“Twilight. Thank goodness you’re here! An ancient power has been unleashed on Equestria, and we need your help. Not even the combined power of Luna and I is enough to keep her imprisoned anymore… and we have no idea what she’ll do now that she’s broken out.”
“Yes, but who is she?” Twilight, along with all of her friends, Spike, and Starlight Glimmer, stood in the throne room of Canterlot Castle. An urgent summons from Princess Celestia had brought them here, as had so often happened in the past.
“Let me guess,” interrupted Starlight. “Another thousand-year-old horror from the depths of Tartarus, or some alienated enemy.” But Celestia shook her head.
“No. Viridia has been imprisoned for much, much longer--ten thousand years, at least. I don’t remember exactly. Luna?” The navy-blue Alicorn spoke, more softly.
“She had been imprisoned before we came along, sister. I would say she has spent a hundred thousand years in that cave, and she has finally built up the heat of fire required to break through our spell and free herself.”
“But why?” Twilight cocked her head curiously. “What has… Viridia, you say? done that caused her to be locked away for so long?” The sisters exchanged looks.
“I don’t remember exactly. She was a terrible threat to us--that’s all I know. And she is very, very powerful. All of us need to go and find her, to see if she is still such a threat. If she is, we will all have to combine our power to defeat her once more. Princess Cadence will be arriving soon, to watch over Equestria in our stead, while Shining Armor manages the Empire. Oh, and Spike… you may want to stay here.”
“Why?” Spike looked indignant. “I’ve saved their necks--” gesturing to Twilight and the others-- “more than once. I deserve to go!” Luna stepped forward.
“Let him come, sister. I understand your concerns, but he may be invaluable to us.” Celestia sighed and nodded.
They travelled far. Those who could not fly were carried in the sky-chariot, except for Spike, who was swapped between the Alicorns’ backs. Eventually, they approached a towering, ragged mountain, with a smoking hole three-quarters of the way up. They landed, and approached on hoof, as quietly as possible.
“She is somewhere in the area,” Luna murmured. “I am surprised that she has not gone farther, in her attempt to escape her prison. Yet I can feel her presence nearby.” Celestia nodded assent, and wound her way deeper into the thick forest that surrounded them. A few minutes later, she stopped them.
“She is here. Be as quiet as you can, and come look.” They crept to her side, and saw that she had stopped at the edge of a clearing.
“I can feel it too,” Twilight whispered. “Something with a lot of magic is there. It’s making my horn tingle from all the magical resonance it’s giving off.” Stepping forward to peer through the branches, they saw her, crouching in the grass, bigger than all of them combined. Viridia.
She was a dragon. That was certain. But she didn’t look like the other dragons they had encountered in the past. She was emerald-green, and scaled, but the shape of her body and head was very different--she looked like a scaly cat, with an extra-long tail that ended in a spear-like tip. She had the head and neck of a lizard, and wings like a bat’s, except that they didn’t have thumbs and the membrane extended only to her haunches, not her hind feet. A row of spines ran down her back, and she had two long, twisting, brown horns sprouting from the crown of her head. She had five toes on each foot, and on the front feet, the inmost toes were opposable. She also had very sharp, long, curved claws on the end of each toe, which looked like they might be retractable. Her forward-facing, emerald-green eyes had slitted pupils, which they saw as, upon their approach, she swung her head and looked straight toward them.
Viridia heard them approach, and felt their thaumic energy long before then. She’d known that they would be coming, once she escaped. She considered flying away, but she wanted to meet the new ones, who hadn’t been around last time she was out. So she settled down to wait. A hundred thousand years of sitting in a cave, building up firepower to overcome the binding spells, had taught her patience. Soon, they were there, whispering to each other as they approached her. First one, then all the others, came to the edge of the clearing where she waited. She heard several gasps, and one tiny shriek, as they beheld her for the first time. She turned her head to see them.
“Hello, Sun. Hello, Moon.” She nodded to the oldest ones first, as was polite. Then she shifted her gaze. “Hello, Star. I have been waiting to meet you. But I only see six friends. Where is the seventh? Ah,” she craned her head a little to see over them, “She is hiding. I will leave her, then.” Star stepped forward on trembling legs, shuffling her wings slightly--from nervousness, Viridia presumed.
“Um, actually, my name is Twilight Sparkle. I-if you don’t mind… um…” she trailed off, ducking her head and mumbling to herself. Viridia chuckled, a deep, gravelly laugh.
“You are Star. You are also Twilight, and Magic, and someday you will be Friendship.” Star looked confused, even as she cringed away.
“But I’m already the Princess of Friendship. How can I someday be what I am now?”
“Are you friend to all creatures, or even all ponies? No. Not yet. You could learn from Laughter.” She extended her right hand, and hovered her index claw over Laughter’s head. For once, the pink pony was silent, but she did not seem to be afraid.
“To be Friendship, you will have to learn from all--from Loyalty,” she moved the claw to the rainbow mane, “Honesty,” to the blond, “Generosity,” to the indigo, “and the hiding Kindness.” She pulled her hand back. “And of course, from the others. I do not know who they are yet.” Star still looked confused, and a little ashamed, but she turned to the small dragon and the skilled, powerful one.
“This is Starlight Glimmer, and this is Spike. My student and assistant, respectively.” The pony dipped her head and bent a front hoof in a small curtsy, and the dragon bowed elegantly. Viridia hummed.
“I will call you Power,” nodding to the pony, “and you Little Brother,” to the dragon. “You are still growing, and are not all you will be yet. Of course,” she chuckled, “that can be said of all here, but you especially. Someday you may be Thoughtfulness, or Ferocity, or even Leadership. But not yet. Now you are a child. You are Little Brother.” He nodded, uncertainty in his eyes, and stepped back to stand next to Star.
Viridia swung her head around and fixed her gaze on Moon. She and Sun had been exchanging looks, and whispering to one another. “You have changed. You are more than just Moon. You are Dream, and Savior to some. Someday, you will be Darkness, but now you fear that. Something happened to you, that came out of your Darkness, and you blame it. You were gone for a long time. I felt it.” Moon nodded.
“Please do not call me Moon, Viridia. I used that name when I turned to evil and was consumed by darkness. It brings back bad memories… I am not that mare anymore. I wish to be rid of it forever.”
Viridia chuckled again, and shook her head. “But you were not Moon then. You were Nightmare. And you will be Darkness. It is not the evil thing you think it is. Your fear prevents you from learning to be it, but someday you will change.” She sighed. “I missed you while you were gone. You were very far away, and the sky felt empty at night.” Sun and Moon exchanged looks again. Viridia turned to Sun.
“You have changed, too. You are still Sun, and Light, and Savior, and Leader. But now…” she swung her head back and forth a little, searching for an analogy. “You know that Sun casts shadows, so instead of staying high in the sky and casting sharp shadows that deepen over time, you move around. The shadows move, and all ponies get to be in your light, so the shadow is shared. You change, and no one is hurt because of it. You have learned to become softer, and guide with your light instead of outshining all the others. But it took a big mistake to see that.”
Sun nodded. “Yes, I’ve made many mistakes. But I hope you’re right, Viridia, and I have changed for the better because of it.” She looked pleased and comforted, but also guilty. Viridia noticed that neither she nor Moon looked suspicious of her, but the others did. She guessed that they didn’t know what had happened, and thought that she was some kind of monster.
“Where is Love? She is not among you, but I wish to meet her, too.” Star’s eyes widened, and she spoke.
“Cadence? How do you know about Cadence? For that matter, how did you know about Luna’s banishment? How--” Viridia raised a claw and cut her off.
“One question at a time, Star. I felt when Love was born, and when she gained a horn and strength. Just as I felt when you were born, and when you gained flight and strength. You have powerful magic, and much importance in this world. So do your friends. I feel when big things happen. Much has happened in the last few years. Many of it has been going on for the last thousand.” She turned to Sun and Moon again.
“I am glad the Crystal Beacon is back. So fragile, yet so important. The hope and joy it spreads will continue to radiate, so long as Snowstorm Monster does not shatter the Center Crystal again. Keep an eye on the little Snowstorm Monster.” She chuckled. Babies were so loved by all creatures, but they caused more destruction than any adult could, even if they tried.
“I am glad you are back, Moon. I am glad that Discord is back; he makes things interesting. Tirek, though, was horrible. All that power in one being… you are better off without him.”
“You have nearly as much power as Tirek did, Viridia,” Sun cut in sharply. “Would we be better off without you as well? There are three Alicorns here. We can seal you away for another twenty thousand years, at least.” Viridia turned her eyes to meet Sun’s, and simply looked at her. The moment stretched on, then Sun bowed her head and sighed. But before she could speak, Star broke in.
“What did you mean when you said Cadence and I ‘gained strength’? Is it because we got taller?” Viridia looked at her in surprise.
“You are an Alicorn, Star. You had just a horn before; now you have the other magics as well. Wings and strength. Did you not know this?” Star looked uneasy, and more confused than before.
“There’s another magic? I mean, I obviously have both unicorn and Alicorn magic… is that what you meant?” Viridia looked sharply at Sun and Moon.
“You have the magic of the horned ones,” she gestured to Generosity, “and the magic of the winged ones,” she gestured to Loyalty (Kindness was still halfway hiding), “and the magic of the strong ones. The earthen ones.” She gestured to Honesty and Laughter. “In one pony, they make an Alicorn.” Star looked startled.
“Earth ponies have magic? I thought an Alicorn was just a unicorn with wings.” Now Star’s friends were staring at her, with expressions from surprise to indignation to outright anger on their faces. Generosity spoke first.
“Really, Twilight, do you hear yourself? Even if you didn’t realize that earth ponies have magic--which is ridiculous, considering our friend Pinkie here--you do know that Cadence was a pegasus first, yes? Unicorns are not innately better than the other tribes, despite our noble heritage.” Star blushed, but before she could speak, Loyalty cut in.
“Yeah, Twi, that’s just rude. Alicorns aren’t unicorns with wings any more than unicorns are earth ponies with horns, or deformed pegasi.” Star looked down.
“Oh. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say it like that. But I always assumed that I became a princess and an Alicorn by gaining my wings. And I guess I sort of did, but I don’t know anything about earth magic.” Honesty spoke up.
“How do you think we grow food better than any of the other tribes? How do you think we live longer than anypony else?”
“How do you explain my Pinkie Sense if I don’t have magic?” Laughter interrupted. Star was blushing redder and redder and continually apologizing, and Viridia was glaring at Sun and Moon. But upon seeing how bewildered Moon was, she turned her glare only to Sun, who looked up, also blushing.
“I should apologize too, Twilight. It’s my fault you never knew about the other kinds of magic, since I was your mentor. But I thought you would have learned about it through your books, and I never thought to bring it up.”
“You talked about Flurry Heart as though she only had unicorn magic and wings!”
“Those were the biggest concerns at the time! We were in a crystal castle; I wasn’t exactly worried that she was going to start sprouting plants or sucking life from the earth, and she was using her wings as a primary mode of transportation, so I didn’t think about her extra strength having any negative repercussions!”
“Earth ponies draw life from the earth?!”
“How do you think Luna and I have lived for so long?”
“Enough.” Viridia’s growl cut between the bickering voices of Sun and Star. She then proceeded to glare at them until they both bowed their heads and muttered, “Sorry.” Then she turned to Moon.
“Where is Love? I wish to meet her, to speak to her. And it has been some time since I conversed with Discord. You sealed him away for a thousand years, too.” Power stepped forward.
“None of us are leaving. You’d just love for one of us to go away and leave the rest exposed and defenseless, wouldn’t you? I know how a villain thinks. How much of this has been a distraction, or to get us to trust you?” Power was suspicious. Viridia knew that this suspicion had come from her own experiences of drawing ponies in with sweet lies and magic spells, until they were under her control. She did not trust easily, because she did not trust herself. But Viridia did not say this, because it would only have wounded Power and turned her into more of an enemy.
“Why should I answer, Power, when you will not believe me no matter what I say? None of this has been false. What have I said that is not true?”
“Why do you want to talk to Cadence, if not to get rid of one of us?”
“I want to speak with Love because I want to be free. I want to know someone who will love me for who I am, and not trap me in my stony cave because I am different or strange. Star is not Friendship yet, because she has not learned how to be a friend to all, and so she is not friend to me. But Love is Love, and in her I can find a friend.” Honesty and Loyalty narrowed their eyes, and Generosity pursed her lips. But Moon, Star, Laughter, Kindness, and Power all widened their eyes, as understanding seemed to wash over them.
Star spoke first. “You’re right. I’m… I haven’t been a very good Princess of Friendship. I still don’t trust you. I don’t know what you did that the Princesses had to imprison you for, but I haven’t even tried to be your friend. I’m a horrible pony.” She started to sniffle, and Sun moved over to comfort her.
“You are not a bad pony, Star. You just have more to learn. You will be Friendship someday, as I have said. But you are not there yet.” Viridia dipped her head and gently bumped Star’s shoulder with her snout.
With a tremble in her step, Kindness finally crept forward. “Oh, you poor thing! I don’t know why you were locked away either, but it’s not fair that we came here to shut you up again without even giving you a chance. I’m so sorry!” She put a hoof on top of Viridia’s hand. Then Moon spoke again.
“Indeed. I apologize, Viridia; I, of all ponies, should have been less hostile toward you--you, who have never wronged me. You, who were falsely imprisoned to begin with. Celestia, it is time we told them what we did, and time we were truthful with ourselves about why we are here.”
Sun hung her head and bit her lip, but nodded. “You must tell them, Luna. I have faced too much guilt already.” Moon took a stronger stance and spread her wings, lifting her head in the posture of a queen. Then she began to speak.
“Ten thousand years ago, Celestia and I were not the ponies we are now. We were young, and foolish, and we had heard stories about Viridia that scared us. We heard that she was powerful, and unfathomable, and that she said things that confused ponies, things that no one should know. We heard that she was a monster, who had been locked away for tens of thousands of years to protect ponykind. Being the gifted Alicorns we were, we thought that we could save the world from her, and thus ensure our power.
“We sought her out, and encountered her in these very woods. She greeted us like an old friend, and told us things about ourselves that we could not see. She called us Harmony, Leaders, Saviors. We became very afraid of her, and her aura of power was palpable. We convinced ourselves that she was luring us into a trap, like a spider catching flies in its web. One day, we prepared ourselves for battle and combined our powers against her.
“She did not try to fight us. She would have flown away, but we cut her off at every corner. We tried our best to kill her, but we could not… in the end, we forced her back into her cave and sealed the entrance with stone and spell alike. Then we congratulated ourselves, and wove tales of our bravery and goodness. Bravery, we spoke of, when it had all begun due to cowardice. That same cowardice has brought us back here again.” She bowed her head.
“We chose to forget most of the circumstances surrounding that event. Celestia, I think, still pretends that Viridia’s power is dangerous to her, though how she justifies it, I do not know. Viridia is essential to the earth, and she will do no harm to us--she only speaks truth, as I have come to realize over the past millennium. She is no more dangerous than anything that shows somepony who they truly are.” Moon turned to Viridia, and knelt.
“Even now, you offer us kindness and truth. Even though we have wronged you and hurt you, you still give us a chance to be better ponies. You treat us as friends, as equals, and say that you have missed us. Such a thing would usually indicate either great stupidity or great wisdom, and you are not stupid. I must try your kindness further, and ask for your forgiveness. And I ask forgiveness from all of you,” she turned to Star and her friends, “for dragging you into this and sowing the seeds of distrust in your hearts. This is my affair, mine and Celestia’s, and we should have settled it on our own.” Sun bowed as well, and murmured her agreement. Viridia dipped her head, and rested her nose briefly on each of the sisters’ bowed heads.
“I forgive you, Moon and Sun,” she said simply. The others all agreed, and the Princesses soon rose. Sun embraced Star, and Moon nodded to Power, who now looked more sympathetic and understanding. Power had fallen, just like Moon, and they both knew how much they needed friendship in their lives. Then Laughter spoke up, curiosity in her eyes.
“You know what we are, but what are you?” Viridia chuckled again.
“First, little pony, I am Old. I am also Earth and Fire, and Understanding. I have many other names, but they are not quite so true or complete.”
Star looked up. “You are Earth? What do you mean?”
Sun replied, realization dawning. “Whenever we wounded Viridia in our fight, the ground shook. Chasms opened, and the earth groaned in sync with her roars. I believe she is, or at least contains, the life force of the planet, which is why she is so powerful, and why it was so hard to kill her. Is this true, Viridia?”
The dragon laughed again. “Maybe. That is a mystery for another time. But you should go home now. The sun will set soon, and your country needs you.” Sun nodded.
After they all bade their goodbyes, and Viridia entreated them all to visit her again soon, especially Little Brother, they went back to Canterlot. She watched them all go, and flew to the peak of her mountain to keep them in her sight for a while longer. After the sun had set, and the moon had risen, and the stars had all appeared, she stretched her wings and flew off, truly free for the first time in millennia upon millennia.
Deep within our Earth, somewhere in our human universe, another dragon lies. She is finding it harder and harder to breathe in the poisons that surround her. Her wings are broken, most of her scales have been ripped out, and waste floods through her veins. Every day, she is scarred further by the inhabitants that have conquered her body, and she will not live for much longer. Whatever may come, she will never be the same again. Our Viridia is dying. What are we going to do about it?