"Why do I have to do this? It’s a complete waste of time!" Sunset Shimmer Whined
All Princess Celestia could do was sigh. This was becoming an issue, she thought. "Learning about the Friendship of magic is not a waste of time. It is an important part of your education here."
"It is a waste of time. What IS important is me learning new spells and becoming more powerful. That way you can have a more powerful unicorn for your personal student. In order to do that, I need to practice magic, not run around trying to learn how to make friends!"
Princess Celestia was sitting in Canterlot Castle's library with her protégé Sunset Shimmer. Celestia had chosen Sunset as her personal student after she had shown serious promise after the first few days of her first year attending her school for Gifted Unicorns. It was more than just her raw talents at magic that drew Celestia to Sunset. As soon as Celestia saw a sample of Sunset's magic, she was sure that Sunset would be the one that would help reunite her with her sister, Princess Luna.
Had it really been almost 1000 years? Princess Celestia could still remember it like it was yesterday. That night was the worst night the Princess of the Sun had ever lived through. That last heart-breaking night. The last night she saw her sister. Princess Luna had refused to lower her moon, and Princess Celestia could see the darkness rising inside her. Inside this darkness, she saw hatred; almost pure hatred. Yet, Celestia noted, this hatred was not directed toward her, but to all the other ponies of Equestria. She hated all the ones who shunned the night; ignored it. Princess Celestia had no choice. Before her sister could harm anypony, Celestia grabbed the six Elements of Harmony. She didn't know what would happen. She had never wielded the Elements on her own before, but she had no choice. She unleashed the power of the Elements, and banished her sister to the moon for the next 1000 years.
Using the Elements took a lot of energy out of the princess. “These objects were never meant to be used by one pony, no matter how powerful. I must keep that in mind later.” Celestia thought. Now, as the time is coming closer to the release of her sister from the moon, Celestia wanted to pass along the Elements of Harmony to six ponies that she saw fit to represent them. She needed ponies that she could trust with one of the most powerful magical artifacts in all of Equestria. The hunt for the perfect six would be a difficult one, but she felt fairly certain that Sunset would be one of them, and help lead Celestia to the other five. If only Sunset would be able to find the spark inside herself.
"You didn't seem to need friends when you took on and defeated Discord. All you needed was you and your sister." Sunset stated, breaking Celestia from her thoughts.
Celestia cocked her head slightly. "Where did you hear about the story of Discord?"
Sunset Shimmer looked around the library. She used her magic to grab a book and pull it closer to her. "I stumbled across this when I was looking for a book on magic. Inside is a pretty detailed account of what happened. Discord was once the ruler of Equestria. Under his rule, the world fell under total chaos. No one was able to stop him until you and your sister, Princess Luna, took some sort of magical objects called the...um..."
"Elements of Harmony" Celestia offered. Maybe, if Sunset had really read up on the Elements, she is truly ready to start her journey to find the spark within that will unlock her true potential.
"Yeah, those things." Sunset continued, seemingly uninterested with names, "You used them to end Discord's reign. You turned him to stone, and therefore took over and started to rule Equestria yourselves. I believe, if I’m not mistaken, the statue of Discord is currently sitting in the Canterlot Sculpture Gardens"
Celestia chuckled lightly to herself, as if she had just responded to some sort of inside joke. "You are mostly correct in your storytelling; however, it seemed to lack in the details department."
"Yeah, well, maybe I just skimmed the story a little." Sunset retorted
"Even so, you could have read that story word for word, and you still wouldn't have gotten the whole story. There is a very important detail in the story that you will not find in any book in Equestria.
"What sort of detail? And why was it left out?"
"To answer the second first: because a friend asked me to keep it out of the record. You see, Sunset, a friend help both me and my sister defeat Discord. This friend is someone I will never forget. He gave us the power we needed in order to defeat Discord. Therefore, I feel he was really the one who saved Equestria, not us. He didn't want to be thanked for it, however. He said that he simply did the right thing to do, and that he didn’t deserve any of the praise. He basically didn’t want to be worshipped as a hero, so he asked that we not mention it to anypony else. So you, my dear Sunset, are the first to hear of this hero for over 1000 years."
"Then why are you telling me this? Why are you just now letting this secret out if you’ve been holding onto it for over 1000 years?"
Sunset thought she heard a hint of sadness in the elder pony’s voice when next she spoke "This story is something that I think you need to hear. It's something that I need to tell."
"Alright" Sunset responded. "I'm listening."
"When we used the Elements of Harmony on Discord and we defeated him, it was not our first attempt to stop him. Our first attempt failed. We didn't stand a chance. His power over chaos practically changes the laws of physics. Even my magic combined with my sister’s couldn’t stop him. My magic has gotten much better than it was back then, but even then we were still formidable. No matter how good your magic is though, physics can trump magic any day. We tried over and over again to stop Discord, but he was just too strong.
We were just about ready to give up. We had given up hope of defeating him. So, Luna and I spent some time researching something, anything that could help us. Then, one day, we were searching deep into a portion of a library hidden in a far corner of Equestria when I found an interesting looking book sitting on the top shelf of the bookcase. I had never seen this book before, but for some reason I had a good feeling about the book, as if it was calling out to me. It was as if the book was trying to tell me that what I was looking for was bound safely within its covers. Using my magic I looked at the cover to read the title. Only on closer inspection, I found out that the book had no author, nor did it have a title anywhere as far as I could tell. When I looked through the book, I saw that the pages were all blank. There wasn’t so much as an ink splatter on any of the pages. The dusty, moldy cover of the book betrayed its age, however, Strangely enough, every page within its covers looked as if they were bound in just yesterday. Either way, this book didn’t appear to be much help. I threw the book into the corner of the room in disgust. All my good feelings about the book dashed away from me.
I was doing my best to stay strong for my little sister, but I felt like crying. I felt, right then, that we had lost this war with Discord. I could almost hear him laughing at us; at me. It was as if he was saying, “Of course you lost Celestia! You never had a chance!” I felt Luna’s hoof on my shoulder. “Do not fret, Sister. We have not lost yet.” I was about to suggest to her that we just give up, but before I could open my mouth, Luna said, “Sister! Look!” I turned around and followed Luna’s eyes. She was looking into the same corner where the book I threw was sitting. I then noticed a light coming from the book. We both cautiously walked over to the now very bright book. As we got close enough to the book, the light faded. Now, on the page that the book had been open to, was some writing; writing that wasn’t there before. At the top of the page read the words, in almost absolute perfect hoofwriting: Dimensional Portals. That gave me an idea. If I couldn't defeat Discord, maybe I can still get the ponies of Equestria out of this chaos, and we could maybe find a new home, somewhere Discord could never find us.
Running away from our homeland wasn’t exactly out first choice in getting rid of Discord, but we were afraid that we didn’t have much choice. I still wasn’t sure that I wanted to do this, but Luna suggested that we should have a fall back plan in case we couldn’t uncover anything else that could help. Either way, Luna had suggested we test the spell before we try to tell others about it. Together, we studied the spell. It was far more complicated than either of us had ever seen. We decided we would try to cast it together, giving us double power. That would hopefully give us enough to open and sustain the portal.
The spell worked. It opened up some sort of round doorway shrouded by white light. The light made both of us flinch. We instinctively pulled our wings in front of our faces to try to block some of the light. Unfortunately, we lost our hold on the door, and it closed a few seconds after we got it opened. I didn't know about Luna, but I knew that I didn't have the power to try to open the door again. At least not until I rested for a while, but I was afraid that, if the portal closed that easily, it wouldn’t be stable enough for a pony to walk through safely; not to mention that we didn’t even know where this door led, if anywhere.
As the light faded we noticed something on the floor of the library. At first I thought it was a pony. Maybe this pony came through the portal we opened. As the light levels returned to normal, and our eyes adjusted, Luna was the first to gasp. The creature on the ground wasn't a pony. I had never seen anything like it before. Neither one of us were sure as to what to do next. We didn't have to wait very long, however, because a minute later, the creature stirred, and then it got up. It had four legs, but stood on only two. To be honest I was scared. I didn't know what it was or what its motives were.
Before I could ask anything, the thing moved back a few steps. He looked like he was scared out of his wits. “Who-who a-are you?” he asked. Before I could answer, another blast of white light filled the room, though much dimmer than the last. This light was coming from the spell book. Again, after the light had diminished, an object had appeared. It looked like some sort of necklace. The object fell to the floor. As soon as the necklace hit, a burst of magic flew from it. I had never seen that object before, but for some reason when I looked at the necklace, I felt like we were given a second chance. It felt like I could hold some hope in my heart yet again. All of a sudden, a voice rang through my head. I still, to this day, remember what the voice said to me. It said, 'I am Hope. Protect the bearer, and the keys to stop Fear will be yours.' I figured the ‘fear’ that the voice spoke of was supposed to represent Discord.
The necklace moved, and shot across the floor to that other creature in this room, the necklace touched him, climbed his way up his body until it was right under his neck. Then it disappeared. After a few seconds, the creature swayed and collapsed. It looked almost as if his body was trying to process too much information at once, and it just shut down. Anyway, ---"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, are you trying to tell me that some sort of alien thing helped you save Equestria?" Sunset Interrupted
"Well, I wouldn't really call him an alien, just---"
"He was something not from this world. I believe that's what an alien is, isn't it?"
"Fine," Celestia sighed, "we can call him an alien if you want. May I continue?"
"Sure, if you want." Sunset answered rather enthusiastically.
"I'm going to need to get to the point" Celestia thought, “Sunset’s losing interest."
"Ok" Celestia continued out loud, "Long story short: The necklace that this creature absorbed gave him power. Great power that could help overthrow Discord. Power enough to help bring Equestria to what it is today. Anyway---"
The door to the library burst open, and two Royal Guards stormed in. "Your Highness!" one of the guards said, "we have a situation. We need you to come with us immediately."
Celestia got up from where she was sitting and hurried to the door. "Sunset, I would like you to do some deeper studying into the Magic of Friendship. It may even save you one day, just as it saved Equestria all those years ago." Then the doors shut and she was gone.
"Study the Magic of Friendship? I don't think so.” She walked out of the library. Celestia would have brough the book with her when she came back to Canterlot. That book is probably in this castle somewhere. Then she got an idea of where to start searching. As she walked, she thought about the possibilities. “A necklace that grants power. More power than both Celestia and Luna had put together.” She thought. She made her way to the Starswirl the Bearded wing of the Castle. "I've got a spell book to find."