Myths and Birthrights

by Tundara

Book One: Chapter Sixteen: Beneath the Aurora

Myths and Birthrights
By Tundara

Book One: Awakening and Arrivals
Chapter Sixteen: Beneath the Aurora

Hooves squelching through the mud brought Fleur’s head up from where she rested in the shade cast by one of the two-faced statues. Picking his way through the ruts formed by the marines and sailors, Timely called over, “Is everything alright, ambassador? You’ve been sitting here, alone, with a growing glumness that’s starting to spread.”

Fleur gave her head a slow, depressed shake. “I was thinking about my dear Fancy. What must he be doing all alone in the manor.”

“Surely, you do not think he’s being unfaithful?” Timely gave Fleur a thoroughly disapproving, watery stare.

“Mon dui! Non, not my Fancy Pants!” Fleur was a little too forceful in her defence. Her ears drooped a bit as Timely continued to stare. Unable to maintain her poise, she drifted her gaze over the seamares as they milled about, or the soldiers tense at their appointed posts. “A little, perhaps,” she eventually admitted. “But only just a very little. I would have no worry if we had another wife. This is the first Season we’ve been apart since we met, and I can not stop myself from missing him.”

“In this, I am afraid, I am a rather poor stallion within which to seek solace.” Timely huffed and peered towards the distant Bellerophon. “I’ve never been much for romance or love. The only mare I ever cared about dashed my expectations most convincingly. Observing other couples in their stated bliss has been equally discouraging, to the point it has become a wonder for me that any pony should stand to be in the company of another in anything short of brotherly bonds. Marriage seems to be something ponies do because we are told we must, then resent once it has been attained and the glamour falls away. It is exceptionally rare to find any couple that refutes this trend. Possessiveness is to be expected, as is the fear of a wandering eye.”

“Are my thoughts so unfair, doctor?” Fleur asked with a sad smile, hoping to correct his course before he said any more that he’d later regret.

“No,” he continued in an even greater passion, “too many mares have I treated for this or that assorted debauchery, or known to be cruel, self-serving, and snide. No, I am afraid the only comfort I can give is that the Fancy Pants I met at the Royal Society of Equestria is not so callous a stallion to abandon your affections so casually.”

Fleur jerked her head up sharply. “You know my Fancy?”

“Not well, and it has been years since we last spoke. Why, it would be before I began my present occupation as a ship’s surgeon, and before you courted him, I dare venture.” Timely let out a slow hum, lost in his memories a moment. “Under usual circumstances I deplore a gossip. But, since it will put you at ease, I can tell you this much; in the days I knew Fancy Pants it was the idea among the Society that he rather preferred the company of other stallions. No mare could catch his eye, and there were plenty who tried. There was never a shortage of pretty young things vying for the heart you have captivated. It’s plain now he was just waiting for the right mare to lay claim to his affections. I salute you on your victory.”

A small glass of bitter, black coffee was produced and raised in toast. Blushing, Fleur thanked the doctor for his encouragement, her heart a little lighter and a dopey smile on her face.

“I’m not alone in his heart,” she admitted as the praise subsided. “For a time we were both very much in love with lady Belle.”

“Of the Bearers? You do not set your sights low, madam.” Timely lifted up his brow, his habitually chilly eyes softened by surprise.

Fleur inclined her head to the doctor. “The same,” she replied, remembered happiness giving her words a light, bouncy edge and thickening her accent. “She is looking for something or somepony else, however. At least she is my best friend, and that is enough.”

A haphazard, broken silence settled over the pair as they both retreated into private reveries. For Fleur it was that wonderful spring Rarity had been in Canterlot, when she’d gotten to know the mare and it had seemed for a too-brief time that Rarity would join her and Fancy. Judging by the slight twitch in Timely’s eye, and the growing sourness of his expression, his memories were far less pleasant.  

“Perhaps I should have encouraged him to visit Rarity,” Fleur said, giving voice to her thoughts. “Then, if anything happens to me, he’d at least have the company of a good friend to help him. And, if they did stray, it wouldn’t be so bad. I do not belong here. I belong in garden parties, not ruins or battlefields. The worst I’ve faced is snide remarks hidden behind a pleasant smile. This is so far beyond my experience and expertise.” Fleur spoke more to herself, her gaze slowly shifting across the desolate city until it settled on Twilight.

The Princess sat in front of the sealed door, eyes unfocused as she communed with her stars. Dusk was falling, and soon it would be night. A shiver ran up Fleur’s spine as she watched the princess.

There was an undeniable beauty about Twilight. The way the young goddess’ mane sparkled like her namesake was already the envy of many a mare. But, there was also something off that filled Fleur with trepidation. She wondered if it was merely some effect of Athena’s presence, or if it was all in her own head. Not that there was much difference.

Sharing Fleur’s gaze, Timely nodded to the princess. “Did lady Belle ever speak of our princess?”

“Non,” Fleur shrugged off her unease. “I always got the impression that she held her other friends in mutual admiration and embarrassment. Twilight and lady Apple she spoke of the most, but it is lady Posey she would talk about with the most affection. For a little while I was a tiny bit jealous. I—”

Fleur’s words become lost in a gasp as auroras flared overhead. The occurrence wasn’t precisely rare, but usually contained to the disc’s rims. Seeing the ghostly sheets spring up in perfect unison, forming criss-crossing patterns in the sudden night filled her with wonder. All through the camp ponies stared, many giving prayers to Twilight, with a few invoking Celestia, Luna, or Faust.

‘The Sun and Moon’s hooves are behind this,’ came Athena’s voice as the auroras grew in intensity.

A grumble from the princess, one carried far by an errant shift in the breeze through the reverent silence of the camp, alerted Fleur to her return. Not that it was unexpected, with the stars blossoming into the night, each in their ancient place. Or, rather, almost all of them, as a glance towards the princess showed her accompanied by two stars.  

Twilight’s rapid fire discussion with the stars was both cute and unsettling to watch. While Fleur caught snippets of the conversations, she was the only other pony present able to hear the stars. Reverent gazes were sent from the common seamares and marines towards the princess. After a time of Twilight going back and forth with her stars, Rainbow got up and joined her friend. 

Uncertain whether she should go help Twilight or not—though what help she could provide, she knew not—Fleur remained in her little, secluded corner of the plaza. Timely didn’t stay long, departing to speak with the lieutenant and captain of the marines, and her loneliness settled over her withers like an old blanket once more.

There was no surprise, just nodded acceptance of the natural order of the universe, when Twilight at last opened the great doors. They swung inward with a deep groan, grime encrusted hinges protesting after so many thousands of years disuse.  

An argument broke out the moment Twilight started towards the door, a wing used to block Rainbow’s path. Fleur closed her eyes and shut out the high pitched voices. She was rather shocked when Twilight entered the palace, alone, an angry murmur flitting through the seamares. To a mare, they had gotten her things ready to follow her. The only pony who could have looked less pleased than Rainbow was Polished Armor, both staring daggers at the door long after Twilight had vanished through it, and it’d shut with an ominous boom.

Every few breaths, Rainbow twitched an ear or wing, a grunt or huff accompanying the motion. After a few hours, Rainbow got up and went to sit near Fleur, drawn by the smell of warm food being passed out.

“I can’t believe she left me!” Rainbow protested, not for the first time, hoof thrust at the door. “So the door made me a little queasy, I would have been fine.”

“Oui,” Fleur simply said, offering Rainbow a plate of hash and asparagus.

‘She’s brave’, Athena admitted, nodding towards the door and Twilight, an action Fleur was made to carry out. ‘Astraea would never have marched into the fortress of a Demon Queen. Or perhaps she naively believes that she can defeat Leviathan in the queen’s own lair. Either way, she’s changed with her reincarnation.’

“Je ne comprende pas tu—”

“Sheesh, speak Equestrian, Fleur. Not all of us know ‘fancy’,” Rainbow snapped, her wings shooting out along with a sideways glare.

Fleur ignored the interruption, closing her eyes.

A ghostly apparition of Athena appeared in the self-imposed darkness. It was not exactly like looking into a mirror. Athena was, after all, larger, with wings pressed against her sides, and her eyes a slightly lighter shade of pink. Still, it was easy to see where Tyr’s initial confusion had come from when they’d first met.  

In this way, while nothing was said outwardly and, to all the other ponies around her, it looked like Fleur was in a trance, she could hold an actual conversation with her unwanted guest.

“What is this about reincarnation?” Fleur asked, wanting clarification in case the crazed dead Goddess was near.

Athena gave a small smile accompanied by a shrug of her wings, waving one to reform the stark black of their shared mindscape into a delightful little garden. Taking a seat at a table situated in a sunny gazebo, she said, “Only that Twilight is Astraea. Or rather, she’s the part of Astraea that arrived first. If I had to guess, the wish she—Astraea I mean, of course—created to send us here tore her into two halves. In this way she was like… bookends, leading the way here while also trailing behind to contain the rest of us. Which creates a whole host of interesting questions.”

“Like?” Fleur took the seat opposite Athena.

“Oh, the nature of an alicorn’s essence. Whether we are defined by the composition of our energy or do we define it ourselves. Things of that ilk.” Athena conjured up a wisp of smoke and formed it into a tea service. “She is whole and complete, as vibrant as ever. Her essence almost unchanged. Yet, there remains a remnant of Astraea, this shade, lurking in the shadows. How can this be? I suspect Iridia’s horn at play, but I have little way to confirm or disprove my suspicions. So many ideas to consider.”

“So, she is Astraea?”

“Not at all. She is Twilight. There are differences between them, the faintest alterations in the notes of their essence. Astraea was merely the clay that was shaped into the young goddess, nothing more. As the centuries pass these differences will be amplified. Already I see almost nothing of the goddess I knew for so many ages.” Athena shifted in her seat and peered beyond the garden through Fleur’s eyes towards the once more sealed doors. “All this is interesting to me, obviously. I worry for my other cousins. What will become of those who chose to be reborn? Will they become as Twilight? And, does it mean we are not as different from you mortals as we’d always believed. But, you no doubt find this discussion rather dull.”

“You are right, this is of little interest to me,” Fleur smirked as she took up a cup of tea, blowing across it twice before taking a sip. “Besides, it is you I want to learn more about.”

Athena inclined her head a little, and paused just before pouring herself some of the tea. “That is understandable. I did steal your fate, after-all. Pointless, in the end, but I can understand your curiosity. I will not, however, satiate it. Certainly not this night as there are far more pressing concerns.”  

“Oh?” Fleur’s cup paused just in front of her lips.

“This island’s guardians begin to make their move. Something has changed, and they are no longer content with watching us.” There was a happy flicker behind Athena’s eyes as she looked past the boundaries of the mindscape to the sailors and soldiers milling about the plaza. “This will be glorious, and you will require my aid before the night is done. Ah, and so it begins.”

The words had no sooner flown from Athena than an alarmed shout tore Fleur from her reverie with the goddess. Behind her, stone groaned and rattled. Rainbow jumped away, lithe as a cat, and crouched low to face the new danger. Far less agile, Fleur scampered to the pegasus’ side. Her jaw fell open as the statue under which she’d been reclining stepped from its plinth, eyes glowing gold and settling on the pair of ponies.

With a wordless roar, the statue leapt forward, as did a hundred others around the plaza, and thousand more throughout the ruins. Heavy hooves crunched into the hardening ground, then swung up in a blow that Rainbow dodged with ease. Fleur’s eyes widened and in her head Athena yelled at her to move, but she was rooted to the spot. Pain erupted in through her head as the hoof found her and sent the disc tumbling around her. With a wet squelch, she landed in a pile of weeds. 

Sound and sight bled together, shouts from the Bellerophon’s crew warbling strangely with distant, bass thumps. Orange flashes lit the far buildings, clashing with the shimmering fields overhead.

Slowly, the world came back into focus, and Fleur pulled herself out of the hardened, crusty ground. She ached all over; a deep, penetrating ache from using muscles long left dormant in her profession as a diplomat worming through every sinew and fibre of her being. It was a novel sensation, and one she might have almost enjoyed as a result, if not for the reason she’d been in the dirt in the first place.

A sharper, more pressing pain flared down her left shoulder originating from where she’d been hit. Leaning on her right legs to compensate, Fleur clambered through the glowing midnight beneath the furious lines of the auroras. Everything was painted with shimmering lights of ghostly blues and greens punctuated by the occasional flash of a spell.

Only a few steps brought her to the body of one of the seamares felled in the initial, chaotic attack of the golems. Gorge rising, Fleur refused to look away from the mare that had saved her from being crushed. She took up the mare’s boarding pike, taking care to hold it with only a couple small nodules of her aura, rather than engulf the entire weapon.

It took only a few limping steps before the aches began to subside. ‘We are together in this, my vessel,’ came Athena’s voice. ‘I will do my best to lend my strength without causing you further harm.’

“I do not require your help,” Fleur gasped as she rounded a corner and found herself faced with three of the living statues. The golems lumbered towards her, lifeless eyes boring into Fleur.

The first she hooked around the legs, tripping it into its fellows. Down they came with a soft crash into the drying mud. Useless again stone, Fleur didn’t bother to use the pike to stab the golems, instead reaching up to the column on which a golem had rested and pulling it down atop the statues with a booming crunch.

In the distance the base thump of a cannon ruffled across the ruins, punctuated by a brief golden glare. A glance around the area showed the sailors and soldiers just barely holding their lines. On all sides the unliving statues emerged from the flickering darkness, painted by the lights burning across the heavens.

For a second Fleur debated running. She could slip off through the chaos back to the ship. There they could hold off the golems. Even the moment of contemplating the action left her sick to her stomach. Fleur may never have thought she’d be in a fight, much less a pitched battle, but she was not a coward. Before a decision could be reached, it was forced from her, all avenues of retreat choked with ever growing numbers of the animated statues.

Her eyes darted from side to side, judging to see if it were possible to slip through the throng, only to have her attention yanked to the side. “Everypony, over here!” Rainbow shouted as she leapt atop the broken column’s far end. “The ship protects the shore. We must give Twilight the time she needs to find and rescue her stars and Pinkie. We must hold this square. No matter what!”

Together, the sailors and soldiers gave a throaty roar and rallied. Rainbow tossed back her head, mane blending in with the fire through the sky. At her side, captain Polished Armour appeared, horn ablaze with a red aura. Without a spoken word the duo spun around each other; Rainbow bucking and throwing vicious punches, Polished’s spells going off in sharp cracks like miniature cannons.  

Fleur stood in awe as Rainbow darted across the battlefield, living up to her namesake, seeming to be everywhere at once. Never had she felt so out of her own depth than marveling at the storied heroine seemingly turning the tide of the battle single-hoofed. To the left Rainbow saved a group of sailors pressed by a growing number of the two-faced statues. On the right she knocked down a wall preventing another group from being over-run. All the while Polished held the center with his marines, orders barked between the staccato flashes of spells.  

‘There is no doubt, she is battle-born. The true blood of the ancient pegasi is strong in her veins.’ Athena chuckled darkly in the corner of Fleur’s thoughts. ‘Are you certain you do not wish my aid, ambassador? You are no soldier, and certainly not a heroine of her calibre.’

“I am fine.” Fleur shook her head and went in search of Timely, taking care to avoid the fighting. Perhaps she’d be of some help to the doctor.

“There you are, ambassador,” Polished shouted across the battlefield, his voice affixing her to the spot as if it were a barbed spear. Her heart twisted itself into a knot, and she prayed that he would not call her over. She could not fight, not as the soldiers, sailors, and Rainbow. “I started to wonder if I was going to have to go looking for you. No, don’t bother with inner circle evocations, Lefty, these brutes are magic hardened. Hit them with either something from the middle circles or just a heavy enough blast of pure force if that is all you can manage.” This he called to one of the marines that had been attempting to use a basic flame conjuration.

Returning his attention to Fleur, Polished pointed to a segment of the courtyard where the statues had not reached. “Best to stay down, ambassador. Hate to have tell the princesses you went and got yourself killed attempting some foalish heroics. Leave this to us; we’ll keep you safe.”

He said nothing more, and dismissed her entirely, turning to smash one of the larger statues.

Head held low, Fleur slunk towards the spot, spying as she went that it was where Timely had set up shop beneath a canvass overhang. Little Ophelia was at the doctor’s side with a trio of the largest foremast jacks. The burley seamares helped the young midshipmare erect some barricades for defenders to fall behind if they were over-run.  

‘You need not hide and cower. Even as you are you can be of some assistance.’ Athena’s disapproval was thick in her voice and the chill that rippled down Fleur’s neck.  

She crossed the ground to the doctor and midshipmare in silent shame, head hung low and unable to look in the direction of the seamares. On reaching the small group, Fleur was ordered to help with the barricades. Magic stretched out and grabbed the fallen pillars and blocks of stone, what would have once been impossible for Fleur to lift now light in her aura. The shift in her magical strength astounded even the doctor, his brows shooting up with surprise as Fleur deposited the lot. At Ophelia’s direction, Fleur began to shift and move the blocks, a little, short vived pulse of happiness at providing some help warming her heart.

Before she could set the last of the blocks down, one of the largest of the animate statues came thundering up the steps, a dozen of the smaller golems in its shadow. With a trumpeting below it smashed through the defending line and came straight for Fleur.

Confidence from moving the blocks overcoming her doubts, Fleur hurled a ram shaped burst of pure telekinesis at the brute. It was a blow capable of crushing boulders into rubble, and it glanced off the statue without leaving a scratch, deflected by protective runes carved onto its broad chest.

Gulping, Fleur jumped back and searched for another option.

‘Take up my arms. Take up my Aegis and Pallas, and shatter this brutish construct.’

A spell flashed through Fleur, a rather simple one well within Fleur’s talents even before Athena’s presence. She didn’t recognise the spell’s school, but from Athena’s words assumed it to be a summon of some sort.

Jumping to the side, she called up the runes, aether dancing in a purple-white veil along her horn for only a brief moment the spell required. On either side of her the air was wrenched open, and through the tears fell two items, their appearance felt by those attuned to magic across the disc. Unusual magic, poignant and raw, poured over her, tasting of fire, electricity, and rain.

Then the rifts slammed shut and the strange aether faded to just a slight trace drifting off the two items she’d summoned. Taking them up, she was not surprised to find a shield and spear, but the quality of each stole her breath away.

Solforged steel caught the shimmering light of the aurora full on Aegis’s face, highlighting etched reliefs of ponies marching to war. All along the outermost ring were members of a grand Gaean army, spears raised and shields ready to withstand an unseen enemy. There was a grimness to the soldiers eyes, an acceptance of whatever Fate lay in store on the battlefield, as well as the brilliance of faith in their goddess. Beneath their hooves within the middle ring lay a city of columned temples, expansive palaces, and stout walls. Deeper still, the interior of a senate, complete with senators at debate with hooves raised as they gesticulated in impassioned oration. At the heart of the shield, three owls flew, their wings and talons positioned in such a way as to form a fleur-de-lis. All throughout the engraving runes hummed, their magic excited by the prospect of battle around Fleur.

Aegis’s equal was found in Pallas, the spear’s heavy butted end thumping onto the earth with a sound that echoed through bone and soul. Gold buttons pressed with the same owls as Aegis affixed soft velvet of a deep, imperial purple to the haft. Where Fleur held the spear she could sense a different enchantment behind each button, hidden strands of gold thread binding them together. As the buttons approached the spiral head, with its tuft of white lion mane, they gained in power, feeding into each other until pouring all into the spear’s head. Fleur’s flesh crawled at the unaccustomed sensations spreading back down to her through her aura.

Beyond the sheer beauty and complexity of the weapons, the power each radiated was awe inspiring. These were works of the God of the Forge at his peak, to call them merely exceptional was to sully their lustre.

Fleur took all this in, and a thousand other minor and major details, at the first glance. She did not hesitate to grab them both and thrust Pallas into the nearest of the golems. The statue exploded in a burst of holy light and flame that did not scorch the ponies beside Fleur, but left the other golems blackened with soot and cracked from the heat.      

Cheers broke from the weary sailors and soldiers, their hooves thumping against the hardened dirt in a rousing chorus that sent Fleur’s heart soaring. She smiled wide, and ludicrously, tears wetted her cheeks.  

Shoulder to shoulder with the seamares, Fleur charged into the golems. Where moments before they’d verged on being overrun, the defenders rallied, and then drove the golems back. Pallas performed her work with shocking effect, a single stroke felling two, three, and sometimes four of the golems at once, while no blow could pierce Aegis.

Half their numbers depleted, the broken forms of the fallen littering the ground in jagged stumps, the golems ceased their attack. As one the animated statues turned, like dogs hearing their master whistle might do, then slunk back into the flickering darkness, leaving the ponies panting and exhausted at their barricades.  

Fleur stood vigil the rest of the night on one of the abandoned plinths. The golems did not assault the square again that night, though the flashes and distant rumbles of the Bellerophon’s cannons spoke that things were not so peaceful at the shore.

To one side of the camp, the wounded were taken, the doctor and his apprentice doing their best with the limited resources at hoof. Surprisingly, only a few were laid reverently taken aside and covered with simple cloths. Fleur tried not to think of the dead, and instead focus on… anything else.  

Movement at the edge of the bonfires’ light caught her eye. Too fast for one of the golems, whatever lurked out in the ruins vanished before she could get a clear look. Sometimes she made out claws scrabbling over stone, other times there was a flash of red eyes staring at her from beyond the broken walls and doors of the outlying buildings. Every now and then a tail, covered in dull black scales, slithered across the ground.

Never enough for her to be certain of what she saw, and even Athena stayed quiet on the matter.

“You alright?” Rainbow asked as dawn neared, her question making Fleur jump.

“Oui… I am just nervous, I suppose.” She laughed away her embarrassment, and put her fears aside.

Snorting, Rainbow sat down with a grunt next to Fleur where it was dry. “For good reason. These kinds of places are the worst. I wish Twilight would hurry up so we could get off this rock already. It’s too much like the Temple of the Soulless in Daring Do and the Tablet of Destiny; golem sentinels, and who knows what else next. And there will be more; there always is in the books.”

As if in agreement, a distant thump from one of the Bellerophon’s cannon’s crossed the island. Hearing the ship still firing brought both relief and worry. Whatever was happening at the shore, the ship had not fallen.

“You did good out there, you know.” The begrudging tone to Rainbow’s voice made Fleur lift an eye. “It’s just, you struck me as the prissy type… kinda like Rarity. Or… the old Rarity. Before we started going on adventures I mean. Though she’s always been tough, I guess, under the frills and lace. And I am making a mess of this. What I am trying to say is that you really helped out, and thanks.”

Fleur shook her head and found herself unable to maintain eye contact. “I am no hero. If not for a magic spear, I would have been useless to everypony. Not like you and the other Elements. Even Athena was impressed with you tonight.”

“Yeah? Well, I am awesome.” Rainbow puffed out her chest and grinned wide, though Fleur detected the deep, underlying doubts in the pegasus. “What did she say, exactly. Just, you know, out of curiosity.”

“That you are a true hero, and remind her of the ancient pegasi.”

A dopey grin flourished on Rainbow’s face, and she tossed back her head in a squawking laugh. Patting Fleur on the withers, Rainbow said with a long chuckle, “You’re alright, Fleur,” and then got up to patrol the perimeter again.  

With the sun risen, Fleur at last relaxed and laid her head down to rest. The dawn quieted the heavens, though, curiously, Fleur noted more than a few stars still shining within the blue sheen.

An hour more passed without incident, then two. Fleur managed only a short nap, her eyes seeming to close only for a moment, but for the sun to almost reach its zenith in the span of that blink. It was at that same time the golems reappeared, but did not attack. They stood around the camp, four hundred in number, and ranging in size from a little bigger than a filly, to one that was twenty hooves tall in the shoulder.

Weary and hungry, Fleur snatched up Pallas and brought Aegis close to her side. Likewise, all the sailors and soldiers readied themselves. Magic was prepared, bolts readied in heavy siege-crossbows, and war-shoes rang beneath stamped hooves.

From out of sight came the curdling howl of some beast, and the golems lurched into a charge.  

Magic danced through the air around River, floating off her small antlers in puffs of fey fire before moving off into the distance. Ancient in design, the spell was only comprised of a single runes shaped by River’s will. In this sense, it wasn’t even a proper spell as practiced by the rest of the disc. Imprecise and terribly inefficient compared to more traditional spellcraft, but River didn’t know any other magic capable of producing the same result.

Not alone in casting the spell, four of her best apprentices were spread around the camp  at equidistant intervals forming a five pointed star. In this manner, by working their magic together, they heightened and layered the effects, and in turn created the actual spell. Each acted as a single part of the structure, River forming the spell’s base, three of her apprentices the frame, and the fourth the cap. It was the same methodology used for thousands of years by the Solar Cabal. Though, their spellwork was far less complex than those worked by the unicorns of old.

Flopping into the tall grass, the fey fire burned for a few seconds before fading away. Together, they formed a powerful barrier in a perfect circle that kept those of vile intentions out. The barrier could not bar the doshaa entry indefinitely, and it had to be continually maintained, members of the circle rotated out as they grew exhausted, but it would protect those within from being possessed for a time. Long enough to deal with the situation. Or so she hoped.

Letting her magic fade, River’s place was taken by Little Hoof, her most seasoned apprentice smiling at the honour. She stayed to watch only a few minutes to make sure the casting didn’t falter with the exchange before moving off to find a place to rest and regather her strength. Holding back a yawn, River sat down in the shade to watch the road leading to Diamonds Down.

Underneath the somber orange glow of twilight, the approaching crowd of ponies were easy to distinguish, as were the makeshift weapons they carried. Mostly torches and pitchforks from the flickering lights and pronged shadows. A few proper weapons were among the mob as well, in the form of a some spears and a single large pony decked in what had to be armour forged during the War of the Sun and Moon.

Ponies, at least, knew their traditions, River wrily thought to herself.
 
Behind River, a creche rhyme drifted from the fawns’ caretakers as they readied the little ones to be taken to a hiding place in the nearby woods.

Left unspoken, the words hovered on River’s tongue in time to the slow tune.

‘Oh, little halla, don’t you run and play; hear what your elders have to say.
Monsters lurk in the depths of night; waiting to steal you from the light.
When they catch you do not look; fear not the bloody, dangling hook.
Your end is near and you cannot run; this is the end of your fun.’

With great care, River drew her mother’s sword and held it in front of her. She stared at the golden runes running down the fuller and the intricate pegasi that formed the crosspiece. Her wintery magic flickered along the the hilt, small puffs of aether popping where her grip was uncertain.

“What would you do, mother, were you me? What would the Sorceress do?” She threw back her head as a bitter laugh burst from her, shoulders sagging from a growing weight. “Fie! As if I do not know. You would march ahead, alone, and tell the ponies to disperse, and when they did not, you would summon some beast or spirit to drive them away. Perhaps one or two would be hurt, maybe even killed, and you would not shed a tear, or so the scullery maids would have me believe. Or maybe you’d give the filly over. What is she to you, after all? Is that what I should do?”

River took a deep breath and sheathed Llallawynn, allowing the familiar weight to act as balm for her conflicted heart.

“It is a good thing I am not you, mother,” she said with an odd sort of chuckle, like a dry wind blowing through reeds. “Fie, what you would have done to the milk headed sods in Thornhaven that claim to be grandmasters, so terrified of you they would not allow me to learn your true name. You would not have run away with your tail between your legs seeking succor from the Springbringer, of that I am sure.”  

River returned to considering the ponies again until they vanished behind a last knoll.

“Perhaps I am wrong. I know so little about you, mother. Only what few scraps could be gleaned overhearing whispers. How everyone trembles at your memory. Yet, I do not even know your name.” 

Her ears flickered towards the final whisper of flint gliding over steel and the general commotion of hooves rushing to answer sharp commands. The relaxed air of the season was gone, transformed into one heavy with the anticipation of battle. She didn’t get up when the ponies began to reappear, their pace slowed to a determined trot on seeing the gathering lines of the halla.

For what was to come, River had no role. She was the herd’s spiritual centre, the driving force behind their self-imposed exile, but not their day-to-day leader. Besides, everyone already knew their roles in a fight. The Bears would take the lead, with the rest of the herd at their backs. Only a few of the creche-mothers would sit the fight out to tend to the fawns. If a fight came at all.

The crunch of gravel alerted River that her solitude had come to an end. Ear twisted towards the sound, she needed not look to know it was Mountain, his heavy tread easy to discern.

“I’ve been trying to decide what to do,” she stated as way of greeting, head turned a little so Mountain was visible at the corner of her eye. “Why is it coming to this? This is Equestria, and the dominion of the Sun. Why has Celestia abandoned her little ponies?”

He frowned a little, his mustache drooping just enough to look like a limp caterpillar attached to his upper lip.

“‘Wicked were Her ways, maggots falling in Her hoofprints. Gone were the sparks from the village, the eyes of ponies dead to look upon. ‘Fear me,’ spake the demon, ‘for I hast taken all hope of tomorrow.’ Forsaken, the ponies laid down, and were dead.’” Mountain sucked in a long breath through his nose. “The goddesses have much to contend with. Guessing after their absence is pointless. The doshaa has that village wrapped around his hoof, and we protect our own.”

River curled her upper lip in a snarl. “My mother would have found a way to protect her herd and the ponies. She’d have refused the disc telling her it was impossible and clawed herself a new path with bloody hooves, if she must.” Mountain gave her a sideways glance. Quickly, before he could break into her thoughts, she continued. “I know I place her deeds on a pedestal, one I can never hope to compare. Maybe it would be easier if I had more than a title to judge her by. It is so easy to see only great and terrible deeds, and not the pony formed of losses and triumphs, filled with private hopes and doubts when all you know is that she is The Sorceress and could command archons, demons, and more with but a breath. How can I hope to compare? How can I hope to protect my halla? I lead you into exile, and it was my curiosity that dragged us into this conflict. We have no place here, not when demons and alicorns prepare for war. What chance do mortals like us have against such forces?” River brushed back her mane, weary over what approached.

Mountained did not respond.

After a few more minutes, she asked, “Everything is ready?”

“We may be far from our home, but we are halla; there is little preparation to be made. The fawns have been gathered. They are a little anxious, but otherwise think it a game. Spears have been sharpened, shields are at the ready, and all that. Assuming the ponies decide to fight. They are a skittish lot, even with their strings being pulled. I’ve seen voles less jumpy on an open field as a sparrow hawk circled overhead.” Mountain shook with laughter at some memory, his small, blue eyes crinkling in the corner as his low, owlish hoots flowed past River. “Oh,” he said when his amusement had come to an end and he stood to leave, “Trixie is going to sneak off with the foal.”

River nodded at the information. She suspected the trickster would try to escape.

It was for the best they left. The doshaa had no interest in the halla, and, once he realised Trixie was using them as a distraction, would chase after her. He’d attempt to cause some havoc to cover his pursuit, but otherwise, the halla were beneath his contempt or concern.

But it was a trap. He wanted Trixie and Shyara separated and away from the halla. In the woods he could take his leisure in capturing the filly-goddess.

It would not be long until the ponies arrived, a half hour at best. The doshaa timed it just so that Sol would set moments before they arrived.

Shaking her head at the futility of the ponies, River left her spot and went to find Trixie. A good two dozen battle-ready halla already waited at the edge of the camp, grim faced and spears leaning against their shoulders in ready anticipation. They nodded and bowed to the Grand Master of the Lions as she passed, the devotion in their large brown eyes leaving her with a hollowness in her heart.

She did not deserve their trust.

Finding Trixie at her tent along with Shyara brought a little surprised snort from River, only because she’d half-assumed the pair would have already vanished.

“I’m just saying, Trixie, that even if they kill all the ponies—which is a very real possibility!—the demon won’t be stopped. Not unless we do something really drastic.”    

Shyara sat on a log next to the open tent, her face long and sour. Inside, Trixie threw her possessions into a set of saddlebags in rough order, stuffing this and that in a heap before flipping the weaved flaps down. Over her withers, she tossed her cape and perched her ratty old hat on her head.

Watching them squabble made River smile and shake her head at her earlier reticence towards helping the pair. If the Springbringer could have seen her, she’d have had strong words for such callousness.

Wracked by an incredulous laugh, Trixie thumped a hoof to her chest. “It almost killed Trixie last time, and that was with the help of… that other cloud-thing. No, we have to get far, far away from here. Maybe lose it in the mountains.”

Clearing her throat to announce her presence, River stepped up to the pair. “Any old mountain will not do. The doshaa can follow the little goddess, no matter where she runs, and he is enlisting more and more help in capturing her.” River shook her antlers in the direction of the villagers.

“That is what I’ve been saying,” Shyara tossed up her hooves and rolled off the log. “My real mother wouldn't run from a mere doshaa.”    

Trixie stiffened, paused, then tightened the straps of her saddlebags. “It is a good thing Trixie isn’t your real mother then, isn’t it,” she snapped and marched out of the tent. “Because  Trixie can see only one solution now; she will take you to Canterlot!”

Whatever reaction Trixie expected, she did not receive it as such. She held a triumphant hoof in the air, while Shyara slunk down and buried her head in her hooves. Head tilted to one side, River turned the idea over in her head.

As plans went, it was not the worst. No demon save perhaps the greatest dukes and kings would consider venturing near the home of the goddesses. Only a few such beings had ever darkened the disc with their presence, and almost all had subsequently been banished.  There was no place safer on the disc for a young alicorn.

The trouble was reaching the sanctuary. Canterlot was hundreds of leagues away. There was no way Trixie and Shyara could avoid falling into the demon’s clutches the entire way without magical assistance of some sort. By the same measure, all the rather limited options required outside intervention. Without the aid of one of the goddesses, River could not see any happy conclusion.  

“You, perchance, know how to teleport?” River asked after turning the rather limited options over in her head a second time. Trixie shook her head. “What about… uh… a bilröst? Does Equestria have such?”

“Trixie has no idea what a ‘bilröst’ is supposed to be.”

“Um, a bridge,” River furrowed her brow as she fought to find the proper translation. “It connects to places so you can travel fast over great distances.”

“You mean a Gate?” Trixie tossed back her head and snorted, then laughed, when River nodded. “You read too many stories, Mother River. Trixie has never heard or seen of a functional Gate. Even the supposed Gold Gate to Tartarus or the Silver Gate of Saddle Arabia have never opened, except in the Book of Names. Next you’ll ask if Trixie can turn into a dragon to fly away!”  

“Fie, such magic died with Sombra, sadly,” River gruffly replied, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. The mention of the old wizard did bring to mind another possibility. On her side, Llallawynn felt a little lighter. “We will simply have to kill the demon then.”

“Yes! Exactly! Smite it, and smite it again, until it slinks back to whatever hole it calls home.” Shyara clapped her hooves while Trixie looked as if River had gone mad.

“If you have forgotten, that monster already killed Trixie once, and was only stopped because of…” Trixie’s incredulous voice clamped shut, her eyes drifting over to Shyara before reaffixing themselves to River. “How do you propose killing such a thing?”

With a sharp ring, River drew her sword and said, “With this.”

Shyara’s eyes danced with delight, and the filly grinned wider still, while Trixie looked if anything, more incredulous. “That’s a starforged sword,” Shyara cooed, jumping off her stump to get a better look at the weapon. “Double-edged, starheart steel with gold plated cross-guard and a blue diamond pommel; Mother used to have one just like her. This could work. Where did she come from?”

“Once she was the star Wynn,” River explained, turning the sword this way and that so Shyara could see it from every angle. “She was trapped in her own sword by Iridia during the Long Winter.”

“That would do it.” Shyara nodded.

“The only problem is she answers to me alone.”

Shyara’s grin faded, her eyes darting over River a few times and then wincing. Putting on a brave smile to replace the one she’d taken from the filly, River said, “I will do my best to keep you safe. Pray I succeed. Should I fail, Trixie, go with your plan. Go to Canterlot.”

River bowed to Shyara and took her leave, making her way towards where the other halla gathered. Along the way she checked on her apprentices. The strain of the spell showed on their faces, sweat trickling down their brows and Little Hoof having to be replaced by Whispering Brook.

Only a little longer, River said to herself, and they’d be able to rest.  

River stopped next to the memorial made for Astraea. There in it’s deepening shadow they watched as Mountain and the herd’s heads calmly trotted towards the approaching ponies to parley. No more than a few lengths from each other, the two groups came to a halt on either side of the invisible boundary and began to speak. Pine Lake did most of the talking, with Blue Bramble and Mountain at her sides. They were too far away for River to overhear what was said, but from the angry glares the ponies gave, it was obvious that a peaceful resolution was unlikely.      

A prickling sensation along the ridges of her antlers alerted River to a shift in the magical currents. She turned her gaze heavenward, and what she saw drove her to her knees with a strangled cry.

From one edge of the disc to the other, the sky was sundered and erupted with iridescent flames. It was the most brilliant aurora seen in an age, as bright, or perhaps brighter, than the one that had preceded the appearance of Discord and the Age of Chaos. Everyone was struck dumb by the sight, the halla giving prayers to Iridia, and the ponies to Faust or Celestia.

Before the flames had begun to fade, all chaos broke loose. A flash from the boundary being shattered broke the newfound night, followed by a long, bubbling scream. Their attention wrenched away from the glory in the heavens, halla and pony alike watched as Pine Lake fell, a long stream of blood flowing from the matron’s throat. The ponies attempted to back away, while Mountain lept ahead, his bladed antlers put to grim use on the villagers’ entourage. Bramble did not join the charge, dropping instead to press his hooves and magic to Pine’s neck in a futile effort to stem the blood gushing from his wife.

There was no hesitation or need for orders among the halla. They surged forward with lowered spears and rage in their eyes. Their hooves ripped clumps of loose sod from the earth as they thundered towards the confused ponies. River stood transfixed and dumbstruck as the halla formed into a wedge moments before the bone rattling thump of them colliding with the villagers. Orders to spare the ponies as much harm as possible were abandoned, the savageness of the matron’s loss driving the halla into a fever pitch. Only a few remembered to blunt their strikes, while the herd’s only wizard and his apprentice did their best to protect both sides.

“Iridia preserve us,” River whispered, breaking from her stupor with a violent shake and ran forward. The demon would be at the heart of events. She had to find him. She had to kill him.

With the barrier broken, the demon did not even attempt to hide his presence. River could taste the foulness in the air, like puss and brimstone mixing together. She could feel dark magic worming its way into her mind, attempting to pull and twist at her senses. It was this magic that fueled the bloodlust, stoking it to greater heights of frenzy. Gritting her teeth and forming her faith as a shield, River plunged deeper into the seeping madness. All around she looked, but for all the effects of the demon’s magic, he himself remained hidden.

Not for long, however, as out of the dusky gloom and smoke Mountain emerged, eyes lifeless and pale. River’s heart plummeted, and she cursed herself a fool for not realising sooner that of course the doshaa would be drawn to the most powerful of the halla’s defenders.

He was not dead, though River was certain that Mountain wished for death at that moment, a prisoner within his own body, forced to watch as the demon used him to commit such terrible acts.

“The Springbringer will not aid you,” the doshaa growled as he approached. “And now, neither will Celestia nor Luna. Your kind will be hunted down by the princesses, and they will not listen to a word you say.”

Along with the demon’s words came a stronger compulsion, slashing through her sanity and hope. She grit her teeth tighter, and pushed back with her faith. The first Priestess of Spring in fifteen hundred years, River would not be driven back by the fiendish presence. Holding her devotion to Iridia close, she tried to keep her legs from trembling.  

“If you think taking one of us will stay our hooves, you do not know halla.” River held Llallawynn so the sword’s point angled towards the demon’s heart, and leapt forward. 

The demon did not even try to dodge. He merely stood there and grinned. River’s resolve faltered, and Llallawynn’s point was turned aside at the last moment to drive into the ground. She stared at her failure, heart sinking while the demon loomed larger. Nothing was said as he swept his antlers into River’s shoulder, but it didn’t need saying. The sneer in those eyes, ones she’d known her entire life, crushed her contempt.

“To think, this is the limit of The Sorceress’ daughter?” The doshaa snorted. “How she would be disappointed to see how pathetic you turned out. She is feared! You, however, are not even worthy of consideration. You shame her House, River Sparkle.”  

No physical blow could have struck so heavy or with such destructive force as the demon’s words.

In that moment she knew that she’d failed her friends, family, and goddess. A test had been placed before her, one she held no doubt her mother would have passed. Her mother would have struck Mountain down, and with him the demon. Her mother would have ended the threat, no matter the cost. Her mother would have been stronger, faster, smarter, and practical.

Not River. A foolish fawn; that was all she’d ever been. One chasing after a shadow and myth. As if it were possible to live up to the expectations of a legend. She’d never had to face a challenge before, everything provided in her gilded prison. A prison she’d enjoyed even as she chafed against its walls.

Consumed with her inability to strike, River did not process the revelation of her mother-name, nor see the steel tipped antlers descend until it was too late.

Blades tore through robe and sinew, cutting her to the bone before sending her sprawling in the dirt. The demon abandoned her there, stepping over her with less concern than he would show a felled tree. “Live or die; it matters not. High Priestess; indeed!”

She stared after him as he left, unable to move or speak. All around her were screams of fear, pain, and rage, but they were distant and blurred as if coming through a thick window. Even the searing agony in her legs was muted, seeming a terrible fantasy drawn from whatever Tartarus induced nightmare into which she’d been plunged.

Blood coursing down her leg, River stood up and staggered away. Llallawynn followed, point scraping through the grass. Her aura clung to the hilt through rote memory and no conscious effort.

Unable to go far, River fell against a tree, eyes rolling as the loss of blood caught up with her. The approach of hooves and then faces looming over her hardly registered, and the touch of magic to her shoulder was acknowledged with little more than a grunt.

Slowly, the world sharpened once more and River looked up to see her faithful apprentices hunched over her, their faces grim and splattered with blood. Little Hoof and Whispering Brook worked in tandem, one binding the wound while the other accelerated the healing process. Both wore the signs of their earlier maintenance of the useless protective wards in their eyes, haggard lines making the does look like old hinds.

“Master, what happened?” Little Hoof asked as they finished their work. “One moment everything was fine, then the heavens tore open, the ward was shattered like a brittle pot filled with frozen piss kicked down a rocky hill, and everyelk is gone mad!”

“Her Grace and the pony; where are they?” River gripped Little Hoof’s leg tight, demanding an answer with the urgency in her eyes as much as her tone.    

Confused for just a moment, Little Hoof pointed off further, towards the fields and woods towards the town. “I saw them a-running that way as if Sombra himself were breathing fire on their tails. Lord Mountain has already gone to protect them, don’t worry Master. He’ll keep them safe from the monster.”

“No, he won’t,” River hissed through her teeth and pulled herself to her hooves. Her legs trembled, and the disc spun again for a moment. Tossing off both her apprentices protests and dizziness, she set off at once. She had to catch up to the demon and atone for her failure. “Tend to the ponies, save all you can,” she commanded.

“But, they killed our—”

“They did not! Now, do as I say.” She stared the pair down until the turned and fled to do as they’d been ordered. Not sparing her apprentices another moment’s consideration, River focused ahead on the woods and finding Mountain.  

Perhaps her test was not yet over. Perhaps there was time to make things right. Trusting herself to the Springbringer, River plunged into the woods.

The Everfree was at its worst. Which was to say muddy, with snagging thorns at every turn and a chill, humid mist lingering just above the detritus, hiding roots and shallow dips that snared Rarity’s hooves, tripping her up and sending her crashing into the dirt.

Bruises covered her knees and a smelly, grey grime matted her coat up to her shoulders. Her once bouncy mane clung to her neck in a hard crust of twigs, leaves, and mud  from when she’d tumbled down a short embankment. Sweat prickled her entire body, especially her face where it ran down in thick rivulets.  

Rarity hadn’t felt so wretched in years.

‘Disgusting thing. So weak, a victim of your own debase nature. You are chattel and incapable of being anything more.’

Gritting her teeth, Rarity stumbled to a stop beneath a gnarled and twisted tree, crumpling into a miserable heap at its base. Hooves thrown over her face, a cry of anguish flowed out of Rarity and into the somber forest. She shook and wept, and when she scrubbed furiously at her face, she found not ordinary tears clinging to her fetlock, but semi-liquid crystals of startling blue. 

‘It can not be helped that you are frail, mortal. Your strength is fleeting and so easily snuffed, like a candle cast into the storm. Soon, I will be free, and none who stand between me and my daughters shall be left untouched. Mark well, Rarity Belle, you are the vessel of my greatness.’

Clutching her head, Rarity tried to shake off the tormenting words. “I will stop you, you horrible thing,” Rarity said, her voice seething between gritted teeth. “Even if it takes all my magic, I’ll find a way to stop you.”

‘You are fated to fail, for I am Serene, and I will sculpt your ugliness into true Beauty.’

Rarity growled deeper, the sound almost feral in it’s impotent rage, and made ready to continue onwards into the dark unknown depths.

A clatter made Rarity jump, magic sparking to the ready as she spun to face whatever beast the Everfree threw at her.

Rather than a vicious manticore, or some other dark horror, the perpetrator was only a burnished red fox staring at her from atop a fallen tree. The golden dusk framed it, making its fur glow and shimmer in the fading light. Rarity began to chuckle at her own foolishness, but stopped short when seven tails fanned out behind it.

A slow chill spread up her back. Each of the fox’s tails were tipped by different white runes that shimmered and pulsed with magic imprinted into the fur. She recognised only two of the runes, those for ‘Grace’ and ‘Fire’, the rest lying somewhere beyond her knowledge.

Rarity wracked her brain to recall the creature’s name and whether it was a threat or not.

The seven-tailed fox certainly didn’t appear dangerous, an impression that was wholly suspect when applied to anything that would call the Everfree home.

Eventually, a name came to Rarity. “You are a kitsune, yes?”

The fox tilted her head but otherwise did not react.

“A nice, um, spirit?” Rarity held her breath, hoping she’d guessed the fox’s nature correctly. She was fairly certain that kitsune were spirits. About seventy percent certain. That was near enough.

The fox grinned, showing her fangs, and jumped down from the log. Swaying like a runway model, the fox approached Rarity with confidence born of many years glimmering in her eyes. Shadows parted like curtains for the fox, the trees opening their limbs so she walked down a sunlit path. Stopping just out of hoof’s reach, nose twitching with curiosity and ears perked forward, the fox stared deep into Rarity’s eyes without any hint of timidness or fear.

An idea came a Rarity. A stupid one, perhaps, but she didn’t know what else to do.

“Do you know Zecroa?” The fox hopped back, ears flicking downwards. “She’s a zebra shaman and lives in this forest. If you can get a message to her…” Rarity’s throat closed off and she looked away in embarrassment.

Of course the fox—kitsune, or whatever—didn’t know Zecora. Why should she be so lucky?        

Darting a little further away, the fox stopped to look back at Rarity and made a waving motion with her tails. Blinking a few times at the gesture, Rarity forced herself up onto her tired hooves and started to follow the fox. Perhaps her idea had not been so terrible after-all.

Deeper into the woods, the kitsune lead her, skipping lightly over fallen trees and through misty gullies. Whenever she got too far ahead, the fox stopped, watching Rarity until she caught up before dashing off again. Twice they crossed deep set prints of one of the more dangerous beasts of the Everfree, and once a trail marked with old hoofprints—one set big, the other small.  

The sight made Rarity grin a little. It had to have been made by Zecora and Apple Bloom during one of their excursions through the forest. A little spring added to her step, she hurried after the kitsune.

Her hooves began to skip across the ground, and Rarity almost laughed the further she was lead. At any moment Zecora and Apple Bloom would appear, the pair no doubt surprised to see Rarity in the woods, and especially in such a state. Those thoughts, along with her momentum, came to an abrupt halt on rounding a old stone column, hooves clattering on a short square of bare cobblestones. Her eyes widened on seeing, not Zecora’s totem surrounded hut, but a run down temple.

The more she peered at the building’s ancient stone face, with it’s doors open and windows empty—save for a few lingering shards of glass stuck in their frames—the more she came to realise that ‘run down’ did not do credit to the temple’s dilapidated nature. Cracks ran up the walls in zig-zags, one side open with tumbled stones littering the ground, trees growing around and over large square blocks. The fox sat expectantly on the stairs, smiling at her and motioning again with her tail before slipping into the ruins.

Maybe Zecora was inside, doing… something.

Rarity gulped at the fleeting thought, her eyes darting to the lengthening shadows of the Everfree. A timberwolf howling in the near-distance spurred her up the dirt encrusted steps and saw her guess to be correct, fresh hoofprints leading into the temple. A deep furrow cutting through the moss and dirt showed where the door had been forced open recently, further confirming Rarity’s belief that Zecora was within. Head held low to avoid a fallen beam, Rarity stepped through the ruin’s door. 

Inside, she found nothing.

The temple’s furniture, and anything not made of ageless stone, had long since rotted into oblivion, leaving only piles of unidentifiable debris in lines and clumps where benches and tables might have once stood. Only a stone altar and statue remained, both sitting beneath a hole in the roof, illuminated by the dusk sun through a slant in the trees.

Narrowing her eyes, Rarity followed the hoofprints right up to the statue where the fox sat, grinning. There, the prints circled a few times before vanishing.

She blinked, trying to process how the prints just disappeared, her gaze trailing inexorably up to the statue.

A few stubborn flakes of red paint clung to the marble statue’s mane. Not that the paint was at all required for Rarity to recognise the Namegiver. The statue almost seemed alive, the way the approaching dusk played across its features. Her breath hitched in her throat, and, for a few precious moments, she was certain the statue would take a breath and step off her plinth.

“A silly idea,” Rarity huffed turning away, looking for the kitsune. “Why did you bring me here?” she started to demand of the kitsune, only to find it standing on the ledge of a broken wall. Motioning with a paw for her to stay, the kitsune leapt over the edge, re-appearing further away on the rise of a sunlit hill where it stopped and made the same gesture again before vanishing into the forest.

For a few, agonizing minutes Rarity gaped at the spot the kitsune had stood, expecting her to re-emerge at any moment with Zecora, or somepony, in tow.

“Fine then, I’ll find my own way,” Rarity snapped, ready to leave the ruins.

The grinding of stone on stone stopped her, hackles rising and a chill whispering down her neck. Eyes wide, Rarity turned her head slowly looking back to the statue. It moved. With wings stretched out, the statue released a long, drowsy moan and shook, the gathered grim from her withers and head filling the air in a cloud of white.

“Faust!” Rarity cried, dropping to her knees in supplication.

“Time we do not have for greetings or banter, Generosity.” The statue’s words were quick and precise, inflected with a lilting grace that sent a thrill into Rarity’s racing heart. The oddness at hearing such a pure, sweet voice from the statue surprised Rarity far more than it coming to life. “Moments, no more, until She returns from taunting the Stars. Listen quick, and listen well. Take our tablet. Take it and use it to cast out the foulness that grasps at thy soul.” With a wave of her stone hoof a tablet appeared, hovering just before Rarity.

Rarity’s horn prickled, her nerves crawling like she was covered in spiders as a rush of raw and primordial magic flooded through the ruins. It’s face shifted constantly, flashing through languages never spoken on the disc and those lost to antiquity before reaching a few Rarity recognised but could not read. Overcome by the magic, she tried to step back, eyes darting to the side and wanting nothing more than to run, but was rooted to the spot.

Rarity had pioneered techniques on creating multilayered enchantments by binding them into individual threads before weaving the fabric. Yet the complexity of the tablet was beyond anything she’d dared imagine. It hurt to look on the ever shifting glyphs and her heart sank to know that she would never be able to create something with a thousandth the quality. Worse, the tablet carried the characteristics of something both new, and something that had existed for three eternities, at the same time. The incongruency of the tablet’s existence filled Rarity with a dread she’d not experienced since Serene had first made herself known.

Everything about the tablet’s existence was wrong. It did not belong on the disc; of this Rarity was certain.  
 
Questions danced on Rarity’s lips, and in the back of her mind she could sense Serene’s building ire. About to ask what she was expected to do with the tablet, Rarity found the statue already settled back on her pedestal, returning to her previous pose.

“Hush, I must go. Envy returns and she must not know we spoke.”

“No, wait!” A pleading hoof reached for the statue, but it was too late. “Tell me what to do!” Rarity screamed at the impassive statue. Grabbing a stone in her magic, she hurled it and chipped the statue’s eye. “Tell me, damn you, Faust!”

Rarity slumped against the statue’s base. She wanted to continue screaming, or cry again, but instead all she did was wilt and tremble, eyelids pressed tight. Part of her prayed that, at any moment, Celestia would come through the broken doorway, summoned by some ancient warning spell.

No help appeared out of the gloom to whisk her to safety. She was alone, again, with only the tormenting shade clawing at her sanity. If not for the tablet, Rarity would have thought herself mad and believed Faust’s statue speaking to her had only been in her head. 

Frustration building in her throat, she grabbed the tablet with her hooves and raised it as if to hurl the useless thing. She jerked back, unbalanced by its lightness, as if it were made of foam and not stone. Held just over her head, Rarity peered at the shifting words and was overcome with curiosity, along with a fleeting flicker of hope. It availed her nothing. No matter how she turned it, it’s secrets remained hidden from her eyes.

Unleashing a feral growl, she hurled the tablet down, a crack resounding throughout the temple as stone met stone.

She expected Serene’s taunting voice at any moment, but all she got was a budding dark amusement from the shade gnawing on her soul.

Weary, broken, and defeated, Rarity collapsed onto the hard floor. The weight of this fresh failure, atop all those that had come before, was too great. She rolled onto her side, resting her head against the tablet and letting tears trickle down her face.

She cursed her inability to defeat the shade. A word to Fluttershy, that is all and the princesses would have been involved.

Dejected and alone, she couldn’t muster the strength to stand, much less resume wandering through the forest. The temple was as good a place as any to rest and pass the night. Better than some muddy hole, at least. Where she would go on the morning eluded her.

As she lay there, hopes in a spiral, night came to the disc, and the sky bloomed with a wondrous sight. Curtains of dancing light floated across the velvet tapestry, like a dozen Celestias had taken to racing each other, their manes and tails flowing behind in their passing.

For ages the auroras shimmered, and the whole time Rarity prayed. She prayed to Faust, to Celestia and Luna, and even to Twilight, but nopony answered. This defeat was the worst yet, and Rarity covered her face as inconsolable tears ran down her cheeks to drip onto the tablet.

At some point, sleep claimed her, dragging her down into turbulent, tortuous dreams. She wandered through shifting fields and places. One moment in her old home in Baltimare overlooking a shining desert plied by tall ships and rowing galleys, having dinner with her father, and both mothers, all of them ghostly apparitions. In the next she stood atop Canterlot Castle looking out over a sea of torches. Plumes of fire reached up in the distance, and she thought them rather pretty, but wished that they would not come her way.

She turned at a noise, the massive doors of the palace’s Great Hall open wide before her. The Gala of the Stars was in full swing as she entered. Moving through the crowd with practiced ease, she could not but smile, stopping to chat with nearly everypony she passed. Senators and kings all vied for her attention, lavishing kisses upon her hooves, and, wherever she went, everypony bowed and scraped for a single moment of her smile.

Nearing the heart of the party, the crowd thinned out, then disappeared, and Rarity was alone. Warmth prickled along her back and flanks, growing until it was a sharp heat as though she was standing next to a bonfire. A flicker of orange caught her attention, and, turning, she saw Celestia.

The princess sat upon a sunburst throne at the very heart of the palace gardens, both the source of an immense blaze, and surrounded by it. The shrubs and topiary waved and crackled in a pantomime of flames as they paced in a slow, methodical circle. Ponies of all shapes and sorts formed leafy walls and closed in around them. To either side of Celestia stood a champion burning with the echoes of her flames, the unicorns bent forward as they brushed her coat and put her mane into an intricate braid.  

One of the topiary, that of a phoenix, plumed with rose petals for wings and tail, flew in a lazy circle around Celestia, haranguing her with a torrent of chirps and chitters. There was an accusatory line to the mythical topiary’s face, beak turned downward into a disapproving frown.

Rarity hesitated at the garden’s edge, immobile, her hooves bound to the grass. Words danced towards the edge of her lips, but became tumbled and confused, only a weak whimper passing into the garden.

Celestia stiffened and raised her head, but said nothing. She turned slowly towards Rarity and would have stared at her if not for the golden embroided cloth wrapped over her eyes. Twin suns rose behind the princess, each a mirror of the other, with glorious fire unconquered and untamed.

Heart skipping a beat, Rarity found herself next Celestia without taking a step. Around her barrel appeared a simple toga, a tri-gemmed clasp holding the single shoulder strap, while in her curled mane lay a laurel wreath. She turned and took her rightful place at Celestia’s side, the unicorns tending to the princess vanishing, while a great army appeared beyond the garden.

Banners bearing the marks Sol Invictus’ spiral sun were joined by others with filigree entwined gems. To a thunderous din they were stamped and shaken, creating a rolling sea of gold, white, and blue. Commanders and generals, kings and queens marched forth from the ranks to lay treasures and plunder before the twin thrones. From all the corners of Gaea and Ioka they had come to heap their tributes before the goddesses. Hoof raised, Rarity called for silence from the army, her army, a wide grin growing on her face as she turned to ask Celestia if she appreciated this gift.

She studied the princess, basking in Celestia’s unnatural beauty as she would the sun on a pleasant summer day. Everything about her was perfection. Her features were so strong, and nurturing, filled with compassion, love, and warmth that so few got to see. Poets wrote sonnets about Celestia’s mane, none of which ever managed to do the graceful strands true justice. She was more beautiful still, sitting on her throne and eyes ablaze with deep seated passions, the lines of her jaw tense.

Releasing a breath she had been unaware of holding, Rarity said, “You are so beautiful, Celestia,”

There was a ripple through the dreams, cracks forming at the edges of Rarity’s vision, cracks that vanished when she peered in their direction.

The heat emanating from Celestia and the topiary flared, and the army before them was blown away by a sharp gust of burning wind, ashen remains carried off in a dark cloud.

Celestia’s features contorted through a range of emotions, many dark or filled with a searing, seething undercurrent. An ear flickered towards Rarity, but no other sign was given that she’d heard her. Instead, her focus remained ahead, on the fields now covered in a hundred thousand tombstones. She snarled, upper lip curling, wings rigid in her fury, hooves digging at the cushion on which she sat, and smoke trailing out from beneath the blindfold covering her face.

“Why do you torment yourself?” Rarity asked, more to herself than the perfect mare.

The knot holding the blindfold together came undone and fell away, revealing Celestia’s beautiful eyes. Her mane billowed, freed by the same wind that had carried away the soldiers, aetherial strands whipping around her in an echo of the aurora.

“To remember. If I allowed myself to… Every time I touched that power others suffered,” Celestia answered, still looking ahead.

Rarity nodded slowly, and reached up to adjust the admiral’s hat perched just behind her horn before crossing the deck of the Sea Serpent. The crew were arrayed around her and Celestia, all wearing their padded battle-dress. Spears were at their shoulders and shields strapped to their sides, plumed helmets pulled low to hide fierce grins and hollow eyes. They sailed over green fields towards a mountain hanging in the sky.
 
“That can not be true,” Rarity murmured, coming closer to her fellow admiral. “You give so much of yourself, more than any pony I have ever met.”

Her hooves wrapped around Celestia, and she tried to pull her down onto the soft bed that awaited them in their shared bedroom. She buried her face into the princess’ neck, a delightful warmth seeping through the contact.

A long purr broke from Rarity as she nuzzled in deeper. “Mmm, so warm and safe, I wish this could last forever.”

‘Nothing lasts for you mortals. Your fleeting gasps are short and quickly stilled. You can not begin to conceive of ‘forever’.’

Serene’s words shattered the happy illusions, fractured layers of the dream spiralling around Rarity.

“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?”

Clutching her head, she tried to dislodge the shade from her dream, to return to the wonderful quilts and Celestia’s presence. Cruel laughter and a dreadful chill was all she found. Frustrated tears prickled beneath Rarity’s eyes at the loss. Everything was wrong and ruined.

Shrieking louder, Rarity lashed out with a hoof, trying to swat the laughter aside.

“Go away. Faust damn you, go away!”

Such simple words could no more banish the shade than a candle could end the night. Serene struck hard and true, slithering around Rarity and shrieking, “Usurpers! Usurpers all!” as she sought to snuff out Rarity’s light.

Shouting pleas and denials, Rarity thrashed against Serene. She held onto the dream with desperate hooves, seeking succor in its pleasantness. Across a great gulf came Celestia’s questioning voice, and Rarity tried to call to the princess, but the words turned into a long, dragging growl in her throat. Serene gripped her all the tighter and yanked. All the remaining heat from the dream was lost, knocked from Rarity on landing at the base of the statue’s hooves.  

Pulled tighter into a ball, Rarity couldn’t even cry out as she was surrounded by a bleak haze more frightful than anything she’d yet encountered. Fear plucked at her heart like the strings to a slow, haunting dirge. Vile frost scratched through Rarity’s coat, draining all hope, syphoning her joy and creating a hollow shell.  

Movement caught her eye, plumes of gold and red pushing back the darkness encroaching on her sight. Turning her head just a little, even that a terrible strain, Rarity beheld a creature of fire and blinding light appear within the temple’s sanctum. Waves of roiling heat flooded over Rarity, blackening the walls and shrivelling the vine and lichen.

The light hurt, burned her more than the flames, drove her shrieking into a tighter ball.

No, it wasn’t the light, but Serene, the shade sinking her fangs deeper in an effort to use Rarity’s own strength as power.

What came next was all confusion and noise. Rarity’s world spun, light mixing with voices. Somepony asked to give help. Serene hurled a challenge at the light, her mad rants twisting in on itself in frothing denials. Shrieks filled the darkness and fangs bit deep into Rarity’s soul. There was a bang. A flash. And there, crested by the stars at the heart a brilliant sunburst was a pony more beautiful than any Rarity had ever beheld. Raised on hind hoofs, with glorious flame as her armour and blade, she towered over all others, radiant and untouchable.  

Far away in Ponyville, the residents were pulled from their own sleep by a violent bloom of light deep within the Everfree. Several seconds ticked past as they went to their windows wondering what fresh horror the cursed forest had seen fit to conjure. Then a tremendous boom rattled homes and tossed ponies to the floor, undiminished in its violence despite the many miles it had crossed.

Mouths agape, eyes bulging, and skittish hearts at a race, they stared, and stared, and only after many minutes of silence did they hope that whatever had caused the explosion would remain sealed in the choked confines of the Everfree.

Hours passed, Rarity suspended in a plain of golden fire. She was not aware of anything beyond a slow breeze blowing across her face, tempting the flames higher. They did not respond, remaining sedate and low instead, gentle and comforting as a lit mid-winter hearth. Rarity basked in this calming reprieve, and all her troubles melted away into blissful nothingness for a time.

The warmth receded far sooner than she could ever have desired, leaving her cold within a scorched depression where the temple ruins had stood. She lifted her head from the melted stone on which she lay just as Sol crested in the east, banishing the final traces of the aurora from the sky.

Sore all over, but for the first time in what seemed ages, greeted by silence within her thoughts, Rarity pulled herself from the crater. Legs weak, she staggered as if drunk towards the nearby blackened line of trees, not knowing where she was going, only that she had to leave the crater. Little strength had begun to return when she heard voices drifting like smoke from behind her.

Though garbled, the meaning was not as important as the speakers. Rarity didn’t need to understand what was being said to recognise Applejack’s drawl, or the pauses that followed as, presumably, Fluttershy responded. It was the next set of voices that really swept a chill up her back and sent her crashing through the brittle underbrush.

“I see her!” Sweetie shouted, and a glance over her shoulder showed Rarity her sister come bursting through the forest, along with a small group of ponies. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo raced beside their friend, while Applejack, Fluttershy, and a pair of zebras brought up the rear. “Rarity, wait! We want to help.”

Help? For a brief instant Rarity recalled the enveloping warmth. It was an ill-timed memory, as she stumbled out of the forest onto the lip of a long, deep chasm that cleft the forest in half.

On the other side the ruins of the Castle of the Royal Sisters stood in all its decrepit glory. A glance to the left showed the posts for the old, rotten bridge, and the dangling remains of the bridge itself.

“Rarity, hold up,” Applejack shouted, the farmer’s voice affixing Rarity to the spot.

Her hooves trembled, and she could feel Serene beginning to stir once more.

“It’s not safe,” Rarity called back, turning slowly to face her family and friends. “You need to get away from me.”

“Sis, whatever is wrong, we can help you,” Sweetie Belle reached with a pleading hoof, one that broke Rarity’s heart.

She wanted so much to sweep her sister in her hooves and just hold her close. For the waking nightmare to end for good. To be warm and safe, and for Serene to burn once and for all. The thought twisted her lips into a sickly grin, one that brought Sweetie and her friends to a halt, and woke Serene from her slumber.

A gasp strangled in Rarity’s throat, and her face contorted with the effort to hold Serene back. As before she was overwhelmed, though not as quickly, and for a short time Rarity swore that she even managed to push the maniac down a ways. Whatever her advantage was lost, and their positions reversed, with Rarity a prisoner as Serene took hold.

Having watched the invisible battle with growing concern, the group of ponies approached slowly.

“What’s wrong with her?” Apple Bloom whispered loudly to Scootaloo, her friend just shrugging in response.

Serene issued a sharp laugh, flipping her head and taking a step forwards. “Nothing is wrong with me.” She smiled as a viper would on a den of newborn mice, and beckoned them closer. “Come to me, my darling Muses. Come to your mother.”

Before the crusaders could utter more than a confused rumble, Applejack shot out her hoof in front of the trio. Her hat was pushed low over her eyes, the brilliant green cores narrowed not with suspicion, but with anger. “Girls, you need to get back. Now. Miss Paumuut and Miss Laila; could you take the fillies to—”

“No!” Serene stamped a hoof, and the ground beneath her trembled. At her back stones clattered into the chasm, further along a section falling away with a lengthy rumble and clamour. There was magic in her voice, a command that instilled awe as would the presence of a dragon. “You are thieves… Agents of Hera, here to steal my Muses once more. The foolishness of mortals is boundless it seems.”

Applejack took a tentative step closer. “Rarity, I don’t want to fight you, but you ain’t acting like yourself.”

Instead of a response, of laughing and jeering, with taunts flowing freely, Serene tossed her head and called upon magic. The spell was wrong; foul and twisted, like a tangled ball of rose thorns. It was a spell that had a singular purpose, and that was to kill. Rarity could see it in the way the runes began to mesh. Evil for the sake of evil, without pity or remorse, just the simple need to cause suffering.

She tried to break Serene’s control, to dislodge the spell before it could fully form, or in some way warn her friends.

“Rarity, what are you—” AJ began to take a step closer.

A moment before the spell completed, Fluttershy’s eyes widened, and she lunged forward. The spell rang out in a crackling, green bolt. Applejack was hit on the side by Fluttershy. With a howl, Fluttershy was struck on the barrel, and collapsed, unmoving and unseeing, her beautiful eyes empty.

Rarity screamed in the prison of her mind, while Serene sneered. Pulling on all the remains of warmth from the encounter in the temple, Rarity hurled herself against the barrier, and at last it collapsed.

She sagged, and trembled. Over and over she prayed that she were in a nightmare.

“Fluttershy?” Applejack shouted, crawling to her friend.

A friend that did not move.

“No, no, I… No…” Rarity shook her head in disbelief. Already, Serene was tearing down her will, howling and clawing to fully dominate Rarity. If the monster regained control, Rarity knew that she’d never be able to stop her. There was only a single thing within her power to stop Serene. “I’m sorry,” she said, and then she stepped backwards into the waiting maw of the chasm.