Paradise Sundered

by q97randomguy


Reunion

Chapter Two: Reunion

Prime Minister Custard Cranium had indeed gone to prepare a party. How that mare managed to pull together a party in the few hours before sunrise bewildered Celestia. What, does she have party supplies stashed around the camp or something? I just don’t understand her.

As the party wore down, the festivities gave way to competition. Competition, in turn, degenerated into arguments and sporadic fights. These, Celestia broke up as quickly as possible. The three tribes eventually withdrew to their encampments. Upon visiting them, each leader gave Celestia much the same response; they were going to move out at first light to get away from the brutish pegasi, weirdo non-earths, or snooty unicorns.

Celestia held on to hope, though. In her experience, most ponies held no grudge against the other tribes. Instead they preferred the company of their own to the other groups who were strange and thus uncomfortable to be around. Their differences drew lines through the camp, dividing them by breed. But that could be changed, and she’d be the one to do it. After all, she had “the power to change the world.”

As she made her way through the camp, she was pleasantly surprised when she saw three little fillies from the three different tribes playing together under their mother's watchful eyes. Maybe I’ll need to change it less than I feared. These three might just be the start of a great, good thing. I just hope that it spreads. “Hello, it’s so nice to see the little ones getting along isn’t it?”

“Ah reckon you’re right and say thankya.”

“Oh yes, Celestia, the three tribes are much better off together; we would have never survived alone.”

“Um, it’s... nice.”

“Well ladies, you have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

“Wise Wafer, mah Lady.”

“Trefoil the Thinker, my Lady.”

“I’m Corporal Chrysanthemum.”

Celestia suppressed a chuckle. That mare must have had an interesting time in the “Glorious Dominion of the Sky’s” military. “I must say, it’s heartening to see levelheaded ponies bringing up their foals to be more accepting.”

“Ah’m just tryin’ ta do what’s right. Right girls?” There were two nods of assent.

“Well, I certainly hope that you can spread that mindset. Keep up the good work, ladies.” With a great yawn, Celestia trotted off to get a nap; she had only gotten a few hours last night, after all.

She woke up a few minutes before it was time lower the sun. She couldn’t seem to sleep through that, no matter how tired she was. She was surprised to see that the camp wasn’t still bustling with activity. I guess that they really were serious about leaving at dawn. While she lowered the sun, she expanded her magical senses. She took pride in the fact that she could perform this spell better than Luna could, on account of having a larger reserve of magic. Her senses enveloped just over a thousand square miles, and there, on the very edge, she could barely make out Luna and a faint smudge of unicorn magic that she assumed to be Starswirl.

Celestia was surprised that they were so close. Once again, Luna’s student has proven more adept than expected. I really should stop underestimating him; he is the one that figured out how to turn the Discordant ponies back with an ingenious blend of loyalty and honesty.

Soon she felt them begin to move again. They ate up the miles, around three at a time. After the second teleport they briefly stopped as Luna raised the moon. As she did, her magical aura — already the most powerful presence she could feel by far — outshone all the living creatures for miles around. I didn’t know that happened whenever she rose the moon... how have I never noticed before? Hmm, I guess it’s only observable if you’re looking for it. Now that she was paying attention to it, Celestia truly felt her sister’s aura for the first time. It’s amazing, even from here I can feel something off of it. It feels like rejuvenation and calmness. Hmm, do I do that whenever I raise the sun? She noticed that while she had been lost in thought, Luna and Starswirl had come within one or two jumps of arriving. She quickly took flight to welcome them.

Starswirl and Luna materialized from their last teleport only a few steps away from Celestia. “Celly, it is you!” She nudged Starswirl. “I told you it was her.”

“Your eyes are better than mine,” he relented.

Celestia closed the last of the distance between them and gathered her sister in a hug. “Luna! I missed you.” She pulled back. “It’s kind of difficult to catch up with what’s happening during the heat of battle.”

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Then, as if by some unseen cue, they both blurted out. “I just missed you so much!”

Celestia laughed. Luna blushed. Starswirl was content to let the two sisters have their moment.

“On the way here I didn’t see any sign of Discord’s corruption; it looks like we’ve finally done it!”

Celestia wrapped a wing around Luna and pulled her in close. “No, you’ve done it. Thanks to you, we can finally focus on unifying the tribes and making this world a paradise.”

Luna pulled away and fixed her sister and looked her in the eyes. “There’s something you should know. Starswirl is no longer my student.”

“Oh no! What did he do? It wasn’t dark, forbidden magic, was it?” she said with a smirk.

“How I’ve missed your sense of humor, Celly. No, as you may have guessed, Starswirl and I have become romantically involved.” Luna deadpanned.

Celestia’s hind legs failed her.

“Wait, WHAT?” both other ponies gasped.

Starswirl spluttered out a few unintelligible phrases before noticing that Luna was smiling broadly.

“And that’s how you mask your feelings, Celly. No, I realized that I can teach him no more, and keeping him as my student would not be fair for either of us. Besides, you both know that my one true love is the night.”

Celestia put a hoof to her chest. “Luna, you wound me.”

“How could you have not fallen for my charms? Is my beard not long enough?”

Luna looked at him like he'd grown another head. He stared right back, starting an impromptu staring contest. It lasted all of four seconds before Celestia’s self-control failed and she started laughing. The mirth spread like wildfire, leaving them all in stitches. The huge weight of impending doom evaporated while they took a rare moment for themselves.

Their laughter gradually died out, trailing off as their sides started hurting. Starswirl thumped his chest a few times and coughed. "Whew, I haven't just let loose like that in, hmm... When was it that we were working on adapting Laughter?"

Luna stared off into space. After a moment of consideration she responded. "Three, perhaps four months ago."

"There's been a sore lack of joy here too.” Celestia looked back into the moonlit camp.

For a while after that they were quiet. Starswirl idly crushed some grass beneath his hoof. Finally, he broke the silence. “So, Celestia, what has been going on around here?”

“Well, the last few months were the harshest. I think that it was because after all these years of chaos, ponies decided enough was enough and finally tried to stop it. When the pegasi formed into an army under General Typhoon, Discord really stepped up his game. The horrors Discord unleashed didn’t distinguish between the tribes, and everypony suffered. Luna and I rounded up everypony we could find and brought them here, in the hope that we could survive until Discord became less destructive.”

Luna raised an eyebrow at Celestia. “I think he wanted to know about the more recent goings on, sister.”

“I was getting there,” she shot back. “Luckily, we found you and saw how you managed to turn back Discord’s influence. That’s when Luna had her big idea. Then she made you her student to help her with it, and you know what happened then better than I do. Meanwhile, I came back here and organized the refugees. Sometimes I had to fight off one abomination or another. Luckily, they weren’t organized and didn’t seem to communicate with each other.”

Celestia shook her head slowly, sighing. “What were much worse were the fights in the camp. At first, they flared up nearly every week, but they have grown less frequent as everypony got used to each other's differences. The last major brawl happened about two and a half weeks ago. There have been some minor scuffles since then but nothing involving more than a few ponies.” Sagging, Celestia continued. “It’s still far too many...”

She shook herself, getting back on track. “Now they all intend to go back to their homes at first light. You know what, I think I’ll give them a few extra minutes tomorrow.”

“Maybe a little time apart will cool the tensions between the tribes. What do you think, Luna?” Starswirl wondered.

“I certainly hope so.”

Celestia brought a hoof to her face. “I can’t believe I almost forgot! Luna, have you ever watched me raise the sun, magically I mean?”

“I don’t think so... Why?” She gave her sister a small push. “And don’t be so hard on yourself! There’s a lot going on; you can’t keep track of everything. In fact, you do better than anypony else I can think of.” She looked over at the extravagant tents in the center of the unicorn encampment.

“Hey, I take offense at thaaaa...” Starswirl’s retort was cut short by a huge yawn.

Luna gave him a sidelong glance. “No offense, but you’re more an advisor than a leader.”

“Ah, you are right. Have to deal with too many ponies and I’d crack. I don’t know how I’m going to manage a growing filly... But I digress. You were saying, Celestia?”

She cleared her throat. “Where was I? Oh yes, you really should check when I raise the sun. If what happens when you raise the moon happens when I raise the sun, you’ll want to see.”

Luna leaned closer to her only information source. “Why, what happens?”

“Well, your magical aura expanded significantly. I’ve never seen a flare of magic that bright before.”

Luna’s eyes gleamed with anticipation. “That sounds like something that would be interesting to study. I’ll be sure to watch from now on.”

“Well, while you two discuss your super-equine powers, I will be going to get some sleep. Some of us don’t have earth pony resilience.” Starswirl trotted away to find somewhere to rest. The alicorn sisters watched him go then turned to each other. They had a lot of catching up to do.


Hours later, when the sounds of the first ponies awakening began to drift across the camp, Celestia and Luna looked around. They were surprised how the time had passed so quickly while they were reminiscing.

“Sister, isn’t it time for you to raise the sun?”

“You have to lower the moon first, and while you do, I’ll see if the flare happens as you lower the moon as well.” A golden glow sprang into life around her horn.

“Good idea. We should learn all that we can about our powers.” She began to lower the moon.

Celestia magically scrutinized her sister. “Hmm, no pulses, intense or otherwise.”

“Well, lowering the moon has never seemed as taxing... no, as involved, as raising it.” A cobalt light enveloped her horn. “Your turn. See if you can raise the sun slowly. I want to have as much time as possible to study whatever happens.”

Celestia nodded. As the sun gradually crept above the horizon, Luna intently studied the magic that was indeed pouring off her big sister. The feeling was like nothing Luna had experienced before. It feels, vital... like new growth and springtime. I wish I could just drink in this sensation forever or at least find some way to replicate it.

Halfway through, she realized that she had been ignoring the other part of the process of raising the sun, the actual sun rising. She quickly shifted her attention towards the glowing orb and was rewarded with the knowledge that the same type of magic that was around her sister was surrounding it. Then, all too soon, it was over.

“Celly, that was amazing,” she breathed.

Then the camp came alive. Pegasi began barking orders, unicorns commenced calmly packing their belongings, and earth ponies started gathering into large groups.

Luna glared at them. “They really can’t stand to be together for another second, can they?”

“It’s not all hopeless. Just yesterday I saw three adorable little fillies of each tribe playing together. It’s mainly the leaders that are keeping the old resentments burning. The typical pony is, at worst, disinterested in the other tribes. They just go with what their leaders say because they have nowhere else to go, and the other tribes probably wouldn’t take them in.”

Pop! Starswirl flashed into existence in front of the alicorns.

“Sorry about the intrusion. I just didn’t want to have to get through all that.” He gestured to the milling throng of ponies

Celestia looked out over the multitude of equines. “Yes, I can see how that would be difficult.”

Then the earth ponies began to leave, galloping back toward their usual fields in a thunderous exodus.

Starswirl covered his ears with a noise-reduction spell and had to shout to be heard. “All these ponies seem loud enough to shake the very leaves from the trees!”

Once the stampede was far enough away, Luna spoke up.

“We’ll have to find some way to get them back together you know. They probably won’t do it by themselves.” Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a flurry of movement. Several squadrons of pegasi were moving to one side of the massive cloud bank. “What are they doing?”.

“Yesterday when I was talking with General Typhoon, he said that they would be taking the improved clouds to build the capital for their ‘Glorious Dominion of the Sky.’ I couldn’t tell him no without a huge argument, so I let it pass.”

Celestia received two very confused stares.

“Yes, Typhoon is still in control of the pegasi, and he has convinced enough of them that being a warrior tribe is the path they should take.”

“That is... problematic.”

Luna nodded in agreement with Starswirl.

The three watched in fascination as the pegasi split into teams that went to work with military precision. One group circled rapidly above the cloud layer to create an updraft. Another group flew in front of the soon-to-be cloud city to make an area of low pressure, making it easier for the pegasi pushing it. In order to keep up the necessary speed, they had to fly in a loop that took them weaving through their comrades responsible for the updraft.

Luna watched them fade into the distance with a small smile on her face. The smile did not go unnoticed by Celestia.

“What are you so happy about?”

“Me? Oh, nothing. I was just thinking that, while I don’t agree with what they are doing, I can still appreciate how precise they are.”

“Well, that’s great, but we should really get to work on a plan to unify the tribes. As they know me best, I should probably go around to all of them. Luna, you should come with me.”

Starswirl lifted a foreleg. “Question. What about me?”

“Well, you should stay with the unicorns. Try to convince them that the correct course of action is unification. But stay away from the earth ponies; right now they’re quite suspicious of unicorns and their magic. ”

He winced. “I’ll keep that in mind. I’ve been thinking though, Luna...”

“Yes, Starswirl?”

“Now that I’m no longer your student, do you think it would be prudent to train an apprentice of my own?” He spoke confidently, but both sisters noticed his right hind leg give a small twitch.

“Certainly! I would encourage you to spread your knowledge. Just make sure that whomever you take on is worthy. Perhaps a standing challenge of some sort that must be passed?”

Starswirl pondered this while watching the unicorns finally begin to canter off towards their forest home.
“I think I have an idea, but I will continue to consider it. Now, Luna, I need to get back to my family.” He paused. “The time we spent together was magical...” This drew snickers from all present. “But we both knew it wouldn’t last forever. I’ll be sure to keep in touch. I suggest meetings to discuss progress on unification every fortnight. Now, I must get back to my wife and daughter.”

Luna’s face drooped, but she knew that he was right. “Long days and pleasant nights.”

“And may yours be twice as many. You too, Celestia. Good luck with your project. Something tells me you’ll need it.”

“You’re probably right. Well, this short time has been a pleasure, Starswirl. Perhaps we will get to know each other better in the future.”

The three shared a moment. Then Luna gave a small nod. Starswirl vanished and reappeared at the tail end of the unicorn procession.

Celestia went to comfort her troubled sister. She laid a wing over her back.

“There, there. Don’t worry, he’ll be back. He said so himself.”

“I know, I know. It’s just since we got back and found that Mom and Dad were... were...” Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes.

“I know that hit you hard, but you have to get past it. Not everypony you love will be taken from you while you aren’t looking. You’ve got to stay positive.”

“I’ll... try,” she sniffed.

“I know how to take your mind off things. Let’s go back to the fort. You can show me how you made the Elements!”

Luna cleared her throat. “Y-yes, I’d like that. I could show you the changes we made to the design of the fort. It looks more like a castle now, actually.” Luna’s face brightened considerably at the mention of showing off one of her pet projects.

“I can’t wait to see it!” A sudden gust of wind buffeted her, and she heard a faint, “I’ll race you there!”

Her wings flared. “Oh, it is on!”


Pop! Ting! Ting! Ching! Ping! Cling!

Both Celestia and Luna stared incredulously at Starswirl. After a few seconds, Luna managed to sufficiently collect her wits to manage a question.

“What are those?”

These are bells. Have you heard of them?”

Celestia burst out laughing. Luna glared at her. “It wasn’t that funny,” she said with a huff.

“Oh, you stepped right into that, and you know it.”

“She is right. That question was poorly worded. Quite unusual for you.”

Rolling her eyes, Luna said, “Fine. Why are you wearing bells all over yourself? Tell me. I beg you.”

“You recommended a standing challenge, and this is it: to become my apprentice, a unicorn must remove all the bells from my robe and hat.”

Luna began to scrutinize the bells for enchantments while Celestia asked, “What’s to stop them from just cutting the strings?”

Luna’s horn glowed brighter as she dug deeper through the myriad gossamer strands of magic. “It looks like nothing...” Her eyes widened. “Wait. No, there’s a subtle enchantment that will stop another unicorn’s magical field dead in its tracks.”

Celestia experimentally swung a cushion at the him, only to have it stop dead. “So, how are they supposed to do it? I’m interested.”

“If you check even closer, you’ll see that it doesn’t stop all magical fields, just telekinetic ones. How it’s going to work is the soon-to-be apprentice will see the anti-telekinetic field and release their hold just before encountering it.”

She tried again, this time letting go just before the point the cushion had stopped last time. It kept going and lightly hit him in the side of the head. “Um, Luna, how do you feel about this plan? It seems to me that it might end up with Starswirl here in more pieces than he started out as. If that was something sharp...” She let it hang.

Luna waved a hoof dismissively. “Oh, I’m sure he’s got that detail worked out.”

He nodded. “You’re right. Although, I would hope that if they are smart enough to figure out the way to get through the enchantment, they would also be smart enough to place an animate contact blunting spell on their cutting implement of choice. But, in the off chance that they overlook that detail, I have devised a failsafe spell. It will activate when something small and fast passes through it and stop whatever it is.”

Luna started searching the room for something that would be small enough. “It’s very taxing, though; it may even knock me out when activated, so I hope it doesn’t come to that.”

Luna stopped and her ears went flat. “Oh, um... Sorry about that.” He waved her concerns off, and she sighed in relief. “Right then. Is it a modification of the stasis spell I showed you?”

“Yes, actually, changing it to affect the area around the object, me in this case, rather than the object itself was quite simple really. I thought that if I could envision the area around myself like a suit of...”

Celestia saw that the conversation was going to quickly become a discussion of theoretical and applied magic. She knew she had to interrupt before they built up more conversational momentum. Sitting down conspicuously at the table, she coughed and said, “Well, it looks like you’ve got this all figured out.” She swept a wing towards their places at the table. “Shouldn’t we get to the discussing unification plans?”

“You’re right, Celly. We have gone off on quite a tangent.” Luna sat on one of the two soft cushions left.

“My apologies.” He made his way to the table as well.

“It’s not a problem. So, Starswirl, how are the unicorns? What are their feelings?”

After getting comfortable, he responded. “Well, they have changed their approach from hiding to fortification. Now, instead of hiding, we are constructing a castle. Everypony thinks that because we held off Discord’s creatures we can stop the natural predators, and honestly, they are probably right.”

Celestia shook her head. “That’s not quite what I meant. Have they discussed the other tribes at all?”

“No, nothing substantial. There has been the occasional mention of them, but for the most part, nothing.”

Luna’s wings flared. “See, Celly? I knew we should have been out there trying to change their minds sooner.”

“Relax, Luna. They’ll come around eventually. It’s not like we can change the world overnight.”

“Maybe you can’t...” Luna’s eyes narrowed, something was wrong, Celestia was smiling just a bit too much. “You set that up, didn’t you?” Her sister’s smile grew wider. “How do you do that? I’m smart. I swear I’m smart.”

“You are, but I’m your big sister. That and you’re better with the subtleties of magic than the intricacies of conversation.”

“Yes, well be that as it may, I can still tell when we’ve gotten off track. I say that we should get out there and get to work.”

“You’re right, we should. Let’s get a good night’s sleep and begin in the morning.”


That is exactly what they did. The two sisters traveled between the tribes spreading the message of a unified ponykind, but whatever progress they made during their time with one tribe was lost with the others. They tried splitting the tasks so that there was always one of them with each tribe, but they soon discovered that neither Luna nor Starswirl alone had the charisma to sway enough ponies to make a difference.

Many years passed, and eventually both Luna and Starswirl became frustrated with the lack of progress. They both still tried, but neither gave of themselves to the extent that Celestia did. Luna took to a more in-depth study of their astrological powers while her former student took up chronomancy.

Celestia guided the pegasi in their warlike ways to deal with the non-sentient dangers of the world, especially the wolves. Luna thought that this might be more than simply an effort to keep the pegasi from turning on the other ponies or the griffons. But when she remembered what had happened, she secretly hoped that it was.

To keep up this campaign, they required an abundance of food — after all, an army flies on its stomach. In an attempt to stop raiding for food from becoming commonplace, Celestia promoted the use of part of the army for agricultural weather control. They took to this method with clockwork precision and exacted tribute from the earth ponies, precisely three quarters of the increase in production.

Griffon attacks had abruptly ceased after Celestia had teleported directly into the center of their largest eyries, put out the sun, and, positively glowing with power, demanded that all attacks on ponies end. They had never seen a pony like her before. She was large like they were and had both wings and a horn. Since the Griffons were used to being ruled by those that were most powerful, they quickly acquiesced to her demands.

All the progress in other areas only served to highlight their utter failure at unifying the tribes. That was until the meeting when Celestia had her fateful idea.