It began the day Star Swirl died.
To the pride of those who knew him best, he left life the way he found it. His horn was aglow with the most complicated rainbow hurricane as his magic was pushed beyond another boundary. The artefacts – one hundred and eight pieces of a golden statue smashed eons ago – orbited his wrinkled head, making his bells jingle where they hit his robes, snagging at his undulating beard and mane. Demonic spirits of fire, ice, wind, and stone crashed into the sphere around him and tore themselves to embers, snow, gusts, and gravel in their haste. All the villages and cities in the county around them stood empty and decaying. Across the borders of the county, in the heart of Equestria, ponies fled to the hilltops and looked back to watch as though waiting for a star to explode.
Among them was Clover, panting and gasping and struggling against the heat in her eyes. He had shaken her away. All the offerings of help and support, but hers especially. He'd never needed them before, he'd said. He would not need them now.
Even as the magic cracked through his horn and he screamed at the growing light, he would not let them down. Equestria was his to protect.
Clover looked at the ponies, their wide-eyed and frozen faces mirroring her own. She looked at the distant star among the shadowed fields. As soon as she took a step towards the crowd, she swore she could hear a faint sound on the wind. Now she heard his screaming.
She began galloping back down the slope.
Despite the midnight sky, a burst of pure light flashed across the continent, blinding herds of bystanders, shocking forest animals into cacophonies of fear, and throwing the torn-up particles of the land into a million faces. Grass shards, dirt, dust, flaming twigs, sizzling rain, and billowing fog cloaked and caked and smothered everything outside the blast front.
When it settled, the ponies returned to the land ploughed up by the explosion. The demons were nowhere to be found. Clover the Clever had disappeared. And Star Swirl the Bearded was never seen again.
On the same day of the blast, two unicorns had fled from their castle in the hills, one swollen and weeping in pain. When they returned to the pebbly rubble on the newly created plains, they were two unicorns and a foal. To commemorate the death of the demon army, they named her Purity.
It went unfulfilled on the day that Purity died.
She saw the coronet of her mother, lying idly among many fake crowns and foil-covered tiaras that were almost certainly made of wood. The stall was protected from the sun’s haze by a threadbare shade made of sticks and stretched burlap, worse than her own burlap hood only because it had fewer patches on it.
From a long way away, she saw the lines on her parents’ faces as they hovered, two ghosts from the depths of her mind, in front of her own jaundiced eyes. The pages of a book were laid out before her, and she heard them crooning, singing of lost treasures and wandering heroes…
Some books, they'd told her, had survived the blast underground in the deep cellars. There had been a castle once, and mountains of gold kept in vast vaults.
Fully grown, her horn crackling with sparks and waves, she rose up in a tidal fury and cursed the gap-toothed earth pony behind the stall, who smirked at her and shook his head. Around the square, a few guards glanced her way. There were more of them around these days.
It burned far worse than the crisping skin on her chafed haunches. The town was made from spit and jagged timber – her parents' spit, her parents' timber. She had memories of a hundred stables, all of them leaking and dripping endlessly onto her mud-encrusted limbs, and a hundred nights of tossing and turning and trying to ignore the rumble in her belly.
She'd wandered the stalls all day, trying to forget the two unmarked graves. Regular as clockwork, Star Swirl was mentioned in hushed voices between cupped forelimbs and hooves. “Star Swirl” was a curse word, no longer spoken with hushed awe or reverence. And a strange part of her rebelled against this. It wasn't enough that he had saved them from the demons; she burned and seethed as though they spoke of her and her parents.
And now there was this… this odious stallion, this stall pony, this criminal who had bought a priceless family heirloom for beans and now laughed at her when she came this way again.
Screeching, she forced the magic through her own horn and tore his stall to splinters. He flew backwards into the cragged stone wall around the town, and fell limply on the grass. Guards galloped from all sides of the stall, and at once she jumped back in shock and realized her mistake. She tried to flee – a pike bounced off her chest. In fear, her magic leaped at him. He cried out and swung his blade.
While the screams broke out across the market and the rainclouds gathered with a rumble, from an upstairs window came the cry of a new foal entering the world.
It became the truth the day Light Seer died.
He willed himself to be calm. Flashes of rage would leap out of his chest like heart attacks, leaving him grunting and grimacing, and he would clutch at his chest, and he would mutter and chant and soothe and whisper until it faded back. No emotion could be allowed. It was a disease that corrupted judgement.
Finally cool and still, he looked out of his cave, down the jagged slopes of the Equestrian Mountains, and he saw the towers of the town glowing under the orange sunset. Ever since he were a foal, he had hidden in the shadows – of ballrooms and balconies and pillars, at first, and then of temples and mountains and caves – to peer out at the world. There was a false note in all the faces he ever saw, as though regardless of whatever expression they presented him, there was always the same face concealed behind it, cowering behind it, watching him and thinking of tense knees and galloping legs.
Besides, he needed to study. It was the only way his mind could breathe.
In his cave, he had pored over reams and reams of tomes, scrolls, and ancient texts of papyrus. Words comforted him, paper listened to him as he listened to its unheard speech, but he could never hear what he wanted. More than once, he wondered if he was hiding from something, or if it was hiding from him. All he knew was the strain inside his chest. It was getting desperate, and the rage would burn more fiercely with each passing year.
Despite the crackle of power behind it, he never used his horn. Every scroll was unfurled with his hooves. Every page was turned with a nudge from his snout. Using only his teeth, an elbow, and occasionally the side of his head, he could jot notes down from an open book. A thousand spells all crackled in his mind. None ever left it.
And now he was creaking at the joints, spittle dribbling from his hanging mouth. The spells had been forgotten. He could no longer hear the speeches he’d read aloud decades ago. The town must have gotten bigger at some point, but despite his straining forehead and his grunts of effort, he could not recall anymore what it had been like.
From the town below, there were echoes of a unicorn bellowing and thundering to his fellow ponies in the square, followed by chants and cheers. A light turned on in one of the tower windows: a flickering candle flame. Faintly, he could hear the cries of a mare in pain. A tear welled in his eye. To his shock, he found a feeling of acute nostalgia welling up inside him.
Above them all, the sun sank and darkened the sky behind it. He sat down. He turned his back to it. He peered hard at a cave of pure blackness. It was so dark that his mind could now see shapes in there that his eyes could not. Despite his many teachings, he was frozen with the weight of years of disappointment. His own apprentice knew more than he - he, the master of magic - ever seemed to.
A frown flickered across his face. Apprentice?
His eyes lit up with a sudden shock. For the first and last time in his life, he smiled and nodded. The chill of the mountain air whistled around him. He withdrew into his own mind, seeking more and more, feeling the rush as though he had fallen down a tunnel and could do nothing but marvel at the light approaching him, purging him of his blindness.
Under the sunrise, a monk in a hood heaved himself over the lip of the ridge, opened his mouth to ask for wisdom, and found the unicorn stiff and blue. Stumbling over himself, the monk rushed back down the mountain path to spread the terrible news.
Overhead, on another plane of existence, a shooting star rose up, arced across the sky, and plunged down, down, down, ending its flight by whooshing through the open window. For a moment, the flame of the candle shuddered in its turbulence.
It was far along its path the day Lord Fidel died.
On his side of the grand hall, where portraits of ancestors scowled down at him, the Lord Fidel reared up to shield his mare from the shadow opposite.
Courtiers, servants, lords, and ladies crowded around the edge, knocking against tapestries as they discreetly nudged their neighbours to get a better view. The shelves of the library projected from the walls like guards of honour amongst the crowd.
Even now as he stood there glaring at the stallion, his lordship blazed with an ancient fury. He saw demons of fire and earth clamour around him, and wood shatter before him, but then he blinked and the visions faded away.
Lord Fidel, son of the Great Lord Fidel and – many considered – worthy successor of the title, strode forwards with head held high. The other stallion strode towards him, narrow-eyed and pouting with barely suppressed disgust.
The cheek of this upstart! In his house, to his guest!
Dozens of drinks hovered around them, but no one touched a drop. The two stallions met in the centre of the hall, under the twinkling chandelier. Medals tinkled on the Lord Fidel's stocky chest.
Cracking like a whip, Lord Fidel’s leg pointed at the cowering mare behind him. The pouting stallion shook his head and snorted. Gasps of alarm and glee rang out across the hall according to each pony’s alliances. That which had been said would not be unsaid. His lordship heard them muttering about her ladyship’s honour. Well, this would give them something to crow from the rooftops!
They bowed and spun on their hooves. Each took one step forwards, then a second, and then a third…
Lord Fidel saw faces in the crowd. There! Lady Bluestocking blowing him kisses. Here! Lord Fancies saluting him. His chest swelled with their support, but even as it did so, he could feel something cold lurking behind it. There was a cave. He remembered from decades ago the pure darkness, which surprised him as he'd never so much as stuck a hoof outside the town walls.
He shook his head. Their seventh step approached. How he had risen! How this town had pulled itself up from its timber ashes all those years ago! They still bowed to him in the streets. His face was that of his father's. His face was beloved by all.
He had found it. He had found his answer at last! Humble Clover had been right!
A frown flickered across his features, but he dismissed the thought. Obviously, he'd meant Lord Clover of the Saccharine Pomice district, though what he'd been right about and in what sense he was an apprentice, Lord Fidel wasn't sure.
But he was sure that it was right. So long he'd waited, and now here he was, nestled in a web of power. He licked his lips. It would be greater once this rebellious upstart was put in his place.
Or was it? He could feel the chasm coming up to him. For the first time, he faltered one of his steps.
There were ponies around him, yes. There were allies among them, and those who he had charmed long ago. Yet he needed more. He had to make up for something vast, but what? No answer came to him. He growled with frustration.
The tenth and final step loomed.
From the back of the crowd, he could see his wizened mother waving at him and beaming. If only his father were still with them! Or rather not. Ah, the Great Lord Fidel's son had let her down. He didn’t know why, but the knowledge was certain. He had not avenged her. Her gold among fake wood, her coronet among stage props, and he had not avenged her!
Another frown crossed his features. Avenged her from what? What coronet?
He made the last step, turned, and was blasted across the room by the force of the spell.
By nightfall, no one spoke his name without a laugh or a shudder. The only good news was the cry from Missus Fusspot – the servant girl – when her baby filly arrived.
Waking for a moment, Lord Fidel was shocked to find himself looking out at a stable and into unfamiliar eyes. Then he blinked, and the thing that was once his mouth went "Boo boo".
It all changed the day Little Miss Fusspot died.
The towers were dead against the skyline. The shops opposite were boarded up. The cottages nearby were falling apart. Even the thick window was greying with years of grime and dust that had never been wiped off. Yet, bent over the kitchen sink, the bulging bulk of Little Miss Fusspot hummed a merry tune.
They always said things had gone downhill since Lord Fidel’s day. The town had gone from millions of ponies to mere thousands. Monsters had torn up the streets, which couldn’t stand up to wave after wave of conflict and war.
They always moaned about it. Yet Little Miss Fusspot hummed her merry tune and cleaned her dishes by hoof. The horn on her head went untouched.
It wasn’t that the magic never came – a dish slipped out of her grip and rushed to the floor, but then glowed and floated gently back up with nary a chip – it was that her father had no horn, and she was a Fusspot, and no Fusspot would leave another Fusspot behind. She turned around and threw off the suds and walked cheerfully past the crackling fire under the pot. On a chair which she strode past, a pile of suits and dresses were folded neatly.
Little Miss Fusspot walked into the living room and placed herself gingerly on her rocking chair. Gently, she leaned backwards and let it creak forwards, backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.
The mantelpiece was crammed with framed photographs, all in sepia tone and all showing mares and stallions from sleeping cot to wrinkled cottage door. One group photograph bore twenty uniforms of some forgotten revolution. Another showed foals in a public school’s jumpers and shorts, a football at the hoof of some burly coach. She looked up at the wrinkled grin of the stallion, his portrait framed in a wooden heart, and rolled her eyes. Of course he would go first. The old codger insisted on being the first at everything.
There were scars on her forelegs. An ear had lost a chunk long ago. Her mane was grey and her shrivelled head balding at random spots. A spasm struck her spine, and she gritted her teeth and hissed.
Little Miss Fusspot… ponies kept calling her that, no matter how many times she’d pointed out not one word of it was true. She’d served lords and ladies, all of whom she now saw penniless and wandering the streets. Now she served nobody, not even…
She glanced up at the portrait. She’d promised him she’d go first. Not one year of her life, and the instant he went, she saw the empty cave of her foalhood nightmares, the ring of faces with their false smiles right before the flash and the blast of magic under a shining chandelier…
They said the town would never stand again. Vines were creeping under the cobbles. Even as she glanced at the cottage window, she saw the green shoots curled against it. Most of her friends had moved on to the new town in the mountains… Canterlot or something. No. Everfree Town was dead.
And yet, as she sat there and peered up at the grinning portrait, at the genuine smiles from the mantelpiece, and at the ghosts of four ponies strange yet familiar who were coming in, she had never felt so alive.
She had found the answer at last.
The pain struck her in the chest. For a moment, her horn glowed with the effort of suppressing it, but then it flared out. She’d die as she lived; free of magic. Or at least "free" as far as she was concerned.
Some said the suppressed power had channelled itself into a long life, and as she looked back at it and saw the ghosts close in, the thought of betraying that promise now made her shudder. How long had it been? More than four centuries, definitely. About time it was met, then, since it was a promise older than herself.
She gasped and slumped in the chair. Around her, the ghosts closed in.
On the other side of town, Flaxen Seed took her first breath, and to the shock of the physicians never once cried or struggled.
It was understood the day Flaxen Seed died.
Her mother had kept going on about Everfree this and Everfree that, but as far as Flaxen Seed cared, Canterlot was now the town to be. Surrounded by the fresh daisies and the alabaster towers, she simply giggled and watched the visions as they rose up from the murk in her mind.
No one knew what she had stuffed into her mouth behind the grand library, but they knew from the way she stumbled and giggled and gaped and gasped at the air that she had done it again. Many shook their heads, and she heard them mutter sadly and scurry across the road and pat her back while whispering in her ear.
Oh, if only they could see! Did they not understand? Her mother was right there, pale and see-through but indisputably there. Beside her was her father, totally unlike his wizened and weeping self behind the iron gates of the cemetery, but as she saw him years ago, smirking and winking and nudging her mother to get her to laugh at some witticism he’d cracked.
She'd have to go back to the library. There must have been some mention of this phenomenon in the archives, hidden away somewhere. There must have been some clue. For now, though, it would have to wait. She watched and licked her lips.
Others crowded around her. There was the strange monk, staring at her as though he could not believe his eyes. He smacked his head and cried, “Why did I not see it all along?”
There was his lordship, tall and stern, nodding to her with no smile but with respect sharp in his arrow-like eyes. He graciously made room for his ladyship and cried, “Take up my mantle, dear lady, and rush in where I failed to tread!”
There was the mare with the coronet – no! She had cast it aside and was twitching and wincing to hold back tears. She shook off her dishevelled burlap and cried, “Peace at last. How long have I waited for this day?”
There was the old nag, rocking back and forth, smiling contentedly and giving her a wink. She stamped her hooves against an unseen ground and cried, “Mare sakes, I’ve been missing out for years! Live for me again! I want another go!”
And as the magic rushed from Flaxen Seed’s horn and she bathed them all in sparkles and the warmth of a roaring fire, as each pony began to glow inside and rear up and rise above her, there was the wizard. His robe jangled with bells. His beard whipped about his forelegs in an intangible wind, and his horn crackled with energy. He kneeled before her and hung his head low.
“I did this,” he whispered. When he looked up at her, she could see a thousand years of pain and fear shivering beneath his furrowed brow. “It took me so long to see, to understand. I should not have refused. I should have listened to my apprentice. I should not have bowed to my pride."
Unbidden, the memory of a face flitted through her mind, and it stabbed into her, and for a moment she gasped and staggered.
"I've lost her. I've lost everything. Now, will you forgive me?" said Star Swirl. "Will anyone forgive me for what I… for what I have done? Will anyone undo the damage?”
Flaxen Seed reached forwards to stroke his mane. She opened her mouth, but then closed it at once.
Instead, she nodded.
More ghosts rose up around her, and she giggled and twirled and danced and spun and didn’t even notice when she bounced off the bridge’s wall and fell into the river. It didn’t even matter that the water rushed into her mouth while she laughed and laughed and laughed. Equestria would be great again. She didn’t know why. She only knew it with a certainty.
The ghost of Flaxen Seed rose up to the sky, trailing the other ghosts like a comet in the void. They fused into one, a single star spiralling across mountains and seas and moons and planets and galaxies, all in the blink of an eye, and the star shot downwards to a single point, to seek out one last chance.
"Then let me live," said Star Swirl, said the ghosts, said the shooting star, and said Flaxen Seed all as one. "Let me live one more time. Let Clover's legacy shine on after me."
It passed through life after life after life, leaping the generations, looking for the right balance. Centuries whizzed by, and down below flashed towns and deserts and cities and forests and seas and snow and villages. Ghosts trailed after it and fused into the light, hundreds of years of wisdom and knowledge and feeling joining together.
And then, at once, it found what it was looking for. Flaxen Seed yelled for joy and lowered the shooting star down, down, down, past the mountains and the ivory towers to the open window and a mare peering out at the meadows below.
The point flared with a burst of ancient magic. Power flowed through a nub of a horn and lit up a mind that was still and fresh and could only think in simple colours. Four stubby legs kicked. A back flexed. A tiny tail wriggled.
It would end the day Twilight Sparkle lived.