Paradise Sundered

by q97randomguy

Victory!

“It’s over. It’s finally over!” Celestia slowly turned to her sister. “Luna...”

“I know... Wait, can you feel that Celly?”

“Feel what? Oh, oh! The connection, it’s back!”

“Yes!” Luna beamed ear to ear. “I can feel it’s supposed to be day.”

“You take down the moon. I’ll fix the sun.”

Celestia looked at the orange sky. The Elements hadn’t fixed all the damage Discord had done to the world. The sun and the moon were still whirling around in erratic loops, often eclipsing one another, Discord’s latest subversion of the natural order. The sisters reached out, and the motion of the celestial bodies slowed. At Luna’s coaxing, the moon slid beneath the horizon. Celestia searched the sky to find her charge, feeling like she was stretching an unused muscle. A few moments later, the sun came to its spot high in the sky.

“Luna, you make it seem so easy!”

Luna blushed and hid behind her ethereal mane. “It was nothing special, really.”

“Nonsense, after all these years, your skills haven’t degraded at all. You should be proud!”

“But, Celestia, look.” She pointed behind her sister. “Those things are still here.” Celestia turned to look. A flock of notebooks flew over a distant field, raining symbols and glyphs that gave them a headache just glancing at them.

Luna shook her head to clear it. “The Elements didn’t do their job! And I was so sure of my design.” Massaging her temple with a hoof, she looked at the ground. “My failure will get so many ponies hurt trying to clean up this mess.” She looked back up at Celestial. “Wait. Wait, I can fix this. I know how!”

Celestia blinked a few times, trying to guess what her sister had thought of this time. “You’ve thought of a way to improve the Elements? Or did you conceive of a new field of magic... again?”

“No, nothing like that, I just realized that by reworking the original Elements’ ley lines into a more stable matrix and then rerouting their primary power channels into a central—”

Celestia cut her off with a wave of her hoof. “If you change these—” she pointed at the dimming gemstones in their barding “—will you be able to get rid of this?” She gestured vaguely at the madness running rampant over the countryside.

“Um, yes. Yes, it will. Sorry, I got a little carried away there.”

“It’s okay. Anyways, you go and get Starswirl. I know that together you can rework the Elements to banish all of Discord’s remaining atrocities. Meanwhile, I’ll be gathering up all the ponies I can find and bringing them to the refugee camp. Hopefully the pegasi and unicorns haven't gotten into another fight over the cloud bank shield.”

Luna gasped. “Again? How did the first disastrous fight not teach them a lesson?”

Celestia slowly shook her head. “It boggles my mind more than any of this ever did.”

“Reworking the Elements won’t be easy, but the worthwhile things never are. I... I had better get working on them right away.” Her sister’s wings flared as she turned and made to leave.

“Luna, wait.”

She stopped and looked back. “Yes?”

Celestia walked to her sister and touched foreheads with her. “You did more than anypony could ask — more than I could have dreamed — and you’re gladly willing to do more.” She choked up, blinking back tears. “I’m proud of you.”

They embraced. It had been far too long since there had been time for them to be together without some disaster to avert. They stood side by side, their necks crossed, feeling the other’s breathing and savoring the simple fact that they were together.

By the time the hug ended, both of them needed to wipe away tears.

“Luna, you should go. The sooner you improve the Elements, the better off everypony will be... Just... hurry back.”

Luna nodded and looked away. “Farewell.” Without another word, she leapt into the air, kicking up a cloud of dust. Celestia tried to respond in kind but ended up sneezing in the sudden dust storm. Before she could regain her breath, Luna was already too far away.

She allowed herself a small sigh then turned in the direction of the refugee camp. There’s still a lot to do, but... now the world can finally become a paradise for my— no, our little ponies. Just as I always meant it to be. She departed more slowly than Luna as she went to gather up the tribes. Soon, she thought, I can feel it.

As Luna hurtled through the air, she couldn’t help but let out a wordless cry. Everything is going to be alright. For the first time in... well, far too long, things are looking up! Discord is gone, and soon all of this — she dodged under a burning rain cloud — will be too. I just wish I’d thought of this earlier. The idea buzzed in the back of her mind, taunting her with its grace and simplicity.

She wove through a forest of floating ice-trees as she rapidly approached her magically hidden and warded base. It was where she and Starswirl had worked for the past few months while her sister guarded the refugee camps. At least, it seemed like months. It was hard to tell — under Discord, time had grown soft and become more of a suggestion than a rule.

She slowed as she came over the valley that she knew the base to be in — not that she could see it, as her spells were still in place. When she landed, she extended her magical senses until she could feel her finely wrought wards. They resembled a dome arching over the fortress at their center. She had crafted them during the height of Discord’s reign and had never assumed that they would survive this long.

The wards opened to her touch, allowing her passage inside. At their parting, Starswirl teleported from the top of one of the towers to meet her.

“Luna! You’re back! The Elements must have worked, right?”

“Yes, they did! But... not completely.” She grimaced. “They only turned Discord to stone. All the destruction and chaos he caused remains.”

“That is... problematic.”

Starswirl adopted that look — one eye closed, the other staring off into space — as he processed this information. “Well that’s better than nothing, but now what do we do? By my calculations, under current conditions, the stockpiled food will last a few weeks at most.”

Luna focused on the Elements. As their primary creator and the Element of Magic, she had a deep connection with them. The fact that the physical forms of the three elements Celestia wielded were many miles away was of little consequence. The true power of the Elements came from the emotions behind them, and those emotions were what she would work with. Her mistake had been an easy one to make; the Elements of Harmony seemed like they should all have the same level of power and work together in all things.

But relying on all the Elements equally had left them crippled. Her new design would allow the Element of Magic to assist all the others, as it was the most powerful. This would leave the other Elements better able to work on the important tasks that they were individually suited to.

She began weaving the prismatic beams of light that symbolized each of the Elements into a pentagon with Magic at the center. Luna nodded to them, and Starswirl smiled in return, reaching for them with his magic. He held the ethereal strands perfectly still after she laid them down, lest they drift and ruin the spell crafting. Working with Starswirl like this made Luna smile despite the crushing weight of the strain that was required to rearrange the Elements’ pattern. She had never been able to work like this with Celestia; her sister was all power and no finesse.

They worked through the night, Luna only pausing to raise the moon and stars. Mere minutes before it was time to lower them for the morning to dawn, Luna gave the Elements a critical looking over. Starswirl could tell that she was pleased with what she saw by the small glimmer of pride in her eyes.

A silent acknowledgment passed between them — it was time.

Starswirl tightened his hold on the strands of light as Luna prepared a spell that combined all the elements that she had learned during her time with the unicorns. This was a spell that Arcane Pride, one of her tutors, would have deemed impossible. But Luna had discovered something they had not known. The will of which her teachers had spoken of was much more than they had thought; it was actually an Element unto itself.

It was common to all the other Elements, reaching through them all. They depended on it and it on them. Without each other, they were but pale shadows of themselves. It reminded Luna very much of her sister and herself. Always they had been together, relying on one another to get through every trial and tribulation. The bond between the Elements would be as strong as their sisterly bond, allowing the Elements to overcome whatever would stand against them, just as she and her sister had.

Yes, the bond that she shared with her sister would be what bound the Elements as well.

But if anything went wrong in this process, it was very possible that the Elements could be destroyed, and even Luna didn’t know how long it would take to remake them.

One by one, the Elements settled into their places. Sweat poured off of Luna’s brow as Kindness settled in. Generosity, Honesty, and Laughter soon followed it as Luna guided them to their new homes in the emerging web of ley lines and nexuses. Starswirl’s vision grew dark around the edges, the only thing in his sight and mind the nearly finished web before him. Luna fared little better, trembling as she dug her hooves into the ground, her horn bazing in the darkness as Loyalty joined the others. Its addition to the matrix caused a change in Magic. It took on the characteristic associated with loyalty, namely binding together what was once separate. With that, the Elements held together of their own accord.

“Starswirl...” Luna panted. “We’ve done it.”

He took a minute to breathe before responding. “It was quite the undertaking.” He huffed, looking up to the moon. “But we have done it. Again. Now... shall we give your sister a surprise at sunrise?”

“No!” She paled. “I would never! That would be... It would just... just no.”

Starswirl flinched.

Luna’s expression softened. “You just don’t understand. Activating the Elements without Celestia’s permission would be like draining all of your magic without your consent. Worse even, they’re bonded directly to her soul as mine are to me. I might be able to, but I can’t think of anything more abhorrent.” She shuddered. “No, I shall ask her.”

Despite her recent expenditure of such great quantities of magic, Luna still managed to cast the quite complex telepathy spell.

[Celly?]

[Luna! Are they ready so soon?]

[Yes, they are!] The giddiness in Luna’s tone came through the mental link. [Shall we give our little ponies a surprise this morning?]

[Yes! They’ll be so happy to see the last of Discord’s madness end.]

Luna began to lower the moon. [Shall I do it as you raise the sun?]

[Oh, yes. That would look spectacular! Let’s give them a show they’ll never forget.]

[Of course we will! Be ready.]

Luna flew up to the top of a nearby mountain and landed, facing east, on the peak. As the sun began to rise, Luna reached for the Elements. They felt different. Better. When the sun had risen fully above the horizon, Luna activated them, and her eyes glowed a brilliant white. Rainbow waves of power radiated from her and swept across the land, reverting or dispelling Discord’s travesties as they washed over them.

Celestia glided around the edge of Ghastly Gorge, on the lookout for anypony seeking refuge in the meager safety that it provided. While the gorge was not the safest of places typically, Discord’s reign had been anything but typical. The natural predators of this area had proven adept at keeping some of the terrors at bay. Flying madness-inducing notebooks seemed to be a delicacy to Quarry Eels.

Ponies of all tribes huddled in small groups around the periphery of the ravine. Their expressions of hopelessness were replaced by elation at the news that Celestia brought them. She directed them to the refugee camp nearby, and as they left her, some bowed while some sang of her victory. She tried to remind them that it was as much Luna’s victory as hers, but she found that once a pony was singing, it was nigh impossible to get through to them.

After hours of searching, when Celestia could find nopony else, it was nearly time to lower the sun. She headed towards camp to make sure that everypony had arrived safely. Luckily, the worst injuries were some minor bruises from a stampede of crockery.

She surveyed the camp. There was little damage to the magically reinforced cloud bank. The pegasi and unicorns had done their best to protect the earth ponies that grew their dwindling supply of food. Despite their best efforts, though, it was still a problem which was going to become disastrous soon if Luna took too long improving the Elements.

Above, Airstream and Jetstream caught her eye. They’d just had their second foal, a filly, she remembered. Now she’d be able to grow up in a safe world. Ponies like them were what had kept her going through it all, what made the past months bearable. Guarding them through the worst of Discord’s reign, they had come to know and love her and she them, despite their infighting. As she trotted through the camp, ponies galloped up to her, bombarding her with questions about what had happened.

When the vast majority of ponies had gathered to hear the news, Celestia took to the sky. She gained a good deal of altitude to more easily address them all at once and lit up her horn to amplify her voice.

“My little ponies, I bring you good news! Discord, spirit of chaos and disharmony, is defeated! Soon, his madness will end!”

A wild cheer rose up from the gathered ponies. The din of stomping hooves and yells almost matched Celestia’s own volume.

She descended to talk to the leaders of the three tribes. As usual, General Typhoon rushed up to her first.

“So, you finally gave Discord the old one-two.”

“Well, it was really Luna that—”

“Whatever, how much longer are we going to have to stay here with them?” He pointed at King Chromium and Prime Minister Custard Cranium, who had only just arrived.

“How rude! One does not intrude on Lady Celestia in such a barbaric way.” He bowed.

Custard Cranium glared, pointing a hoof at Typhoon. “Yeah, you can’t hog her all to yourself, you big bully!”

“Fine! You can have her.” He flew up to his little filly, Hurricane, who was hovering nearby. “We pegasi don’t need anypony else!” With that they flew off.

“Why, how terribly uncouth! We unicorns would never be so crass,” Chromium said, turning up his nose. Both Celestia and Prime Minister Custard Cranium looked at him like he was crazy. King Chromium, of course, didn’t notice and continued like nothing had happened. “Lady Celestia, you said that this madness was nearly over. How soon do you expect things to go back to the way they were?”

“I don’t know, and I certainly hope that things don’t go back to ‘how they were.’ Can’t you see how much better off everypony is with all three tribes working together?”

“Better? With these... these ruffians! I should think not!”

Custard Cranium turned up her nose, mimicking Chromium. “Rough? I’ll have you know that my coat is naturally silky smooth.”

Chromium shook, grinding his teeth together, and one of his eyes developed a twitch. “I... that isn’t what... Ugh. Lady Celestia, by your leave.”

When will he learn that’s not what I want — even if it does have a nice ring to it. She nodded. Now with permission to leave, King Chromium cantered away. He appeared eager to save his daughter, Crown Princess Platinum, from the gauntlet of funny faces that Pudding Head was submitting her to.

“Well, good thing they took the booooring questions. So, did you make Discord explode? And then did Luna make him explode? Did you explode him twice?”

“What? No. The Elements of Harmony trapped him in stone. Why would you think that?”

“Oh, no reason. Well, bye!” With that, she galloped off with her daughter, likely to plan a “Discord’s Defeated” party for the coming day.

Celestia sighed. Maybe now I’ll be able to get some rest before raising the sun. That would be a pleasant change of pace.

An hour or so after nodding off, she awoke to the sound of her sister’s voice. But it wasn’t coming from anywhere around her, rather, it was in her head.

[Celly]

Huh, what...? This had better be good news; we won’t last much longer otherwise.

She concentrated on the link. [Luna! Are they ready so soon?]

[Yes, they are! Shall we give our little ponies a surprise this morning?]

Thank the Stars and Moon!

[Yes! They’ll be so happy to see the last of Discord’s madness end.]

As Luna lowered the moon, Celestia wondered if she would ever get used to the peculiar feeling it gave her. It was like something massive yet nebulous was passing directly over her.

[Shall I do it as you raise the sun?]

The sooner the better.

[Oh, yes. That would look spectacular! Let’s give them a show they’ll never forget.]

Celestia trotted over to the eastern side of the camp. She didn’t need to, but it somehow felt right to be closer to the sunrise — if only a little. Plus, it silhouetted her against the rising sun to everypony watching. She gracefully ascended to bring forth the dawn, and as sunlight broke forth over the mountains, Celestia felt the Elements activate once more, tugging at her chest from the inside.

In the distance, the sunrise seemed to explode with a blinding flash. Then waves of power rushed over the land faster than anything could hope to run or even fly. In mere seconds, they had covered half the distance to the camp. The ponies there all braced themselves for whatever was to come. Celestia, however, smiled.

As the expanding rings of power washed over Ghastly Gorge, the assorted winged fruit flying around it returned to normal and splattered on the ground. The pulses passed through the ponies and kept going, erasing all traces of Discord’s madness and chaos: the polka dotted ground, the mailboxes that threw sharpened plates at anypony foalish enough to get close, the rolling stones that were now little more than balls of moss, and the band-saw-grass. Celestia slowly descended to the jubilant cheers of the assembled ponies. “Celestia and the sun!” they chanted.

Celestia let the feeling of adoration wash over her. In the back of her mind, a voice whispered that she should have waited for Luna to be a part of this praise, but the reasonable part of her shut it down.

After all, the madness needed to be stopped as quickly as possible — right?

Pop!

Luna turned around to see a haggard-looking Starswirl standing behind her, the familiar flash of teleportation just fading.

“That was amazing! If the Elements weren’t the most powerful magic in the land before, they certainly are now.”

“I’ve got to get back to Celly. She might need me.”

“Luna, you’re exhausted. You flew here with all possible haste in full barding and went the whole night and day doing burdensome work. You cannot seriously be considering flying the hundred and fifty miles back to Camp Hope.”

Luna grimaced like a foal caught with its hoof in the proverbial cookie jar. “Starswirl, my Faithful Student, you know me well, and... you are right, of course. Come, let us rest for the day.”

She cantered down the mountain then, taking to the air with a small jump, glided to the fort. Starswirl attempted to teleport, but found that he lacked the thaumatologic strength. With a sigh, he instead turned around and started the long descent.

When he finally arrived, he was unsurprised to find her snoring on the doorstep of the fort. Starswirl gently levitated his beloved mentor to her bed then went off to his own room to sleep.

Starswirl woke a few hours before sunset. He went to their meager larder and, with a sigh, retrieved a bowl of oats.

Ugh, oats for breakfast... supper... again. Well, at least the earth ponies can grow crops again without most of them turning into quills.

While he ate, Luna ambled into the room. Never taking her eyes off the table, she mutely levitated her food to her seat. She took bite after bite staring off into space, not looking at him. It wasn’t an uncommon behavior; she usually looked that way while deep in thought. But as time passed, she went from not looking at him to looking away from him, and her ears drooped.

“Luna,” he asked at length, “what’s troubling you? Shouldn’t you be glad?”

“I am, but I’ve been thinking. After last night, it has become clear to me. You have surpassed all my expectations. You have learned all that I can teach you. You are... no longer a student, Starswirl.” She choked on a sob. “And so, I must release you from my tutelage.” Tears streamed down her face. “You may find your own path.”

Watching his friend and mentor break down like that placed a terrible weight in his gut. At the same time, his mind raced.

Not her student?

The thought was strange. Until Discord, he’d striven to learn all that he could. Ponies looked to him as a well of knowledge, but Luna — Luna was a legend. She’d escaped from captivity while opposed by at least half a dozen skilled unicorns. Now she was saying that he’d learned everything she had to teach.

That just doesn’t sound possible.

But more importantly, she was distraught. That simply wouldn’t do.

“Luna, Luna.” He put a foreleg over her shoulder. “Luna, you must be mistaken. You could still teach me about... Well, I still need to learn... There’s...”

She only cried harder as her head sunk to the tabletop. Her mane pooled around her head, limp and lifeless.

“Hey, don’t be like that. There’s no need to be defeatist. Just because you won’t be teaching me doesn’t mean I’ll disappear on you. What did you think you were to me? Just a source of knowledge?” He shook his head. “Do you really think that I’d vanish when you didn’t have any more to teach?” He covered one side of his mouth and whispered, “Not that I thought it’d be over quite this soon.” He straightened up. “Listen, I’m your friend, and I won’t abandon you.” He drew her gaze with a sweep of his foreleg. “I can see it now. We can expand the horizons of magic. Side by side, we’ll make new discoveries and make the world a better place.”

She wiped at her eyes. “Thank you. That... that sounds nice. But what about your family? Little Creps’ is only a few years old. She needs you.”

“My wife and child will always come first, but I will be there for you.” He helped her up and started for the door. “Come on, if we leave soon, we might make it to Camp Hope before moonrise.”

She went to stand by his side. “Yes, let’s go.”

They departed in a series of line-of-sight teleports, blinking in and out of existence as quickly as their magic could take them. But soon after clearing Ghastly Gorge, Starswirl called for a break.

“I’m sorry, Luna, but I need to rest. Yesterday took a bit more out of me than I thought.”

Luna paused. “Oh, I’m so sorry. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that you, too, have limits.”

“Oh, don’t worry about me.” He glanced at the setting sun. “You can still make it in time if you go on ahead.”

“Nonsense.” Luna stamped the ground. “We shall arrive together.”

“Yes, Luna.” Starswirl knew better than to argue with the Bearer of Loyalty on as issue like this. Consequently, Luna ended up raising the moon a dozen miles outside of camp. When they arrived a few minutes later, only Celestia was there to welcome them.