Twilight Sparkle would recover from her near-lethal brush with omnipotence without further harm (a fate sadly unshared with all of those who pulled her back from divine immolation), but with a few interesting side effects.
As Sombra might put it, side effects relating to cryyyystals.
---
Cloister of Winds, The Gryphon Empire
For a dweeby, nerdy little fledge of a glorified housekeeper, they sure get mad when you use their stupid rock for a nap.
"unacceptable!" barely managed to carry it's way up the dull, blackened rock that Gilda had decided was ideal for being left alone. NOBODY came up here. All there was in this big dumb cave was a rock with some dull stories about being the "egg from which the First Flight sprang", but really. All it was good for was the little flat space on top that nobody noticed. Most of the time. Except the one gryphon that by some dust-covered, utterly-forgotten lame tradition was supposed to take care of...the rock.
And the drab runt of a gryphon that kept the place clean (and supposedly prayed there, but seriously. Praying to a rock.) wasn't even flying up to tell her off. And if she couldn't say it to Gilda's face, then she wasn't worth listening to. Or loud enough to really annoy, even. Fluffing up a bit, she buried her beak between her forepaws and let the feathers muffle the already-inaudible cries from below. Besides, this was her spot. She just hadn't needed it for a while when her parents ended up assigned to the Cloudsdale embassy, but now that she was back home? Her roost. Because living with Mom and Dad was a chore and a free bird's gotta have her own space, y'know? Someplace where Dad biting her tail about "tradition" and "sacred guardians of the wing and claw" and spear practice and UGH just didn't happen.
Mmm. And it was nice and warm, too. There'd been a perfect little rounding in the stone that begged to be all nested up in when she'd claimed her spot, and it fit her perfectly once she'd grown up.
An annoying greenish light worked it's way into Gilda's eyes. Was that overblown janitor using a mirror or something to get her annoyed? She was gonna go down there after her nap and whomp that-
The hurricane of jade that suddenly sprang forth from her perch replaced that with pure, instinctual droppings of terror. And other droppings, but those ended up reduced to infinitesimal particles by the aerial blender the gryphon found her self suspended in, a tumbling pebble at the heart of a river of air.
That rapidly took form, even if it felt more like a really firm cloud. Gryphon form, with her old perch suspended inside, gone from a grey lump to a floating prism of glittering light and warm breezes that left no shadow unbanished and no nook with so much as a speck of dust. Other than the kowtowing young cleaning-gryphon plastered with her beak to the floor, every bit of (to her credit, they were few) debris had been ceremoniously swept out the exit and was busy finding it's way down to the valley floor far, far below.
"Mother is home, my little zephyrs. Have you been good and kept the pegasi away while I slept?", uttered the behemoth gryphon. Two boulder-sized orbs of carnelian focused on the shivering mound of feathers. "I could hear you, all this time in the Heart. Your prayers for others, your wishes for fair winds and safety from storms. You, my vestal and your ancestors before you. Two thousand years and more the People have kept their word and their honor, and my blessings upon you."
The weather patterns above the Empire shifted and smoothed to a gentle climate that would make a weather pony weep tears of joyous perfection. Or get in a double nap, depending on the pony.
"Rise, vestal of the Crystal of Wind, prayer-bearer of the Cloister...what is your name?"
"a--agnes aerie"
"What?", as the winds shifted from "gentle scouring" to "tickle a feather".
"Agnes Aerie, m-Mother Garuda. Vestaling Agnes Aerie."
"...and you have cared for my home for..."
"Ten years, since I was nine. The Mother Vestal said...I was too meek to do anything but clean and pray."
"For ten years. Loyally. Without complaint. As vestaling. ALONE. Since you were barely older than a hatchling."
Dozens of miles away, a grey-feathered gryphonnette found her wings suddenly no longer provided lift on her morning glides above the Imperial Castle. A minute later, she also found the castle battlements at terminal velocity.
"The highest has fallen from her perch, and you shall take her place. Rise to the sky, O Vestal of Wind, for you have kept my house when all others have forgotten. But for one other. Your Keeper, she is...is..."
The cloudy avatar of the winds looked puzzled as her head tracked back and forth across the chamber.
"How is it I cannot find her? She is here, as if right between my eyes."
Gilda, being tumbled helplessly in the avatar's "head" only managed to gargle something incoherently while spinning at vomit inducing speeds. That is, if she hadn't already emptied her crop earlier.
Agnes pointed a single claw.
"She...um....sort of is between your eyes, Mother."
For the record, a being made completely of clouds is quite capable of looking embarrassed.
"Oh. Pinfeathers. I'd forgotten they like to perch up there on the crystal."
A ball of feathers found itself (gently) ejected from the whirling chaos to roll out into a floppy, giddy Gilda.
"I apologize, Keeper. It's been thousands of years since I manifested and..."
"Gilda. *hurk* And I am SO not a keeper. Daddy's a keeper, Mom always said. Har, har, harrrukph."
"A vestaling in charge of the shrine, and no Keeper to protect her. Yet..you, Gilda. You..."
"Dad's a guard. For the diplomats."
"They...um...used to be the Vestal Guard. The Emperor decided we didn't need them anymore. Or the shrines."
The winds, for a single horrible moment grew utterly still.
The Emperor's palace suffered another tragic bout of luck as a freak gust of wind proceeded to topple His Majesty's Perch, raining broken stones across the courtyard below. The only casualty was the previous Mother Vestal's body as it was being carried ceremoniously through the castle, which was squashed by a multi-ton chunk and obliterated.
"You are of the proper bloodline, at the right time, and my Vestal will not go without protection. War will come. My shrines will need wings to lift and claws to protect. You will be my claws, as Agnes is my wings. She is meek and devout, you will be brave and brash. You will do this."
The tone reminded Gilda that it was a very long way to the bottom of the mountain.
"Yeah. Brash. Agnes isn't real good for brash. I'm gonna be brashy for her. Good idea."
"It was not an idea. It is the way things will be. Breathe me, into you."
"Wait, what? Breath whagheeeEEE!"
Cloud-flecked light streamed from one misty clawtip into two mortal beaks.
A sound akin to a deflating balloon squeaked from Gilda as Garuda's paw infused her with power. Exactly what caused the squeak, the author refuses to discuss (but all that wind had to go somewhere). Agnes received her blessings with a dignity most modern gryphons only associate with executions. And much less squeaking.
The flow slackened and ceased.
"My Vestal, sky-kept, wind-blesser. Protect my flock, and call my storms to smite those who would despoil them."
The mousy-brown feathers of Agnes had been tipped in curls of white and green, and she radiated...dignity. Sanctity. And a bit of fluttery, since the tips never seemed to stop moving.
"My Keeper, Val-kyree" -
And the joyous screech of a diving bird of prey was the end of the name, no mere word. Gilda's ears heard prey to Agnes' pray.
"Prey-chooser, talon that takes and claims the worthy. Death you will bring to those who would threaten my people, and to Death you will bring the chosen. My Vestal is the soul of gryphons, and My Keeper is their fierce heart."
White wrapped itself from head to tailfeather with the kiss of a springtime gust- a winged helm, barding that trailed spearpoint spikes, bristling like a skirt across Gilda's hindquarters. An alabaster spear-shaft spiraled into being between her forepaws, golden wings spread to guard a foot behind the clawpoint head.
A sudden need to dive, spearhead dipping as she formed a wedge of air that blistered it's way to the ground like a pale bolt of thunder. The innocent boulder beneath was impaled on a line of gold, crushed beneath leonine paws that kicked the crumbling stone into the wall as the impact became a reversed-pounce that brought Gilda skidding to a stop at Garuda's feet.
The roaring rebirth of the Gryphon Empire poured from Gilda's throat, a challenge-cry that echoed from beak to beak as it rolled down the valley, across the mountains of Gryphonstan, and into history.
Or so the histories would tell on that last line.
"MOTHERPLUCKER, I totally RUBBLED that rock. So what does that make me, Gilda The Great or something?"
*WHANG* went the gently correcting staff of the Vestal. Er, broomstick.
"Our Mother is right there, you dimwitted mangefeather!"
"OW! You scuffed my armor, you little chickenwing!"
"Impious pigeon-hearted chicken!"
"I already called YOU a chicken!"
"Um....you're a chicken-hearted pigeon!"
"Nice comeback, nun-derhead."
"Mangy.....pigeon!"
"One more like that, and you get talon noogies."
"You regurgitated in our Creator."
"That's it!"
The heart and soul of the Gryphons proceeded to scuffle briefly, followed by the heart holding the soul down and rubbing the soul's head hard enough to send feathers flying.
"AHEM."
Gilda stopped in mid-noogie and had the grace to look slightly ashamed.
"What? She called me a chickenpigeon!"
"We do not give Vestal "noogies". In fact, consider that a divine commandment. Nor do we chastise the Keeper with articles of sanitation. Commandment number two."
"I should smite her. A little. Righteously. Are Vestal noogies a mortal or venial sin?"
"No smiting. Save that for the infidels."
Even for an immortal elemental spirit, it was going to be a long day.