The air in Tartarus stank, as always, of roses.

It was different for everypony who visited. The ancient sages had held that one could divine a pony’s true nature by how Tartarus reflected them, that its innumerable horrors were not some cosmic zoo but simply a pony’s own mind, turned inside out. It was a depthless ocean for ponies who had committed murder at sea; a field of razor-edged grain for lords who glutted themselves while their vassals starved.

Celestia no longer believed such things. She just liked roses, and Tartarus knew that, and so it twisted her favor into something detestable. The stench of them sat heavy on the back of her tongue, gagging her. It was the same every time, and it would be years before she could wear rosewater perfume.

But years were something she had in plenty. In time, she would defeat Tartarus. She would love roses again.

Tartarus was a featureless moonscape this time. Endless fields of dull regolith stretched out beyond sight. A starless night sky met it at the razor-sharp horizon. One prison, imitating another. Some day, she imagined, when Luna’s banishment no longer troubled her, Tartarus would have to find something else to be.

All directions were the same here. She spun in a circle three times and began to walk.

[hr]

Ghosts attended her path.

They were silent partners, as befitted them. They seemed more curious than anything; the dead, wondering who this intruder might be. Celestia knew better than to engage with them – they were, after all, only figments of her own mind. Guilty threads plucked out of the tangled mass by Tartarus and spun into mocking imitations of those she loved and those she had failed. A few whispered her name before evaporating.

There was Evening Star, the student she had cast out for necromancy and died a year later, victim of her own experiments. There was loyal Masterstroke, the general who led the doomed expedition to tame the wild gryphon tribes. He walked alongside Viridian, the first changeling Celestia had ever loved. They vanished when she looked too closely, dispersing into a cloud of moondust that drifted into the past.

[hr]

Celestia knew she had reached her destination when she could advance no further.

Mountains had grown around her. The vast plain constricted, becoming a valley, then a canyon, then finally this: a narrow trail between high rock walls that ended in a little pit not much larger than the bed of a wagon. If she bothered to measure it, she guessed it would be the exact dimensions of the dungeon cells beneath her castle, so mercifully unused in these civilized times.

She tried to move forward. Something prevented her.

“Mine,” a weak, rasping voice whispered. “Mine, not yours.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to trespass. May I enter?”

“Of course not.” His form came into view. A centar, frail and diminished, huddled atop a basalt slab. All around him the pit flowed with fire. Flames licked at the bare rock, questing for him. “All the world is yours, Celestia, but this is mine.”

She studied the pit. It didn’t take long. “How proud you must be.”

“You mock me, but this is no little thing. All throughout Creation mighty Celestia may go as she pleases, but not here. I forbid it.”

“And what if I offered you more?”

Silence. Tirek studied her for what felt like hours. “More?”

“Freedom. Parole from this prison.”

He snorted. “In return for supplication, I presume?”

“No. Just your word that you will not harm anypony. Live as you please, but make slaves of no thinking beings. That is all I ask.”

“A type of slavery for myself, then.” He reached out a bone-thin arm. The flames caressed it, blackening it. “No. I will stay here and grow. Tartarus purifies those who who embrace it. In this purgatory I will find the strength to challenge you again. And here, I am the master. You must come to me to beg for an audience. And I say to you, no. Begone.”

Celestia took a long, slow breath. It stank of roses and fire. When it was clear Tirek had nothing more to say, she she turned and left.

In the pit, unseen, Tirek reclined on the rock slab. He sank again into the flames, bathing in the fires that refined him.