Epilogue: Exspecto veritas.
Caballussia grew... it flourished... it drew back the hands of time and picked up the pieces that the burning sun had left them in; making with it Equestria. Peace had been reached. Ponies from all around spent off days replanting the thicket of the Everfree Forest one shrub at a time. Much like the citizens, it would take time before it could return to even a shadow of what it once was... But it would grow... It would grow. Daily, ponies would rekindle what they once knew; trying to revive a lifestyle some never knew they had. And in time... They changed.
"YAA!" Big Mac gave the little doll a small nudge, pushing it towards the ugly creature Apple Bloom was handling.
Apple Bloom quickly snatched at the troll and yelped as she fell backwards with it, tossing it across the room with a: "Blarg! Y'all got me!" When she tossed the doll into the wall behind her, she started to laugh and lay on her back.
Her brother joined in the laughing as well, sitting on the floor while his hooves held him to tower of his little sister. It was another successful victory for the hero against the evil monster. In the midst of their celebratory laughter, they heard a sharp bang outside in front of the house. The two exchanged quick worried looks and made way to Apple Bloom's window, looking out to what the center of the sound was. "Take yer' highfalutin machines---!" another crash fell across the air as several stallions staggered back, looking frightful at the sight destroying the apple picking machine, "---And yer' flimflammin' ideas---!" Apple Bloom and Big Mac couldn't believe their eyes, the very sight bringing tears to their eyes at every word they heard yelled, "---And get the flyin' feather off our land!" The Hero had come home...
Down below in front of the house, Applejack bucked a sharp back kick into one of the machines, causing it to make a bang and send scraps of metal and bolts out as it started to break from her aggressive assault. Flim and Flam cowered behind a few stallions, looking at the enraged pony as she used her front hooves to stomp on the vest she had been wearing moments before. When she stopped, she started to stomp her hooves into the dirt and moved closer to all the work ponies, making them stagger away once again with each step she brought against the earth. "Ah' sold out ma' family, ma' pride, an' ma' siblin's respect fer' all this. Ah' don't care about yer' bits, yer' contracts, or any of yer' help. Y'all get on out of Sweet Apple Acres now!"
They didn't need any more coaxing. Every last stallion tripped over one another as they tried to be the first one out of the orchard, leaving behind anything they brought with them out of pure fear. Applejack continued to stand there, huffing with anger and hunching herself down in an aggressive stance, looking about for any more ponies she had to buck off the land. Moments passed and Applejack's breathing slowed down and her stance softened. When she stood back up straight, she moved a hoof up to fix her hat, bringing it down over her eyes and continuing her silence. "Applejack...?" Her hat went back up, showing a look of utter surprise when she heard her name.
She looked softly to her side, seeing her two siblings standing on the porch with eyes fixed to her. "...Welcome home, big sis." Apple Bloom whispered, tears trying not to drop from her eyes as she spoke the words she had long since wanted to say.
"...Good ta' be back..."
Sugarcube Corner had never been so... lively. Morning, noon, and night, the lights would never turn off in the shop or any room of the house. Music could always be heard bumping against the glass windows or out into the day or night should even a crack be opened to the world around it. It all started on one day after Solaris was dethroned; the shop held a celebration with balloons, streamers, cakes, and jubilation. It went on for hours with everypony coming to join in the celebration. Even among those numbers was a fragile tenant that lived with the Cakes. That day, the Cakes had never been happier.
"Two dozen, please," Mr. Cake slid a sack of freshly baked cookies over the counter to another stallion, who paid him a sum of bits in return.
"Have a nice--" before Mr. Cake could wish him a good day, a popper went off in his ear and stunned him.
"Found the poppers!" an energetic Pinkie bolted out from under the counter and zipped through the store, spreading streamers and decorations all across the walls and display cases with wild abandon.
When Mr. Cake recovered from the ringing in his year, he gave a soft sigh and smile as he watched the mare treat the room. "She sure is an energetic one now, isn't she?" the other stallion pointed out.
"She sure is... She's been having parties here three times a day since she started."
"Really? Don't you get tired of it at all?"
"Not at all... The way the Misses and I see it, Pinkie has been too sick for maybe fourteen years of her life. So, she has fourteen years of birthdays, New Years, congratulations, and all sorts of other parties to make up for it..." Mr. Cake put his eyes back to Pinkie, seeing her slowing down and taking a careful moment to fix up a streamer that refused to stay up, "We'll both take her parties forever if we have to. Just as long as she's happy now."
One could have debated that the peace after Solaris' reign was well worth the strife before. Nopony spoke of it aloud... But all ponies thought it to be true deep within their hearts. For better and for worse, Solaris' had changed them and opened a new world at the dawning of the new world. From the light came the darkness that consumed the world and brought to it calm and bliss. And in that darkness... They prospered.
"Twilight...?"
"Good morning, Spike..."
"It's five in the evening, Twilight."
"Is it really? I guess I lost my sense of time. Pretty ironic. The world now has a sense of time to it, and I've never been more lost to it. But, I guess that's the price you pay when you commit to work over everything else."
"You need some rest."
"I can rest later. I still need to finish these last few lessons before bed."
"They'll be there in the morning."
"But I need them done before morning. If I don't, Queen Solaris will think I don't care about the lessons she left me," Twilight Sparkle looked across the dim, dusky library that had not seen cleaning for some time.
Books tottered with layers of dust and cobwebs being the only sense of equal balance among them. The only light to the room came from the glazed windows and the candle light before Twilight that had been melted down the the dish it stood in. What magic remained in Twilight's horn barely flickered as she flipped through blank page after blank page of books she had clustered before her. "I'm her star student and apprentice. I--"
"Twilight!" Her reality was broken once more by the call from her own assistant standing behind her.
The hours; the days he stood behind her without moving except for the occasion to get food for himself and her were muddied over along with the dusty books in the once taken care of library. The empty book before Twilight finally had something put to it as a salty, bitter drop fell from Twilight's eye and against the empty page. "Please, Spike... Just let me pretend for a little while longer..." she felt Spike's claw rest against her side, giving her the first contact she had felt in days, "...Please..."
Within Canterlot Castle, Celestia's eyes opened to a half lid and she looked back to the ornate, heavy piece of armor she had presented before her. "Where conviction for what you think is right can find itself; grief and shame can just as quickly make a home there and never allow those thoughts of right to ever make a place..." she not only told herself, but Luna as well as her sister stood before her.
"Be this all true... Would the cycle not thusly continue? If Solaris had been banished... Would her sister not fall to the same dread?" Luna questioned, barely able to grasp all that she had come to know now.
Celestia shook her head and continued to look at the armor before her, as if seeing a reflection of herself in the dulled metal. "No... She did not banish Solaris, nor did she kill her," Celestia rose from her bed and slowly circled around it, holding the piece of armor in her golden hold of magic. "In that end, Luna choose Loyalty over all else..."
The throne room and halls of Canterlot echoed with an emptiness since the celebrations and reuniting of all the colonies; but it was well suited. No light passed through the arching pillars or the hung drapes. All that existed within now was a lone mare sitting on a lavish, red throne in bleak shadows. Though the halls held no sound but the soft breeze, the mare's mind rattled with thoughts, memories, and reflections behind closed eyes.
"We will place all these actions on the charge of the comity. We must focus on the more pressing and enlarged matters. That is why we are royalty..."
Her mane wavered out across the throne room floor, bringing a low, foggy dusk across it with a velvet-like black and purple hue dancing within it. The smokey texture her mane brought along with it framed against her tall, elegant and shadow figure. The calm of her dark complexion did not favor bliss, contemplation, or any other... Simply, a dismal calm.
"So we may better the denizens on a grander scale?"
All at once, the dusky hue that filled the throne room floor summoned up back to the mare and was collected into her mane; bringing to it a smokey texture along with flecks of shimmering, white centers along the waves of it. Gradually, the lids of her eyes moved open and with it, light flowed into the the hall and room from the drapes and pillars.
"Exactly... It is my deepest hope that we will change our ailing land. And I know that we will be the cure. But only if we work as one, sister."
The mare's eyes looked straight ahead of her to the entry way to her throne room, but expected nothing to come through it. Instead, her half-lidded eyes remained as they were; watching ahead of her while her mane danced out against her back. Within her eyes, she everything crystal clear. To one side was the darkness, and to the other was the light. For better or for worse, she could see both clearly and could understand all that she saw within them...
"My loyalty will always be to you... My sister..."
And as her with a pink iris shut, bringing a darkness back across her castle, her open eye with a teal iris remained as it was; watching out before her and ushering in break between the light...
"There exists no true answer... Right or wrong? Light or dark? There is no answer to the right amount or the balance between... And yet, they say it is wrong to do nothing and not be involved. But perhaps that is exactly what those with the greatest power must do... Leave those with small sway to decide their own path and work together to push their path the way they desire while those with power do nothing but watch and grant a guiding push. Perhaps, in the end, that is all there is... Or, perhaps the world will forever be stuck between harmony, and discord." - A Loyal Mare.
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So did the Mane 6 get home?
The alter-Mane 6 seems to have at least somewhat changed for the better.
That cover art. That description. Call me intrigued. VERY intrigued.
And only 16k words? I will be reading this. Quite soon probably. Stay tuned.
Well, that was surprising ...
So they fused? That...... That is one of the coolest ideas I have ever seen implemented in a story
2264972 Not in my continuity. He was just a powerful unicorn that was given a longer life by Celestia so he could serve her more.
T'was magnificent.
Huh. An interesting read. Not quite what I was expecting. A bit too deep for me, probably.
2268071 I wish I could say something profound as usual about Rainbow Dash... But... I simply forgot her chapter...
Celina's (Celestia + Luna) fate seems terribly lonely, but at least they have each other.
2269894 I prefer Equinox. The time of the year where night and day are equal and balanced... In this way, she is the harmony of the world now; even if she herself will never have peace within her own mind.
2270607 True enough...