//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 – Against the Divine // Story: Dune Goddess // by Prane //------------------------------// “Princess, I think we’ve got ourselves another sand—whoa!” “Sunset!” The storm expanded, lashing gusts of wind at Celestia while the dark silhouette crept out from within, launched Sunset into the air and took her flying. Only her goggles remained, but they were slowly sliding down the roaring wind towards a nearby trench. Celestia had to act, and fast. She teleported the goggles to her face and tried to take off, but the sheer pressure to her magically enhanced wings was too great. Instead, she pushed away from the column and steered in hope of getting to the wall, but her attempts to stick to it were in vain. The storm filled the entire chamber and was sucking her in. She tried to not think what the little filly was going through right now. She recalled how the columns were constructed and decided to use the wind force to her advantage—she turned her face away from the flow, let the storm take her closer, and hugged a protruding platform-like cog. With every passing second the chamber grew dimmer. Celestia couldn’t spot the glowstar she had placed on the ceiling, nor the ceiling itself, but she came up with a plan to win this fight. It involved getting Sunset first, and getting as high as possible second. Using the light from her wings, as well as faint cyan darts shooting from the storm for reference, she jumped towards the next column and the next platform, following something of a clockwork path. Sand and debris whipping her back made the climb a pain, but despite it, she strove. She heard a cry drowning somewhere within the storm. “—ncess, hel—” “Hold on, Sunset, I’m coming!” Celestia caught a glimpse of yellow and red struggling against the jinn, but she lost them a moment later. Keeping track of the filly orbiting the chamber wasn’t easy even with the goggles, but there was certainly a regularity at which she was coming around for another lap. Celestia ended up on a high enough ground to see the shine of the glowstar as well—and the glass panels for which she silently cursed the designer. She couldn’t risk it when Sunset was still trapped in the storm. She moved to the leeward side of the column and looked down. Where the floor was supposed to be she saw a sea of furious particles that filled the temple to the brim, which meant she was going to only have one shot at this. She had to time it right. She waited for the yellow-red streak to come around. It was either nailing it, or facing her demise within the raging storm. She jumped. The fall was brief and concluded with a slam, luckily of the right kind. Celestia assessed the situation. Sunset, her teeth and eyes clenched shut, was punching and kicking blind to liberate herself from the jinn’s grasp, but the adversary held her firm throughout their nauseating spin. The alicorn’s own mass only accelerated them, and for a short while they all whirled as one, wiggling in the tangle of their limbs to gain what little control they could. The jinn had the upper hand at first, but five good bucks to her face and chest put an end to the struggle. Shrieking angrily, she drifted into the wall while Celestia—with Sunset clinging to her neck—was flung onto a collision course with a column. It turned out to be hollow, though she learned it the hard way, taught by a not-so-right kind of a slam. A hurtful jolt surged across her body. The impact took her breath and threw Sunset off her back, and though she managed to catch her none too soon, there was no way she could hold her and stay on the column herself. Celestia looked up. The glowstar was still alight, but the weakened jinn was slowly moving towards it, and that didn’t bode well. “I’m slipping!” Sunset screamed. “Help!” “There’s a cog by the next column, I’ll throw you there, you stay clear from the middle!” “What? It’s pitch black out there! You can’t aim it!” “I can!” Celestia shouted back. “You have to trust me!” The wind was swinging Sunset like a rag doll when her and Celestia’s eyes met. The two ponies shared a second of wordless understanding, a silent agreement within the ravaging sandstorm, momentarily finding themselves in their little place of serenity which protected them better than a shield of a thousand layers. The student nodded, entrusting her doubts, fears and her very fate into her teacher’s capable hooves. In the end, she was the only pony she could truly rely on. “Do it!” Sunset yelled. Celestia threw her into darkness, curving slightly outwards to compensate for the storm’s pull. She heard a short yelp and the unmistakable sound of a pony thudding at something, but it wasn’t enough to say on what, or even if at all Sunset had landed. Doubt and a hundred questions invaded her mind. Was her student alright? Did she make the right call? Sunset was probably exhausted, could she still protect herself if something went wrong? Ending the fight now was the best course of action, and Celestia would not allow fear stop her. She climbed to the windward side and shaped a complex conjuration. One arcane thread at a time, the mist framed itself into a bird with a sharp, hooked beak and elegant crest. He turned vivid crimson and glimmered with bright white points along his translucent body which brought to mind a constellation. Finally, a yellow star branded his forehead. According to the legends, stars themselves had once descended from up high as they took interest in the ground beneath them. Some were benign to the earth-dwellers, others malicious, but in the end they all returned to the night sky where they belonged. What remained were their aspects, physical embodiments of their magic known as celestials. They were a rare sight and always resembled animals, like the fabled ursas resembled bears, but only a handful knew how to harness their power. “Be swift, my friend,” Celestia said. “Bring down the sun for me.” The celestial phoenix squeaked and darted to the glowstar, drawing a trail of light between himself and Celestia’s horn. He cut through the sandstorm with ease, spiraled around the jinn and wrapped her, then shot up and disappeared behind the curtain of sand. The jinn cried out, now more in despair than anger. “Eyes!” Celestia called at the top of her lungs. The glowstar wasn’t just a fancy lantern to illuminate the chamber. From the moment Celestia placed it on the ceiling, it was gathering ambient magic like a nexus. When the phoenix poured himself and his energy into it, and the shining connection linked the alicorn and the glowstar, the magical feedback paralyzed the jinn and send her down falling. The glowstar exploded, radiating its force across the temple with a blinding glow which shattered the glass panels and tore a hole in the silver dome. The accompanying wave of pleasant warmth washed over the chamber affecting everything in its wake. The wind was silenced, the streams ceased to flow, and the sand particles stopped its furious dance as they were turned into glass powder. Celestia landed violently where the jinn had crashed. The overflow of arcane energy from the glowstar blazed through her with a somewhat spectacular side effect—the magic flowing to the tips of her multicolored mane caused her braid to unleash itself from its original configuration and ignore gravity more than it usually did. She was surrounded by a brilliant, fiery halo, and her appearance, perhaps save for the clothing, was that of an Equestrian Princess—formidable, imperious, and royal. Celestia dug the jinn up and pressed a hoof hard to her chest. “Vile creature. You took over the jinn and fed her with malevolence and spite. You used her to threaten the villagers with sandstorms. You tried to hurt my student. Give me one reason I should not cast you out of this realm this instant.” Despite the scarf covering her mouth, the jinn clearly grinned. She spoke in a different voice than before, the choir converging into a single, nightmarish source. Because you already have. Celestia’s eyes grew wide as she realized the terrifying truth. The presence she felt during the first sandstorm, the dark spirit which took over the jinn, it wasn’t just old. It was as ancient as it was evil. It was the same darkness which she had to face over nine hundred years ago, which she refused to vanquish once and for all but instead locked up with the power of the Elements of Harmony. “This cannot be,” she whispered. “Not yet.” You may have bested me this time, but the longest day of the thousandth year is drawing near. The stars will aid in my escape and I will bring everlasting night as it has been foretold. You, and all your precious ponies will submit to the nightmare. There is nothing you can do about it, and there is not a single pony who could stand in my way. Celestia’s thoughts went to her student, but she shook them off. “I will think of something.” The ashen tar evaporated, turned into a mist and fled through the dome. We shall see. Until next time… sister. The jinn’s true look was revealed: crystalline turquoise skin and a pair of yellow eyes which shined with curiosity. She was still bald, though notably she lost her crown during the fight. What little clothes she wore were now white, and the lower part of her body was not smoke, but like a soft sea foam instead. “Hey, I found it! I found my stuff!” Sunset’s excited voice came from behind a nearby dune. She grabbed her saddlebag and slid downhill, and though she seemed winded, she maintained her usual daredevil posture. “Is it over? Did we win? Also, you could have gotten me down first, Princess. Just a thought. Oh! Hello, glowy person!” The jinn took a while to investigate her surroundings. She gave the ponies a prolonged, cautious look, but eventually got back up and loosened her scarf. Its ends defined gravity, which combined with her inscrutable smile only added to the aura of mystery surrounding her. “Sevenfold thanks to you, quadruped of four manes and four eyes,” she spoke in a melodious voice resembling a morning breeze. For the first time since entering the temple, Celestia felt serenity. She returned the goggles—apparently, her other two eyes—to Sunset. “Are you the one they call the Dune Goddess?” “The conjunction of these two words equals nil, for there was a quantity of similar before her,” the jinn replied as her scarf waved its own negative. “She is no goddess as you quadrupeds understand it. She will identify herself as Union, the Fifth Axiom from the City of Infinite Fountains. Speak quick, for she cannot maintain the continuity of this form for long.” “I am Celestia of Canterlot, and this is my student, Sunset Shimmer. We heard there was a struggle between you and the forces of darkness, and we’ve come to aid you.” “Your assumption was correct, Celestia of Canterlot, and your assistance appreciated,” Union replied. “Eighteen sunrises ago, on the eighth day of the seventh month, the one messenger of the night invaded her dreams. She encountered zero such spirits before.” Something of a shame appeared on her face. “She was intrigued… but she was wrong. Her curiosity was a fallacy. She promises to be ready should it ever come again.” “What’s her deal with numbers?” Sunset whispered to Celestia. “And talking in third person?” “We’re here to study foreign cultures, aren’t we? The key to communication is sharing a language,” Celestia replied, then turned back to Union. “The two of us sought you to inquire about the fate of the seventy-five living in the one village south from here. Since the eighth day, they had faced a… a quantity of sandstorms.” Union looked crestfallen. “She contradicted her one task of guarding these lands when she accepted the offer from the one messenger of the night,” she replied. “Negating the offer should have been her solution. She never wished for the existence of causality between her actions and the harm to the quadrupeds.” “Will you… uh, will she continue your… her… one task now?” Sunset said, trying very hard to sound proper. “You helped her. The seventy-five shall not be harmed, and the union shall continue,” she said. “She must leave now. The sand and wind are calling her.” “I have but one more question,” Celestia said as the jinn turned away. “The last time I met one of your kind he claimed to be the last of the jinn.” Union glanced back and wrapped her scarf around her face, concealing an amused smile. Her form partially dissolved, but she turned around. “She is, too, the last of the jinn,” she said, joining her four arms in what looked like a gesture of respect to which Celestia and Sunset responded with bows of their own. After that she disappeared, a breeze of unknown origin taking her silhouette away. The otherworldly serenity was gone from the temple too, but so was the uneasy silence that greeted them earlier. Celestia took a well-deserved sigh of relief and looked around. The hole overhead was letting a solitary ray of sunshine on the sad remnants of the once beautiful sculpture, now buried beneath broken chains, bent cogs and an awful lot of sand. The wicked disarray didn’t feel Celestia with much glee, but the light that still shined certainly did. “So, anyway, that happened,” Sunset said. “Please don’t tell me you’re going to have us clean this mess now. Please.” “I feel we should”—Celestia giggled at the terror in her student’s eyes—“but I don’t think that doing that kind of chores would be a valid excuse for not having your homework done. Or for not showing up on the throne, either,” she added. “I have a proposition. What would you say we took the rest of the day off? I think it would be quite impolite to not accept the invitation and—Sunset? Hello?” The filly was already halfway towards the exit. Celestia gave the mess one more brief look, shrugged, and followed her student’s example. Before long the ponies found themselves way outside at the top of a dune. “What are we going to tell Mayor Rashid, Princess?” Sunset asked. “That he was right, that their preachers were wrong, that their goddess is no goddess at all?” “No.” Celestia shook her head. “We must not mention Union’s—mention the Dune Goddess’ true form, especially not that she was under the influence of this mysterious… messenger of the night, to use her own words.” “But why? She said it herself she wasn’t a goddess. Do you want them to believe in someone who isn’t even a real deity?” “In the end, it doesn’t matter whether someone’s god or goddess is real or not,” Celestia replied. “What matters is their faith, which is most certainly real, and has been nurtured by generations before them. Part of studying other cultures is approaching them with respect,” she added. “Ponies, in their nature, have bodies and minds, but they also have souls, thus having spiritual needs.” Celestia noticed Sunset pondering her words a longer moment. At first she attributed it to her student’s outlook on life which didn’t involve such complex categories, but she could see Sunset challenging herself to understand. Celestia gave her time as they both gazed at the temple below. “There are ponies in Equestria who consider you a goddess, you know,” Sunset admitted. “Wait, I know you don’t like to be seen as such. It’s just you’re so much different from the rest of us. I mean, you’re an alicorn, and Union was a jinn. You both shape the world of those living nearby, and the chances of casually bumping into you on the street are pretty slim, if you know what I mean. It’s just, uh, it’s just that…” “Is there something you’d like to ask, Sunset?” “Are there even gods, Princess?” Celestia allowed herself a smile no less quizzical than that of the jinn. Union must have seen her share of extraordinary phenomena too, and her kind was indeed a sight to behold: powerful, mysterious entities that insisted on separating themselves from the common folk. For whatever reason, though, they intended to guard the ponies, and Celestia didn’t feel the need of questioning it. She threw a glance at the temple, then up to the skies, but in the end she wasn’t looking anywhere in particular. “That, my student, is a question worth seeking answers to.”