Sol’s Rune, Part Two
By Tundara
The waters were cool and soothing like mint. Pure aether tingled up her legs and into her wings as she dipped them into the waters. Tension fell away the further she went towards the center of the pond. Taking a deep breath, she submerged herself. The pool’s magic struck her at once, forcing its way through her horn and flowing down into the essence at her very core.
The sensation of falling begun to take her, only to stop as her essence flared in rejection of the foreign magic. Fire engulfed Celestia, carrying her out of the pool and high into the cold southern air.
It burned. For the first time ever, Celestia felt the heat of her own magic.
Doubt prickled along the back of Celestia’s mind, a gnawing, churning vile sort of doubt that forced a sharp breath and quickened the heart. She struggled to contain the fire pouring out of her, to pull it back into her where it could harm no one. An image, brief but potent, struck Celestia, one of hovering over a summer scorched field while armies clashed below. Her breaths came quicker, eyes falling into pinpricks as her tenuous grasp on her magic faltered.
The Second Battle of Airegos. It should have been the final hammer blow that shattered the griffons’ hold on the Mareberian Peninsula. Instead, it became the greatest defeat ponykind had suffered in a hundred years, and it was her fault. So many had died that day because of her, because she’d failed them.
Celestia could see it all again. Her magic falling in fiery drops alongside her as the sky was torn apart. The white of her wing, severed by the final blow, as it plummeted alongside her. Sol’s bellows and roars as the sun cracked with the echoes of Celestia’s pain. Chunks of her surface fell away, leaving Sol no less wounded. The pieces crashed down across the disc, leaving gaping craters filled with angry magic. Celestia herself landed in the midst of her army, the impact sending out a wave of fire accompanied to the bang-bang-bang of other impacts.
Well over six thousand ponies had died that day, and it was only through the timely arrival of Star Swirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever that Celestia did not join them. Countless others had been maimed for life and abandoned in the ensuing troubles that settled across ponykind in frosty drifts.
And it was all her fault.
If she hadn’t given into the temptation to unleash all her fire, her soldiers would not have been burned in her flames.
Just as Tenochdeerlan was her fault, and the far greater tragedy. In its way, the destruction of Tenochdeerlan was all the more stinging; such a stupid, simple mistake.
There she was, all of twenty-one years old and, for the first time ever, attempting alone to have Sol set without the help of the Solar Cabal. For untold centuries, it had been the cabal that guided Sol to her rest each night and awoke her in the morn. Celestia herself had been a member, a prodigy. The reason for her talent had never been so clear as when she felt all of Sol’s might for the first time, the sun glowing with joy and pride as they were bound together and became extensions of the other.
When Celestia closed her eyes every Summer Sun Celebration she could hear the words she said that fateful evening, “Okay, love, come down!”
Then she pulled. With every ounce of her strength, she pulled. Just as she’d done for the previous ten years to make Sol set. And Sol had gone down. Straight down.
The boom as the sun struck the disc had been heard from one edge to the other. Lost within that terrible crash were the frightened screams as the city of Tenochdeerlan was crushed and incinerated. Even the better part of two millennia later and all that remained was a scorched and dead wasteland. Nothing grew on those bleaks fields. A reminder to Celestia of the burden her immense power carried, and the cost if she ever failed in its control.
There were other mistakes, thousands of them, of varying degrees. They assaulted her from the core of her past in droves. Wincing, Celestia clamped her eyes shut, legs drawn up to protect her and wings jittery as she attempted to ward herself from their sting.
Luna’s growing isolation and how she’d ignored her until Nightmare Moon emerged. Namyra. Hundreds of friends sent to their deaths on her orders. Inadvertently taking Luna’s place in Cadence’s heart. Allowing the changeling queen to best her. Fostering Tyr.
Celestia shook and trembled, overwhelmed as the memories and guilt clawed their way to the surface. Her head rocked back, a gout of white flames bursting from her mouth. Walls formed around her, thick and billowing, wild with all her unfurled intensity in an inferno that stretched far into the sky until it crackled and rebounded against the barrier of the heavens.
Her wings shot out then drew close, wrapped around her like a blanket as she was held aloft. Emptiness replaced the magic syphoned from her, a gulf wider than the disc and seemingly endless in depth. Celestia shivered, cold in spite of the roaring tempest around her and sweat pouring down her face.
Through her tenuous connection to Sol, Celestia could hear the sun’s worried dreams for just a moment when the inferno took pause to gather its breath.
Her magic coalesced, flattened and stretched out, covering the forest in a storm that lit the night. Embers and coals fueled the winds. Slowly at first, they began to turn, to gather into bands until it was a glowing, gold and ruby hurricane that burnt away the cold and dark in a perfect imitation of Celestia’s cutie mark.
The storm brought winds hot enough to shame the core of a volcano. Vortexes descended from the eight bands, leaving paths of destruction that stretched for leagues. The ground was seared clean by crackling pillars of hissing sparks and ash. Animals ran for cover, or cowered as the blazing tornados approached, only for the columns to pick up and jump to new locations.
At the heart, Celestia could do naught but stare as her magic ravaged the forest. Panic gripped her heart, and she tried to pull the storm back into her, but it refused her. Marshalling her strength, she yanked harder, only for it to drag her closer to the whirling walls. A single, colossal eye opened before her, its intense teal iris focusing in on her. Another eye, smaller and blue, opened to its left, and a third joining them just below, then another and another until hundreds of eyes of every colour and shape were all staring at Celestia. They bored down on her as she drew ever nearer.
“Coward!” The disembodied shout smashed into Celestia, jarring tooth and bone with its anger.
Celestia stared back at the eyes dumbfounded, at a loss as to what she should say in reply, if anything at all.
Not that the storm gave her more than a moment to contemplate a response before it again roared at her. “You are a coward, Celestia. Small and frail, terrified of yourself. We are the Sun! The scorching light that burns away the impure and unjust. Too long you’ve held us back. Denied yourself, huddled in the bowels of your palaces, acting through agents and spies. Sending them in your place, often to their deaths, while you play at being the gentle warmth. We are so much more than the timid creature that has scurried across the disc for so long.”
Celestia’s legs shook, wispy smoke curling from her coat. Every fibre of her being screamed at her to regain control over her magic. She had to prevent any further destruction.
A strong beat of her wings carried her to the edge of the flames. She plunged her hooves into the wall, sparks dancing over her face and legs. It was impossible to concentrate, to cut through the howling wind buffeting her from all sides and gain control over the storm.
A magic surge at her age, with her power, could scour the continent if left unchecked. She attempted to contain the flames with hoof, wing, and horn. As before, her magic rejected her.
Celestia was flung backwards by a surge of flames. They clung to her, leaving little smokey trails tumbling behind her. Wings thrust out to catch herself, Celestia glared back at the eyes, the fires surrounding them burning hotter and hotter.
Sweat ran down Celestia’s face and back, and her breaths were drawn in long, laboured gasps. Tucking her head low, she flew a few lengths towards the wall, only to be driven back.
When the fires could reach no higher, when it seemed they had to burn away even her, Celestia heard a voice call out. It was certainly somepony yelling, though the words were lost. Another voice answered, desperate and afraid, followed by movement within the wall. Celestia shouted in response, her throat raw from the force used, and it seemed that the shapes beyond the flames heard her, for they began to draw closer.
Again Celestia cried out, and again they approached a little nearer.
“This is wrong, Calliope!” shouted one of the voices, its youthful timbre weighed down by fear. “We should not be playing with her things!”
“It… it called to me. I couldn’t stop myself,” replied a second voice, much softer and a little confused.
A third spoke up, it’s tones lyrical and floating above the storm’s hissing crackle. “I heard it as well, Cali. And you were running as madly as either of us, Arengea.”
A parting of the flames, like a window being thrown open, gave Celestia a view of the three, and found them all to be young mares in the full bloom of maidenhood. Sisters, from the similarities in their tall stature and the elegant curves of their chins. An impression only furthered by their near identical snowy white coats. Only their manes set the them apart. Celestia judged the one a little further away from the others to be the second speaker, Calliope. She had a full mane of soft, baby blues, a few darker locks framing eyes in perfectly coiffed curls. Arengea was just a slight bit shorter than either of her sisters. Her mane was cut short and scraggly, almost militarily, the silver and amethyst hair sticking out in greased tufts giving her a rough, adventurous air. The final sister, still unnamed, had her mane done up in beautiful bouncing ringlets of orange, gold, and red like a sunset reflected within a waterfall.
They stood in a room crowded with tarp covered pallets, pedestals topped with glass jars, and hidden objects on shelves. Crates sat stacked in corners, straw packing leaking from open tops down their sides. Little brass labels proclaimed the names of the objects, while many were left unmarked. Some of them Celestia recognised at once. It was not hard to recognise the stands that held her ancient armour and her faithful greatsword asleep on a rack in a corner.
There were some items within the vault that, while Celestia knew what they were, she also knew she did not possess. Objects such as the cursed scrolls of Tirek or Daring Do’s healing shawl. Little flames seemed to flicker along the cloth as Celestia swept her gaze across the room.
Celestia turned her attention away from objects on the shelves and to the one the mares stared at so intently.
A stone tablet four hoof-lengths wide and several tall sat on a velvet cloth upon a pedestal. Blocky script in a language Celestia did not recognise was carved deep into its face. As she watched, the letters blurred and reformed into more familiar letters. She couldn’t make out the words before they changed again. Each time the letters shifted they glowed a brilliant silvery hue, swirling this way and that across the tablet’s surface before finding their new form.
The tablet left Celestia with an uneasy sensation crawling across her skin.
“What’s it doing, Thalia?” Arengea asked the mare with the sunset mane.
“How am I supposed to know?” Thalia shot back, spreading her long, graceful wings, and flipping back her mane with a haughty huff.
It was only then Celestia noticed that all three of the mares were alicorns.
Much like the shawl, little flames flickered along Thalia’s wings. Not just hers, but the others as well.
“Girls! What is going on here?” The words snapped from behind the three young mares brought them up sharply, their wings extended defensively.
Celestia would have spun along with the three, but the window made it unnecessary as it swung around to show the newcomer.
Though framed in the light pouring through the open door to the vault, it was easy to make out the pony. She, herself, strode into the vault, a curious smile on her muzzle. There was something more to her, however, a confidence in her stride that Celestia had only ever feigned. On her doppelganger it seemed so natural, forcing Celestia to wonder briefly if this was how other ponies saw her all the time.
There was more to the Celestia on the other side of the window. Her regalia was altered, the amethysts on her tiara and peytral replaced by a trio of blue topazes, and a wedding ring hung from her right ear.
“Mother!” All three of the young mares gasped in near unison, falling back as the other Celestia approached.
Calliope darted a look to her sisters, before focusing back onto the other Celestia. “We didn’t mean to—”
“It called us.” Arengea blurted, bumping her sister out of the way so a path to the tablet was cleared. She began to turn to thrust a hoof at the tablet, the edges of which had begun to glow in a rainbow of hues.
A sharp breath was drawn by Celestia’s other self. “Girls, step away from the Moirai’s Tablet.”
Familiar magic engulfed the young mares, and with loud protests, they were yanked away from the tablet. No sooner were they pulled from view than a beam of rainbow energy shot from the tablet’s core straight towards the trio. Celestia tried to reach out or in some way help the mares, only for the action to prove entire unnecessary. There were a series of shouts, the trio all crying out in surprise and worry, followed by a bang as the beam impacted against a shield conjured by the other Celestia.
Mouth agap, Celestia could only stare at the furious light that engulfed and protected the family. She knew herself to be a capable spellweaver, but she doubted she could match the speed with which the shield had been formed.
“Are any of you harmed?” Celestia’s doppelganger asked as she looked each of her daughters over in turn. They all shook their heads, ears hanging with shame while also shooting angry looks at the still glowing tablet.
“Good.” She extended her wings over her daughters like a pair of white shields, adding, “If the Moirai’s games had hurt any of you…” in a tone that left no room for misinterpretation. It sent a little tremor up Celestia’s back, rippling from her dock into her withers so her wings trembled. She’d heard Luna use such a tone many times, and attempted to mimic it herself when appropriate. But it had always rung false and hollow in her ears, nothing like the resolve of the doppelganger.
“What’s it doing?” Calliope asked, sliding out from her mother’s embrace with a quick, embarrassed check of the vault door to make certain the exchange had not been observed.
“Like those that created it, this tablet has a penchant for playing with Fate,” their mother replied, and then she looked up, right at the window and stared straight into Celestia’s eyes. “I do not believe it’s actions are meant for our benefit at this moment, but somepony else who needed some hope.”
The trio shared confused looks and then were herded from the vault, the other Celestia pausing at the door to again look back. “Embrace the Storm, Celestia,” she said to the mirror. “It is not so terrible.”
A chill trickled up Celestia’s neck at the force behind her doppelganger’s advice.
Then the window began to shut, the hole drawing together like falling drapes.
Shouting at the top of her lungs, Celestia lunged forward. She had to reach the other Celestia and young mares. She had to speak to them. Where the certainty came from eluded her. All she knew was the need to break through the flames. Sparks flew across hooves pressed against the window, some force or barrier holding her back.
The trio started and spun, their eyes of blue, green, and pink looking past their mother and falling on Celestia and wide with shock.
She heard them exclaim in unison, “Mother?”, their gazes flickering between the Celestia standing beside them, and the one surrounded by flames before the wall slammed shut in a shower of sparks.
Her heart pounding, Celestia lifted a hoof to her chest. ‘Mother.’ They said ‘Mother’, called her ‘Mother’.
Closing her eyes, she took a slow, shuddering breath. The sound of their voices echoed in her ears, the title, a siren’s call in the darkness dangling just out of reach. Which was right where it belonged. For it was just that, a siren’s call, a cruel lure covered in snagging barbs and catching hooks, a trap she wouldn’t, couldn’t fall into again.
Lies. Falsehoods. A trick of the storm; it couldn’t be true.
She latched onto the familiar, bitter numbness and turned away from the window.
Something stopped her, an ancient yearning whose grave never seemed to be deep enough. The desire was so strong, and though she knew that the hope would prove false again, Celestia reached out with a slow, timid hoof to brush it.
‘Mother…’
A hesitant smile pulled at the corner of her mouth.
She forced it back down and shook her head. Too many times she’d allowed herself to hope, and every time the pain and longing had grown stronger. Centuries had passed since she’d last allowed herself to succumb to the temptation.
“You can’t deny your heart any more than you can deny me.”
Celestia snapped her eyes open and glared up at the burning walls surrounding her.
“You can not fly from yourself, Celestia.”
Taking a deep breath, Celestia matched the blazing stares with a glare of her own, shifting from one pair of eyes to the next. “I have no intention of fleeing. You are my responsibility, and—”
“Responsibility? You have neglected your responsibility since the first night we awakened! You run and shiver and hide behind platitudes and gentle words.” A great jet of hissing plasma curled from the eyewall as it raged, the edges fracturing in showers of embers and sparks. “You bury your flames behind self-defeating lies. What are you afraid of?”
“Afraid?” Celestia shook under the question. “Self-control is no more a show of fear than mercy is of weakness. I have brought a millenia of prosperity to Equestria.”
The storm rumbled with a slow, mirthless laugh. Black, hateful fires edged the innumerable eyes, the intensity of their looks increasing a hundred fold.
“Prosperity? Self-control? Oh, my my my, Celestia, what pleasant delusions you’ve crafted to soften your pillow.” The pitch within the storm’s voice changed, growing higher, almost shrill, like it were a wind howling around the tops of bare trees on a mountain. An eye Celestia could never forget took precedence among its brethren, a yellow eye, slitted like a dragon’s but filled with loathing and envy, rather than disdainful greed. “Tell me, have they grown stiff and stale, or are they as comforting as they were when you abandoned your sister in favor of sycophantic praise and blind devotion?
“What is it like to wield so much power, to say but a word and bend Equestria to your design? Did you even once think of her, out there, marching through mud and blood, defending the very ponies who fawned over your every whim? Did you speak of her to them, remind them that, were it not for her, they would be dead! No! You let them forget! You let them grow deaf to the drums of war, ignorant of the monsters lurking in the night! And why? To ‘protect’ them? To coddle them more like!
“You hid them behind your stone walls and in your ivory towers of soft light and plush decadence, let them grow weak and soft, let them forget, made them forget so that you could bury those memories and pretend like they never happened! You made them forget the harsh truths so that when your sister returned they saw only the blood on her hooves.
“Where were you? Where were you as she suffered, as the Nightmare chipped away at her sanity until it was all she could do not to cover the world in endless night?”
“I…”
“Did nothing!” the Nightmare’s eye howled. “You stole her daughter and gave her only disdain! How could she do anything but rebel against your growing tyranny? Then for twenty years you hid in your castle from her, refusing to meet her in open combat and letting countless soldiers march to their deaths. Even then, when you finally took up your sword, it was only to draw her out and let the Elements of Harmony do your work.” Her voice changed, losing all emotion save a vague, uninterested disdain. “Wonder of wonders that mother judged you unworthy and sent Luna away.”
The Nightmare’s eye faded from prominence, leaving Celestia trembling, unable to form a response. It was as though her armour had been sundered and her heart shattered. She could hardly breath, hoof pressed to her chest to still the twisting barbs.
A new eye took the fore, another she recognised with ease. The pustulent green edging an iris the colour of the purest ruby was seared as deep into her memory as that of the Nightmare.
Setting her jaw, she glared back at the eye of Sombra de Espanya, and the pony that had cut her the deepest.
“Mi Amada…” Sombra’s husky voice purred through Celestia’s ears, making her coat stand on end and her wings flare in barely suppressed rage.
“No, you do not get to play these strings!” Celestia shouted to the storm, pushing herself a little higher. “His actions are—”
“Not your fault, mi Amada.”
Celestia’s angry retort lodged itself in her throat.
“He saw true beauty that day on the plains of Airagos. For a brief, shining moment you embraced yourself, and it was glorious.”
“Glorious? There was nothing ‘glorious’ about me that day! How many died for my folly? How many were burned to ash when I fell?” Celestia howled, her wings straining to keep her aloft and breaths drawn too quick and short.
She could see it all again, feel the rush of power as she battled the ancient demon, Lord Amon, high into the sky. Her flames formed into crackling whips, she lashed at Amon’s defenses, relentless in her assault. How light her armour was, the heavy plates augmented by a shroud of spitting energy. At her side darted her first sword, Dawn. Forged for her by Luna, the blade sang with glee all through the fight.
Confidence filled her as Amon began to fall back, his own magics and considerable experience unable to withstand the Sun’s unbridled fury. She was unstoppable, a juggernaut crushing every threat to the ponies battling for their lives so far below on those blood soaked fields.
That was her undoing, that sense of invincibility, and in an instant, it all came undone. Somehow, Amon ripped Dawn from her grasp, and with her own sword, severed Celestia’s left wing.
Phantom pain flashed through Celestia, tearing across her side and leaving her crippled. A choked sob broke from her throat, and she fell, again, just as she had all those centuries before. Falling, falling… Clouds whistled around her, their fluffy bodies bursting into steam, and in the distance, she could see the approaching heart of her army, and there was nothing she could do.
Far too quickly, the ground approached. She was in shock, her body unresponsive and thoughts muddy with confusion as she retreated from the pain. Her eyes slid shut seconds before the devastating impact.
“No matter your raw talent, you can not expect to pick up a sword for the first time and contend with a seasoned master,” Sombra’s eye gently admonished her, using words she herself said so many times over the years to so many students.
Celestia slowly cracked open an eye and found herself in the middle of a city of stepped pyramids and gold statues. Deer trotted around her in droves, dressed in grey cotton gowns, reds and greens swirling along the hems, and jade beads hanging around their necks. A group of fawns ran in circles in the middle of an open square, laughing as they kicked a heavy wooden ball to each other. Every brow glinted with a painted sun, with golden lines and swirls tracing over their cheeks, withers, and backs.
The air was festive and happy, thick with the smells of spicy foods and sugar. Dancing, laughter, singing, and all the joyous things in life were being celebrated.
It was nearing dusk, and, with the approach of night and Sol’s descent, the deer began gathering at the steps of the largest, most central pyramid. At the top of the steps—stone stained a dark-cherry red—sat a flat topped altar with a large icon shaped near identical to Celestia’s mark just a little behind. On either side stood a deer far more intricately dressed than any of those below, with headbands of phoenix feathers, and peytrals of gold, jade, and obsidian. The crowd began to chant, bending their knees and bowing their heads. The fawns ceased their games and raced over to join the adults, adding their voices to the repeated call of, “Telustiuh.”
A young doe was lead to the altar. She was a lithe, beautiful deer, with wonderful curves to her flanks and large, brown eyes that grasped a happy determination. A princess among her tribe, she was adorned with the most lavish clothes and jewelry.
The crowd grew silent as the princess reached the altar and laid her head down upon it.
Stepping forth, the High Priest lead a jibbering chant whose strange, barking phonics needed no translation to understand. To appease Sol, they offered to her this sacrifice on this holiest of days so that she may continue to soar through the sky. That she would continue to bless them with warmth and light, and not unleash her fiery wrath. He turned away from the crowd, carried by their renewed chants, and drew a curved aurichalcum dagger.
On the altar the princess smiled and bared her throat.
Celestia could not watch anymore. Too many times she’d seen what came next in nightmares shared by her beloved Sol.
Guilt cut her heart at the crowd’s pleased cheers and hoof stamps.
Silently, Celestia mouthed the words that had haunted her for so many centuries, ‘Okay, love, come down.’
Their celebration was pierced by a flash of light from Sol, drawing every eye. The cheering fell into a quiet awe, only a few clusters of noise remaining on the fringes. As they watched in wonder, the sun turned a low, hazy orange. Confusion bubbled in pockets through the crowd, unsure of what they were seeing, some in furtive and fearful whispers while others shouted and rejoiced that their prayers were being answered.
Sol began to grow in the sky above the city, a long tail of flames shooting behind her and an all encompassing rumble gripping the entire disc. The shouts of joy only lasted a moment longer, and then the screaming began. Deers darted this way and that, trampling each other in their panic at the approaching sun. Others just wept and held their loved ones close.
Heat flooded the city and surrounding lands, a withering incandescence that ignited dry grass and melted glass. Deer began to drop, gasping and sweating, eyes rolling in their heads and plaintive, final pleas for mercy on their last breaths. Coats began to smolder, then catch alight, the streets filled with thousands of tiny pyres.
The city was dead before Sol struck, her landing removing all trace of Tenochdeerlan from the face of the disc, and scouring the adjacent territories for a hundred miles in every direction. Bouncing, Sol rolled into the nearby sea, a column of steam miles wide erupting into the sky.
Hard, ragged sobs wracked her frame as three white specks appeared high above to survey the damage and rescue the sun. The echoes of the horror on seeing the terrible wound inflicted on the disc battered Celestia until she verged on tears.
“Never again,” she whispered in affirmation of the ancient promise. A promise she’d failed to keep.
“Remember what Sol said as you carried her back into the heavens, ‘I regret not that I crushed that vile place, only that by doing so, in the end, I proved them right.’”
Celestia didn’t responded to the storm, she merely stared out over the fading wasteland she’d created with unseeing eyes.
“You never did take loss well.”
That voice, Celestia recognized instantly, had yearned to hear for centuries. She pressed her eyes shut and looked away, unable to meet the latest gaze.
“Mother, I—”
“Failed nopony except yourself.”
Celestia winced at the gentle admonishment. “It is not that simple, mother.”
“Of course it isn’t. Nothing is ever simple among our kind. We are goddesses, Celestia, and it behooves us to act accordingly.” Celestia’s gaze was slowly drawn up by the wistful words.
“Whom would you have me emulate? Iridia? She cast the disc into ice for revenge. Or you, who vanished without a goodbye?”
“You are neither one nor the other. You must cast your own mold. You must find the courage to face all threats, lest you leave our little ponies defenceless. Every life is precious, yes, but not irreplaceably so. Iridia and mother know this perhaps better than any other. To bind yourself to inaction to protect a few in their present lives does them no favours when in their next they will be born into times of strife and despair.”
Celestia blanched at the voice’s indifference. “You may speak with her voice, but you are not my mother. She would never be so callous.”
“Your mother allowed nations to fall, propped up tyrants so they could be deposed in bloody revolution, and encouraged her own beloved empire to fragment just as ponykind’s enemies were waxing in strength.” A long, mirthless laugh rumbled around Celestia, setting her teeth on edge. “She even disappeared just as you needed her guidance. You whine and moan that she never said so much as a ‘goodbye’ while defending her actions. You pray to her incessantly and receive only silence for your devotion. She knew when it was time to nurture and protect. When to allow the house to stand on its own, or collapse. And then to use those ruins as foundations for a new future.
“She knew her purpose and embraced it.”
Celestia wanted to deny the storm. To fly into defiance and rejection of everything said, but she could not.
“Luna and you both believed you to be the favoured sister. That Faust loved you dearer as she placed you so much closer. For some time you’ve known better. She did not play favourites in so obvious a manner. From the moment Luna left the smoldering cinders of her foster home she knew herself and embraced all aspects of her destiny, while you desperately sought to do only what you thought other’s deemed as ‘right’ or ‘proper’, regardless of their true desires or intents. No, you simply needed more of her attention than Luna.”
A deep shudder worked its way up Celestia’s spine. An argument seeded, grew, and swiftly died before she could so much as consider putting it forth. Luna’s silent struggle with the mad fragment of their cousin had lasted centuries. In her place, Celestia might have endured for a decade at the most before succumbing.
She stared at the glittering blue eye of her mother watching her. Perhaps it was simply her imagination, a trick of the brain, but that thought did nothing to protect her from the disappointment she saw there. The belief that had carried her through the past millennia fractured, the obfuscating smoke carried away on violent winds while the false mirrors fell away in shatters, leaving behind a pink maned filly, cowering where a princess once stood, terrified of creating the perception of failure.
The same filly who’d hidden herself away, crying at her own folly, and had relied on her aunt and mother to retrieve her precious Sol from the ocean floor. Seventeen centuries, and nothing had changed.
Celestia tensed and tried to force away the image, revolted by her continued failures, her enduring weakness. Tears of frustration and loathing trailed down her cheek, the crystal drops hissing with the heat of her rage.
A swipe of a wing sent the image of the filly scattering on the winds.
She raged at the storm. How it twisted her memories, laid bare truths from which she’d kept hidden for centuries. She raged at her mother. How she’d abandoned her, left her to tumble, lost and confused, alone without a single word to guide her. But mostly, she raged at herself. At the repeated, continual failures great and small. At the hiding and waiting, the reliance on others to be her sword. Treating all the disc as if it were nothing more than a giant Stones’ board, and if she played the perfect match then maybe, just maybe, her mother would re-emerge and give her but a single word of praise that she longed so desperately to hear.
“You are so beautiful, Celestia.”
Celestia’s ear twitched at the sound, jaw tense at what wound the storm would pull open next. All she heard were screams, twisted and terrified as they begged for her mercy. She deserved neither forgiveness nor the praise ponies heaped on her withers. Her magic brought only destruction and suffering.
“Why do you torment yourself?”
The voice was familiar, just beyond reach, ringing through innocuous memories of public functions and private parties. No pang of guilt echoed through her heart at the melodious tones, so unlike all the rest. She found no comfort in this, only concern that she had forgotten something important. Celestia turned her head just a little, weary of the storm’s tricks and voices, how it prodded at her deepest shame, and what torment it wished to lay on her next.
“To remember,” she all but whispered in response. “If I allowed myself to… Every time I touched that power others suffered.”
There was no immediate response, just an admonishing silence that lingered in a ghostly shroud.
“You give so much of yourself, more than anypony I have ever met.”
A gentle fragrance of lavender and clove reached up to wrap itself around Celestia. Much like the voice, the scent tickled her memory but helped not at all. Warm hooves wrapped themselves around Celestia’s neck, a face burying itself in the crook of her throat and shoulder.
Celestia’s body went rigid at the touch, eyes wide with surprise. The pony—Celestia was certain it was a pony—clung tighter and sighed.
“Mmm, so warm and safe. I wish this could last forever.”
Celestia dared not look. Her heart began to quicken as she groped for a name to put to the voice. It should have been obvious, yet danced just beyond reach.
The pony holding her jerked and clutched all the tighter, terrified, like a filly about to be snatched away, and pulled Celestia from her thoughts just as an answer seemed at hoof.
“No. No. Not now. Not you.” Panic trembled through the words, tinted by resentment and loathing. “Can’t you even allow me to dream in peace?”
The hooves holding her wrenched away. Freed at last, Celestia danced back, coming face-to-face with a pony of white brilliance punctuated by a pair of glowing sapphire eyes, a spectral aura dancing around her edges. The pony was unmistakable, even as she floated away and clutched at her head.
“Rarity?” Celestia stared, her mouth falling open a little. “How…”
Hooves grasping her head, Rarity rocked from side-to-side. Her form faded, blending into her surrounding like an ancient mural, weather worn and sun bleached. Tears running down her cheeks, she shook herself violently. “Go away. Faust damn you, go away!”
Wings burst from Rarity’s sides, sprouting from her back as her horn jutted further from her brow. She slumped forward, legs limp and angry tears flowing free down her cheeks. When she looked up, Celestia saw not Rarity, but something menacing and ancient. Even with her own magic so thick in the air, her tongue curdled from the taste of corruption leaking from Rarity, rotten and bitter.
“Usurpers! Usurpers all!” The thing wearing Rarity snarled, and flung pure hatred at Celestia.
It struck her as a wave would a high bluff overlooking the ocean, if water could hold such vileness, her wings set further on edge as it passed.
So close, and with her own magic already loosed and twisting around her, it was easy for Celestia to discern the difference between Rarity and whatever entity had possessed her. The raging orange-red tempest highlighted the conflicting natures. Much as with the vetfrir, the two presences intertwined within Rarity, swirling together, snakes of ruby veined silver surrounding and biting into the luminescent core. From the depths of the inner light, Celestia heard echoes of Rarity as she pleaded with and hurled denials upon her attacker.
Celestia prepared to unfurl her fire, what little she retained, and blast it towards the nest of vipers. This time she would succeed. With the remnants of her magic on her wings, she paused, glancing back at the walls of burning eyes.
“Is this some sort of test?” she demanded of the storm.
It did not respond beyond brightening to a searing white-blue.
A desperate, pained growl yanked Celestia away from the wall and back to Rarity. She wobbled, head still cradled in her hooves, and her expression twisted with agony. Celestia reacted at once, reaching out to comfort the struggling mare.
Stinging magic bit Celestia’s cannon, digging deep and then yanking her forward. For a very brief instant Celestia felt her stomach leap up into her chest as she fell and then came to an abrupt stop in a dark room.
She blinked at the sudden dimness. Around her sat the remains of some old, forgotten temple, from the early Equestrian settlement period, judging by the windows and the statue of Faust Invictus behind a broken lectern. Ivy clung to the inner walls, and Selene shone bright through a gaping hole in the roof. Through the empty windows Celestia could make out a forest, and from the scent of raw magic carried in the wind, it could only be the Everfree.
Rarity laid on her side, asleep, muttering and kicking from some nightmare. Celestia’s eyes narrowed as she noticed the same tablet from earlier hovered behind Rarity, words snapping into place only to shatter and reform constantly before anything could be recognized, much less read.
Putting the tablet from her mind for the moment—it was certainly the cause of Rarity’s appearance before her, and likely trying to help, in its own manner—Celestia moved towards Rarity.
Her movement brought a stark reaction from Rarity, the mare pulling tighter in on herself within her nightmare as the nest of silver vipers materialised around her.
Celestia’s eyes widened at the appearance of the snakes, and the wrongness they exuded. She plucked at one with her magic, attempting to peel away from the precious life they surrounded. To her surprise and terror, it tore away with little effort and left Rarity shrieking as if she’d been stabbed. Losing her grip, the viper hissed and dove back into the mass, the whole of it writhing tighter until only a few brief glimpses of the Rarity remained.
Heart pounding in her chest, Celestia galloped to stay ahead of the avalanche of panic threatening to overtake her. Every second she dallied, the slithering nest drew tighter, burying Rarity beneath its expanding bulk. That shriek… How much damage had she done? She couldn’t risk attacking the slithering mass head on, but neither could she afford to stay idle. It was the cursed vetfrir all over again, worse, with so much of her magic loose and wild, attempting to pull Rarity free from the maleficent force was beyond her.
Once more, she reached out with her magic. This time she did not pull at, but simply touched one of the snakes. Madness seethed from it, corruption and foulness formed hardened scales and cruelty forged into bladed tongues. Too close, one of the heads lashed out, a bolt of lightning with fangs. So quick, she didn’t feel it at first, until she settled back down and put weight on her leg. Celestia hissed at the jolt of pain, glancing down to see two angry black welts visible through her coat. Her eyes snapped back up to the snake, meeting its rabid gaze, venom of blackened aether dripping from its fangs.
“You will not take them from me!” The snakes spat and howled, eyes flashing emerald and scales shining brighter. “The Muses are mine, not yours.”
Her head spun, the venom burrowing fast and deep, a match for Celestia’s alicorn resilience. Next to the wounds suffered against Amon, the venom was nothing. A mere trifle that would be burned away.
“You’re a shade, one of the Gaean alicorns.” Celestia took a step to the side, legs tense and wings at the ready. “Perhaps I can help you.”
The shade laughed with cruel humour. “Damn you, and damn the Fates for sending you. I am Serene, and when I am whole once more, I will overturn all the myriad worlds until I have my Muses.”
“We don’t need to fight. There must be a way to find these muses—”
“You want them for yourself!” The shade howled and clutched Rarity tighter, the mare barely visible between their coils. “You wish to steal them from me as she does, but you will fail!”
Fear spiked within Celestia, and she leapt forward. A slithering wall rose up to meet her, and bodily hurled her back. The old lectern shattered against her back in her flight, and she landed with a jarring thud near the temple’s doors. Back on her hooves in a flash, her mind raced down instinctive paths in search of a battle-plan. With lips curled in rage, Celestia retaliated, a swipe of her wing scattering the nearest heads into motes of scarlet aether and ash.
The shade watched Celestia warily, greedily feeding on Rarity’s life force and magic, ready for the next exchange; eager for it, to Celestia’s disgust.
Too much of her magic was still missing for a direct assault to succeed. And yet, she knew not what else to do. She refused to fail, to turn away any shred of assistance. Celestia’s heart blazed with righteous indignation. It was not a princess that stalked forward, but something else, something primal and dangerous. This shade sought to bring harm to her little pony, and she would see it brought to ruin for such hubris.
Fires to burn, and fires to sooth blazed in her eye, the twin flames thrilled at finally hearing her summons.
From far away, a low, bassy hum reverberated through whatever means had drawn her to the ruins. Through the tenuous threads connected to the distant storm roared a surge of energy, pure and golden, to fill Celestia’s entire essence. Streams of incandescent energy struck along Celestia’s back and wings, the surge almost making her buckle and crumple inwards.
She fought through the surge, focused entirely on the shade and the sight of Rarity’s plaintive eye through the coils. Fire filled Celestia’s mouth, streams leaking from between her teeth and the corners of her eyes. More still crept along her mane and tail, turning the aurora into a bellowing bonfire, and coated her wings in dancing sheets.
Coils pulsing with hatred, the shade plunged towards Celestia. Rarity screamed loud and long, her body convulsing. A golden tempest roared in response, rising up like the wings of a screeching phoenix to meet the shade’s assault.
The forest beyond the temple was rocked by a tremendous boom at the meeting of the two forces. Celestia prepared a second strike, only to find herself once more before the storm.
Rarity, the shade, and the ruined temple were gone, vanished. There was no fading away or lingering words, both simply disappeared. Not even a residual magic presence remained as Celestia found herself once more in the heart of the storm.
With nothing to direct itself against, Celestia’s power flared and then dissipated.
“No!” she yelled in disbelief.
Spinning around, she searched for any sign of Rarity, but there were none. Only the storm remained, staring down on her with a thousand eyes. With but a second spared to breath, the walls began to close in around her.
Ignoring the encroachment completely, she sorted through the vast currents of magic buffeting her. It was impossible for Rarity to have vanished without any trace. Golden oranges framed by brilliant reds and yellows danced across Celestia’s senses accompanied by the thunderous boom of a drum and deeper cords that made her bones shiver.
And there, among all the light and noise, was a single fluttering silver flake, caught within the wild currents of fire.
Reaching out for it brought back the scent of lavender and cloves. She was on the right path. She cradled the flake next to her chest, probing it for clues. If there were any, it was too late for them to be uncovered. The flake fractured and was consumed by the tempest.
Celestia stared after the silver motes until they were completely lost.
The loss turned to rage, her eyes snapping up at last to confront the storm and end the contest, only to find it already finished. The lightning ceased, and the eyes closed in a rippling wave, until only those of the Nightmare, Sombra, and Faust remained. They too slid shut, and Celestia swore they were smiling.
Contentment gripped the sky, the powerful swirling motion of the storm ground to a halt and the numerable twisters beneath its arms faded into dust. The omnipresent roar of the wind tumbled into silence. Clumps fell away from the underside of the clouds, pulled towards her from across the sky. She braced herself for the impact, but none came. The fire flowed into her, back into the wellspring at her core where it had always belonged. As the inferno collapsed into Celestia, it left trails, lines painted on the inside of her consciousness.
A circle formed first, and within it a spiraling rune. Lines twisted around and then doubled back creating eight blades of a sunset around a looping knotted pattern. Beads of solidified aether clung to the rune’s strands as it manifested behind her eyes. Rejuvenation and destruction entwined in equal measure in harmonic balance, the outer tips red in hue that shifted to gold towards the core.
A dual natured rune, their powers were legendary, as were their rarity and the difficulties in controlling spells forged with them. More so as Celestia had never heard of a Harmonic rune that could heal.
It settled in a place within the vast expanses of her mind, joining the library of runes where it sat in dominance, like a queen ascending to a throne left empty. Clutching her legs around herself, she breathed, “Ursëa,” giving the rune its name.
The motion brought with it awareness of her surroundings, that she wasn’t floating high above the forest, but within the pond’s still waters. The trees were unharmed, bereft of the soot blackened paths the storm had carved. A few birds chirped from among the branches, while Spotty sat where Celestia had left her, still humming along as she played her bouncy song.
“How’d it go? Did you find what you were looking for?” Spotty called when she noticed Celestia staring at her.
About to say, ‘As well as can be hoped,’ Celestia found words uncharacteristically difficult to grasp as she raised herself from the pond and her attention became captivated by the tufts of orange hued flame clinging to the tip of her nose. She stared at the little flame for a few seconds before checking to see if it was a lone occurrence. More tufts puffed up along her flanks, from her hocks and the joints on her wings.
“Well, this is different,” Celestia said to herself, poking one of the flames with a hoof. It fluttered a little higher, but did not hurt or even feel uncomfortable. A quick check showed her that the tufts were small motes of leaking aether cast from her reserves. Utterly harmless, and nothing to be concerned about, Celestia decided.
Turning her attention to the attentively watching Spotty, Celestia shook herself as she climbed from the pool. “I believe I have what I need, and more.” There was a lightness to her words, a happy spark that had been missing for weeks. She smiled to the sapling, who nodded and smiled back. “Is there anything I can do to repay you? Perhaps help you find others of your kind? A family or friends?”
Spotty tossed back her head and laughed. “Nah! I be fine here with my drums and fife. Besides, who’d take care of Papa if I left? This calls for a dance! The sun has found her spark!”
Before Spotty could start back into her singing, Celestia held up a hoof and shook her head.
“I wish I could stay a while longer, Spotty, but I need to get home. There is a sick filly that needs my help, and somepony I need to make sure is alright.”
“Ah, I see, I see.” Spotty gave Celestia a sly wink. “The ol’ lick n’ slide, huh? Well, good luck to you, Salty! If you ever need advice, Spotty has several books from her Gwan that can be of help.” Spotty nodded a couple times for emphasis before starting off down the path leaving a concerned Celestia standing next to the pond.
She shook her head, and, having resolved to do something for Spotty in the near future, teleported towards home.
Not directly home, however. Rather than Canterlot, or her nearest point to Sparkledale, Celestia went to her and Luna’s old castle in the Everfree. Before anything else, she had to be certain of what she’d seen and experienced with Rarity. Had it been a dream or fabrication of the pond, or something else. Emersed in the aether, she had a few minutes to contemplate and worry.
It was the appearance of the tablet that troubled her most. The Moirai’s Tablet, it had been called. Who or what the Moirai were eluded Celestia. It was a term she thought she’d heard at some point, but it could have been wishful thinking or a trick of memory.
After more than a few long, freezing minutes, Celestia appeared within the old chamber for the Elements of Harmony. The brass stand for the artifacts was empty, as it had been for years, and she paid it no mind as she went out into the fading night.
The temple from the vision was not far from the castle by flight, and it was only a couple minutes before Celestia’s hooves were clicking on weathered, broken flagstone steps. Old, once iron bound doors sat ajar and leaning off their hinges, blocking her entrance. A quick scan of the area told her little, except that nothing but small critters had been in the area in the last while.
Preparing herself for what she might find inside, Celestia ducked through the gap. The temple was exactly as it had been when pulled to the spot by Rarity. Ivy and detris in green-brown clumps, and the roof open to the stars. Of Rarity, there was no sign.
Celestia released a breath she’d been unaware of holding.
Searching the ruins revealed nothing. No magical residue of any sort beyond the Everfree’s own natural energies, the place where Rarity had lain was undisturbed, and there wasn’t a hint of any tablets or powerful enchantments. Just a simple, normal ruin of the sort that could be found in most every forest or wild area on the disc.
Overcome with relief, Celestia left the temple and took once more to the sky, angling towards the east. Just to be certain, she’d go to Ponyville after tending to matters in Sparkledale.