The sun continued to rise, revealing a red-robed human moving at an impressive gait over the Equestrian countryside. Carpathios had no idea where he was going, or for what purpose he was running. Inwardly, he cursed himself as a fool for leaving himself with no avenue of escape that would not completely undo all of his work for the past month, and everything that stood upon that work. And so he ran, because there was nothing else to do.
The rising sun was briefly eclipsed, and Celestia herself landed directly in front of him. For the first time, Carpathios saw her in her full glory. He saw what all ponies who get the privilege of seeing her did; he saw the golden adornments, the snow-white coat and feathers, the near-perfect elegance of her physical form, the aurora borealis that was her mane and tail. What very few others had seen, that Carpathios now had the misfortune of also seeing, was the burning wrath that smoldered in her eyes, the ominous way the red rays of sunlight peeking over the horizon highlighted her coat the color of molten steel.
Wordlessly, Carpathios came to a stop and threw his staff at her feet. The raw anger seemed to abate, though Carpathios doubted he was safe from anything save immediate immolation.
"I will take this," she said, her voice full of steel. The staff levitated away from him, before disappearing with a bright pop. "You have a lot to answer for. Where should I begin? You freed the greatest threat to my land from his prison, tore apart our fortress, and assaulted my sister, the Royal Guardian of the Night. Before anything else is said, I must know: where is Discord?"
"Discord is no longer in Equestria. I can promise you he will never again threaten you or your ponies," Carpathios said.
The anger in Celestia's eyes dimmed slightly. "I believe you. At least, that you believe that. That and the reason you did it, which I learned from my student Twilight, are the only reasons I have not already locked you in our deepest pit or cast you back to where you came from. Nevertheless, your deeds cannot go unpunished. Henceforth, you are hereby forbidden from the practice of magic within the Realm of Equestria until further notice. You will be kept under close observation until your studies of harmony are complete, then sent back to your home. Do you understand?"
Reluctantly, Carpathios sank to one knee. "Yes, Your Highness. You are most generous."
The princess nodded. Looking to her pegasus guards, she said, "Take him back to Canterlot. Have him assigned to a windowless room, and guard the exit. Don't let anyone speak to him until I return."
The pegasus guards placed irons upon the wrists of the now quite feeble and tired-looking mage, and herded him onto their chariot. All watched as the glorious Sun Princess arose upon her swan-like wings and soared back to her palace in Canterlot.
As Celestia returned to her personal chambers, she let her relief wash over her. When she had first went to intercept Carpathios after her sister's call for help, she hadn't been certain she would have been able to defeat him. Despite, or perhaps because of being the elder sister, she had always been slightly less skilled in the combat arts than her younger sister. Luna's more choleric temperament was also a boon there, as it let her channel aggressive magic more easily.
Still, she had hoped that due to his studies of harmony under her protege, Carpathios would be receptive to her offer to surrender. Thus it had come as a pleasant surprise when he did so without any resistance.
That had left her with another dilemma, what to do with him. Had he been a unicorn, that would have been most difficult to figure out, but his own strange form of magic made one aspect of the problem easier to solve. She lifted the strange stick up closer to examine it, making a mental note to block off time from her schedule to study it in greater detail.
With his magic removed, Carpathios could be left to complete his studies on the magic of friendship. Despite everything that could happen, Celestia could not bring herself to halting the proliferation of harmony, especially not to the sort of place Twilight had described in her letters to her about the mage and the stories he had told her. They needed his work to be finished.
As Celestia entered her master suite, she immediately forced herself to assume a perfectly stoic facade, an act that took more than a thousand year's worth of self-discipline to perform. For it would have been most inappropriate to giggle at the sight of her younger sister attempting to gingerly position her singed rump on an icepack, regardless of how humorous the sight might have been.
"Oh, good, sister. I take it you were - Ahh! victorious over the renegade outsider?" Luna said as a chill visibly went up her spine. "Tell me of your glorious triumph."
"I asked him to surrender. It was actually rather painless. I think you might have had better luck with him if you had tried talking before fighting."
Luna made a rather annoyed face at this news, rolling her eyes."I did try to talk to him."
Celestia sighed. "I said talk, not shout. You still need to practice your diplomacy."
"Diplomacy?" Luna scoffs. "He was in the wrong, I was in the right, and I possessed the proper authority. I had every right to command him as I did."
"True," Celestia says, before pointedly glancing at her burnt bottom, "but if you hadn't, you wouldn't have gotten that. The fact was that Carpathios was powerful enough to do something we don't know how to, that is, get to our world from his. You underestimated him, and you could have gotten severely hurt as a result."
Luna sighed, and lowered her head. "You might be right. I still have much to learn. But what of Carpathios? What shall we do with him now?"
"I believe the best thing we can do now is let him finish his work. I won't stop the spread of harmony, I've built too much upon it. "
Luna's mouth curved upwards in a small, rueful smile. "I hope you're right. For the good of us all." The sisters leaned forward to nuzzle each other affectionately. Celestia then departed for her throne room, to begin the day's work of ruling a kingdom. Luna reclined back, letting out a small squeak as she shifted on top of the ice pack.
A loud snort was heard from the other room. Luna turned, furious at the giggles coming from beyond the door.
"SISTER!"
It had taken so long, but at last, Its Hated Foe had been cast from the world. It had governed the many lands for a great span of time, until the Foe had shown up.
The Foe had been anathema, chaos incarnate. They had battled, but the Foe was underhanded and without reason. It could not have foreseen the Foe's deeds, and was thus defeated.
Peering out from the Veil, It took a look at the land the Foe had ravaged. A horrid cacophony of bright, garish colors shone back at It. Gone was the perfectly ordered world It had so long labored to shape and sculpt. It realized It had a great deal of work to do.
Inhaling a great breath of aether, It gave a mighty breath. The aether It exhaled crystallized, forming exactly one thousand lesser duplicates of Itself. Opening a great passage between the Veil and the Material Realm, It sent forth its new army.
"Rejoice, Oh disordered lands. Axiomon has returned, and I bring the most blessed Order."