I design my own fate!" I breathed a few calming breaths, and then relaxed again. "Besides, I have you, Gertrude, my sweet, most loyal servant. You're the only pony I need."
Gertrude looked at me, her eyes carrying a sadness that filled me with cold dread. "No, my Queen. I... I can't do this any more."
"Of course you can," I told her. "I will it. I command it."
"No," she said. "Because I'm not real. You know I'm not."
"I don't care," I told her truthfully. "You're real to me, Gertrude, and that's all that matters. I would happily take a thousand of you over any real pony."
"I know you would," Gertrude said, with a polite, hollow laugh. "That's the problem."
A cold, itchy sweat prickled at my skin. "Gertrude, please... please, I'm..." my throat constricted at the unfamiliar words I was forcing through it. "I'm begging you. Don't go. I need you."
"You don't," Gertrude said with a warm smile, as she began to fade. "As you said, you are the designer of your own fate. It's time for you to take charge of it once again."
"Please..." I grabbed Gertrude's hoof as she faded to nothing, but found myself only holding her manebrush. "Gertrude! Gertrude! Please come back!"
I gazed tight-lipped over the image of the forest known as Bridlewood. An actual scryed image this time, rather than the peculiar signals Equestria was beaming out.
I'd learned many things from those signals. Equestria itself had as little access to magic as I had. Was that a side-effect of Twilight's spell? The magic was definitely still there, somewhere, just locked away, out of reach. The neo-Equestrians barely even believed magic existed any more, treating it as something akin to an old mare's tale.
Oh, and pony society had also fractured back to a pre-Unification state, with each pony tribe sequestered in its own isolated community. Good job, Twilight Sparkle. You actually outdid Celestia. You managed to reverse thousands of years of societal progress.
The unicorns in particular had fared the worst - they, at least, did believe in magic, but had absolutely no idea what it was, and their ill-conceived notions had morphed into bizarre rituals and superstitions. Even speaking the word itself was forbidden. Good news for me, then, because they would have no idea how to handle somepony like me.
Sickly purple lights pulsed beneath the bark of my Together Tree as I bullied it into cooperation. I felt it was only fair, seeing as how I had to share half my throne room with the freeloader. It was a difficult process, particularly as I was doing it with limited magic and a semi-reliable scryer, but I eventually managed to snare a prize. A unicorn filly, slender-horned, with a baby-blue coat and a mop of dense frizz atop her head. My portal closed the moment she was in my throne room, the tree giving an audible groan as it went inert once more.
"Hello, little one," I said to her as she craned her neck upward to take in my impressive form. "What's your name?"
"M-M-M-Misty," she stammered. I liked it. A name that evoked mystery and sneakiness, perfect for the role I had in mind for her.
"Misty," I said with a warm smile. "Welcome to my keep. I am Opaline Arcana, Alicorn of Fire, Queen of the Fla-"
"C-Can you take me home? I got lost..." Misty asked.
Oh dear. That won't do. "I hadn't finished talking, Misty dear. Don't interrupt."
"Why do you have w-wings?"
"I'm an alicorn, darling," I said proudly. "In fact, I'm the Alicorn. My kind is superior to all other ponies."
"C-Can you help me find my dad?" she asked. "I was looking for glowpaz, but I got lost..."
"Yes, we already established that," I snapped. "Of course I can help you, Misty. You must be terrified, you poor little thing." I swept a wing around her. "Let me take all those fears and troubles away..."
I'd had a long, long time to think about what had gone wrong with Brannvin, and the main problem, I realized, was thinking that I could undo the wrong ideas that had been instilled into his young mind. The ideals of friendship were too insidious to be removed by mere words, even those spoken by somepony as eloquent and commanding as me.
I wasn't going to make that mistake again. The amount of magic I'd put up for this endeavor was too valuable to risk wasting. If I was to have a minion again, I was going to do this correctly from the beginning.
"I feel funny," Misty said, as I laid her on a table covered in thick, fluffy towels. "My head feels all swimmy... where's my dad?"
I gently caressed her head. "Don't you worry, Misty dear. When you wake up, you'll feel like a brand new pony."
I laid down a few more towels beneath her head as her mind stilled and she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.
Removing her memories was the key to shaping her in the way I wanted, but it wasn't enough. I'd kept thinking back to my time in the Storm Kingdom all those moons ago, and the jealousy I'd felt every time I looked at Tempest Shadow. Tempest hadn't wanted power, or money, or worldly delights - she just wanted her stupid horn. That motivation was everything to her, and it was such a simple one to control that even the idiot Storm King could do it. If I'd thought he had it in him, I might even have assumed that he set up the whole accident with the Ursa Minor in the first place. It's what I would have done.
And maybe it was uninspired on my part, but... why change what works?
As I rested the chisel against the base of the sleeping filly's horn, I remembered Tempest telling me what it had felt like when hers came off. She said it was one of the worst pains a unicorn could endure - nothing in her life had even come close to matching it. It was, I suspected, one of the things that made her such a tough mare - after you've been through something like that, how can anything else compare?
But dear Misty, she wouldn't feel a thing. And when she awoke, a new filly, she would have every reason to trust, and serve, and love me - the only pony who could give her the one thing she wanted most.
I smiled sweetly to myself. And they call me a monster.