The Monster in the Twilight
Fini
“Trixie—” started Celestia, only to be cut off as her former student continued to talk.
“No, I mean it. I quit, I resign, I no longer wish to be your student. When you take Twilight Sparkle and the Elements of Harmony back to Canterlot, I plan on staying in Ponyville to make restitution for what I’ve done to them. Maybe I can get a job as a maid or something. I’m pretty good at demolitions. Or I could write my memoirs. My Life as a Canterlot Fraud.”
“Trixie—” began Celestia in a firm voice, only to be cut off again.
“I’ve learned a lot from you, Your Highness, don’t get me wrong. In addition to your sister, you’ve got a new student now, with wings. I think she’s the one you wanted to train in the first place, while I was just a spare.”
“Trixie!” commanded Celestia, “Will you—”
“I’ll visit Canterlot in a few days when I find a place to stay in Ponyville, clean out my room at the castle for your new student, pay off my overdue library fines, apologize to Shining Dumbbell and his wife, but that’s it. No more Royal Performances, no more filling your tower up with smoke in the middle of the night, no more hiding my peanut-butter and onion on toast sandwiches behind the throne for midnight snacking. Although I will miss lighting Prince Blueblood’s tail on fire when he isn’t looking.”
“Cool!” said Rainbow Dash.
“Trixie?” Princess Celestia had an almost pleading tone to her voice that was immediately overridden by her former student.
“And Spike! I’m going to miss him something terrible, but your new student should be able to handle him. Make sure to have him scrub behind his ear-ridges twice a week or they get all gunky, and don’t ever let her feed him opals before bedtime, no matter how much he begs. I’ll write him every week and tell him how well I’m doing making friends.”
“Um. Trixie?” Fluttershy tugged gently on the remains of Trixie’s burnt cloak until she turned to look. “Hush.”
“Thank you, Fluttershy.” Celestia lowered her head until she was just a few inches away from Trixie’s embarrassed gaze. “Don’t think you can slip away from your responsibilities this easily, young mare. Even though I will be taking the Elements of Harmony back to Canterlot for safekeeping, it is the bearers of the Elements who are the key to their use. In the event they are needed again, I shall need somepony to gather Twilight Sparkle and her friends together…” Princess Celestia trailed off and looked at the other end of the room where the young alicorn in question was attempting unsuccessfully to hover, with encouragement shouted at her from all directions. “Where does she live, anyway?”
Zecora opened her mouth to respond, but Trixie pounced before she could talk. “Right outside the castle and across the big ditch, Your Highness. It’s a long way from town and it would take her an hour to describe it to you.”
With a brief scowl at Trixie, Zecora bowed and said, “I would not mind moving my tree, if the town is willing to accept me.”
“Good, then it is settled. Although I think Twilight Sparkle may need some help if the Elements of Harmony are needed again,” Celestia added with a worried look. “The power they draw would be quite dangerous to the young and immature. “
“How about the old and immature?” asked Pinkie Pie. “When we all crowded around Miss Grouchypants to help her make a hole in the big gold ball, the funny crown thing seemed to work just fine. It even tickled! I want to do it again!”
“Well, ah ain’t lettin’ mah little sis do anything dangerous without me being there for her,” said Applejack with a determined set to her jaw that indicated argument would be futile.
“Nor shall I,” said Rarity with a toss of her head to throw back her mane defiantly, in a pose that mirrored Applejack almost perfectly.
“You aren’t sending Scoots somewhere dangerous without Rainbow Dash!”
“Somepony needs to go along with them to make sure they’re not hurt.”
There was a very long silent pause lasting nearly a minute and containing a great number of intense looks before Trixie let out her breath in an explosive, “Fine! I’ll go with Sparkle and help. But only if needed. And it had better be something really important, end of the world, doom and gloom stuff.”
“I fear your requirements may be met, my obstinate student.” Celestia looked embarrassed and gave Luna an extra squeeze. “While overseeing the stars in Luna’s absence, I may have moved a few—”
Luna cleared her throat and gave Celestia a sharp glance.
“Well, more than a few prophetical stars into places they really don’t belong.”
Luna nuzzled Celestia affectionately, although with a sharp nip. “I shall have centuries worth of work to clean up your mess, my sister. But it is worth it. And speaking of centuries, what of the pony who saved my life?”
“Well, I suppose I could accept some reward—” started Trixie, before catching a sideways glance from Celestia. “Oh. Sparkle.”
Zecora stepped to Trixie’s side and bowed. “I’m afraid it will take many years, until I am quite old, for Flower to become the Wise One of the Sky, long-ago foretold.”
“You’re taking Sparkle to Zebrica?” asked Trixie, her eyes glittering with anticipation. “You know, they’re a set now. You’ll have to take all of them. And that ‘many years’ thing is just optional, right? Travel is broadening for young minds.”
“Trixie,” growled Applejack.
“What? You could go with them, and I’ll watch Big Mac for you.”
“Trixie!”
Zecora chuckled at the two, giving a nod and a smile to Celestia. “Our nations may seem quite far away from each other, but I did not realize how close they were, until I became a mother. So close they seem, in my observation, that I recognize this stallion’s station.”
“Huh?” Tallgrass looked away from the playing small ponies with a shock of realization when Zecora faced him and looked deeply into his blue faceted eyes.
“How does it feel, to be free of your Queen? To hear with new ears, and see things unseen?”
Tallgrass shifted in place, listening intently to no avail for the sound of pegasus wings coming to rescue them. “How do you know of my mind’s release, where after many years, I finally found peace?” He quickly covered his mouth with one hoof and mumbled, “Sorry, my stupid mouth is doing it again.”
A smile crossed Zecora’s face and stayed as she responded, “Do you know where your story does begin?
“At the beginning, where all things start.” The changeling paused to stand up straighter as if he were listening to a voice, far, far away, in the rhythm of beating hooves.
The zebra stepped over to the changeling and placed one hoof on his chest, closing her eyes. “This stallion has a wise one’s heart.”
“My mind is what I think is broken,” echoed Tallgrass without a pause.
“A worse falsehood has not been spoken.”
The changeling shook his head, looking at the zebra as if he had never seen her before. “The things I sense cannot be true.”
“Do you think these things are seeking out you?”
Trixie turned from her quiet conversation with Luna to snap, “Will you two go get a room?! We’re trying to have a bonding moment here!”
Tallgrass smirked, looking at Zecora with raised ears. “I think she wishes us to disappear.”
Zecora smirked right back, with a licking of her lips. “Or me for you to just consume.”
“So fair a mare is not for a plate.”
“So hale a male could be a… date?”
Trixie fumed and waved a hoof threateningly. “Outside! Go! Orange! Silver! Wait a minute.” She paused with one ear cocked up at the ceiling. “Do you hear that?”
Tallgrass perked up both ears and listened. “I hear nothing, not even a word.”
Zecora took an identical pose. “Well, just one thing, but it’s a bird.”
“It’s very quiet,” said Fluttershy.
“Too quiet,” said Pinkie Pie, pulling out her party cannon.
“Where are the kids?”
- - ✶ - -
After the pile of young ponies collapsed in the warm beam of sunshine that illuminated one of the thrones, Scootaloo suddenly sat up and asked, “Do you know what this means?”
“You sat on a sharp rock?” asked Sweetie Belle.
“No, I mean this!” Scootaloo waved a hoof at the entire room. “We’re actually inside the spooky old abandoned castle.”
“Yeah,” said Featherweight. “Think about what could be lying around, just waiting to be discovered.”
“Like suits of armor.”
“And haunted kitchenth.”
“And swords!”
“And books!”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
The six of them regarded the older ponies on the other end of the room, who seemed to be quite absorbed in whatever older pony stuff they were doing and ignoring them for the moment.
“We’d have to be really quiet,” said Scootaloo.
“Come on, let’s go.” Absolute silence reigned in the throne room as tiny little hooves slipped out of the nearby door into a dusty corridor, but that reign of silence was quickly overthrown by shrieks of childish joy as the little friends galloped into the ancient castle in search of adventure, with the thunder of adult hooves in futile pursuit.
In the throne room, the two ancient alicorns remained wrapped in each other’s embrace, rejoicing in their moments together long delayed. So much time had been stolen from them that they simply remained holding each other without saying a word for endless minutes until they could hear the sounds of chariots approaching, and knew their time together would soon have to be shared.
“I love you, little sister.” Celestia nuzzled her sister, taking a brief nip at one wing where Miss Smartypants was hiding, only to have Luna tuck it even closer to her body with a giggle.
“I love you too, big sister.” Luna stroked her face on her sister’s warm neck, waiting until the Royal Guards were nearly into the ancient throne room before whispering into her sister’s ear.
“Am I still grounded?”
The guards would later tell the story of how Princess Celestia and her sister were both laughing uncontrollably when they were found, rolling around on the floor in a juvenile tickle fight.
* * ✹ * *
At one time, the Everfree had been a garden.
A wonder of the ancient world, it wrapped the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters in a belt of verdant green and flowers so thick and wonderful it was said a young couple could enter the forest along a path as newlyweds and never emerge at the other end until they were old and grey. The creatures who called the forest their home were the refugees of the world, fleeing burnt forests and dried inland seas for the harmony that filled every nook and cranny of their new home. Even the smallest of foals could be lost within the mysterious greenery for days and emerge not only unscathed, but healthy and well-fed, as if they had been cared for by the trees themselves. Nopony needed care for the garden, for the plants grew, the rain fell, and the animals looked after each other in love and friendship.
Then one day, Harmony shattered.
Rage and Hatred entered the garden as the sisters fought, sending shocks through all the plants and creatures who called the Everfree their home. Claws and roots fought one another in mindless agony, the ancient forest of peace becoming a bloody battleground. Nopony knows how many died that night, in blood and sap that drenched the ground like rain, but the echoes of the battle echoed through the soil and water ever since, growing stronger in the darkness. For endless generations afterwards, harmony was absent in the garden, transforming it into a hellish nightmare of hunger and malice. Where young lovers once strode carefree and untroubled, now creatures from beyond the veil of dreams stalked the bloody darkness where even the most fearsome predators feared to tread.
The forest was unaware of the passage of time, but it could remember the touch of harmony that once ruled. The ancient abandoned castle in the middle of the forest still echoed from the clash that took place in the skies above it, even as the buildings fell into disrepair and began to decay into chaos. Some tinge of harmony still existed within the ruins, and even the most fierce of the forest inhabitants avoided the ancient fallen stones and ivy-twined walls, as if they could feel shame at what they had become.
Once quite recently, the forest had felt something quite small, a tiny pin-prick of pain against the immense green expanse which should have been ignored. After all, the forest could no more feel the sensation of a tiny ball of magical fire burning out than it could live and breathe. Still, there had been a response, a reflex of some sort, even if it had not been driven by intellect or emotion. The fire had been quickly extinguished, but the spark that ignited it continued to burn, flickering from one place to another with the speed of a living creature. It could have reminded the forest of what it had once been, had there been anything to remind. For many seasons of warm and cold, the spark burned within the forest until it seemed to become one with the thick green coat of violence and blood. At times it burned with a fire that threatened to extinguish itself in a conflagration that could have swept the entirety of the forest up in its blaze, if not for another spark that held itself near to the spark of fire.
Had the forest been intelligent, it might have wondered about the sparks, how they clung to each other like the harmonious inhabitants of the decaying ruins so many seasons ago. In the way of sparks, it gathered more to itself, holding them to the outskirts of the forest where their dim glow would not be extinguished by the violence that filled the woods. They would dance through the outskirts in the same way other sparks once played carefree throughout the forest, and even the creatures who saw them held back their claws, perhaps with their own ancestral memories of those times long gone. Other sparks blew into the forest in a torrent, ripping and tearing in the way of their kind. The forest had seen worse, and dealt with them in its own time, but this time the bright spark and its companions attacked the dangerous sparks and extinguished most of them, although the fire of the bright spark dimmed.
From one side of the forest to another, more sparks flew, tiny sparks visiting the destruction and saving other sparks in a most peculiar fashion that felt almost familiar to the forest, as if it had happened before, in happier times.
And then the Darkness returned.
What were sparks to the Darkness that covered the world? Without light, the forest would die, the sparks would go out, and there would be nothing but ice. But the forest could do nothing but watch as the ancient catastrophe played out again. This time the sparks would lose, and Darkness would consume all.
Except…
Within the ancient ruins, in the center of the forest’s grasp, an ancient magic stirred. Beasts looked to the rising sun with strange sensations in their hearts, minds growing clearer than they had ever been. With the sun came a warmth that had almost been forgotten. A touch of a long-lost friend. The sparks had drawn together in a flame of such brightness that it lit the world, bringing light and healing to the broken forest.
And Harmony returned.
When the sparks departed the ancient ruins, they took two new sparks the forest had nearly forgotten, one as brilliant as the newly-risen sun, and one as crystal-bright as the moon. They burned with unquenchable fire, a combined blaze that could have burned away the forest in the blink of an eye as they rose into the sky.
Leaving the forest alone again.
The insanity that had gripped the forest was gone, and many dark fragments remained buried, but the healing would take many, many seasons, and some of the forest might never recover. Still, it looked forward to the day when once again, the sparks could play within the garden in peace and joy.
That is, if the forest was able to think. Which it was not.