The vision left Twilight in a stupor. Dragged along to see something mortals were not intended to know. ‘That was their... mother?’ she asked herself. She knew it was, but simply couldn’t accept the idea, let alone the feeling that she had been acknowledged by her.
Wandering into the rare books section of her library, she made straight for its locked cabinet. The book Celestia had given her in the spring, it had mentioned many of the things that had been spoken of by the three gods.
First born, she knew that term. The book had spoken in great length about the creation of... Well, creation. Those first gods, that were not born, but simple manifested into existence had been called primordials, their children the first born. While the book had prattled in length about the primordials, details on the first-born were conspicuously missing. Only mentioned in reference a few times and never given names or descriptions.
Carefully she took out the book and opened its pages. A bookmark still in it, marking a chapter titled The Three Blessings. She found herself rereading the chapter reflexively, hoping to pick up something she missed.
///
And the earth was populated with all the manors of creatures that lived wild upon the land. The Sisters watched the movement spread across creation and decided, they too would fashion the most perfect creature they could. For they wished to have something of themselves walking upon the land. To make a game of it, they agreed each would make three of a kind. Then compare what they made.
Luna stirred the sea and splashed it on the shore, and out of the foam rose three mares.
Celestia bent the trees of the forest, and split open the greatest of the oaks. From the heartwood three stallions took form and stepped forth.
They brought them together to compare their work. But, found that neither was greater than the other. But, rather one completed the other just as does night and day. On first meeting, their creations fell in love, immediately making three couples.
Seeing that together they had created something wonderful, the Sisters decided to grant a wish to each pair.
The first pair looked to the sun and moon and said: “We feel the wind and envy it. We wish for freedom above all other things. Grant us the power to fly and let our hearts live in the clouds.”
The Sisters smiled from the heavens. “You shall have all these things and so shall your children.”
The light and the dark met, and between them came forth the first of the elements of wind. “You called for me goddesses of day and night?”
“Yes,” the sisters spoke. “Take a feather from your crown and split in two. Give one half to each of these two. Embrace them and call them your cousins, as each of their kind will be born as both your child and ours.”
The sisters then told them, ”Though all your children will have these gifts. Only one in a generation will hold the true spirit of wind. They will have a speed so great, that they can tear the very sky into ribbons of color and sound. All the virtues of the air shall be theirs to command.”
The second couple said: “We wish to create and change the world as you do”
Celestia kissed one upon the forehead and Luna kissed the other. Light and shadow erupted from the kiss and solidified into twisted horns. “We leave a bit of ourselves with you. Your children will bare our kiss. They will have the gift of the day or the night. One in a generation will have will have command of both and neither. They will be the penumbra; a place between. All magics will be known to them.
The third couple spoke up: “We wish for freedom and creation. The will to see anything through its end. The drive to overcome any obstacle.”
With a grim expression the Sisters said. “You wish for passion. But, we warn you it is a power that even we can not control”
The two nonetheless insisted. So, the sisters took them to a high temple where the spirits of passion lived. The Sisters told them, “Within this temple burns a great fire. It will destroy either of you alone. But, if you both press into the source of the flame, to snuff it out, you will conquer it and the fire will be within you. Your children will have the gift of passion. But, one in a generation will have the fire of passion sealed within them. Like the others it will pass to a new host upon the death of the former. Unlike the others this will be as much a curse as a blessing. Though it will give them an unsurpassed strength, left unchecked it will burn them to ash.
///
Twilight mumbled, “The penumbra” She had no doubt that Rainbow dash was the spirit of wind, and Celestia had told her Mcintosh was the incarnate of passion. ‘The penumbra,’ she laughed, “A pony’s name was a gift of Fate after all.” Still, she wasn’t sure how she like the idea of being a once-in-a-generation anomaly among unicorns.
“You forced the Elements of Harmony to take scions, as the Chaos did long ago. Just as there was then, there are consequences.” The words still haunted her.
Plucking out her bookmark Twilight hoofed open the index of the tomb. “Elements of Chaos...” she breathed scanning the list of topics. “Ha! page four hundred and seventy five.”
///
...And he was cast into a slumber where visions were granted unto him by the old god Luna. On this dream the Moon saw fit to pull away the curtain of time and show him things past—and not yet come to pass.
Barren land stretched below him in all directions, blank and raw. The sky rippled as six comets streaked across the horizon. They fell to the earth like feathers and vanished into the soil where they laid. “Those are the elements of Harmony,” the whisper told him. “They are not to be found by mortal hoof.”
Moments later six more tore through the sky. This time blasting great craters where they landed. “Those... are not,” he was told.
An aeon passed within the span of a thought. Dirt became wilderness. Wilderness replaced by a rough frontier. Unicorns lived on the mountains in glittering castles. Earth ponies tilled the grasslands. Pegai filled the air. The nations of griffins, dragons, and deer lived in the land too. He watched the six cultures grew and shrink, watched wars flair and fade. In the wake of war Ice clung to the land. The frost spread till it had claimed a great span of the land. All the creatures of the land flead the forever winter, the three tribes of ponies crossed a great portion of the world; three flags became one. The sun sat on a tired and hungry world, and a long night chilled his blood,
“Luna, please deliver me to morning. It is cold, and I fear for those creatures we watch,” he prayed.
The rosy fingers of dawn answered his prayer. His heart sang with the warmth of the sun, and below him he watched a golden age bloom in every nation. Then the craters from so long ago came back into his sight; they were being found. Each tribe and nation found an impact and each pulled a smoking orb from its bottom.
Time took a fast pace as fire danced across the land. War no longer faded, it only moved and grew. The fire grew till the entirety of its rage was focused in one spot. Six massive armies met on a great plane. At the head of each host, stood the strongest of their kind, and each held a smoking orb. Yet they did not hold it by hoof or mouth, the orbs were held within their very soul. Wielding the power of the primordial shard, they lead their tribe by power, coercion, and fear. “They are the Scions of chaos,” the voice whispered to him, “The Scion of: Eris, Moros, Apate, Oizys, Philotes, and Thanatos. The elements of chaos.”
The armies clashed, the stink of blood and fire filled his senses. The scions lead the melee; the thickest of the gore marked their wake. Then something went wrong. The scions found themselves all in one press. For the first time, all the elements of chaos were in one place. The elements, he saw, had a will of their own. They wished to be united, and no force that existed could stop them. Arcs of shadow connected the six, bound them, and in one horrible moment dashed them together. A shattered god had found his worldly flesh. Discord stood amidst the battlefield and laughed.
///
The elements of chaos had eventually resulted in the creation of Discord. Was that the consequence that she spoke of?
Twilight had already read twice over the story, of the Sisters taking up the Elements of Harmony and the defeat of Discord. Though it never explained where the two had come from. They were mentioned as gods in the oldest stories. But, it was not till the finding of the elements of harmony and the battle with Discord that they were attributed bodies.
What sort of danger were her and her friends in? She had to know. Were they to one day be turned into some horrible demigod? And what had been meant by forced... That haunted her more than anything.
Her ears perked at the sound Spike shuffling around in the main part of the library. “Spike,” she called, “Take a letter for me, please.”