The Steadfast Sky

by Greytercakes

LXXVI : The Shattered Sky

The Shattered Sky
The Grey Potter
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/11495/The-Steadfast-Sky
http://cosmicponyfiction.tumblr.com

The world was faded like a half-filled dream, hazy from the shroud of a dense, blue fog. Everything blurred together, edges lost, creating shaded silhouettes of deep blue and black. The trees became a unified mass. The distant road drifted into sight underneath me me, before slowly vanishing into the shadows. The horizon was lit up, but by what, I wasn’t sure. But there were fixed, radiant points of gold, of red blossoming on the edge of the forest, mixing and quietly muted by the gloom.

And, if I looked far, far over my head, I could almost see a thin, sinking layer of silver light, that seemed to shift in rolling, thick waves. The reflected light of the waxing moon, barely permeating this silent world of haze and shadow.

There was no sound. Only the dull swell of sludge in my ears. My eyeballs felt stuck to the inside of their lids. I couldn’t blink. I don’t think I was breathing. I don’t think my heart was beating.

I wasn’t aware of my body at all. I couldn’t tell where my limbs were. I couldn’t tell where my body was. I could barely tell where my snout, my ears, my eyes…

It was just… nothing. Nothing, in a heavy, all-encompassing, silent void.

And I was one with the emptiness all around me.

…

……

…………

Did I die?

Oh wow….

Dead.

Dead…

Dead…?

I can’t be dead. Can’t I? It came so quickly. I don’t even know what killed me.

Those clouds rose over my head. I watched as they turned dark, and collapsed over me. I hit something below me. Water, something thick. Something cold beyond reason. I fell into that, felt it all around me. Felt it fill my lungs and stomach, that overwhelming cold. I couldn’t even struggle to escape, because my limbs weren’t responding.

And then…

Nothing. Just a slow loss of feeling.

And then here.

I guess I drowned.

I…

I feel…

I guess I feel upset… Why wouldn’t I? But I try to cry, and I have no eyes. I try to feel that seizing in my chest, but there’s no chest there to feel. Even trying to make up the sobbing sound in my head sounds fake.

I guess I can be thankful it didn’t hurt. Just hit the water and passed over. No pain. No fuss. Just like falling asleep, and drifting over to a dream.

It’s almost lucky. A slow drift to sleep, now, that’s the best, most kind death I could ask for, I guess

But.

Dead…

The end.

No more me.

Ever.

But.

How can I be thinking these things if there’s no more ‘me’ to think them? Is this the afterlife? Why is it so gloomy and dark?

In an annoyed huff, I kicked my limbs. Or, I tried to. One of my knees twitched, I think? I may have just imagined it. I tried to unfold my wings. I couldn’t even feel them. There was no feeling in my back. No tense muscles, or shifting skin, or the tiny touch of feathers.

I wondered if I still had wings. I wondered if I still had a body. What if they were all taken from me? I mean, if I’m dead, what use would a body be, here, in this endless void?

Oh moon in the sky. How can I be dead? I was an alicorn! I was about to save all of Equestria! And now, I’m just a nothing, in the most nothingness place I’d ever been...

No, no. Don’t go down that train of thought. It’ll lead to panic. No panicking is allowed.

Think.

Just.

Be quiet and think for a bit.

Strangely, the first non-panicked thought that came to me was:

Am I still connected to my Element?

I tried moving my snout, intent on tapping the metal band, um, somehow. It obviously didn’t work very well. My nose felt like everything else: like a load of nothing stuck right on the end of my nothing. I tried pushing magic into my horn, and alighting my Element that way. But all I felt was a cold, creeping sense of absolute failure.

Obviously, if I was in… this place, then Element was with my physical body. I couldn’t touch it, or cast magic at it. I could just feel it out. Feel Laughter and Honesty, feel my connection to my sister and my coltfriend, strongly in my little, spirit heart.

I reached out. Tried to close my eyes and focus. Closing my eyes failed, but expanding my mind didn’t.
Elements.

Wherever you are.

Luna is still here, and she would like to see her friends.

Suddenly, there was a little blue light. But from where?! I struggled to look down, up, sideways, anywhere, and—

A deep blue glow rose from below me, and drifted upwards up to meet my eyes. The little crescent moon of Laughter threw radiance into the gloom, and finally, I saw.

I actually did have a physical body! I was on my back, and my legs and wings drifting lazily above me, bouncing numbly off vague, shadowy tree branches. The Element of Laughter wasn’t just a disembodied glow. It was attached by a gold band, the same band I had worn since the day I found it.

Eventually, my body drifted downwards. I was only held up by the winding gold plate of the Element, its gemstone sitting in its own brightly lit bubble, literally pushing the shadows away from it.

And there we sat. no longer drifting aimlessly, but held still in our own little sliver of light. I tried to close my eyes and focus, but my eyelids still refused to play along. Whatever, I can think of Discord and Celestia with my eyes open.

I thought, almost as a joke, ‘Do you know where my friends are, little Element of Laughter?’

There was no reply, or really, none I could hear. The little blue moon twinkled calmly in front of my eyes, still and silent as it ever was.

Slowly, my Element drifted sideways, gemstone spinning and sparkling, well, joyfully. It pulled on the golden band, and the band pulled my body through the murky trees. I could feel, could see that we were moving.

It wasn’t the fastest way to travel, but we were clearly heading for the red and gold lights on the horizon.

I don’t know how long I drifted. Minutes? Hours? Was I travelling miles, or just really, really drawn out yards? The Element of Laughter had pulled me out of the trees, so there really wasn’t anything I could use to judge time or distance down here. I knew I was travelling towards the red light in the distance. And, after watching it for a while, I knew the gold light was moving that way as well.

I wondered what both of those were. I mean, the gold could have been Celestia. But the red? Could it be Discord? Kindness was silver. I know we just got magic, but with all the glitter and rainbows everywhere, I didn’t exactly get a good look at the color.

I didn’t have to wait much longer. After an eternity or maybe an hour being pulled forward by the light of Laughter, I finally got to see what was in the red-lit clearing.

My heart swelled hot, the only feeling I felt the entire time here. It was Discord! He floating on his back, asleep with a red, six-pointed gemstone hovering in front of his nose!

I tried to wave, call out, something, but I was still a limp, dumb doll. I couldn’t even move my head to see that I was about to run into my sister.

I smacked into Celestia’s side, neck bouncing numbly off her shoulder. We tumbled weakly through the sludge-like air, slowly slipping head over heels. There was a warm glow, a flash of light, and the liquid peeled off our bodies, dropping us into the damp grass. I tried to land on my feet, but my knees buckled the moment they hit the ground. She did the same.

We both toppled sideways and collapsed on the damp grass, both still too numb to even move. Her head dropped with a wet thump near my stomach. I saw her Element, Generosity, as it drifted dainty back around her neck, glowing gently. Laughter slipped out of sight as well, settling back into place all the same. Light filled the space carved out all around us.

We were both quiet. For one frightening moment, I wondered if she was dead, and I had just run into her body. I struggled to open my mouth, to say something. Somehow, I could already feel my jaw moving, my teeth clicking together as I attempted to say the very first thing I could think of.

I said, “Um.”

Silence. I saw her leg twitch, bumping into Discord’s pink tail.

She croaked, “Yes?”

I worked my jaw, tried to speak again. My whole body was numb, but feeling was coming back slowly.

I forced my mouth to say, “Good to see ya, sis.”

“Yes,” she replied, “I suppose. Hm.”

“Hm?”

“Goodness,” she said slowly, “It is quite chilly down here…”

I tried to lift my head to stare at her. What kind of weird, dumb reaction…?

“Yeah,” I grunted, “it kind’ve is.”

Celesia laughed hollowly. I watched her chest heave as she tried to breathe.

I said, carefully as I could, “We really messed up bigtime, didn’t we?”

Celestia inhaled sharply. I took a small breath. Cold air burned inside my lungs.

She said, “I am trying to not think of that, at the moment.”

“No?” I asked.

“I just… it’s rather mon-u-men-tal,” she said, enunciating each syllable of ‘monumental’ with dainty care. “If I, or we, start thinking about how badly we have messed up, I do not think we will ever be able to pull ourselves through this.”

“Yeah,” Luna said slowly, “I guess it’s a little hard to swallow right now. That we might not be able to do anything.”

“I. No. I just.” Another sharp breath, held for a moment. “So. Was it you who pushed back the smooze…?”

“What? Sschmoozzeh?” I replied, word stumbling over my numb tongue. “I thought we were dead!”

“Ah. I see. Well. We’re not.”

“Really?” I asked. “How do you know?”

“Because we’re under a lake of smooze,” Celestia calmly and carefully explained. “The cold. The numbing liquid slime. The layer of clouds. The cold stone. The black, frigid liquid that forms in the bodies of tormented ponies. It was smooze. All of it. Enough to flood… everything.”

She stopped suddenly. I watched her chest as she inhaled again, sharp and shallow as all the rest.

“Like I said,” Celestia continued, “I’m… just trying not to think of it.”

“Well that changes everything!” I said, “We’re alive. We have all six Elements. That means we can do anything now, right?”

“I suppose,” Celestia mumbled, “Anything’s possible.”

“So were you the one who dragged me here?” I asked. “Wasn’t me, trust me. I thought I was dead.”

“I was not,” Celestia replied, “So you suppose it was Discord?”

I looked past Celestia’s body, past her legs to the prone body of my coltfriend. He was no longer floating, of course. But he was still on his back, lying on the grass. His arms were at his sides, wings spread out, with the Element of Magic hovering inches above his nose.

“Discord?” I asked as loud as I could manage, “Did you unlock a new ability when you got your new Element?”

He did not respond. I got a sinking feeling, cold. What if he was…

Was what? These were dark thoughts probably brought on by the smooze. I tried to ignore the fact that Discord was not breathing. I mean, I wasn’t breathing until a few minutes ago. I didn’t need to when I was stuck in the smooze ocean. Perhaps he didn’t need to breathe either.

“Well I wonder what DID bring us here,” I continued, “Did the smooze…?”

“I doubt it,” Celestia said.

“Then maybe, Four-Clover…?”

She coughed. “Even less likely.”

“Okay… so, a secret Element of Harmony power?”

“Hm.” Celestia tried to lift her foreleg. It shivered and wobbled forward. A struggle, but under her control. I heard the cold clink of hoof hitting metal.

And, just like that, the light of the Elements around us dimmed just a little.

“Luna,” Celestia muttered, “Can I tell you something?”

“Of course!”

“I do not know if it is the smooze still imposing negativity, or if I should just keep smiling like I always do…”

“Tell me,” I asserted, “Whatever it is, we can hug it out.”

Her foreleg tightened, “I think, that is… that’s maybe part of my problem?”

“What,” I said, “hugs?”

“Yes? Well no, but…” She struggled to turn around. Her legs barely moving as she flopped over in an attempt to face me. “Do you think… well, do you think we may have been forcing this?”

I stared at the top of her head. “We did not force the smooze to flood everything.”

“No, no, not that! I mean,” she cried, “If we didn’t have this big responsibility, and didn’t have to save Equestria… do you think we’d be friends?”

Finally, she craned her neck up to look at me. Her face was twisted. Wet tears plastered tangled strands of her mane to her face.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, “I think that’s the smooze talking.”

“Perhaps,” she said. She stopped craning her neck. A hoof struggled to rise to her face, to wipe the tears away. “I’ve just got this sinking feeling that… you know. We aren’t much better than the first Gods, are we?”

“We are better,” I asserted. “We know we’re better! We know and can do so much they could ever dream of! I mean, come ON! They didn’t even LIKE each other!”

“Yes… we are better,” she said slowly “But we’re not perfect.”

I shot right back, “Of course not. Who is?”

“Yes… who is, really?”

She fell quiet. Slowly, the glow of her Elements returned. I dropped back on the grass, wondering when I had started to lean forward. I watched the dark swirl of shadowy oil above our heads. The smooze must really be doing its best to get in here, infect us and our Elements… You know. If it could think.

“I wonder, though,” Celestia said, voice calm, steady, and no longer unecesarily forced. “Are there six, ideal, perfect friends the Elements of Harmony were, or still are, waiting for? Six friends that actually fit their Elements seamlessly? Six ponies that you just look at, and you know they are made for thier Element?”

“We fit pretty good, I think,” I offered.

“But not without issue. Not without question. I mean, what did I do to earn Generosity?” she asserted, “And Loyalty. Remember? It broke on me. I don’t even know why it came back…”

I huffed, “That’s the smooze talking, Celestia.”

“It settled for me,” Celestia said, “The Elements both settled for me. Because the country needed their power more than the Elements needed a perfect fit.”

“Don’t make me come over there and hug you!” I huffed, trying to heave myself upward. “I’ll hug you dangit! You can’t stop me!”

“I’m not upset!” Celestia cried, “I just want to know what you think.”

“I think feeling sad and mopey right now is a totally dumb idea, because, in your own words—” I hefted my hoof above my head, jabbing through the air at the purplish black oil above our heads. “If we start thinking about how bad we screwed up, we are never going to get out of this! I don’t care if it’s something we did, or something we could have done. I don’t care if there are six ‘perfect’ friends somewhere out there. We, here and now, are the ONLY hope for Equestria! Okay?!”

And strangely, Celestia huffed a little laugh. A pleasant laugh.

“Always know how to cheer up a pony, Luna.”

“Damn straight I do,” I shot back, “Now help me wake up Discord. We’ve got an Equestria to save.”

Somehow, I’ve reached the bottom.

The bottom of what? I don’t know. Did I hit the bottom of… whatever I drowned in? Am I still stuck in my body? Is that what’s going on? Then how come I can’t hear, or see, or anything else, even distantly?

I have no idea how any of this works. But I’m touching something. I know I am. Something is pushing against my back. Or really, I’m lying on something. Faintly, distantly, as if I was feeling it through several layers of clothes.

I can feel it.

There’s something there.

I am dead, right? I’m not breathing, my heart’s not beating…

Something’s mumbling around me, but I could just be making that up. Like a dream.

What else could I be, but a corpse?

But maybe…

“C’mon, Discord. Rise and shine.”

“Luna?”

I mean, I tried to say ‘Luna’. But there was no breath left in my body. I couldn’t inhale, or exhale. Obviously, because I was—

“He’s down for the count, Celestia.”

“Perhaps he ingested some of the smooze?”

“An easy fix, then! We’ll just hug him a bunch and it’ll make the smooze slink away.”

“I’m surprised. Do you have enough control over your limbs to hug him yet?”

A pause, then, “No… “

Smooze?

That doesn’t make sense. The smooze would make my body numb, yes… but wouldn’t my mind also be numb…?

I tried to open my eyes. I couldn’t.

I couldn’t even feel the muscles in my face. I tried to pinch them together, feel them scrunch around my snout. I knew what it felt like, and distantly, I thought I could feel them moving. But it was just a ghost of memory, nothing more than a dream of movement.

Move! Open! Do something! 

I imagined I was taking in a breath. With the fake pressure in my whole imaginary body, I willed my eyes to open. Again, I felt that distant, tight feeling around my brow… but was it a memory, or actual movement?

For a brief moment, a faint red line unfolded through the darkness.

My jaw dropped, or at least I imagined it did. That must have been something! It had to be!

I struggled inside my own skin. Tried to move my neck, my arms, my eyes, anything. I was still here! I was still something! Alive? Dead? I didn’t know. Even if I earned the latter… I couldn’t just lie here and just wait for nothing to happen.

Faintly, distantly, so light it was practically featherlike, something tapped the edge of my snout.

I imagined myself squirming and struggling. My entire body writhed in my mind, creating phantom feelings down my arms and legs. Shadows of true movement. All trying desperately to just open my eyes!

The faint red line reappeared.

Instead of stopping, I redoubled my efforts.

A muddy red outline formed on my vision. I could see the lashes of my eyes. One lid shifted further up than the other…

An eyelid, and eyelashes.

I could see parts of my own body.

I still existed. Somehow, I was still here, in some sort of body…

Liquid swimming in shadows, eyes stiff and gummy, I finally forced them open the barest crack.

And I saw The Element of Magic floating serenely on the tip of my snout.

“Oh good, Discord’s awake!” Luna said smiling down at me, “Now we can get to work!”

“G-get to work…?” I fumbled with my words, not because my mouth was numb, but because I felt out of practice. “Wh-why...”

I struggled to lift my hands. My arms shook violently, but they moved. I reached for the hovering Element on the tip of my nose. My Element. Magic. It had to be. My hands wrapped around the hot stone, and it was right then that my elbows buckled. The Element of Magic slammed down on my stomach.

“Life! Ow…”

“Congratulations, Discord!” Luna cried, somewhere out of sight. “You earned the Element of Magic!”

“Yeah… I saw,” he croaked. “Wh-what's going on?”

“Luna and I have agreed that we will not dwell on it,” Celestia said, “At least, not until we can come up for a solution.”

“So…” I croaked. “We’re not dead.”

“Yeah… I mean, no! No, I thought we were dead, but we aren’t,” Luna said, “Just buried under a boatload of smooze.”

I squinted upwards, trying to focus. I was in some kind of glowing bubble? Beyond that, I could only see a blackish, purplish haze.

“Oh…” I croaked, “So it’s not just… really, really dark out?”

“Sadly, no,” Celestia said.

“Damn…” he mumbled. “Life and sky and sun and moon. We really messed—”

“Yes. Yes we did,” Celestia interrupted, “We’re trying to focus on the solution, not the problem.”

I blinked slowly, still squinting up into the swirling darkness. “R-right… yeah… But, how big is it?”

Luna said, “Huh?”

“Are we just, under Canterbury? Does this spread out further…? How far… how much of Equestria…?”

Luna admitted, “We don’t know…”

So I said, “You think, maybe, we can try and get to an edge? See how big of a… smooze lake we’re dealing with?”

“We’re really not in any state to walk,” Celestia muttered. “Still recovering, really.”

“We might not be able to walk,” I said, “But…”

I struggled to sit up. Forced myself, really. Magic’s points dug into my gut as I heaved myself upward. Heat pulsed in my fingers, Element warming them, or my own spell wild to escape my will. From here, I could see both Luna and Celestia. And, with the help of Magic, an illusion spilled from my fingers.

It was simple. A little platform formed underneath us, crushing the grass. It lifted. I focused on building wheels. On mechanism to push us along. On walls to keep us from falling. A self-propelling cart formed underneath us, a faded wooden texture spread across the surface like an afterthought. Now wasn’t the time to really focus on those details.

“Discord?” Luna whispered, “Are you really okay to cast…?”

“Who’s the awesome guy holding The Element of Magic here?” I said back. I grinned, to the best of my ability. “C’mon. Let’s explore while we get the feeling back in our legs.”

I don’t know how long we spent at the bottom of that lake. We said we’d travel until we were able to stand. When we finally managed to do that much, we said we’d wait until we could totally control our magic. I was the only one who could cast for hours and hours. The ability came back to Luna and Celestia so slowly, even with Luna launching surprise hugs whenever the mood struck her.

We needed it. For all we saw, we needed the support.

The light of the Elements kept us safe. The smooze kept its distance, but not for lack of trying. Sometimes, I felt like it was trying very hard to get at us. Eyes roved in the darkness, watching us from a distance. Fingers, hooves, and wings formed around us, the size of thimbles up to the width of tree trunks. One time a massive palm two stories tall rose from the gloom and place itself neatly in our path. We passed right through it all the same, even as the massive fingers closed around us, eyes blinking on each knuckle. The bubble of light kept us safe. Out of reach, even as we remained engulfed.

But the smooze wasn’t all we encountered. Of course it wasn’t. Under the timeless ocean, we could see so much more than mock shapes of a faceless force. We had to leave the forest before we could see clearly in the distance, and something much worse than smooze was there to greet us.

We climbed to the epicenter of it all, to the empty crater that was once Canterbury, and all of us mutely looked out at the world.

Hovering everywhere. Floating, suspended in the darkness were figures. Bodies. Thousands of them. Earth Ponies in fancy dresses. Griffons in armor. Pegasi stripped of clothes. Even the occasional Draconequus drifted limply through the material. They floated among broken bits of wood, small and scattered knickknacks, piles of once-precious objects reduced to flotsam in a sea of despair. They floated deep into the black cavity of once-Canterbury, and floated far in the distance, smooze stretching from horizon to horizon, as far as the eye could see, mere silhouettes on the silver sky.

For all of her hugs, support, and joy, it was Luna who finally admitted the truth.

She said, “The smooze covers the whole country, doesn’t it.”

“Yes,” Celestia replied quietly, “If the clouds were made of smooze, then the whole country should be under this affliction… save Canterlot.”

“Life be damned…”

“So um, assuming that,” Luna said, “Ideas, guys?”

“Why couldn’t we just be dead,” I moaned. “That seems like the easier option right now.”

“If we were dead, then the whole country would be doomed,” Celestia mumbled, “Do you want the whole country to be doomed?”

“Of course not,” I huffed, “But what can we do? It’s too big to blast away. We’d just wind up shoving it around.”

“We don’t know that,” Celestia offered.

“We’re not exactly destroying the smooze around us here,” I said, waving at the roiling muck around us. “Just pushing it aside. No matter how much we blasted through those clouds, or melted stones, we’ve never destroyed smooze.”

“But we can do so many things now!” Luna interjected, “Your illusions. My teleportation, invisibility, and sound. Celestia’s fire, and crazy order magic, whatever that does.”

“Separates components, mostly,” Celestia offered.

“Right. And all of that can be mega-powered by these,” Luna tapped my Element. “We can power whatever we want, now that we have the full set, right?” She smiled at me, warmly, enough to make me melt. “So sit up straight and talk to us. We’ll work this out. It won’t be easy, but we can work it out. We’re the only ones that can.”

Celestia nodded. I couldn’t help myself from nodding as well.

“So,” Luna said, “How do we kill it?"

I barked a hollow laugh. “Very hard to kill, smooze.”

And that was that. In a sudden flash, I remembered something small. Something important, from my night in the menagerie.

And it was like a fire was lit in my head.

“I’m not particularly fond of burning the country down, Discord!”

“No, no, that’s just the start!” Discord nodded, eyes wide and practically glowing with excitement.

“We’re not going to start by burning down the country!” I cried, “You want to kill hundreds of thousands, millions of lives…!”

“But you can control it, can’t you?!”

“You’re asking me to control a wildfire!” I shot back, “Something hot enough to burn the moon down!”

“No! It doesn’t have to be hot!” Discord laughed. “It’s just the thing we’ve been missing this whole time!”

“What’s that?” I shot, “Murderous intent?!”

“No! Listen to me!” He waved me and my sister closer, the most excited I had seen him in days, even weeks. I rolled my eyes, but Luna had already moved in, watching her coltfriend intensely.

“All we’ve been doing is pushing the smooze around. Why?” He didn’t stop to wait for an answer. “We’ve been focused entirely on protecting ourselves. That’s all we’ve done. We’ve built ourselves up. Healed each other kept each other safe. We’ve been on defense practically since the day we left Canterbury.”

Luna nodded sagely, as if that explained anything. I wanted to roll my eyes and object, just on principle.

“The Elements react to our moods, right?” Discord continued, “They have responded to our intents, without fail. So if all we do is defend, all the Elements are going to do is defend us. But we need to get rid of this smooze. We need to will the Elements to use all of its positivity and hopeful feelings to burn all the smooze away!”

“Luna!” I cried, exasperated, “Tell Discord he’s crazy.”

She gave me a thoughtful look, and said, “Discord knows the most about Magic here.”

“But why fire? Why my fire?! Do you really think I can control it when it coats the whole country?”

“Yes.” Discord’s hands slapped on my shoulders, The Element of Magic hovering serendipitously above Kindness. “Because I believe in you.”

“Oh come on!” I cried, “Believing in me is just—!”

“Everything the Elements are founded on?” Luna interjected, smiling slyly.

“C’mon Celestia, we’ve heard the stories,” Discord said, shaking me gently. “These are the Elements of Harmony. Together, they can do anything! Defeat armies, move mountains, anything grand and powerful, they can accomplish together!” He leaned in still smiling, “If they can do crazy things on the biggest scale, don’t you think they can do crazy things on the most careful, most finite level as well?”

“Especially,” Luna continued, “In the skilled hooves of an Unicorn with mastery of Order Magic?”

We flew. Our Elements were radiant. Magic spun and danced around us all, glow a brilliant white. Luna followed it with her hoof, smiling as she twirled around and around. She painted open portals. Everywhere her hoof went, Magic lit the way to a new area. Town after town, border to border. Dozens became hundreds, shadows of shapes clashing and blending as she opened another, and another and another. Shadows were in abundance at the ocean of despair’s bottom, and even the smooze couldn’t close her flippantly opened portals.

“It’s so easy!” she cried as she spun head over heels. “This is crazy!”

“I told you!” Discord shouted. “The Elements can handle this!”

He was happy, but with beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.His outstretched hands glowed, magic rippling and dripping down both arms.

“Discord…”

“Do we have the borders of the country covered?!” he shouted, “We don’t want any smooze slipping away!”

“Done and done!” Luna cried, giving her hoof another flourish. “Ocean to mountain, tundra to desert! And tons more in between!”

“Celestia…”

Without thinking, I barked. “Ready!”

“Together, then!” Discord shouted, “Celestia, we’re both here for you!”

“Yeah, I know!” I cried, insides writhing.

“Then… let’s do this!”

And, all at once, we sang.

We didn’t have words. We didn’t have notes we were aiming to hit. We didn’t need a song to unite us. We simply bellowed from the bottom of our lungs, echoing the bell tone of our combined Elements. It was all we needed to feel connected. One note became our Aria of Harmony.

I didn’t even have to think. We all synonymously knew. It was only then I understood.

With our united hearts and minds, we could work any miracle we desired.

My horn flared. Our Elements shimmered in a rainbow of color. Pure color in physical form shot from each Element. Dozens apiece, all racing directly towards their destined portal. It wasn’t long until our bubble was filled with solidified light, blinding and pushing outward. Each beam held their own dark portal open, no longer formed out of shadows, but out of our singular will.

The light dug into the smooze, and instantly set it alight in pure white heat.

We willed with all of our souls.

Let all darkness be banished from this country.

The smooze did not roar. And even if it did, it would have been overwhelmed by the Aria of Harmony. Wherever the light touched, the flames of our hopeful desire spread. We separated out the citizens easily, and returned them safely to the ground. We easily picked building from destruction, and our will repaired the fallen structures. We wondered, as one, if even destroyed crops could be repaired, or friend differentiated from foe.

But we would not let these thoughts get in our way. Our unity and strength would first scrub all sorrow from the country. The rest may come later, when we ascend to our thrones.

Together, we burned the darkness away, and reduced it to a glimmering ash…

I don’t rightly know what happened since I put my head down to rest. I had supposed that I died. Cold, alone, but peacefully. It was my fate. I went willingly.

Yet here, I was a-waking up. As if all I did was drift off to sleep. And a deep sleep, at that. I couldn’t move a single bone is all my old body.

I wondered, what had woken me? The light of the sun?

An old joke. But as I struggled to open my eyes, for one crazed little moment, I thought that maybe it was just that.

Just a nightmare, just a nightmare, just a nightmare…

Over and over those words played in my head as the world grew darker, dimmer, and more distant. It was just a nightmare. I wasn’t dying. I was just having a bad dream. A very, very bad dream. I insisted this, even as the cold filled my lungs, and numbness swamped my head.

Please, somebody, were my last thoughts, Someone come and wake me up.

I fainted. From a nightmare. I must have.

Because when I awoke, I was on my back, and warm. In the distance, I heard a choir singing. I attempted to ungum my eyes, for all I could see was a half-dozen brilliant streaks of light.

I coughed, and took a long, shuddering breath.

I came to slowly. Tried to stand, but couldn’t. Tried to make sense of my surroundings, but I could barely do that either.

I was surrounded on every side by a brilliant rainbow of color. No matter how much I blinked and stared, I could swear that I was surrounded by multicolored flames. They licked at my body, warm, but not burning. They were gentle, like a light caress, or thousands of butterfly wings.

I stopped trying to stand. Only gaped as the fire spread all around my office. Wherever they went, damage was repaired, instead of perpetuated. My desk fell gently to the ground. The doorframe righted itself in the wall. Fragments from my shattered window righted themselves in their pane.

I tried to stand again, amongst the colorful flames. I found I could manage a foalish wobble up to my hooves.

Fitting, for all I could do is gape.

I finally dared to open my eyes. The song, whatever it was, had ended. Most of the flames had died. And most of the little ones had ducked out from under my hooves.

They wobbled on their feet like newborn foals, and yet, they danced. They were excited. Some chased the remnants of the rainbow flames. some bolted right up the stairs, wobbling the whole way up. Some stayed on the bottom floor, kicking at the fresh coat of white powder, making snow ponies in glittering ash.

One of the little ones, Soybean, looked up at me curiously.

He asked quietly, “Did we go on up to heaven, Piff?”

I raised an eyebrow down at him. “Does this look like heaven to you, lil Bean?”

He shrugged. “I dunno, I nebber been.”

“Tell you what,” I said, “I’ll go and check. Alright?”

He nodded. “Kay.”

I tried to stand up straight. I think I managed better than some of the boys, but I still crawled up the stairs instead of walked. Sprout appeared in the door at the top. He stared down at me, flabbergasted.

“Pith,” he mumbled, “You gotta see this.”

I nodded, stood tall on my numb legs, and Sprout stepped aside as I walked through past. I looked up, wondering if the griffin’s cloud homes still stood. Instead, for the very first time in my life, I saw something wonderful.

I saw the sky.

“Wooooooo~ooaaaaah.”

So, there’s been a buncha crazy-crazy things I’ve seen with these peepers on this day. The sky fallin’? NUTS. The whole country under a buncha gunk? CRAZY. That same gunk a-crawling up the mountain, reaching with weird fat fingies? REALLY. TERROR-FILLING.

But then things get crazier! How could it get crazier? Well, thems rainbows set the country on fire. That’s pretty crazy. And then crazy how it didn’t actually burn or nothin’. I should know. I flip-flied right in the middle of it when we Pegasus tried to put it out!

But the wierdest of the wierd… Well, not wierd. Just newest of the new.

I looked out on th’ country. All the flames was gone. All the clouds was gone. For the first time in a forever life, I could see forever. I could see green trees, and river, and lakes, and cities. All spread out like a big quilt, patched together by dem gods.

And all of it was glittering like it was a grand new land.

I spun round overtail, and flapped back down to the streets of Canterlot.

“BRANDY!” I screamed, “Tell them smarty-pants ponies to get that sun up!”

And for the first time in decades, the sun rose over the Land of Equestria.