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RogerDodger
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Long Live the Queen
I don’t know why this happened to me. I'm really just a grown-up history student who happens to enjoy field trips. I’m the least qualified and least experienced of my entire team, and half the time when we go out on these oh-so-exciting expeditions, I’m relegated to the role of packmule, if you’ll forgive my language. While the team was making history writing about the war with the Dust Devils, I was busy carrying things too heavy for Dr. Gale and maybe making coffee. Even Empress Dawn and Princess Reverie commended me “for my good work” with the group, seemingly unaware that they were congratulating me for being a glorified intern.
I’m the low pony on the pole. Compared to my colleagues I’m a complete nopony. Yet I’m the one she chose...
Let me explain. It was a cold January afternoon, and I was lugging heavy packs not down a dusty ancient road or through wild underbrush, but across a nice hardwood floor. Although I didn't say a word the entire time, the young librarian at the front desk was conspicuously keeping her bespectacled eyes on me. I have since decided to believe that she was checking me out instead of wondering if I belonged there. I’m not bad looking; a unicorn like her, not yet middle aged, hardened and weathered from years doing work in environments that most ponies with my level of education do their best to avoid at all costs.
A senior curator met me as I made my way down to the end of the new wing. The results of my last few visits here were in plain sight: A gaping hole in the ground next to a pile of pried-out floorboards in a neat stack. "Thanks for accommodating me," I offered as I looped a length of rope around my waist and prepared to lower myself into the shaft. "This is the end of a very exciting journey for my team and I." I grinned at that, trying to show her my enthusiasm.
She answered me with a wordless nod. She did not roll her eyes at me this time, and in turn I did not flash her the exaggerated what-you-gonna-do-about-it grin that I had last time.
I was so eager to leave the stiff old mule behind that it was actually a relief to start my descent through the narrow, downward-sloping tunnel that we’d discovered a few weeks prior. Normally I hated spending time in this little space, barely wide enough to walk through without bumping the electric lamps bracketed to the walls every twenty feet. The generator had been given its own little excavated-away space near the Treasure Chamber, as we’d come to affectionately call it, and it made a terrific noise, but the Mayor had forbidden us from putting it nearer the entrance, where that noise would’ve echoed throughout the library instead of just the dig site.
We’d already cleared out the Treasure Chamber. Everything about the place had been photographed and analyzed, and all but a few artifacts had been taken either to the lab, or to the Empress’ vaults, or in one particular case to Princess Nocturne’s private collection, after we’d finished photographing and testing it, of course. With the tapestries, books, and fossilized plants removed, it now resembled nothing more than a featureless grey stone box, except for the relief of an alicorn that covered most of the far wall. My job today was to take a final round of measurements and photographs, and then pack everything in- generator, lights, and all.
Not glamorous work, but I was glad for the chance to say goodbye to the monarch adorning the eastern wall. The entire time we’d worked down here, she’d smiled down at us with that eroded, pupil-less stare. Her body was raised in a rearing position, her wings were raised in a U-shaped arc, and her hooves were positioned in front of her body, holding a smooth round ball with a design on it that had been long since destroyed by time.
I stared at her for a long time, hearing only the thrum of the generator and the buzz of the lamps, knowing that this would be the last time. I did not know her name yet, but I felt like she was watching me. Not just because of her appearance, either—I was sure, somehow, that her sightless eyes were locked on me alone. I never expressed this to the rest of the team; maybe I should have, but I doubt they would have listened.
So it is a good thing none of them were around to stop me from approaching her, reaching out, and touching the orb that she held in her hooves, as if I could somehow attract the stone queen's attention and ask her who she was and why somepony had hidden her beneath this library.
One touch. That was all it took. The alicorn in the wall felt my touch, and surged forward to engulf me. Magic flowed forth from her wings, her horn, and her stony eyes like streamers of silver-violet stardust. I should have shouted out in surprise, but instead I only stared in openmouthed awe. Where the sheets of magic brushed my body, they sent shocks of what felt like refined reality through me. Each wisp of light whispered to me of another time, another place, another Equestria where ponies played, loved, and hurt just as they did here and today.
As the magic of an ancient goddess engulfed me, I left my body where it stood with hoof against wall and began to see what she wanted me to see.
Solemn silence fell over the audience as the sudden appearance of a brilliant pillar of magic announced the arrival of the ruler of ponykind. When the obscuring light faded, she who raised and lowered the sun stood on on the grass with wings outstretched and head raised in traditional posture. She was every inch the majestic alicorn, beautiful and powerful, benevolent and regal.
The dress she wore had been designed by a true virtuoso—warm pink and gold ribbons danced across its draped folds through a wash of star-studded blue. The enchanted fabric glinted in the dusky light.
Day's end. Sunset. For this ceremony, it was especially appropriate.
The assembled Element-Bearers bowed their heads respectfully before taking their assigned places, yielding center stage to the Queen. They stood shoulder to shoulder, like guards forming a mismatched, colorful rank of five.
Their Queen stood with her back to them, facing the crowd. She did not speak at first, but instead raised her muzzle to the heavens, her horn flaring to life like a beacon to guide Equestria through the coming night. Her mane, billowing wide in a breeze that only it observed, glowed with the colors of the evening sky all around. She had planned it just so: The assembly was facing due west and the clouds had been arranged to her exact specifications, to ensure that was this the most glorious sunset Equestria had ever seen, followed by the perfect, somber, comforting twilight.
It wasn’t the ending of an age-- not exactly. This was a simple ceremony for an ordinary unicorn, or at least that was what she had requested in her will. Everypony here knew otherwise, of course. The deceased had never been an ordinary unicorn.
The Queen closed her eyes as she moved the very heavens with her magic, just as she had been taught. She had performed the same spell untold thousands of times now, but now she thought she could feel her teacher's presence by her side, chiding her, keeping her safe, just like her first time lowering the sun.
“Good,” a determined voice said from somewhere behind. “Pool the power. Let it build, like air filling a balloon. Feel the ecstacy, the majesty of your magic!”
Her horn flared like a dying star as she poured her being into the most powerful attempt yet. Her eyes were shut tight and her mouth was open in a silent scream, as if she were in pain—yet the glow of magic burned brighter and brighter with every moment, until—
“Enough!” Celestia commanded. “Cancel it!”
Twilight’s horn suddenly winked out, and she collapsed to the floor. “I’m sorry, Princess,” she sighed, resting her cheek on the stone tiles lining the observatory.
“If you’d lost control of the charge, the consequences would have been disastrous. You need to tell me when you’re nearing your limit!”
“It was stronger than last time!” Twilight pleaded, looking up at Celestia with a mix of frustration and disappointment. “That could have been it!”
“Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said patiently, helping Twilight to her feet with a gentle nudge, “This spell is unlike anything you have ever attempted. Have faith in yourself. You can do this, even if you can’t do it on your first try.”
“I was so close, but I just didn’t have the power! I put in everything and it wasn’t enough!” Twilight turned her head away from her mentor, eyes shut again, teeth gritted. “If you’re going to tell me I have to stop for today, then I’ll go to the library and find some way to amplify my power. There has to be a way, and I will find it.”
There was a beat of silence before Celestia spoke. “You are the finest example of unicorn magic the world has seen in generations,” she said, resting a wing gently on Twilight’s back. “The techniques you will find in the library were meant to elevate ordinary ponies to your level. They can offer you nothing.”
Another pause, as Twilight let out a long, shuddering sigh.
“What’s happening with my training?” She asked, staring up directly into her ruler and instructor’s eyes with a pleading expression. “This isn’t the same kind of training at all! Instead of flowers and enchantment you’re teaching me force fields and trying to get me to move things a hundred times my weight, and now this... whatever this spell is. Princess, please, what’s going on?”
Twilight grimaced bitterly at the results of her words. Celestia had grown distant, standing regally upright and staring through the observatory roof to where she had set the sun burning in the sky. “The day will come soon when you need these skills, Twilight Sparkle,” she replied. “A delicate caress is precious not because of its light touch, but because of the restrained power behind it. So it is with magic. You have learned to manipulate gently. Now you must learn strength.”
Heat. Unbearable, pressing, scorching heat filled the air, and orange glare covered everything from walls to trees, making it look like the sky had caught fire. The streets were empty and Equestria had been gripped by a deathly silence; even the birds themselves were oppressed by the heat.
The sun was falling. Already twice its normal size, it was only a matter of time before the damage became irreversible. There was perhaps one hour before dry grasses would start to ignite. And fatalities... fatalities might have already begun.
Twilight stepped onto the palace’s balcony, alone.
Her pupil-less eyes stared down the oversized, furious sun, glowing with fury to match.
Her horn blazed. An orb of light formed at its tip, then quickly grew until it was the size of a beach ball, then the size of a pony, then the size of a house. Its surface did not shimmer, but was as smooth and featureless as that of a glass marble. It glowed the most blinding white imaginable, yet released no heat and refused even to illuminate the sharp shadows nearby-- all of its power stayed strictly within its bounds. It grew to the size of a barn.
And then it ruptured, exploding into a spiderweb of threads that expanded for the tiniest fraction of a half-second before their mistress forced them to fly upwards, towards their target. Each one anchored one of its ends to Twilight’s horn and then plunged into the sky, where it wrapped around the sun, netting it with energy.
The heat subsided, gradually. One by one, doors opened and ponies looked outside to see that their lives—their world—had been saved. But when they looked to the Princess’ balcony to thank their savior, they would not see her, only her student. Princess Celestia lay in her bed, unconscious and exhausted, lovingly tucked in under a thin sheet of satin.
The day after the ceremony, the Queen had arranged for a meeting with Lulu. A simple affair, just as the former regent would have wanted. Coffee and biscuits in a posh Canterlot cafe.
“Is it strange being without her?” She asked Lulu. “It had been such a long time, after all, and now... you’re without her, for the first time.”
Lulu smiled, as she always tended to do when presented with a difficult question. The wrinkles on her face were deep, but the mare beneath them was as lively and as graceful as ever. “It is strange,” she replied, “But I understand your question, and I feel no grief. She always told me that she was only sorry that she would never see me without her.”
“That sounds terrible!” The Queen furrowed her brow. “You mean she wanted to know what it would be like for you? Why?”
“Our destinies were always intertwined. For me, the journey began when I was hardly older than you were when we first met on that Summer Sun Celebration, so long ago.”
“Not long ago for you, I’m sure.”
“Allow me the vernacular,” Lulu chided. “It was a long time ago, not for you and I, but for an aging pony.” She smiled again, and her fading powder-blue mane was tossed by a sudden breeze.
As Lulu’s mane blew out in the air, the Queen imagined it billowing regally again, not hair but a portal to a strange sky studded with stars. Then it was over, and Lulu had a simple blue mane again.
“Your Majesty, you must understand. I am happy that my Sister has passed.”
“What?” The Queen failed to contain her shock.
“Was the ceremony not beautiful? Did remembering her, writing the final words in the book of her life, not please you, your Majesty?” Lulu’s wings fluttered involuntarily as she stared off into the sky, as if she could see her sister there, smiling back.
“No!” The lavender ruler’s face fell. “I was heartbroken, Lun... I was heartbroken, Lulu!”
“I am not. And she would scold you, if she could see you now.” The navy blue pegasus sitting across from the Queen stood, still smiling, and pushed her chair in. She still had the same Cutie Mark, though it had lost some of its meaning now.
“You mean,” said the Queen darkly, “that Prin...”
“Tia,” Lulu interrupted. “I mean that Tia has gone to a reward that she has waited for for many centuries. I only hope that I may join her when my own time comes, but if we are to be separated for eternity, I can rest knowing that neither of us has regrets. No regrets for our eons of life, and no regrets for the precious few more years we took in the process of taking our leave.”
The Queen said nothing. Lulu circled the table to nuzzle her ruler and old friend. “You consider yourself fortunate that you were able to take this journey with your five friends. I know this. And perhaps you are right. As well as allies, they will be a link to your past. But...”
Lulu crossed behind her Queen’s back to address her again from her left side. “When have you heard Tia or I talk about when we were young?“
Still no response. Lulu gave the Queen a kiss on the cheek before turning to leave. “That world is dust, your Majesty. Someday soon, I will be, too. Try to be happy for me.”
“The deed is done and cannot be undone. Twilight Sparkle, are you prepared to embrace your destiny?” Celestia recited solemnly, her steps echoing throughout the cave. The partial, magical light threw shadows across the faces of the eight assembled ponies
“I am,” Twilight replied.
“Rarity. Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy. Applejack. Pinkie Pie. Are you prepared to accompany your friend on her journey?”
“I am,” they said in unison.
“Twilight Sparkle, child of Canterlot, student of Princess Celestia, bearer of the Element of Magic and curator of the Ponyville Library, step forward.”
Twilight did so. A heart-shaped sigil had been drawn on the ground in the center of the chamber, and Twilight stood on its center while her friends formed an even circle around her. Celestia and Luna stood within the circle, addressing Twilight from both sides.
“Twilight Sparkle, tonight marks your last night as a mortal pony. When this ceremony is completed, your privilege and duty will be to serve and protect the whole of Equestria and ponykind,” Luna said.
“Ponies have been ruled by friendship, protected by love, since the beginning of the world. Now this responsibility falls to you. The title you bear will be a heavy one-- heavier even than ours, but a true Queen will be equal to the task.” Celestia spoke in a deep tone, occasionally glancing to the five other Elements of Harmony who stood at the perimeter.
Celestia and Luna simultaneously circled in front of Twilight, staring her down. She did not wither, but stood taller. Her heart raced, but wasn’t that to be expected? No need to be afraid... she had been trained for this, and in some ways, she had been born for this. She shifted her hindquarters imperceptibly, and with them her Cutie Mark, unseen in the poor light.
The heart at her feet flared pink and flickered as if with firelight. The chamber and the assembled ponies were bathed in magical light.
“Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said, “You stand on the very spot where the Heartfire, the Fire of Friendship that is born into every new foal, was kindled. It has chosen you as its bearer, just as it chose us, long ago.”
“With your heart, stand firm against darkness, unrelenting, unyielding.” As Celestia said these words, Twilight thought she felt a warming sensation in her chest, powerful and somehow familiar, as if she’d felt it before, though she knew she never had.
“With your horn, cast light into the dark corners of the world, to make them safe for your little ones, large and small, now and forever.”
“With your wings—” Twilight gasped as she felt a powerful vibrating sensation behind her shoulders— “soar over the land like a banner of hope, and beat back the oncoming storm.”
“With this crown, embrace your new existence, and become the rightful Queen.”
The fire of friendship encircling Twilight’s feet flared brighter. In the brightening light she saw her friends shuffling about in confusion and excitement-- Rainbow Dash crossing her eyes to get a look at her horn, Rarity fluttering her wings, Pinkie Pie looking rather excited about the whole matter.
Those sights were soon forgotten, though, as Twilight saw Celestia and Luna’s retreating faces. There was a happiness in their eyes that Twilight had never seen before. Their smiles were unreadable, and as they turned to leave, Twilight saw something that turned her stomach and would haunt her for many more years.
Celestia’s wings were beginning to shrink into her back, shedding feathers in a trail of brilliant white. As they fell, they disappeared where they touched the ground, leaving no evidence that they had ever been there. Before she disappeared around the corner, Luna turned her head and smiled at Twilight. Her head lacked a horn.
Horrified, Twilight started to follow, but was stopped by a hug from Fluttershy. “Twilight!” her pegasus—no, her alicorn friend squealed. “We’re so proud of you!”
“Thanks, girls,” Twilight laughed, spreading her wings to wrap around her friends as they piled onto her, one by one. Her smile went from forced to genuine as she felt Applejack’s muscular form slide up alongside her. “Thanks for everything.” She felt a wetness against her shoulder. Rainbow Dash was crying. Soon, so was she.
My name is Twilight Sparkle. You will know me as Queen Twilight-- if you know me at all. I created this cache so that the world might know my master and friend Princess Celestia and her sister Princess Luna. It is my hope that someday a brave explorer or wise scholar will find this place, and remember. I’ve collected a few personal belongings from each of the other five Elements of Harmony and preserved them here along with notes written in a language that I think will be easily translated even in two, three, four thousand years. For all I know, the Equestrian language might be nothing at all like it was in my time! Fortunately, the memory encoding in this capsule should make it so that anypony who accesses it should be able to understand my age’s syntactical patterns so long as...
I digress. Explorer, what you’ve just seen is the story of another Queen from another age. My friends and I shared many adventures, many happy and sad times, both before my anointment and after, but perhaps it is best if those things die with us.
Whether you tell your fellows what you have found here is up to you. Whether these events end up recorded in some prestigious journal or simply carried in a single pony’s heart until the end of his days, it is the same. Stories die. Ponies pass on. Books turn to dust. But beauty, and the hearts that we touch, carry on for eternity.
I was standing in an empty stone room buried deep under the earth, with my hoof against the wall. The grinding, blaring sound of the generator was making it hard to think.
I slowly lowered my hoof from the stone-relief portrait and stood on all fours again.
Trembling, tears running down my cheeks, I knelt in reverence before the last remaining evidence that there had even been a Queen Twilight Sparkle.
I’m the low pony on the pole. Compared to my colleagues I’m a complete nopony. Yet I’m the one she chose...
Let me explain. It was a cold January afternoon, and I was lugging heavy packs not down a dusty ancient road or through wild underbrush, but across a nice hardwood floor. Although I didn't say a word the entire time, the young librarian at the front desk was conspicuously keeping her bespectacled eyes on me. I have since decided to believe that she was checking me out instead of wondering if I belonged there. I’m not bad looking; a unicorn like her, not yet middle aged, hardened and weathered from years doing work in environments that most ponies with my level of education do their best to avoid at all costs.
A senior curator met me as I made my way down to the end of the new wing. The results of my last few visits here were in plain sight: A gaping hole in the ground next to a pile of pried-out floorboards in a neat stack. "Thanks for accommodating me," I offered as I looped a length of rope around my waist and prepared to lower myself into the shaft. "This is the end of a very exciting journey for my team and I." I grinned at that, trying to show her my enthusiasm.
She answered me with a wordless nod. She did not roll her eyes at me this time, and in turn I did not flash her the exaggerated what-you-gonna-do-about-it grin that I had last time.
I was so eager to leave the stiff old mule behind that it was actually a relief to start my descent through the narrow, downward-sloping tunnel that we’d discovered a few weeks prior. Normally I hated spending time in this little space, barely wide enough to walk through without bumping the electric lamps bracketed to the walls every twenty feet. The generator had been given its own little excavated-away space near the Treasure Chamber, as we’d come to affectionately call it, and it made a terrific noise, but the Mayor had forbidden us from putting it nearer the entrance, where that noise would’ve echoed throughout the library instead of just the dig site.
We’d already cleared out the Treasure Chamber. Everything about the place had been photographed and analyzed, and all but a few artifacts had been taken either to the lab, or to the Empress’ vaults, or in one particular case to Princess Nocturne’s private collection, after we’d finished photographing and testing it, of course. With the tapestries, books, and fossilized plants removed, it now resembled nothing more than a featureless grey stone box, except for the relief of an alicorn that covered most of the far wall. My job today was to take a final round of measurements and photographs, and then pack everything in- generator, lights, and all.
Not glamorous work, but I was glad for the chance to say goodbye to the monarch adorning the eastern wall. The entire time we’d worked down here, she’d smiled down at us with that eroded, pupil-less stare. Her body was raised in a rearing position, her wings were raised in a U-shaped arc, and her hooves were positioned in front of her body, holding a smooth round ball with a design on it that had been long since destroyed by time.
I stared at her for a long time, hearing only the thrum of the generator and the buzz of the lamps, knowing that this would be the last time. I did not know her name yet, but I felt like she was watching me. Not just because of her appearance, either—I was sure, somehow, that her sightless eyes were locked on me alone. I never expressed this to the rest of the team; maybe I should have, but I doubt they would have listened.
So it is a good thing none of them were around to stop me from approaching her, reaching out, and touching the orb that she held in her hooves, as if I could somehow attract the stone queen's attention and ask her who she was and why somepony had hidden her beneath this library.
One touch. That was all it took. The alicorn in the wall felt my touch, and surged forward to engulf me. Magic flowed forth from her wings, her horn, and her stony eyes like streamers of silver-violet stardust. I should have shouted out in surprise, but instead I only stared in openmouthed awe. Where the sheets of magic brushed my body, they sent shocks of what felt like refined reality through me. Each wisp of light whispered to me of another time, another place, another Equestria where ponies played, loved, and hurt just as they did here and today.
As the magic of an ancient goddess engulfed me, I left my body where it stood with hoof against wall and began to see what she wanted me to see.
Solemn silence fell over the audience as the sudden appearance of a brilliant pillar of magic announced the arrival of the ruler of ponykind. When the obscuring light faded, she who raised and lowered the sun stood on on the grass with wings outstretched and head raised in traditional posture. She was every inch the majestic alicorn, beautiful and powerful, benevolent and regal.
The dress she wore had been designed by a true virtuoso—warm pink and gold ribbons danced across its draped folds through a wash of star-studded blue. The enchanted fabric glinted in the dusky light.
Day's end. Sunset. For this ceremony, it was especially appropriate.
The assembled Element-Bearers bowed their heads respectfully before taking their assigned places, yielding center stage to the Queen. They stood shoulder to shoulder, like guards forming a mismatched, colorful rank of five.
Their Queen stood with her back to them, facing the crowd. She did not speak at first, but instead raised her muzzle to the heavens, her horn flaring to life like a beacon to guide Equestria through the coming night. Her mane, billowing wide in a breeze that only it observed, glowed with the colors of the evening sky all around. She had planned it just so: The assembly was facing due west and the clouds had been arranged to her exact specifications, to ensure that was this the most glorious sunset Equestria had ever seen, followed by the perfect, somber, comforting twilight.
It wasn’t the ending of an age-- not exactly. This was a simple ceremony for an ordinary unicorn, or at least that was what she had requested in her will. Everypony here knew otherwise, of course. The deceased had never been an ordinary unicorn.
The Queen closed her eyes as she moved the very heavens with her magic, just as she had been taught. She had performed the same spell untold thousands of times now, but now she thought she could feel her teacher's presence by her side, chiding her, keeping her safe, just like her first time lowering the sun.
“Good,” a determined voice said from somewhere behind. “Pool the power. Let it build, like air filling a balloon. Feel the ecstacy, the majesty of your magic!”
Her horn flared like a dying star as she poured her being into the most powerful attempt yet. Her eyes were shut tight and her mouth was open in a silent scream, as if she were in pain—yet the glow of magic burned brighter and brighter with every moment, until—
“Enough!” Celestia commanded. “Cancel it!”
Twilight’s horn suddenly winked out, and she collapsed to the floor. “I’m sorry, Princess,” she sighed, resting her cheek on the stone tiles lining the observatory.
“If you’d lost control of the charge, the consequences would have been disastrous. You need to tell me when you’re nearing your limit!”
“It was stronger than last time!” Twilight pleaded, looking up at Celestia with a mix of frustration and disappointment. “That could have been it!”
“Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said patiently, helping Twilight to her feet with a gentle nudge, “This spell is unlike anything you have ever attempted. Have faith in yourself. You can do this, even if you can’t do it on your first try.”
“I was so close, but I just didn’t have the power! I put in everything and it wasn’t enough!” Twilight turned her head away from her mentor, eyes shut again, teeth gritted. “If you’re going to tell me I have to stop for today, then I’ll go to the library and find some way to amplify my power. There has to be a way, and I will find it.”
There was a beat of silence before Celestia spoke. “You are the finest example of unicorn magic the world has seen in generations,” she said, resting a wing gently on Twilight’s back. “The techniques you will find in the library were meant to elevate ordinary ponies to your level. They can offer you nothing.”
Another pause, as Twilight let out a long, shuddering sigh.
“What’s happening with my training?” She asked, staring up directly into her ruler and instructor’s eyes with a pleading expression. “This isn’t the same kind of training at all! Instead of flowers and enchantment you’re teaching me force fields and trying to get me to move things a hundred times my weight, and now this... whatever this spell is. Princess, please, what’s going on?”
Twilight grimaced bitterly at the results of her words. Celestia had grown distant, standing regally upright and staring through the observatory roof to where she had set the sun burning in the sky. “The day will come soon when you need these skills, Twilight Sparkle,” she replied. “A delicate caress is precious not because of its light touch, but because of the restrained power behind it. So it is with magic. You have learned to manipulate gently. Now you must learn strength.”
Heat. Unbearable, pressing, scorching heat filled the air, and orange glare covered everything from walls to trees, making it look like the sky had caught fire. The streets were empty and Equestria had been gripped by a deathly silence; even the birds themselves were oppressed by the heat.
The sun was falling. Already twice its normal size, it was only a matter of time before the damage became irreversible. There was perhaps one hour before dry grasses would start to ignite. And fatalities... fatalities might have already begun.
Twilight stepped onto the palace’s balcony, alone.
Her pupil-less eyes stared down the oversized, furious sun, glowing with fury to match.
Her horn blazed. An orb of light formed at its tip, then quickly grew until it was the size of a beach ball, then the size of a pony, then the size of a house. Its surface did not shimmer, but was as smooth and featureless as that of a glass marble. It glowed the most blinding white imaginable, yet released no heat and refused even to illuminate the sharp shadows nearby-- all of its power stayed strictly within its bounds. It grew to the size of a barn.
And then it ruptured, exploding into a spiderweb of threads that expanded for the tiniest fraction of a half-second before their mistress forced them to fly upwards, towards their target. Each one anchored one of its ends to Twilight’s horn and then plunged into the sky, where it wrapped around the sun, netting it with energy.
The heat subsided, gradually. One by one, doors opened and ponies looked outside to see that their lives—their world—had been saved. But when they looked to the Princess’ balcony to thank their savior, they would not see her, only her student. Princess Celestia lay in her bed, unconscious and exhausted, lovingly tucked in under a thin sheet of satin.
The day after the ceremony, the Queen had arranged for a meeting with Lulu. A simple affair, just as the former regent would have wanted. Coffee and biscuits in a posh Canterlot cafe.
“Is it strange being without her?” She asked Lulu. “It had been such a long time, after all, and now... you’re without her, for the first time.”
Lulu smiled, as she always tended to do when presented with a difficult question. The wrinkles on her face were deep, but the mare beneath them was as lively and as graceful as ever. “It is strange,” she replied, “But I understand your question, and I feel no grief. She always told me that she was only sorry that she would never see me without her.”
“That sounds terrible!” The Queen furrowed her brow. “You mean she wanted to know what it would be like for you? Why?”
“Our destinies were always intertwined. For me, the journey began when I was hardly older than you were when we first met on that Summer Sun Celebration, so long ago.”
“Not long ago for you, I’m sure.”
“Allow me the vernacular,” Lulu chided. “It was a long time ago, not for you and I, but for an aging pony.” She smiled again, and her fading powder-blue mane was tossed by a sudden breeze.
As Lulu’s mane blew out in the air, the Queen imagined it billowing regally again, not hair but a portal to a strange sky studded with stars. Then it was over, and Lulu had a simple blue mane again.
“Your Majesty, you must understand. I am happy that my Sister has passed.”
“What?” The Queen failed to contain her shock.
“Was the ceremony not beautiful? Did remembering her, writing the final words in the book of her life, not please you, your Majesty?” Lulu’s wings fluttered involuntarily as she stared off into the sky, as if she could see her sister there, smiling back.
“No!” The lavender ruler’s face fell. “I was heartbroken, Lun... I was heartbroken, Lulu!”
“I am not. And she would scold you, if she could see you now.” The navy blue pegasus sitting across from the Queen stood, still smiling, and pushed her chair in. She still had the same Cutie Mark, though it had lost some of its meaning now.
“You mean,” said the Queen darkly, “that Prin...”
“Tia,” Lulu interrupted. “I mean that Tia has gone to a reward that she has waited for for many centuries. I only hope that I may join her when my own time comes, but if we are to be separated for eternity, I can rest knowing that neither of us has regrets. No regrets for our eons of life, and no regrets for the precious few more years we took in the process of taking our leave.”
The Queen said nothing. Lulu circled the table to nuzzle her ruler and old friend. “You consider yourself fortunate that you were able to take this journey with your five friends. I know this. And perhaps you are right. As well as allies, they will be a link to your past. But...”
Lulu crossed behind her Queen’s back to address her again from her left side. “When have you heard Tia or I talk about when we were young?“
Still no response. Lulu gave the Queen a kiss on the cheek before turning to leave. “That world is dust, your Majesty. Someday soon, I will be, too. Try to be happy for me.”
“The deed is done and cannot be undone. Twilight Sparkle, are you prepared to embrace your destiny?” Celestia recited solemnly, her steps echoing throughout the cave. The partial, magical light threw shadows across the faces of the eight assembled ponies
“I am,” Twilight replied.
“Rarity. Rainbow Dash. Fluttershy. Applejack. Pinkie Pie. Are you prepared to accompany your friend on her journey?”
“I am,” they said in unison.
“Twilight Sparkle, child of Canterlot, student of Princess Celestia, bearer of the Element of Magic and curator of the Ponyville Library, step forward.”
Twilight did so. A heart-shaped sigil had been drawn on the ground in the center of the chamber, and Twilight stood on its center while her friends formed an even circle around her. Celestia and Luna stood within the circle, addressing Twilight from both sides.
“Twilight Sparkle, tonight marks your last night as a mortal pony. When this ceremony is completed, your privilege and duty will be to serve and protect the whole of Equestria and ponykind,” Luna said.
“Ponies have been ruled by friendship, protected by love, since the beginning of the world. Now this responsibility falls to you. The title you bear will be a heavy one-- heavier even than ours, but a true Queen will be equal to the task.” Celestia spoke in a deep tone, occasionally glancing to the five other Elements of Harmony who stood at the perimeter.
Celestia and Luna simultaneously circled in front of Twilight, staring her down. She did not wither, but stood taller. Her heart raced, but wasn’t that to be expected? No need to be afraid... she had been trained for this, and in some ways, she had been born for this. She shifted her hindquarters imperceptibly, and with them her Cutie Mark, unseen in the poor light.
The heart at her feet flared pink and flickered as if with firelight. The chamber and the assembled ponies were bathed in magical light.
“Twilight Sparkle,” Luna said, “You stand on the very spot where the Heartfire, the Fire of Friendship that is born into every new foal, was kindled. It has chosen you as its bearer, just as it chose us, long ago.”
“With your heart, stand firm against darkness, unrelenting, unyielding.” As Celestia said these words, Twilight thought she felt a warming sensation in her chest, powerful and somehow familiar, as if she’d felt it before, though she knew she never had.
“With your horn, cast light into the dark corners of the world, to make them safe for your little ones, large and small, now and forever.”
“With your wings—” Twilight gasped as she felt a powerful vibrating sensation behind her shoulders— “soar over the land like a banner of hope, and beat back the oncoming storm.”
“With this crown, embrace your new existence, and become the rightful Queen.”
The fire of friendship encircling Twilight’s feet flared brighter. In the brightening light she saw her friends shuffling about in confusion and excitement-- Rainbow Dash crossing her eyes to get a look at her horn, Rarity fluttering her wings, Pinkie Pie looking rather excited about the whole matter.
Those sights were soon forgotten, though, as Twilight saw Celestia and Luna’s retreating faces. There was a happiness in their eyes that Twilight had never seen before. Their smiles were unreadable, and as they turned to leave, Twilight saw something that turned her stomach and would haunt her for many more years.
Celestia’s wings were beginning to shrink into her back, shedding feathers in a trail of brilliant white. As they fell, they disappeared where they touched the ground, leaving no evidence that they had ever been there. Before she disappeared around the corner, Luna turned her head and smiled at Twilight. Her head lacked a horn.
Horrified, Twilight started to follow, but was stopped by a hug from Fluttershy. “Twilight!” her pegasus—no, her alicorn friend squealed. “We’re so proud of you!”
“Thanks, girls,” Twilight laughed, spreading her wings to wrap around her friends as they piled onto her, one by one. Her smile went from forced to genuine as she felt Applejack’s muscular form slide up alongside her. “Thanks for everything.” She felt a wetness against her shoulder. Rainbow Dash was crying. Soon, so was she.
My name is Twilight Sparkle. You will know me as Queen Twilight-- if you know me at all. I created this cache so that the world might know my master and friend Princess Celestia and her sister Princess Luna. It is my hope that someday a brave explorer or wise scholar will find this place, and remember. I’ve collected a few personal belongings from each of the other five Elements of Harmony and preserved them here along with notes written in a language that I think will be easily translated even in two, three, four thousand years. For all I know, the Equestrian language might be nothing at all like it was in my time! Fortunately, the memory encoding in this capsule should make it so that anypony who accesses it should be able to understand my age’s syntactical patterns so long as...
I digress. Explorer, what you’ve just seen is the story of another Queen from another age. My friends and I shared many adventures, many happy and sad times, both before my anointment and after, but perhaps it is best if those things die with us.
Whether you tell your fellows what you have found here is up to you. Whether these events end up recorded in some prestigious journal or simply carried in a single pony’s heart until the end of his days, it is the same. Stories die. Ponies pass on. Books turn to dust. But beauty, and the hearts that we touch, carry on for eternity.
I was standing in an empty stone room buried deep under the earth, with my hoof against the wall. The grinding, blaring sound of the generator was making it hard to think.
I slowly lowered my hoof from the stone-relief portrait and stood on all fours again.
Trembling, tears running down my cheeks, I knelt in reverence before the last remaining evidence that there had even been a Queen Twilight Sparkle.