After all this time, after all she had done... her sister turned on her, turned her power and her might against her. She brutally attacked her in the night, her horn firing lucent beams of lunar light that tore through the columns of the old palace and shredded up countless sculptures and works of art. Her beams burned living flesh, seared milk-white coats, ripped through dazzling rainbow-colored hair. The locked beams, her yellow blast of holy light barely strong enough to resist the corrupted moon. Clouds of dust gathered around the broken throne room as they took to the skies, engaging each other in a vicious dogfight. Magic beat against magic, against ancient stone walls, against roof tiles and storm clouds and whatever the eye could see.

The two alicorns had landed on one of the turrets. Magic beams flew from both their horns as they continued their duel on the ground. Evil laughter echoed through the forested valley. Silver and gold shoes clacked against the stone floor. Sister faced down sister, sibling beat against sibling, friend fired at former friend.

Badly injured and tired, Celestia kneeled down to catch her breath. Her corrupted sister stood in front of her, fangs shining in the moonlight. She pawed her hoof against the broken granite floor, kicking up a small plume of dust. Magic shimmered from her horn, cold as a raging blizzard, bent on freezing everything it passed.

She raised her lit horn and...

Celestia’s eyes opened wide.

She let loose a heavy sigh. Carefully, she reached around and grabbed her clock. Blinking in the darkness, she looked at its face. The glass reflected the light of the moon, casting a small circle of light on a wall of the cave.

Five in the morning...

Her mouth opened to yawn. Placing the clock back on the ground, the sun princess lifted herself out of the orange sleeping bag she spent the night in. A set of bandages covered her left wing, and she winced as her right bucker hit the ground. There was still a burn mark covering her right cutie mark.

Slowly, she approached her saddlebag, which had been thrown against the wall of the cave. She nudged it open with her nose, sleepily using her magic to pull out a tin cup and a toothbrush. Walking towards the mouth of the cave, Celestia caught sight of her final destination: a tall, ominous mountain, with a massive pillar of light shining out of the peak. She turned her head away from the marvel of nature and began to trot down towards a running brook.

Celestia scooped some water into her cup, and brushed her teeth. The crickets chirped away in the bushes as the bright light of the moon shone on them all. Dipping her brush into the cup, she began to remove the germs from her teeth, if only temporarily. By the next day, they would be dirty again from all the strange food she was eating. Her rations had ran out days before, her fruit long before that, and her fresh vegetables even longer before that. She had been reduced to eating berries and nuts from the bushes alongside the running river.

She drank from her cup, to rinse out the particles the brush had missed.

The water was cool and sweet, freezing her tongue and warming her throat. It was like drinking ice cream, the cold, tasty liquid running down into her stomach and freezing everything it touched. The water didn’t taste like this before, but it was getting colder, and Celestia assumed all cold water tasted like this. It tasted the same from the taps at home...

She felt a wave of sadness come over her. She buried it down deep, trying to ignore it. When had she last seen home? A week? A month? A year? Even the monarch of Equestria didn’t know anymore. It was all lost to the mist...

She took another sip from the cup, and felt heat rush past her mouth and down her throat. Instead of the refreshing cold, the burning flame placated her fears, warming the sun princess’s body like a loving hug.

The warmth flooded her senses, reactivating ancient memories deep with her brain. Memories of a time long past, when there was peace in the world... nopony had to die... or become corrupt... or betray others... there was only happiness, freedom, harmony. Her mother... she remembered her dark red hair, her soft white coat, her loving, gazing eyes. There was no sorrow in those eyes. Only caring when her diaper needed changing, only disappointment when she received terrible grades, only pride when she was declared successor to the throne. There was no sorrow...

The only sad memory Celestia had of her mother was unclear at best, hopelessly fizzled and ruined at worst. It was when Everfree Castle was attacked. Placed under siege.

The arrow had pierced her straight through the chest. There wasn’t time to erect a magical shield, or duck behind cover. All she could do was take the shot...

Her father had fallen some time later, impaled on the blood-stained scimitar of a griffon knight. Solaris had screamed out in pain as he let his own sword go, the golden hilt clattering to the ground. His bright gold mane and beard were soaked with blood. His pale yellow coat was equally stained. Celestia’s elder sister turned to shield the young Luna from the sight, but failed to cover Celestia’s gazing eyes. Her father had stared into his middle child’s eyes before he died. There was no heat left in them. Only the cold blackness of death.

Not long after, Galactica, Celestia’s big sister, was captured by the griffons and taken away. Nopony knows where she went, or if she’s even alive. All Celestia remembers of her now was her cry of “Go!” when the crossbows were raised at them. Crossbows, of wood and sinew, held by the resentful talons of hundreds of giffons.

The griffons had taken a long time to reach a peace settlement. Equestria would allocate the far western reaches of land to the Griffons. They would then receive a hefty reparations payment for the deaths of their monarchs. It was nowhere near enough.

Celestia and Luna were put in the care of the castle steward, a nice, old stallion named Clear Glass. He gave them ice cream every day they came home from magic school. He cooked them everything they loved, and bought them mountains of toys and books. He even let the two fillies play with his long and curly beard. He saw the girls into the highest magic school in Equestria, tutoring the princesses himself with an advanced magic textbook, his best set of body armor, and his own magical experience.

Celestia had hoped that, when the cancer did come, that his death would be painless and quick. But it was anything but. She was forced to watch the old pony lie in his bed, coughing away as his curly beard disintegrated, his stylish mane died, his thin wrinkles becoming trenches that lined the battlefields that were his body. The chemo did nothing to stop or slow the cancer, only killing the pony quicker as his cells died off, thousands at a time.

She took a third sip of the water, and it was bitter, like her memories. It mixed with her dripping tears as she let loose a primal scream. It echoed through the forest, rippling the running river and silencing the crickets. Her tears wet the dark earth as she wept.

The river ran on into the night, the rush of the water mixing with the sporadic sobs.

Why? asked the sun princess. Why did they have to die? Why did she have to run?

The moon offered no answer. The Mare in the Moon was simply a desert of dark sand. The white light had no mouth which to speak with. It had been sealed away.

The crickets had stopped their chirping, the symphony of the night locked away with fear. They dove into their holes, jumped into their caves. All so they could escape the weeping sun’s gaze.

Only the river dared to make a sound, and the trickle of the brook accompanied the wailing princess in her sorrow.

Somewhere in the distance, a mighty roar shook the earth. Leathery wings pounded against the air, kicking up massive swathes of dust. Claws reached for land as the massive beast brought itself down, right on top of the mountain far, far away.

Celestia gazed at the peak where the light came. The pillar stretched into the very heavens themselves, piercing the sky. It seemed to beckon the alicorn, stretching its invisible hand in welcome.

The white alicorn returned to her camp, and began to pack up her supplies. The mountain was but a day’s flight away, and with a favorable wind, she could make it just before the sun set on the following day. As she stuffed away her sleeping bag, the sun peeked over the horizon, illuminating the dark cave where she has spent the night. The bright yellow orb lit the way as the alicorn hefted on her saddlebag and took flight. The white speck danced through the trees for awhile before gaining height and sailing up to the clouds.

It was dark when she woke...

Slowly, she rubbed her bruised head, removing the shattered remains of her helmet.

The pulverized remains of her armor lay strewn all around her.

A fine layer of gray dust covered everything for miles around. The crater she had made on impact stretched as far as the eye could see. Jagged rocks jutted out of the ground at odd angles, the remnants of once formidable boulders smashed to bits by her impact. Smoke still hung above the barren ground, the black clouds as still as stone, for there was no air to move it.

Luna picked herself up from the ground where she lay. Carefully, she brushed off the moon dust, trying to avoid the nasty burns left behind by her sister’s desperate attack. Seared black skin mixed with the ashen grey. Luna winced as powder seeped into an open wound. Like salt upon wounds, the ash stung greatly, burning her very soul. She dared to look at the wound, as if by some miracle the pain would stop.

It was only then that Luna noticed the glowing yellow chain that bound her to the ground. One end was wrapped around her foreleg, secured with a golden lock. The other dove deep into the lunar earth. Luna pulled her leg away, and the chain grew longer. She ran from it, and the chain moved with her, the entry point shifting through the soft lunar soil like a snake through sand. It was only when she tried to fly did the chain hold fast.

Bound to the moon’s soil forever, to rot away with the stars. That would be Luna’s fate. She would grow old here, waste her life here, to die, chained and bound, without anything that could save her. Her bones would stay for an eternity, preserved by the moon’s lack of atmosphere, to die only when the moon collapses at the end of time.

Luna raised her mouth towards the bright blue sphere that filled the entire sky.

“CURSE YOU, CELESTIA!!!!!!!!!”

A grueling journey, it was. Celestia couldn’t even count how many days she had been on the road. Her wings were worn and tired, and her legs had failed her on more than one occasion. Yet despite the pain and misery she had endured, Celestia was finally here.

She stood at the peak of the mountain. The pond that stretched out in front of her glowed with a magical light, casting the pillar that broke through the sky. Rivers stretched out of the pond like legs on a spider, and they cascaded down the rocky edges of the mountain. Celestia saw the river she had trod, and indeed, the source of the water came from this tiny pool. The glow had diminished over the distance, but the water was still the same... still imbued with the same power.

Celestia had heard fairytales about this place. The pillar of light at the top of the mountain. It was a bedtime story, designed to pacify little fillies with sweet, wondrous dreams. Celestia never believed it. That is, until her mother had reached into the refrigerator and produced a small glass bottle filled with clear, glowing water. She called it the water of fate. It mixed with every river, every lake, every sea, and every ocean. It pours from the sky with the rain, and seeps into the ground for wells that have not yet been dug. It is was makes cutie marks appear on our flanks. It is what drives us forward; to do what we love, to fulfill our part in this massive play that is life.

She also spoke of the wellspring’s guardian: the prophet. The one entity in the entire universe that could tap into the knowledge of fate and see the true future. Nopony knows who the prophet is, or what it is capable of. All they know is that it will defend the glowing pond with its life, immortal or mortal alike.

And only it has the power to change fate.

Only it can foretell the future. And only it can correct the wrongdoings of the past. That is why Celestia was here.

But there was nothing here. Only the glowing pool that slowly flowed away, and a battered, weary white alicorn stood shrouded by the mist.

Celestia looked around, but there was nopony there. It was only her, utterly alone, and wholly beaten. There was no prophet to answer her pleas. No soothsayer to tell her future. Only the mists and the ripples of the glowing pond in front of her.

She walked forward, towards the waters. Tired beyond words, the alicorn threw down her saddlebag, and reached to take a sip from the well.

If this really was just a fairy tale, she thought, at least I won’t go home thirsty.

She touched the water with her lips.

“Princess Celestia of Equestria.”

A voice.

She jerked back, turning her head from side to side. But there was still nopony here.

She looked at the water again, and shrugged her shoulders. She bent down for another sip.

“Princess Celestia of Equestria.”

There it was again. A voice. In her mind. It was gravelly and old, with a strange raspy tone to it that she simply could not place.

It was coming from the water. There was no other place it could have come from.

She placed her hoof into the pond.

“Princess Celestia of Equestria... Do you know me?”

“I..I do?” said Celestia.

“Do you understand the power that I wield?”

“The power... the power to change-”

“Yes, I can change fate... but only if it is destined to be. I can tell the future, but only if fate decrees it so. Like you.... like all of us... I too am bound by destiny, and even I, its prophet, must follow its harsh rule.”

The voice seemed to sigh. Celestia held her breath.

“Come closer to the pool. Bathe in its glowing waters. And then, we will speak in peace.”

The voice was gone. Silenced.

Celestia withdrew her hoof from the water. She placed it back in a few times, but there was no response.

Without any other options, Celestia forced herself to wade into the freezing cold pool. The water seeped into her coat and wet her feathers. It soaked her hair and stung her wounds. Yet, strangely, she felt no pain. The water seemed to numb every last nerve in her body.

Then, without warning, the riverbed fell away, and Celestia was falling... falling...

She extended a hoof towards the surface, but by then it was too late.

Bubbled drifted towards the surface from her open mouth. Air ran from her lungs in huge bursts, even as she tried to keep it in. They fled through any opening possible, leaving the white pony to sink further and further into the abyss, desperate for breath and for air.

The blackness rose upon Celestia, and her eyes rolled back into her head.

“Go.” said the speckled blue mare.

“Gally, please!” pleaded Celestia.

“Celly. Listen to me. There’s no more time left to waste. You either leave...”

The sounds of talons clicking against stone echoed from down the hallway.

“Or they’ll kill you.”

The speckled blue mare took one last look at the pink-haired alicorn filly behind her.

“You’re going to be okay.” said Galactica. “Nopony’s going to hurt you now.”

The griffons came closer. The shadows of raised crossbows danced in the torchlight.

“Take Luna and go! Run!”

“RUN!!!”

“It’s her!”

“Shoot!”

~ztwang

~ztwang... ztwang

ZAP! ZAP!!

“Sir! we can’t break through her barrier...”

“Wake.”

“Princess Celestia of Equestria, awaken. Now is not the time to take a nap.”

“There are many things we must discuss. Many things we must sort out. And precious little time to do it.”

“I understand you. I know how you feel... I know what you’ve been through. All this comes through the silent voice of fate.”

“Please... awaken, and release your fear.”

There were rocks on her eyelids. Held shut by lethargic power, Celestia struggled to return from her death-induced sleep. The sound of running water did little to aid in her return, only pushing her further and further into the dark abyss that was rest.

And yet, with a resounding effort, the white alicorn pulled herself out of the intertwined sheets. Her hooves swung over the side of the wooden bed, only to make contact with water. Slowly, she let herself slide off the edge of the bed, touching the solid bottom of the pool. Standing up, she found the water barely came up to her ankles. There was nothing to fear here. She let herself take a few steps forward, rubbing her sleepy eyes with the back of her leg.

She allowed herself to look around the cave she woke in. Rock walls stretched up as high as the eye could see, and four massive pillars of rushing water shot from the unseeable peak down to the room she stood on. Upon closer inspection, however, Celestia found that the water was actually moving up, towards the zenith of the cave.

“This is the true Wellspring of Fate, Celestia of Equestria.”

There it was. The voice. Only this time, it wasn’t in her head. Instead, it echoed around the dismal room, rippling the water.

“This is where fate is written, and here is where it is carried out.”

The voice seemed to come from all angles. It spoke without source, yet it still boomed in her ears. Celestia turned her head around and around, trying to find what was causing the noise. But she was greeted by nothing but the stony walls.

“Behold, the prophet of fate. Your confusion ends now.”

A roar echoed through the cavern. Celestia turned around just in time to see the ghostly shape of a dragon swoop through one wall and out another. The blast of wind nearly threw the alicorn into the shallow pool at her feet.

The roar came again, and this time the dragon burst out of the wall, wings extended, and landed in front of the alicorn.

The beast glowed a dark purple, radiating an aura of heat that boiled the water at its feet. Even with its wings folded it towered over Celestia, its massive eyes piercing directly into alicorn’s soul and siphoning all her secrets.

It opened its ghostly maw, revealing an irregular set of broken and twisted teeth, yellow and rotting with age.

“My name is Cenolth, son of Curathil.” he said. “I am the prophet of fate, as my father was before me, and his father before he. It is my task to maintain the Edict, and to make sure everything is carried out as the Edict says. And it is I who offers guidance to the unsure, offers mercy to the scorned, offers change to the broken.”

It was definitely the same voice, only this time it came from a mouth, and not the air.

“Princess Celestia of Equestria. You have journeyed a path seldom trod to face me. I sense that you are desperate, desperate for answers and for change.”

He bent back to sit on his hindquarters, sending a splash of water from where he landed.

“Tell me your story. Enlighten me on what you did wrong, and maybe I could make it right.”

Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together, and created harmony for all the land.

To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn; the younger brought out the moon to begin the night.

Before, though, it was not like this.

Ruled by a powerful king, ancient Equestria was a mighty nation, peerless in both war and peace.

The king and his wife took sole responsibility in raising the sun and moon, and made things perfect for all denizens of the land they ruled.

The eldest daughter took charge of the sky, rotating the heavens and lighting the stars.

Their world was perfect, and seemingly without end, for they were alicorns, and as immortal as the sun, moon, and stars.

It was then that they attacked.

The old city burned in the night as countless griffon soldiers, resentful of their new ruler, invaded the capital in a wild attack that resulted in the deaths of the king and the queen, as well as their first daughter, the princess of the sky.

Only the two younger daughters of the monarchy were rescued from their burning palace, and they were raised to rule the nation by the kind and truthful castle steward.

They vowed never to wage war, to prevent a second annihilation of the land they loved and respected.

Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies.

But as time went on, the younger sister became resentful.

The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night.

One fateful day, the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn.

The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a wicked mare of darkness: Nightmare Moon.

She vowed that she would shroud the land in eternal night.

Reluctantly, the elder sister harnessed the most powerful magic known to ponydom: the Elements of Harmony.

Using the magic of the Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister, and banished her permanently in the moon.

Stricken by her actions, the elder sister withdrew from public image, depressed and destroyed.

One day, the steward, who had been placed in temporary command of the nation, found her bedroom empty, with photo albums and torn books scattered all around the room.

The princess was gone, like paper in the wind.

“...as time went on,” said Celestia, “It seemed like she would not return.”

There was eerie silence in the cave, save for the tiny trickle of the running stream. The ghostly dragon sat facing Celestia, his face contorted in deep thought.

Finally, he spoke.

“Your story... it... it... I... I knew of this... somewhere. It has already been written. It has already been recorded. Yet... somehow... I feel like this is news to me.”

The dragon sat up, his ghostly claws splashing the shallow pool.

“I’ll make a deal with you, Celestia of Equestria. Your story... it moves me. Drives me to question things I dare not question. Tell me, Celestia of Equestria. How much regret have you accumulated over the years? A little? A lot? More that you are capable of saying?”

“I banished my own sister to the moon.” said Celestia. “That alone is a mountain of regret.”

“Then, may you find peace.”

The dragon touched the stone floor with a single claw. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then, with a massive burst of dust, a huge granite column shot out of the floor, spraying water everywhere. On the column were huge blocks of glowing words, covering almost all the available space. They were so small that Celestia had to squint to see them, but the dragon didn’t seem to mind. He mumbled to himself for awhile before tapping the column with his claw.

The stone pillar cracked in two, revealing a massive golden book. The cover was checkerboarded, the pages lacquered with gold trim. The dragon reached for the front of the book, and opened it about halfway. He summoned a pair of reading glasses and placed them over his old, weary eyes. He started to scan the pages.

“This is the Book of Fate.” he said to Celestia. “Inside this tome, everything is recorded. Nothing is missed. Any event that happened to any thing, big or small, is written down. But this book is not only an almanac of the past. It is also a window to the future.”

He flipped a page.

“The Book also has the future written upon it, but in wet ink. Unlike the set in stone past, wet ink can be erased, and new words put in its place.”

He tapped the page with his claw, and a burst of magic exploded from his palm. When the smoke cleared, a small blue book sat in it. He levitated this book over to Celestia.

The book had Luna’s cutie mark emblazoned on its cover. A small cloth strap held it shut, and a star-shaped keyhole held it closed tightly.

The dragon also levitated over a large yellow quill, with sun-shaped markings over the fibers. Yellow ink dripped from its tip, mixing with the clear water below.

“What I’m giving to you is called a Soul Journal. It is the physical representation of one’s fate. It’s similar to my Book, only smaller, and for a specific entity. That is your sister, Luna,'s Journal.

The special quill I’m giving you is the only tool that can mark the pages of a Journal. No weapon can break it, no blade can rip it, no pencil can scribble all over it. Only the magic of the Beacon can hope to write destiny’s tale. The Beacon will guide your hand. It will aid you in scripting a path. But be warned, it has a mind of its own.

The last object I’m going to give you is your side of the bargain. I’ve given you the means of altering fate, now you must return the favor.”

He opened his palm, and an egg appeared in it in a cloud of smoke.

He levitated the purple and green spotted egg towards Celestia, who placed it in her saddlebag.

“That egg,” said the dragon, “is my future. I am old, Celestia of Equestria. Even the prophet cannot live forever. But my mind and spirit can. For you see, I am not only Cenolth, prophet of fate, but also Curathil, my father, and Ckaren, my grandfather. I am the latest descendant of a dragon family, the family bound by fate to guard the wellspring and to make known its wisdom. I hold the memories of a thousand dragons, a thousand more ponies before that, and a thousand more entities before that. But I am dying, Celestia of Equestria. With your aid, that egg will hatch into a baby dragon. He will inherit my power when he is ready. He will journey here, and be accepted by fate. And he will guard the spring to the end of his days. But not before he is ready.

Take this egg to your home, Celestia of Equestria. Raise it as your own. And I guarantee that whatever you write in that book will become so.”

The earth shook around them. Rocks fell from the impossible heights above. The water rippled violently, and the soft ground began to harden. The dragon’s spectral form began to flicker.

“Go now, Celestia of Equestria. Change her fate.”

The dragon fizzled away.

The room collapsed around Celestia. The water rose. The rocks fell.

Then the cavern collapsed on itself, and Celestia was falling... falling... deep into the nothing....

And her eyes fluttered on on the bank of the glowing pond.

The journal and egg lay before her, undamaged. The gentle waves of the pond lapped against them. Celestia pulled herself up from the pool, water dripping from her soaked skin. She looked at the objects for awhile before levitating them into her saddlebag. Her shoed hooves hit dry land, and with a resounded first step, started the long trip home.

A thousand years shall pass.

A thousand years shall pass, and the wrongs of the past will be corrected by the future.

A thousand years shall pass, and the wrongs of the past will be corrected by the future. On the thousandth eve of the Summer Sun, the moon will fall again to earth.

A thousand years shall pass, and the wrongs of the past will be corrected by the future. On the thousandth eve of the Summer Sun, the moon will fall again to earth. Her evil will not be halted, nor quenched in any way. Instead, it will be amplified, in revenge against the one who locked her away.

A thousand years shall pass, and the wrongs of the past will be corrected by the future. On the thousandth eve of the Summer Sun, the moon will fall again to earth. Her evil will not be halted, nor quenched in any way. Instead, it will be amplified, in revenge against the one who locked her away. Yet, there will be hope in the darkest hour. The student of the light, the bridge between day and night, she will be the one to restore the broken night, to heal the moon and to destroy the strife.

A thousand years shall pass, and the wrongs of the past will be corrected by the future. On the thousandth eve of the Summer Sun, the moon will fall again to earth. Her evil will not be halted, nor quenched in any way. Instead, it will be amplified, in revenge against the one who locked her away. Yet, there will be hope in the darkest hour. The student of the light, the bridge between day and night, she will be the one to restore the broken night, to heal the moon and to destroy the strife. The power of the Elements will be by her side, as will five friends, to aid her in her fight. She will overcome many trials, brave the evil of good and the good of evil, and face the nightmare head to head, and she will emerge victorious.

She will bring... our salvation.

So it is Prophecized.

So shall it be.