Starting Your Quest

by ArDee

5 // Evolution & Acceptance

Sunny’s powerful hooves connected with the bell’s protective barrier just as the flash of brilliance consumed her, latent alicorn instincts rising to the fore as she quickly cast a protective barrier around her other friends in response to the flash.

Her instincts were right to be concerned. The blinding burst of light was followed swiftly by a powerful shockwave, sending books and papers flying off of the shelves as small objects were sent hurtling through nearby windows in showers of broken glass. The entire lighthouse seemed to shudder from the force of the blast, sending everypony hurtling into walls and furniture as they lost their footing.

The bell flickered and shuddered as it hovered above a charred spot on the floor right where Izzy had been standing, the very last dregs of its enchantment exhausted as it fell out of the air. The cracked, chipped, millenniums-old bronze, no longer held together by magic, exploded into fractured, crumbling pieces as it was dashed against the hardwood floor of Sunny’s lighthouse, only a faint wisp of residual magic rising from its smoldering remains.

“No, no, no, nonono…” Sunny wailed desperately, scrambling to pick up the pieces of the bell as a flood of tears obscured her vision. “NO! I can’t lose you, too, Izzy! I can’t!” Her hooves scuffed against the charred spot on her living room floor in futile, inarticulate, sorrowful desperation, pleading for some sign that her best friend, sister, marefriend, and lover was still alive.

“Sunny! Sunny, stop! She’s…she’s gone.” Hitch said in a shocked, hushed tone, pulling Sunny back from the spot as the color drained from his face.

“IZZZZYYYY!” She cried out, one final time, before collapsing into Hitch’s hooves. Sobs wracked her frame as her chest heaved with unsteady, hiccuping breaths. Zipp and Pipp silently embraced her from either side.

---

As the bright light in her eyes faded away, Izzy felt weightless.

The pain that had incapacitated her was gone, replaced with an eerie numbness. Wherever she was now, it was empty, utterly devoid of any defining features or floor for her to stand on. And yet, as she pushed against it with her hooves…she stood. On, as far as she could tell, nothing.

“Hello?!” she cried out, utterly confused, tapping her hoof experimentally at the ‘floor,’ testing its strength. “Is anypony there?!” When nothing answered her call, aside from the suffocating, oppressive silence that permeated wherever the hay this was, her desperation grew, alongside her intuition screaming at her that something was very, very wrong. “SUNNY?!” She called again, nearly reduced to sobbing as tears brimmed at the corners of her eyes.

“We are afraid that thou hast arrived within a plane that no mortal pony can reach, Isadora. Though perhaps, given enough time, thy beloved might as well.” A prim, regal voice answered her from behind. With a startled yelp, Izzy whirled around on the spot to face the speaker…and froze like a deer in the path of a speeding carriage.

The mare’s dark blue coat stuck out like a sore hoof against the shimmering, bright void that surrounded them. The mare’s mane and tail flowed around her in an invisible wind, dancing in the air like an amorphous blob as stars, nebulae, galaxies, auroras…an entire night sky was held impossibly within the depths of her mane, making Isadora’s head hurt harder the longer she gazed into it. “T’would be best if you were not to gaze into our mane for too long, mine little pony. During our years upon Equus, such a thing was known to cause existential crises among the weak-willed. Or perhaps that was simply a tale told to young ponies on Nightmare Night…who is to say? Ah, it does not matter. Excuse our tangential muttering, the years have not been kind to us.”

“Y-you’re…y-y-you’re…” Izzy stuttered, trying and failing to comprehend the enormity of her situation.

“We are Princess Luna of Equestria, yes,” the lunar diarch replied matter-of-factly, waiting patiently for Izzy to take stock of her predicament, “The very same as the one within that accursed Bell that thou hast been conversing with.”

“But if you’re dead…and I’m with you…then that means…” Izzy trembled, flopping onto her rear as the dam broke. “I’ll never see Sunny or any of my friends ever a-gaaa-haaa-haaaain! And it’s all my faaa-haaa-haaault!” She sobbed openly, her short life flashing before her eyes. All she’d accomplished, to be brought to her end by one careless decision…it was profoundly unfair.

“Isadora!” Luna shouted, startling the mare out of her crying fit for a moment, “Prithee, do not resign thyself to despair just yet. There may yet be a way to return thee back to the mortal plane, and to thine friends in turn.” Her regal demeanor faltered for a moment, grimacing as if she’d just licked a particularly strong lemon, “However…thy might find it unpleasant.”

“Where the hay even am I? What happened?!” Izzy exclaimed, growing increasingly desperate.

“Well, thy latter question has a simple answer, if that is any comfort. Thou performed an extraordinary feat of magic that triggered thine ascension. We must add that thou cheated a bit by absorbing the last remnants of our power, and it is normally nowhere near as simple…” Luna explained, a dour edge to her voice as a hint of annoyance bled through her regal demeanor.

Izzy whimpered, retreating into herself a bit. ‘What the hay is an ascension?’ She chose not to voice her mental question, as Luna continued her explanation unabated.

“The answer to thy former question…is not so simple. We are…Elsewhere, Isadora. There is truly no other way to describe it. Elsewhere is far from any place you know, but in a manner that transcends spatial relations. It is a place that few know of, even among immortals, and fewer still have entered. Our sister and her prized pupil visited it once, countless ages ago, as did our sister’s niece. It has no name, existing beyond the boundaries of mortal comprehension and senses, so it is simply referred to as ‘Elsewhere.’” Her expression hardened. “We are sure that thou knowest, by now, what this means for thee and thine reckless, impulsive actions.”

Her lip trembled, thoughts of her friends flashing by her as the obvious conclusion crystallized. “I’m…I really am dead, aren’t I?”

Luna sighed to herself, massaging her temple with a shoed hoof. “Yes and no. Much like our current plane of existence, it is…complicated. Consider yourself fortunate. It is through sheer force of will that I was able to stop your essence from being completely obliterated by my own during the transfer, as the full brunt of my power is difficult even for me to control.”

The unicorn’s lip tremble had evolved to a full-body shudder, not sure how to process the explanation. “So…I survived, right? I can go back to Sunny and the rest of my friends?”

“…Yes.”    As Izzy grew a wide grin and shot up to all four hooves, Luna raised a hoof to forestall the inevitable celebration. “However…there will be complications going forward. We will share one mind and one body once we leave this place together. This is, regrettably, an unassailable fact. It has taken all of our effort to nudge the leylines towards a solution that will preserve your existence, especially as those veins have shifted and weakened since we last touched them.”

“S-share…a body? And mind?” Izzy felt lightheaded with dizziness, much too far out of her depth to truly understand what was going on. Talking to old ponies and messing with ancient magic was supposed to be Sunny’s or Zipp’s thing, not hers!

“We know it is a difficult concept for thee to grasp. We implore thee to trust us…even though, as we are no longer truly thy regent in these modern times, thou hast no reason to do so,” Luna pleaded. “We feel a great measure of responsibility for not adequately warning thee of the risks of tampering with the Bell in its unstable state, and it was our own foolish, selfish desire for freedom that brought both of us to this point.”

“If…if it’ll let me see Sunny again…” Izzy whimpered, “then I’ll do anything,” she said with finality, eyes squeezing shut as she awaited Luna’s actions.

Luna nodded softly, horn shimmering like the night sky as her immense power began to coalesce. It swiftly grew in brightness and intensity as the spell siphoned off more and more of her magic, powerful enough to make the hairs of Izzy’s coat and mane stand on end just from being near her.

“We shall speak to thee again soon, Isadora. Thou shalt need guidance to control thy strength and abilities.” Luna said with finality, before releasing the buildup of magic directly at Izzy.

It slammed into her with the force of a speeding carriage, sending her tumbling backward as a tingling sensation spread through her entire body. Her limbs sagged like lead as her thoughts grew fuzzy before she once again lost consciousness.

---

Crackles of purple energy began to dance around the blackened spot on the floor where Izzy once stood. A low hum built in volume as a white sphere of light coalesced there, growing in diameter until it looked like it could contain a rather large pony.

Stunned out of their despair by the blinding spectacle before them, a surge of hope welled in Sunny’s chest as the features of a pony became recognizable from within the sphere’s fading light.

The long, wavy blue mane and pale, elegant, grooved horn were unmistakably Izzy! And yet…something wasn’t quite right…

That something quickly revealed itself as a pair of immense wings, which flared out from within the sphere with a great gust of wind. While mostly clad in the familiar pale purple hue of Izzy’s coat, they faded to a regal blue-and-purple gradient towards the wingtips, and their pinions glittered like stars in a lonely midnight sky.

As the pony within the sphere was fully revealed, the group found themselves stunned into silence. She was, unmistakably, still the Izzy they knew and loved…but many things had changed.

Her long, wavy mane had grown even fuller and more radiant than before, cascading down her chest and side in a curtain of shimmering cobalt hues. Her stunning orchid eyes had grown even more enthralling, stars twinkling within them in dazzling, hypnotizing patterns, leading down to a slimmer, curvier, more elegant muzzle.

She had been the tallest in their friend group before, but now she was practically Alphabittle’s height, if not even larger, with a slim build and lean, slender legs that, despite their dainty-looking length, were visibly far more muscular than they once were.

Despite her shock, Sunny felt a heat growing in her cheeks the longer her eyes wandered. Especially once an errant glance at her marefriend’s undercarriage revealed an even more shocking addition…surely she must have been hallucinating?

The group’s jaws hung lower and lower the longer they stared, especially once they realized who they were looking at. Sunny stared in slack-jawed amazement at their newly-transformed once-unicorn friend, even as some deep-seated instinct urged each of them to bow in her presence, brought about by an oppressive aura of imperialism far grander than that of the so-called “Queen” of Zephyr Heights.

At a glance, it certainly seemed that little was left of their friend’s old form or personality. And yet, as the unicorn—nay, the alicorn—opened her eyes for the first time, she was greeted by Sunny’s wide-eyed, smiling face…and any semblance of propriety was swiftly defenestrated through the nearest already-broken window. With wings flared wide and eyes alight with passion, the huge alicorn mare tackled Sunny to the hardwood floor with a house-rattling thump before pressing her slender, regal muzzle into Sunny’s own.

Sunny’s wide-eyed astonishment morphed into doe-eyed, passionate smooching as their lip-lock progressed, the two of them quickly forgetting anypony else around them as Izzy’s elongated tongue pushed past her lover’s to quest straight down her throat. Her overenthusiastic ‘reunion’ was cut short by this, as Sunny coughed and sputtered violently from the sudden triggering of her gag reflex, pushing the other mare away with both forehooves.

Despite her discomfort, her heart fluttered in her chest as her cheeks pinked. Goodness gracious, if Izzy’s tongue were that long, then it could perhaps even…oh gosh…

Her thoughts turned lurid as a wave of torrid daydreams crashed through her mind, eyes practically bugging out of her head as a wave of heated lust made her face go aflame. She quickly chased away such thoughts with an embarrassed shake of the head, doing her best to try and regain her composure. There was a time and a place for that kind of thing, and in front of the rest of her friends was certainly not it!

After a moment’s reprieve, Sunny threw her forehooves around Izzy’s neck, and the rest of her friends joined her in subduing their alicorn friend into a relentless cuddle-pile. “We’re so glad you’re alright, Izzy! You’re really the life of the party, you know? Our group just wouldn’t be the same without you…” said Pipp, barely withholding a bout of sniffles as her soft-spoken voice wavered.

“I’m glad you’re alright, Izz, but…” Hitch said with a pause, breaking apart from the hug to point an accosting hoof at the wavy-maned demigoddess, “you have got to work on that impulse control of yours! You nearly got yourself killed just now! Don’t make me write a law preventing you from endangering yourself, little lady!”

Sunny chuckled to herself as Izzy grimaced, rubbing the back of her neck with a forehoof self-consciously. “Relax, Hitch. It won’t need to come to that. I’d tie her to a bed if I had to!” The moment Sunny finished that sentence, she already realized she’d made a mistake.

Hitch and both of the Princesses flinched, eyes wide, while an adorably vibrant blush grew on Izzy’s cheeks as everypony in the room stared straight at Sunny. “Wow. I…ahem…uhh, okay. I’d say you’ve got her…well under control, then! Ahahah…” Hitch responded with painfully forced enthusiasm. Police training had prepared him for many things, but it was safe to say an earth pony threatening an alicorn with bondage was not one of the scenarios he’d practiced in the academy.

“NotwhatImeant, notwhatImeant, notwhatImeant…darn, friggin’, stupid brain…” Sunny muttered to herself repeatedly, shaking her head in her hooves.

Helpfully, Zipp interjected just then, providing a much-needed escape from the awkward corner that Sunny had backed herself into. “Are we gonna address the fact that Izzy’s a buckin’ alicorn, by the way? As in, long-dead-ruler-of-Equestria style, capital-a Alicorn?!”

“Sunny’s crazy glowing wings and horn are one thing, but you’re the real deal!” Pipp exclaimed. “Do you have any idea what this means, Izzy?!”

“It means my life just got a whole lot more complicated…?” Izzy whimpered, raising her hoof questioningly.

“It means you’re gonna BLOW UP the ponynet like never before!” Pipp exclaimed, grinning widely as she held up her phone and pointed it at Izzy…just as Zipp snatched it out of her hoof. “H-hey! I was using that!”

“We’ve been over this, Pipp, c’mon. Did you learn anything from the incident with Sunny and Izzy’s relationship before? We can’t just drop a bombshell like this onto the Ponynet like it’s nothing, sis! This is really serious. The fate of the whole nation is at stake, ponies can’t just find out that an alicorn has come back by watching a viral video!” Zipp barked, stowing Pipp’s phone into her own saddlebags. “Just…please trust me, alright? I’ve read the stories in the old, dusty sections of the Royal Library that nopony visits anymore. They don’t talk kindly of the alicorns who ruled before. It’s a series of their failures that have brought Equestria to where it’s at now, and it’s only thanks to us that things are getting better…how do you think most ponies would react if they saw a real live alicorn in front of them, in the flesh, just when things are getting better for everypony?” She ‘tch’ed, shaking her head.

“B-but, I’m an alicorn, aren’t I?” Sunny interjected, desperation evident in her pleading tone. “You saw how ponies accepted me after my transformation. What makes Izzy’s transformation any different?”

“Having those glowy alicorn bits isn’t really the same thing, Sunny. Having the flesh-and-blood traits of all three pony races just means you’re set up to be distrusted by all three of ‘em equally. Those grudges run deep, real deep. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve already made amazing progress with the ponies in our hometowns, but we’ve got a long way to go before an alicorn can just waltz through anyplace in Equestria unquestioned…if we ever get to that point again.”

Pacing the room now, Zipp’s thoughts continued.

“It really doesn’t help her case that, if whatever possessed and transformed her isn’t lying, she’s got one of the ponies directly responsible for the collapse of Equestria living in herhead.” Zipp said, shuddering at the thought.

“I…I’m scared…” Izzy whimpered, holding her head in her hooves. Sunny quickly embraced her, running a hoof through her mane as the alicorn’s wings ruffled up in anxiety.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Iz. I’m sure this Luna pony isn’t that bad,” Giving Zipp the stink-eye, she continued, “Somepony just isn’t that good at reading the room.”

The pale princess sighed, holding her hooves up. “Yeah, you got me there. Sorry about that, everypony. Sometimes I don’t know when to shut up about something.”

Sunny’s glare softened, and she gave Zipp a small smile. “Apology accepted, Zipp.” Glancing down at the mare trembling in her hooves, her smile grew lopsided. “I think it’d be best if we carefully boxed up all these artifacts and examined them someplace where they won’t randomly go off and permanently alter somepony. Or tear down my house…again.”

Hitch nodded sharply in agreement. “Which is what I would’ve suggested in the first place, but alright. I’ll get in touch with Phyllis and see if those crazy testing rooms of hers can be retrofitted to handle experiments with magical artifacts.”

Zipp scoffed, shaking her head. “Rrright. I’m sure she’ll only go slightly insane at the thought.”

“Phyllis seems like a good pony, if a bit misguided. She did support what we were doing by the end of things, after all.” Pipp pointed out.

“She didn’t use to be so prejudiced. Sure, she and Dad rarely got along, but…” Glancing at the photo of her father, her eyes misted a bit. “She did care about him, more than she let on. She was one of the first ponies to hug me at his funeral, and I wasn’t the only one of us who was crying. I think she knew a good pony when she saw one, even if her closed-mindedness wouldn’t let her admit it.”

The rest of the group went silent at that, bowing their heads out of respect.

Sunny, desperately trying to get things back on track, was the first to speak up. “But enough about old grudges, ponies. We’ve got some artifacts to wrangle, and I’ve got my cute unicorn—err, alicorn!—marefriend here to comfort afterward. Let’s get to work!”

The remaining cleanup continued in an orderly fashion, all five ponies managing to resist their deep-seated urges to touch and manipulate the artifacts as they carefully loaded them into boxes, taking great care to load them without damaging them.

---

“Phew, that was a lot of work. I don’t know about you all, but I could really use a good spa treatment and a nap right about now.” Pipp groaned, working out a kink in her forehoof as she mussed her sweat-slick mane with a grimace of disgust.

Izzy looked to have scarcely broken a sweat from the heavy lifting she’d been tasked with — and while the mare had already been capable of some spectacular feats without magic, Sunny highly doubted the unicorn version of the mare would’ve truly had enough stamina to do what she’d accomplished today.

Lost in thought, she eyed Izzy’s wings as they ruffled at her sides, the once-unicorn still unable to control them outside of those unconscious social gestures that her freshly-transformed body somehow just knew how to do. Those long, slender limbs, made even more elegant by her transformation, roiled with incredible physical strength, a testament to the way she alone had tugged the cartful of artifacts all the way into town and into CanterLogic’s loading dock. Sunny had made herself busy giving the stink-eye to the many earth-pony stallions (and mares) who eyed the surprisingly strong, cloaked “unicorn” with unabashed arousal.

The specifics of Izzy’s transformation were a topic that the rest of the group had pointedly avoided discussing for hours prior, pouring all of their focus into the day’s project to avoid stressing the overburdened unicorn out. Now, however, with little else to focus on since coming back to the lighthouse, the topic of discussion inevitably strayed.

“Soo…Izzy…aside from the whole ‘pulling a cartful of artifacts over a mile into town without sweating or stopping,’ how has the change been treating you?” Hitch asked.

Bright blue flashed in Izzy’s eyes for a moment as she regarded him sourly. “You mean aside from feeling like a freak with a voice in our head who’s been through more emotional and physical trauma in the past day than most ponies deal with in their lives, being run like a draft horse, and being ogled like a two-bit strumpet? Terrific.” Izzy sniped.

“Izzy!” Sunny admonished, taken aback. Where had that come from?

Hitch backpedaled, eyes wide. “Woah! Sheesh. No need to bite my head off.”

“L-let’s…” Pipp interrupted, placing a hoof on both ponies’ shoulders. “Let’s just settle down a bit, get something to eat, take a bath, and go to bed, alright? We’ve got another long day ahead of us tomorrow, and I’m sure all of us could use the rest.”

---

The rest of the night passed with little fanfare, the five ponies bedding down for the night in various rooms of Sunny’s lighthouse; Sunny and Izzy shared the bed, while Pipp and Zipp slept on a pair of large beanbags in Sunny’s living room. Hitch, as could be expected, had to make do with the couch.

Izzy’s fluffy new appendages certainly had their charm, but that was much less apparent when one tried to sleep in a bed with them. Sleep was fitful, and more than once Sunny found herself rudely awakened by a faceful of feathers, but eventually, the pair found a happy medium and drifted off to the land of dreams.

As they slumbered, though, a shimmering blue light coalesced around Izzy’s horn…

---

There it was again.

That shimmering, beautiful, yet chillingly empty void.

Izzy groaned as she got to her hooves, cricking her back as her wings ruffled out in discomfort. “Mmh, Luna, I’m really tired. Can this wait at all?” As her eyes opened, the visage that greeted her confirmed her suspicions — deep blue coat and speckled black flanks, with a mane that anypony could get lost in. It was the lost Princess of the Moon, all right.

“Not particularly, we’re afraid. Harmony has doubtlessly already taken notice of the resurgence of our magical signature, and it will come calling soon enough. You and your friends must be made aware of things before that happens.” Luna replied, and her horn shimmered with power as Izzy’s own horn tingled in sympathy.

A chorus of confused, familiar groans filled the echoing vastness in an instant — one moment, it was empty, and as she blinked, her other four friends simply appeared around her! It was enough to make her stumble back in surprise. She hadn’t even felt the air shift with their sudden appearance.

“Groan…wha…where am I?” Zipp mumbled, smacking her lips as she got to her hooves. As her eyes fixed on Princess Luna, her jaw nearly hit the floor. “Woah. Okay, what?”

“Y-you’re…” Sunny breathed out in a reverent gasp, feeling herself get lightheaded as all she’d read about the mare in her father’s research came rushing back to her. She was the Mare in the Moon, a former ruler of Equestria, one of the most powerful ponies in history… “P-Princess Luna!” She exclaimed, stumbling forward in a hasty bow of respect.

The moon-mare merely giggled behind one hoof, thoroughly amused. “While I am both surprised and flattered by your recognition, the formalities are unnecessary. I lost the right to rule over anypony when I was sealed within the Bewitching Bell as a magical fragment of my former self.”

Izzy had to force herself not to glomp Sunny as the mare blushed and stammered, rubbing her foreleg self-consciously as she averted her gaze. “S-sorry, Pri—Luna.”

The beatific smile the moon-mare wore was at once both understanding and calming, and Sunny found herself unable to stay nervous for long under her gaze. It made her heart skip a beat, though she chalked it up to nerves and nothing else. “That’s better, dear Sunny. We find thy nervousness unbecoming — thou deservest the highest of praise for taking such grand steps to reunite the Equestrian territory, though thee must forgive us if we find the intent to be dearly misplaced. Those who follow in the hoofsteps of the past are doomed to repeat its mistakes.”

“What exactly do you mean by that, Luna?” Zipp asked, a harsh edge to her tone.

“Oh, nothing particularly dire, at least not yet. But we would caution thee against making hasty steps toward reunification. Twilight made the same miscalculation, believing that her and her friends had saved the day like any other time a great evil threatened Equestria…they were not prepared for its collapse from within rather than without. The seeds of doubt that those damnable three planted took root like a plunderseed, though proved far more difficult to remove.”

Noticing the confused glance towards group historian Sunny, who shrugged, Luna added, “Pardon our wandering mind, we forget how long it has been since those times. Plunderseeds were a…horticultural inconvenience dreamed up by Discord long ago, as a ‘failsafe’ to threaten the Tree of Harmony should his chaotic reign unravel,” Ignoring the increasingly confused stares of the five ponies, her expression brightened. “Which, we believe, serves as a convenient segue for the task at hand. There will be plenty of time to discuss ancient history when the future of Equestria does not hang in the balance.”

A map of ancient Equestria materialized out of thin air behind Luna, floating in her magical grasp along with a pointing stick. Surreptitiously, the pointer aimed at a spot left-of-center of the map, within the Everfree Forest that blanketed the southern foothills of the towering Canterhorn, near the town of Ponyville.

“Regrettably, we do not know of any of your modern landmarks as they relate to our era of Equestria. We are quite sure of one thing, however — once Harmony realizes that an alicorn walks upon the ground of Equus once again, it will contact you, by means that only it can predict.”

Sunny’s brows knit in confusion, eyes scanning over the map and poring over every detail as she considered Luna’s statement. “But what’s…Harmony? How is it still here, after Equestria went so long without magic? Why would it care about the existence of alicorns?”

Luna raised her forehoof, forestalling further questions. “The means by which Equestria lost its magic were not entirely organic, suffice it to say. It was less of a dissolution and more of a sealing — anything magical became inert after the event and has reactivated in the wake of its passing. We are talking to each other in a shared dream now, after all. Our last remnant would have faded away into the aether with the rest of ancient Equestria if the loss of magic had been gradual and natural.”

“So somepony did all of this deliberately?!” Izzy exclaimed, “B-but who would want to do such a thing?”

Luna stamped her hoof. “They were not ponies, at least not all of them. Again, thou art straying from the topic. Stories of the past later.”

With a pout, Izzy relented, wings flopping down at her sides.

“Harmony, as my sister and I named it, is some form of…transcendental being, with motives, machinations, and desires beyond even the understanding of an alicorn. A more fitting name for it might be Order, though we admit it does not sound nearly as welcoming. It acts as a direct counterpoint to the spirit of Chaos incarnate, Discord. Though that one was much more prone to overt meddling than Harmony...”

“T-T-Transcendental beings?! Oh, mare…” Pipp swooned, a bout of nausea overtaking her. “I was not prepared for this when I got up this morning…”

“Few are prepared for having their entire worldview adjusted.” Luna jibed, the barest hint of mirth bleeding through her serious tone. “I would advise the four of you to discern the whereabouts of Harmony’s earthly manifestation. It last took the form of a crystalline tree that housed the Elements of Harmony, though it is very likely that its form has shifted and evolved in the years since that time.”

“So…you’re sending us on a goose chase for a big ol’ tree, in the middle of a forest, that houses the most powerful being on the planet. Am I getting that right?” Hitch asked, “Because, uh, this sounds more like a summer blockbuster movie with each new crazy thing I’m hearing.”

“That is the essence of things, yes. We understand that this task may seem difficult, but it is imperative that the five of you succeed.” As the dream world around them suddenly began to shudder, Luna sighed. “Alas, it seems our time together draws to a close.”

“B-but, wait! We still have so many questions!” Sunny exclaimed, reaching towards Luna as the alicorn’s form began to shimmer and fade.

“There will be time for more questions later. Remember well what we have told all of you. We do not know when we can create this shared dream again, as our powers are still recovering strength and we do not want to tax Miss Moonbow’s body with them. Fare thee well, brave ponies, and may your audience with Harmony pass graciously.” Luna curtsied, vanishing into an encroaching wave of fog.

Around them, the dream realm began to shudder and quaver, until, with a rumbling roar, it collapsed into complete blackness, fragmenting away into the fog of slumber.

Author's Note:

Woo, longest chapter yet! Nearing the end of Act 1 now.

To everyone still reading along with this journey, thanks for sticking with me. I've really enjoyed writing my own take on G5 lore so far, even though incoming canon is sure to retcon the things I'm doing less than a week from now.

More stuff will be incoming...soonish? Not really sure. Grad school is picking up and I wanted to get this out before all my free time gets sucked away.

Comments

[LordFlareon]

Thank goodness Izzy is okay! Of course she was bound to be, but still...

Although, I do wonder if and how this new development will affect the group further down the track. I mean, if Izzy snapping at Hitch is any indication, I get the feeling this will become more of a problem later

[new55]

That was a good chapter. I wonder what Harmony is scheming.

[n8dagr8088]

Sunny chuckled to herself as Izzy grimaced, rubbing the back of her neck with a forehoof self-consciously. “Relax, Hitch. It won’t need to come to that. I’d tie her to a bed if I had to!” The moment Sunny finished that sentence, she already realized she’d made a mistake.

i always loved how pervy this fic's version of sunny and izzy can be

[LordFlareon]

Is there more coming?

[ArDee]

11558119
It's in the works, but I was mainly focused on getting that most recent commission out the door, on top of my thesis work. Once I've finished my final semester I should have more time to work on my fics.