It's not the story of any single pony. It's the story of three of the same all at once.
The Ripple shakes the world in a cataclysmic rupture of time. For a short time, all the separate, disparate threads of time become one and the same. The merging nearly shatters the Central Leyline and destroys all life until a single pony tries to stop it. This is not her story.
Long before the three tribes ever began to war, a single pony traveled to the farthest reaches of the world to search for the truth hidden in the icy North. This was not her story either.
In the distant future, a single pony will embark on an entirely unexpected journey to find out why the sun stopped moving centuries before her time, leaving the world trapped in the endless half-light of dusk. This will not be her story either.
The first harbinger was a low thrumming sound that hummed through the air. It was noticeable, but not unduly so; it was the kind of thing that made ponies look up in the air for a moment in confusion then return to their business. Only four ponies in the entirety of Equestria noticed anything at all: the Tetrarchy. First among them was Celestia. She was attending her day-to-day court business as she always did when the sound began. Immediately her ears fell flat against her head and her eyes widened. Observers would later comment on how her mouth had moved as though she was saying something, but none of them actually heard it before her horn coruscated with golden light and she was gone.
The second was Twilight Sparkle. She was walking home from a day at Whitetail Woods with her friends when the low sound made itself heard. She started in shock before crying out in panic and vanishing in much the same way as Celestia, leaving her friends extremely confused and with no idea where she'd gone.
The third was Cadance, who was in a rather similar state as Celestia: managing court affairs in the Crystal Empire. Instead of immediately teleporting, she began to heave enormous sobs and ran out of the court and into her private chambers before explosively disappearing just like her two fellow princesses.
Luna had spent all night watching over the sky and over the dreams of their subjects, and so she was asleep.
And then she wasn't, because Celestia had appeared in her room and grasped her by the neck before teleporting them both away once again.
The four of them convened in the Upper Halls of Canterlot Castle, where they normally met only once yearly to discuss what had happened during that year. Thus meeting there out of time was quite out of the ordinary. All four were there: Celestia, her face set in a stony silence; Twilight, eyes wide with shock and alarm; Cadance, red-faced and still crying; and Luna, confused and barely-awake, but still registering the omnipresent sound.
"Twilight," said Celestia, "I need you to get Discord here."
Before Twilight could even respond, the draconequus in question appeared above the round table that they were gathered around. He was as they'd never seen him: despondent. Everything about him spoke of complete, profound sadness. He had no jokes or wisecracks. No matter what was asked of him, he simply stared morosely at the four around him before snapping his fingers and disappearing only thirty or so seconds later.
"W—what's happening, Princess? What's going on? I feel like something's taking my magic apart!"
Celestia sighed. "What's happening, Twilight, is..." she swallowed heavily, glancing at the other two princesses in the room, "...the world is coming to an end."
At the expression on Twilight's face, she continued. "You can't stop it. I can't stop it. I entertained a hope that maybe Discord could, but that possibility is exhausted now as well. I'd say that at the moment we all have maybe ten hours to live. I'm going to go to the source of the disturbance to try to extend the time window, but within the next month at the most, everything is going to end." Before Twilight could say another word, Celestia teleported away once again.
"Wait, Aunt!" cried Cadance, who teleported directly afterwards.
Luna grimaced. "Twilight, do you remember when you traveled a week back in time to try and stop yourself from doing exactly that?"
The smaller princess slowly, mutely nodded.
"Well, Twilight," continued Luna, "when you did that, you stitched together two previously-unconnected timelines and unknowingly accelerated a process that normally occurs once every few epochs. From the few ruined texts that Sister and I have found from the distant past, we call it a Ripple. The threads of time—every timeline, every universe, every parallel—are constantly moving, and once in a very great while, they slowly draw from a loose skein into a tightly-woven twine. All of time, all of all times, draws together and the world ruptures for a brief moment. Chronic energy cracks the Central Leyline that runs down the center of Equus and carries all of the magical energy in the world. Tell me, Twilight, because it seems to me that you would know of this: what would happen, should the Leyline crack?"
Twilight's eyes widened ever further. "It would unleash an outpour of raw magic onto the world. That much energy would be enough to..." she trailed off, her face twisted into a gape of horror. "...overload the magical circuit of everything on Equus and..." With a cry of despair, she teleported away, leaving Luna alone, looking up to the castle's marble roof.
"Does it really all come to this...?" she mumbled, "all of the ponies' work, all just to be destroyed at the whim of the timestream?" Her eyes narrowed. "I refuse this."
She flapped her wings and darted at the window, phasing through it as though she was nothing more than a phantom. The humming changed pitch. Rotating in the sky, she turned to where it was the loudest, towards the setting sun in the west, where the Central Leyline lay. Laying before her, beyond the horizon, was Eternity's Leap, Vaporis, Abaddon's Mouth and many unexplored lands besides...So many miles that she'd not seen in many, many years. She dared not teleport. It had been too long, the world had changed too much. She would travel there by wings alone to the Old World. Celestia had raised the moon for a thousand years. She could manage a month more.
On silent wings, she flew west, chasing the sun towards the ever-expanding hum of the Ripple.
It changed pitch again.
Behind her the moon slid over the horizon, drawn up for the last time in many days, she was sure, by her blue-indigo magic. The dying light ahead of her flew faster than she ever could, and in moments, the world fled into the quiet dark of night, Her wings hurled themselves forwards with greater resolve. The last light of the sun reflected from her eyes before it faded entirely and she entered her element. The world was black.
Her teeth chattered as she felt again a howling of cold wind slide down from the north. "Oh Maker," she muttered, "why is it always so cold here these days?"
Her sentiment was understandable. Living in the far south as she did, it was odd in itself that it would get this cold. It was even stranger that the cold would remain for so long. She shivered and dug her hooves into the ground as her powder-blue mane was buffeted about by another blast of wind and she grimaced. "Everything was fine until last month," she groused, gathering up the last of her tools and stepping away from the tree with a meager pile of hard fruit in her hooves, "and now I can hardly find any good fruit anymore. Either it's all dead or other ponies have gotten to it first."
In the small southern community she lived in, life was based around crescent trees, large silver-barked trees with slender, flexible trunks and heavy tops that naturally drooped into an arc. They made their houses of the wood, they ate the fruit and nuts, they wove clothes of the fibers. Without crescent trees they had little else to live on; very little grew in the small peninsula they made their home upon.
Sighing, she lit up her horn to carry back the fruit in her telekinetic grip—wait, no. She was an earth pony. That wasn't right. Her sister was the unicorn. She shook her head. What was that all about? For a moment, she could swear that she felt a horn on her head. Shaking her head again to dispel the odd feeling, she continued to her small hut, doing her best to ignore the spasmodic shivers that wracked her body.
"Maker damn this cold," she grumbled.
As she nudged aside the curtain of woven crescentfiber that served as the hut's doorway, her sister stumbled to the door, her face lined with worry.
"I think I'm sick, sister," she mumbled. The earth pony's eyes jolted open in shock. Nobody had gotten sick on this side of the Echo for decades. She hadn't even been alive the last time it had happened, and fourteen ponies had died. Now it was happening again, and it was beginning with her sister.
"Are you sure, Cella?" she asked, scraping anxiously at the ground. Cella nodded.
"All of the signs are right. First the crescent trees are dying, now I'm dying too." she barked out a raw, mirthless laugh. "Whatever's causing that wind from the north, I guess it's getting its way. We're all going to die, Lu."
With that, she slowly turned, head hanging low, and dragged herself back to her bed. Lu stood completely still, unable to fully understand what had just happened. Everything that had been going through her mind earlier was erased, replaced with one enormous, overpowering thought: Cella is dying. She had depended on her older sister for as long as she could remember. Without her, she'd be lost. Her eyes narrowed and flicked to the mantle, where there hung an ancient, rusted sword and its sheath, and then back at the crescentweave door. "I won't let you die, Cella," she said, her eyes never leaving the woven curtain. Cella didn't respond.
"Sorry, Father," muttered Lu as she snatched the sword and sheath from the wall, quickly strapping the swordbelt to her body. Looking behind her, she saw Cella lying dormant, seemingly asleep. "I'll be back before you know it, Cella," she whispered, then flung the curtain aside and stepped outside, staring into the assiduous cold wind that flowed from the north.
The wild jungle around her hissed with the breeze, murmuring prophecies of darkness into her ear, as she began walking towards the wind. "You think you can take my sister from me?" she muttered, angrily digging her hooves into the ground as she walked, "You think you can take away my way of life? Kill the crescent trees? Whatever you are, I'm coming for you."
She stopped briefly, howling into the wind, "You hear me? No matter how far I have to travel, I'll find you and stop this damn wind!" She tore the sword from the sheath, grasping it in her mouth as she held it up to the cloud-encased sky for a brief moment before once again sheathing it.
Her threat to the skies delivered, she plodded forwards, entering the shadow that dwelt beneath the enormous jungle trees around her. To her left, the sun sank, the last of it sliding down over the horizon as the pale moon rose to the east. A faint, indistinguishable shape flickered on her blank rump and she stopped short for a moment. "...I don't have a horn, damnit," she muttered irritably before vanishing into the darkness beyond her, pushing her way through the stubborn trees towards the port city of Caer Thadras that lay at the border of the great sea that surrounded the Echo.
A deep blue unicorn mare trotted into the mouth of the cave. Around her clanked a great series of mechanics. Enormous cogs of brass and steel ratcheted around each other and gouts of steam belched from deep within red-hot pipes. Unfazed, she trotted onwards through the lonely cave. The steam wound around the ceiling in long wisps before condensing and dripping back onto her head. She flicked her ears in irritation.
"Oi!" Her voice was rough and somewhat brash, a Low Edean accent evident. "If you don' get ou' here right naw, Cee, I'll knock yer rear to Cogfol'!"
From the depths of the cave, echoing from far in, came a separate voice. This one was far smoother. It was a refined voice, with a distinct High Edean. "If you would stop threatening me with violence, Ell, that would be most appreciated. Give me a moment, please!"
Ell stamped the ground with mounting frustration, fiddling with the saddlebag on her back. "Ugh! Com' on, Cee! This is importan'! Fer real this time!"
A long pause filled the air before Cee replied. "Alright then, Ell, but if this is another silly diversion, I'll have to get back to the mainland. I've lost enough time on my project as it is." Out of the depths of the cave trotted a white pegasus dressed in mechanic's clothing, oil and grease staining her pink mane. "Alright, Ell. Spit it out, what d'ya have for me?"
Slinging the bags off of her back, Ell rummaged through the left one a moment before triumphantly holding up a large black-and-white stone that glowed fervently in the dim light. "You told me to be on the lookout for stones like these, right?"
Cee's stern expression melted. "Oh, Ell, why didn't you tell me you found an Eclipse stone?" She rushed over, nearly knocking Ell to the ground as she yanked the stone from her grip. "There's enough magic in one of these to keep the machines running for another week and a half!"
Ell's eyes slowly began to slide half shut as Cee continued rambling about thaumodynamics and energy harnessing. She'd never been all too interested in the brand of technomancy explored by her sister and the engineers in Cogfold. She was more interested in High Magic, which had been all but lost many years ago. She tuned out, thinking about what else she'd found while plumbing the depths of the nearby ruin, one of many on Edea. As her sister dove back down into the vast mechanical guts of the island, she withdrew a small stone tablet, curiously staring at it. It depicted a unicorn like her, head raised to the sky, horn wrapped in what seemed like an aura of compressed energy. A sword floated near her in a similar field.
She found this immensely interesting. High Magic had been thundered into obsolescence centuries ago. These days clockwork and technomancy held the power. Sighing, she made to put the tablet back into her saddlebag, but her hooves fumbled and she dropped it.
Inside Ell's mind, billions of synapses all fired at once. Electricity raced around her brain, ricocheting off of every cell and sending her body reeling to the ground. Flashing lights pulsed in front of her eyes as the current raced through her head and into her horn, igniting the long-dormant magical circuit that lay within. A flash of violent blue energy exploded through the cave, followed in rapid time by a pained howl from Ell as ignition pains set her head ablaze. She threw herself to the ground, writhing, never once noticing that the small piece of stone had been caught by a field of energy that looked just like the one in the tablet.
"Ell?! Sun, Moon and Stars, are you alright? You sound like something's tearing your leg off—"
Cee's jaw dropped as she took in what lay in front of her. Her sister was unconscious on the ground, forehead ignited in a blazing nova of cobalt blue, and above her floated a piece of stone, suspended there seemingly by magic.
No. Not seemingly. It was magic. High Magic, the kind that had been outmoded for centuries.
---
Hours later, Ell awoke with a headache so bad that she immediately wished she could be unconscious again. Her horn in particular was a nexus of pain as long-disused nerves fired in tandem within. Her throat was dry and a glass of water presented itself to her. Still half asleep, she reached out to it, only to find herself spluttering as it wrapped itself in a cocoon of blue light and hurled itself at her, drenching her face. The pain in her horn redoubled. Groaning, she flopped back down, then immediately wished she hadn't as her headache grew worse.
Hearing the crashes and groan, Cee trotted in, eyes wide. "Ell?" she murmured to the prone unicorn, "are you alright?"
Ell groused a moment. "M' head feels lika swarm a' angry hornets are buzzin' in it. Othern' that, I feel fin'."
Despite herself, Cee chuckled. "If you feel well enough to be annoyed, you'll be fine." Her face grew serious. "I'm sending you to Cogfold, sister."
Ell jackknifed upright, alarm written on her face. "Wha'? Why?!"
Cee grimaced. "Because quite frankly, I can't teach you anything about magic. Somepony in Cogfold might."
All at once, Ell tried to bolt and found her hind legs tied. She succeeded in nothing but an undignified flop. Face written with betrayal, she stared at Cee as the older mare walked out of the room. Sighing, Ell settled down.
Luna's wings were growing tired. She had been flying nonstop for nine days and ten nights, and as the sun set on the tenth day, she found herself alighting on a rocky crag that rammed its way out of the oak forest that surrounded her. This far west, there were few settled areas. The land was largely uninhabited by any intelligent life. The main reason for this loomed in front of her. Though she couldn't see it, she could feel it; off on the horizon, a blotchy piece of non-life polluted the world around it. It had been a long time.
After taking a moment to snack on some acorns that she found on the ground below the crag, she pressed on. This time, she was far less focused on speed. Above all else, she was cautious. And for good reason. Without warning, a great wall of chaotic energy leapt up before her. Had she been going any faster, she would've had no time to swerve away. As it was, she barely managed to bank left, skimming just a hairsbreadth along the wall. As soon as she caught her breath from the panic, it vanished, leaving only a slight echo.
Or so it seemed.
As she descended to the ground, resolved to simply walk, she noticed small, disturbing signs. As she walked over the place where the energy had manifested, she could feel her wings and horn tingling. Not in the innocent fashion, either. The sort of tingling felt when blood is cut off for too long. The feeling passed as soon as she emerged from the space and she looked back, troubled. Her magic felt more remote, and her wings felt heavy, pressing down to her sides.
Well then, she thought to herself, walking through that was probably a mistake.
She proceeded slowly and on hoof for the rest of the day. Occasionally, more walls of energy would spring up, always a slightly different kind. As she progressed, it grew more and more common, until she could barely go a few steps without feeling another one before her. More worrisome, they were growing harder to detect. She had been forced to walk through a few remnants that entirely encircled her, and afterwards, her magic had grown even more remote. She didn't think she could fly at all anymore, and it was growing increasingly difficult to find wallspace in front of her with her magical sense.
It was then that a new variety of wall made itself known. It was composed of the same hideous absence of life that had suffused her magical sense as she was looking out from the crag. Though it appeared very clearly to her, she was reasonably confident that should she walk through where one of these had been, the consequences would be far worse, and they certainly wouldn't be any better.
Carefully avoiding these walls, she continued walking through the night, which passed quite uneventfully, barring ever more walls assaulting her. Eventually, as the sun peeked over the horizon, she let herself grind to a halt. She had been going for days now, and exhaustion tore at her. With walls of chaos or death appearing around her every few seconds now, she lay down, warily eyeing the land around her for a moment, before sliding off into sleep.
---
The first thing she felt upon awaking was a terrible feeling of absence, and a faint haze surrounding her. She swore bitterly as she realized that she had become enveloped in the chaotic energy, and as magic poured out of her and into the wall that had formed around her in her sleep, it took on a soft silver radiance.
She dashed out of the wall as fast as possible, panting with unnatural tiredness, then paused. Something was wrong. Very wrong. It took her a moment to realize what it was, but as she attempted to spy the walls around her—barring the one behind her, still glowing—she realized that her magical sight was gone. Even worse, as she pawed at her forehead, her eyes flew upon as she felt nothing. Nothing at all. Her horn was just...gone. Where it had been, she could feel a hard scab crusting over. That wasn't all. Her coat was lighter, frame smaller, hair stilled and hanging down by her withers. She tried flexing her wings, but they hung uselessly by her sides, the latent magic within them absent. In fact, all of her magic was simply...gone.
Eyes wide, she crouched low, ears pressed flat against her head. Without her magic, she had no way of navigating the walls. Where had it gone?
All she had to do was look behind her, and she realized the answer to her own question. The shimmering barrier behind her seemed mocking.
How was she to proceed with trying to reclaim her magic from it, though? If she walked into it, no doubt some other horrible fate would befall her. Over the years, she had learned to mold and siphon magic, but only with the aid of her horn. Without it, she had no way to manipulate even her own power.
Yet...there had to be magic in her somewhere, otherwise she would be almost certainly dead. Perhaps the moon would call to the moon that hung over her head. She had slept through the entire day.
Closing her eyes, she exhaled slowly, letting her mind expand, before thinking with all her might: Selen. I need you.
She felt a dim acknowledgement come from the moon and smiled softly. Though she was distressed at how frail the connection seemed to be, of course her lifelong companion wouldn't let her down.
She could feel a spark of magic come back to her, and her wings shook themselves into place. She ruffled them experimentally and found them responsive. Good. Now for the rest.
The rest didn't come.
She looked up at the silver orb in the sky, feeling a faint feeling of apology emanate from it before frowning. That was all you are able to reclaim?. Confirmation. She sighed. Wonderful. For all intents and purposes, she was now a pegasus with ties to the moon.
Through this entire procedure, she never paused to think about how extracting magic from the wall would affect it. As the silver light dimmed slightly, the construct quivered slightly before expanding, flowing towards her eerily smoothly and moving to encircle her. She started, not knowing what to do. This was the only wall she could see without her magic sense. If she ran now, she would more than likely run into another one, possibly one of those that was composed of non-life. However, if she let this one encircle her, her fate was sealed, and her magic would be drained until there was nothing left.
Taking a deep breath, she bolted, dashing straight out into the night and trusting to luck to keep her away from any more walls. She hadn't made it ten feet, though, when, to her surprise, a rough, clear voice rang out:
"Are you mad? Stop!"
She skidded to a halt moments before she saw the source of the voice. It was large, burly stallion, eyes like chips of green flint. His horn flared with green light, revealing the wall that she had been barely a foot away from. He positioned himself directly in front of Luna, so close that his mane brushed her forehead in her shrunken state, and repeated himself: "Are you mad? What are you doing, wandering through here? You're going to get yourself killed!"
Luna shrank back from him in surprise. As a Princess, she was wholly unused to being spoken to in that fashion, especially in as vulnerable a state as she was now. Seeing this reaction and mistaking it for fear, he sighed, letting his angry countenance drop slightly.
"Sorry for yelling at you, but you should really know better than to run through Abaddon's periphery. I don't know what you did to that wall to make it glow," he gestured at the silvery wall that still encroached upon Luna, "but without magic, I have no idea how you made it even as far as you did. You're lucky to be alive. Come on, I'll get you somewhere where you won't die by walking in the wrong place."
He began to walk off, expecting Luna to follow. She did so, if only because his green magic illuminated the walls around him and she felt far safer knowing where to step. After letting the silence ferment for a moment, she broke it with a question: "So...who are you?"
He chuckled. "Shouldn't I be asking that?" Seeking her unamused face in the green glow of his horn, he only laughed harder. "Sorry about that. I suppose you'll tell me in due time. I'm Prism Guard, Warden of the Walls."
After considering for a moment whether or not to reveal herself, she stuck out her hoof to Prism. "Midnight Flare. I've never been this far west, so I don't know what's happening here."
He shrugged. "Such is life, I guess. Just stay near me and you should be fine."
They kept walking, occasionally making small bits of conversation and constantly avoiding the walls and wallspaces that loomed in the darkness, before Prism stopped and grinned, turning to Luna and pointing his hoof at a faintly glowing structure in the distance. "And there's home," he laughed, "the heart of Abaddon's periphery. Welcome to the Whorl."
