Luna spoke up, “After we were put into that box, the air was replaced by the gas. The only thing that I can remember was feeling really sleepy, laid down, closed my eyes, and everything went black afterward.”
“It seemed to us like we were asleep for a minute.” Celestia said, “We closed our eyes from the scientists who created us to awake in the dark. Literately. When we woke up, there wasn't a single source of light anywhere. We, of course, used our horns for light to find that everything outside of the box had aged significantly. Everywhere there was a thick layer of dust. Some parts of the ceiling had collapsed, and most of the machines and tools laid around as if they left it there yesterday.”
“Was it our brother that let us out of the box?” asked Luna.
After giving a thoughtful hum, Celestia replied: “Yes, I think he did. Used a levitation spell to pull out the nails from its hinges. Anyway, as we wondered the decaying labs, we found in some rooms, the skeletons of what was left of the scientists.” At this point, she gave out a melancholy sigh. “It was a sad sight to see them like that. We found fourteen bodies in all, one of whom was pointing towards a door that we were never allowed though. But after breaking the lock, we wandered through a long hallway that leads to a crystal mine.”
“So that explains why the castle was built on top of a mine!” Twilight exclaimed. Celestia nodded and continued, “Yes. So after who knows how long of wondering, we finally found an opening to which we found the saddest sight that I had ever seen.”
“What did you see?” Twilight asked. Celestia didn't answer at first, she looked at our empty plates and asked if we were finished. Of course, we were, Celestia's horn glowed once more, only to hear a bell off in the distance. Both the sisters got up and asked us to walk with them through the hedge maze. But before we did so, Twilight repeated her question again.
“Look at the landscape.” Said Luna, and we did as we were told. “Try to imagine seeing no grass, nor bushes, nor trees, nor snow on the mountains, no water, and a sickly pale blue sky. There was nothing but earth and stones as far as the eye could see. That is what we saw.” To this, we entered the maze.
“I remembered the silence was the worst part.” Celestia commented, “I think James would understand this precisely, that the most disturbing sound you can hear isn't what you can hear, but what you can't hear. Everything was so quiet, I don't remember hearing wind come to think of it.”
“Then what happened?” I asked.
“Well, after a little wandering around, thinking about what we should do.” Said Luna, “Without warning, we heard our brother screamed in surprise, we looked to find a rolling apple.”
Both of us gave us a confused look at this.
“Allow us to explain.” Luna continued, “It was rather unnerving to see an apple in a dead world, especially when that apple came out of nowhere. We asked our brother what happened. 'I don't know!' he said, 'I'm hungry and I was in the mood for an apple, then... This happened.' We started at it and asked if he could do it again. He did, this time in abundance.”
“As we ate,” Celestia said, “we discussed how all those apples appeared. I think it was Luna who came up with the theory that because nothing can be created nor destroyed, all the atoms, practicals, molecules that once made not just apples but everything is still around. Despite everything had died and decayed thousands of years ago, it's all still around. All we had to do is put them back together again.”
“Imagine it,” said Luna. “ That in that dead world we inherited, we have the power to not only recreate the world but to shape it as we wished.”
I saw Twilight eyes widen. “That's incredible! What did you do first?”
“First we made clouds so that water would return. Considering we had to do it for the whole planet, it took us... Was it 75? Uh, yes! I think it was 75 years it took to bring the water back.”
“Then we attempted to grow back plants.” Said Celestia, “But it was then we discovered something that has to lead us to get our cutie marks.”
“Really?!?” Twilight said, her interest higher than before.
“For you see,” Celestia continued, “we figured that the reason why the plants died was that there was too much sun in the day and too much darkness at night. In other words, the time had gone much longer than 24 hours on earth. We reasoned that the bomb that was set off was so powerful that it affected the rotation of the earth.”
“Of course, we had to do something.” Said Luna, “And for the first 25 years, we used a lot of magic to get the earth to move in the right place.”
“But what does this have to do with getting your cutie marks?” Twilight asked.
“Well after 25 years,” continued Luna, “we got the earth to its right pace... more or less. Even now and then we had to speed up or slow down the earth's rotation.”
“Wait-a-minute!” Interrupted Twilight, “I'm sorry here, but are you two saying that you don't really raise the sun and moon!”
Celestia smiled at Twilight's confusion. “The secret to Equestria's greatest optical illusion and we do it every morning and evening! You see, my faithful student, what really happens is that we speed up or slow down the earth in order to keep up with the natural seasons.”
“Oh,” said Twilight, “I never saw it like that before.”
“As we– I was saying,” continued Luna, “After 25 years of getting the earth to move at the right pace, Celestia and I had decided that we should take turns to keep the earth spinning. Of course, we agreed that I shall move the earth at night and the day. And at that morning of that decision, Celestia received her mark. Of course, none of us had any idea what it was, even when after I got it.”
“After we received our cutie marks,” said Celestia, “and for the next 400 years, we replanted the earth as best as we could. To bring back forests, grassy meadows, marshes, jungles, tall grasslands, oasis, and even brought back the food that we know today. Although, during those years, we did create some new plants like Poison Joke for example.”
I was about to ask what Poison Joke was, but Twilight told me not to ask. Celestia continued...
“The next 200 years was more difficult. Like the scientists before us, we spent years of trial and error to recreate animals from scratch. But the three of us did in fact recreated, well, as best as we could to our knowledge of animals and even to add new ones. Such as dragons and griffins to name a few.”
“Then for the next hundred years," Lula said, "the three of us tried to decide on what species should rule over the planet. Both me and Amadeus agreed that it cannot be humans, for look how they ended up. I suggested that it should be something of an equine that we can relate to. And if it's a species that is going to run the world, it needs to be something humble this time. It is for these reasons why all ponies exist.”
“Of course, the earth ponies came first.” Said Celestia, “Although we made a different kind of ponies, ones who can speak, think and learn. We also gave them better eyesight by enlarging their eyes a little. Their hooves to have the ability to grasp onto objects and gave them pockets for carrying around small things.”
“Well, that explains a lot,” I muttered.
Celestia continued, “Then we created the pegasi. We gave them the same qualities as the earth pony, except that they have wings and, like us, they can walk on clouds. Then, the three of us worked on our final creation. The Unicorns. They were very similar to earth ponies except for the horn that they can use magic. We spent the next hundred years teaching them everything.”
“We had to,” said Luna, “the very early ponies were very... (how do I put this?) simple-minded, as I recall. We had to teach them how to grow and take care of crops, how to read and write, to build a shelter to...” She trailed off, both Twilight and I noticed her cheeks blush and gave a little cough, “privet things.”
“Oh!” Twilight said, having a blush of her own.
“But as I was saying,” Luna continued rather a little too quickly. “I remembered how those early ponies were like, so innocent, simple and naive. We started to teach them to write and speak to them in old English, using words like 'thee', 'thou', 'thy' and 'art.' To this day we– pardon, I confess that I sometimes talk the way we did back then. Old habits I presume.”
“I see, then what happened?” I asked.