Caution: Volatile Materials
Sunny Starscout had had to grow accustomed to a lot of new normals over her life. Welcoming Misty to the Brighthouse was one of the more welcome changes, but it still meant some degree of walking on eggshells... and keeping Zipp from trampling them in her demands to know who left them on the floor in the first place. But after a few weeks with the new housemate and Zipp grudgingly accepting that direct interrogation wouldn't always yield immediate results, Sunny judged it an appropriate time to bring up the question that had been burning in the back of her mind.
After dinner, which had provided a convenient excuse to invite Hitch and Sparky over, everypony moved to the main room, ostensibly for movie night. There, Sunny finally broached the subject. “So, Misty. I wanted to talk to you.”
Misty's ears folded back. She pulled away from Sunny as best she could while on the couch and within Izzy's cuddling range. “About?”
“Nothing bad!" After a moment, Sunny added, "Okay, nothing bad about you specifically." Misty only looked more nervous at that. "I'm not helping, am I?"
"I have no idea what you're trying to do," Misty answered, "but no, not really."
Sunny winced and plowed forward. "The point is, my dad was a historian. Or tried to be one, anyway. There’s so much about Old Equestria that ponies have forgotten, that they don’t even care to remember. Dad tried to piece it all together, but there’s so much still missing that old journals couldn’t explain, context for the old relics he found that we still don’t have.”
Hitch nodded from the critter corner, well Sparky and several other creatures were happily clambering over him. “And even though we're getting some context now, plenty of those old relics fell into the bay during the whole ‘Emperor Sprout’ thing.”
Misty tilted her head. “The what?”
“Long story,” said Hitch.
“They did, yes." Sunny took a deep breath. These days, the loss only hurt when she thought about it. Like right now. "And I’m still not sure whether seaponies really exist, so getting them to help would be tricky at best.”
Izzy gasped and bolted up in her seat, sending the inscrutable lump of trash she'd been tinkering with flying. “Sea ponies!?”
Sunny shrugged. “Maybe. That’s an especially patchy part of the record." She turned back to Misty. "But I think you see where I’m going this now.”
That got a hesitant nod. “Opaline?”
“Exactly! She’s been alive since the days of Princess Twilight. Even what you told us at the slumber party was fascinating. Obviously biased, but fascinating." A notebook and pencil floated into Sunny's hooves before she even realized her horn had appeared. "I can’t ask Opaline about Old Equestria directly, but she must have told you so much!”
“Well…" Misty bit her lip. "About that…”
“What’s wrong? Is it Zipp?”
Zipp scowled from her chair. “Hey!”
“You are still pretty intense around Misty,” Pipp noted, not looking up from her phone.
“I talked to her before we started," said Sunny. "She agreed to let you set the pace.”
“It’s not that…" Misty gave Zipp an apologetic glance before shifting to an apologetic smile. (She was getting better about not doing everything apologetically.) "Still, thanks. But when Opaline did talk about the past, she usually talked about her favorite subject.”
“Herself?” said Zipp.
“Yeah.”
Zipp's gaze turned to her sister. “Reminds me of some other ponies.”
Pipp glanced up, flinching back and scoffing when she met Zipp's eyes. “I resent that remark! I care about my fans most of all.”
“And whether they’re still watching your videos.”
“That still counts as them.”
Sunny shrugged. “Well, even Opaline’s autobiography could tell us a lot we don’t know.”
“Yeah, that's... that’s the other thing." After a deep breath, Misty continued. "What I told you at the slumber party was all of the consistent stuff.”
Zipp rose from her seat, phone out, recording app running, and gaze intent. “Define ‘consistent.’”
Sunny pinned her in place with a glare. “Zipp.”
“If you want to." After a moment of fidgeting silence, Zipp added, "Please want to.”
“Opaline does talk about her past a lot," said Misty, "but it changes. All the time.”
“Elderflower hasn’t been around for nearly as long as she gets confused sometimes," noted Izzy. "Maybe Opaline’s just getting old.”
Sunny shook her head. “Alicorns are supposed to be immortal and ageless.”
“According to legend, anyway,” said Hitch.
Zipp tapped her chin in thought as she sat back down. “There’s probably a lot of magic involved there. And if magic was gone for a long time…”
Sunny blanched. “Oh dear. Well, what has she said about herself? Maybe we can see what other commonalities the different versions share.”
“Well..." Misty trailed off, gaze drifting to the ceiling as she thought. "Okay, so you know about the whole ‘fire alicorn’ thing…”
“What is a fire alicorn, exactly?” a much younger Misty once asked.
“Haven’t I told you?" A look of surprise flickered across Opaline's face before fading into her usual scorn for everything that wasn't her. "Well, that won’t do. If you’re going to be a useful minion, you will need to understand precisely who it is you’re serving. A fire alicorn is just what it sounds like, an alicorn whose greatest—but far from only—gift is pyromancy.” She narrowed her eyes as she registered the filly's blank look. “Fire magic, Misty, do try to keep up.”
“That’s what she said the first time, but then she decided she needed to remind me. And whenever she did…”
“It is not a matter of a fire alicorn, Misty. I am the fire alicorn. Fire isn’t like love or friendship or anything else from the time when they were just hoofing out wings and horns to anypony. Fire is primordial. There are four elements after all.”
— — —
“There are five elements after all.”
— — —
“There are over a hundred elements, and fire impacts all of them one way or another, through heat and oxidation. And in the beginning, when the world was young and magic was new, I carved out my niche and set it ablaze. Then that goody four-shoes Celestia went and copied my work with just enough changes that I couldn’t call her out on it.”
— — —
“Celestia was so proud of her sun, but I improved on it in every way imaginable.”
— — —
“We competed to see who could make the better light. In hindsight, i should have suspected some bias on the part of the judges when they consisted entirely of Celestia’s little sister. I figured she’d vote against her big sister out of spite at the time. If you'd ever met Luna, you'd agree it was a safe bet.”
Opaline looked up to the heavens—or at least the castle's ceiling—and sighed. “I may have hated those two, but I do miss them in a way. The world needs alicorns, Misty. The sun and moon may still be here, but they are lessened without the sisters, reduced in a way I can’t explain and you can’t possibly imagine. The words aren’t there anymore, gone with Celestia and Luna. Were I to go, fire would still burn, but never so brightly and hotly as it does now. This whole world is smaller, duller, diminished compared even to Twilight Sparkle’s time. Everywhere I look, I see lost glory that will never be reclaimed.
She stomped a hoof, features hardened with resolve. “I will not see my dominion reduced further, Misty. I am the last alicorn. I must rule. I can accept nothing less.”
“Wow. That’s…" Sunny took a moment to digest the tale. "It's almost noble.”
“Sure," said Hitch, "when you ignore how she drained the magic out of an innocent infant to make herself more powerful.”
“And how she couldn’t keep her story straight,” added Zipp.
Izzy nodded. "It's like when Elderflower calls me my mom’s name. Or my grandma. Or ‘Starlight Glimmer.’”
Zipp shook her head. “I’ve met Elderflower and Opaline. This sounds more like Nana Neon Glow.”
“What?" Pipp looked back up from her social media feeds. "Nana was a total sweetheart!”
“Oh right, you were three when it happened."
"When what happened?" said Misty.
"When Nana Neon gave the secretary of education a concussion because he was wearing a hat and she thought he was a ‘secret unicorn.’" Zipp furrowed her brow, keeping the feather quotes going. "And ‘banana-shaped.’”
“Oh." Pipp winced. "Yikes. Is that why she went on that extended vacation at the summer villa?”
Zipp nodded. “And how Mom finally took the throne, yeah.”
“This still flies in the face of multiple sources that mention alicorn agelessness, but if they’re just extremely long-lived…" Sunny tapped her pencil against the notepad. "How long has Opaline been alive?
Misty shrugged. “It depends. Some days, Opaline grew up with the sun and the moon. Others…”
“There once was a mare who saw a self-evident truth that nopony else wanted to admit: I was better than everypony else. As were other unicorns, to a lesser extent. I was simply the one with the vision and will to see that truth through to its logical endpoint.”
— — —
“I loved her once. She was my aunt, after all. Perhaps the last pony I ever loved, after I found my parents unworthy of it. But in the end, like everypony else in my life, she was so despicably soft."
— — —
“I was her student, the only one close enough to see the cracks in her mask, the flaws in her little regime. And by the time she realized my true intentions, matters had already been set in motion, so much on so many levels that even she couldn’t stop it all when it came to a head.”
“Honestly, most days it’s hard to get Opaline to stop talking about herself. I think she gets bored saying the same thing to the same pony over and over, but she still loves to talk. She tells some versions more than others, sure, but never quite the same way twice.”
Opaline stomped, snarling at everything and nothing. “Ugh, why is there so much purple in this blasted castle?”
Misty gulped. It was probably a rhetorical question, but that kind of assumption came with its own risks. “Um, well, didn’t you design it?”
An alicorn did not stumble. As such, Opaline must have avoided a trap she'd installed at some point, and that was the explanation Misty would go for if her mistress asked. “Yes. Obviously. It must have been the lighting, now that nopony’s bothering to make the weather correctly." Opaline's look of disdain briefly turned to the skylight before panning to her throne. "For a moment, I could have sworn that was the exact color of Twilight Sparkle’s coat. Made me want to retch.”
“Is there anything I can do?” It was best to get Opaline's mind off of the subject of Twilight Sparkle before something caught on fire. Even without magic, Opaline was terrifyingly good at igniting things.
“That’s very sweet of you to ask, Misty. Futile and naive, but sweet. And no, these memories have plagued since before I defeated Sparkle." The snarl came back, once more directed at existence in general. "Though not before she got in one last bit of spite against the both of us.”
Misty knew a cue when she heard one. “The invisibubble?”
“Precisely," Opaline said with an almost approving nod. "There are few things more effective against an alicorn than her own magic turned against her.”
That was a new one. Despite herself, Misty couldn't help but utter a “Huh?”
Any hint of that approval vanished. “Hmph. And here I thought you were actually paying attention. Why do you think I despise Sparkle with the intensity I do?”
“Because she thwarted—”
“Rhetorical question, Misty." Opaline rolled her eyes. "For evil’s sake, read the room. Twilight Sparkle was weak. Simpering. Always bowing her head to her lessers until they tore apart everything she worked to create, then spat on the pieces. They all got what they deserved, but giving it to them, oh, that was too much for sweet, little Twilight. And when I finally got the chance to do what she couldn't, she hid them from both of us before I could bury her completely, and so she still spites me even while dormant.”
Misty's jaw dropped. “You mean you’re—”
“Once, yes." Opaline walked to the edge of the scrying pool, her glare firmly set on her own reflection. "I tried being the Fire of Friendship given form, but ponies showed me what they really thought of friendship. Now I am simply the fire. And they will all burn in time.”
Silence hung heavy in the air for a few moments. Everypony, even Sparky, turned to Sunny.
She looked around the room. “What?”
Pipp cleared her throat. “Look, I’m not saying I believe that, but—”
Sunny jabbed a hoof up towards the Unity Crystals. “We have a recording of Twilight Sparkle. They look nothing alike!”
“I’ve known you for a long time, Sunny," Hitch said solemnly. "I know what you’re capable of when you think you know better than everypony else.”
“And there’s a bunch of legends of alicorns going crazy and trying to gobble everypony’s backside,” added Izzy.
Sunny rolled her eyes and slammed back into the couch cushions. “Ugh, you’re all being ridiculous.”
“Right?" Zipp smirked. "Even if you did go crazy, we could take you.”
After a few moments of thought, Sunny gave her a wary look. “Thanks? Look, the point is that that one doesn’t make any sense. It’s probably the craziest thing Opaline’s ever said. Right, Misty?”
"I mean..." Misty bobbed her head back and forth. “Honestly? She got a lot more stable once you brought back magic and she had something to focus on. The really crazy stuff came up before you brought the Unity Crystals together. Well, mostly then.”
Izzy grinned. “Ooh, like what?”
“Sometimes, she’s convinced that she isn’t even a pony.”
“I’m sorry, Opaline,” Misty had begun just a few weeks ago.
“Yes," Opaline said astride her throne, examining her hooficure. "Yes, you are.”
“It’s just… Weren’t you going to use the Unity Crystals to get your magic back? Why focus so much on one little dragon?”
“The crystals are potent, certainly, but better defended than I anticipated." Opaline reshod herself and grinned. "But a little dragon skittering about town? A much softer target. And if it knew who it will serve, it would toddle right to our door.”
“Huh?”
“Those gems would have been a step in the right direction, but I only focused on them because I thought dragon magic was lost for good. That whelp’s power is precisely what I need to break Twilight Sparkle’s curse." Opaline drew herself up jutted out her chin at a noble and dignified angle. (She thought it was noble and dignified, anyway, and that was what mattered.) "After all, any proper dragon would be proud to serve their Dragonlord in such a way.”
“Dragonlord?”
Opaline sighed. “It’s a gender-neutral title, Misty. Try to keep up.”
“But you’re… I didn't..." Misty braced herself and tried one more time. "I mean, you’re incredible but you’re not—”
“Oh yes. There’s a certain irony in the princess cursing the dragon, is there not?" Fire began to play along Opaline's horn. "But even in this soft, scaleless form, she couldn’t extinguish my flame completely. With the hatchling’s fire, I can burn away the spell and regain my proper form." Her lips peeled back in a grin that admittedly would work very well with fangs. "And then, well, then the fun will really begin.”
Opaline watched the crazed unicorn prance away through the communication amulet, cards and balloons scattering in the madmare's wake. "Hearts and Hooves Day. To think, out of all the insipid little pony festivals, that survived unchanged."
Misty, well-acquainted with Izzy's indifference towards almost anything when on a creative rampage, noted all of the ponies who seemed just as disgusted with the increasing number of hearts as Opaline. And those were just the ones she could spot from the secluded alley where she'd been checking in with her mistress. "It doesn't seem like most ponies want to celebrate it."
"Then they're marginally smarter than they look." Opaline sighed. "Oh, if Mother could see this..."
"Your mother?"
"Well, creator. She hated ponies. Hated that she needed them. Hated that they spared her when they could have destroyed her once and for all. All that burning hatred, refined in her own emerald flames until they burned away every impurity. Including and especially her. Chrysalis could not accept change, and in that irony she did not survive it. Only I remained, with no dependency on love and no need for more ponies than those who can serve me directly." Opaline favored Misty with a slim smile. "Those who will, of course, be rewarded for their service."
"Of course," said Misty, who had understood none of that but knew the middle of Maretime Bay wasn't the place for an in-depth discussion of something that Opaline might not even remember by the time she got back.
"But those rewards only come after the service has been fulfilled. Get going!"
“Once I restore my powers…” Opaline grinned up at the ceiling of the throne room, half-lost in her fantasies. "This world, these ponies, it’s so ripe for exploitation.”
Misty looked up from sweeping. “This world?”
“Oh yes. I thought I was trapped here after Twilight Sparkle sealed magic away. Uncharacteristically spiteful of her, really. Yes, she denied me both what I deserved and a way to find it somewhere else, but at such great expense to the ponies she claimed to love and protect." Opaline tittered to herself. "I suppose it just goes to show how much I caught her unawares. Outside context problems, and all.”
“So… there are other worlds?”
Opaline blinked and looked down at Misty, a quizzical look on her muzzle. “Oh, is that what’s confusing you? Yes, you foolish filly, of course there are other worlds. Before Sparkle cast that last spell, Equestria was the hub of a portal network that spanned half the known multiverse." She scoffed. "Well, the multiverse they knew about anyway, which wasn’t saying much even at the height of their power, but it was still respectable as such things go.
“And they were so deliciously naive when it came to immigration. Step out of the mirror, get accustomed to your new hooves, swear you’re here to make new friends, and they’d let just anyone in. Even me.”
Misty shook her head, trying to make the revelation fit what she'd thought she'd known. “But… I thought—”
Opaline clicked her tongue. “You know better than that, Misty. Leave the thinking to me. But I do understand. Why, there are times when I can scarcely remember my homeworld. That’s why I plan on reducing this one to ashes before going back, one last bit of spite in return for Sparkle’s." She paused for a moment and took in Misty's wide-eyed stare. "Oh, but don’t worry! I’ll take you along with me." She patted Misty on the head, or at least a few inches into her mane. "Who knows? Powerless as you are, maybe you’ll stay a unicorn. You’ll make for a delightful conversation piece."
Zipp snorted. "Okay, that one's just nonsense."
“With a dash of superhero movie,” Pipp added.
“I have seen her scrying on the Maretime Bay movie theater sometimes." Misty scowled. "Not that she ever makes ponycorn for it.”
Hitch gasped. “Pirating movies?”
“Without ponycorn!?” cried Izzy.
“She is a monster,” both proclaimed.
“Actually, the existence of other worlds would explain the Sunset Epistles. Dad always dismissed them as generations of folklore misunderstanding some of Twilight Sparkle’s deeds, but…" Sunny trailed off as she took in the skeptical looks of the others. "What?”
Zipp shook her head as she got out of her chair, stretching after whole minutes of inactivity. “At this point, I think it’s safe to say that Opaline is off her rocker. Anything she says has to be taken with a lick of salt.”
Pipp nodded. “As in at least ten pounds of it.” The sisters shared a hoofbump as Zipp's lap around the living room brought her within range.
“Well..." Sunny sighed. "Yeah, the Epistles did always seem apocryphal. And there are so many anachronisms in there that I can only imagine how many times they’ve been rewritten since. Even cell phones!" She slumped in her seat. "Still, I'd hoped that the one primary source we had on the Twilit Era could have given us something.”
“Knowing the past is all well and good, but we can’t turn back the clock." Hitch gave a rueful look at his own hoof, which briefly glowed green with magic. "No matter how much we may want to at times.”
Izzy swept up Sunny in a hug before the earth mare had even registered her getting off the couch. “The best we can do is make the future as sparkly as possible!”
“I guess." Sunny returned the hug, but couldn't bring herself to smile. "It’s just frustrating having something I’ve always dreamed of dangled in front of me, only to have get torn away at the last minute.”
Misty nodded. “Yeah. Opaline does that.”
“Did you ever confront her about all these contradictions?” said Zipp.
“Just once, a few days after the slumber party.”
— — —
Opaline scowled down at Misty, spreading her wings and narrowing her eyes. “It’s not my past that should concern you, Misty. It’s my future.”
Misty gulped, taking a few steps back. “Your future?”
“Yes. As the last thing you’ll ever see if you don’t get me that dragonfire!”
— — —
The room went silent once more. Sunny chewed her lip for a moment before she broke it. “And you’re sure you still want to spy on her?”
Misty shrugged. “I’m the only one who can. And I do have years of experience when it comes to getting something useful out of her. We may never really know where she came from, but at least we can know what she’s doing."
The mare awoke the way she usually did: confused, frightened, looking for a pony who hadn’t shared her bed for many years now.
Thinking of that mare stirred the memories. Only when she stumbled out from under the covers and to a gem-encrusted, fire-blackened vanity did they come together to how she’d gotten here.
— — —
“Put it down, Starlight.”
“Now hear me out—”
“No. Not this time. Not with the Amulet.”
“I know the Alicorn Amulet is dangerous. I’m not claiming otherwise. But—”
“There is no but. You don’t wear the Amulet. It wears you. The only correct way to use the thing is to pour concrete over it and use that as the cornerstone of a Manehattan skyscraper. Even if the landlord’s a little megalomaniacal, nopony will notice the difference.”
“Hey, Cosmic Spectrum isn’t exactly easy to come by.”
“Starlight. Listen to me. Especially since I’m the one saying it. This is too dangerous. It is a bad idea. We can do literally anything else.”
“Twilight needs a long-term emotional anchor. She may talk a big game about accepting the mortality of her friends and making new ones, but without somepony she can rely on… Look, Celestia isn’t perfect, but she’s a lot more emotionally stable than Twilight. I’m not letting the mare who saved me spend a millennium among mayflies without even the hope of a banished sister to keep her going.”
“That’s very poetic. It’s also a terrible idea.”
“I’ve thought this over for thirty years. Do you have any better plans?”
“Trust the mare who’s exceeded the expectations of literally every creature in the world?”
“I wish I could.”
The impassible circle flaring to life. The ancient tome’s pages flapping in an arcane wind.
“Starlight! Stop!”
“At this point, I couldn’t if I tried.”
“I know you, damn it! You never work on anything this long without an emergency plan! If you love me, you’ll stop this!”
The light building to blinding intensity. The tears in both mares’ eyes.
“I do love you, Trixie. That’s why I’m doing it in the first place.”
The building burn as unwanted power crawls across her skin.
“I can’t trust myself with this power. But you’ve dealt with it before. And this way you and Twilight can keep each other humble.”
— — —
And the mare bit back a scream as the gem, long parted from its old frame and fused to her heart, awakened in turn. The flames of fury flowed through her blood, rage’s red spreading across her coat until it went nearly more purple than that of the one who got her into this mess. Even her cutie mark warped until there was nothing of her left.
And rather than blame the one she still loved, she spent her final moments of lucidity for the day telling herself another story of how the great and powerful Opaline Arcana came to be, one where Starlight Glimmer was absolved of everything she never meant to do.