The marble halls of Everfree Palace seemed silent, its smooth gray corridors appeared as pristine tapestries with its stonework so much like lace, and yet infinitely stronger than either such delicate fabric — or any masonry of mortalkind. Large windows and magnificent architecture showcased all the light of the realm. The last sunlight of the coming dusk streaked through the windows, something that caused a few hovering werelights to change their course. The castle with its sky-embracing spires radiated an aura of family and comforting ethereality that no plainness could ever bring.
Yes, it was peaceful. Almost peaceful enough for me to forget that the world might end in a fortnight. Doomsday could be upon us Alicorns, all ponies, all other creatures... and even my divine family.
I could almost forget as I rushed through the halls at a speed no ponies could achieve. The spire-stairs and chambers of my home echoed with a Whi-ooshh! of my presence, only to be empty the next second as I passed them by. Were anypony around, the lingering glow of my divine light could be glimpsed in the empty hallways. Thankfully, we knew better than to welcome mortal servants into the sacred privacy of our home when there were other means to keep tidy and maintain our hearth. You could hardly tell that I, Lumina, Spark of Magic, goddess, and Immortal High Queen of the realm was even a resident if it were not for that light. How it cast a soft, glowing dancing on stone!
My afternoon meditation had gone terribly wrong, disturbed by a foggy vision I could not comprehend fully. Unlike my daughters, I do not dream of the occurrences to be quite as much as they did. I only piece together scattered visions and prophecies of Harmony — things that Harmony itself sends me, as both her prophet and the Spark of Magic. Still, when I dreamed of all these things, the visions were powerful and potent, if less frequent, while my daughters would often find their frequent dreams buried below symbols and the mysterious. This lead to the inklings of omens that not even my dream-journals knew how to pull apart and understand. Even after the decades since she's been born, I only know that my youngest, Luna, only a toddler, is the more powerful dreamer from what little I have gathered of her power.
I rushed deeper into the castle as quick-hoofed as I possibly can, descending staircase after staircase. Each familiar maze of rooms flew by until I came to the exact door I was looking for. It had a curved design like most of the castle with the tip of the frame ending in an elegant whirling arch. Instead of having a dead tree's wood chopped into planks for the door, the sanctum within and the hallway here were separated by living crystal growth. These gleaming roots and clusters pulsed softly with the natural glow of rainbow lights. Some sections even had the likeness of a tree carved in the growing extents. I remember when those sacred sigils were seared into being long ago. Even the magic of the gods — myself included — that wrought this design could do no more than graze the overgrowth of She Whose Roots Span the World.
When I was near this place on most heavenly cycles, I always felt safe. Today was not most cycles, and instead my heart pounded wildly with the mad flush of anxiety.
Two red eyes... filled with such evil and horrible, unnatural magic. Yet, no matter their strangeness, they shone in them more powerfully than ever. What could it possibly mean?
Placing one hoof in front of me, I stepped through the crystal as if it were nothing more than a summer breeze: present, yet not solid. I knew to discard all pretense of foolishness like optimism at this door, if I still clutched at them at all. They were poor traits for any ruler to exhibit — and toxic for any goddess.
She could help me... I had faith. Faith in Harmony.
...
The interior of the sanctum was much like an elegantly made atrium, but with a closed roof embedded with crystals and not a single window in sight. It was also located in a subterranean area of the castle, even deeper than the darkest cellar. All of this allowed the World Tree an elegant cave for her magical presence, so different from the natural tunnels and how the forest used to look when I first stumbled across her, so many thousands of years ago. The world was built much differently then, too.
In some ways, the chamber was bare except for a few small stones resembling sea stacks and one or two shade blossoms. A few glimpses of the powerful crystalline roots that were under the crust of the planet and encircled it utterly were somewhat visible. In the center was who I was here to see. She sat in the middle of the room, roots exposed as she glowed with calming and inspiring light. Her boughs stretched to reveal what could be considered five great fruits. Each heft branch bore a cumbersome amount of dazzling geodes, most of which were of the same icy, radiant hue as the rest of her. Others were bearing crystalline, colorful ripeness.
I trotted up to her trunk in which two carvings were laid: that of a sun and a moon. In fact, the moon was a recent addition being only a hundred or so years old. The sigil was nearly as old as Luna, having emerged shortly after I birthed her.
"Vinora... can We talk to you?" The small, simple word in my native language rolled out as easily as ever. My divine plural is a worn, familiar habit — sometimes even when talking to those closest to me, provided they were not of my blood.
No response.
"Vinora," I repeat, my personal name for this spirit coming out much more tersely than before. "This is urgent... We had a vision."
The tree was silent, only my spliced reflection stared back at me from the crystal trunk bearing the Spark's likeness. I know that the true Spark is buried within it, and that if need be, I could be bestowed with it once again in order to shape the world.
"Vinnie, We — I — need your help. I need it quite desperately right now, just as you needed my friends and me to combat the Sorceress of the Farthest Reach with our Elements!"
Beneath my hooves, the ground shivered suddenly. It was almost as if the planet was cold and a fog emerged from nowhere, in an enclosed space of all places. The tree became obscured from my view. Slowly, I backed away a few steps.
Was she in a bad mood? Perhaps she was busy or slumbering? Or maybe she already knew what I had to say? But how would she—
"Vinnie, We really need your help!" I had already given this being — a sacred and many-knowing World Tree — a pet-name. The more childish version of the name, the one I only dared call my dear mentor, would get her attention easily.
The fog cleared and in its wake, a phantom silhouette emerged from the tree. What appeared to be an Alicorn emerged. She flexed her larger and more powerful wings. Her coat was translucent glittery, she had a flowing pastel mane, a tail of light, and lastly two star-white eyes. Around her head, five phantom gems floated in a circle while one magenta spark bobbed at the top, calmly levitating above all the others.
"You called?"
...
Her calm tone was both relaxing my own panic yet somehow unnerving at the same time. That was the power of the primordial being known as Vinora to me, followed by Harmonia Everfree to all others across the known lands. She was as mysterious as the mark which adorned her flank: a yellow tear-shaped gem, the odd one out of her jewels, for it showed up nowhere else as far as I could see. It was also said to be seed shaped but today a tear seemed more appropriate.
"Lumina, what is it that distresses you so on this eve? You do know I hate manifesting like this. Illusions are far too limiting and restraining for my nature."
She gazed briefly at the tree and noted its still nature as if it were her projected form instead of her actual one.
"My Oracle of all Oracles, dear Voice of this World, I had a vision when meditating that was terrifying... can you interpret it?"
She looked a little more concerned — especially since I had dropped the divine we, the one that even mortals would mimic. That, of course, was ironic, since we Alicorns used it as a way to convey that our nature was so utterly beyond them. To a mortal, we were plural in how much more we existed in comparison to them, for we were no mere shells of ghosts set to expire and doomed to fragility and smallness.
"Lumina, if this is just another bad flashback..."
"It is not!"
"Well, then what was it?"
"I was walking through a forest — a completely normal forest, albeit a lower-magic one — and came to a clearing. Everypony was gathered there. Noctus, Ellie, Stolas, my sisters, and all the other Alicorns of Havenfell were milling about. They were all talking and it looked like there was a fine festival of sorts — why, I think we may have all been waiting for a feast. I went up to Noctus who was playing with Celestia and Luna. That was when everything went dark... as if the sun and moon, and even the stars were lights that could be put out."
I shivered a moment and looked at her, noting that she remained as expressionless as per usual.
"Go on, Lumina... though, you must understand one thing. Stars, suns, moons — all of those things are still mortal, while your kind has no such burden. Your dream may have foretold the death or birth of a distant star. My dear little planet — my lovely young Havenfell — has a fine Pantheon of gods to avert any possible damage stray stellar debris could bring."
"No, Greatest Oracle. My dear friend, nothing like that was suggested in it. The ground began to shake in the dark and the very continent we were on began to split into pieces. I was forced to helplessly watch it all drift away slowly while these two horrible eyes... big red eyes with streams of smoke pouring from their sides... Oh, how they perched in the sky like hovering vultures. You should have seen how they watched and bathed all of us in its bloody glow. I knew they were daemon eyes, like Antumbra's horrid eyes... and Penny's eyes..." I added quietly.
"All of us, Lumina?" Of course, when it came to Penumbra, Harmonia had no sympathy for her... and I understood why. Whether they were known as daemons or demons, their nature was no different. Harmonia simply hated them for... far more valid reasons than mortals, though there was still more than a few streaks of plain orneriness clouding her judgment.
"Well no, Ellie and Stolas were gone. Corah's son, Neptune, was vanished too. Even some of Canterhorn's kin went unnoticed to me amid the despair. Other than that, everypony was panicking as if all of us were fish in a barrel, and blind fish too. I was unable to find either Celestia or Luna at all, as if they never existed! They were just lost in all the distress! There was another shake. So much noise, so much despair followed! And we were all gone! The last thing I remember was seeing the shapes... it looked exactly of a pack of them flying in our direction, hovering like wary carrion crows to the great vulture that those eyes were..."
"You saw... draconequui?"
"Yes. After what happened to my homeworld, I know their visage anywhere."
"Lumina?"
"Yes?" I answered hesitantly, my own heartbeat still warming my own ears.
"Do you think we have the strength to save a planet?"
"I failed the last time... my sisters and me... We..."
She shook her head. "You fled last time Lumina. You were barely a mare then, and still hardly one when I met you. An Alicorn of but a few scant millennia and not of age cannot be expected to avert an interstellar crisis with only her siblings to aid her — not when your home was already under siege. Now is different."
"Then... yes, I believe we can save our planet. There are more gods here now, even if Havenfell is such a young frontier of a planet. I am not a filly anymore. My sisters and their husbands are all as mature as I, and even more so in some instances. There are more of us than when my sisters and I first fell here. I know what it means to be a god now, have a magical plain of my own to prove it, and my skills are far above what they were when I was a maid running about on your hero's errands and quests. Our mortals could form armies of millions in the Everfree Kingdom alone."
"Exactly."
"What do I have to do?"
Vinora's eyes — pupil-less, iris-less things that were truly as bright as stars — bored into mine.
"You have to leave. Gather every Alicorn above their fourteenth mortal age equivalency. As young as those ones are, only they are ready to fight — and if we must really bring adolescents to war against draconequui, it shall have to be done. By then, what I too fear will occur, and we will truly need them, despite their youth. Still, know that we will never sink to their level, never shall I allow any foals to go to war as they use their cubs so cruelly — not even if you wished it. I am a spirit, Lumina, and cannot help you in the coming battles like more physical beings can, for I will be holding the very fabric of this planet together."
"Is this the end of our world... or is even that hidden from you? Is such a thing possible, for any future to be hidden from you?"
"No. It is just time to tap into our inner phoenix, if I might put it that way. There are futures far from my sight, and those that I have not anticipated, but if it is possible... Well, there is little I do not know in any capacity. That is how beings like yourself would see it."
I bowed my head and turned to leave. Already, I was struggling to piece together what her latest machinations could mean for Noctus, Celly, and Luna... and I...
"And Lumina? One more thing..."
"Yes?"
"Tell your daughters about Shadows, as you called the dark union of demon and summoner."
"But why—"
"You may not see them for a while."
"...But I will see them again."
Silence.
"You will protect them, will you not?" My eyes already felt damp.
"Yes. That I can promise."
Vinora was already gone.