> Equestria Mares: The Secret Apprentice of Princess Celestia
>  by Coyote de La Mancha
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Chapter One: Shards of a Shattered Life
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The twin doors were even larger than the other various portals throughout the palace. Massive, arching structures of blue oak and iron, hearkening back to the days when the Crystal Empire was a place ready for siege. Beside them, two crystal ponies in armor, one to each side, stood at attention. And before them, six ponies and a dragon hatchling gathered, waiting uncertainly.
“Now remember, girls,” Rarity whispered. “Royal manners.”
“Yeah, yeah, we got it,” Rainbow whispered back. “Just relax already.”
“What about Twilight?” Applejack asked. “She’s a princess, so she don’t gotta worry ‘bout it, right?”
“Oh, no, quite the contrary! The obligations of the noble can be quite severe…”
“Guys,” Twilight muttered, “Not helping.”
“Oh, dear. Sorry, darling.”
The giant oaken doors slowly opened inward as two lines of crystal ponies gave regal fanfare to the new arrival, lining either side of the red carpet that led the way to the dais before the seven friends. Twilight tried not to sigh as she led the way into the throne room, and tried to focus on the sisters waiting at the other side of the room. This was all so… much. New wings, new crown, new fusses made… she’d preferred it when such matters had been reserved for her teachers.
At first, such honors had been given to Celestia and Celestia alone. Granted, as Celestia’s adopted niece, Cadence had been called ‘princess’ for years… but she’d never really been thought of as royalty when she was growing up, wings or no. But then Luna had been freed from her prison. And then the Crystal Empire had returned, and Cadence had taken on the burden of its crown. So there had been three princesses. And now, she, Twilight Sparkle, was the fourth.
Looking around at the throne room of the crystal palace, and the new decorations that had been hung for the Princess Summit, Twilight couldn’t help but feel more and more out of place. ‘Princess Twilight.’ Inwardly, she groaned. Celestia and Luna had both been pleased for her new wings and new title, though of course always reserved, always dignified. Fortunately, Twilight’s other friends had been more than happy to pick up the slack. Applejack had marveled at the transformation, Rarity had been in awe, and Pinkie...
Well, Pinkie had been Pinkie.
But Twilight’s favorite moment when she had returned to Ponyville had been Rainbow Dash’s soaring, hugging, ecstatic jubilation at having, as she had put it, “a new flying buddy.” That had been pretty awesome. Twilight smiled inwardly at the memory.
As for herself, well, for a moment having wings had been exciting. Who didn’t want to fly? Only pegasi took the gift they had for granted, and not even all of them. But when Princess Celestia had announced that she, Twilight Sparkle, was herself a princess, Twilight had done her best to not be dismayed. Not just when Celestia and her friends had bowed, though that had certainly shaken her. The problem ran deeper than that: how was she supposed to handle any of this? There were no books on being a princess, the transformation was too rare. Well, maybe unheard of was a better description. 
And the coronation had been… weird. Twilight tried to think of it as joining a family, being closer to Celestia, Luna, and Cadence than she had been before. And sure, that helped. But this was all very new territory. The structure of her old life had been shattered, and she wasn’t sure how to create a new one.
Plus, everypony kept bowing to her. That would just never feel right.
Still, she reminded herself, the other princesses believe in me. And if they think I can do this, then I’ll just have to trust their judgement. And besides, my other friends are all here to help. All I have to do is keep from being too awkward—
Her horn made a dull clunk! against the armor of the sergeant of the guards. 
Oh, shoot! She stared up at him, aghast. Great going, Twilight. Less than ten seconds in, and you’re bumping into things like a little foal. That must be a new record.
He stared back only for an instant, though. Smiling as though her bumping into him had been rehearsed, he extended a hoof to her and said in a clear voice, “Presenting, Princess Twilight Sparkle!”
The princesses descended to meet her, plainly delighted. Cadence got to her first, and as the two of them nuzzled comfortably Twilight felt her apprehensions melt. “I haven’t seen you since the coronation,” Cadence said warmly. 
Then, in a whisper into Twilight’s mane, “How are you holding up?”
"Not sure,” Twilight whispered back.
“We’ll talk later.”
“’Kay.”
“We have so much to discuss,” Celestia smiled at them all. “But it can wait until tomorrow, if you like. You all look tired from your journey.”
Rainbow Dash stared at her. “Are you kidding? Sleep, now? We just got here! And besides, this is the first Princess Summit in the history of ever! How more awesome can you get?”
“An’ besides, Yer Highness” Applejack pointed out, “If Princess Luna here was gracious enough to stay up to meet us, I reckon we can spare you ladies a few minutes.”
“I am feeling a little tired,” Fluttershy admitted. “But I’d rather stay with you all for a little. If it wouldn’t make problems for anypony, Your Highnesses.”
The sisters looked at one another, smiling. 
“I am well rested,” Luna said, “though I thank all of you for your concern. I have already risen the moon, though it is day, in celebration of the upcoming event. 
“Still,” she glanced at Fluttershy, “there is no reason for any of you to go without rest. There is ample time for all of you, save of course for Pinkie Pie.” 
Pinkie Pie’s ears perked up with an audible poink! as the Princess of Night continued, “After all, though the Princess Summit itself is a formal occasion, who else could be trusted to bring about the after-party?”
Pinkie Pie drew in a slow, delighted gasp as her eyes grew in size, staring at Princess Luna. Finally, she managed a quiet, “After-party?”
“But of course,” Luna nodded.
The room seemed to explode in a kaleidoscope of colors as Pinkie leapt into the air, limbs splayed out in all directions. 
“Yaaaaaaaaaayyy!”
“Oh, but Pinkie Pie, darling, be serious,” Rarity chided her gently as Pinkie landed in an odd crouch near the dais. “You haven’t any time, and you only brought your party cannon – at least, I assume you brought your party cannon—”
The pink-maned mare stared at her with a strange intensity from where she crouched, eyes suddenly taking on an eerie orange-amber hue. Her voice filled the throne room as she snarled through gritted teeth, “You underestimate my power!” 
Then, as though she had grown wings, Pinkie leaped over all her friends in a somersaulting gale of bubbling laughter and bounced to the massive oaken doors. 
She paused in the doorway just long enough to glance back and squeal, “Hot lava! I win!” 
And then she was gone.
The six guards (plus the two outside the doors) stared, first at the vanishing mare, and then at the assemblage, completely at a loss. Not that long ago, the kingdom had been invaded by changelings. Before that, there had been Sombra himself. Now the sergeant gave the princesses a wide-eyed look that was part askance and part desperation.
“It’s okay,” Twilight assured him. “It’s just Pinkie Pie. You get used to her.”
Spike cocked an eyebrow. “You do?”
“Well, more or less,” she admitted. “Still, does… anypony besides me feel like we just missed something?”
Rainbow Dash made a sarcastic sound, blowing her bangs away from her eyes in the process. “Pfff! With her? Always.”
Cadence stepped towards her younger friend, her eyes filled with concern. “But… are you sure she’s alright?”
“Han shot first!” came Pinkie’s fading voice as the great doors slowly closed again.
Applejack suppressed a slight chuckle. “Heh. She’s fine.”





There was small talk, and then dinner. The older princesses enjoyed getting to know Twilight’s friends better, and as the evening went on the younger ponies were able to relax with them, sharing stories and asking questions. For her part, Twilight was able to finally talk to Luna semi-informally, and converse with Cadence, both without some impending doom having brought them together. 
But after a few hours, the fatigue of their journey had well and truly caught up with the seven travelers. It was Luna herself who suggested that they break for the evening, and this time no one objected.
Twilight knew the crystal palace’s layout well enough that she could decline the sergeant’s offer to guide them, and a few minutes later she and her fellow guests were walking down yet another massive hallway to their rooms.
“Well, that went well, I must say,” Rarity observed. “Pinkie’s outburst notwithstanding, I’d say we made quite the impression.”
“Oh, my... you’re not mad at her, are you?” Fluttershy asked.
“What? Certainly not! I mean, yes, it was a bit disconcerting having her make such a spectacle of herself on her way out… but this is Pinkie Pie we’re talking about. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised she held out so long.”
While her friends continued to quietly converse, Twilight pondered. There had been no chance to speak with Cadence about her own misgivings, everything had been too public. But they’d be in town for at least a few more days, which would give them plenty of opportunities to speak privately. 
Or maybe Cadence would come see her tonight! The very thought brought back images of the two of them years ago, under covers with flashlights, whispering games and stories. Twilight smiled at the memories.
“Hey, Twilight?” Spike asked.
“Yeah, Spike?”
“What’s the deal with the mirror?”
“What about it?”
“Isn’t that the one from Canterlot? What’s it doing here?”
Rainbow frowned. “What mirror?”
“The free-standing mirror with the amethyst frame, jewel inlays, and blue silver backing,” Rarity answered. “She had it to her right, near the dais. It’s a beautiful piece. You know,” she mused, “I thought it looked familiar.”
“It’s the same one,” Twilight affirmed. “Celestia keeps it in the throne room during the day, and has it moved to a secure location at night. If she travels for any length of time, she takes it with her, though that rarely happens. She’ll probably ask Cadence to put it somewhere safe, or have it moved to her room.”
Spike considered this. “Huh. Funny, Celestia never struck me as the mirror type.”
Rarity looked at him in surprise. “Whyever not? A princess must look her best, after all.”
Twilight hesitated for a moment. Would this be saying too much? Celestia did keep it in the public eye, after all. 
“I think it was given to her by somepony close to her,” she said at last. “I asked her about it one time, and she didn’t want to talk about it.”
Applejack just nodded. “Yeah, probably a gift from somepony passed on. I bet it was her mama’s.”
Twilight shook her head. “I don’t think so. I mean, if that were the case, why wouldn’t she want to talk about it?”
“Well, remember how old she is. Things were pretty rough n’ tumble back then, Twi. Discord, changelings, Sombra, an’ whatnot… maybe somethin’ bad happened.”
“Maybe it was given to her by an admirer,” Rarity suggested. Then, with a delighted gasp, “Maybe it was a courting gift from someone dear to her! Some fine, dashing stallion, who pledged his heart would ever be hers.”
Her expression turned dreamy as she went on, “And even now, years later, she remembers him fondly… his fine, strong shoulders, his coursing mane, his strong hooves, his deep, resonant voice… I bet he was a pegasus, someone she could fly with, all alone in the sky.” 
Rarity gave a deep sigh. “How romantic! Just imagine the two of them, alone above the clouds, surrounded by the stars. Or even better, a unicorn, someone she could talk to about magic, rulership, and fashion… and at night, he would look deep into her sapphire eyes with his own dark, flashing ones and say, ‘Rarity, my love…’”
Twilight gave her friend a bemused smile, but Fluttershy only looked dismayed. “Oh, gosh, I hope not,” she murmured, “That would be terrible.”
Rarity blinked. “What? Why?”
“Well, because he’s not here now. I hate to think of the princess being so sad.”
“Oh. Oh, yes. Of course.”
“And it is magical, whatever it is,” Twilight said. “After a while, I just figured it was some kind of protection device. Maybe a huge amulet that would protect Canterlot, reflecting an enemy’s attacks back at them, or maybe a scrying device that let her see places far away. Buuut after everything that’s happened recently, I think we can rule all that out.”
“Aw, it’s probably just a long story,” Rainbow offered as she floated lazily above them. “I mean, I bet you were just a filly when you asked, right? Probably she just didn’t wanna take the time to explain it.”
Spike looked back at Twilight. “Didn’t you ever try to find out?”
Twilight gave a small shrug. “It wasn’t any of my business. Besides, she seemed so sad when I asked.” 
She sighed a little. “Granted, this was when Luna was still imprisoned as Nightmare Moon, so she was never exactly super happy anyway. But, still.” She shook her head again. “Well, whatever it is, she’ll tell me if I need to know.”





A short time later, Twilight and Spike were in their room, preparing for bed. It still puzzled her friends that the dragon would insist on sleeping so near her. Spike always said it was in case Twilight needed anything, and she never contradicted him. And his assistance was certainly invaluable to her in many ways. But, though he had matured swiftly since he’d first emerged from the egg, it remained: he was still a foal. 
Of course, since they’d moved to Ponyville, she had noticed that his bed had been quietly getting further from her own. She had every confidence that the day would come that Spike would arrange to have his own room.
Twilight sighed. She had occasionally mused that, aeons from now, Spike would be a wise and powerful dragon. She had wondered what he would be like then, what wonders he would see. She had hoped he would remember her fondly from wherever he finally established his lair. Becoming a princess had changed all that. 
Still, for tonight Spike was a baby dragon, humming to himself, smiling broadly as he puffed his pillow and made everything ready in his own small bed on the floor near her own. It was only when he noticed her looking at him that he paused. 
“What?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing.”
Spike cocked an eyebrow.
Twilight sighed again. “Everything,” she admitted. “Well, okay, not everything, but… Spike, I never asked for any of this!” 
She gestured around her, including the coronet he had placed on her nightstand before continuing, “It’s just being thrust upon me. And it’s like it comes in waves. Sometimes, like at dinner tonight, everything’s fine, I’m talking with Celestia and Luna. And then I stop and say, wait a minute, when did they stop being Princess Celestia and Princess Luna?”
“Well, you are a princess.”
“Easy for you to say. But what does that even mean? Cadence has the Crystal Empire to rule over, Celestia and Luna rule Equestria—” 
Twilight stopped, staring at him in horror. “What if that’s part of being a princess? What if, now that I'm a princess, Celestia expects me to rule a kingdom of my own somewhere?”
His jaw dropped in sheer delight. “That – would – be – Awesome!”
“No – it – would – not! My Element of Harmony manifested as a coronet. Now I’ve got wings. None of that has anything to do with leadership!
“And that’s just the start,” she went on. “Celestia and Luna are over a thousand years old. I don’t even know just how old; reliable history books don’t go back that far. What if I…” her voice trailed off. 
“I love Celestia and Luna,” she whispered. “But will I be like them? Will Cadence?”
“Uh, Twilight?”
“Do I just outlive everybody else now? All my friends? Centuries rolling past, empires vanishing and being rediscovered, and I just…”
“Twilight,” Spike said, very quietly. “You remember I’m a dragon, right?”
“Right, but what… oh.”
“Yeah.”
She looked at him, looking at her. Most of the time he was just a foal (hatchling, she reminded herself). Well, almost always, really. Sometimes, though, he seemed much older than he was. Or than she was, for that matter.
“I get it,” he said in that same quiet voice.
She lowered her head. “I know you do, Spike.”
The dragon nodded, reverting to his usual voice. “Right. Difference is, this is new to ya.” 
Then he shrugged, wandering a few steps away with a careless gesture. “Most of the time I don’t think about it. Dragons’re loners most of the time, even from each other. Me, I like the pony life better.”
“Me, too. But Spike, that’s my point! Cadence is only a few years older than I am – well, basically – but Celestia is way older, and she’s almost isolated except for Luna. Well, and sometimes Cadence.”
“And you.”
“And me. And tonight, my other friends – I mean, I think it was pretty obvious how much she was enjoying talking to everypony tonight, and that was great – but tonight was the first time I’ve ever seen her do that. And even then, Celestia’s never completely relaxed with anypony, even with her sister. They’re always so formal, even with each other.” 
Twilight looked at her reflection in the mirror, at the young mare who looked back at her with worried eyes. 
“Spike, am I going to be like that? Distancing myself from everypony because they keep growing old and dying, and I don’t? Or like Luna… I mean, she’s gotten a lot better with the last couple of Nightmare Nights – not to mention less deafening – but she’s still so removed from everypony personally. Even tonight, it was like talking to Celestia, Cadence, and me was something she was doing so… carefully. And with anypony else, it was just a strain.”
“Huh. Sounds like you’re worried more about them than you.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking about it off and on for a while.” Twilight admitted. “Ever since I met Luna on her first Nightmare Night, actually. I mean, she knew nothing about dealing with modern ponies-- how much talking can they have done? But this whole princess thing really brought it home to me. They’re sisters, but Cadence and I are closer than they are. Any of our friends are, really.”
“I dunno about that,” Spike pointed out. “I haven’t seen you and Shining Armor being real close in public lately.”
"That’s different.”
Spike waved off her concerns. “Aw, you’re just worrying too much. Besides, when do we see ‘em together when they’re not doing rulership stuff? Maybe they’re just close in private.”
“Wellll, I suppose that would make sense…”
“Sure it does.” He considered her for a moment, then asked, “Who else have you talked to about this?”
“About the princess thing? Nopony. It’s not like I can just go up to them and say, ‘Hey, I was thinking I might outlive your great-grandchildren. Thoughts?’”
Spike gave her a knowing look. “And about the princess’ friendship?”
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack…”
“Pretty much everybody, right?”
Twilight made a frustrated noise.
“Right?”
She rolled her eyes again. “Right,” she conceded.
“And what did they say?”
“Pretty much what you just said,” she admitted.
“And you know who you could talk to about the other stuff, right?”
“Cadence,” Twilight sighed. “Which I will while I’m here.”
“So okay, nothing to worry about. You’ve got this. Meanwhile, I’m tired, you’re tired…” he interrupted himself with a yawn, and went on, “everypony’s tired. So let’s sleep. Big day tomorrow. 
“And besides,” he hopped back onto the bed next to her, “Worst case scenario, there’s one change you forgot about.”
Twilight looked at him again.
The dragon smiled. “I don’t have to worry about my best friend going away anymore.”
The room got a little blurry to Twilight just then, and she smiled back. “Aw...”
He hopped up into her embrace, and the hug helped hide her tears. Then, as suddenly as he had started the hug, Spike was done. He hopped down again and went back to fixing his bedding. Twilight watched him, head cocked to one side. I seriously need to find out more about how dragons mature one of these days, she reflected. There’s got to be a way to conduct a field study… 
After a few seconds, Spike curled up in his own tiny bed. He started snoring almost immediately. Twilight smiled to herself, her horn glowing a gentle violet she reached out with her magic and tucked him in a little more snugly.
Still a foal after all, she thought. At least for the moment.
> Chapter Two: Reflections and Shadows
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sleep did not come easily to the new princess, nor quickly.

It wasn’t the stress. Not really. She was tired enough that her worries would normally just translate into dreams. Sometimes Twilight was grateful that Luna only appeared in dreams that did not concern her and Celestia. Other times she wondered how the Princess of Night could tell. Right now, she was too tired to care.
It wasn’t Spike’s snoring, either. Actually, most of the time she thought it was kind of cute, and a little comforting. It was certainly a sound she equated with being home, wherever she was.
No, it wasn’t her worries that were the problem, nor her roommate. It was a new pair of limbs that was keeping her up at night. Until a couple of weeks ago, if she couldn’t sleep, she could just lie on her back and go over the magical exercises she’d learned as a foal. The longer insomnia held her, the farther along her memorized series of visualizations she would traverse. It was both relaxing and empowering. But now, every time she rolled over, there they were. In the way.
Wings.
“Urgh!”
As she had for the two weeks since she’d undergone her Becoming (as the other princesses had called it), Twilight tossed and turned, struggling with body parts still unfamiliar. Every time she thought she had found a comfortable position – every time – something fell asleep, or pinched, or just jerked in such a way as to wake her up as she was dozing off.
It was better now than it had been at first, she reminded herself. The first morning after her transformation, Twilight had awoken both herself and Spike screaming. In retrospect, she shouldn’t have been surprised. New muscle sets were warring for space and energy with the old ones, even as they were struggling to move and strengthen themselves so she could properly fly. And being so new and unused, it made sense for them to easily strain. Yet, for her it had been a realization after the fact. By contrast, every time her wings had given her a particularly difficult morning – including the first and worst of them all – Cloudsdale’s fastest flyer had simply been there. Knocking on the door bright and early, with liniment rubs and back massages. And that had helped. Immensely.
The real problem was the nights.
So Twilight had tried several sleeping potions until she’d found a recipe that would both put her to sleep and let her wake up on time the following morning. She hated using it. But with everything she had to do the following day…
With a sigh, she reached out with her mind. A gentle violet was added to the room’s lighting as one of her bags opened, and a glass bottle half-filled with green liquid emerged and came to her waiting hoof. She scowled. Either she had forgotten to refill it, or she’d used it more in the last few days than she’d thought. Neither option was a good one. 
I’m already exhausted, she thought, and my wings have been getting better. She sipped about a half dose, capped the bottle, and replaced it. That should be enough.
That first morning, she had briefly considered making herself a brew for the pain as well. The research would have been simple enough, and the mixing even easier. But after a few minutes’ consideration (and Rainbow’s ministrations), Twilight had rejected the idea. It wasn’t like she was injured, or sick. Besides, the more powerful pain potions tended to impair thought and muscle control, and she needed both. Not to mention that mixing potions was dangerous, even for the experienced.
Now, looking at her travel bags, she determined this batch of sleep potion would also be her last. Hopefully, she would have reached a better understanding with her new wings by the time she ran out. And if not, well, she would deal with the exhaustion. As she felt her body starting to relax, she pulled the covers over herself. Rolling over onto her side, she drifted off into a dreamless sleep.





The door made no sound as it opened.
The sun was still shining near the western horizon, its rays only starting to paint the room in different hues through the curtains. The guards outside continued their vigil as the visitor eased the door closed again, confident that her mind spell would cloud their thoughts for however long she needed. Her cloak was ancient and ragged, obviously cut for a smaller pony than herself, her travel bags worn and in need of mending.
Her face hidden in shadow, only her horn protruded from its depths.
As she scanned the room, her blue-green eyes narrowed at the sight of a dragon hatchling near the upstart’s bed. Palace guards had been one thing, even en masse. But a spell powerful enough for the dragon, or the alicorn sleeping nearby, might be noticed. The stakes were too high for such a risk. Concealing her arrival had not been easy, and she was not ready for a confrontation with her enemies. Not yet.
She waited, still as stone.
It shifted onto its back, blanket falling to its side. After a moment, it twitched. Then it started half-groping for its fallen cover, making helpless, open-mouthed noises. The blanket glowed cyan as it wrapped gently over the hatchling, tucking it in again.
The hatchling muttered a “Thanks, Twilight,” then rolled over onto its side again.
Again, she waited, motionless. Minutes passed.
The dragon started to snore.
Satisfied, she moved through the room with a serpent’s grace, her eyes scanning everything around her. Soon, she was standing near the alicorn’s bed, staring at the nearby coronet.
She spent several more minutes magically examining the crown. It was, after all, one of Equestria’s greatest and most prized treasures. In a sense, it was as old as the land itself. The Elements of Harmony were the means by which Discord had been overthrown, and only after his downfall had it been possible to impose seasons and diurnal rhythms upon the world. The Elements had also been instrumental in the destruction of Sombra, and the defeat and banishment of Nightmare Moon. In many ways, the entire planet owed its very existence to the talismans, and once the set was broken it would never function again.
Surely, the princesses would guard such a treasure with all their power. Perhaps protected by spells so subtle and secret that an enemy could not easily detect them. Invisible guardians, spirits bound by ward pacts, nothing was beyond the realm of possibility. 
All of which was fine with the intruder: there was no way they could have prepared for her. 
After scrutinizing the crown, she scanned the table. She scanned the sleepers. She scanned the room itself. Then, thinking she must have missed something, she did it all a second time.
The Element of Magic was protected by a series of interlocking protections and wards against magic and various energies, the complexity of which was impressive, even by her standards. They even included several identical wards against chaos magic, interestingly enough, powerful and bound together in a redundancy loop. 
More importantly, the amazingly intricate latticework of mystical energy was also bound to the link that had formed between the element and its mistress. Which meant that, on a minor note, the wearer would also be protected against everything the crown was. Grudgingly, the robed figure acknowledged the strategy as a good one. 
But of more immediate consequence, the spell weave ensured that if the crown or its protections were tampered with in any magical fashion, even telekinetically, the alicorn sleeping next to it would be alerted. Probably along with several others.
The interloper mentally shrugged at that last precaution. Those outside the room would sense nothing, she would see to that. It was the wielder of the Element of Magic, bound by sympathetic link and sleeping right next to it, who was the greater concern. Or, at least, she should have been. But instead, the element’s wielder was in a magic-induced slumber, apparently of her own making.
The burglar’s blue-green eyes narrowed. She had come ready to spend hours, with frequent interruptions and tremendous risk of discovery, just dealing with whatever security her enemies might have between herself and this key to ultimate power. Instead, she found its protector unconscious and the prize all but unguarded, simply waiting for her to pluck it like a ripe fruit and taste of its power.
Unbelievable.
She layered the folds of her concealment spell around herself, her energies, and the room. Then, she grasped a corner of the crown’s elaborate weave of enchantments with her mind, and gently began unweaving its pattern. The magical protections were strong and had been flawlessly cast, but she was in no hurry. Slowly, slowly, the spells began to unravel, drifting away and dissolving into the aether. Precious minutes ticked away as the vagabond concentrated, body relaxed, mind focused with laser precision.
Then, at last, it was done. The figure on the bed frowned in her sleep, and again, the intruder froze with an attitude of endless patience. But the alicorn only tossed slightly. She whispered something; it might have been a name. Then, her breathing became once again deep and regular.
A simple act of telekinesis placed the treasure into the burglar’s bag. Only one risk remained. By her will, a lump of raw lead and a few crystals floated out from her saddlebags. Then, holding the image of the element’s current form in her mind, she concentrated. The ore ran like wax and began to gleam, the crystals glowed, shifted, cracked and merged, changing color as they did. Perhaps another minute passed, and it was done. Examining her handiwork, she nodded. It was a perfect duplicate of the true Element of Magic. Even the most cursory magical examination would reveal the deception, of course, but she doubted that would happen anytime soon. The switch would probably go unnoticed for days, perhaps even longer. Certainly more time than she needed.
All told, she had been in the room less than ten minutes. No one would see her leave. One long walk through the palace halls unseen, a few moments’ concentration, and she would be gone. With the leisure her stealth afforded her, no one would sense her ultimate departure. 
And then, she would have everything. 
She gave a look of pure and utter contempt to the figure almost hidden by bedsheets, a sham princess asleep beside a counterfeit crown.
Fool.
Satisfied, she turned to leave, only to see the door was already open.





Princess Cadence nodded happily to her palace guards, and they all smiled as they bowed when she passed. To say that life had been difficult for her subjects was a massive understatement. After all, to them it had been only a short time since Sombra was king and darkness had fallen over the land. She, on the other hand, had had years to spend learning, growing up, falling in love, and even getting married. Only then had she returned to the Crystal Empire, and later faced down the demon of her childhood nightmares for her people’s sake.
It had therefore taken time to help the crystal ponies get accustomed to an existence without tyranny, and longer for them to accept that such a state would, indeed, be their new way of life. As their princess, she had been working to help them adjust to the modern world, and to re-establish diplomatic ties with other lands. 
There had been the inevitable ups and downs (and long periods of bureaucratic boredom in-between) as Princess Cadence and Shining Armor had accustomed themselves to the arduous task of running a government. Even now, her husband was unfortunately away on business that would likely keep them apart for the next several weeks. 
But, at the moment, there were no pressing affairs. No special envoys, no catastrophes, no last-minute adventures. All arrangements for the Princess Summit had already been made, and any last-minute adjustments had been successfully delegated to her major domo. The Crystal Princess had, for the next several hours or more, absolutely nothing that just had to be done.
What a rare and wonderful event.
Furthermore, Twilight was visiting. And even though her old friend was technically there on business, Cadence was looking forward to being able to spend time talking in private with her. It had been too long. And if she could help Twilight get a handle on her newfound title and abilities, so much the better. 
She nodded again as the door guards bowed, thinking to herself for the thousandth time how fitting it was that the mare she loved and the stallion she adored were brother and sister.
It was only as she raised her hoof to knock that she paused. Her visitors had all been very tired, she reminded herself. Twilight might not be up to company, though knowing her she’d likely protest otherwise. Between her relatively recent transformation and the day’s journey, Twilight could easily need sleep far more than conversation, a friendly ear, or advice. And besides, she would be staying for at least a week.
I’ll just peek in on her, Cadence thought. Twilight won’t mind. If she’s asleep, I’ll just speak to her tomorrow. 
Gently, silently, she opened the door…
For an instant, the princess could not credit what she was seeing. A unicorn mare in a tramp’s cloak stood over Twilight Sparkle’s sleeping form. Her hood had fallen onto her shoulders, revealing a disheveled mane streaked in crimson and gold, her coat a brilliant amber. From within a face weathered by time and hardship, her cyan eyes bored into Twilight’s helpless form with sheer loathing for only an instant before darting over to stare at Cadence. Through a hole in the stranger’s travel bag peeked a crown identical to the Element of Magic.
Cadence was taken aback for an instant, but only for an instant. Her horn flashed azure as she commanded, “Stop!”
Yet if seeing the strange mare was startling, what happened next was a shock. Even as she spoke, even as Twilight and Spike started awake and they took in the tableau before them, Cadence was raising her magical defenses to protect the room’s occupants and herself from attack. 
But, instead of attacking with magic, the tramp simply charged without hesitation. The force of impact knocked the wind out of Cadence as she was shoved aside, her half-formed spell dissipating into light. Reflexes gained from years of training guided the guards’ response and they moved immediately. But instead of blocking her assailant, they focused upon their princess, allowing the trespasser to run free.
“Your highness!”
“Are you alright?”
And from within the room, Twilight’s voice cried, “She’s stolen the Element of Magic! Stop her!”
“Forget about me,” Cadence pointed at the fleeing pony. “Sound the alarm! Stop the thief!”
There were guards along the hallway in any case, but now more filed in from adjoining chambers and halls.
“There!” Princess Cadence shouted as she ran. “The thief! Stop her!”
“Stop, thief!” yelled Spike.
The hallway guards looked around themselves frantically as the intruder ran right past them. “Who? Where is she?”
“They can’t see her,” Twilight called out. “It’s up to us!” In a moment she vanished in a violet flash.
Even as she materialized between her target and the throne room, Twilight’s binding spell seized upon the cloaked figure. Yet she scarcely had time to shout, “I’ve got her!” before being thrown back, her enchantment not merely dispelled but actually shattered from within. The intruder did not even break stride, galloping past her as if she were not even there.
Meanwhile, in the palace gardens, the sisters suddenly stared at one another. 
“That was Twilight’s magic,” Celestia said.
“An offensive spell,” agreed Luna. In an instant, they were flying through the halls of the crystal palace.
Even as Twilight’s spell burst asunder, the alarm sounded and more voices took up the hue and cry, Stop, thief! Stop, thief! Doors along the hallway flew open as Twilight’s friends ran out.
“Hang on, Twi! We’re comin’!” The words were barely out of Applejack’s mouth when the intruder’s ragged cloak took on a life of its own. It rose up from her back, growing, spreading out before the six pursuing friends. It burst into crimson flame even as it filled the entire section of corridor, descending upon them and the nearby guards like a great winged devil. Rainbow Dash, by sheer instinct, thrust herself back and out of the way with a single beat of her wings. But the rest were not so fortunate, and she had less than an instant to gape in horror as the rest screamed and dove in vain for cover.
Yet, even as they did, Spike leaped headlong into the blaze with a defiant yell. The animate cloak engulfed him, driven back by the force of his leap even as it wrapped itself around him, falling to the floor in a blazing heap.
Rarity cried out his name in sheer terror, running to the conflagration that rolled and writhed and bunched up on the polished floor. Instantly, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash flew up, tore a massive tapestry from the wall, and bore it down over the eldritch flames while Rarity’s horn flashed pale blue, covering the robe and the tapestry falling over it with frost.
This, then, was the scene that greeted the Princesses Celestia and Luna as they charged through a side entrance into the hall. Crystal guards everywhere, confused, trying to protect against a threat they apparently could not see. Most of the Main Six frantically extinguishing a magical fire that the sisters somehow had not sensed, shouting Spike’s name. Twilight looking around dazedly, plainly shaking off some kind of backlash. And in the middle of it all…
Celestia stared at the strange unicorn with an expression of heartbreak, taking in her eyes, her face, her coat and mane. And last of all, impossible to deny, her cutie mark: a blazing sun of red and yellow, the colors writhing at its heart in an eternal spiral of opposition.
“Sunset—”
But the flame-maned pony only spared her a glance of purest hatred before vanishing in a flash of cyan.
Luna whipped around, staring at the direction of the throne room. “What…”
All the ponies were staring at those massive doors now, save for two. Even the most unskilled among them had felt that pulse of pure, alien power. Only Celestia and Rarity had not turned. Rarity, frantic, was still pulling and tearing at the charred cloth to reach the young dragon within. But Celestia simply stared at the space where the intruder had been an instant before.
“Oh, child,” she whispered. “What have you done?”
> Chapter Three: Not All That Cuts is Silvered Glass
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Rarity, I’m fine, honest!”
“And I’m glad you are. But that was still very reckless of you,” Rarity chided. “That fire was plainly magical. You couldn’t know for certain you wouldn’t get burned. Why, you scared me half to death!”
“Well, okay, maybe I didn’t know,” Spike admitted. “But the odds were still good, right?”
Rarity’s look did not waver.
Spike looked down.
“Aw, lay off the lil guy, willya?” Applejack nudged her gently. “He prob’ly saved all our hides. Besides, there wasn’t time ta think. If he had, like as not we’d’a been fried up.”
“Yeah. Pretty gutsy move there, Spike,” Rainbow Dash winked.
Still looking down, Spike scratched the back of his neck.
“Ohhhh, here,” Rarity walked to the young dragon and gathered him up into a hug. “My poor little Spike. I’m sorry I was so sharp with you, really I am. I was just scared for you, that’s all.” 
She looked him over. “Are you quite sure you’re alright?”
Relieved, he gave a quick hug back. “Yeah. I’m good.”
“Um, excuse me,” Fluttershy interposed, “but, Rarity, When did you learn how to do that?”
“Do what?”
“When you shot that ice out from your horn!” Pinkie Pie chimed in. “That was so neat!”
“What, that? Oh, heavens, darling, I haven’t even tried anything like that since I was in school.” 
Spike hopped down as Rarity went on, “My talent’s always been in location and precision, you know, not in power. The detail that embroidery demands, for instance. It’s something that most hooves just can’t manage.” 
Then she spared the dragon a fond glance. “But I guess seeing our little Spike in danger brought out my wild side.”
Applejack cocked an eyebrow. “Your… ‘wild side?’”
“Well,” Rarity conceded, “all things being relative, of course.”
“Uh-huh.”
Pinkie Pie bounced up. “So, does that mean you can do ice sculptures? ‘Cuz I’ve got this party coming up and you wouldn’t believe how hard it can be to drum up an ice sculpture around here on no notice and I guess I could see that if we were someplace warmer than here like back in Ponyville when it’s spring or summer anyway but not finding anypony who can do an ice sculpture here is really weird in a way because you’d think with all the snow nearby it would be really easy to just get some ice and cut it into whatever but noooooooooooo so I was thinking if you could make the ice then all I would need would be to find a sculptor but even better maybe if you could just make the ice into—”
Rarity, suddenly at a loss, scarcely had time to open her mouth before the immense doors to the throne room opened. Four royal guards of the Crystal Empire exited, solemnly carrying the massive mirror between them, face up. After them came the four princesses.
“Huh,” blinked Applejack. “That was quick.”
Giving her friend an exasperated look, Rarity stepped forward. “Your pardon, Your Highnesses. It’s just that we were expecting you to be in a private conference for quite some time over this. And it’s only been a few minutes.”
“Under different circumstances, we might have,” Princess Cadence nodded. “But at this time, it was felt that would not be appropriate.”
“Besides, it’s not like I wouldn’t tell you guys as soon as I got out anyway,” Twilight pointed out. “I mean, unless it was somehow Super Top Secret or something.”
“So, that being the case,” Cadence went on, “would you all please accompany us to my sanctum? There’s apparently a great deal to be explained in dealing with this, and Princess Celestia would prefer to tell all of us at once.”





When they saw the door, the Mane Six were a bit nonplussed. It was made, not from wood, but from the same flawless crystal as the walls. It also matched the wall in its curve towards them. It was as though a giant crystal tube had been stood on its end, and a section of palace had been built around it. The door had no handle, nor purchase of any kind. But it glowed deep blue as the palace’s mistress willed the door open, and the ponies filed into her sanctum sanctorum.
The room was massive, easily the size of the entire Ponyville library, and with its door closed it formed a perfect, almost seamless circle. The ceiling was high and domed, assembled from a massive array of stained crystal shards. Most places of royal or state purpose had such windows, of course, often depicting scenes of great historical significance. But this one was almost an abstract, consisting of a series of mystical symbols. Every sigil, symbol and rune portrayed was secure in its own power and significance. Yet none of them stood alone, or needed to, for all of them were precisely intertwined in design and meaning. Rays of evening light shone down into the entire room, flooding it with a scintillating array of color and design, magical images made of light dancing along the gemlike interior.
The four crystal ponies reverently placed the mirror against the wall opposing the doorway, bowed, and closed the door behind them.
Spike glanced around. Rarity was looking everywhere, marveling at the gemlike beauty of the chamber. That figured. But everypony else was looking at Princess Celestia, and she was looking at the floor. Apparently, she wasn’t thrilled about whatever was coming next… yeah, this was going to take a while.
“Excuse me, please.”
He opened the door and slipped through, closing it behind him.
Hesitant, Twilight approached her teacher. “Celestia?” she ventured. “You okay?”
The princess shook her multicolored mane. “It doesn’t matter if I am or not.”
Reaching out to move a stray lock out from Twilight’s face, she sighed, “The time for such concerns is obviously past. I know what I need to tell you... I’m just not sure how to begin.”
“Uh, Yer Highness, y’all know we’re all friends here, right?” Applejack said. “I mean, the rest of us ain’t princesses or anythin’ like that, but if ya got somethin’ ya need ta talk about, we’re here for ya.”
“We all are,” Cadence added.
Celestia gave a sad smile. “I know you are. And I treasure all of you.” 
Her smile faded as she went on, “But I also know I have failed you so many times over already. For most of you, I did so before we even met… even before you were born.”
Twilight cocked her head, frowning. “I find that highly unlikely.”
“Look, Princess, you don’t need to make with all the details if you don’t want to,” Rainbow observed as she circled the dome above. “You recognized the thief who stole Twilight’s crown, right? So, okay. Just tell us about her. We go in, get the crown, come back. No problem!”
But Celestia only shook her head again. “That is part of the very reason I must explain the situation to you all. You can’t all go to retrieve Twilight’s coronet. She must go alone.”
“What? Why?”
“Because for all of you to go would upset the mystical balance of the dimension to which she has fled. Such an imbalance would cause the destruction of that realm from within, and therefore your own deaths.”
The other ponies stared, frozen.
“Oh,” Rainbow managed. “That’s, um, a good reason I guess.”
The light in the room shifted and that same strange, alien power was felt again. Rolling her eyes good-naturedly, Princess Luna reached out with her magic and gently pulled Pinkie Pie’s hoof away from the mirror’s surface. For her part, Pinkie continued to stare at the rippling surface, plainly delighted.
“Oooooo, sparkly…”
As she might for a child, a bemused Luna slowly guided Pinkie away from the interdimensional artifact. After a few attempts at restraint, giggles began throughout the room, turning ultimately into laughter. As Spike returned bearing a huge stack of boxes and cushions, Luna stole a glance at her sister, and saw that she was smiling again.
Ten thousand dancing stars bless you and your gifts, Pinkamena Pie, Luna thought.
Once the laughter had subsided, Celestia took a breath, let it go. “Very well. Years ago, Twilight asked me about a magical mirror that I always sought to keep nearby. One of my many mistakes was in not answering her. She had a right to know then, as you all have a right to know now.”
She nodded towards the massive looking glass. “That mirror is the Mirror of Phaedra, so named for the realm to which it leads. It is a portal created by Starswirl the Bearded himself. Phaedra is a mystical dimension, an entire universe the size of a solar system. Magic is extremely potent there, but also wild, overpowering, difficult to control. 
“Additionally, the realm itself is unstable. Even time does not function properly there. Time always runs significantly more slowly on the other side, but the difference is unpredictable. For example, the gate only opens once every thirty moons on this side, though the exact time and duration is unpredictable. In Phaedra the time elapsed might be twenty-nine moons, or only a few minutes. 
“To compound matters, if there is a great deal of magic brought to Phaedra, time becomes even more unstable… as does the realm itself. Which also means that, once she leaves, it might be weeks, months or even years before Twilight returns.”
The Mane Six stared at her, exclaiming in unison, “Years?!?”
Spike, meanwhile, was already setting up pillows for everyone near the mirror, completely at ease. “Yeah, we can wait.”
Luna picked up the narrative. “Starswirl crafted the mirror in an early attempt to study other dimensions,” she said. “What he found was Phaedra. Soon afterwards, he realized that any spell he cast there would not only hasten the tiny dimension’s destruction, but also overpower itself dangerously. The least powerful unicorns who entered would find their magic unleashed like a torrent with every enchantment, endangering themselves and anyone around them. Even an earth pony would find that they suddenly possessed uncontrollable magic powers that surged according to their emotional state, and pegasi would have those same surges plus flight that would be so enhanced as to be almost impossible to direct.
“All of these uncontrolled magical acts would also destabilize the dimension further, bringing it ever closer to self-destruction. Powerful magicians were even worse off, being a destabilizing influence by their mere presence. Thus, Starswirl abandoned Phaedra, turning his attention to other realms.”
Rainbow Dash landed on the mirror’s frame, ignoring Rarity’s withering stare to crane over and peer at its surface upside-down. “I bet I could handle it.”
“In matters of flight, I’m sure you could,” Celestia replied. “But that is why Twilight must go alone. Granted, her presence there would be causing Phaedra to slowly compress in on itself. But she is only beginning to unlock her potential as an alicorn. She will therefore have more time than Luna or I would, as her comparatively low power level will cause a more gradual collapse. Additionally, Twilight has both an encyclopedic knowledge of magic and an incredible intellect and skill at adaptation, which allows her to adjust to new magical challenges quickly.” 
She sighed. “All of which brings me to Sunset.”
“Sunset,” Twilight repeated. “You said that when you saw the thief. Is that her name?”
Celestia nodded. “Sunset Shimmer is far more dangerous than any mere thief. She was my first apprentice. And my last – though of course I have mentored students now and again – until you came to me so many years later.”
“Forgive me, Your Highness, but that’s something I don’t quite understand,” Rarity said. “If this Sunset person is a dangerous enemy, and being a former student of yours I imagine she would be quite formidable, why has nopony heard about her before?”
“That’s true,” Cadence pointed out. “Twilight and I never encountered mention of her in the archives. And you never spoke of her before, to either of us.”
“Yeah,” Rainbow chimed in. “It may have been a long time ago, but it’s not like everypony didn’t hear plenty about Nightmare Moon—” She broke off, looking at Princess Luna. 
“Um, no offense,” she added.
The Night Princess’ expression was unreadable. “None taken.”
“I moved all records pertaining to her to my private library,” Celestia admitted. “What I did not hide, I destroyed.”
Cadence stared. “What? Why?”
“Because I had seen what folk lore had done to my sister’s memory, despite my best efforts. Even after I was able to stop the worst of the songs and the stories, the burnings in effigy… all her good deeds were lost to common knowledge. All that remained were stories told to terrify children. So I made Equestria forget my sister as much as I could, rather than have her remembered as a monster.” 
Celestia looked down as she added, “And still, some traditions lingered, indestructible because I had waited too long. The Mare in the Moon. Nightmare Night.”
Princess Luna shrugged contentedly where she sat. She was thinking of caramel apples, and shrieking, giggling foals on the run. Nightmare Night wasn’t so bad.
Celestia went on, “Sunset Shimmer might not have been so well-known when she left. But there were so many rumors about her already, threatening to become legends in their own right. When she returned, I did not want her immediately treated like an outsider— or worse, like an enemy. Therefore, I made her easily forgotten. It was because I did not want her hated or feared when she returned.
“And, because… I was ashamed.”
Twilight cocked an eyebrow. “Well, I guess she does seem pretty… disappointing…”
But the Princess of Day shook her head. “No, Twilight. I was ashamed, not of my pupil, but of my own failures.” 
She looked at them all again, incredibly sad, and Twilight felt her own heart sink. 
“I have lived a long time, my little ponies,” Celestia said, “and time passes no more quickly for me than it does for you. And somehow, whatever my successes have been, my failures always seem to overshadow them.” 
She looked up at the kaleidoscopic ceiling as she went on, “I can safeguard Equestria, lead my subjects into an age of peace. I can create strategies to defeat our enemies, and secure a kingdom for a thousand years or more. 
“But because of my mistakes as a leader, all the ponies of the Crystal Empire were lost for centuries. And Cadence herself, last survivor of her family, was lost for almost as long... and then nearly lost again. Additionally, even after I had thought him vanquished, Sombra would have taken the crystal ponies back into a new dark age of slavery were it not for all of you. 
“Similarly, I had failed Sunset Shimmer as a teacher and as a guardian, even as I had failed Luna as a sister centuries before.” 
Beside her, unseen by her sister, Luna’s expression was one of silent anguish. 
Celestia concluded, “So, it was not a tale I was eager to share. But it is one you need to hear today.”
Twilight glanced at the mirror. “Do we have the time? We’ve been talking a while already.”
“With the time difference, I think we do. In any event, you will need to know about Sunset if you are to pursue her. I would rather you have little time but more knowledge than the other way around.”
“Yay!” Pinkie Pie jumped up again, a pillow-grabbing blur of pink energy. In an instant, the Mane Six and Spike found themselves on cushions in a half-circle around the older princesses with snacks in their hooves, blinking and bewildered. 
Pinkie happily tossed a hoofful of popcorn into her mouth. “Story time!”
Cadence, Celestia and Luna all looked at one another, smiling again despite themselves. Then, Princess Celestia began her tale.





“Sunset became my apprentice just over a hundred years ago,” Celestia said. “She’d been found and adopted by a well-meaning couple who lived on a farm outside of Ponyville. But though she was just a weanling, her power was uncontrolled and terribly dangerous. At first merely at a loss, within a few weeks her foster parents had been completely overwhelmed. They had sent a message to Canterlot, begging for a tutor who could handle the child. 
“After several master magicians had examined her, and themselves been both surprised and dismayed at their own helplessness in dealing with her, I saw no other recourse. I took Sunset in myself. She became my apprentice in the mystic arts. And, to her foster parents’ relief, my ward.
“Sunset was a truly gifted student, though not in the same sense as Twilight. She didn’t have the same love of knowledge, for example, nor the creativity with magic. But though her rote learning was certainly wanting, anything shown to her hooves-on was learned instantly. Anything seen and examined was understood. It didn’t matter much what the subject was. She learned best by doing, and at an amazing rate. And she forgot nothing.
“At first, Sunset attended school with other foals at Canterlot. But she had no interest in the company of others, and only succeeded in alienating her fellow students. As she grew older, any ideas regarding friendship that I tried to impart…”
Celestia shook her mane sadly. “Sunset had nothing but contempt for such things. Her focus always seemed on impressing her other teachers, finding new challenges and surmounting them. And most of all, upon gaining greater magical power.”
Twilight cocked an eyebrow. “Soooo, is that why you were so worried about me having no close friends growing up?”
Princess Celestia started. “What? No, of course not. I was concerned for your happiness, but never that you might become like Sunset. 
“Sunset… had her own troubles. And it wasn’t just that she had no close friends. She had no friends, even as a small filly. No friends, no study partners, no playmates… nothing.”
Celestia’s eyes took on a faraway look, casting back across time. “At first, the other foals avoided her. Then, over time, they grew afraid of her. When I pressed her on the subject, she claimed she didn’t want friends, that she was better off without them. Meanwhile, her problems in school grew, along with her outbursts. Eventually, I withdrew Sunset from school and became her sole teacher.
“It seemed a natural move. After all, I was already her teacher in magic. And, at first, it really seemed to help. Sunset had been a limited student, struggling in most every class with regards to books and written reports. So I incorporated my duties into her lessons, and encouraged her to explore through field trips, experimentation, and direct experience. 
“And suddenly, Sunset thrived. Where she had struggled before, now she excelled in almost all of her subjects: art, history, music, architecture, biology… and somehow even more in magic than ever before. But most of all, best of all, she seemed happy.” 
Celestia sighed. “For a while, I thought we had finally won. I thought I had finally found what she needed to grow into the mare I knew she could become. To build the life for herself she deserved.
“But over time, as her power grew, so did Sunset’s arrogance. The rift between herself and other ponies became more and more impossible to bridge. She was still a foal, but at the Grand Galloping Galas, even the adults would give her a wide berth. She became sullen and angry again, her outbursts more and more frequent. It seemed like we argued constantly; we could scarcely speak without shouting at each other. And then, one day...” 
Here, Celestia fell silent. After a moment longer to compose herself, the monarch said with closed eyes, “She found the Alicorn Papyrus.”
“The what?” Twilight asked.
“An ancient text, written by Celestia and myself,” Luna explained. “We were trying to understand what had happened to us in our own Becoming, and why. It details the transformation process from mortal pony to alicorn, and its most likely causes. At least, so far as we were able to ascertain.”
Twilight stared.
Luna and Cadence shared a glance, then Luna addressed her sister. “You did not tell her of this?”
“I was going to give it to her tonight, after she’d rested. Our own first weeks were certainly too filled with adjusting to our new forms to do much else…”
Twilight looked dubious, but said nothing.
Celestia chuckled at her expression. “Fair enough, dear one. I stand corrected, though I would frankly like to read your own assessment before you read ours. In any event, somehow Sunset had stumbled upon the papyrus, and had determined that the power it described was hers by right.” 
Again, her face grew dark. “She accused me of holding her back, of being jealous of her ability. Of… many things. At length, she flung the scroll in my face and demanded the Element of Magic. I denied her. That very day, Sunset fled through the mirror, and it sealed shut behind her.” 
She sighed, looking down. “And I have been keeping it near me ever since.”
The room was quiet for a few moments before Celestia said, “And if you will allow me one final confession, it was my experience with Sunset Shimmer that prompted me to put such an impossible requirement for finding another apprentice as I did. I never thought there would be a foal capable of hatching a dragon’s egg. Not in a hundred thousand years.” 
She looked lovingly at Twilight, adding, “Nor could I have ever guessed on that fateful day that having you enter my life would bring me such joy.”
As Celestia and Twilight embraced, Rainbow Dash soared up again with a wink and a grin. “…Aaaand you’re welcome!”
Rarity gave an indignant sound. “Oh, really!”
Rainbow circled the dome overhead. “What? It was only me being awesome with my sonic rainboom that made her hatching out Spike possible—”
“And my discovering parties and colors and parties and bouncing and parties—”
“…and which benefited all of you in different ways,” Celestia gracefully broke in over Pinkie’s interruption and Twilight’s giggling. “Which in retrospect was only fitting. After all, friendship is both Twilight’s greatest strength and how she has chosen to manifest the Element of Magic as a princess. And Rainbow Dash is nothing if not a loyal and stalwart friend.”
As Rainbow landed again, she rolled her eyes, saying, “Yeah, even though you’re not letting us help her out on this one, right?”
“Honestly!” Rarity exclaimed, “Am I the only pony here who remembers we’re in the presence of royalty?”
“It’s probably just that everypony is so worried,” Fluttershy murmured. “I know I am.” 
Then she sighed, glancing back at the mirror. “Poor Sunset Shimmer.”
“I beg your pardon, darling?”
Rainbow stared. “You can’t be serious.”
“The hay you talkin’ about, girl?” Applejack frowned.
Fluttershy opened her mouth and closed it again, feeling the full barrage of disbelieving stares aimed at her. 
“Well, I mean,” she said to the floor at last, “I know she’s very dangerous. But it sounds like she was still very young when she ran away. She must have felt awful, to just leave like that. And then she finished growing up in some horrible place, without any family or friends. And now… she’s stealing.” 
She shook her head, her voice becoming even quieter as she added, “She just sounds so sad.”
Luna nodded. “Yet again, your perception does you credit, Fluttershy. I can attest to the conflict within her, though for the moment that changes little.” 
She looked to Twilight. “It remains that Sunset Shimmer has stolen the Element of Magic for her own uses, and taken it back to Phaedra. She is a threat to herself and to all of Equestria.”
Twilight nodded, considering this. Then she turned back to the Princess of the Sun. “So… how old was Sunset when she ran away?”
“Not yet fifteen.”
Silence.
Eventually, Applejack spoke up. “Okay… so… how come Sunset Shimmer hasn’t blown the place up already, or whatever it’s gonna do? Y’know, what with her bein’ so powerful an’ all?” 
She gestured towards her marefriend. “An’ if she kin do it, why not Twilight? I reckon she could just whomp up a spell to keep us from settin’ it off.”
Twilight raised her eyebrows, amused. “Um, AJ? I don’t just ‘whomp up’ spells.”
“Aw, you know what I mean, Twi.”
“Because it’s not a question of having the right spells, but of direct personal control,” Celestia replied. “Sunset Shimmer had already gained an unheard-of degree of mastery over her magical energy. She had to, in a sense, because of the degree of power she possessed. By the time she ran away, she could confine her aura to the surface of her skin whenever she wished, becoming all but undetectable by magical means even without concealment spells. So even in an environment like Phaedra, Sunset would likely have near-perfect control over her magic. But having a spell over you, any spell, would just be one more thing to hasten Phaedra’s destruction. And no spell grants self-control.”
“Well, heck.” She glanced at Twilight. “Sorry, hon. I tried.”
Spike swallowed the mouthful of gem he’d been chewing on. “Well, okay, so what do we know about her besides that? I mean, the way she is now?”
“I had never met this Sunset Shimmer,” Luna answered, “nor was her name spoken to me, until this day. During the time she dwelt in this realm, even her dreams were all but completely closed to me, her identity unknown. So for now, I can only tell you she is a pony with powerful shielding around her mind. From what little I could see as she slept, her heart is at war with itself, in a great confusion of love entangled with hate.” 
She looked at Twilight. “I hope that helps you.”
Twilight rubbed her mane. “Me too. Not sure how it will, though.”
“Nor I.”
“Great.”
Princess Cadence held up a hoof. “With Sunset Shimmer having stolen the coronet and returned to Phaedra, I think her plan is clear. We all know that the Elements have transformative powers. Plainly, Sunset hopes to draw upon the energies of Phaedra, using Twilight’s coronet in an attempt to take for herself the power she had demanded years ago.”
“I agree,” Celestia affirmed. “But that is a twisting of the Element of Magic’s true purpose, and even with Sunset Shimmer’s abilities, the risks to her body and mind are immense.”
Fluttershy stared. “You mean she might…?”
Luna nodded. “She may well perish, overwhelmed by the energies she seeks to harness. Or she might simply become a monster, mutated and twisted by the strange instabilities there. So, too, she might run mad from the strain of flooding such power through her body and her mind.” 
She considered. “Or any of these.” Then, nodding, she added, “Or all of them.”
“And no matter what the result, there is the question of what she intends when she returns to our world,” Cadence added. 
She looked at her aunt, who was appearing more stricken by the moment. “Forgive me for saying, but in light of her recent actions I think we must assume the worst.”
Reluctantly, Celestia nodded. “Agreed.”
“Huh. So how come you don’t go in after her yourself, if she’s such bad news? Y’all seem plenty self-mastered.”
“Applejack!” Rarity stared, completely aghast. Honestly, as if Rainbow Dash hadn’t been bad enough!
But Luna was looking at her sister, frowning slightly “No, that is a fair question.”
“And it deserves an answer,” Celestia said. “Specifically, that no one here can control their aura in the way that Sunset can. However controlled I might seem, I would not be able to prevent a dimensional collapse. In addition, it remains that Sunset left in a state of rage and hate, especially regarding me. Twilight is the most likely among us to find a way past that hatred.”
“Huh. Still sounds awful risky.”
While Rarity glared at Applejack, Celestia went on, “It is. But it also remains that we are needed here. When Sunset first fled, I was alone. Now, though my sister and I again maintain the order of day and night, we can hardly leave Equestria for so long. Even for Sunset’s sake.”
Spike looked up. “What? I thought this was about Twilight’s crown.”
“There’s more at stake here than the coronet,” Twilight said.
“Much more,” Celestia affirmed. “The Elements of Harmony are certainly vital to Equestria’s defense, that’s true. But there are many ways to defend a kingdom. And before Sunset became who she is today, she was a foal in my care.” 
Celestia looked to Twilight. “I have no doubt that you can retrieve the coronet. But my truest hope is that you can save Sunset. And if you can only save one...”
“Don’t worry, Celestia,” Twilight said. “I’ll bring them both back.” 
Twilight walked towards the mirror, then looked back again. There were no spoken farewells, only looks of love and well-wishing between devoted friends. Then, she turned and entered the Mirror of Phaedra. 
There was a moment of cosmic tension and blinding light, and she was gone.
> Chapter Four: The Chariot of Hippolytus
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first thing that assailed Twilight was a sense of complete disorientation. She had expected something like it, of course. It was vaguely reminiscent of her first teleportation attempts when she was still a foal. Yet this was different. It was as though she could feel the world spinning under her, even as her senses kept telling her she was remaining perfectly still. She collapsed to the ground in a controlled fall, trying to keep her breathing steady, waiting for the strange vertigo to pass, hoping her arrival had been undetected.
If Sunset Shimmer finds me like this…
With her eyes closed, her other senses were beset by her surroundings. Twilight could feel the thick, silken grass under her body gently compress under her like the finest down, its long blades almost embracing her as she sank into the greensward. There was little sound of animal life, just the occasional sliding sound of something moving across tree or stone. But the powerful scents of the place struck her like a hammer, again and again. The heady, almost intoxicating perfume of flowers and resin-thick leaves was dizzying in its own right, keeping her in check for several moments after the initial after-effects of the mirror had passed.
Yet, in time, she opened her eyes. Her eyes had already adjusted to what passed for night in Phaedra, but nothing could have prepared her for the grandeur that surrounded her, and she gasped as she beheld her surroundings in sheer awe.
The grass she lay on was a green that was vividly deep, the heavy blades impossibly thick and soft. She was surrounded by red-brown trees bearing a thick canopy of rose-colored crystalline leaves, moving in the breeze like chimes. They bore fruit like gems, green, purple and sapphire blue. When the winds moved through them, it was a caress of fragrance and music. 
Momentarily caught up in the beauty of the place, she closed her eyes and allowed the wind and the sounds and the scents all to wash over her, this time reveling in their symphony. Then, she opened her eyes again, looking upwards for the first time.
The stars of these alien heavens were few, but close and bright, pulsing as they shone like jewels in magnificent tones of ruby, lapis, and pearl. Far closer were the planets, taking up much of the nighttime sky. Here, one was various shades of blue and violet, striped in slow-moving swirls. There, another, reddish-orange, textured and pocked by centuries of its own encounters. Still another, larger than the first two, was green… but ringed by a million scintillating precious stones orbiting in an endless dance of light green, magenta, and deep blue bands. 
Chief among them all, however, was Phaedra’s moon. Smaller than Luna’s, but impossibly close, its visible half filling almost a full fifth of the sky with its mythril glow. Twilight could see the faint curve of Phaedra’s horizon before it as the satellite majestically revolved its way down, shadows lengthening across its face as its craters and caverns caught the light from a massive red sun only beginning to rise in the west.
With a start, she realized she had been singing, wordlessly caught up in the dance of this strange world. She was also, she saw, hovering several feet off the ground in a violet glow, the rustling plant life drawn towards her as if she were the center point of a brisk wind.
Quickly, she drew her magic back in, landing in the lush green without a sound… and with a gasp instinctively leaped into the air again, landing perhaps thirty feet away. 
The horned serpent completed its strike even as she moved, each of its twin heads snapping its venomous fangs mere inches from her hooves. Despite its size – each of its necks being as big around as her leg – it had crept under her silent and unseen, completely hidden by the sea of luxurious blades beneath her. Now it raced after her over the green, hissing, gills flared, ready to strike again. 
Before she had time to think, there was a blinding flash and the stench of charred flesh and burning chlorophyll, and everything was obscured by caustic smoke.
The breeze cleared the smoke quickly, showing her the deep trench that had been blasted before her, a scar upon the rose-colored forest with no end in sight. The Phaedran snake was dead. So was everything else that had been in her power’s path, as far as the eye could see.
Twilight took a deep breath, gathering her magic in as she did so, capping it, trying to seal it within herself even tighter than she had before leaving, and then tighter still. Then she looked around herself again at the alien beauty that this tiny planet presented. She had listened to Celestia carefully before leaving her own world, but despite that had still failed to grasp the full import of what the oldest princess had been trying to explain. Now, being here, seeing Phaedra for herself…
She understood now why Starswirl had wanted so much to study this place.
She understood now why he had to leave.
And, above all, she understood why she had to hurry. For, even in the short time she had been intruding in this deadly paradise, it seemed to her the moon and its companions were just a little bit closer than they had been before.
“Great going, Twilight. Sunset’s around here somewhere with the Element of Magic, I’m on a quest to save two worlds and her, and the first thing I do is almost get eaten by a snake.” She glanced around, a little nervously. “I wonder what else might be around me, hunting me, hidden by the local flora?”
She sighed. “Focus. Okay, what do I know?” 
She started walking down the smoking trench she’d burned through the greenery. At least nothing could attack her from below. 
“I know I can’t look for Sunset with spells, and I certainly can’t track her on the ground. Both are too dangerous, though for different reasons. With the time difference, it’s not like she should have gotten far. And I don’t think she’d risk teleporting, not with what she’s planning. But if she were nearby, there’s no way she could have missed me deforesting the place.” 
She looked around. “So I guess the gateway’s location is as unstable as everything else in this place. That leaves me with a whole planet to search, no matter how tiny a planet it might be.”
Carefully, experimentally, she flexed her wings.
My wings are still weak, she thought. But that might be to my advantage. I can barely get ten feet off the ground at home, and then only for short distances. But here, with everything so amplified, I should be able to go higher with way less effort. Clear the canopy. Then hover, maybe gently glide. 
“I’ll just have to be careful,” she decided. “Even if it speeds the collapse up a little, it’ll be worth it.” Then she muttered, “Time isn’t exactly on my side, after all…”
And so, with great concentration and care, Twilight spread her wings, and began to bring them gently down.
She cried out as the trees struck her across the face and shoulders in an almost simultaneous flurry of rapid-fire blows as she catapulted through the canopy at blazing speed, the world fleeing from her below her hooves. The wind dragged greedily at her mane and tail, her feathers, her coat as she rocketed into the sky. With effort, she spread out her wings again, stilling her flight. She shook her head to clear it. She’d been lucky, she realized. After destroying so many trees in the area, there had only been small branches and twigs left in her way. Impacting a major limb at that speed might have been fatal.
Still, looking around, she was exhilarated despite herself. The planets were even closer now, their details that much more jewel-like. The sun was warmer, the stars brighter, their facets more easily seen. Even Rainbow Dash had never flown so high! Yet somehow, the air was no thinner. And faintly, ever so faintly, she could hear something. A sound that had been too far away before to be heard until now. Almost like music, crystalline and pure.
The stars, she realized. The stars were singing.
Despite herself, she reached out to them in wonder. They were still too far away to touch, of course, but she knew she could go to them if she tried. She grinned. She could fly to the stars here, even to other worlds, and explore all their wonders. Imagine!
But no. Now was not the time. With effort, she refocused upon the task at hoof. Perhaps she could come back another time, with better research and preparation, after Sunset was safe. With proper research, she knew, there had to be a way. But right now, the important thing was to bring the unicorn back to Equestria before she destroyed herself. 
Twilight glanced down at the world below her. With Sunset’s advantages, finding her would not be quick or easy, even from such a vantage point. And flight remained a factor, of course. Still, if flying was that amplified on Phaedra, then…
Twilight closed her eyes, relaxing with the ease brought on by years of practice in the mystic arts. With her heartbeat calm and her mind still, she placed her focus not on her wings’ motion, but rather upon the magic behind it. Even as she began to fly again they moved, though now they seemed more to gesture than to simply flap. And this time her motion was slower, more controlled. 
Yes, she thought. Much better. Guide the flight through will, and let the wings be secondary, almost incidental. It was very different than her friend’s flying lessons, which had concentrated on the “basics” of flight: posture, wing movement, trajectory, and so on. In a way, this brought her back to her first magic lessons as a little foal, when she’d still used gestures while casting her spells.
Probably Rainbow was going to bring in the “higher” concepts of flight gradually, she mused, once I’d mastered the basics on a more physical plane. And, Twilight acknowledged, that made sense with most students. Rainbow was an excellent teacher, and Twilight certainly wasn’t going to stop their lessons. But first and foremost, Rainbow Dash was an athlete. Twilight Sparkle was a magician.
And flying, at its core, is just another kind of magic.
Inwardly, she chuckled at herself. I should have realized this long ago, she thought. It’s perfectly logical. After all, it isn’t exactly aerodynamics that lets Rainbow fly upside-down, or lets all the pegasi walk on clouds. I just never stopped to think about it.
Then, she chuckled again, this time out loud. 
“Rainbow Dash, Master Magician,” she grinned. “Mistress of flight magic. An egg-head in her own right.” She couldn’t wait to tease her about that, once this was all done.
Meanwhile, Sunset Shimmer was still down there. Somewhere.
Twilight sighed. Well, if she can be anywhere – and it looks like she could be – I guess I’d better just be systematic. I’ll start where I landed, and start circling out. 
She considered her wings again. Very, very carefully.
Above her, the planets continued their ominous rotations. Was it just her imagination that they were even closer now, that the sun was slightly larger, the heat from its intricate orange-and-red patterns more pressing? She hoped so. It was a painful thought, that she might be responsible for further damaging such a beautiful place.
She sighed again as she searched the landscape below. “Then again, if the place is getting smaller instead of just crunching in on itself, maybe that’ll make the search easier. Of course, if I can see Sunset—”
Without warning, a bolt of fire lanced into her from below, burning across her face and barrel. She cried out, frantically trying to break her fall as a range of coastal mountains rushed up to strike her. Her plunge curved slightly as she desperately aimed for a lush valley between them. 
Then she was struck again, fire the color of blood and gold. The world went dark, and she did not feel it when she crashed through the valley’s canopy, this one full of sky blue leaves, and then onto the stony ground below.
Silence.
Hoofsteps. Unhurried. A breeze moving gently across the alicorn, shifting her mane over her eyes as a unicorn’s shadow falls over her still form. A female voice, tired, full of bitterness.
“Damn you, Celestia.”
> Chapter Five: On Suns, and Moons, and Starless Skies
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The western sky was streaked with fiery shades of crimson and orange when Princess Luna stepped gently out onto the balcony. She contemplated the horizon’s splash of color, cleared her throat. 
“Um… you have given us a beautiful sunset tonight,” she started, glancing at her sister.
Princess Celestia said nothing, merely nodding her thanks. 
After a moment, Luna sighed. “You are thinking of the past.” She turned to her sister, adding, “And what might have been.”
“What should have been.” Celestia continued staring at the far horizon, then, quietly, spoke again. “She was my first pupil.”
Luna hesitated, uncertain. Then, mustering her courage, she stepped to Celestia and leaned against her. “She was not your first pupil, my sister. I was.”
Celestia paused, then cautiously nuzzled her sister. When Luna didn’t move away, Celestia dared to relax again. 
“We taught each other,” she said into Luna’s mane. “I may have led, but only because I was older. You were so little when our parents died. Yet somehow you were always there, seeing what I could not, saying what needed to be said…” 
Celestia sighed. “We had to grow up so fast.”
“I remember.”
“Even when we battled Discord, we were so young.”
Luna frowned a little. “Not so young as that.”
“Well, younger than we are now.”
“That is true enough.”
“I remember when you first made the moon rise.”
“And you, the sun.”
“It seems so long ago.”
Luna’s voice was quiet and sad. “Not to me.”
By now, the sunset had gone from crimson and orange to a more purple, violet, and blue. Celestia looked out at the sky again, her sister’s own melancholy adding to her own. 
“I can’t help but think that if you’d been there, things would have turned out differently with Sunset. When I first saw her, I thought…” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I thought. That it would be easy? In retrospect, I suppose I did. 
“But more than that, I knew that such power desperately needed training. She reminded me of how we were, when we were foals. Only she was so alone, no one knew where she came from. Just a unicorn weanling, found alone and shivering in the wake of an unexpected storm. And the family who took her in, though they meant well, had quickly come to fear her. No one else seemed up to the task of such a pupil. So, she became my apprentice.”
Luna gave her a knowing look. “Apprentice? You took in a weanling and raised her to young marehood. That is more than apprenticeship; you loved the girl.”
Despite herself, Celestia smiled again. “It was impossible not to. Even on that first day, tiny as she was, she viewed everything with such wonder, such determination. I wanted so much to be there for her, to protect her, to help her grow. And as the years went by and she began to find her own potential, she wasn’t just a gifted magician. She was a poet, a dreamer, a painter… ” 
She chuckled, adding, “not to mention headstrong, stubborn, fiery-tempered... and completely incorrigible.”
Luna’s eyes widened. “The paintings. In your chambers.”
Celestia nodded. “Hers. I never found out how she was doing it, either. I would just come in from court some night, and there would be another painting on the wall.” 
Her smile became wistful as she went on, “It became a kind of game between us, one that she always won. She sometimes spoke of wanting to paint a complete mural in my rooms together, but somehow we never got around to it. There was always so much to do. Affairs of state. Her studies. She was always eager to learn more; her power becoming matched, in time, only by her precision. She offered once to make the sun rise. She nearly succeeded.”
Luna’s eyebrows went up slightly as she glanced at her. “Indeed?”
“Yes.” Celestia sighed again, the smile dying away. “I was really looking forward to introducing you.”
Luna cocked her head at her. “You were so certain of my redemption? Even then?”
Celestia started to answer, then looked away. 
“I… told myself I was,” she said reluctantly. “I wanted to be. But after I… exiled you… hope was… everything was…” 
She swallowed, eyes screwed shut. 
“I knew you were still there, trapped inside Nightmare Moon,” Celestia managed at last. “Sleeping, half-dreaming, even as you were trying to get out. But I also knew that whoever reached you, it couldn’t be me. After all, I was the one who’d driven you away, so long ago.”
Luna’s eyes narrowed, hooves on her sister’s shoulders. “That was not your fault.”
“I’d promised to always be there for you--”
“And I promised to return to you!”
“You did return to me!”
“And you sang to me in your dreams, while I was gone!”
Celestia blinked through her tears, looking into Luna’s eyes at last, her voice quiet. “I thought you couldn’t hear me.”
Luna’s smile was loving, and she caressed her sister’s cheek with her wing. “I heard thee. Every night, I heard thee. And every night, my truest heart ached to see thee again.”
Their wings rustled gently as the two embraced at last.





At length, Luna spoke again. “You mentioned that hope had become difficult. Did Sunset Shimmer rekindle hope for you?”
“For a time,” Celestia said. “Before Sunset, I’d taken what little faith I had left and put it in the Elements of Harmony. Synchronicity is at the heart of their magic, after all. So, I set patterns in motion so that the Elements would find new bearers, ponies who could do what I could not.”
Luna shook her head. “A foolish risk. The Elements formed themselves from chaos itself. They cannot be controlled. Nor, in sooth, can lives.”
“No,” Celestia agreed. “They can’t. But they can be directed.” 
She looked at her sister again. To have you here again, and whole, she thought to herself, no risk would have been too great. 
But out loud, she said, “When Sunset began showing her true aptitude in magic, I thought she was the one I was waiting for. I was so certain.” 
Then, she sighed. “Stupid, really. Such a destiny can’t be taught, it has to be chosen with one’s soul.
“I had all but given up when Twilight became my apprentice. No, let me be honest. I had given up. But then this rambunctious little filly and her adopted dragon exploded into my life in a burst of synchronicities, leaving me no choice but to train her. It was impossible to be empty in the face of her determined optimism, even before she and Cadence started double-teaming me with their antics. 
“Then, years later, when she sent me her letter about the Mare in the Moon that fateful night, it was like seeing the last tumbler fall into place in a centuries-old lock. So I encouraged her to reach out, trusting that she would find the right ponies and choose well when the time came. And she did.” 
Another smile. “Not because she was my student, or because she was a powerful mage. But because she was Twilight.”
“But that was not why you took in Sunset Shimmer, any more than Twilight.”
“Of course not. Sunset was a child in need. Believe me, I tried to find somepony else to help her. What did I know about raising a filly? Nothing. It was only later, when I truly saw her potential as a magician, that I thought she could be the answer I’d sought for so long.” 
Celestia smiled again, this time with sadness. “She was thirteen when she tried to raise the sun. I was so amazed, so proud. She was actually disappointed, even angry. She expected everything from herself.”
“Pride in such a pupil is understandable.”
“I suppose. But my pride in myself as her teacher was ultimately misplaced. ” 
Celestia raised her head, looking outward again. Not at the sky, but at the past. 
“As Sunset entered her adolescence, it seemed as if every choice I made with her was the wrong one. When I encouraged her, she grew aloof. When I sought to discipline her, she only grew more enraged. I tried everything I could think of to get her to make friends, to meet ponies, but she only became more estranged. She needed structure, but whenever I tried to give it, she only became more uncontrollable. In retrospect, what she needed was a mother, not a mentor. But I didn’t understand that. And I didn’t know how. 
“Then, we… had our final argument. Sunset had always been volatile. In the last year, she had become more so. But I had never seen her as furious as she was that morning.”
“When she found the papyrus?” 
Celestia nodded. “She confronted me with it, and demanded the Elements of Harmony.” 
She sighed. “Her plan was… insane. To use the Element of Magic to channel an unstable dimension’s power, and force the transformation onto herself. The attempt alone would have destroyed her. 
“I should have guided her, helped her to see… but I was too angry. Angry at her arrogance, her selfishness, her lust for power and prestige. So instead of explaining the risks, I… I punished her. I cast her out from my apprenticeship.” 
Celestia lowered her head, eyes screwed shut. “It was the single worst thing I could have done. She stole a few books on the Elements, overpowered the guards, and fled through the Mirror of Phaedra.” 
Immediately, Celestia felt the comfort of her sister’s wing over her, and when she moved her head over towards her sister, Luna placed her neck over Celestia’s.
“You would have understood her,” Celestia sighed. “She could have talked to you.”
“Be not so certain,” Luna pointed out. “Recall my own mistakes.”
Celestia shook her head. “Even without your talent with dreams you were always seeing what I couldn’t, playing devil’s advocate, making sure my ideas were sound. Ponies look to me for leadership, but it was your wisdom that I relied on. I kept asking myself, ‘What would Luna say, if she were here?’ But somehow, I could never guess the answer. I was so lost without you. Not just with Sunset. With everything.”
“Daylight does not always allow for clear vision, my sister.” Luna looked to the side, eyes full of regret. “But neither does the night. And you are correct, I should have been there for you—”
“No! No, that’s not what I meant at all!” 
Celestia shifted out from under her sister and embraced her with her wings. “You’ve been back such a short time! Sometimes when I wake, I’m afraid that it was all a dream somehow, that you’re still trapped—”
Luna hugged her back. “I know.”
“I know you do. I can feel you in my dreams sometimes, and it helps. Just let me know you’re still here with me now.”
Luna squeezed tighter. 
Celestia’s embrace turned fierce, almost desperate, with wings and forelegs both. “I missed you so much, I’m so sorry--!”
“Sshhhhhhhh.” 
Gently, Luna stroked her sister’s mane, still hugging her. “You know I forgave you when I was freed, even as you forgave me. Please, after all this time, forgive yourself.”
Celestia did not let go or open her eyes as she put the last touches on the sunset, allowing dusk to become true night. Of all her regrets, the greatest was still that her little sister was somehow no longer her best friend, the shadow of their past always casting itself over them both like a shroud. Not just Nightmare Moon, but the centuries of misunderstandings that had led up to the monster’s creation. It was a dilemma which, chosen by neither of them, seemed impossible to truly solve. 
Celestia held onto Luna as long as she could, until, inevitably, she felt the fragile moment break and fall away. Luna sighed in the darkness, involuntarily tensing again. When Celestia released her, Luna looked to the side, moving slightly away from her sister. 
The silence was more than either of them could bear.
“It’s a beautiful moon tonight,” Celestia tried.
“Thank you.”
“When you brought it out so early, I was hoping that meant we could talk before you guided the dreamers tonight.”
Luna looked away. “And I am glad we have. But I dare not stay any longer.”
Celestia frowned, seeing the tension in Luna’s shoulders, in her flanks. Why would she not even look at her anymore? 
“What do you mean?” 
“I mean, I came initially to say farewell.” 
Celestia’s frown deepened. “I don’t understand.”
Luna looked back at her again, her eyes full of sadness. “Yes. You do.” 
Celestia’s eyes widened. “But… you can’t!” 
“I can and I am. Do not try to dissuade me—”
“Dissuade you!? Luna, if you enter Phaedra with Twilight and the crown already there, you will destroy the balance completely!” Fear made Celestia’s voice louder than she had intended as she went on, “You might have minutes, maybe only moments before the realm falls inward and kills you all!”
“The risk is mine to take!” Luna snapped. “Twilight did not just save Equestria from Nightmare Moon, she saved me as well! Shall I do less for her!?”
Celestia stepped forward, insisting, “It isn’t that simple!”
The Princess of Night bared her teeth as she snarled, “Twilight Sparkle is more than a friend to us both! To dishonour such a bond is more than cowardice, it is cruel!”
“No!” Princess Celestia’s voice was full of anguish. “Even if you reach them in time, we don’t have the luxury to make that choice! We can’t! We have a responsibility to all of Equestria, greater than any one—!”
“E-NOUGH!”
The darker sister’s power was rising with her anger. Celestia herself felt it through her hooves as the Crystal Castle rang with Princess Luna’s words. Her dark eyes blazed deep blue with her rage as her voice began to shed the centuries like an ill-fitting garment. Her voice slowly shifted back to the Old Speech, the speech so much more comfortable for the Princess of Night and Darkness, before whom Equestria had once cringed in ignorant terror. 
“Always,” she said, “always have I deferred to your judgement, my sister… always, save for once. And for the shame of that betrayal alone have I feared to speak, from the day of my liberation until now. And that is my blame in this. 
“But it must be said: you should never have sent Twilight Sparkle alone into an alien realm, against a foe whose current powers we know so little about!” 
“If Twilight had thought she couldn’t handle—”
“Fool!” 
The darkness deepened around the dark twin, and Celestia took an involuntary step back. Even the shadows cowered before the Night Queen as she snarled, “You… fool! Think you that she dared the unknown realm and its mistress for a mere crown, or a stranger’s life, or even the duty she felt to her people? Such concerns pale in comparison to her love for you! 
“Since her childhood, who has been her second mother if not you? Think you that any danger, any risk, can compare to her zeal for thee? You know it cannot! For does your own love for her not equal hers for you? Is she not thy child in all but blood!? Yet it was for you most of all that she is gone, and if we do nothing then surely it will be for thy sake that she. Will. Die!”
As the last three words were bitten off. Celestia tried to speak, heard herself say “I…” But her sister seemed to fill the hall now; the world reduced to a pair of blue eyes ablaze with anger and pain. And Luna’s voice, despite being no louder, drowned out Celestia’s words and thoughts. 
“All our years together, all our years apart, and still I cannot understand thee! How? How canst be so blind to those that love thee!? Think it coincidence that Sunset Shimmer desired so to become a princess, that she searched for such an unlikely rite? Thou thyself said she had no love for books! Of all the tomes in the palace library, finding the Alicorn Papyrus could be no accident! Thinkest thou ‘twas only for her own glory, and not to be thy equal? That she sought only power, and not to stand by thy side forever? 
”Dost thou truly think this was not also for love!?”
This time, when Celestia opened her mouth, no sound could come through her closed throat. 
Luna turned away completely. “No, of course thou cannot speak. Not to me, who have been by thy side through dangers unnumbered—not to me, who have known thee since before the founding of the very sky. Always so noble, so determined. Yet always so blinded by thine own light. And always, always bound in duty, like chains!”
Celestia, shaking her head, again tried to speak. And again her sister’s voice cut her off. 
“And in these chains, thou hast become complacent. Thou hast devoured thine own heart for aeons, that thou and thou alone might maintain the very order of the world. Well, so be it. It is not for me to free thee. But it is thy prison, not mine, and it is of thine own making.” 
Looking out at the moon, Princess Luna proclaimed, “Behold, how I have hung the moon above us! Behold, how I have sung the stars into their places across the aether! Thus do I honour my duty to thee, and to our subjects as well.
“But I wait no longer. Should I not return, thou wilt have to guide the night as well as day. But then, thou hast practice at that.”
“Luna!” 
Heartbreak had found Celestia’s voice where reason had not. When her sister turned to face her at last, Celestia could see the tears streaming from her closed eyes like stars falling down a moonless sky. Luna did not step away, or even fly, but simply dissolved away in a breeze of mist and shadow. Only her voice remained, a gentle echo reverberating sadly against crystal walls even as it faded away:
“I shall return thy heart’s daughter to thee, or I shall perish beside her.”
“Sister!”
For only an instant, an all but shattered Celestia stared at the place her sister had just been. Then, for the first time in years, Celestia spread her wings… and truly flew. 
Teleportation is a rare talent, even among unicorns, both for its difficulty and its strain. But contrary to what many earth ponies and pegasi may think, it is not instantaneous travel. Rather, there is anywhere from a half-second to a second and a half when the unicorn is in a state called Between, before reappearing at their destination. Nor is such range unlimited, being determined by the unicorn’s skill and power. Nevertheless, with such a short transit time, it is small wonder that skilled unicorns sometimes prefer such a tiring form of transportation. 
But time Between is still time elapsed; time that Princess Celestia knew she did not have. 
This was her sister. She had lost her once. 
Never again.
Consider if you will, one of the large hallways in the upper floors of the Crystal Castle. Above an ornamental fountain, there is an individual droplet within a stream of water. Now, see how the droplet slows perilously on its way to the basin below, wobbling unevenly in the moonlight. 
Now does Celestia burst through the great oaken doors, splinters of wood gradually fragmenting and tumbling away from their frame. Impatiently, she shoves her way through the slow-moving debris, reducing much of it to dust in her wake. Now she is past the drowsy guards by the doorway, their eyes only beginning to close in a startled blink. 
The droplet gradually shivers, its motion decelerating further. 
Celestia smashes through the next set of doors as if it were candy glass, while behind her, muscles ripple slowly beneath the ponies’ coats as they sluggishly began to wince, to fall, to open their mouths in as-yet unvoiced cries they do not intend. 
Slowly, ever more slowly, the droplet shifts in mid-air as it begins to drift unevenly out from its pre-established course. Celestia pushes herself harder, the current of her wings reaching it well after she has passed through the opposing doors and down a wide set of gently curved stairs, faster, faster. 
The droplet and its brethren no longer seem to move in the air at all, their quivers having become slow, lazy pulses. Stained glass windows flex and bend slightly inward from the fury of her passing. In another hall, she has already been and gone. A skylight in its ceiling gives a low, gentle groan, ripples only beginning to grow along each pane’s surface as they begin to warp downward.
To the ponies within the sleepy palace, a hundred windows shatter even as a hundred tapestries tear from their places on the walls. The palace fills with a pale-rainbowed comet for less than a millisecond, a dozen massive sets of doors bursting into kindling and powder in a single explosion of light. Celestia flies with a speed and ferocity never before seen in living memory. She does not notice the destruction wrought by her flight, and for the moment she does not care. Before her are the doors to the room she seeks, and beyond them, the Mirror of Phaedra. 
The portal shatters as though it were nothing, and she is through.





Meanwhile, in Cadence’s sanctum, five ponies and a dragon were sleeping in front of an ancient, ornate mirror. They had not left the room since Twilight went through. The servants had not wanted to disturb them any more than needed, and Applejack, unused to being waited on, had assured them that if their help were needed, “we’ll give you folks a yell.” 
Being unaccustomed to approaching the royal sanctum in any case, the servants had, with some relief, left the heroes to their pillows and supplies. Despite their anxieties, sheer exhaustion had eventually caught up with the six, and the friends had fallen asleep.
Fluttershy was curled up, her wings covering her like a blanket. She resembled nothing more than a baby bird in a nest of cushions, though in pony proportions.
Rarity, smiling, sighed contentedly in her slumber. The situation was dire, certainly. But still, what finer place to rest than within a wizard’s jewel?
Spike was splayed out and snoring. 
At first glance, it might have seemed as if Rainbow was having a running dream. Or, perhaps one should call it a flying dream, since her wings were moving.  But then her forehooves would twitch out, and it was plain that she was embattled against imaginary foes. 
Applejack frowned slightly where she slept, her dreams deeply troubled. A mumbled word half-escaped her lips; it might have been a name. Then she moaned slightly, turning over again in her sleep.
Pinkie Pie giggled as she dreamed. For a moment, she was quiet, and then she rolled over and stuck out her tongue. “Nyaaaaaah…”
Then, all six of the friends were started awake by the resounding explosion that shook the very foundation of the palace. Stained glass windows all along Celestia’s flight path simultaneously shattered inward from the gale of her passing, their beauty destroyed. A skylight on the building’s top floor burst downwards, raining shards across a great hall, even as the sanctum itself exploded with the door’s crystal shards and an immense, blinding white light, even as the droplets in the great hall finally sprayed the floor beside their fountain, even as the wooden fragments of other doorways finally fell. 
Six ponies and a dragon were sent flying in all directions, while colored slivers from the ceiling exploded outward into the nighttime sky as though a bomb had gone off in the room, fragments scattering throughout the gardens outside. Screams and cries arose throughout the palace, as guards everywhere struck the ground, glass and splinters drawing blood from a hundred cuts and imbedded fragments. 
Above it all, Celestia’s voice was heard.
“Luna, wait!”
As their vision returned, the gathered friends saw, not some enemy’s attack, but Celestia standing before the mirror, devastated. The mirror’s light was already fading again, the Princess of Night and Nightmare having already gone through. 
Not even the purest beam of light can outrace a dream.
Rarity was the first to recover. “My stars, what—”
“No… No…!”
“Princess Celestia?” Fluttershy moved towards her. “What happened?”
“What’s goin’ on?” Asked Pinkie Pie. 
Spike stared around himself. “Where’s Princess Luna?”
The princess’ head was lowered, her eyes closed as if in pain. “Where I should be. Where I should have gone from the beginning.” 
She looked up, put her hoof on the frame. “This is all my doing,” she moaned. “How? How could I have been so blind? And now…” 
Princess Celestia looked skyward, through the shattered dome to the sky beyond. Then, frantically, to the ponies gathering around her.
By the time she could return, she knew, they would already be dead. All of them. Phaedra’s collapse would see to that. These newfound friends she had been talking and laughing with just a few hours ago, they would all die after she left. Slowly. Freezing to death in the darkness while she was gone, the world a lopsided piece of ice floating through the stars, nourishing nothing. 
Alternatively, should she raise it before departing, they might perish somewhat more quickly from the heat of an unmoving sun. Their last days would be spent trying vainly to survive, while their planet turned into a barren asteroid, charred and lifeless.
Regardless, even if they found ways to survive for a time – and magic and tool use had both advanced greatly over the last century, so probably they would – there would be thousands of deaths, all over the world, in just the first week or two. Perhaps millions. 
Then, the doomed, dying kingdoms of the world would suddenly remember their old myths and legends. They would blame Equestria for the sky’s stillness. Famine and death would lead to hate and fear, and thence to war. Conflict would consume every kingdom in the world in blood and fire, on a scale never before imagined. If there were still survivors when she returned, weeks, months, even centuries later, they would be in a wasteland of desperation and ruin. 
Luna would never forgive her. Neither would Twilight.
Nevertheless, they would both be alive.
And these ponies she was sentencing to horror and death... all of them, even now, were looking at her with absolute confidence that she would make the right choice. That same damned faith that had put her and her sister both on pedestals and thrones aeons ago. It had kept them there throughout their lives. She tried to resent the six of them for that, even to hate them. It would have made things easier. 
But then they stepped closer, ready to aid her however they could. Not as subjects, but as friends.
All my hopes for you, she thought, her gaze darting from one set of eyes to the next, all my hopes for the futures you could have. How can I betray you like this? You, your families, the world? How can I leave you all to such a fate?
Then, looking to the mirror again, But, Twilight! 
Her heart stabbed. Luna!
There were no right answers left. Celestia saw that clearly. She herself had cast them away, somehow, long ago. Every wrong step that had led her to this moment, every poor choice that had brought her here, was entirely her own fault. And no matter what devastation she wrought or who she ultimately betrayed, she had no one to blame but herself.
“Go!”
Celestia started, then stared at the pegasus hovering before her. “What?”
“Go!” Rainbow Dash repeated. “Why’re you still here?”
“But—”
“Yeah, we know,” said Spike. “Sun and moon. Dimensional balance. Kaboom. We get it.” 
Fluttershy broke in gently, “But if you didn’t think you were needed there, I don’t think you would be so torn.”
Celestia blinked. “Yes, but—” 
“And if they need you, you oughtta be there!” bounced Pinkie Pie.
“We shall find a way to manage things while you’re gone, Your Highness,” Rarity assured her.
Celestia stared at them, frantic. “But… but how can--?”
“Princess.” 
Applejack spoke quietly as she reared up, putting her hooves on the larger mare’s shoulders. Her green eyes locked onto Celestia’s with an intensity that would brook no argument. 
“We got this,” she said. “I promise. Now, go on.” At Celestia's hesitation, she repeated, "Go on, now."
Celestia started to speak again, then stopped. She looked around at her friends, nodded her thanks. It was not stepping into Phaedra that was difficult. It was stepping away from Equestria and the world around it, leaving the well-being of all its diverse peoples in the hooves of others. Still, for all the trust her newfound friends had placed in her over the years, the least she could do was trust them in return.
She leaped through the mirror, and was gone.
“Man, I will never get used to that,” muttered Rainbow Dash when the strange energies had subsided.
“Okay, so what’s the plan?” asked Pinkie. “I mean, is this like a meticulous Twilight kinda plan, or is it more like an improv act with lotsa props and no time limit?”
Rainbow Dash glanced at Applejack. “I thiiink somewhere in the middle,” she said.
“Yeah,” agreed Applejack as she turned to the shattered doorway. “I reckon we got this, though. Jus’ one more pony we need.” 
As Applejack began making her way carefully across the sea of translucent shards, Spike started after her, the others following suit. 
“Do you think she’s awake?” he asked.
Suddenly, a bedraggled Cadence appeared in the doorway in a burst of blue. Her tangled mane flailed in all directions, eyes determined, horn blazing brilliantly through the azure flames that engulfed her. 
“Woah, woah, woah!” Rainbow exclaimed, rearing back in mid-air. “Easy! Everypony’s okay!”
After a moment, Cadence allowed her spells of battle to dissipate. “Forgive me. The palace is a shambles, and we seem to be under attack. Are you all right?” 
She glanced at the mirror. “And where’s Twilight? Didn’t she just come back?”
“It’s quite alright, Your Highness,” Rarity smiled. “In fact, you’re just in time. Not only is the palace not under attack, but I believe we were just talking about you.”
“Oh, of course,” blinked Fluttershy. “That does make sense.”
Princess Cadence looked at them all in frank bewilderment, and the ponies began to explain their plan.
> Chapter Six: The Sun's Fire-Eating Daughter
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset stood over Twilight, seething. This? This was who came after her? Her replacement? Clumsy, careless, little more than a foal… Was the Princess trying to insult her? 
Then again, should she really be surprised that Her Highness was still underestimating her?
When Sunset had returned to Equestria, she’d known to move carefully. Another pony might have rushed in, especially after so long and with victory was so close. And, ultimately, such a one would have been caught. But Sunset had been too wise. Scouting out the kingdom, listening, watching, finding the knowledge she sought. And all the while, concealing herself from the most powerful immortals, under their very muzzles. Even in her sleep.
Difficult? Perhaps. But she had been more than up to the challenge.
One of the first things she’d learned upon her return had been that Nightmare Moon was Princess Luna once more. So, logically, it had followed that the Elements of Harmony were no longer dormant in the castle ruin. And, indeed, she’d discovered that they were not only active but in the possession of six wielders, each one a living personification of a different power. And further, the one she needed was in the hands of…
Sunset snorted. Her.
The Elements being active had changed things. But then, even while Sunset had been scouting out the terrain, modifying her plans, Twilight had ascended. She had Become what she was now: the ultimate mockery of Sunset and all her pains.
The newest upstart, Sunset seethed. First a ‘Princess of Love’ ascended in my absence, and now a ‘Princess of Friendship’ joins the royalty. 
Twilight Sparkle. The princess everypony adores. The Sun Queen’s prize pupil, no matter how inattentive she might be. The one who lost the single object of true value she’d been entrusted with. The one who blundered into a hostile world like a lemming off a cliff. The one who offered herself to any enemy watching, as if she were skeet.
And the last thought, quiet as a ghost’s lament, The one she’d really wanted.
Still, for all that Twilight’s ascent felt like another of the universe’s jokes at her expense, Sunset had learned long ago that most every problem presented a hidden opportunity. And when she’d first arrived in Equestria, having the number of princesses suddenly increase had been no exception. Stealing from a princess within her own sanctum, undetected? Potentially problematic, true. And certainly risky, with the stakes so high, though it was most assuredly worth the risks. 
Yet, even as Sunset had begun altering her schemes yet again, the announcement had been made. In honor of Twilight’s transformation, the bearers of the Elements had been invited to the Crystal Palace for a summit, along with the other princesses. And of course, the announcements had been publicly made throughout all of Equestria.
Leave it to Celestia to turn a family celebration into a state event, Sunset snorted again. Nothing can simply be what it is. It always has to be an event. Or a function. Or whatever stupid social ritual she wants to observe that day. 
Her mouth pressed into a thin line. And always, always, with Celestia at the center of it all, casting everypony around her down into shadow.
Just the same: when Her Highness had gone to the Crystal Palace, for some reason she’d brought the Mirror of Phaedra with her. A strange decision, and one that Sunset Shimmer had yet to fathom. But at that moment, everything had fallen into place for Sunset like tumblers in a lock. She’d known she wouldn’t have another chance like that, not in a hundred years. 
She’d had to move more quickly than she liked, which was mildly irritating, but the matter itself had been simple. All she’d needed to do was slip into the Crystal Palace undetected. She could steal the Element of Magic, replace it with a forgery, and then make her way down the hall and through the mirror.
And I almost got back unsuspected, she thought at the alicorn beneath her. I should’ve had all the time in the world to do this, without having to waste my energy with annoyances like you.
It would have been so perfect. To return to Equestria publicly after gaining her new powers, then and only then allowing Her to know what she had accomplished. Even when she’d been discovered, Sunset had quietly been hoping that if anypony came after her, it would be Celestia. That would have been so satisfying. 
But no, of course not. Why would Her Highness even bother? It had been a foolish thought.
Dammit all to Tartarus, she reflected bitterly. If it hadn’t been for that stupid pink nit bumbling in--
Suddenly, the world was an explosion of red and violet. Despite herself, Sunset was thrown against the stone wall nearby. She rolled to her feet unharmed, her own defenses still intact.
“Impressive,” she nodded.
Twilight Sparkle was also standing now, her wings splayed to either side of her. Her head was lowered, her eyes showing only rigid control as she looked up at Sunset. The unicorn was not wearing the coronet, at least not yet, and Twilight allowed herself a small sigh of relief. There’s still time, she thought. 
But out loud she replied, “I could say the same for you.”
“Thanks.” Sunset looked Twilight up and down. “Look, I acknowledge your skill and your power. But remember, I learned under her too. And unlike you I surpassed her lessons, and her, long ago.” 
Sunset’s eyes hardened as she began circling her foe. “You’re out of your depth, Princess.”
Twilight moved as well, keeping the unicorn in front of her. “I know. I also know that you’re going to try to become an alicorn by forcing the transformation. Sunset, you can’t go through with this!”
Sunset Shimmer arched an eyebrow. “Oh? Why?”
“Because Celestia said—”
A torrent of writhing, scorching energy surged from Sunset’s horn, blasting stones to either side of Twilight into smoking rubble. Yet, through the smoky haze, Sunset could see the alicorn’s silhouette, unmoved. She frowned. There was no way this amateur’s defenses could have withstood her power.
The wind howled angrily as Phaedra convulsed against the unicorn’s use of power. Sunset’s eyebrows rose as the wind blew the smoke away, revealing Twilight’s lavender shield: triangular, with curved sides like a plow. It hadn’t had to bear anything close to the strength of Sunset’s attack, simply redirecting her magic like the soil of an earth pony’s farm. And the effort required had been almost nonexistent.
Sunset narrowed her eyes as her enemy allowed the shield to fade. 
“Very impressive.”
They began circling each other again, studying one another. Looking at her, Twilight had to wonder, how old was Sunset, anyway? Yes, time moved differently on Phaedra, but Sunset seemed more haggard than aged, badly worn by time and experience. How long had she been here? Years? Decades? Or was she more Twilight’s age? Surviving from childhood into adulthood, alone in this place full of danger and death… what would that do to a pony?
“The mirror’s gateway changes every time,” Twilight observed. “You felt me enter, but you didn’t know where. You had to wait for me to show myself.”
“For somepony like you?” Sunset sneered. “It was inevitable.”
But Twilight pressed on. “Like either of us. You were a filly when you got here. You had your own learning curve, same as me. And when you got here… you were trapped.”
“At first.”
“You didn’t expect that,” she went on, “You thought you could come back when you were ready. But when it opened again, you couldn’t find it in time, could you?” 
Then, Twilight’s eyes widened with realization. “Celestia, she didn’t know either—”
More fire, this time a wide cone of crimson and gold, enveloped where Twilight was standing. Beneath the acrid smoke, it left a deep trench of blackened glass, glowing and crackling slightly as it cooled.
From above, Twilight called down from her perch on a massive aventurine tree, “Why? Why do you hate her so much?”
The tree and its fellows, along with all the fauna within them, were blasted into ash in an instant. Twilight alighted on the ground, a hundred feet away from Sunset. Not quite where she’d intended, but it would do. She could hear the nearby ocean surging angrily as the wind grew stronger, lashing at them both in fury.
“Sunset, why are you doing any of this?”
Sunset glared at her. “Because I can!”
“That’s a lie!” Twilight gave a small leap forward, her wings clearing the vast distance between them with ease. Her landing in front of Sunset was only a little wobbly. “You’re too smart for that. This can’t be what you want! You have more power than almost any other pony in Equestria—”
“I’ve got more,” Sunset snarled. “I’ve got all the power of Phaedra!”
“Okay, fine!” Twilight snapped. “You’re more powerful than anypony, ever! You’ve got the biggest horn! You win, okay? You win! So, why go through this at all? Why do the ritual? Why steal the Element?” 
The alicorn gestured at the destruction around them both. “Why… any of this?”
“Because it’s mine by right!”
“Sunset, it isn’t,” Twilight heard herself almost pleading with the mare before her as they began circling again, yet she didn’t know what else to do. “Some forms of power choose their bearers, like the Elements of Harmony. You must know that!”
“They’re rocks, Princess,” The unicorn snarled. “For all their power, they’re still magic crystals, nothing more. They manipulate probabilities and focus will into magic. Any ‘choices’ they seem to make are just the automatic channeling of emotions and concepts they’re attuned to. Don’t equepomorphize them.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“I know what you meant.” Sunset retorted through gritted teeth. “You meant I’m not worthy of ascension. And you are.”
Twilight shook her head violently. “No—”
“And just who decides worthiness,” Sunset demanded, her voice rising over the squall. “You? Celestia? A stone left forgotten in some moldering ruin?” 
She stepped closer to Twilight as she spoke, Twilight nervously gave ground before her. “You really think you’re special, for being her star pupil? You think that means anything? To anypony!?”
Sunset spat at the ground, a small curl of smoke rising where her saliva fell, sizzling. 
“Canterlot!” she seethed. “Equestria! You went to live with Her Highness, sat your ass on silk cushions, and memorized lessons on history and thaumaturgy. Then you tripped over some magic artifacts, and they changed her little sister back for you. Congratu-feather-lations.” 
Flame rolled along Sunset’s coat and lashed out from her flanks, lighting the underbrush around them on fire. Twilight gave another leap back and down into a crystal ravine for shelter from the flames. 
Above her, the Mistress of Phaedra went on, “I came here with nothing. Nothing! And I mastered a world!” 
Sunset glowered above the intruder, features illuminated by the flames, mane dancing wildly in the gale. “I took the tool I chose by skill alone… and I’ll use it to change myself!”
“But becoming an alicorn isn’t just a magic spell! Celestia…” 
From above, Sunset’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but this time she didn’t attack. 
Twilight continued, “She was just there when I changed to help make the process less traumatic. Like a midwife. It wasn’t something done to me. It just… happened.”
“Nothing in magic ‘just happens’, you little idiot,” Sunset snarled. “You did it to yourself, whether you understood it or not. Magic is a matter of will and intent. Any true magician knows that.” 
Sunset put a hoof down on the stone beneath her, and the conflagration around her simply snuffed out like a candle. There wasn’t even any smoke. She looked down at Twilight again, saying, “And I have more will than anyone.”
“Look, I’m not arguing that, okay? But what you’re trying to do now, it’s too dangerous for anypony, even you,” Twilight pleaded. “It could kill you, or worse!”
Sunset leaped down. “I’ll make it work.”
“But you don’t have to, don’t you see? If this is about power, or knowledge, you’ve already made your point! You surpassed any expectations Celestia might have had of you, long ago!” 
Twilight gestured to the world around them. The jewel-filled sky and the crystalline trees, the sculpted cliffs jutting up around them, made of quartz, aquamarine, and aragonite. 
“Even Starswirl himself could never accomplish what you have, and he discovered this place!” she said. “Please, there’s so much good you could do, so much other ponies could learn from you. Just come back with me…”
The unicorn sneered. “You’re not getting your crown back, Princess.”
The princess shook her head. “I didn’t come for the crown. I came here for you.”
Sunset’s eyes blazed as she spoke. “Liar.”
“It’s true! And even if I hadn’t wanted to anyway, Celestia herself asked me to bring you back safe! Even if it meant losing the Element!”
Sunset stamped again, teeth bared. “Liar!”
“Why won’t you believe me!?”
“Because you’re LYING!”
As Sunset’s last words rang off the translucent cliffs, the bejeweled trees above chimed with unseen predators fleeing or hiding themselves, cowering. Sunset looked to the sky, her features hardening. Phaedra’s planets loomed even closer, drawn in by the uncontrolled presence of the interloper and the exchange of spells.
Twilight tried not to think of the time running out on them both, or the dangers posed just by her being there. “Sunset,” she said quietly, “I don’t want to fight you.”
“Then you should never have come here.”
Twilight lowered her head, eyes closed in regret. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Sunset looked back to the alicorn, her smile unpleasant. “Oh, yes,” she said, “It does.”
Eyes still closed, Twilight spread her wings out, beautiful and still. She glided upwards with the grace of a ballet master, landing with ease beside the ravine. In a flash of blue-green light, Sunset appeared across from her.
In a stillness marred only by the chiming forest and the warring ocean beyond, the two magicians prepared themselves for battle. Shadows danced in the damaged valley as the colors of their magic filled the air. The ravine took their light and gave it back again, bathing their features from below in a mystical aurora borealis.
Their eyes snapped open, their brief meditations at an end.
Then they attacked in earnest.
> Chapter Seven: Amethyst Daydreams, Darkness and Flame
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As one, each of the mages lashed out against the other, violet-red light blazing against ruby fire. Despite themselves, each was mildly surprised to see such a basic tactic used by her opponent. But at the same time, it made sense. 
She’s testing me, they thought, just as I’m testing her. And she’s hoping to end this quick. 
The collision point between their magics wavered between them for a moment, hoof-sized fragments of almost-liquid energy arcing away from the midpoint, burning away all they touched in a series of sizzling hisses. Then, slowly, inevitably, crimson began to overtake violet. The closer the point of destruction got to Twilight, the faster it came. Until, in a massive rush, her position was overtaken by fire, flame hugging the shape of her suddenly-conjured plow shield to reach and devour the space behind.
Sunset barely got her own shield up in time against Twilight’s immediate counter-attack, coming as it did from behind and above. Sunset’s cyan eyes narrowed as she turned to face her enemy. Few in history could have managed such a maneuver after such a short time on Phaedra, especially while under attack. 
Sunset lashed out again, this time sending a trio of serpentine tendrils of flame, each curving around to attack from a different flank. Twilight gave another surge of flight – a graceful barrel-roll – evading the attack entirely but almost colliding headlong with a large amethyst-leafed tree. 
Interesting, Sunset thought.
Twilight stopped and turned, fired another blast from her horn, a continual stream of magic that sparked harmlessly off Sunset’s shield. 
Sunset frowned. That couldn’t have been her move—
Still maintaining her purple barrage against the center of Sunset’s shield, Twilight fired five more bolts of energy, each one a different color, each in a completely different direction. 
Orange and yellow zig-zagged on opposite sides of her, bouncing from tree to bejeweled tree. Blue soared upwards almost joyfully, rebounding among the clouds. White ricocheted along the crystalline ravine nearby. Pink struck the ground beneath Twilight, then bounced up, arcing crazily like some child’s ball. Each of them perfectly coordinated, moving with absolute geometric precision. Each of them simultaneously finding a different target along Sunset’s body, bypassing her shield entirely.  
Sunset cried out; it was impossible to tell how much from pain and how much from anger. Nearby, the sea raged and surged. Above them, planets collided and ground into one another. They sent millions of jewelled fragments into space, only for them to begin tumbling down in a meteoric descent, setting the sky on fire.
Twilight blinked. Even in Equestria, any one of those blasts should have knocked Sunset unconscious. 
“Sunset, stop this before it’s too late,” she pleaded. “Please. I don’t want to hurt you anymore.”
From where she lay, Sunset stared at her, then the sky. Eyes blazing, she snarled, “Then you’ve already lost.”
Twilight was already in motion again as Sunset re-created her shield, this time a sphere of red and gold fire, herself a shimmering silhouette within. But Sunset’s next attack did not come directly from her. Trees were hurled in all directions as the ground beneath Twilight exploded into motion, a giant griffon’s fist of living stone snatching her in an instant, clenching around her, cutting her off from view as it crushed her. It glowed from inner volcanic fire, its surface crackling orange and black, radiating the heat of the planet’s heart. Simultaneously, a counter-spell against teleportation blanketed the area for miles around.
Sunset snorted. “No,” she muttered. “That was too easy...”
Almost immediately, there was a sound as if a mountain of glass were slowly being twisted apart. The glow changed from orange to violet, then the fist and its supporting pillar of stone exploded into thousands of amethyst butterflies. 
They circled around Twilight where she hovered, eyes closed, serene. Then they divided into twin kaleidoscopes of motion. One continued circling Twilight, protecting her. The other group engulfed Sunset’s sphere of power, attaching themselves to it. They glowed with magical power as they drained it, siphoning the shield’s energy to feed and heal their mistress.
Sunset nodded to herself, and her shield blazed brighter, overloading the amethyst creations, burning them to nothing even as the planet’s life force replenished her own energy levels.
Both sorceresses faced one another again in a ruined landscape, healed and recharged, each more wary of the other than before. Twilight, hovering, surrounded by jewels and light. Sunset, glaring at her from below, engulfed in shadow and fire.
“Alright,” Sunset admitted. “That was an elegant solution.”
“Sunset, look into your heart,” Twilight pleaded. “You don’t want to do this!”
A sneer. “Don’t I?”
“Look around us, look at this desolation! If you really wanted to kill me, don’t you think I’d be dead by now?”
The fiery silhouette shook her head. “Don't kid yourself, Princess. I’m just treading carefully. This world is in a delicate state, and you’ve got too much power to fool with. You’ll be in position soon enough. And then I’ll end you.” 
Twilight gaped at her. “Really? You’d really murder me? And for what, to be a princess? You can’t be serious!”
But Sunset only laughed. “Don’t you get it? This isn’t about being an alicorn anymore. It hasn’t been for a long time!”
“What?” Twilight stared, incredulous. “Then why are you doing this at all?”
”Power, Princess! Power beyond even the dreams of gods!”
Without warning, there was a terrible roar. All conversation halted as both combatants were buffeted by a storm of whitish dust from the west. 
They weathered the powdery storm for almost a full minute. When it was mostly over, Twilight shouted, “Sunset, that was the moon! It’s ground itself into the planet somewhere over the horizon. Our combat is destroying the realm! We have to stop!”
“I agree,” Sunset called back. “And I admit it, I underestimated you! I thought you were unworthy to be an alicorn!” she gritted her teeth. “And I was wrong!”
“Then come back with me!” Twilight cried. A windbreak of compressed whitish sand stood arcing over her hastily-erected shield, a heavy drift built up against its far side. “Please, before more damage is done!”
“No. But I will offer you this.” She took a step forward as the last growl of the dust storm echoed into the horizon, her eyes staring at Twilight from a face lost to shadow. “Go home.”
Twilight stared at her in sheer disbelief. “What?”
“Go home,” Sunset repeated. “I can force the portal open. Whatever’s left of the coronet is yours, once I’m done with it. I’ll even repair it, if I can. But I won’t let you or anypony else stop me. That’s not happening.”
“But I am going to stop you,” Twilight insisted. “I have to.”
“No, you don’t. There’s no need for you to die. I… I don’t want to deprive the world of somepony like you,” Sunset said quietly, looking away. 
There was a terrible, wrenching sound, the membrane between worlds crying out as a rift of light appeared next to Twilight. 
“Take your life,” Sunset  said, “and go.”
Twilight shook her head, still staring. “You know I can’t do that.”
For a moment, Sunset seemed regretful. Then, she looked again at the disintegrating sky, the desolate countryside around her. Her eyes hardened. The tear between realms healed itself, its unearthly light extinguished. 
“Your funeral.”
Sunset’s shield flared and pulsed. Its mystic flames lashed out in a series of golden tentacles like an attacking monster from the deep. But Twilight made another winged leap, her amethyst swarm staying with her as she evaded each tendril.
“Your lack of flight control makes you unpredictable, so you’ve been using it as an asset. That’s clever,” called Sunset. “But Phaedra is my world. This is your last chance!”
“No,” Twilight said softly. “It’s yours.” 
Twilight folded her wings in, guiding her flight by will and mental visualization alone. In an instant, she was a blur surrounding Sunset, everywhere yet nowhere, a lavender hurricane, forcing the air up, up, draining the area of anything to breathe. 
Once Sunset passes out, I can imprison her somehow, cut off her ties with Phaedra and bind her magic, wait for the gate to open again…
Then a terrible shadow fell across everything with a deafening roar. Twilight had only an instant to realize what was happening before the tsunami engulfed her and the surrounding countryside for a hundred miles around, mercilessly crushing her into the ground faster than she could think, plunging her into darkness.
Checkmate.





It was pain that forced Twilight back into consciousness. She knew she hadn’t been out for long. The water was still receding into the massive crevices formed from their duel, and Sunset was walking towards her.
Twilight’s shield was gone. Probably it was the only reason she was still alive. Her butterflies, now gone as well, had been useless against such an attack. She knew that her wing was broken, she could feel some of the bone sticking out, her blood starting to matt the feathers. Her right eye was swelling shut, and each breath was a new experience in agony. 
Broken ribs, she thought vaguely. Hope not too many.
Then again, it might not matter. Whether Sunset had caused the wave or just anticipated it, she’d apparently weathered it out just fine. And now she was walking towards Twilight, her own protections also dispelled. Sunset stopped less than a foot from her fallen foe, looking down at her with an expression that was neither angry nor contemptuous, only grim. Even sad.
“You’re a joke.”
Twilight tried to speak, but only coughed weakly, tasting blood as she did so.
“Oh, relax,” Sunset scoffed. “You’re an alicorn now. You’ll be fine. 
“Besides, I don’t mean it like that,” she went on. “I said I respected you, and I do. You’ve got a good mind, though not exactly a flexible one. Granted, some of that might be your age. But you’re amazing at spell composition and combat geometry, and you’ve got a gift for magic that only comes along maybe once every few centuries, if that. Plus you’ve got heart to spare.
“But, really? After however many years in Equestria, you’re my replacement? The Princess of Friendship? Even your name: ‘Twilight Sparkle.’ It’s like the universe just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss its latest little jab at me.
“Just please,” Sunset knelt down, while Twilight strained to focus her one good eye on her, “please, just tell me you’re not her only apprentice! Tell me there’s somepony else, somepony with some genuine perception. Somepony with real self-control. Not just some sheltered, fragile, rote-memory learner ruled by sentimentality and fear. Tell me she didn’t spend all those centuries waiting just for you!”
Then, Sunset sighed and sat back. “And yet, when all is said and sifted, who does Celestia send after her precious crown?” she asked. “Her barely-out-of-training student, half-grown and just now on her own, overconfident and under-experienced!” 
Suddenly livid again, she put her face next to Twilight’s, her eyes blazing. 
“Do you want to talk about insult?” she hissed. “Do you want to talk about the ultimate contempt? Careless, short-sighted, arrogant child--!
“Really?” Twilight managed faintly, blood staining her mouth as she spoke. “Don’t you think… that’s a little harsh? You were never young? You never made mistakes?”
Sunset’s head jerked back as if she’d been slapped. For only an instant, she stared at Twilight.
And in that instant, the two of them were engulfed in violet light.





In Equestria, it was a memory spell. Powerful, but sorely limited. Luna had taught it to Twilight recently, so she could navigate dreams and help ponies heal from past trauma. Twilight had cast the spell when Sunset’s mental defenses had faltered, hoping to gain some understanding of her foe. To either reach her, or get away entirely.
But this was Phaedra. And as the spell engulfed them both, so did Sunset’s memories. Dreams were made real, the dream realm itself invading the physical plane. 
The world was an inky void now, populated by shards of emotion and light. The dreamscape had separated them, but through the spell-bond Twilight could feel Sunset hunting her. She could feel her rage and her hate, and above all her resentment at the psychic violation Twilight’s spell had caused. 
Desperately, Twilight tried to force herself to move. She collapsed with the first attempt, coughing up more blood. Something inside her ground against something else. Another something stabbed her from within. Still, she knew that if Sunset found her now there would be no mercy. 
So, Twilight crawled as best she could through memories and dreams that weren’t hers. She pulled herself forward one inch at a time, eyes closed, making helpless little mewing sounds from the pain, even as the fragmented past played out around her.
> Chapter Eight: Behind the Velvet Shadows of Phaedra
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Everything around her was a void of impossible blackness. Twilight couldn’t feel any features of the ground beneath her. She could tell she was pulling herself along some kind of flat plane, but to where, or at what possible incline, she could not guess. Meanwhile, crystalline images shifted around her without discernible pattern, each containing a different moving image. 
Memories and dreams, old and suppressed. If she could have moved properly, Twilight might have been able to find her way among them. If Sunset had been a willing recipient, they might have discussed what they found together, worked towards mending the open wounds within her soul at last.
But Twilight Sparkle was doing well to be conscious. And, as she painstakingly inched her way through the dreamscape that was Sunset Shimmer’s past, she could feel the unicorn’s resentment at these sacred wounds having been torn open against her will. Sunset was hunting her, even as Twilight was searching for a way to both survive and help her enemy. Meanwhile, shards of memories played themselves out around her, as their rightful owner searched for her among them.
Some of the fragments seemed to take place in class. Teachers, unconsciously wincing away from her, even as her adoptive parents had years before. Reviling her, tormenting her. Or, sometimes, simply understanding nothing of what she saw or thought, and punishing her for their own ignorance.





“Look at me when I talk to you. No, look at me. Honestly, Sunset, I don’t think you’re even trying…!”
“Alright, class, who thinks they’ve written a nice title for this painting? Sunset? Alright, dear, let’s see what you have there… What? Is this supposed to be some kind of joke? ‘Skull Avenger?’ I bring a nice picture of a mare admiring herself in the mirror and this is all you can do, disrupt class? No, just go out into the hall. I can see we’ll be having another talk with the Princess…”





Other fragments showed foals shying away, never playing with her, whispering when they thought she could not hear.





“There she goes. She thinks she’s so much better than the rest of us.” 
“What’s her name?”
“Who knows? I wouldn’t talk to her.”
“She’s always gettin’ in trouble…”
“It’s no wonder nopony wants her…”





Twilight’s progress through the maze of memories was getting marginally easier, now. How much of that was her will reasserting itself and helping her shift location in dream, and how much of it was her going into shock and not feeling the pain, she couldn’t be sure. Then again, the fragments themselves were also in motion. Everything was relative here. 
Another smallish shard drifted past, this one with Celestia speaking to Sunset as a small filly.





“Sunset, you could have hurt him.”
“Good!”
Celestia, visibly taken aback, whispering, “I know you don’t mean that.”
“Yes! Yes, I do!” Sunset screaming, throwing her toys, sobbing, inconsolable. Celestia gathers her up and holds her close, completely at a loss. 
The filly’s voice cracks as she cries, “I hate him! I HATE THEM ALL!”





Then, another fragment. Larger, clearer.





Sunset painting a portrait on Celestia’s chamber wall. Lovingly, painstakingly. It has to be better than the others. Yet, she must have it finished in time to dry, before Celestia comes in. Carefully, with a patience her ten years should not have granted, Sunset makes haste as slowly as she dares. She keeps coming back to the eyes. There is nothing about Celestia that is not achingly beautiful, but her eyes are her greatest glow. 
Still not good enough. Again and again, the foal tries to capture the light she loves so well.
Finally, well hidden, Sunset hears her mentor enter. She hears Celestia’s delighted gasp when she sees the new artwork on the wall. Sunset takes the warmth in her heart and snuggles it close. Someday they’ll paint together. But for right now, she’s made her Celestia happy.





Then, another fragment, larger than any other thus far: 





Sunset as an early teenager, reading in the library. The visibility spell is safer than a candle, illuminating the area for her eyes alone. She holds her breath when the guard comes by, keeping her eyes focused on nothing. Looking at someone can help them find you, after all. Then, he is gone, and her search continues.
There. The Papyrus. Something like it had to have existed. Now, to find out at last…
She reads the scroll over and over again. At first, not understanding. Then, not believing. And finally, as she rereads again and again, her breath becoming more jagged, the tears flowing more quickly.
Being a princess is reserved for a select few. Sunset had expected that. But now she knows it has nothing to do with intelligence, or magic, or even love.
Charity. Compassion. Leadership. Devotion. Optimism.
The qualities of a princess.
None of her studies matter, she realizes. None of their time together matters. Sunset just isn’t social enough. She has never belonged, no matter what. The others would never let her into their little cliques. And, so, she is out. 
Tears fall, spattering against the enchanted document as Sunset slowly realizes that, in her own ancient heart, Celestia had already decided she was unworthy. Probably years ago. The bitterness of it all rises up and chokes her.





“Enjoying the show, Princess?”
Twilight let a little gasp, but was otherwise silent. She could sense that Sunset was closer, but not what direction. She could be anywhere.
“You know, most ponies have their own lives flash before their eyes when they’re about to die. You’re the only pony I’ve ever heard of who opted for someone else’s.”
She doesn’t know where I am, Twilight thought. She’s trying to egg me on, get me to reveal my location. 
“I gotta say, I’m surprised. I never took you for the invasive type.”
Inwardly, Twilight sighed, and shrugged a little. Oh, well. If she was going to die anyway, it might as well be while trying to help somepony.
“You know that’s not why I cast that spell,” she said. “Sunset, please. Let me help you.”
“Help me?” Sunset demanded. “How? By invading my mind? By torturing me with my past?” 
“No—”
“I don’t need that kind of help, Princess.”
Nearby, an image of Sunset as a filly turned to scowl at Twilight. Other fragments also began to turn towards her, to grow into adulthood, to stare at Twilight with loathing. Spell or no spell, Sunset was taking control. Twilight could feel the unicorn’s mind seeking her out within the pseudo-dream.
“I don’t your help!” the Sunsets said as one.
“Sunset—” 
“No!” they raged. “I don’t need you! I don’t need anypony!”
“Yes, you do,” Twilight coughed. “We all do, that’s what makes us—”
Suddenly, every dream shard near Twilight was filled with Sunset’s face, surrounding Twilight with malice and rage.
“YOU THINK YOU CAN TELL ME ABOUT MY LIFE?!?” 
Twilight cowered from the onslaught of a hundred roaring Sunsets. 
“YOU THINK YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME?!?”
Helpless, Twilight curled tighter in on herself, covering herself with her wings. 
Then, something soothing. A dark blue wind blew through the area, dissolving the fragments and their malice into thousands of flakes of light and shadow, blowing them around Twilight like snow. Comforting as a breeze on a hot summer day, the azure shadow surrounded her, lifting her up, easing her pain. The void around her seemed to shift. Sunset seemed farther away now, though no less enraged. Meanwhile, Twilight’s breathing had become easier, the grinding sensations had ceased. Yet the pain was still there, dull, all-encompassing.
**It’s alright, my friend.** the wind said. **I am here now.**
“Luna!” As the wind set Twilight down, she winced and allowed it to settle her into a prone position. “I’m so glad to see you, how—”
Luna coalesced into her equine form again. 
“Do not try to move,” Luna said. “I cannot heal your wounds, I can but ease the idea of them.”
Twilight frowned. “I don’t…”
“I have aligned you body as it knows it should be,” Luna explained, “and over time your alicorn healing should take care of the rest. But do not strain yourself. Such a change is fragile and easily undone.”
“But—”
“Shhhh.” Luna said, smoothing out the younger alicorn’s mane. “Be at ease. This burden should never have been yours. Let me take it from you.”
“Luna, you have to know.” Twilight’s voice sounded weak, even to her. “She isn’t evil. Please. She’s not a villain.”
“I know that, dear one. I am not the one who needs convincing.” 
Luna looked out into the void with ancient eyes. “You have done well, better than anypony had any right to hope. But now, rest. This is become my burden, not yours.”
“But...”
“Hush,” Luna said gently. “It is already done.”





**Sunset Shimmer.** 
The voice seemed to come from everywhere, yet nowhere. It came from the shadows, and the gentle lights that cast them. It came from Sunset’s own mind. Above all, it came from within her heart.
Sunset frowned. There was no way Twilight Sparkle would be up to this. And with the whole planet in upheaval, anyone else finding her should have been impossible even without Twilight’s dream spell. 
“Who’s there?” she demanded. “How did you find me?”
**It no longer matters what enchantments you wield, nor what power you might claim as your own. Your name has been spoken to me, by one who has watched over you in your sleep. I hold it in my hooves. I hold it in my mind. There is no hiding from me now.**
Sunset’s eyes narrowed. “I see. You must be Nightmare Moon. Or should I call you Princess Luna now?”
**I am Luna.**
“Oh, and you’re going to try to stop me too?” She lowered her head, horn flaring. “Yeah. Bring it. Bring it all.”
**As you wish. But I do not come as your enemy, Sunset Shimmer.**
“Oh, right. You two just want to be friends.” Sunset cast about for any sign of her new foe, but there was only darkness. She couldn’t sense Sparkle, either. No matter. Her world, and now her dreams. Luna was underestimating her, just like everypony else. She would beat this new foe. She would find them both. And then--
**No.** The moon princess interrupted her thoughts. **I am not Twilight Sparkle. I make no such claim. I am only Luna. I am Dream, even as I am Nightmare. Yet, I will confess some sorrow for what is to come.**
“Oh, really. And why is that?”
**Because if ignorance is truly bliss, then I what I offer you is nothing but pain.**





When Sunset had stepped through the mirror, so many years ago, there had still been places in Equestria where mothers warned their foals that, if they weren’t good, Nightmare Moon would gobble them up in their dreams. In such places she was called simply the Huntress. Naughty colts and fillies were considered her rightful prey. 
But that was only a pale remnant of how long her shadow had once been. There were so many names, dating back to the ancient days of a more superstitious Equestria. And as the dreamscape reshaped itself anew, titles once used in awe and fear came to Sunset’s and Twilight’s minds unbidden. 
Silver Mistress. Mare of the Moon. Fantasia. Whisperer of Unspeakable Truths. Lady of Horror and Revelation. Mistress of Impossible Secrets. Eater of Hearts.
Before, fragments of memories had been scattered across the void, their meaning incomplete, their contexts lost. Now, Sunset’s dreams and memories were simply conjured forth for Luna’s inspection. And as the unicorn’s deepest fears and fantasies were almost casually examined under Luna’s unseen auspices, Sunset and Twilight shared a chilling realization.
This, they thought. This is why Luna was reviled by Equestria, so long ago. Rumors were still whispered that even Celestia had feared her sister, just a little bit. And that, perhaps, she was even right to do so. 
Enraged, Sunset pulled again upon the life force of Phaedra, seeking to overpower and break the enchantment that surrounded her. 
But there was no longer any spell. There was only Luna. To dispel what Luna was doing would be to dissipate Luna herself. And every attempt Sunset made was like attacking smoke with a sword, or fighting against an ocean with her hooves.
Then, Sunset sought to shroud her memories in darkness, hiding them even from herself. There were things she did not want to remember. 
Almost casually, Luna tore the dark away from the images she sought, like a blanket off a frightened child. 
That left Sunset with only one option remaining: to flee deeper into her own mind, or into the dream realm that this place had become. To seek escape from this terrible foe, to hide, to cower before the one who thought herself Sunset’s better. And that she would never do. 
So, ultimately, Sunset simply stood. Head upraised. Waiting for the interloper who dared not confront her face to face.
Damn you, she thought. Damn you to very Tartarus. Do what you will and be damned for it, I will still burn you in the end. I am stronger than my nightmares. I am stronger than you. I am Sunset Shimmer. I am no pony’s prey.
Her eyes narrowed. Hunt me, Princess, and die.
But even as Sunset sought so desperately to wrest control of her dreams back from Luna, Twilight’s heart ached. She had always quietly considered Celestia more comforting, wiser, and above all more powerful than her younger sister. And in some ways, she was. But in the arena of the mind and heart, Twilight saw that Luna was by far the mightier of the two. 
And if there is any truth to those rumors, Twilight realized sadly, if Celestia does fear her sister, even in the deepest recesses of her mind… poor Luna. 
Then again, she sighed inwardly, I’ll bet she knows a lot more about the rest of us than she ever wanted to. For there was no personal fantasy, no private fear, no forgotten memory or hurtful thought that could hide from Luna’s sight. 
And still, Twilight thought, Luna calls us ‘friend.’
At length, the memories that came into all their views were no longer mere images and fragments. They had become a shifting panorama of Sunset’s past, with Luna in control of it all. And with the rogue unicorn’s illusions stripped away like abandoned spider webs in a disused home, it was Sunset’s own voice which involuntarily supplied the narrative.





“Always reviled, always avoided. I was never Sunset, even to my peers. I was always The Princess’ Foal, The Strange One, alone even in a crowded hall. There was no place for me among them. Never accepted. Never even picked on, really. Just… shunned. 
“School? Please. You can keep your stupid books. I could have taught those courses by the time I was done. The classes were useless anyway. Well, except for the exams. Just a way to make Celestia proud of me. 
“The galas? She made me go to them. I hated them even more than school. Even the adults avoided eye contact, whispered about me when they thought I couldn’t hear. Not that surprising, really. Even my parents had thrown me away. 
“In the end, I had a choice: I could hate the world that had shut me out, or I could hate myself.
“So, I learned to despise them. All of them. I learned to revel in my strangeness. They exiled me even before the mirror. They drove me to this!”
**They?**
“They. The ponies.” Sunset’s eyes blazed with contempt. “The world.”
**And Celestia?**
“In the end…” Sunset looked away in pain, eyes closed, her voice reduced to a whisper. 
“In the end, she was one of them.”





Found at last, the ancient papyrus was held between a young Sunset’s two hooves. And with its revelation, a truth that could no longer be denied. The slow, aching realization that, in her heart, Celestia had already decided Sunset was unworthy… probably from the very beginning. 
And the final agony, the memory that Sunset had spent so long trying to forget: the sleepless and tear-filled night when she’d understood at last, as a young mare of fourteen, that Celestia simply did not love her. 
Did not, and never would.





**But you loved her.**
Sunset’s voice cried out into the void. “Yes! More than anything! All I ever wanted was to be with her! I even tried to raise the sun for her, just so she wouldn’t always have to be so alone, always so tired and so sad…” 
Sunset looked away, eye screwed shut. “But I failed!”
**She still speaks of that day. She was astounded that you came so close. And very proud.**
Sunset scoffed. “I’ll bet. The sun almost rising, my almost succeeding. Not to mention my cutie mark. I got it then, too. Did she mention that? An incomplete sunrise, always tumbling out of control. The ultimate sign of my own weakness as a foal. The perfect, permanent reminder of my failure.”
**So it was then that you began your search in earnest, for the power you desired. An alicorn’s power.**
“Yes.”
**The power to be with her.**
“I was blind,” she spat. “A child. I’ve grown up since then.”
**My sister loved you.**
Before them all, the image of Sunset’s crying 14-year-old self faded slowly back into darkness. She turned away from it.
“Never.”
**And you loved her,** Luna insisted. **Surely such love is not forgotten so quickly.**
“No, of course not. Emotion is an energy source. You can’t just destroy energy.” 
Sunset’s voice turned cold as she went on, “But you can change it. Turn it into something you can actually use.”





The images shifted again to those of the morning following Sunset’s discovery, the final confrontation between student and master. The papyrus. The accusations. The demands. Words which, once spoken, could never be unsaid. 
Celestia’s last words to her, before her banishment, her eyes blazing with anger. 
“Doesn’t anything matter to you besides magical power? Even your own life? Careless, short-sighted, arrogant child! How could I have thought you would be the one?!?” 
Heartbroken, young Sunset could barely speak. “I—”
“NO!” Celestia reared up before her, wings splayed. “I will hear no more! Get out of my sight! And do not return until you are worthy of my teachings!” 
For a heartbeat, Sunset stared at her mentor through her tears. Then, she turned and ran as fast as she could. 
Scarcely heard, even in memory, Celestia’s voice in the background, “Sunset, wait…!”
Again, the images faded into the void.





**Celestia has made many mistakes in her life. We can both attest to that.** 
Sunset snorted.
**Yet, shall you truly condemn yourself to a life in cold armour and wrath, as I did? You are well learned, surely my story is known to you. And I say to you, you stand upon the precipice even as I did, so long ago.**
“So… you’re asking me to give up.”
**No, I am beseeching you to not repeat my error!** No longer was this the voice of an impassive guide, but of an elder imploring the young. 
**I know what you are feeling, Sunset Shimmer! Well have I known the scorn of others. I, also, once made myself a prisoner of hate! But even as a child, you knew that pain had to be borne, risks had to be taken, challenges faced. And I say to you now, what you plan is not a battle worthy of you! It is only a surrender to despair. It has been ever since you fled through Starswirl’s mirror.**
Sunset stared into the abyss. “Is that all you have for me? After everything you’ve seen? That… that this is running away? That I’m making the same mistake you did? You want me to just to go back to Equestria and be a punching bag? Be a reject again? To live in the shadow of others, just settle for what everypony else sees in me?”
**No.**
Sunset shook her head violently. “But you do! You want to trick me, to keep me from my Becoming!”
**And what is it you think you are becoming, Sunset Shimmer?**
“What I always should have been! What you are! What she is! A goddess! And you know that!”
**You are wrong, Sunset Shimmer. If indeed there are gods within our world, we are not they.**
“Liar! You just want to stop me because you’re scared of what I can do!” 
Sunset’s breathing was faster now, her teeth bared. “You and Celestia, you’re all just afraid I’ll be more powerful than you. And I will be! I’ll be better than all of you!”
**And is that truly what you want? To be alone in your power?**
“It’s all I’ve got left!”
**Again, you are wrong. Celestia loves you. And there are others who will as well, if you let them.**
“STOP LYING TO ME!” Sunset screamed. “I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU, YOU STUPID, LYING WITCH!”
**Is that truly what it will take, for you to see yourself at last?**
Slowly, majestically, the void itself parted like mists. Luna appeared before Sunset, the Monarch of all Dream deliberately stepping down from her throne. She appraised the younger mare before her without scorn, fear, or regret.
“Then strike me down, Sunset Shimmer,” she said. “Show us all what kind of goddess you shall be.” 
Sunset levitated the coronet onto her brow. Her eyes and it blazed with white light as she roared, "I’LL SHOW YOU WHAT KIND OF GODDESS I’LL BE!” 
“No!” Luna cried, one hoof outstretched. “Sunset, wait!” 
But the coronet was already aglow, Sunset already surrounded by the power of her world. Luna watched in anguish as the unicorn began to change.
Sunset’s transformation was not a painless one, but she had not expected nor wanted it to be. For a moment, she was lifted up by her power, bathed in fire the colors of blood and gold. As she cried out, her back and her sides shifted and stretched. New limbs formed, new joints and muscle groups forced into being as old ones were shaped and severed, then remade. Her silhouette blossomed as these new limbs were pulled and sculpted from her own living flesh and bone, even as the realm groaned in pain.
Then, she landed on her hooves again, gasping, triumphant. New appendages shifting to either side of her in an awkward dance as newborn nerves adjusted to their appointed task. Her legs shook. But Sunset willed herself to remain standing. She refused to fall in this, her moment of triumph.
At long last, Sunset had her wings. Yet, as she inspected her craftsmanship, she saw that these were not the wings of an alicorn. They were the wings of a dragon: sweeping, powerful, membranous and barbed. 
Sunset smiled. In a way, she realized, this was better than being an alicorn. This way, she was what she had chosen to become, what she had seized by her own might and determination. 
Flush with victory, Sunset gave a wing-assisted leap upwards. It was awkward, and she careened wildly to one side. Still, she landed on an overhead shelf of stone without too much difficulty. Sunset nodded to herself, satisfied. The physical transformation had been simple enough. Now, all that remained was to complete Phaedra’s destruction, and absorb the realm’s magic into herself. 
Well, almost all. There was the matter of the other mages still on the field.
Sunset looked down at Luna. She could see Twilight Sparkle nearby, as well. How tiny they seemed from this vantage point. How insignificant, like insects.
This part would be easy.
Luna, unflinching, looked back up at Sunset. “Even now,” she said, “it is not too late.”
Then Sunset struck, adding Phaedra’s might to her own in a burst of writhing cosmic flame.
Princess Luna screamed.
> Chapter Nine: A Figure in the Glass
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Luna!”
In a flash of amethyst light, Twilight teleported to where her friend lay. She could feel something pull apart within her, some of Luna’s work giving way under the strain of even this small effort.
The thick smoke was quickly cleared by the growing winds, revealing the ruin of an alicorn’s form. Smoke continued to rise in plumes from her, and the stench of burnt flesh was overpowering. What few feathers remained on Luna’s wings were burned black, and much of her body was charred. All over her, what looked like tiny, hair-like projections protruded from the remaining tissue. Yet, even as Twilight felt herself grow cold in dread, she heard a slow, rattling breath from the burned remains. 
As Sunset stared in disbelief, Twilight tried to take Luna’s pulse, see if she could be moved. A small portion of charred red flesh sloughed off in her hoof. Twilight stared up at Sunset, eyes full of pain.
“What is wrong with you?!” she demanded. “She was trying to help you!”
But Sunset kept staring at the fallen princess. “She’s alive? But… that… that can’t be what I meant. Was it? I… No.” 
She shook her head, eyes closed. “No, of course not. I’ve… I’ve put such weakness behind me.” 
Luna managed to open her eyes, forcing herself to focus on her foe despite the pain. 
“To cherish life is no weakness,” she rasped. “See how thy heart betrays thy true nature. Stop trying to destroy thyself.” 
Luna took in another painful breath. Then, imploring, she cried, “Give up this mad quest, Sunset Shimmer! Lest thou break thy soul upon it.”
“Shut up!” Sunset’s breaths were coming faster now, as she mustered herself for the killing blow. “Okay. I can do this.”
“Sunset, no!” Twilight shouted up at her, covering her friend’s body with her wings. “You know this is wrong! Just stop this!” 
But Sunset squeezed her eyes shut, her teeth locked together. “It’ll be easy,” she said again. “I can do this. It’ll be easy.” 
Her eyes opened again, sockets overflowing with crimson fire.
“I’ll just pretend you’re Celestia.”
Eyes ablaze, Sunset Shimmer drew again upon the power of her domain. The section of stone she stood upon thrust further up and out from its cliff face like an obelisk. In the stone floor below, cracks began to form. The wind howled louder as a sudden storm gathered, its lightning illuminating her hatred. Sunset Shimmer looked down upon her prey like an equine Chernabog, ready at last to cast them down into fire. 
Beneath that glare and the fate it promised, Twilight flinched away, holding and covering Luna as best she could.
Yet, despite injuries that would have killed any normal pony several times over, Luna called upon what strength she had left. She calmly turned herself and Twilight both so that Luna was between her friend and Sunset, putting her back to the impending attack. 
Twilight whimpered a quiet, “No.” But she was too weak to fight. And Luna, even so gravely injured, was simply too strong. 
Twilight looked up at Luna, and saw her eyes were calm, serene. And, somehow, Twilight was comforted. Then, both of them closed their eyes and held one another. Luna opened what remained of her wings to shield her friend from death as best she could, even as she accepted her own death as the price for her failure. 
Then Sunset’s horn unfurled a cone of indescribable, writhing power. Even with their eyes closed, the ruby-gold blast was blinding. A continual barrage of mystical power, fusing the ground to glass as Sunset poured her power into the deaths she had ordained.
For a few seconds, it encountered a shield, and the torrent of magic sprayed to either side of it. Then, Sunset channeled more power, and her attack shattered it like glass. And still, she would not relent.
On, and on.
A shape remained within that epicenter of destruction, a shape that must not be. Drawing upon Phaedra’s living energy, Sunset poured more of her might into the continual beam of destruction. 
More power. More. More. More.
The shape was unrelenting, yet not unaffected. It caught the full brunt of Sunset’s mystic fire, absorbed it, glowing with the sheer destructive might that was being poured into it. Stone outcroppings to either side of it glowed, cracked, and were blasted away into fragments. But the shape remained. 
“Die,” snarled Sunset Shimmer. “Die… die…die…”
In time, the shape grew even brighter than the flames which assailed it. From above, it was like staring at the corona of a star, or into the heart of a sun.
And even as that thought occurred to Sunset, she stopped her assault, and stared. In wonder. Even in awe. 
And perhaps, just a little bit, in fear.
The shape that stood before her was a sphinxlike aura of white heat, shrinking gradually down towards something roughly pony-sized, the blaze of its light receding as it slowly cooled. It became an Isis, a goddess with wings splayed, an ancient being of power and majesty. 
Then, features began to be seen. 
No longer was this the Lady of Light. Gone was the gentle Guide of the Illuminating Day. For the sake of those she loved, she had set the peaceable scholar aside, reluctantly calling upon her ancient power. It was she who had come between Sunset and her prey. And it was she who had refused to fall.
Again, ancient names rose up in Sunset’s mind, only half-believed when she had read of them as a child. 
Shadow’s Bane. Many-Colored Ravager. Blinding Light. The Lady Who Burns. 
The figure’s chest still glowed white hot, like metal left in a furnace. Her eyes were calm. To either side of her, glassified stone crackled as it cooled, giving a dull red glow. It was obvious that the assault had weakened her. Yet, behind her, Luna and Twilight still lived, holding one another in her shadow.
Unflinching, Celestia stared upwards at her former student and spoke a single word.
“No.”
And, in the skies above them all, the clouds began to part.
> Chapter Ten: The Final Betrayal
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

For a moment, Sunset could only stare at her old mentor. But she recovered quickly. 
She glanced around herself, and back at Celestia. “You know, I hadn’t planned it this way. I’d thought to confront you in Equestria, after my Becoming. But… this works,” she said at last. “Your last act can be to witness my power, before Phaedra’s death and yours fuels my ascension.”
“This doesn’t have to happen.”
“Doesn’t it?” Sunset snarled. 
“Sunset, I’m asking you. Please. I don’t want to fight you. Don’t do this.”
“Oh, so now it’s please!’” Sunset’s laughter was sudden and bitter.
Then her face became a mask of rage as she said, “Don’t you remember how rare I was, how special? How I would be the one to save your sister, and the world?! It certainly wasn’t ‘please’ then, was it?
“It wasn’t until later that I found out why you’d changed your mind and locked me out.” Sunset stared at her old mentor, seething. “Your precious papyrus! I wasn’t good enough for you. It didn’t matter what I did, what I accomplished, I just wasn’t princess material! That was why you shut me out. And then, when I found out the truth, you threw me away!”
Celestia shook her head violently. “No--!”
“Liar!” Sunset cried. “No more lies! This is my world, Celestia! Mine! And no mere princess am I!” 
She unfurled her dragon’s wings magnificently, looking down on them all, crying out,  “Behold Sunset Shimmer, Queen of All Realms! Behold Sunset Shimmer, Goddess of Magic!” 
Cracks in the ground began to glow with hidden magma, lighting her eerily as Sunset’s voice rang with victory.
“Behold, Celestia, your creation!”
But Celestia’s face, while not hardened, showed only sadness and resolve. 
“A creation without pity?” she asked. “Without compassion, or mercy? No. For all my faults, I never forced you into this. My failures will always haunt me, Sunset, especially the hurts I gave you. But don’t delude yourself: each pony’s soul is their own. Whatever you become now, whatever choice you make in this moment, the responsibility is yours alone.”
There was the briefest of moments when the two of them locked eyes. Violet eyes full of determination and regret, cyan eyes full of hate. Then, Sunset attacked, screaming, launching a storm of emerald lightning at her foe and everything around her. 
The scream echoed across the barren landscape as Celestia launched herself into the air, leaving a shield of gold around her family. The electricity crawled across the golden dome like malignant vines, drawn by the ponies’ life energy, looking for a way in. But Celestia lacked such protection… and as the fingers of energy snaked rapidly through the air, most of the green lightning surged and coalesced around her, striking her through her skin and eyes, nostrils, mouth and ears, writhing through her, seeking out her vitals, tearing her apart.
It only took a second. Perhaps two. Only enough time to scream.
Sunset took in a gulping breath, almost a sob, so that she could cry out. Whether it was in triumph or in anguish, even she could not tell. Perhaps both. It is one thing to dream of killing someone, even to attempt it. It is quite another to actually kill another person. Especially someone you once loved.
But the cry caught in her throat. Celestia had, indeed, sundered. But she had sundered herself. No longer was there a mare of white with multi-colored mane. Now there were seven Celestias, each a different rainbow hue, each flying in her own spiraling trajectory.
Sunset had often privately wondered how Celestia could not merely wield but master each of the Elements of Harmony simultaneously, to affect the banishment of Nightmare Moon. Now, she thought perhaps she knew.
“Sunset, I am so sorry,” said the orange Celestia as she glided past.
“For everything,” the yellow added.
“Please,” said the green, “I don’t want to fight you. I don’t want to lose you again.”
“No!” cried Sunset, looking wildly from one to the next. “You’re just trying to trick me!”
“I couldn’t follow you,” said the violet. “The world would have died.”
“I thought you could return as easily as you left,” said the blue. “I was wrong.”
Sunset covered her ears with her hooves, voice cracking as she shrieked, “Shut up!”
“Please,” said green again. “Just come home.”
For a moment, Sunset stared at the one that had spoken, forehooves slowly lowering. “What… did you say?”
“Come home,” the green alicorn repeated. “Please.”
Sunset continued to stare, almost in wonder. First at one Celestia, then another, then another. Then, she spoke in amazement. 
“You… lying… bitch.”
“What--?” All the Celestias were taken aback, save for the orange, who simply closed her eyes in pain. 
Fire erupted around Sunset’s hooves, weaving itself upwards into a gold and crimson shield. 
“That was nice,” she smirked. “Seriously, you almost had me for a second. But you overplayed your part, Princess.” Her voice echoed slightly, flames encasing her completely as she finished: 
“You should never have pretended to care.”
“Sunset—!”
Suddenly, twin tendrils lashed out from Sunset’s fiery shield, quickly splitting into four, then eight, each one striking like whips in all directions. In response, each Celestia evaded with a grace that the Wonderbolts would have envied, each horn firing a like-colored beam of light as she did. Five of those beams were repelled by Sunset’s shield. But two, the yellow and red, passed through as if the shield weren’t even there, eliciting a scream from Phaedra’s mistress.
Red, yellow, and indigo spoke together. “No one dies today,” they said. “I won’t permit it.”
“That just means you’ll be first,” Sunset snarled. The flames of her shield turned to a brilliant silver, to better repel any of her mentor’s attacks.
The fight continued. When her stony perch was blasted apart, Sunset called forth a pillar of flame to stand upon. But battling Celestia was like battling seven different master mages, each with a different plan, all perfectly coordinated. And, while Sunset had the coronet and the power of Phaedra to call upon, Celestia had aeons of experience. A memory of every strategy that she had ever seen or had used against her. Knowledge of every spell she had ever read in the halls of the palace library.
And, when did Celestia become so fast…?
More and more, Sunset ravenously drew upon the power of the realm, hoping to crush her enemy through superior might. She’d understood immediately that finesse would not help her against such a foe. Celestia was too wise, and thought too quickly. Therefore, Sunset’s attacks were based on area effect, on devastating and overwhelming her enemy. Powerful as Celestia was, wise as she might have been, Sunset still knew the mare was not invincible. So, her best plan was to simply wear her enemy down, and then crush her. Even Celestia could not last forever.
But then again, neither could Phaedra.
Once Celestia and Sunset had begun battling in earnest, Twilight had protected both Luna and herself as best as she could. Not because Celestia had forgotten them, but because she knew that a fighter could be beaten more easily if distracted. But casting even the simplest shields had become a strain the likes of which she had rarely felt, and even bolstered by Phaedra’s power they were nowhere near as strong as they should have been. Several times, she’d had to teleport the two of them out from harm’s way as the other two mages tore apart the countryside, new cracks and fissures forming, stones and fire falling irregularly from the sky. 
Then, huge meteors began falling with greater frequency, cast-offs from the giant celestial bodies above. There was no sky at all now, only massive jewels, grinding one another into fiery debris that rained down upon the land. Twilight managed to conjure a shield to deflect the first few when they come their way. But all too quickly, truly mammoth stones began to fall, more than her weakened magic could handle. 
“Twilight,” Luna moaned, “leave me.”
“No,” insisted Twilight. “We’re going to get through this. All of us.”
“Little fool,” Luna said fondly. “I cannot die. But you—” then she broke into a fit of bloody coughs. 
Twilight teleported them both again as a fiery gemstone the size of a carriage came crashing down where they’d just been. She felt her ribs pull apart again with that last burst of energy, pop, pop, pop. 
“You’re a terrible liar,” she wheezed. 
“Lack of practice,” Luna admitted with a weak smile. “Forgive me, dear one. I had to try.”
“Well, I wasn’t lying,” Twilight insisted. “We’re getting out of this.” Although, she thought as she glanced skywards, right now I’m damned if I know how. 
As she watched in horror, a chunk of flaming emerald the size of a small house struck the indigo Celestia, breaking her back. As one, all the Celestias screamed in pain as the indigo mare fell towards the ground. 
But before impact, there was a flash of white light. Now Celestia was whole again, white coat and light-colored mane. She was obviously injured and gasping for breath, having accepted every hurt her seven selves had taken. Yet, each wound was reduced to a seventh of what it had been. Then, a burst of rainbow light and there were seven of her again… each only as injured as she had been while whole. 
Meanwhile, Sunset drank even more greedily from Phaedra, and launched another attack... even as the magic of four master magicians, the artifact they fought over, and Phaedra’s own wild power tore the tiny dimension apart.
The sea rose up like a living thing, a vast wave even greater than the one before. It roared like the father of all wendigoes, blotting out the sky, crashing down on all of them like a giant’s heel. Sunset rose above the waters like a kraken of steam and fire. Then, the red, yellow, and orange Celestias leaped from the waters, wings spread, and attacked her head on… even as the other four quickly granted gills to Twilight and Luna, and kept the torrents from dragging them both into the abyssal cracks that had torn themselves open, or even worse, out to sea. 
Twilight had managed to conjure a shield against the tsunami, even as Celestia had cast seven more over it. All had shattered, and Celestia could tell it had cost Twilight the last of her strength. The young mare had not the strength of a kitten now, bleeding from her mouth and nose, barely able to walk. And Luna was well beyond spent, eyes unfocused, her battered and burned flesh soft, bone partially exposed along her wings and legs as more of her ruined body washed away.
Even as the cool-colored Celestias were saving her family, the red, orange and yellow ones cried out to Sunset, “This is madness! Sunset, we’ve got to get out of here! We’ll all die if we don’t!”
Sunset had changed her flame shield from the sliver that deflected Celestia’s spells, to a terrible hellish black that absorbed them. 
“No! You won’t stop me! I can do this!”
Again, with three voices, Celestia beseeched her, “This isn’t worth it! Sunset, you don’t need to prove anything!”
“You think this is about you!?”
“Then stop this!”
“No!” As the waters finished receding, Sunset blasted in all directions, her shield becoming a terrible starburst of shadowy force knocking everything in the air aside.
By then, Luna and Twilight were safe again, at least for the moment. From where they crouched with her family, four Celestias looked over the injured alicorns nervously. They  dispelled the injured alicorns’ gills and tried, with their fractured power, to help their wounds… or at least stabilize them. Meanwhile, from where they had landed, yellow Celestia glanced at the horizon, red watched Sunset, and orange peered at the sky.
“Then…” the Celestias all said in unison, “I surrender.”
Sunset frowned. “What?”
There was a burst of white light, and again Celestia was re-united, hovering before her. 
“I surrender,” She repeated. “You’ve won. I ask only that you let the others go, and I’ll stay here with you. I never wanted to fight you, Sunset. And now, I won’t.”
The frown deepened. “This is another trick.”
Celestia shook her head slightly. “No. You have my word. Do whatever you want with me. Kill me. Sacrifice me. Anything you like.” 
She met Sunset’s eyes as her former student lowered her shield. 
“Just let them leave,” Celestia implored. “Please.”
In the heartbeats that followed, Celestia saw a series of emotions flood and fly across Sunset’s face. She saw her former student in the span of a few precious seconds struggle against her rage, against her hate and her love for her. She saw Sunset struggle against herself, against her own self-hatred and against her terrible, terrible sadness. But first and foremost, within that anguish, what Celestia saw most was a look of pure betrayal. 
This, Celestia realized with a start, was in Sunset’s mind the final treason. To her, this was the ultimate proof that the three princesses shared what she had always longed for, and had always been denied. This was what she truly wanted. More than wings to fly with or a crown to wear, more than long life, or even recognition at last for her prowess as a magician.
Acceptance. Friendship. And above all, love.
It was love that Sunset craved, love that she starved for… and absolutely believed she could never and would never have. A love, Celestia saw now, much like the love Sunset had silently offered her every day, so many years ago, unseen. 
She’s not going to let them go, Celestia realized. We’re all going to die here for my blindness, my thoughtlessness.
I’ve murdered them all, Sunset included.
The coronet struck the ground in front of Celestia so hard that it rang off the shaking stone. Sunset’s eyes bored into Celestia, full of fury and hate. 
“Go!” 
For an instant, Celestia could only stare. 
“Go on, get out of here!” Sunset’s voice cracked as she screamed the words. Her horn glowed and flamed brighter; the membrane between worlds added its own scream to that of the dying realm as she tore the portal open again through sheer force of will.
Celestia glanced at the portal, then back to her former pupil.
“Come with us!” she cried.
“Get out!”
“Sunset—!”
“No!”
“Please—!“
“GET OUT!”
In agony, Celestia looked from her former student to her sister, barely alive and unmoving, and back to Sunset again. She looked at Twilight, mobile, but coughing blood and barely conscious. And now that the battle was over, Celestia could feel her own exhaustion taking hold, and the many injuries she had sustained.
There was only one choice to make, and no time. And it really wasn’t a choice at all.
“Come on, sister. I have you. Twilight, hurry.” With a thought, Celestia flicked the coronet through the portal even as she gently gathered Luna in her magic and her wings, helping her to flee the hellscape that Phaedra was quickly becoming. 
Sunset leaped off her flaming pillar, leaving it to coil and vanish without her. She lunged at the alicorns clumsily on her unsteady wings, chasing them through the thickening smoke, screaming, “Get out, all of you! Leave me alone! Go on! Go! GO!” 
Then, the glow of worlds vanished in the roiling smoke, the portal closed once more. Sunset Shimmer collapsed with a sob.
“Just… just go…”





The world that was the center of Phaedra cracked and quaked, huge fragments of shattered gems shifting and falling within their craters. Fissures opened and poured out steam and more black smoke. The sky filled with fire as the sun devoured the other orbiting bodies, ending the background fall of stones. 
Despite the oppressive heat from above and below, Sunset Shimmer was breathing hard where she lay, trying not to hyperventilate, her muzzle soaked in tears.
“It’s okay,” she told herself. “I’m okay with this. It’s fine.” 
She took a shuddering breath, released it.
“This is how it all started. It figures this is how it would end.” 
She swallowed miserably, screwed her eyes shut. Her voice was thin and strained, holding in her heart’s agony.
“I just came full circle. That’s all. And that makes sense. It makes sense. It does.” 
She rolled onto her side with a sob. “It’s fine,” she managed. She curled up, covering her head with her dragon’s wings. Her voice small, she repeated, “It’s fine.” 
While the world around her ended, she took another shaky breath and released it. There was another choking sob, but she stifled it immediately… even as a small part of herself wondered why she was bothering anymore. Pride, maybe. 
She willed herself into stillness. Yet her voice was almost inaudible, even to herself. 
“I wonder if it’ll hurt?”
The terrible heat continued to grow, the light penetrating her eyelids. Then, darkness. 
But it was not death. Only a shadow that had fallen over her as she waited. 
An alicorn’s shadow. 
And it was Twilight’s voice that spoke.
“No.”
> Chapter Eleven: The Mirror Cracked
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunset stared up at her in sheer disbelief. “What?”
“I said, no! I’m not leaving you here!”
Twilight looked down at her former enemy. Then she blinked, half-shaking her head, renewing her concentration on remaining standing. One wing was again dragging the ground, twisted, worse than useless. One eye was swollen shut. Her coat was wet from a thousand small cuts, matted with bloody soot. She could feel the pain blazing in her chest again with every breath. Every suppressed cough tasted of copper.
Sunset jumped to her hooves, wings flaring. “Are you crazy?”
“Maybe we both are! But I’m not leaving you alone!”
“You have to!” 
Sunset shoved the alicorn away. But instead of stumbling back, Twilight simply fell, her injured leg breaking the rest of the way with a sickening sound.
Yet, Twilight looked up at Sunset, blood trailing through her gritted teeth. “No!”
Fissures in the stony ground opened wider in several places near them, sending flames into the air. Molten lava began to spurt and bubble up around them.
Again, Sunset forced the portal open, the tear in reality’s fabric screaming in violation beside Twilight. All she had to do now was roll.
“Get out of here!” Sunset screamed.
“No!”
“I don’t want you here!”
But instead of rolling through the rift, Twilight forced herself back to her hooves. The world swam before her in a dark haze as she turned away from the portal, and towards Sunset Shimmer. Head lowered in determination, Twilight screwed her one good eye shut against the pain.
“I’m not leaving without you!” 
Then, as another fit of bloody coughs forced Twilight to her knees, the mountainside behind Sunset exploded outward. Sunset had just enough time to glance over her shoulder and see an ocean of lava rising above them both.





The mirror flashed, its unearthly light again filling the chamber.
The glass rippled like water for the barest of instants before parting. Even as Celestia’s mouth passed through the portal, she was saying, “Get them medical help, immediately!” The two sisters were emerging into the crystal sanctum, the elder cradling the younger in her wings and the glow of her magic. Before them, the coronet skipped along the floor, forgotten and ignored.
But Celestia saw she needn’t have bothered speaking. Twilight’s friends were already in motion, no doubt forewarned by Pinkie Pie’s unique senses, and the sanctum was a hive of activity. Fluttershy was already at the mirror, immediately helping Celestia move Luna onto a waiting stretcher. Rarity and Applejack had taken charge, Applejack barking out basic instructions to the servants in attendance, with Rarity and Spike coordinating the details. Gently, but with professional speed, four crystal guards carried Luna away to where skilled doctors waited, the Princess of Night finally allowing herself to slip into unconsciousness.
“And you, too, Princess.”
With effort, Celestia dragged her eyes from where her sister had been taken. It was Fluttershy, of course. Soft-spoken as always, but still glaring at her sternly.
Celestia opened her mouth to refuse, but instead looked around herself, her despair evaporating into alarm and horror. “No, where’s Twilight--!”
At that instant, the mirror flashed yet again. Every pair of eyes immediately turned to the dimensional portal as it glowed and wavered. But it was not the anticipated tri-colored mane of Twilight Sparkle that parted its surface. 
Rather, it was red, and gold.
The room fell silent as Sunset Shimmer stepped into the room. She was pulling something with her, enshrouded in her leathern wings. The mirror’s flash subsided, its surface rejoined again.
And then, with a terrible sound, the mirror cracked. The cracks spread out across the glass with a groan like fracturing ice. Then it burst apart, releasing flame from within itself. The flames were blinding white, and all save Celestia were forced to shield their eyes. An instant later, there was only smoke dissipating out from an empty frame.
Even as crystal ponies and the Mane Six stepped forward to deal with this new threat, Sunset opened her wings. There was Twilight, unconscious, slumped awkwardly in one yellow arm.
Celestia gasped and stepped forward, helping Fluttershy take Twilight’s unconscious form and lay her on another stretcher. Then, she looked back at her former student in tearful gratitude.
“Thank you.”
Sunset said nothing, her face stone.
Then, Celestia was helping other crystal ponies transport the soot-covered Princess of Friendship out of the sanctum, and to medical aid. 
Sunset Shimmer, also covered in ash and soot, looked around at the rest of the room. She furled her dragon’s wings, meeting the ponies around her gaze for gaze, unwavering. Her voice was somewhat hoarse from smoke, but still perfectly clear.
“Well?”
> Chapter Twelve: After Inferno, There Shall Be Stars
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The world was a disorienting haze of blues and browns.
Twilight tried to focus her eyes, and failed. Just trying was an exhausting effort. She drifted back to sleep, even as somepony spoke her name.





The room was in better focus this time. The walls and ceiling were crystal, with a chandelier of deep brown oak and glowing gemstones above her. The nearby window was closed, the morning glare making it temporarily opaque. She was in a bed, probably the deepest and most comfy bed ever, under layers of blankets and comforters. 
After a few seconds, she remembered. This was her room. In the Crystal Castle.
Every muscle in her body practically screamed to stretch out and move. Yet, even as she tried to shift her position, warning twinges from her arm and wing, even in her chest, warned her against the idea.
I could just go back to sleep, she thought. I could even enter a healing mantra first, I have the energy now. I’d probably wake up in much better shape…
“Hey, hon.”
Twilight managed a weak smile. “Hey.”
“Doctors say you’re gonna be just fine.” 
Applejack smiled down at Twilight with the most beautiful green eyes. 
Yeah, Twilight thought, I can stay awake a little while longer.
Applejack glanced over to a side table. “Here, can you use some water?”
She brought Twilight a small cup with a straw in it, and Twilight obediently took a few small sips. Immediately, her eyes widened.
Applejack frowned. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just…” Twilight stared around herself in amazement. “Wow, I am absolutely starving.”
Applejack chuckled. “Yeah, the Sisters said you might be. Somethin’ about alicorn metabolism, an’ whatnot? Anyway, ain’t exactly a shock, injuries you took. Woulda killed just about anypony else…” She trailed off. “Hey, you okay?”
Twilight looked away. “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah,” Twilight sighed. “Just… processing.”
“C’mon Twi,” Applejack said softly. “This is me.”
Just then, the door opened. 
“Hey, everypony,” Pinkie Pie cheered, “she’s awake!”
As their friends piled into the room, Applejack looked for an instant like she was about to say something. Instead, she settled for, “I’ll go see ‘bout gettin’ some grub sent up,” and stepped out.
Twilight winced as she removed the bandages on her limbs, despite Fluttershy and Rarity’s protests. She still hurt, but she could tell nothing was broken anymore. Moving herself into a sitting position, she glanced at the nearby mirror. An alicorn with a slightly black eye and sunken cheeks looked back at her tiredly. 
Spike hugged her gently, and she returned the careful embrace. They had all been so worried about her, despite the Sisters’ assurances. After all, she’d been asleep for almost twelve hours.
She stared at them as Applejack stepped back into the room. “Twelve… hours?”
“I know, right?” Rainbow grinned. “We thought you’d never wake up.”
“Cooks’re whompin’ up some vittles for ya,” Applejack said as she re-entered. “Might take a lil bit afore it gets here, but the princesses had ‘em on standby. Said you’re up faster than they’d expected, an’… hey, you okay?”
“Peachy,” Twilight muttered. Then, she frowned. “Wait, what about Sunset Shimmer?”
“Oh, she’s fine, darling,” Rarity waved the concerns away. “Don’t worry about her. She was the least hurt of all of you.”
Twilight glanced down. “I’m not so sure about that.”
“Fulla spit’n’vinegar, anyway,” said Applejack. “Even gave Flutters here a buncha sass on her way out, just fer talkin’ to her.”
“Oh, I don’t think it was that—” Fluttershy started.
“Shoot, girl. You’d think you’d tried to slap her ‘steada talk to her, way she acted.”
Fluttershy looked at the floor. “Well, I mean… maybe she didn’t mean to. After all, she’s been gone a long time. She might not be used to ponies being nice to her.”
“Oh, come on!” Rainbow scoffed. “She was brought up by Princess Celestia. How not-used to it can she be?”
“You know, let’s not get into that right now,” Twilight said. “Sunset’s had a bad run in a lot of ways. I’m…” 
She sighed, adding, “I’m not going into detail. It’s not my story to tell. But I’d really appreciate it if everypony gave her the benefit of the doubt.”
There was a brief silence. Then, Rainbow Dash cocked an eyebrow.
“Seriously?”
“She did bring Twilight back,” Applejack said softly. “An’ if Twi says to give the gal a chance, that’s good enough for me.”
“But she’s the whole reason she even had to…!” Rainbow looked at Applejack, then at Twilight. Then she rolled her eyes. “Fine.”
Twilight smiled. “Thanks, you guys.”
“But what happened over there? Why, when you came back, you looked just terrible!” Rarity blinked. “No offense, of course.”
“None taken,” Twilight replied, still smiling. “Well, when I first got there, it was so beautiful…”
Twilight told her tale, only occasionally interrupted by questions here and there. She didn’t even remember eating the tray of food when it was brought, and when she looked down at it in confusion, Applejack chuckled and assured her that more was on the way. As she went on, Twilight omitted any details about Sunset’s past, and she downplayed her own injuries as much as she could. But other than that, the Princess of Friendship shared with her closest companions every detail of her adventure, finishing up just as another tray laden with food was brought in. 
“Oh, that sounds so marvelous,” Rarity sighed. “Bejeweled trees, gem-studded skies… oh, to see such a sight, even for a moment.” Then she sighed again, this time with regret. “Such a pity it was all destroyed by that ruffian.”
“And you flew how high?” Rainbow marveled. Then she shook her head, grinning. “Okay, new goal. I am not getting outflown by the newbie. Not on any planet.” 
She winked at Twilight, who was already devouring the food before her, adding, “Look out, Princess Luna. Your moon may have been high before, but now you’ve got Rainbow Dash to deal with!”
While the seven friends laughed, they were not unobserved. On the other side of the sun-splashed window, on a long, winding outer walkway, three mares watched the tableau in silence. 
At first, there had only been one, watching from the nighttime shadows, unseen. Then, the second had joined her after raising the dawn, a presence all but ignored in grudging silence. Finally had come the third, blue eyes narrowed slightly in the unaccustomed light as the moon slowly set in the sun’s rays.
Standing together, they could hear nothing through the thick crystal pane. But the strong bonds between Twilight and her friends, as well as her guaranteed recovery, were evident enough.
“So,” Sunset said at last. “Guess you’ve got a knack for selecting idiot apprentices.”
Celestia looked at her, a thousand memories and regrets assailing her mind. “Never.”
“Yeah, well.” She turned away, dragon wings twitching slightly. “I’ll show myself out.”
“Sunset, wait. Please.”
“We’ve got nothing to say to each other.”
“But—”
“No!” Sunset rounded on Celestia, snarling, “No, don’t you dare, don’t you dare try to explain yourself! Don’t you dare try to make me understand, or tell me how I made my own choices, or how the mirror sealed shut behind me and you couldn’t get through, or how you thought the opening on that side of the mirror was as easy to find as this one! You don’t have the right, Princess. I don’t care that you were all that was keeping night and day going! I don’t care that the world would have ended without you, or that I went through that mirror myself! I was fourteen! Fourteen!!
“And if it had been you,” she went on, her voice still rising, “if our situations had been reversed, I would have frozen the sun into ice. I would have re-ordered time. I would have invented some new magic, some never before dreamed-of enchantment. I would have done whatever it took, no matter the cost, to someway, somehow, bring you back safe!” 
She took a few fast breaths before the tearful words exploded out of her against her will, unwanted and unbidden, 
“BECAUSE I FUCKING LOVED YOU, YOU BITCH!”
Sunset stood before her old teacher, trembling with the force of her outburst.
Celestia’s voice was soft. “I loved you, too. I still do. But I wasn’t going to say any of those things.” 
She closed her eyes, lowering her head. “I was going to beg for your forgiveness.”
For a moment, Sunset stared at her. Then she shook her head, refusing to acknowledge her tears by wiping them away. 
“No,” she said. “Not now. Maybe not ever.”
“Sunset Shimmer.” 
Luna’s voice was gentle as she spoke, and her steps were gentle as she moved from Celestia’s side towards her former foe. “There is a place for you here, if you wish it.”
Sunset stared, her voice a shocked whisper. “What?”  
“Of all I said to you in Phaedra, nothing was a lie. Moreover, this is not the land you left behind, generations agone. That which your heart seeks, you may yet find in Equestria.” She tilted her head slightly. “It may be that you only need to look.”
“I…” 
Sunset shook her head, and tried again. “I… Uh, look, I… no.” 
She looked down.
“No,” she said again. “I... I can’t. There is no place for me here. I know that now.” 
Turning, Sunset began to walk away, adding, “Maybe there never was.”
“Sunset.” Celestia’s voice was calm. Pleading.
Her back to them both, Sunset stiffened.
“Please don’t go.”
Still facing away, Sunset shook her head once more. “Look. I didn’t kill any of you, and I brought you back your student. But don’t read too much into this, Princess. We’re not family, and we’re not friends.” 
She began walking again, her voice barely audible. 
“I’m just tired of hating you,” she said. “That’s all.”
Celestia stepped towards Sunset, her mouth open as if to speak yet again. But there was a burst of blue-green fire, and Sunset was gone.
Celestia sighed, and looked outward towards the clouds. “Where did she go?”
Luna, meanwhile, was studying the spot where Sunset had just stood. Interesting, she thought. 
But out loud, she said, “Somewhere familiar. Somewhere she would feel safe. With her ability, probably somewhere in Canterlot, at least for the moment. Ultimately, she will seek out someplace remote and private, to try out her new wings and consider what she’s gone through. What she has lost, and what she has gained.”
“Will she come back?” 
“That I cannot say,” Luna replied. “Nor can I say for certain whether, if she does, it shall be as friend or foe. But I think she is not an enemy, unless we make of her one.” 
She looked to Celestia, still examining the clouds. “She is very hurt, my sister, and very tired. She needs time. Give her that, at least for now.”
Celestia nodded, feeling suddenly very old. “Of course.” 
For a time, the two of them went back to watching the friends in Twilight’s room converse, laugh, and tease one another.
At last, Luna spoke again. “Her parents know of her return, of course?”
Celestia nodded, still watching Twilight’s growing strength with relief. “They should be here any time.”
“Good.” Luna considered, then said, “You realize, having been thus surprised once, she will now memorize every aspect of every magical object ever created by Starswirl. And likely the other great mages, as well.”
Celestia smiled. “That does sound like the Twilight thing to do.”
“It does. Will you not go to her?”
“In a little while. I want her to have time with her friends first. And besides, she still recovers more slowly than we do. One more visitor would only tire her out faster.”
Luna looked at her sister quizzically. “And yet, are you not also her friend?”
“Of course I am.” Celestia looked back Luna, still smiling herself. “But I’m your friend, too. And I wanted to talk with you first.”
Luna nodded. “And I wish to speak with you, as well, though my timing may be poor.” 
She lowered her head, eyes closed. “I wanted to say that I am sorry. There were things I said before I left that I should not have said. I was angry.”
“And I think you should have said everything you said, exactly as you said them,” Celestia answered her. “And probably much sooner than you did.” 
Stepping over to her younger sister, she continued, “And the things I said to you… I meant them. All of them. I’m lost without you, Luna. And I need you to be willing to speak your mind to me. About everything. Not because I’m a leader and I need your advice.” 
She reached out, gently raised Luna’s head to face her. “But because I love you, and I need my sister. I know we’ll never be as close as we—oof!”
Luna tackle-hugged Celestia, eyes closed in a smile of sheer joy. After a moment, Celestia hugged her back just as hard.
A short time later, they were walking side by side.
“How are Cadence and Shining Armor doing?” Celestia asked.
“They yet sleep, but they should recover their strength within a another day at most. Their resilience, especially when with one another, is truly amazing.” 
Luna smiled, adding, “Even as they recover, they aid one another, sharing each other’s dreams.” 
While Celestia smiled as well, Luna continued, “And what they have done between them, maintaining the order of night and day for so many weeks…” She shook her head. “It is unprecedented.” 
“It is,” Celestia agreed. “But then, so were we.” 
The Princess of Day looked up at the leaves blowing by, orange, red, and gold.
“The times are changing, at last,” she said. “It’s good to see. The world has stood still for too long.”
“Yes,” Luna said. “Still, the coming years shall not be easy.”
“Oh, I know.” Celestia sighed. “What was it you always said, ‘There are only two truly perfect seasons…’”
“‘…the one that is left behind, and the one that is yet to come.’ Yes.”
“Every sign points towards another time of troubles ahead, for all of us.”
“Well, true, there is that,” Luna agreed. “But such times are tidal: they come and they go. I was referring to Twilight Sparkle. And not just the journey that must now lie before her. Even now, word is spreading throughout the land of the door that has been newly opened.”
“And it was Twilight who opened it,” said Celestia
“Yes. Though in a sense, so has Sunset.”
Celestia frowned. “I was speaking of the Alicorn Papyrus.”
“As was I. One might see it in terms of a magic ritual, but we both know it is a process, a quest. Such a transformation comes from trial and accomplishment, from the heart, and above all from one’s own magic. Personal evolution is no mere spell.”
Celestia’s frown deepened. “Of course it isn’t. How could it be?”
“But very well, let us take your example. In just a few short years, the bearer of the Element of Magic has become the Princess of Magic—”
“…Friendship…”
“…Yessss… and so now I wonder, who else might have already set their hooves on such a journey? Who else, after being gathered together by this unique pony and her unprecedented gifts, have placed themselves as guardians of their fellow ponies?” 
Luna glanced at her sister as she continued, “Who else embody not only the finest aspects of a noble heart but, through the embracing of their own deepest natures and the sympathetic use of ancient, deep, transformative magic, act as living representations of… elements?”
Eyes closed in satisfaction, Celestia trotted ahead a little. “Who else indeed?”
Luna’s eyes widened for an instant, before narrowing in a cunning smile. “Yes, I remember now why I stopped playing chess against you. But I wonder if, in your extreme wisdom and far-sightedness, you have considered the implications of one day having a Princess of Loyalty…”
“I have,” answered a very self-satisfied princess.
“…a Princess of Truth…”
“She’ll be good for us all.”
“…a Princess of Laughter…”
Celestia stopped short, staring straight ahead. “Princess Pinkie!” 
Then she blinked, eyes widening in horror. “Perhaps I did act in haste.”
Luna smugly cantered ahead of her. “Too late now, events are already in motion!”
Celestia jogged to catch up. “No, wait, let’s discuss this…”
Enjoying herself immensely, Luna continued, “It is a stroke of brilliance, I must confess. To have so much surprise and disorder personified in a princess!”
Celestia groaned.
“When will she discover her wings and horn, I wonder?” Luna mused aloud. “And how will it happen? I can only imagine the personal growth that awaits us.”
“Oh, sweet ancestors before us, what have I wrought upon us all?”
Yet, Luna sobered again, slowing her gait. “And… there… is something else.”
“What?”
“Something that has been troubling me, actually, since well before my exile to the moon.”
Celestia glanced at her sister, completely serious again. “Oh?”
Luna sighed, then shook her head. “You know you have my deepest regard, and I love you dearly. But…” 
She reached out with a wing, lifted some of Celestia’s mane away from her head. 
“Honestly, Celestia… pastels?”
They stopped walking.
For the merest of seconds, Celestia was genuinely shocked. But she recovered quickly, snatching her forelock back, affecting indignation. 
“Oh, no, I am not taking beauty advice from Princess Fashion Disaster—!”
Luna rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. What are you on about now?”
Celestia stared at her with overly wide-eyed intensity, in a semi-mockery of Luna’s most formal voice. 
“There must always be… black,” she pronounced. “And… black. And what about… oh, but of course: more… black.” 
Rolling her own eyes, Celestia resumed in a normal voice, “And then, just for contrast… off-black.”
“Excuse me?” Shoving her sister, Luna retorted, ““Black is a very fine colour, I will have you know!”
“Oh, sure. If by fine you mean mind-crushingly dull!” Celestia shoved back.
Luna made an indignant noise, protesting, “Black is the colour of mystery, of the night, of jet and ebony—” 
“…and mud, and dead tree, and dirt…”
“Mud is dirt, oh wise one.” Luna lifted her own mane with her hoof. “And besides, this is not black, it is blue!”
“No, it’s a pastel! Ha!” Celestia cried, biting at Luna’s mane.
“Ow! Tia!”
Luna lunged, but her elder sister took to the air.
“Ha, you missed!”
“Oh,” Luna’s eyes narrowed as she unfurled her wings. “Oh, it is on…”
She leaped, but again Celestia nimbly dodged out of the way. It quickly devolved into a chase game, both of them laughing, flying and pursuing one another among the spires of the Crystal Castle. Ultimately, they soared upwards, circling each other and the great building itself, their laughter echoing above the palace.





At one point, in Twilight’s room, the Two Sisters’ laughter was plainly heard as they buzzed past the window, completely absorbed in their game.
Applejack smiled. “Those the two you were so worried about, Twi?”
Twilight smiled back. “I think they’ll be okay.”
“Great!” Pinkie exclaimed. “That means I can unpack the favors for the Everybody Recovering From Their Epic Battle In Another World That Got Totally Destroyed And They Barely Made It Back Alive But Now Everybody’s Gonna Be Okay Reunion After-Party!”
Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “That sounds… oddly specific.”
Pinkie grinned. “Don’t underestimate my power.”
“We never do, darling,” Rarity assured her.
Still grinning, Pinkie put an arm around Rarity’s shoulders. “And Rarity’s doing the ice sculptures!”
Rarity’s eyes were suddenly as big as dinner plates as she stared at her friend in horror.
“What?”
Pinkie Pie winked. “Just kidding!”
As the seven friends laughed, the two most ancient and venerable rulers in the world continued to circle and tag one another, much to the amazement of the crystal ponies below. Most often, they were thought to be immortal. Some had even tried to worship them as gods. But whatever loneliness and love the future might hold, no matter the pains and joys that awaited them, for now, they were simply sisters. Laughing, playing, and – at least for the moment – being young once more.


THE END