//------------------------------// // Act 3 | Sword Shattering // Story: Daughter of the First Reign // by LegionPothIX //------------------------------// The day was not yet over and three more silhouettes were set to fall. With Discord defeated, the Crystal Empire in shambles, its Queen dead, and the Celestial Sisters summoned to take out Sombra: the fires of war were swiftly being exsanguinated. Soon there wouldn't be enough magic left to perpetuate the flames. Treeling sat quietly on the steps to the castle for hours, acting as an unnecessary sentry, invisible to the distant gazes of the entire empire. Sombra took the Crystal Heart into hiding; rightly fearing its use by any foe who would seek to dethrone him. The filly waited with singular purpose all the while knowing that Sombra would be thought the cynosure; which freed her of suspicion. She drew in just enough magic to tint her eyes to allow the facade that she too was subjugated. Though, being his "favorite" there would be no way she would be added to the chain gangs of forced labor set to construct new pylons. The expansion of his domain was busywork—an indulgence of the power fantasy that battled the fear of his inescapable powerlessness—all to fill the time that she waited patiently for the princesses. Princesses whose voices she heard call her back to reality. "Child!" Luna's words were frantic, "What hath transpired here?" "Gently sister," Celestia's said in a voice filled with her own advice, "There is much darkness here." "We haven't the time sister," Luna responded. When she saw that Treeling's slate was missing she tapped her horn to that of the filly to infuse a small bit of magic into her. Treeling looked into her eyes with recognition as the "nightmare" faded from her mind but the moment was interrupted by the maniacal laughter of the crazed King Sombra. It was in that prearranged moment. As the outburst drew Luna's attention away, Treeling looked deep inside her to find Asheveld nodding in conformation of the precisely calibrated energy in the air. The third silhouette was about to fall into the fourth. Treeling burst from her seated, and dazed, position with in a frantic jolt desperately trying to get Celestia's attention. She tapped her horn with her left fore-hoof and then circled it around the side of her head. "Crazy? Mind magic– Mind control?" Celestia rapidly questioned. To which the filly nodded and clung to her leg. The courtyard had been oddly quiet during their approach and Celestia looked around to see if any ponies could take in Treeling. There were not, the filly had made sure of it prior to their arrival, so that the stage would be properly set for Luna's dream to be realized. "Tis not safe to do battle here sister. We must draw him from the citadel," Luna cautiously said and Celestia nodded in agreement as the cloud of darkness laughed again from the veranda. The filly began to run as they fired shots at Sombra. While Sombra returned fire Treeling kept running and never looked back. She knew the third had been tipped. She didn't want to be around when the spell ended and the Crystal Ponies' feelings of trauma crept into their Crystal Heart. The run from the cathedral to the edge of the city's border was an exhausting one. Treeling flopped to the ground while heaving for air. The heavy pants were not accompanied with the draw of magic, for once she just needed to breathe, and knew that her other half would be drawing in all the magic necessary to push the fourth silhouette into the fifth. She reached up to pull at her mane before remembering that Luna's thread wasn't there. She dropped her hoof into the snow and simply tried to imagine the scene she couldn't be present to witness. The scene she painted into the mind of the dark princess. The sisters would rise into the sky and turn the elements on Sombra. Then Asheveld would draw that black smoke into Luna and feed on it. When Treeling could no longer feel the ripples of Sombra's magic she released the spell on the crystal ponies which, in turn, indicated to the city that the princesses were successful. They would come to check on her soon so she needs only rest and wait. Two shadows intersected over the spot where the "crystal sword" lay lodged, as four great wings tucked in from a single landing, while Treeling's steely smile faded. Celestia and Luna had, in fact, returned to check on the single filly. "Sombra is slain," Luna stated in a reassuring tone before asking, "Art thou well?" Treeling's face turned grim as she lie in the darkness cast under the alicorn sisters. The sword's mettle betrayed her, she cried dragon-sized tears, and shook her head. The Crystal Heart was turning the citizen's raw emotion into magic and she shot upright as the powerlessness of the citizens washed over her. First they focused on Sombra, then the loss of their own Queen, then the war sparked by Discord, and even the inability to protect the heir to the throne, before finally coming to rest on the princesses whom stripped them of the opportunity to even try. They were truly and utterly powerless. She was powerless. It was the same feeling Treeling had felt in the cells only weeks earlier, and the same feeling that Asheveld was creating for Luna. She was lost in it again and just wanted to escape the nightmare of this rule. She scrambled up and reached out to the city as the princesses watched in confusion. She reached out to the city with her fore-leg just as the Crystal Heart pulsed in fear. A pulse which created a barrier to keep the outsiders out. "What is–" Celestia began before light refracted through the barrier and the Crystal Empire vanished. "Canst thou still feel the shield?" Luna asked knowing that the filly could sense magic. Treeling dropped her hoof and turned her sad eyes toward Luna. The city really was gone... Its resident's hearts hidden away from their shame, it would take time before they could face that shame, and in that moment driven by their shared magical connection, Treeling wanted nothing more than to disappear with them. "Come child," Celestia said as she reached out with her wing and wrapped it around the filly. *** The return to the Castle of Two Sisters was a somber one. Celestia and Luna had agreed it was best to rest for the night before deciding what was to be done about the filly. Though she seemed to be recovering quickly they still feared that a reintroduction to society may be too soon after all she had seen. The ride home was a new first for Treeling, who had never been flown before; it was both an exhilarating and terrifying experience. She clung tightly to Celestia as the alicorn's powerful wings carried them through the sky. Upon arrival the two sisters ushered the filly into the great hall and allowed her to play with anything she could get her hooves on as they took the elements into a secret chamber. Treeling could hear the subtle sounds of stone-on-stone but needn't bother to snoop. The power the artifacts contained was best left locked away—forgotten in this dank castle—just as the Crystal Heart was sealed away with the Crystal Ponies. These artifacts would not be able to relight the world if they were just left to rest. After that matter was tended to Celestia and Luna escorted Treeling to guest chambers where she retired for the night. Treeling had trouble sleeping without first feeling the tilt of the fourth. She reached out for the magic of the dream-walking princess, only to find that it had been replaced with the biting fang of Asheveld's nightmares, and the revelation caused the filly to relax. Though she would be woken up in the middle of the night by the fall of the fourth she was able to rest assured that the fifth would fall shortly thereafter. *** In the morning a rumble in the sky shook the filly from her restful dream. A vision of the world being pulled from its baptism in fire to allow new life to spring from the ashes. The castle was being cast into ruins by a battle outside which made Treeling flee in terror as boulders came crashing through the floor above to the floors below. She had to escape into the clearing before the tower could collapse with her still inside. Though the tower did not fall to pieces on top of her, once she was outside it was no longer in danger of it doing so. After that she couldn't care if it remained standing for another minute or even another thousand years. The filly quickly ducked under a tree as she looked up to the sky where streams of powerful magic fought for supremacy. The truth was as plain as black and white since Luna had donned Asheveld's visage for the battle. A visage that would be later called the Nightmare of the Moon. Though she missed the initial toppling, the fourth silhouette had fallen and, in a dazzling display of lights landed upon the moon. However, the magic that had sent her there was too powerful for Treeling to resist and, with a final ripple of her golden gilt, it flowed into her. It was time for the fifth to fall. Slow to notice the ground-bound filly after the banishment of Nightmare Moon; Celestia first noticed that the Elements of Harmony reacting strangely to the manner in which they were used. The severing of the harmonious bond between Celestia and Luna had, in turn, severed her from the Elements so violently that even Treeling could feel the break. The filly could feel it all as their use opened a wound in the world that let magic flow in effortlessly. Magic she lapped up to be used on the final alicorn. Celestia looked down in shame only to see the overcharged filly twitching with the residual power of the Element's banishing spell. "That's not possible," she murmured in disbelief as the filly's slow transformation, "It was never about the war for you... it was all for this? This moment?" she stuttered as the pieces came together. "The other dream walker. The nightmares. Sombra? It was you!" What was a chromatic beam for Celestia was a singular white light burning from every pore in the poor filly who had become a container for its power. For once in her short life Treeling understood. She knew magic. Shew knew the power and influence it held over others. She understood the emotional tie that binds ponies to this supernatural world, and a brilliant beam of energy once again lit up the sky as Celestia's frustrated rage washed over the filly until the power faded from the alicorn's mane. As she held the banishing spell, her body replaced the focusing crystals called "Elements of Harmony" if for only a moment. She physically glowed while magic radiated from her old wounds, both physical and emotional. It stitched together her scars, and made her whole. And it would service her desires: the magic of this world was about to come to an end. Treeling reached out for the power that shaped their world. The power of magic. The magic that lie in everything. She reached too far and could feel the strain on her muscles. The strain on her mind. What she couldn't grasp with her hooves she reached out with the teathers that streamed off of her. Tethers that coalesced into new appendages. "You hate it so much, don't you?" Celestia asked as she landed. The filly was connected with magic in a way that even her own understanding could not distinguish the two. The princess was drained physically, mentally and emotionally and she consigned to her fate. To join her sister on the moon. She sat and looked into the filly's eyes, "So a new alicorn for a new era?" The realization was slow coming, as Treeling cocked her head in confusion. She looked up to her horn, and the groves therein were slowly fading away. Her life was being erased. Everything she was... gone. She screamed a terrible sound that ripped out from her soul, and penetrated the world around her. In the moments of clutching her head she realized she could still see her forehooves. The tendrils of magic she had intended to lash out with at Celestia were forming wings. She was magic. She hated magic. "I... don't understand," Celestia cried as she backed away from the filly who was in turn skittering away from her. The filly glared death at the mare. Nearly one alicorn to another, she barked and snapped, and clung to her old life. The life of a simple tree. She had been deceived. Asheveld had betrayed her. Led her into the darkest of nightmares, not a world influenced or controlled by magic, but the world of magic itself. She should have known. Every spell she brought into herself had changed her. Every spell contributed to this end. Every spell she used. Every time she borrowed from magic. They all had been a small step closer to her nightmare. Closer to Asheveld and her dream, because Asheveld was nightmares, but Asheveld was also magic. A spell that Treeling created. She made magic. She cast it on others. She was part of the problem. Dissonance stirred once again in the vessel of harmony as Treeling turned the banishing spell on her hated enemy. On magic. On herself. On the world around her. Powerless to stop her, Celestia was completely forgotten in the filly's rage. The world's wound would never heal naturally. She wouldn't allow it. She pulled and ripped and cast at the world around her. She used that which she had stolen to banish the very essence of magic from all that she could see, before turning it upon herself. An explosion tore through the filly, the sacred tree, and the woods. It washed over the castle, as well as the seeds strewn and sewn beneath. It even threatened to engulf the still teleporting Sun. The banishment she held would purge the world—or, at the very least, this small corner of it—of magic. Cleansed of the flames that raged above as well all that slept nefariously beneath. The remnants of the filly's visage still hung in the air briefly, as do the sparks of fireworks as they burn themselves out, and her body had been long since dispersed with the magic held inside. The ethereal wings had not yet made manifest in the physical world, and her tears had not yet reached the ground before after-image faded. Celestia turned her eyes heaven bound. The gilded cage... its bars to rattle against... they were hers now. An inheritance and, if nothing else, this place—Treeling's grave—would be free of it: free of magic. Forever Free. << Ring Fitting | Index >>