Hidden History
What Didn't Happen
by Zeg
Chapter XVI – Hidden History
“And so you believe you would be the better choice to enter?”
Twilight glanced up from the stack of notes that she had been reading to look across the table toward Luna, who was waiting for an answer to the question. “I do have knowledge of a few advanced magical theories that haven’t been discovered yet,” she said as she waved a forehoof in a lazy circle next to her head. Her eyes wandered about as she thought further on her reasoning, eventually coming back to meet Luna’s. “That isn’t the only reason though,” she said as she tapped a hoof against the stack of notes on the table she was sitting at.
“Oh?” Luna asked, her brow perking just slightly as her eyes followed Twilight's motion to the stack of notes.
“Yes,” Twilight said as her magic lit to bring one of the pages up before herself. Her eyes quickly scanned across the page, and then glanced over it to Luna when she lowered it slightly. “While I understand the ritual spell just fine, I don’t think I would be the best choice to channel it. It requires maintaining some very careful alignments, and of the two of us you’re the one who has had experience controlling celestial objects. I’m not even sure I could do that, let alone do it properly. Definitely not without a practice run, which we really don’t have time for.”
“True,” Luna said though a light sigh. “Though I do think you underestimate your abilities, I suppose I would be better suited to channel the doorway.”
“Wait, let me get this straight here,” Spike said, grabbing both of the alicorns’ attention. He had made himself comfortable at the end of the table off to the side, resting on the floor on all fours with his arms folded on the floor just in front of his chest while he had listened to the details of Luna’s plan. “You’re going into the spell?” he asked as he lifted one of his arms up high enough to point to Twilight just over the table top. She nodded back to him. “Isn’t that, Iduno,” — his shoulders gave an exaggerated shrug — “dangerous?”
Luna was the first to answer his question. “It isn’t without risk, which is why I offered to be the one to enter. However, Twilight does have valid points,” she said as she looked to Twilight.
Twilight shared the glance with a nod before looking back to Spike. “We should play to our strengths to give us the best chance.”
“Yeah, but....” Spike reached back and scratched his claws over the spines on the back of his neck. His throat rumbled as he clamped his jaw, some of his jagged teeth showing when his upper lip curled upward a bit. “I thought you’d just blow it up or something.”
“Well first off,” Twilight started as she settled into her lecturing mode, “the two of us are not strong enough to just ‘blow it up’ as that would require us to put out more raw power than the Elements can. Secondly, even if we could, blasting the prison directly with that much power to destroy it likely wouldn’t end well for Celestia. We want to disable the spell so she can escape it, not destroy her with it.”
Spike grumbled to himself before asking, “Well what if something doesn’t go right?”
“This is going to work, Spike,” Twilight said. She maintained a confident smile for him, hoping that it would ease his worrying.
“I’m not saying you can’t do it,” Spike said quickly, and then paused as he drummed his claws on the floor for a moment. “Just... what if,” he said, raising his opened palms and shrugging again.
Twilight hesitated for only a few seconds, before she let out a small sigh in defeat. She couldn’t bring herself to hide the truth from him. “There’s a chance I could end up trapped too,” she admitted. When she saw Spike clench his jaw tightly in a disapproving frown she tried her best to reassure him. “Spike, the chances of that happening are almost none. If the spell gets unstable, Luna can warn me and hold it open long enough for me to get out.”
“If you are worried that I might have reason to purposely trap Twilight within the spell, consider this,” Luna said, drawing Spike’s attention toward her. “I would be sorely outmatch without her aid against both Chrysalis and Discord. The entire reason why we are attempting this to gain allies, not lose them.”
Twilight mentally questioned whether or not Luna’s comment would help allay any fears that Spike might have about the ritual. She looked over toward him when she noticed the rumbling sound coming from his throat, an old habit of his when he was wrestling with something upsetting. “Hey,” she said as she stood from her seat at the table and walked over to him. She rest one of her hooves atop his hands to get his attention, and when he looked back directly into her eyes, she gave him her confident smile again as she told him, “This is going to work.”
---
Twilight looked around herself at the astral plane that made up the inside of the prison enchantment. The best way to describe it was a place between places, a realm that didn’t exist in any physical sense. Her ‘body’ took on a form much like her physical one, but it was simply how her mind projected herself into the spell. The inside of the spell appeared to her as a swarm of multi-colored lights that trailed through the plane, taking on an appearance very similar to the northern lights that graced the sky during winter. Also, all around her she could see the enchantments that made up the magical structure, strung about in a complex web that at first glance seemed to have little order or reason.
She freely moved about, her form floating toward any direction she wished without aid of her wings. She approached some of the enchantments, getting close enough to see the raw components that made up one of them. Her mind interpreted what she saw as collections of runes with a bright, light blue glow that flowed along the surface of a string-like structure, and a bright ripple of white light that would travel along the string periodically as magical energy pulsed through it. It was honestly the most impressive magical construction she had ever seen. Each individual part was so simple, yet the entire system was more complex than any other she had ever known.
Twilight broke away from her fascination, recalling her reason for traveling there. She gave her head a quick shake, attempting to focus her thoughts on her task. She reached her mind out to communicate with Luna, who was currently holding this astral reality open with the ritual spell. “How are you doing Luna?” she asked.
The response didn’t come immediately. Twilight thought for a moment that the required focus needed to keep both the sun and the moon aligned on opposite horizons while channeling the doorway may be a bit more than just demanding of the Moon Princess’s attention. However, after a short time, the response did come in a wave of thought that touched Twilight’s mind. “Well, so far,” she heard Luna’s thoughts ring into her mind.
Twilight had wasted no time getting started with studying the enchantments and the various connections they had to each other. Luna was a very strong spell caster, perhaps even stronger than the Luna she knew from her own time given the recent events, but even an alicorn of her power would have to rest eventually. The doorway ritual required a constant expenditure of power, which meant Twilight was on a time limit. She had to figure out how the prison spell was able to keep an alicorn entrapped and how to circumvent that system before Luna was unable to keep the doorway open any longer, or else they would have to back out and wait until Luna was rested enough to perform the ritual again.
She worked quickly, mentally tagging parts of the enchantments around her as she discovered possible weaknesses that she could exploit. No magical system was unbreakable. Maybe one could be very close to being so, and maybe require so much force that it was unlikely to break, but none were unbreakable. In a few short minutes, she had already discovered that the prison spell, being very simple at its base components, relied on rebuilding itself when it took damage. Quite a bit of the enchantments could be completely destroyed and the rest would quickly replace the destroyed parts with replicas, which in turn could rebuild others around them. It was a really ingenious use of self replicating enchantments. When building a prison to trap something that had more than enough power to tear a hole in the ‘walls’, just make it so the walls rebuild faster than they can be torn down.
So the answer then would be simple; something had to be done about the replication. If it could be slowed enough, then the walls could be torn down before they could rebuild. The problem was that the enchantments were about as numerous as the stars in the sky. Trying to alter that many enchantments to slow them enough was going to take far longer than what they had.
As Twilight continued to ponder over how to defeat such an enormous magical system, her mind happened to take notice of a strand that stood out to her for some reason. She shifted, her form floating over toward the enchantment to look closer, and as she approached it she began to read it to decipher its meaning. It pulsed slightly differently from the rest around it, which told her that it wasn’t exactly a part of the overall system like the rest were, but it was still connected in some way. It looked like it was a trigger of some sort that had been activated.
“Oh no,” Twilight thought when she finally realized the true purpose of the odd enchantment.
“What is wrong?” Luna’s thoughts rung into her mind.
Twilight hadn’t exactly planned on Luna hearing her. She decided to ask a general question as she continued to study the enchantment before her. “Luna, how long can you keep this spell open? This may take longer than I thought.”
There was a pause, and then a cautious question. “Should we stop?”
“No. No, we can’t,” Twilight thought quickly. She mentally debated telling Luna the details of her discovery, finally deciding to tell her what it was she had found. “Try not to be alarmed, but it looks like we’ve triggered a trap. We’re both already caught, and if we try to back out without taking down the entire thing, the enchantment will just pull us into the prison when the doorway closes. It’s something I didn’t consider, a sort of anti-tampering enchantment. Don’t worry, I’ll work quickly. I can still fix this.”
Twilight didn’t wait for a response, and didn’t receive one. If Luna was at all worried about the possibility of being entrapped in the spell again, she didn’t make it known. If anything, Twilight hoped that the possibility of such a fate would push Luna to keep the spell open as long as she possibly could.
After a few more moments of mental deliberation, Twilight settled on what she believed was her best option for tackling the enormous magical structure. She wondered why she hadn’t considered the possibility from the very beginning when she learned that it was a self replicating system. When faced with a magical construct that relied heavily on a single method of defense, the easiest way to defeat it would be to turn that defense into a weakness. In the case of a self replicating enchantment that could rebuild itself faster than it could be destroyed, you just use the replication to do the destroying.
The entire area around Twilight pulsed as a shockwave of lighting skittered through the plane. Though she couldn’t really ‘feel’ or ‘hear’ things in this place, she had mentally sensed that some sort of magical quake had just struck the entire magical construct. “Luna?” Twilight mentally asked as she glanced around herself.
“...Yes?” Luna’s answer was delayed and strained.
Twilight knew that they were very quickly running out of time. “Just a little longer. I almost have it,” she thought, hoping that she was actually right.
Twilight worked at a frantic pace, her mind racing through the logic of constructing the replica enchantment that had just a few minor changes that should go unnoticed by the rest of the system. The strand of magic took form in front of her in the plane, assembling from runes that appeared from nothing around her. Her mind only had a scant few seconds to appreciate the sight of one of her own enchantment spells being constructed right before her.
She wished that she had the time to give the viral enchantment a test run, but settled for only quickly glancing over the spell’s components once again to verify that she had constructed it as intended. It was a near identical replica of the surrounding enchantments that made up the prison spell, with a few of her own additions. The enchantment would seek and destroy any others around it that didn’t have a special tag that she had placed upon this one, and then using the enchantment’s own replication ability, it would create duplicates that could do the same. The compounding effect of the replication would replace the entire magical system with her own recreation of the enchantment in seconds, and then she could command it to dispel all at once.
Taking in the mental equivalent of a deep, calming breath, Twilight moved her enchantment into place, connecting it with the magical system. It almost immediately took effect when it touched, causing many strands of magical runes to shatter and then new ones to grow in place. The web of spells began to fly apart and rebuild at an accelerated speed as the viral enchantment tore through the prison spell. Twilight smiled as she watched her spell do its work, feeling a swell of pride that she had managed in minutes to solve something that even Nightmare Moon hadn’t been able to conquer in a thousand years. A more humble side of her mind quickly reminded her that she had a unique perspective on the spell, being able to study its components directly from inside the spell itself, instead of being trapped inside the prison it formed.
A large pulse rocked the plane once again. Twilight quickly glanced about, trying to read the surroundings to figure out what had caused the quake. Her spell had nearly replaced the entire system, but there was one area that it had stopped at, and from that location there were shockwaves of power coursing out into the entire magical system. Twilight approached the area to get a better look at what had stopped her enchantment’s advance. As large as the system was, it was very possible that there was something she hadn’t noticed there. Sure enough, she saw a collection of spell threads that were different from the rest of the system. She very quickly started to read them, trying to make sense of their rune structure as bits of enchantments flew about her from the clash between her viral enchantment and the remainder of the magical system. This small part was fighting back, but that wasn’t all it was doing.
Another huge pulse shook the plane, causing Twilight to be forced back. She mentally strained against the sudden push back, trying to bring her form back to a steady hover in the plane. Once she had regained control, she looked back toward the area where the enchantments had collided, and was shocked to see the prison enchantment not just fighting back against her viral replacement, but completely destroying her spell and replacing it in the same fashion that her own spell had just done. The sight before her coupled with the parts of the spell she had managed to read finally clicked, and she knew exactly what she was seeing. Just as she had thought to turn the prison spell’s own strength against itself, it had learned her tactic and managed to rewrite itself so it could fight back using the same method. Of course it would have to have some sort of adaptive capability, Twilight thought to herself. If any spell was to keep an alicorn trapped for centuries, it would have to adapt to any attempts of escape.
The magical quakes were now rocking the plane around her with such ferocity that she knew Luna wouldn’t be able to hold the doorway spell open much longer. There simply wasn’t enough time left. If she had the proper amount of time, she could have figured out a way to disconnect the adaptive portion of the spell, or found a way to take control of it to force it to rewrite the prison as she saw fit, but since she hadn’t noticed it up front that wouldn’t be an option now. Soon, both she and Luna would find themselves drawn in and trapped along with Celestia.
Twilight finally lost the ability to maintain her mental form as the shockwaves proved to be too much, and the entire astral plane broke apart.
---
The bright lights that had caused Twilight to squeeze her eyes shut faded out. She blinked her eyes, glancing around herself as she stood hunched over on all fours in the center of what remained of the ritual circle. Charred marks in the shape of lines, circles, and runes surrounded her and trailed wisps of smoke into the air. Just in front of her, she saw Spike attempting to hold an exhausted Luna steady, the tip of the Moon Princess’s horn still glowing hot white like a piece of iron just pulled from a smith’s forge. Twilight then quickly looked to her side when she noticed something out of the corner of her vision, and saw a white leg just next to her. She quickly spun around and looked up. There just behind where she had been standing stood the Sun Princess, Celestia, hunched over, her chest heaving heavily as her horn also glowed a bright, hot white. “Oh, thank goodness,” Twilight said with a huge sigh of relief as she fell back on her haunches. She had actually forgotten through the panic that Celestia, trapped as she was, could still help in her own way from inside the prison. It appeared that she had taken notice of the spell being weakened and had made her move to free herself from it, and under the combined strain from the power of the royal sisters and Twilight’s tampering with the spell, the prison had failed.
“It’s you.” Celestia’s voice came out just above a whisper between her heavy breaths. Twilight looked up into the Sun Princess’s eyes, seeing the wide eye shock staring back at her. Celestia held the gaze for a time, her exhausted state seeming to improve slowly as the bright glow at the tip of her horn dimmed from white to reddish orange, and then finally darkened to a slightly charred tone of her natural white. She blinked and glanced up past Twilight, looking to her sister and Spike. She furrowed her brow as her eyes met those of her sister, her mouth hanging slightly agape. “Luna?” she asked in a quiet question.
Luna sat at the edge of the charred ritual circle where Spike was holding one of her forehooves in his hand to help support her. She appeared to have mostly recovered from the strain of the spell. She glanced to her side and gave Spike a quick nod, her mouth forming the words ‘thank you’ as she pulled her hoof from his hand and made a motion to stand. Her hoofsteps were steady, but careful as she took a few steps into the circle. “Do you not recognize your own sister?” she asked, stopping a single body length away from Celestia.
Celestia’s eyes seemed to widen slightly in surprise. She looked over her younger sister, her eyes tracing the dark form of the Moon Princess down to her hooves and then back up to her face. After a quick glance around herself at the charred marks on the floor, she looked back up to Luna. “You did all this?” she asked.
“With their help,” Luna said as she turned to the side, looking first at Twilight next to her, then back over her shoulder to Spike. She turned her head back to her sister, her loose ethereal mane wiping about. “We have much to discuss.”
---
Chrysalis trudged forward through ankle deep snow drifts, her dark chitin a stark contrast to the pure white around her. Her mane and tail whipped around in the wind as wisping trails of blowing snow streamed across the drifts. The surrounding area looked a lot like a blinding white desert with little else other than snow drifts all around.
To her sides only a half step behind her were the five bearers that had accompanied her to this place. Together, they pushed onward against the bitter cold to a cliff face encased in solid, dark blue ice. Chrysalis stopped, craning her neck back to look up at the cliff. Her companions each stopped there beside her, waiting and looking to her.
Chrysalis glanced to her sides at the five mares for a short moment, and then focused her attention on the cliff side. As she did, the Element of Magic began to glow brightly from its crown upon her head, and the remaining five Elements at each of the five bearer’s necks lit in response to the call. A stream of chromatic light flowed from the Elements, gathering at a point before Chrysalis before projecting into the cliff side to be absorbed.
The spell ended, and for a time there was nothing but the sound of the bitter cold wind rushing past them. Then, there was a small cracking sound high above, which drew their attention upward. At the top of the cliff, the ice was beginning to split. The crack slowly snaked down the face of the cliff at first, and then began to pick up speed as the sound of the land splitting in two loudly echoed around them. The split finally met the ground just before the group, and the two halves of the cliff let out a groaning sound of stone on stone as they fell to the sides of the divide, revealing a pitch black crevice.
The rest of the world seemed to fade away, leaving Chrysalis standing there alone on a small patch of snow hovering in the void. She couldn’t will herself to look away from the pitch black darkness just in front of her as she intently stared into it. The sounds around her seemed to vanish just like the world had, leaving nothing but deafening silence that was only broken by the sound of her own heartbeat drumming loudly in her ears.
A low rumble shook the patch of ground that she stood upon, one that sounded like the growl of a predator. Chrysalis’s legs trembled in spite of herself, causing her to stamp one of her back hooves as she let out a quick breath of air. She grit her teeth, narrowing her eyes with a glare of determination at the darkness.
A long wisp of black smoke shot out from the darkness, wrapping itself around Chrysalis’s body thrice over. A quick gasp was all she managed before it constricted around her form tightly and pulled her up off the ground. The tendril of smoke trailed back into the pitch black dark before her like a tentacle, slowly rising as it lifted Chrysalis into the air. She struggled against its grip, pulling at the tip that had snaked up and wrapped itself around her neck and was squeezing at her throat. As she struggled against the attack, she could just make out two glowing green eyes locked onto her from within the darkness as it slowly pulled her in.
---
Chrysalis awoke with a sudden start, sitting upright and quickly grasping at her neck as she drew in a deep gasping breath. She rubbed at her bare throat for a moment, and began to relax when she realized that she wasn’t in any real danger. The surroundings were unfamiliar at first, but then she recalled tasking Discord with creating the makeshift tent. The draconequus had created it, and a few others similar to it, for their group to rest in to recover from the previous day’s ordeal. She hadn’t asked where the patchwork of interwoven fabrics that made up the tents had come from, but just a glance told her that he had likely stolen much of it from some unsuspecting victims. Where he had managed to find so much clothing shaped fabric was a mystery.
She groaned as her eyes slowly slid closed again and her head hung forward a bit. She remained sitting there upright as the hazy visions played out through her mind again. A small shiver worked its way down her body at the memory. She shook her head quickly, dispelling the bad thoughts as she mumbled the words, “Not like that,” in a quiet whisper.
Chrysalis rubbed the sleep from her eyes with the backside of her forehooves, blinking a few times as she let out an unrestrained yawn before stretching her wings and forelegs out to her sides. Her still disguised and feathered wings flapped once after the good stretch, causing the patchwork tent to billow slightly at the gust of wind. Her gaze lazily traveled over to the folds at the entrance of the tent, drawn there by something. There was a small trail of light cast inside the tent through the barely open flap.
She yawned a second time, and rubbed at her right eye to wipe away the moisture that had gathered there. As she did, her left eye continued to stare at the light, and her brow slowly furrowed as her mind finally realized what was wrong with it. It shouldn’t have even been there at all.
Chrysalis sat perfectly still a moment longer as she stared at the light, and then all at once threw the bedroll covers back as she scrambled to her hooves and out of the tent. She had only taken a few steps outside by the time her hooves left the ground, her wings beating the air feverishly as she attempted to get above the tree canopy.
Her eyes were met with the light of the sun peaking just above the distant horizon. She hovered there just above the tree tops, squinting her eyes against the bright light as it grew more intense, and finally looking away as more of the fiery globe rose into the sky. Her mind began to race through possibilities. Had it been Nightmare Moon? No, she had no reason to raise the sun again, and wouldn’t likely be capable in the state she had been left in. Perhaps Twilight had something to do with it? She had found out the night before that the younger alicorn was still at large, and wouldn’t put it past the Princess of Magic to discover some way to move the sun on her own. But it couldn’t possibly be the Sun Princess herself... could it?
“Looks like Lil’ Sunnybutt is back.” Chrysalis’s head quickly turned toward Discord’s voice, finding the draconequus poised upon one of the upper branches of a nearby tree top. He held his lion paw across his brow just above his eyes as he looked toward the sunrise. Chrysalis narrowed her eyes at him, something that he noticed when his eyes finally shifted over to her. “I didn’t do it!” he said defensively, resting his eagle claw against his chest. “I’d put my bet on it being Moonbutt who let her out somehow. Anyway, I can smell her magic in the air,” he said, his nose wrinkling to the side as he sniffed once.
Chrysalis only responded with an indignant snort. She folded her wings closer to her sides, swooping back down toward the ground and only stopping herself by quickly opening her wings again when she was barely a leg’s length from the ground. Her hooves thudded against the grass, and immediately she began to pace back and forth. Discord showed himself shortly there after, sliding down the tree’s trunk that he had used as his vantage point. He stepped out into Chrysalis’s path, placing his lion paw over his midsection with a flourish and bending himself over in an exaggerated bow just before her. “So what now, O’ fearless leader of mine,” he asked, his eyes betraying his amusement at the situation.
“Can it, Discord,” Chrysalis snipped, practically biting the air between her and him.
Discord grinned widely, poising his index finger against his thumb, but the grin soon slipped off his face, his shoulders sagging a bit. “You know, these things really make retort making very difficult,” he said as he eyed the glowing bracelet around his wrist. “I had a good one, too,” he said, pouting as he flopped down on the ground, propping his elbow against the ground as he rest his chin upon the palm of his hand.
“This doesn’t change a thing,” Chrysalis said as she began to pace again. If it were true that Celestia had found a way to return, she could pose a threat, but there was no point in changing her plan when she already had everything she needed to move forward. It only meant that she needed the plan to succeed as soon as possible.
“Oh, it doesn’t? How so?” Discord asked. “I’m sure it will put at least a small hitch in your Super Thorough Ultimate Plan of Impending Domination... plan...,” he said, waving a hand in a lazy circle. His body began to shake as he failed to contain the laughter building inside him, a small strained snerk escaping him.
“Discord,” Chrysalis said as she stopped her pacing facing away from him. She took a deep breath, slowly letting it out to maintain her calm. Casting a glance over her shoulder, she narrowed her eyes at the draconquessus that looked ready to burst from a giggling fit. “Don’t,” she nearly growled at him.
A manic grin overtook Discord’s face, his voice nearly overcome with laughter as he said, “You could just call it the STUPID plan for short—”
Discord coiled his body away from a bright green bolt of energy that shot only a hair’s width past him, cringing at the sound of wood splintering just behind him. He laid completely still and silent, his wide eyes looking back to Chrysalis with equal parts shock and horror as small flecks of wooden debris showered him. His head slowly turned to look to where the bolt of energy had gone, finding a tree with a good sized hole blasted through its trunk. “Well,” he said as he looked back, “somepony obviously woke up on the wrong side of the bedroll this morning.”
Chrysalis’s horn was still trailing a small wisp of smoke from the tip. She knew that expending the energy to take a shot at him hadn’t been a wise move, but she was not in the mood for his brand of humor. “I will seriously hurt you if you don’t stop,” she growled, lowering her head slightly toward him as if to make her threat seem all the more real.
Uncharacteristic to his very nature, Discord seemed to seriously consider the threat for a moment. “Are you still holding a grudge after all these years?” he finally asked. The question actually took Chrysalis off guard, causing her to shift to a more neutral stance. “You know, you always were the serious one. Why do you think I took so much interest in you first?”
Chrysalis sneared at the recollection of the distant memory of their first meeting. “I really don’t care what you think, or what you thought back then. What matters is that you do as I say, unless you’ve grown fond of being painfully normal,” she said as she pointed her hoof toward the bindings around his wrists. “Don’t forget that.”
“Oh how could I?” Discord said with an exaggerated eye roll, twirling one of his hands about next to his shoulder as he spoke. “You already drilled it into me every chance you got last night.”
Chrysalis rolled her eyes as well, letting go an exasperated sigh. “You never take anything seriously—”
“I try not to,” Discord quipped, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“—but you know what will happen if you treat this like one of your stupid little gags... don’t you?”
After a moment of silence between them two of them, Discord let out a long sigh as he pushed himself up from the ground. “Yes, yes, I get it,” he said, dusting little wooden splinters off himself as he walked over to Chrysalis’s side. He started to reach toward her as if to pet her on the head, but the burning scowl that she shot at him when his hand got close made him think twice, and so he settled for just crossing his arms instead. “You’ll get your little trinket. Quit worrying so much or you’ll give your stolen identity gray hairs.”
“What in tarnation was that noise?”
Discord glanced over toward the other tents where Applejack’s voice had called out from. “Woops! Looks like our arguing woke the children,” he said as he bent over, lowering his head next to Chrysalis’s face, leaning uncomfortably close as he showed off that creepy ear to ear grin of his. Chrysalis let out a disgusted groan, turning away from him as she left him behind to make her way back to the center of their makeshift camp. She had no time left to waste on him this morning if she were to get her plans underway.
---
Twilight had waited outside of Celestia’s personal quarters as she had been asked while the two regal sisters had gone inside to talk privately. Alicorn voices had the capacity to reach volumes much higher than that of other ponies, and Luna had always been prone to raising hers when she was upset or anxious about something. It was no surprise then that Twilight had managed to catch quite a few pieces of the conversation through the closed door, mostly from Luna’s side of the discussion. Twilight very distinctly heard the word ‘changeling’ shouted loudly multiple times. The two Nightguard that flanked either side of the large doorway had done their best to stand at attention and act as if the arguing hadn’t phased them, but their ears fidgeting about at the sounds of the heated discussion going on behind the doors betrayed their nervousness.
The two guards flinched, managing to stand even more at attention somehow when the double doors to Celestia’s room quickly opened inward from the indigo aura that took hold of them. They swung on their hinges, stopping to a sudden loud thud against the walls inside. At the same time, Luna stormed out, not so much as glancing at either of the guards or Twilight. Twilight quickly sidestepped out of the Moon Princess’s way, following with her eyes as Luna practically stomped her way down the hall. Her ethereal mane reflected her emotional state, appearing more like a billowing storm cloud than a clear, star filled sky, and unless her eyes were playing tricks on her, Twilight was certain she saw a few skittering tendrils of lightning that arched across the surface of Luna’s mane as well. Once Luna had disappeared around the corner of the nearest corridor, Twilight looked back to the open doorway where she saw Celestia standing just at the threshold. Anypony else who didn’t know the Sun Princess as well would have likely only seen the mask of calm that she put forward, but Twilight noticed the small things like the slight decline in her ears and eyelids.
“Are you two... okay?” Twilight asked cautiously. She took a tentative step forward, her own ears splaying back when Celestia looked away from the hall down to her.
The Sun Princess held the glance for a short moment, then blinked once as she looked back down the hall. “She’s very upset with me,” she said, and then turned to walk back into her room. “Please, come in. We should talk,” she called back, prompting Twilight to follow her inside.
Twilight glanced over her shoulder, noticing the doors silently swinging closed at the command of the Nightguards’ magic behind her. She glanced about the room, one that she was actually very familiar with already. She had spent many days with her mentor in this place, and finding at least one thing that appeared to be untouched by the events of the time travel spell brought a sense of calm to her mind.
The lit fire crackled upon the hearth as it chased the chill out of the room. Celestia found her way to the large violet and gold laced velvet pillow laying near the hearth, and folded her legs to lay down upon it with her side to the fire’s warmth. Her golden aura lit about her horn as a smaller red pillow adorned with golden tassels was levitated over from the side of the room. “Luna seems to believe that I intentionally led us all down a dangerous path,” she said as she placed the pillow just before herself near the hearth. She glanced over to Twilight, giving a warm smile and making a welcoming gesture to the pillow with her wing. Twilight returned the smile as she happily took the offer, resting herself on the pillow next to her old mentor. “I was attempting to reassure her by explaining my intent, but it seems the more I spoke, the less she wanted to hear. She left before we could say all that needed to be said between us, but it’s probably for the best. She has always been quick tempered, and I think she realized just as I did that nothing is going to be solved between us in a shouting match.
“Now, I’m sure you have many questions for me, but first, there is something I want to ask you. Luna did speak briefly about you, and mentioned that you come from a possible future. Another Equestria, is how she put it. She said that you mentioned being a student of mine. Is this true?”
“I was, yes,” Twilight said as her smile brightened at the old memories. “Those were honestly some of the happiest years of my life.”
“Then the visions really were supposed to be.” Celestia glanced to the hearth, quietly watching the flames dance for a moment before turning her attention back. “Even after I failed to find you, I still continued to see visions of you. You, becoming my student. You, becoming the bearer of Magic. You,” — she lingered on her thought as she looked Twilight over — “becoming what you are now.”
“But you had more visions than just those, didn’t you?” Twilight asked, prompting a mildly surprised look from the Sun Princess’s eyes. “You saw what was going to happen to Luna before it ever did.”
“You know about that.” Celestia cast her eyes downward, going silent. Twilight hoped that there would be some sort of explanation to the ability. Magic that could cause precognitive thought was not something she was familiar with, or had even heard of before discovering that Celestia had the ability. The silence lingered in the room for a time, only broken by the sound of the crackling fire. Just when it seemed that no answer was going to come forth from the Sun Princess, she spoke. “Yes, I’ve had visions for most of my life,” she said simply, raising her head to look directly to Twilight. “Short little glimpses that have guided my actions, though I have no direct control over them. They began when my sister and I gained our considerable power.”
Twilight’s ears flicked as she picked up on something else she hadn’t known. “Gained?” she asked, wondering if she had heard correctly. “So you weren’t always as powerful as you are now?”
Celestia smiled warmly, her gaze seeming to drift off to something unseen. She seemed to quietly ponder her own thoughts for a time before finally sharing them. “My sister and I were not always what we are today. There was a time when we were much more... normal,” she said, ending her words on a light chuckle. “We were born here in Canterlot, daughters to a business owner and his wife, nothing special. I took after my father’s side of the family, being a unicorn, and Luna took after mother’s, being born a pegasus. It was a time when seeing a pegasus living in Canterlot was still a rare thing. The great migration and the unification of the three great tribes had only just happened a single generation earlier.” She closed her eyes, letting out a content sigh. “Things were not so perfect and pleasant as what the Hearthwarming story would lead everypony to believe, but I do still miss those days all the same.”
“Wow,” Twilight said in a quick breath. She had learned many things in the years that she had mentored under her old teacher, most of them in the very spot she was laying right now, but never had the conversation turned to learning about her mentor’s past. Just the revelation that her mentor had kept such secrets for so long was a bit shocking, as was her sudden willingness to divulge what had to have been one of her most tightly guarded secrets. Perhaps this Celestia felt she had reason to do so, given the different course of events. Driven by her ever insatiable desire for knowledge, Twilight decided to see just how much this Celestia was willing to tell. “So, you were really born in Canterlot?”
Celestia opened her eyes, smiling and nodding down to Twilight. “Yes. Not something that is common knowledge, and for good reason. There have been many scholars over the years that have come up with their own theories of where my sister and I appeared from. Imagine their shock if they were told that we were simply normal ponies that stumbled upon power.” A slightly mischievous smirk graced her muzzle for but a second, but quickly faded. “No, better to leave that truth lost to history, else others would attempt some sort of madness thinking it were possible for them to ascend as well.”
“So, you let everypony make up and believe their own stories to hide the truth?” Twilight hummed to herself, biting at her bottom lip as she tapped a forehoof to her chin. She recalled many of the very stories that Celestia had mentioned, most of them centered around the Alicorn of the Sun and how she had been a creator of all things, an angel sent to guide Equestria, or a warrior of light sent to save them from the evils of the world. However, any time Twilight had ever asked about the truth behind such stories, she had only gotten a smile and a question turned on itself, being asked what she thought was true. “There’s a lot of conflicting information about the early days of Equestria and even before then, and that just drove me crazy. There’s even a legend that you built Canterlot yourself, but I guess that can’t be true.”
“That would have been quite a feat,” Celestia said through a light laugh. “Actually, before we ascended, the three tribes had already founded the three great cities in Equestria, each one acting as a capital in its own right within our fledgling nation’s borders. The unicorn tribe founded the city of Canterlot here upon this mountain. The pegasi founded the cloud city of Cloudsdale, and the earth ponies founded the valley city of Everfree.”
Twilight’s ears twitched once again. “Wait. Everfree was an earth pony city?”
“Yes, another piece of knowledge lost to time.” Celestia once again peered off at something unseen as she continued to reminisce about Equestria’s early days. “It was a beautiful one. A place where earth pony magic brought forth the beauty of the land itself.”
“A lost city,” Twilight said quietly. Already her mind was dreaming up possibilities of treasure troves of centuries old knowledge hidden within the Everfree. Just the possibility alone filled her with a giddy feeling, momentarily letting her forget her recent troubles. “So, I’m guessing they built you a castle. There are ruins of a castle there in the forest,” she said, hoping Celestia was willing to tell her more.
A proud smile graced Celestia’s muzzle, one similar to what could be expected from a teacher that was proud of one of her students. “Yes, that castle was built after we received our power.”
“Makes sense, but how did having three capital cities work out?” Twilight asked. She hadn’t ever heard of any nation having more than one capital city, and obviously Equestria no longer did, so that must have changed at some point. “The Everfree ruins are called the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters. Does that mean Everfree became the capital back then?”
Any reluctance that had shown itself at the beginning had left, and now Celestia seemed more than happy to share her story with someone that wanted to hear it. “That is what they named the castle, and we were welcome there any time we would visit, but it wasn’t a permanent home for me or my sister.” Celestia shifted slightly on her pillow, resting a bit more casually as she allowed her forehooves to cross. “You see, Luna primarily ruled from Cloudsdale in the early days, and I from Canterlot. It made sense due to our natural affinities, mine being more toward unicorn magic and hers toward pegasus magic, and back then the three tribes would not stand for all of our power being centered around one of the three capitals, for fear that one tribe would be favored over the other two. Of course, their worries were unfounded, but we chose to humor them,” she said, ending with a small shrug.
As fascinated as she was with Celestia’s story, Twilight couldn’t help but notice the discrepancy. “Well, that doesn’t make much sense. I mean, the earth ponies didn’t even have a princess to represent them.”
“That isn’t true. There was another.” Celestia paused for a moment as Twilight stared back silently in shock. A third alicorn princess? Maybe a sister she hadn’t mentioned? Twilight’s thoughts ran wild with imagined possibilities until her attention was drawn back by Celestia’s voice. “As I said, my sister and I stumbled upon our power. We were still young then, I barely on the cusp of adulthood and my sister being a few years younger than myself. Don’t let this information get out, but we were known to be a little adventurous back then.” Celestia gave a quick wink to Twilight, eliciting a giggle before she continued. “We found ourselves within the Crystal Caverns beneath the city one day, and had managed to get ourselves very lost. We were down there for hours trying to find our way out of the mines before we came across a room that had an enormous crystal suspended from the ceiling.”
Twilight’s brow and ears perked up slightly. “I think I’ve seen that room,” she said, thinking back to the large cavern that her changeling captors had taken her to.
“It was a very impressive thing, but what was even more so was what we saw inside it.” Celestia’s gaze drifted off toward the fire, the reflection of the dancing flames glinting off her eyes. “Frozen in the crystal was a being that had only ever been spoken of in myths before then. An alicorn.”
“...You found an alicorn?” Twilight asked. This was far beyond anything her imagination had been able to come up with.
“The first one, as far as we know,” Celestia said as she looked back to Twilight. “Perhaps she found us, and then guided us to her. Honestly, I’m still not sure even to this day how it was that we were the ones to find her when those caverns had been mined for years before we ventured into them.
“When we found her within that room, something reacted to our presence there. She was freed from her deep sleep from inside the crystal, and at the same time my sister and I were changed forever, granted powers that could control the cosmos. Our unique gifts would soon elevate us to be the leaders of these lands whether we wanted to be or not.” Celestia shifted her right wing, gently sweeping it around to rest it on her forehooves. She lifted her left forehoof, running it along the primary feathers as she stared at it thoughtfully. “I still remember that moment that she first spoke to us as if it were just yesterday. She seemed so confused, asking who we were and where she was. I remember feeling the ancient power that radiated from her, and yet she was so naive at the same time. We never did discover why she was there, or why we were changed when we found her.”
Twilight spent a moment in speechless thought. An alicorn, older than the Royal Sisters. She found herself wondering why such a thing would be kept secret from the world. “So, this other alicorn, she was the princess that ruled from Everfree?”
“She was,” Celestia said as she gently folded her wing back to her side. “Her name was Chrystallyn, and though her name was the only thing she seemed to know about herself, she was a very quick learner. She proved to be the most powerful earth pony magic wielder who ever graced this world. Just her ambient power alone transformed Everfree, sprouting a forest from almost nothing in only a few short days after she had arrived there.
“Even though she wasn’t truly our sister by blood, we were all often referred to as the Royal Pony Sisters. Rumor and myth took care of our more humble origins fairly quickly, and it was soon believed that we had all been born from the world itself, or descended to it from some other plane of existence,” Celestia said, sweeping a forehoof idly through the air. “Either of those could have been possibly true for Chrystallyn, though we’ll likely never know for certain where she truly came from.”
“So,” Twilight started as her ears splayed back. She knew what she wanted to know next, but was unsure how willing Celestia would be continue her story once it took an unhappy turn. Twilight couldn’t imagine that Chrystallyn’s absence from history was for any good reasons. “What happened?” she cautiously asked.
“Well...,” Celestia said, her eyes drifting down to her forehooves. She rubbed one over the other for a time before she began to speak again. “Many unfortunate things, one after another. We did rule from our three separate thrones in peace for a time, and then Discord took interest in us. We have him to thank for the feral state that the Everfree was left in. Even after he was defeated, his chaotic power was just too much to cleanse and it eventually left a scar upon our land where one of the most beautiful cities ever created had once stood. The Everfree has never been as it once was since, and likely never will be again.”
Twilight could see the ghostly stare in Celestia’s eyes. “That’s horrible. Did Chrystallyn...?” Twilight allowed her question to hang unfinished, wondering if she were treading into territory that she shouldn’t.
Celestia glanced up from her hooves to Twilight, giving her head a quick shake. “She survived the ordeal. In fact, she was the only reason why Discord’s plan was stopped. Had her tree not been there... well, lets just say that the feral forest was only held back because of her foresight. Discord had her within his grasp already and was wreaking havoc on Everfree, but he hadn’t been able to corrupt her tree. From it, Luna and I were able to gather the first celestial weapon ever created and use its power to defeat Discord.”
The feeling of shock flooded back to Twilight with a vengeance. She only knew of one tree within the Everfree that could possibly fit that description. “By tree... you mean the Tree of Harmony.”
Celestia seemed slightly surprised that Twilight knew the tree’s name. “Yes. Chrystallyn’s true power given a physical form in our world. The Tree of Harmony was a special tree that she nurtured and grew from the land of the Everfree Forest herself. From it, it bore the Elements of Harmony, a master focus and five sister crystals, each one representing one of six virtues of harmony. Using those artifacts, we could bind them to our natural affinity with the virtues, allowing us to work together to bring our power to bear against Discord as one and overpower him. The Elements allowed us to tap into powers that we didn’t even know we had, powers that are present in all of us to some extent, some more than others.”
“I never knew how the Tree of Harmony came to be,” Twilight said quietly. Her brow furrowed as she recalled endless hours of research into the Elements, and a fruitless search for information on their origins, finding that very little had ever been written about them and even less about the tree they came from. “I remember reading that the Elements were just something discovered in the Everfree by you a long time ago.”
“That is the going story, and one that I prefer to be believed. After all, if it were known that such artifacts could be created by any sort of magical means, who’s to say someone wouldn’t attempt to create their own replica?” Celestia fell silent for a moment as her gaze wandered off to the side. She seemed to quietly ponder something for a moment before shaking her head. “It was bad enough with only one set of powerful artifacts in existence in those days. After the attack on Everfree and the defeat of Discord, the Elements were moved to a new location, but only after a great deal of political infighting finally forced the issue.” A very slight grimace tugged at the corners of her mouth as she recalled that particular part of her past life.
“I thought they stayed in the Everfree,” Twilight pointed out as she tilted her head in curiosity. “Were they not kept at the castle there?”
Celestia once again shook her head. “I did have them returned to the castle eventually, but that was over a century later after we had restored the city as best we could. Discord’s assault on the city had left it in shambles, and had left so many homeless in a forest that was no longer as inviting as it once had been. The tribal leaders were more concerned with who would be allowed to house the Elements than with those that had lost their homes, so Chrystallyn decided to take the Elements with her and leave Equestria, along with many of the survivors from the assault on Everfree. She founded a new nation in the far north.”
“The Crystal Empire,” Twilight commented, her voice coming out as a half whisper.
“You’ve done your homework,” Celestia said with an approving smile.
“I’ve... been there, actually,” Twilight said. She explained further when she noticed the surprised look from her old mentor. “In my time, the Empire returned from the curse that was put upon it.”
“I see,” Celestia said simply, looking toward the fire. Her eyelids hung half closed as she seemed to peer off at nothing for a time, eventually looking back to Twilight. “Then you already know what horror befell it,” she said through a heavy sigh. “While my sister and I both believed that Everfree could be saved, Chrystallyn disagreed and decided to take the Elements and use their power to found a new nation in the far north. She declared herself the Crystal Queen of the Empire, and welcomed those that had been displaced by Discord’s antics, offering them a safe haven from the dangers of the world. In time, the powerful magic that Chrystallyn had created there to defend the Empire from outside threats began to change them.”
“And they became the crystal ponies,” Twilight said, finishing out the thought. “That means the crystal ponies were descendant of the earth pony tribe.”
“Mostly, yes,” Celestia said with a quick nod. “Enough so that after a few generations, there was hardly any crystal unicorns or crystal pegasi. They also started off being very much an isolationist society, which only further antagonized those within Equestria that believed them to be a threat. There were those that believed Chrystallyn and her crystal ponies to be traitors that had stolen one of our land’s greatest treasures and planned to use it against us some day.” Celestia slowly shook her head, her eyelids dropping half closed. “Sometimes I still can’t believe the severe amount of distrust that there used to be. Ironically, the ‘threat’ from a new tribe of ponies in the north actually helped the three tribes of Equestria look past their own differences for once.”
“Someone did attack the Crystal Empire eventually though, and conquered it,” Twilight mentioned. “A unicorn, named Sombra.”
“Yes, though I doubt you know his full story.” Celestia paused for a short moment to collect her thoughts before continuing. “As I said, unicorns were not at all common within the Empire, and Sombra was no crystal pony. Sombra was actually a fairly accomplished caster, born in Canterlot to a noble family.”
Twilight tilted her head slightly at the rather tame description of the evil infused dictator. “Did you know who he was before the fall of the Empire?”
“Yes, I did. I’m the one who sent him there,” Celestia said plainly. “He was my ambassador to the Empire.”
“Oh,” Twilight said quietly as she glanced down to her forehooves. While she was interested in everything her old mentor was willing to share with her, she didn’t intend on dredging up harsh memories. “You couldn’t have known what he was going to do.”
“And there... you are wrong,” Celestia said. Her face was once again the stoic mask that she normally wore every day of her life. “I knew exactly what he was going to do,” she said as she slowly turned her head to watch the flames dancing in the hearth.
“...You did?” Twilight asked cautiously. A chill had shot down her spine at the implications of what she had just heard.
“I glimpsed his future. I knew he had interest in the power of the Elements, and would want to try his hoof at copying them. I knew he would try to gather enough power to make a bid for ascension. And, I knew my sister and I would have to face him, and it would cause the fall of the Empire.” Through her entire confession, Celestia only stared off into the fire, emotionless.
There was only one thing that Twilight could even think to ask at that time. “Why then?”
“Why would I send him there if I knew he would do such evil?” Celestia asked as she looked back from the fire to Twilight. There was something there, something just below the surface of stoic mask that she put forward. Twilight could feel something sad as Celestia continued to confess her past actions. “Because it was all I had ever known. All my life up to that point, I had been guided by visions that began after I was gifted with this great power,” she said, her voice giving off a slight edge of resentment. “I never once questioned them. I thought them to be something divine that was guiding my hoof for some greater purpose. It wasn’t until recently that I began to question that.”
The conversation went silent, and Twilight found herself quietly pondering over the confession for a time. Another question came to her, and though she wondered if asking it was pressing too far, she needed to know just how much involvement Celestia had with the changelings in this time, and what she might have agreed to. “These visions,” Twilight quietly began to ask, “did they also tell you to work with the changelings?”
“You mean the Everfree Hive,” Celestia stated, waiting until she saw the confirming nod from Twilight to continue. “No, that was not ever a part of what I saw.”
Twilight’s ears splayed back at the confusing answer. “Then why? I know they‘re convicts, and really horrible ones at that, but they’d be nothing more than a power source for the rest of their lives. I just... that doesn’t seem like you.”
Celestia maintained her stoic gaze, her eyes locked on Twilight as she quietly stared for a time. Eventually, she let out a tired sigh, her expression breaking. Her ears splayed back as she looked off to the side slightly, avoiding Twilight’s gaze as if she were ashamed, a look that Twilight had never seen on the Sun Princess in her life. “When Sombra overtook the Empire, he did not simply toss Chrystallyn and her followers outside the borders,” she began, which drew a questioning look from Twilight, though the she remained silent as Celestia continued. “He demanded her fealty, but she defied him even after he had conquered her kingdom and proclaimed himself the King of the Empire. She and her remaining followers made an attempt to take her throne back, and for that, she and her devoted followers were cursed.” Celestia lifted her head just slightly to glance directly at Twilight. “Today, she is known as Chrysalis, Queen of the Changelings.”
Twilight’s jaw dangled open, quivering as she tried to find words. “Chrysalis... was the Crystal Queen?” she asked, leaning in slightly toward Celestia as she searched her eyes. Her mind, which was going through the process of trying to reject this strange truth, decided at that moment to inform her of something else even more troubling. “She created the Elements!?” she asked in a near shriek as she pushed herself up, holding one foreleg steady against the pillow while the other tucked itself tight against her chest.
Celestia calmly nodded in response. “I am also not the only one who has ever experienced a vision of the future. Though Luna claims to have never experienced one herself, Chrystallyn was known to receive one from time to time. She was inspired by her visions to create the Tree of Harmony to protect Everfree, and her choice to leave Equestria and form the Empire had been driven by one as well.” Celestia waited for a short moment, watching as Twilight struggled with accepting her story. Once Twilight had settled herself back on the velvet pillow, Celestia continued. “She approached me close to thirteen years ago. It had been a few centuries since the last time her and I had crossed paths, let alone since I had seen any of her cursed kind,” Celestia said, pausing very briefly to glance at the crackling fire. “What she approached me with was a startling revelation. She knew that I was searching for you, and that I couldn’t find you. She had the same vision, the same one that told of a young unicorn that would one day take up the Element of Magic, and with the aid of her five friends as the chosen bearers of the Elements, they would defeat Nightmare Moon.” Celestia looked back to Twilight, her voice giving off a hint of wonderment as she spoke. “That is something that had never happened before between us, sharing a vision like that. She claimed to have a way to find you, so I agreed to provide her what she needed despite my misgivings over the methods.” Celestia’s brow furrowed slightly before she glanced over her shoulder toward the room’s doorway. “When I tried to explain all of this to Luna, she became very upset. I tried to tell her that I wasn’t so much of a fool as to give Chrysalis unrestricted access to the Elements’ power,” she said just before turning her gaze back. “The master focus is still hidden away, and only the chosen one would be able to claim it. Still, my sister seemed to believe I had willingly doomed us all.”
For a time afterwards, the only sound that filled the room was the snaps and pops from the burning fire. Celestia had definitely given Twilight a head full of interesting, if not troubling things to think about. There was also one thing that was immediately obvious. “So, Luna didn’t tell you,” Twilight stated, finally breaking the long silence between them. Celestia raised her brow slightly, the curious look being the only confirmation that Twilight needed. “Well, I really hate to destroy something that you came to believe in so strongly, but the Chrysalis who approached you is from the same time I’m from.” Twilight cringed slightly when she saw the horror stricken look slowly overtaking Celestia’s face, but pressed onward. “She knows two hundred and fifty years of Equestria’s future not because of a vision, but because she already lived it, and she came here to change it.” By now, Celestia looked like she was close to a panic. She suddenly stood from her resting place, pacing to the center of her room and then continuing in a small circle. Twilight pushed herself to sit up, turning herself toward Celestia. “I’m sorry. She deceived me too, and she took the Element of Magic that I brought with me, along with the other five Elements and my friends.”
Celestia stopped mid stride, one forehoof hovering just above the floor and shaking slightly. She held her head low, just below shoulder height, as she stared at the floor with her wide and frightened eyes. Though her voice only came out as a sacred whisper, it still carried very clearly across the room to Twilight’s ears as she said, “I’ve been such a fool.”
Twilight quickly stood and approached her old mentor. She gently reached out, placing her forehoof just against Celestia’s shaking hoof in some hope of bringing her calm. It seemed to work, as only seconds later she broke free from the haunted trance, looking instead to Twilight’s worried eyes.
Celestia quickly reined in her emotions, drawing a single calming breath in slowly, and letting it out equally slow as she raised her head high. She turned toward the full height bay windows that opened out onto the balcony attached to her room, magically pushing the windows open as she stepped outside into the morning sunlight. Twilight followed just beside her, quietly watching.
The two of them stood silently out on the balcony for a time, Celestia spending the moment staring out over Canterlot, though her eyes didn’t appear to be focusing on anything in particular. Finally, she quietly spoke. “I know what she’s trying to do,” she said just before she turned her head to look down to Twilight. “She’s going to face him. She means to take back what she lost.”
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Will King Sombra be playing any part or making any appearances in this story?
So Chrissy is after the Crystal Heart? Ooh, I hope this means Sombra will be showing up!
Lots of nifty backstory here, dude. I like! Really set the scene for some upcoming shite storms. Any chance we can learn of Discord's origins?
Have you ever considered submitting this story to Equestria Daily? You can find out how to do so here.
DUN DUN DUN!
I REALLY did not expect this. Amazing twist.
Hmm... It seems I have robbed the FIRST! commenters of a post. You're welcome.
EDIT: Nope. I still managed to get beaten by starlit nova, who by his question either didn't read the chapter or didn't understand all of it.
Well ... that's an incredibly novel way to incorporate the Season 4 premiere. And an origin story for Chryssy that I'd never have expected. I don't know if it was your intent, but it also makes me feel far more forgiving to her, too.
3548319
I came close to posting this before the premier, but decided to wait and see what they were going to do with it. I was curious if I'd still be able to stay close to canon with it or not.
I only ended up making one small tweak to Chrissy's back story after watching the premier. From the beginning, I'd always planned on Chrissy having originally been the alicorn that ruled from Everfree that created the Elements in this story, which explains why she is able to make use of them and knows so much about them. All I changed was to say she made the tree, which in effect, still means she made the Elements. It was a very lucky thing that the tree ended up also being in Everfree in the premier, otherwise I was probably going to have to stick an AU tag on this thing.
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I can safely say that we will be seeing Sombra, though that's all I'll say for now.
As for Discord, I'll be honest and say I haven't given his pre-invasion history much thought yet. I will write that down though. I've been keeping track of some ideas that I might turn into side stories once the main story is done.
Interesting alternate history, and it certainly helps explain a few things! It's great to see Celestia back, and I'm looking forward to more from her (and from the rest of the Mane Six as they wake up to the sun again for the first time in months. I wonder how Chrysalis will explain that one...)
This changes EVERYTHING!
Mysteries
The Origins of the Changelings: Chrysalis's true identity is that of the former Everfree and Crystal Empire Queen Chrystallyn.Timey Wimey: Even though the past has changed, those who are from the future still exist. How could such a paradox exist?
The Missing Spark: It seems Chrysalis knows what happened to the past Twilight. What did she do to the unicorn?
Chrysalis's Strange Behavior: It turns out that Chrysalis had orchestrated a deal with Celestia to safeguard the Elements in exchange for a place to build a Hive without being ostracized by the public.Secrets of a Changeling Queen: Chrysalis is attempting to reclaim her former kingdom, the Crystal Empire.The Truth about the Elements: It turns out that Chrysalis is the true creator of the Elements and Tree of Harmony. Certainly there are things that only she would know about them.
The Chessmaster: Celestia has been guided by the powers of her visions in all of her plans.What the Mad God Knows: Discord has proved that he might be aware of Twilight Sparkle from somewhere. Is there anything else that he might shed a light on?
Dual Destinies (formerly known as A Vision): Both Twilight Sparkle and Chrysalis have received rather harrowing visions. Have their fates been sealed?
........huh.........now I just have to wonder how Cadence fits into the story now.
Is she a naturally occurring alicorn (or did she have a run in with some artifact?) that became the ruler of the Crystal Empire through freeing it?
Or could she be Chrystallyn's child, smuggled out of the Crystal Empire before her last confrontation with Sombra and getting cursed........
3548602
Multiverse Theory/Doctor who (Wibbly Wobbly Timey Whimey) Theory. pick your poison.
3549660
That's why I named it that.
WOW!!!
Well... mind blown... didn't expect that...
Seems like the s4 opener had to mess up your plans a bit... but you incorporated everything that was revealed well.
3548535>>3551074>>3552161
Seems it had the effect I was going for then.
Things are much more connected than they appeared at first, no?
3548602
And so things are starting to appear a bit clearer, but there's still some important questions that yet remain unanswered.
Couldn't have put it better myself.
3553334
Once Chrysalis also had a disturbing vision, I couldn't name it anything else.
*finishes reading the chapter*
.... *Processing*...
...*Ding*
OH SNAP! I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING!
3548602
Shouldn't that be crossed out?
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While the creator of the Elements has been revealed, how they actually work is still up in the air. There are definitely a few tricks that only Chrysalis, the creator of the artifacts, would know.
Just so you know, I prefer this story over the entire Pony POV Series. ...I know I can't take that back, but I'm sticking to it!
Man that must of been pretty heart wrenching for Celestia. So tantalizingly close.
Can't wait to find out what the hell happened to the other Twilight.
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She grew desperate for the vision to become true. It was the first time in her very long life that one of her visions had simply failed to happen, which brought all of her past actions into question in her mind.
Won't have to wait long. They'll be finding out in the next chapter.
This is what The Return of Queen Chrysalis should be like.
Happy New year Zeg.
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And a happy new year to you as well!
i.imgur.com/E1CoaOT.png
Clearly Chrissy is after Sombra. So that means Chrissy created crystal heart too right?
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That she did.
Have to ask this. I did'nt watch the crystal empire episode so i really don't know but isn't Cadance the destinied crystal princess? Does that mean she is daughter of Chrysalis? (it is far-fetched right?
)
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Well, no, Cadance can't be her daughter. Cadance is only slightly older than Twilight is (late 20's at the current time of this story), but Chrysalis is... much much older. It wouldn't work out in the time line I've put together.
I'd say more but the next chapter is going to get into this a little bit, and I don't like putting spoiler stuff for unpublished chapters in the comments.
But I think it is safe enough to say that we will see Cadance in the story again.
3747360 Just in case you were interested this is Cadence's official back story: As a baby Pegasus she was found in the woods by Earth ponies, who took her to their village. When she grew up she reversed a love-stealing spell cast by a pony called Prismia. Prismia wore a magic-enhancing necklace that amplified her evil and jealousy, but when Cadence confronted her, the necklace amplified Cadence's love. Once Prismia changed her horrible ways, Cadence was surrounded by magical energy and transported to a strange place where she met Celestia, who adopted her as her royal niece.
I think this explains a bit for those who don't understand how Cadence can be Celestia's Niece.
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The story book that tells about her past came out just after I'd started writing this, and I didn't notice the buzz about her having originally been a pegasus until a little after when I'd already gotten pretty far into my story. There's a part in chapter 8 that doesn't exactly line up with what's cannon because of this. That happens though when writing fan fiction for a story line that is still evolving.
Still, I always figured that Cadance was an adoptive niece even before the story book confirmed that, being that there's no way she could be Luna's daughter in the official cannon. I mean, either that or Celestia is hiding a sibling she doesn't want the world to know about.
More Please
3212874 How did you do that "highlight to read" thing?
3391146 Have you ever done this "mysteries comment" on other stories on this website?
When is the next chapter coming out?
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Workin' on it. Been working on it some tonight actually, and probably will for another hour or so.
I took a little unplanned break over December that caused a bit of a delay on this next chapter getting done... didn't have any spare time for writing, which sucked.
Can't say for sure when it'll be done, but it will be done.
Hah, watching Cadence take over the Crystal Empire must have really had some bite to it. No wonder she's so bitter.
You know, this is the second story I've read that linked the Crystal Heart to the Changelings, I'm surprised it's not more common, really. I mean, something that broadcasts love seems perfect for them.
Of course this begs the question of how Sombra got as far as he did considering his entrenched opposition and him being a foreigner...
So, Chrysalis was once Crystallyn, an alicorn, and Sombra cursed the shit out of her and her followers, turning them into Changelings and now she's aiming to reverse that.
Hm. She's still a massive bitch and I find myself unable to dredge up a single lick of sympathy for her, despite her tragic past. Her actions paint her as a selfish shit that is all too willing to cause ruin, heartbreak and destruction to get what she wants.
I hope Twilight punches her teeth out.
Lol, alternate timeline and you're already having every major villain show up in one fell swoop! Well done!
4802634 Not yet. THere's still Tirek.
3553334 Author used Head Canon...
...IT'S SUPER EFFECTIVE! CRITICAL HIT!
Reader's mind is now blown!
seriously, this back-story is now my headcanon. well done.
4679628 Amen to that, amen to that... (\
this random thought, but when NMM and Luna merged into one being seemed alot like when Picolo and Kame from DB rejoined themselves
So bland.... Garrrgghhh....
It feels like the Author is explaining his theories on Equestria, rather than writing a story that's in Equestria.
*melts* Gurrgghhhhhh.....
Wow... I was unprepared for all of that...
That was a lot of exposition...
This is the second time in this chapter alone that Celestia goes, in so many words, "god forbid someone besides us try to have any meaningful achievements or become greater than they are." It's not helping make her any more sympathetic to me.
Okay, this didn't so much throw me out of the story is it grabbed, me, threw me out, and proceeded to slam my face into a the floor.
Are you seriously telling me that Princess Twilight, over 200 years old, never once asked Princess Celestia if she'd always been an alicorn? Never once wondered if their ascensions were instigated, if by different means?
...
Unless the twist here is that Twilight's memories have been scrambled or the future she came from was never supposed to exist and she's a flawed creation, then this doesn't make one lick of sense in universe or out of it. A curious pony like Twilight? Of course she'd ask, eventually. I cannot imagine why she would not ask at some point in her, once more, 200 years of life.
Yeah, I get that Celestia is tight lipped about their histories, but...200 + years, plus Luna was around too. I would expect Twilight to know something more about their past-maybe not all of it but some, not this blank slate that's just ridiculous. If nothing else Celestia would have let things slip from time to time.
As it stands, the only way I can assume this works is if after Twilight's ascension, Celestia ran to her closet and hid in there for 250 years, yelling "Nanana I'm not listening to you!" to Twilight, because frankly this lack of information on Twilight's part-again a curious mare with a supposedly positive relationship with Celestia, she'd have to have found out more, but she hasn't found out...anything, really. Did they just eat tea and cakes for 250 years without talking about anything remotely personal-just weather-and then suddenly dived into time travel and Twilight's madness? Because that's what you're implying with this, so far as I can tell.
Ok wow, if chrysalis comes back to being a princess, that'd mean consequently that somehow twilight is the centerpiece if the Alicorns, being the Alicorns of Magic, whereas the others are attuned to their own affinities
Celestia Ex Machina