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// Chapter 0:0 - Prologue 
// Story: Camaraderie is Sorcery 
// by FireOfTheNorth 
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Prologue: Premonitions


It reeked terribly within the privy.  The sudden onset of winter had frozen everything at the bottom solid, creating an impenetrable barrier the fresh waste couldn’t pass through.  No excrement would fall down the Titan’s Horn until either summer was restored or somepony took it upon themselves to do the smelly job of cleaning the privy shaft out.  It would be unfair to ask somepony to do that she knew.  
Celestia retched again, her body shaking from the force of it.  What would my subjects think of me if they could see me now she thought, my body weak and immobile while I puke up my supper?  Another wave of nausea and vomiting struck her, even harder than before.  Why did I have to ask for a third course? she asked herself not for the first time that night.  She should have known better.  This violent sickness was far from unexpected; it happened every time she looked into the future.  What made it so terrible tonight, though?  
She knew, of course.  It was a number of things, foremost among them the fact that her power was waning, and waning far more quickly than expected.  I’ve been going downhill the last nine centuries she thought why should my deterioration speed up now?  She knew the answer to that one as well.  The portrait over the mantle would still be there when she emerged from the privy; the portrait she’d commissioned of her sister that was completed just weeks before the terrible betrayal that had torn their domain to pieces.  In that portrait Luna—then still a queen like her sister—looked very regal, but also very cold.  Night after night she looked down at Celestia with bright, accusing eyes.  Why didn’t I have the painter give her a smile?  But, of course, that would have been too unnatural; Luna was rarely happy in those last few years.  You’ll be back soon, won’t you sister?  But will you return and greet me as long-lost kin as I hope, or will you meet me as an enemy again as I fear?  
But Celestia had more to contend with than just her sister’s prophesied coming.  The winters were becoming more frequent, the White Procession becoming stronger.  Even as Celestia emptied her stomach they wailed outside the castle walls, foul voices and the sound of windigo hooves drifting in the wind.  I beat them once before, but then I had an advantage.  They were in disarray after they changed their plans during the Long Night.  I may have won, but they took my strength when I did; I shan’t best them a second time.  Not alone.  
Using the Sight had a terrible cost, one Celestia was now paying, but these were times more dire than any the immortal sorceress had ever seen.  War had broken out in Equestria again only a week after a peace treaty was signed, unicorns were being hanged or burned at the stake, there were rumors of plague in the west, the dragonlords were getting restless in the east, and the Hunters were encountering more numerous and more vicious monsters.  Despite the agony peering into the future had caused her, Celestia had seen a few useful things in her visions.  As she’d suspected, the White Procession was wagering everything on bringing about the Last Winter; not exactly good news, but she could use it.  Equestria was also in for a series of disasters in the near future; what comforted Celestia was that somehow none of them seemed to destroy the world.  It was as if Equestria would be protected by someone or something.  It didn’t take the Sight for Celestia to know that something powerful was also coming, it merely confirmed it.  Are worlds about to collide again?  Is that what I’m sensing?  But it comes before the disasters, long before.  Shouldn’t this bring about the end of the world?  
There were too many questions, too many variables.  Once her world stood still again, Celestia rose, wiped her muzzle, and left the privy.  Only, in her head the world would never stand still; it was always spinning out of her control.  Has it always been like this?  Surely not, otherwise she wouldn’t remember those long summer days when she and Luna had been as close as could be, frolicking and bonding while advancing magic and ruling Equestria as the Two Queens.  That was before Luna’s anger and Celestia’s arrogance had torn a chasm between them, however.  Celestia was on her own now; Luna was gone, save for her portrait and the rooms kept prepared for her just in case for once Celestia’s wish was answered.  
The fire had gone out while she’d been violently ill; frost now coated the embers and the priceless furniture in Celestia’s spacious apartments.  With a rapid and precise incantation, she relit the fire and banished the frost.  An ache crept down her overlong horn as she finished, however; not a good sign.  You’re getting old, Celestia she told herself.  Sorceresses and sorcerers were known to use magic to lengthen the span of their years, but not even the great Star-Swirl the Bearded had lived half as long as her.  And now my time is nearly up.  
There was one last thing she’d learned from her visions that night; she desperately needed to find an apprentice.  With what was coming, there was no way she could face it on her own.  In a way, the future was entrusted to her though; it was she who had to set everything into motion.  She fetched herself some parchment, ink, and tea and wrapped herself in a manticore’s pelt before sitting on a low cushion and beginning to write.