Sun & Moon Act II: A Crown Divided

by cursedchords

Chapter 28: The Cottage on the Hill

“I knew very little of my father. He was always sitting with his advisors or else studying magic, things that I did not concern myself with. I had two older sisters, so no one thought to prepare me to rule.”

- Princess Platinum

When Celestia awoke, night had fallen again over Harmony Tower. She hadn’t made it to her bed before sleep had taken her; indeed she awoke to find herself still slumped over the desk, the side of her face stained with ink that had smeared as she had collapsed into it.

Naturally she couldn’t remember any of what had happened over the course of the previous day. She had arrived at Harmony Tower, came up here and got right to work. Whatever happened after that was now a milky blur, but from the detailed diagrams and lists that were spread out on the desk before her, she must have at least gotten some work done.

It was a little difficult to tell with only starlight to read by though, so with a quick touch of magic Celestia lit up the candle that was lying fresh on her desk, apparently having materialized over the course of her rest. True to Luna’s predictions, the candle illuminated a stack of hot buns, still steaming as they sat on the desk, a bowl of honey next to them. They must have been delivered merely moments ago, as if somepony had just known when she was going to wake up. Hopefully they didn’t see her with the massive ink stain across her fur.

Since it had been more than a day since Celestia had last eaten, she grabbed the top one immediately.

In the dim light of the flame, she could also now see the full magnitude of everything that she had written down before falling asleep.

Unicorn magic was, and had always been, a scholar’s art, dissected and analyzed deeply by its practitioners. There was no feeling your way when grasping the strands of magic and weaving them into a useful form. Everything had to be planned and considered carefully, especially when starting from scratch.

Spread out before her now were lists of dozens of parameters outlined in neat tables, each corresponding to one of the six fundamental elements of magic: Earth, Water, Light, Mind, Life and Spirit. As each had both a positive and a negative form, that made twelve fundamental energies total. Spells were built from combining them in patterns, individual threads building into simple weaves, and more complex constructions woven from them.

Each one of the individual energies was marked with a distinct symbol, which then keyed into the second set of plans: the Swirl diagrams, named of course for the great wizard who had first used them, long in the past. Each of these diagrams featured a particular construction, a single step of weaving initial magical energies into intermediate products. As she progressed through them, the threads were pulled together into recognizable bundles, those built on each other into strips and ropes, and those further built upon, until it all came together to make up the spell. Celestia almost wished that the old wizard could see her now, as she put the final touches on this one.

The sight of the diagrams put a new flicker of attention back into her mind, helped along no doubt by the succulent bun. Celestia looked down and realized that she was already on her third. Perhaps it would be better to stop with that now. Though she could of course pack a few for her expedition into the forest.

Out the window, the hill still loomed, menacing in its own way in the night. Everfree had always been a peaceful wood, watched over by Terraria and her Order in the days of Celestia’s youth. Yet, the raw, primal power that she could feel pulsing out from that hill was still enough to make her uneasy. Never mind how useful it was about to be for her, the question of what exactly created it in the first place was still an uncomfortable one. Old dragon magic was one possibility, left over from the time, ages ago by now, when their kind had held dominion over this part of the world. Or perhaps it was an artefact of pony magic, forgotten in the peaceful time before Discord’s rise? Either way, she knew that the source of the power wouldn’t matter. What she needed now was to get her hooves on it, to save the world once more, just as she and Luna had done so many years ago.

---

Under the trees, the forest was silent, save for the rare call of a nocturnal bird, or the occasional rustle of some animal moving through the undergrowth. Even though the forest was parched, the canopy overhead was still thick enough to blot out any light from the stars, which meant that Celestia had to light her own way. If it weren’t for the draw of the area’s magic pulling her along, she could’ve easily gotten lost out here. As it stood, though, each hoofstep forward brought with it a rising excitement, as she could feel her own magic calling out to the air up here, growing stronger in time with the beat of the world.

None of the guards in the Tower had questioned her departure, although at least this time she hadn’t come downstairs to find a bag of trail mix all ready to go. She wasn’t sure exactly how long this whole process was going to take, but it could be a while, certainly. For a complex spell like this, she was probably going to have to put it through several dry runs, just to make sure that all of the constituent pieces were working well together before she took a chance at casting the whole thing. All in all, it could mean a day or more of spellcasting, and naturally in all of that time it would be up to Luna to make sure that the rest of the country stayed on a straight course.

While a part of her lamented not knowing how things were going back in Canterlot, the greater part knew that if she were there, she wouldn’t be doing anything to help. All that Luna needed to do was make sure that by the time Celestia emerged from the forest, she still had a country left to save.

The area around the hill itself was for the most part unfamiliar terrain for Celestia, too deep into the forest to have been worth exploring during the days she had spent here before. But in a sense it was easy to find her way, especially once she felt the slope of the hill start to rise under her hooves. The sounds of the forest had fallen away into silence behind her now, or perhaps it was simply that the rumble of the power in her mind had overwhelmed all else.

Up ahead, in between the interspersed clumps of trunks and smaller bushes, she could see something starting to emerge. Not the open sky, though, which would have been only softly lit. Instead, whatever lay before her, higher up the hill, was casting a purplish light all of its own, and it wasn’t long until Celestia realized what it was that she was coming up on.

Snaking its way through the gaps in the forest like a cast-off tentacle of a great sea creature was a bank of low purple fog, billowing out of an unseen location somewhere farther up the hill. Even the sight of it dropped a stone of nerves deep into Celestia’s stomach.

At the edges of the fog the air shimmered, the otherworldly light bending upon itself as reality twisted inside out. Celestia had seen something like this only once before, and she had hoped to never see it again. It was a Chaos Storm, a remnant of Discord’s power, from the days when he had ruled the countryside.

She drew up to a halt in front of it, considering the situation. The Storm itself could not be the power that she was looking for. It was a fundamentally different force, a dissonant whisper of chaos that stood out against everything else that this place was. Her goal had to lie beyond it.

Yet still, she knew that venturing into a Chaos Storm was always a risky proposition. Only with a strong heart could she be assured of making it to the other side, and even then there were no guarantees that the Storm would deposit her anywhere near where she entered.

Chaos Storms were tears in the fabric of reality, and normal assumptions about the way the world worked simply wouldn’t hold inside of them. Her unicorn magic would desert her, uncontrollable without the understanding that its use required. But her pegasus magic could still hold true, so long as she was determined enough.

Without another thought, Celestia galloped into the fog.

Right away, the doubts began to circulate in her mind. Questions about the worthiness of her cause, about the inherent risks of what she was doing, about the possibilities that by being so brash she was giving up the chance of ever seeing Luna again. They buzzed about the back of her mind like an incessant swarm of hornets, but Celestia pressed on through the mist. They weren’t really her conscience advising her, after all. Just the chaos magic doing its best to make her resolve falter.

In the fog, there was nothing to see, the forest all around her having vanished completely, replaced only by endless expanses of purple blankness. The air against her skin was still in spite of how fast she was running, and even the sounds of her hooves striking the forest floor failed to reach her ears. The space before her stretched on for eternity, not a single tree or branch looming up in front of her, nor a single break in the atmosphere other than purple, dead purple everywhere. Still she ran on.

Then, in a flash, there was a tree. Celestia had to use her wings to stop herself in time, but a look to each side revealed that she was back in the forest. The air was full of nocturnal sound again, the grass underhoof felt alive and fresh, and there was even a bit of an opening in the trees overhead, letting some starlight in. A look behind her revealed a simple forest path, winding down the hillside around the occasional boulder or gnarled root, but looking well-traveled. It looked as though the storm had actually dropped her off in the right place.

Celestia drew in a deep breath, though she knew that barrier could be only the first that she would face on her way up the hillside. The beat of the magic was still there in her mind though, somehow still growing stronger with every step. So she turned herself back up the forest path. And that was when she saw it.

A single step ahead, the rough dirt under her hooves was replaced by a level paving stone, stretching across the breadth of the path neatly. More such stones followed it, turning the rough track suddenly into a well-defined trail, working its way up through what Celestia now realized were carefully tended flowerbeds, interspersed with the occasional pruned shrubbery. Even the grass on the forest floor was lively, growing thick and green, moist to the touch. Especially in a year like this, that couldn’t happen unless somepony was tending to it.

She took a couple of tentative steps up the trail, on guard for anything unexpected. The paving stones felt real enough, and the sounds that her hooves made when she touched them were authentic. Was it just possible that somepony lived up here, maintaining a sweet little existence away from the rest of the world? Nothing in the history Celestia had read had ever mentioned ponies living in this section of the forest, though. Such a settlement would have to be older than Equestria itself to escape being recorded.

Around a bend, she could spy a splash of white in amongst the trees, and sure enough when she came around the corner a small cottage came into view, nestled into the gap between a couple of spreading willows. It looked to be only a couple of rooms at most, but the sides of it were painted brightly, the windows were clean, and the grass around it had all been trimmed neatly to the perfect height. If Celestia allowed herself to forget about the storm on the hillside below, and the tremendous power that still awaited her further along, she could almost have believed that she was back in Canterlot, looking at a small vacation retreat that had been carved out of the mountainside. Then a light suddenly sprang up from inside the cottage’s windows.

For a second Celestia didn’t know whether to hide behind the nearest tree or else call out to whomever had just been roused from their sleep. Her business wasn’t with this pony, whoever they were, yet even so she had to admit that her curiosity was now burning bright as a star. If nothing else, maybe whoever lived here knew something about the magic that the hill housed, and could give her some advice about how best to use it. So she stood her ground out in front of the house, ready with a courteous greeting.

After a moment of flickering light, the front door opened with a jingle of bells. Not from the door, though, for standing in the doorway, holding a candle aloft with a shimmering haze of azure magic, was a wizened old unicorn dressed in a flowing robe, with a beard that stretched down almost to the top of his front step. And the sound of the bells had come, out of all places, from his hat. It was Star Swirl the Bearded.

The greeting that Celestia had prepared shriveled up in her throat, as she laid her eyes on a pony who had vanished from the pages of history centuries ago. Unless he had somehow lived to be over a thousand years old, Star Swirl must have passed away at some point, and yet here he was. For his part, the old unicorn was squinting in her general direction, the skin around his eyes drooping into a multitude of lines and wrinkles.

“Who’s there?” he asked, sounding surprisingly timid despite his fierce reputation. His voice was the thin croak of a very old stallion. “I know that I heard somepony rooting around out here.” His eyes wandered for a bit before snapping onto Celestia at last. “There you are! Come on in, why don’t you? It’s dangerous to be out here alone, especially after dark.”

“Why, why thank you, sir,” Celestia managed to say, stepping forward cautiously and never taking her eyes off of Star Swirl. In this place, with this magic in the air, she couldn’t take anything for granted, but every time that she looked at Star Swirl closer, she only saw another detail that pointed toward this actually being the legendary wizard in the flesh. The snow white strands of tousled hair that fell haphazardly from underneath his hat. The patches and darning on his great robe, signs of years and years of wear. And, once she stepped over the threshold of the house, the sight of a stack of dirty gardening tools piled up just inside the doorway.

When Star Swirl shut the door behind her, his lone candle lit up the inside of the small house easily, revealing a spare arrangement of a single table and a sturdy wooden chair. On the far wall was a bookshelf, the volumes upon it thick as planks of lumber. Celestia’s eyes were naturally drawn to those.

“I’m… sorry for having awoken you,” she haltingly began, tumbling over her words as Star Swirl laid the candle down on the table and looked sheepishly for another chair.

“Oh, never mind that!” the old unicorn chortled back, sounding rather chipper. “I’m up now, and there’s nothing that either of us can do about that, now is there? Let me get something else to sit on, shall I? And maybe I’ll put a pot of tea on too while I’m at it. Ponies do still drink tea, right?”

Celestia nodded her approval on that front, still unsure of exactly how to approach this encounter. Surely she must be the first pony that the old unicorn had met in centuries, and yet he did seem to be taking the whole thing in stride. He had disappeared into the cottage’s second room, presumably the location of his sleeping arrangements as well as the hearth on which he’d make the tea, and Celestia let her eyes wander back to the bookshelf. Unless the old unicorn had been out and about recently, these books would be another way of verifying that all of this wasn’t some sort of dream.

She chose one at random and pulled it down off of the shelf, holding the cover up to the candlelight.

The binding was very simple, just a clean white linen jacket, without even a title or an author’s name standing out anywhere. The pages were thin, the ink upon them faded to the point of being scarcely legible, and the corners were well-worn, several folded or torn. What writing she could make out was encouraging, if hard to understand. It was all written in old Unicornian, which Celestia at least understood at a passing level. While she couldn’t make out everything, the book appeared to be a treatise on warding magic, and in a couple of places she found scrawls of writing in the margins, in a peculiar looped script that could only have come from the book’s owner.

So engrossed was she in puzzling out his notes that when Star Swirl came back into the room she barely noticed before he cleared his throat from behind her.

She jerked her head up in surprise. “Oh! My apologies, sir.” Looking back, she saw that he was holding a rusty metal bucket, looking chagrined. “That will do for a seat. Tell me though, are these yours?” She held up the book.

“But of course,” he replied, sounding surprised. “Hardly riveting reading though, I expect. Surely the art has advanced significantly since my time.” He put the bucket down squarely on the floor, then promptly set himself down upon it, and indicated the chair across for his guest.

Celestia took the seat without question. The greatest unicorn in history was not only making tea for her, he was letting her have his seat? And it was a very well-made seat. “Star Swirl,” she began, looking at him levelly across the table. The name felt strange in her mouth, a word not meant to be used in casual conversation.

“Indeed,” he replied, offering a small nod. “At least we can dispense with that part of the conversation. It’s good to know that at least somepony thought I was worth writing about.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked, unable to control her curiosity any longer. “You should be dead, long dead! It’s been more than a thousand years since that history was written.”

He held his hooves up between them, halting what would’ve been a long-winded series of questions. “I understand that. Perhaps you wonder about how I can take this whole thing so casually. The truth is that even though I hoped that I wouldn’t have to, I always knew I would be having this conversation one day, even if I didn’t know when or with whom. So what we’re about to have is a conversation rehearsed many times. Many times over… how long did you say it was?”

“A thousand years.”

His eyebrows came up, though not to the extent one would expect given the revelation. “That long, eh? I guess the years kind of passed me by somewhere in the middle there.” For a moment he was silent, grinning to himself, perhaps thinking of some memory from long ago. Celestia was about to ask another question when he snapped his eyes to her again.

“Ah! But you have many questions, and presumably you’ve already asked the most pertinent one. So now it’s time for me to tell you a story, and then we can get to business after that. It’s unfortunate given the circumstances, but I have to start by asking you a few questions myself. Number one, why have you come here?”

Celestia sat back in the chair, gesturing farther up the mountain. “The magic here, of course. Surely you can feel it too. I need it, to help save ponykind from its swiftly approaching end.”

That had been perhaps overly dramatic phrasing, but Star Swirl only nodded in apparent resignation. “I was afraid of that,” he said. “Question number two: What does the name ‘Solaris VII’ mean to you?”

“He was a king,” she answered calmly, pulling the memories out of the history lessons she had taken from her old mentor Aqua. “The last King of the Unicorns, right before the Fall, and right before Equestria was founded. In fact, he should have been a contemporary of yours.”

He nodded gravely. “That’s one way of putting it. Last question: what else do you know about the way that the Unicorn Kingdom ended?”

Celestia had to think a bit on that one. The details were there in her mind, but somewhat hazy. “There was a famine,” she said, continuing once she got an approving nod from him. “It lasted a couple of years, until finally there was a rebellion, the earth ponies rising up and fighting the unicorns and the pegasi. Many ponies died, including the king and two of his daughters. You disappeared, presumed dead by many. The kingdom broke apart soon after, the tribes migrating south in search of food. Eventually they found this country, and they called it Equestria.” She gave him a level look. “The story goes on a long time after that, and I could tell you a lot of it, but that answers your question.”

A wry grin spread across his face. “You’ve got most of the context, which is good. That’ll cut down on this story a good bit. The biggest thing you need to know is that what you’ve just told me is only partly true. For one thing, obviously I survived. But not just me.”

He sat up straight, and the tip of his horn started glowing, the blue shards of his magic starting to weave a picture in the centre of the table. “Solaris lived through it too, and he was the one who brought me here. Or, perhaps more truthfully, I followed him.”

The picture gradually solidified, focusing into a forest on a dark night, a younger Star Swirl in the middle of the table. “You called him a contemporary of mine, and that was at least somewhat right. We were friends once. Colleagues, fellow researchers. Half of my work I owed to him.” The picture grew as Celestia looked at it, flowing out from the table, until it had enveloped the room around them. The light of the candle was replaced by the soft glow of a half-moon overhead. The wooden seat she was sitting on was replaced by the brush of pine needles against her skin. Across the table, Star Swirl’s face vanished into the trees. Only his voice still made it to her ears. “I first came to these woods a thousand years ago. My heart was heavy, but I knew what I had to do…”

---

A strong wind from the north whipped through the trees behind Star Swirl as he made his way up the hill, threatening to pull his hat off of his brow and send it off deeper into the heart of this forsaken land. How far he had wandered he did not know. Whether there was anypony, anyone within a hundred miles who could offer him shelter, he did not know. Whether he would make it off of this hill alive, he did not know.

But still he pushed on, one hoof in front of the other. Each step brought with it a name, a memory of somepony who had brought him to this day. Clover, dear innocent Clover. Queen Argent, dead for years now. Wolfram, that stout-hearted fool. The young princesses, Platinum and Cuprum, far too young to understand. And Aurum, beautiful Princess Aurum. The names he’d carried with him for so long. Tonight, he would make sure that their names would mean something.

He was drawing near to the top of the hill, and the forest was thinning out, making way for a small clearing around the very top. His former friend was waiting for him there, and Star Swirl steeled himself before taking that final step.

“Solaris!” he called as he came out of the forest, the wind grabbing his words and ripping them away from him roughly. “It’s me!”

The unicorn standing in the middle of the clearing was tall, a foot taller than Star Swirl, and his face was almost hidden by the long cinnamon mane that swirled down from the top of his head. Despite having lived well-past a century, there wasn’t a hint of grey in that mane, nor the well-trimmed goatee that covered the lower half of his muzzle. The eyes above that mouth were a pale crimson, bright and fiery in the moonlight. As he turned around, the scarlet cape that was tied around his shoulders caught the wind, flaring out behind him. “Star Swirl!” he answered, his voice the sound of thunder. “You found your way here.”

“To talk, old friend!” he shouted back. “What drove you on? Why did I have to follow you for miles before getting a chance to speak with you? You must have known I was following!”

A bare hint of dark brown light at the tip of Solaris’s horn was the only warning that Star Swirl received, before a beam of pale orange energy erupted from the middle of the clearing and came straight for him. The old unicorn dove out of the way, rolling into a crouch.

“Talk!” Solaris roared from the centre of the clearing. “Spare me the diplomacy, old man! We could have talked for hours back then if you had wanted it! No, you mean to finish what the rest of our kind only started.”

Star Swirl kept low, knowing that as soon as he spoke the old King would know where he was. Still, the longer he could go without this turning into a full fight, the better. “I’m here to stop you from being so rash!” he said, ready with a shield spell as soon as the other pony turned. The King’s magic impacted hard on his shield, but flowed around him, demolishing a tree instead. “To make you see reason!”

“What reason is there to see?” Solaris cried, leaving the centre of the clearing as he began circling around, looking for a gap in Star Swirl’s defense. “I never even saw her, poor sweet Aurum, taken from me by those traitorous fools! Does she not deserve vengeance, Star Swirl? Does my daughter not deserve to see the world that stole her life realize its mistake?”

“What happened to Aurum was nopony’s fault!” Star Swirl answered. “Not yours, not mine, not anyone’s! Nothing you can do will make it right! Not with all of the magic in the world can you get her back!”

The King didn’t answer. Instead, with a guttural roar he conjured a whirling twister out of the wind, sending it across the clearing. Star Swirl saw the spell, and without hesitation he cast it himself, a blend of Water and Light, with the energies inverted to serve as a counter. The two twisters met and dissipated harmlessly in the middle of the clearing.

“I know,” Solaris admitted, choking as a tear fell from his eyes. “Nothing I can do will bring her back to me, nothing can undo the wrongs this world has wrought upon my family. I can only build her a legacy, and I intend to.” He clutched a hoof up to his forehead, shaking the tears out of his eyes. “She was to be my legacy, but now it is my task, to build a kingdom which will last forever!”

“No,” Star Swirl said firmly, stepping forward and claiming the top of the hill for his own. “I cannot let you do that.” He prepared his shield spell again.

“Then you will be the first to know that I cannot be stopped!” the King returned, trying again with a beam of pure light, again deflecting around Star Swirl’s shield. “Try as you will, but this is my legacy, and this time nopony is going to get in my way!”

This time Star Swirl stepped to the left and delivered his own salvo, a rush of white-hot light that the King had to dive out of the way of, making it only barely. “I don’t want to have to hurt you,” he said, “but I will if I must! Aurum was a peacemaker, a leader who would have bridged the gaps between us! Would it not be better to fulfill her dreams and set aside our hostilities?”

Solaris came out of his fall with a snarl on his face. “There will be no bridges built, only burnt,” he replied, a deep sneer in his voice. “There will be no forgiveness for the guilty. All will know the wrath that her death demands! And I will deliver it, until this pit of despair in my soul is filled by the suffering I shall give to the world.” He drew himself up for another attack, and Star Swirl braced again, but this time instead Solaris only winked out of existence.

There was a moment of silence in the clearing, Star Swirl’s heart pumping relentlessly in his ears, before he felt the magic in the air behind him. Tucking in his shoulder, he dove out of the way just in time, as Solaris materialized once again, jumping forward with a spear of fire, right where he had been standing. Star Swirl landed nimbly on his hooves though, and darted right back, taking the King in his side. The two of them tumbled down into the grass, locked in struggle as each one tried to gain the upper hoof.

Star Swirl ended up on top, pinning down his opponent’s shoulders. Solaris tried a teleportation spell again, but this time Star Swirl countered it right away, leaving the two of them only to glare into each other’s eyes. He desperately wanted it not to have to end this way, but up close he could see the madness that had taken his friend. If he let Solaris go, he would only be asking for a killing stroke in his own back. And then the rest of the world would follow. So he closed his eyes.

“I knew her,” he said, letting the memories of the former Princess flow over his senses. “That’s how I know that this is what she would have wanted.” Opening his eyes, he conjured a wickedly black orb at the tip of his horn. “Goodbye, my King.”

As the magic hit Solaris in the forehead, the unicorn jerked violently, his eyes losing their focus. Then, slowly, his body went limp, and he settled down into the grass. Star Swirl stood back up, looking at the body of the old King in sorrow. All at once, the layers of age magic Solaris had wrought upon himself fell away, revealing a coat that had subsided to a dull tan, a mane that was now but a few wisps of grey, and a face that was lined all over, the eyes cloudy, the skin marked.

“So passes the last King of the Unicorns,” he said, offering what eulogy Solaris deserved. “Find your daughters, old friend. Let them mend your spirit and quiet your rage, as I could not.”

The wind in the trees blew harder around him, pulling at his hat, almost dislodging it. Star Swirl had to grab it with his own magic to keep it on his head. The sound of the air whipping past his ears was deafening, almost to the point where he wondered why it didn’t pick him up bodily and throw him as far south as it would blow, over the boundless reaches of this forest and on to whatever lay on its other side. Then, he heard a voice.

“Not yet,” it said, before rising into a deep cackle, a swooning chorus of laughter that filled the clearing around him, layering with the wind and rising above it.

“NO!” Star Swirl cried, horror rising in his throat as he realized what was happening. “Impossible!”

“Impossible?” answered the voice on the wind. “It is your spell, and a very good one at that! Magic cannot be killed! Magic cannot be destroyed! My body may be gone, but my magic can live on. And if it can, so can I!” He dissolved into another cascade of laughter, echoing out over the whole forest, assaulting Star Swirl’s ears from all directions.

“I will stop you!” Star Swirl cried back, retreating out of the clearing step by step, holding his legs up in front of his face in the futile hope of shielding himself from the magical assault. “I will find a way!”

This time the King didn’t answer, instead only continuing to revel in his mirth, as Star Swirl ran down the side of the hill, the laughter taunting him at every step. The memories still whirled through his head. “Dear Princess,” he whispered, “what have I done?”