Luna danced through the flakes, kicked up the white stuff and watched as they glided back to the earth. "We did it, sister! We really did it!"
Celestia didn't want to spoil her sibling's fun and tell her to stop playing. They had just defeated the spirit of chaos, his prison of stone stood before her and she still half suspected that any minute now the surface would crack and she would hear his sneering voice again. For five minutes she stared hard at Discord's statue, but the draconequus did not move. As did anything else, besides Luna who still laughed and played, acting out her euphoria.
"Didn't you tell me that this snow stuff can be made into balls and ponies?" The blue alicorn turned to her sister, then looked her up and down. "Are you going to turn back, Tia? I know you are the elder twin, but that looks kinda silly."
Celestia too had noticed her new body, a lot taller and less lanky than mere hours ago. "I'm afraid this is permanent, Lulu. That last attack Discord hit me with was a time spell. I'd guess it aged me a few thousand years. And please stop playing, that is not snow, it's the ash of ... well, everything in this realm." A single tear formed in her eyes and rolled down her face, leaving a dark trail of moisture in her coat. "Everything that could burn has burned. Every tree, every insect, every living thing." She stomped a hoof on the bare rock and the three gems in her necklace glowed as a bit of energy coursed from her horn to her hoofs and into the ground. "I can't feel anything in this world. From here to the deepest reaches of the ocean, not one breath of life."
Realizing what she had just said a wave of disgust rolled over Celestia. Had she become that blunt? Had fighting Discord turned her into a monster as well? How could she stand and talk about the destruction of an entire realm?
Luna had mimicked her sisters magic, but she had guided her energy into her wings. "Look to the sky! Not even the sun is moving in the heavens. Everything just stopped." Luna's horn pulsed in the blue glow of her magic. "I can feel the sun, even the moon, but ... nothing else. The stars are gone. How can the stars be gone?" She looked to her aged sister, a sparkle of panic in her eyes, "What has that monster done? What do we do now?"
Celestia’s voice betrayed her feelings. "I don’t know. We will have to wait for our family to find us, Luna. I have no idea what mother and father did after they left us, but I remember that they talked about containing Discord. Maybe they had a fallback plan in case the Elements of Harmony didn't work? Maybe they cut this place off from the universe? I really don't know, but I'm sure if Discord had the power to whisk away the stars, no power would have beaten him."
They both eyed the statue suspiciously. The trickster had fooled them before, in part that had been a calculated risk when they confronted him. He was chaos incarnate after all. But again, nothing happened.
"I guess we are this world’s guardians now," Celestia offered. Again Celestia was shocked about her emotional detachment. On a intellectual level she new she should be shivering with fear for her and her sisters life, she should be trembling with rage at being abandoned and being pushed into this role but all there was, was a small annoying feeling that Luna had gotten ash all over her coat and in her mane.
"So we guard this big rock," Luna's hoof kicked at the ground, "from that small rock?" and pointed at the draconequus. "I really, really don't want to sound like him, but boring."
"I'd actually like a bit of routine in my life, dear sister." Celestia tried to hug her twin, but her new, unfamiliar body made her stumble. "See? My point exactly. So instead of guardians we could try to be gardeners? Maybe that's why father and mother separated and traveled the whole planet with us? To show us the world so that we can rebuild it?” Her brows wrinkled. “That is a scary thought, actually."
"Yes, it is," her sister agreed. They both looked around, over the still plains full of pure white ash. Then Luna guided some magic into her own necklace. "But let's try this anyway. Everything is better than barren rock."
Celestia smiled, but did the same. As the energy flooded from their elements into the air around them an arc of magic connected them, like a bolt of lightning that crackled up to their horns, then jumped over to Discord's statue and into the ground. Luna looked at the scorch mark their magic had left on the stone and took a surprised step backwards as the ash around them swirled and turned into soil. Within minutes a circle a mile wide had formed. It still expanded as the first blade of grass sprang up.
"What has happened, Tia? I do not understand."
"I do not either. If you'd have me guess, I'd say that this is harmony at play." Celestia looked at the ground, at the grass and at the first flower that just raised its head towards her. She touched, caressed the little plant, even as others shot up around it. New hope, new confidence and pride sparked inside her as she watched the little petals unfold. "This is new life, Luna. And like this flower, today and in this place we are for ever free."