27.1- Every End...
The Flames of the Phoenix- Every End...
In the time after the world had seen the blazing beacon of the phoenix light up high in the sky, the pyromancer known by many as Ember Valkyr chose to step back and stay out of the affairs of Equestria and its saviors. After the defeat of Anivia, she considered her fight to be over and chose to not only spend her time with both her family and loved ones, but also shift her focus to something that she considered as a personal project. Through her travels, she had met many strange individuals in not just her world, but worlds almost similar to her own. Each one had a story to tell, no matter who they were or what they were capable of doing.
However, with the passage of time, many stories would end up becoming forgotten and fade to dust. Just like the story of the Wanderer, his siblings, the excedians that were their children… and Frost.
So, if anyone was going to take it upon themselves to record the stories of those who ended up being in the same predicament as all those she had met on her journey, it was going to be her. She would create a place where the stories of others displaced would be kept safe, no matter who they were, where they lived or what they did. For Ember solemnly believed that each one of these stories can serve as a chance for anyone to grow and learn from their experiences, much like how several ponies she knew learned from the friendship lessons they had over the years.
At first, this seemed like just an idea between her, Amaryllis and Maeve for some time with every other displaced that they happened to meet. However, the idea started to gain more traction on the day that they learned that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna planned to retire and abdicate the throne to Princess Twilight. When the two sisters learned of what Ember had been working on since she ‘faded’ from the attention of the world, both of them offered their knowledge, skills and expertise to make sure that this simple idea became a reality and by the time the two of them were back from a mandatory vacation, much of the groundwork had already been laid.
It had taken several months, but by the time that the Princess of Friendship became the Princess of Equestria, their project was complete and what is now known as the Candlelight Archive was open for business. A trove of stories and books from not just one world, but the worlds of many. Each token that Ember had on her person served as a key to another world and no two were the same. It was a place that was run by herself, Amaryllis, Maeve and even the royal sisters themselves from time to time.
Yet, the Candlelight Archive wasn’t a place where you can just trot in and seek out knowledge. In fact, it wasn’t stuck in a set location that you could just simply visit. For the Candlelight Archive was a place that existed in between dimensions and its red oak doors would only appear to those who seeked knowledge for a reason that did not benefit themselves. For even though she wanted to preserve the stories of those she meets, Ember took it upon herself personally to make sure that the knowledge that was contained in the Archive was not misused for ill intentions.
Of course, like with many stories involving journeying around the world, you always end up finding your way back home. But as soon as the first customer came through the door that day, everyone who lived and worked inside the Candlelight Archive realized that the Equestria that they called home had undergone some… drastic changes.
As the feather that was her token locked into place along the left side of the door, Ember had a lot of thoughts go through her mind. It had been some time since she had last visited her Equestria, but couldn’t quite tell how long it had exactly been. She had stopped counting after what felt like a century, but if she remembered correctly, Twilight and her friends were at a significant point in their lives last time she saw them.
To be more specific; Twilight herself had a young student of her own, many of the Mane Six were married to their ‘special somepony’ and some even had children. Peace between every race was possible and many of the students that graduated from Twilight’s School of Friendship were able to find happiness in their lives as well. Celestia and Luna, on the other hoof, found the retirement life to not be as exciting as it once was. So, Ember allowed for them to stay in the Candlelight Archive as long as they are able to carry their own weight.
As for Philomena, when it came time for her to reincarnate, she chose instead to merge herself with Ember so that the two of them were always together and no longer had to be apart. It was a difficult decision for her to make, but one that she was happy to do nonetheless. Because to her, it meant that she would be able to help her on her journey, much like how her father helped start it.
Her train of thought was suddenly broken by the familiar jingle of the bell that hung from the main door. “Oh, a customer? We haven’t been here long and someone needs us already? Who could it be?”
As the door opened, a stallion trotted inside and was… taken aback at the sight. They had a light blue coat with a cobalt mane, tail and also sideburns along with a pair of glasses, a saddlebag and what looked to be a cutie mark of a shooting star. However, what caught Ember’s attention immediately was that the stallion was wearing a necklace with a wooden circle that had a cutout of what looked like Twilight’s cutie mark.
“Right, I should probably change,” Ember found as she fiddled with a trinket that Celestia gave her and adjusted the wedding bangle she wore. Very early on when the Candlelight Archive opened its doors, they were quick to learn that there were worlds where its denizens had either not met humans or were afraid of them. So, with that in mind, Celestia had her wedding bangle enchanted to where if she adjusted it, her appearance would change accordingly without needing a spell cast on her. It took a long while to help her get used to it, but it was either that or having a customer accidentally damage the records in here out of fear.
As her appearance shifted to that of an earth pony, she trotted over to behind the counter and smiled. “Hello there, sir. Welcome to the Candlelight Archive.”
The stallion jumped a bit at first, but was quick to straighten back up. “H-Hello. Uh… sorry I… honestly did not expect to find this door in the middle of an alley. Or for that matter, finding this on the other side,” he apologized, “Did you set up here recently? Because in all my years of living here, this is the first time I’ve seen such a wonderful place before.”
“Well, first, thank you for the compliment,” Ember chuckled, “But to answer your question, we’re more of a… traveling business, so to speak. We just have a habit of showing up when somepony really needs a helping hoof, whether it be trying to learn something important or just needing some help figuring out a few things. You seem like that kind of sort yourself. Tell me, what exactly brings you here?”
The stallion scratched the back of his head with a hoof, before adjusting his glasses for a moment. “Is it that obvious?”
“Trust me. I’ve met my fair share of creatures who have something on their mind,” she assured him, “There’s nothing you can’t surprise me with.”
Then, the stallion said something that immediately made Ember eat her words, “Do you have anything that was published during the Age of Harmony?”
Immediately, any thought that she had on her mind came to a screeching halt as Ember just looked back at the customer in front of her, “Okay, I take that back. There’s one thing you can surprise me with.”
“You haven’t heard of the Age of Harmony before?”
Despite the numerous questions that were bouncing around inside her head, Ember just shook her head and focused on the stallion. “Let’s just say that I’ve been to numerous places before and this is the first time I’ve heard of such a thing,” she said, before a new thought came to mind as she changed her tone a little, “Though, perhaps if you tell me a bit more about it, I can look through what I have and find something for you.”
“I can try,” the stallion said, “It’s been difficult to find any leftover records from the past nowadays. That and many ponies think they know the story of Princess Twilight and her friends from that golden age, but with magic gone and the pony tribes split up, it’s been difficult to find any variation of the story that isn’t ‘twisted’ in a particular way, if you know what I mean.”
Just from that along, Ember realized that things were far worse than she thought they would be. If the time of Twilight and her friends is considered ancient history now, then there was no telling how long they had been away for. At first, she thought that the stallion was lying. However, it didn’t look as if he was trying to carefully pick his words or hide anything from her.
Still, there were a few things that she needed clarification on. “Could you explain what you mean by ‘twisted’?”
“Simply put, since the tribes have split up, everypony’s afraid of something. If something doesn’t make sense, many ponies start blaming their problems on somepony else. It doesn’t help that CanterLogic sees them as ‘threats to public safety’ and most ponies accept it without a given reason. Nowadays, many ponies judge others based on what they are and not their character.”
Ember scratched her chin with a hoof as she looked back at him. While everything seemed okay so far, there was still one major question that needed to be answered. The door to the archive would only show itself to someone if they seeked something that wasn’t for themselves. So, what was the stallion’s reason for coming here? “I see. Though, what about you? Surely, you must have a reason for trying to find what some might call relics of the past, is that right?”
“Well, I see myself as a historian. The past is meant to be preserved, because if we don’t, we’d only end up repeating mistakes we’ve done before,” he said at first, before he briefly looked away and sighed, “Though, there’s… also another reason.”
As he spoke, the stallion moved his saddlebag and opened the flap. After moving out a couple of things, he pulled out a photograph and placed it on the counter. In the picture, there was a young orange filly with a magenta colored mane that was standing behind a cardboard cutout of Princess Twilight, yet with her face being where the alicorn’s face would be.
“My daughter has a big dream and one that often gets looked down upon by everypony else. She wants to have Equestria be reunited and find a way to bring back magic. Many have told her that such a dream sounded impossible and unrealistic. However, as her father, I want to do everything I can to support her. To tell her that no dream is too impossible to chase. Even if there comes a time where I’m gone, I want her to still carry that bright spark of hope wherever she goes. In fact, today’s supposed to be her birthday and I promised to surprise her with something special.”
It took no less than a few moments for Ember to come to a conclusion. She knew exactly what this stallion needed and now that the mancer had a better understanding of what he was looking for and why, it was time for her to follow through on it. “Is that so…? Then, I think I might have just the thing.”
As the stallion looked up, Ember trotted to the back to grab a particular book with a golden sigil on the front as she placed a feather inside the front cover. “Harmonious Tales. A complete compendium of stories of Twilight and her friends. An original copy as well.”
Immediately, the stallion was thrown off guard, “O-Original? A-are you sure I can have this? I mean… wouldn’t something like this be valuable and important to you?”
“Yeah, but after I finished reading it, all it’s been doing has been gathering dust on a shelf. I think it would be better in your hooves than mine.”
“T-thank you! H-how much do I owe you-” The stallion asked, reaching over to a compartment in his saddlebag where it looked like he kept his bits.
“Keep your money. I’d have little use for it,” Ember insisted, before helping the stallion place the book in his bag along with the picture he took out. “Though, there is one thing you can provide for me.”
“Huh? What’s that?”
She couldn’t help but smirk at that. “Well, a name. You’ve told me so much and you haven’t even introduced yourself.”
“Oh, s-sorry… My bad,” The stallion scratched the back of his head with a hoof. “It’s Argyle. Argyle Starshine.”
“Well, Argyle, you can call me Candlewick.” Ember smiled, “It was a pleasure meeting you.”
Just as soon as Argyle had originally entered the archive, he stepped back out through the door and was gone. The moment that she was by herself, Ember immediately twisted the band again to change back to her original form and went to lock the door so nopony else could enter or even see the door. “Philomena, did you catch all of that?”
“Every single word,” Philomena replied as the fiery bird manifested on her shoulder, “Still, everything that this Argyle guy said seems really hard to believe.”
“Yeah, but I’d doubt that he would have any reason to lie,” Ember replied back, before looking past the front counter and to the rooms behind it, “Go tell the others to meet me in the recreation room. This is something that everyone needs to know about and I have a bad feeling that Celestia and Luna aren’t going to take the news lightly.”
“T-that’s impossible,” Celestia was the first one to speak after Ember shared with them everything that she had learned only a few moments ago. Even though what the mancer was telling them was the truth, the gravity of her words made it rather difficult to believe as the former princess tried to process what was said, “Equestria… lost its magic? How?”
“That I don’t know,” Ember shook her head, “For a moment, I thought it was another Equestria. But the key we used to arrive here was my own feather. This has to be ours, but… something does feel right.”
“Not only that, but the tribes are now split up once more,” Luna added, “Ember, my friend. Are you certain that we aren’t in Equestria’s past? The only time that they had been separated before was because of the Wendigos-”
“That’s what I thought too at first,” she replied, “But the stallion that came in today, Argyle, implied that the time of ‘Time of Twilight and her friends’ was in the past and even called it a Golden Age. Based on what he told me, ever since magic disappeared without any warning or any reason as to why, everypony’s afraid now and they twist old stories to justify their fears.”
At that point, the sound of throwing knives hitting a dart board in the back of the room echoed outward as Maeve, who had been sitting on top of a pool table that was mounted to the floor, chose to speak up, “So, what you’re saying is we are somehow in the future. However, we just don’t know how far in the future or how things turned out this way?”
“Seems like it,” Amaryllis now added as she trotted up next to Ember’s side, “Though, if you think about it, this isn’t the weirdest thing we’ve come across. We’ve met a lot of other people and seen other Equestria’s over the years that the Archive has been in business. I’m pretty sure that we’ve seen our fair share of strange things.”
“Can’t argue with that, kitten,” the cat burglar shrugged as she looked at the wall where all the ‘keys’ were kept and looked at a few of them, “Say, weren’t some of those Equestria’s also in the future too?”
“A few, give or take,” Luna grumbled, “But don’t get me started on some of those other worlds. Even if they were home to displaced like you and Ember, some of them were just plain rude.”
Now Ember couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow as she looked back at the lunar alicorn, “Really? This is the first time I’ve heard of something like that.”
“It happened while you and Amaryllis were celebrating your wedding anniversary and left the three of us in charge of the store. All was going well for the most part… until we ended up meeting… I think he called himself ‘Tom’?”
“'EY, WOT GIVES!? 'OO THOUGHT IT WAS A GUD IDEA TA HAVE A RANDOM DOOR SHOWZ UP 'N 'DA MIDDLE UV 'DA WAAAGH! ROOM!?”
“… You’re telling me that an Ork just happened to show up on the day that we happened to leave you guys in charge of the archive for a day? A day?!”
“We tried to help them just like anybody else that comes in,” Maeve retorted, “But the more that we tried to help him, the angrier he got and we were afraid that he was going to try and burn down the place. He’s the only one that we had to forcefully kick out and we didn’t want either of you to panic, so that’s why we didn’t tell you. Sorry.”
At that, the caretaker just let out a deep sigh. While she still had some reservations about the sisters and also her mother hiding this from her, there was no point in getting worked up over small details. “It’s fine, mom. I think we’re just getting ahead of ourselves though.”
“I agree,” Amaryllis nodded, “But back to the matter at hoof, even though we’ve seen what other Equestria’s were like in their future, ours pales in comparison. If anything, I think we can all agree that this is a huge step backwards.”
Everyone in the room collectively nodded at that as Luna chose to speak again, “The only question that remains is how exactly it got to that point. Because when we last left Equestria, everything was perfectly fine. There was peace and harmony between not just the tribes, but other species.”
Briefly after her sister had finished speaking, Celestia now added on to the conversation, “Now, it’s as if everything that Twilight and the element bearers worked for is gone. Even though their story remains, the meaning behind those stories have been lost. And since nopony is around to tell them the truth, they just… accept it.”
For a moment, silence filled the room. While there were things that all of them did know a few things about what happened to Equestria since they left, there were still some questions that were unanswered… and more than likely might remain unanswered. Several Displaced that they had met had a bright future by the time their story had finished. So, what exactly happened to their home that made things turn out the exact opposite of what Twilight and her friends had hoped for?
Then, a realization hit as if something clicked into place. Yet, it wasn’t Ember who had this realization, but Maeve. “Nopony around…”
In an instant, Amaryllis picked up on what she said as the changeling looked back at the cat burglar. “Hmm? Did you say something, Maeve?”
“Yeah, what Celestia just now,” she said, before starting to twirl a knife around one of her index fingers, “What if that was the reason?”
That left the solar alicorn with a puzzled look on her face as she looked over at Amaryllis and Ember for a moment, before her gaze shifted to Maeve. “I’m… not sure if I follow. What exactly do you mean?”
“Think about it for a moment,” the cat burglar reasoned as she put the knife back in her coat and hopped off the table. “Every story for every displaced that we happened to meet had a happy ending because they stuck around to see things all the way to the end. However, instead, we decided to stay out of Twilight’s affairs so that she and her friends can solve any problems that come her way by themselves instead of relying on us to solve their problems for them.”
“Yeah, and when we left, everything seemed perfectly fine,” the caretaker pointed out as she folded her arms, “Are you trying to say that we made a bad decision?”
“No, far from it,” Maeve shook her head, “I know this sounds like me coming up with theories, but at least hear me out. We all know how Twilight thinks, so if you were her and found yourself in a situation that you can’t think of a solution to overcome it, what would immediately come to mind?”
“Well, she would come to me for-” Immediately, Celestia’s pupils shrank as realization kicked in. “Oh no.”
Now, it seemed like everyone understood what she was trying to tell them, “That’s right, kitten. I don’t know if this is correct or not, but I have a feeling that something happened back in the past where Twilight was forced to make a decision to ensure the safety of her subjects. How Equestria is now is the consequence of that choice. Cause and Effect at work. However, there’s one discrepancy to this.”
“What’s that?” Amaryllis asked.
“Everything that we know so far is based on the words of a resident in Equestria that just happened to come in here,” Maeve said as she moved back to the pool table, “However, none of us have actually seen this for ourselves. If we’re to get a better understanding of what’s going on, I’d say we change that,” The thief then looked over towards Luna, “Do we still have the Orb of Observation?”
The mention of that alone was enough to catch their attention. The Orb of Observation was one of a few magical items they kept inside the archive and used on a case by case basis. If the orb was attuned to someone, then whoever was watching the orb could not only see things from that person’s perspective, but also hear whatever they hear as well. Of course, the fact that Maeve was specifically referring to it right now could only mean one thing.
“Maeve, are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
“Why of course, kitten,” she smiled, “We are barely going to get anywhere if we just sit around here discussing mere possibilities. The only way we’re going to truly see how much Equestria has changed is if one of us goes out to see it for themselves.”
By that alone, Ember had a feeling of where exactly this might be going. “And let me guess, I’m the only one capable enough for this task?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Maeve told her, “Not because we don’t want to, but if magic truly is gone, then it limits a lot of the things the rest of us can do because we either use magic or have magical items. You are a different story since your powers aren’t magical and you don’t need a spell cast on you to change your appearance.”
Despite the reservations she had about this, her mother made a valid point on one thing. Staying inside the archive was going to do little to help them get a better understanding of what happened to Equestria. “Alright, fine. However, if we’re doing this, then there’s one place I need to visit while I’m out and about.”
That had Celestia and Amaryllis raise an eyebrow, “What’s that?”
“I need to see what has become of the Everfree,” the mancer insisted, “We all know that the creatures of the Everfree, as well as other species, needed magic to survive and Sylvanos was the heart of the Everfree. He’s my responsibility and if magic truly is gone, I need to know what has become of him.”
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