Author's Notes:

Special thanks to the inimitable CogWing and incomparable Tidal for all of their help!

Cover art drawn by the amazing GenjiLim.

I stare into the void.

The void stares back into me.

I close my eyes to force back the darkness. Time passes. I’m not sure how long, but it doesn’t matter. It never has. Eventually, I peel my eyes open. The unabating wall of black before me has vanished, replaced by the thin, crisp air of the Crystal Mountains. A howling gust of wind blows across the peak I am resting on, and I feel the desire to shiver. I decide not to. Not this time, at least.

After absorbing it all for a moment—the beautiful lights dancing across the night sky, the miniscule crystals of ice cascading down from the heavens, the small woodland creatures hibernating miles beneath me—I inhale deeply and let out a long, heavy breath of air. I feel the desire to smile tingle at the back of my consciousness, but I quickly subdue it, the small rush of emotion dying.

I shake my head in an attempt to clear my thoughts. I am here for a reason; I have work to do.

My brow furrows and I bite my tongue, zeroing in on my task. Slowly, I raise my nondescript forelimbs. After a moment of pure, unadulterated silence, I sweep them across the frostbitten midnight sky, pulling the aurora along with them in a delicate dance of patience and concentration. I am an artist, the night sky is my canvas, and the brilliant lights illuminating the sea of darkness are my paintbrush.

I close my eyes again, and suddenly she’s here with me. An image of her as a foal—the one burned into my mind like a fiery brand on the flanks of cattle—presents itself in the forefront of my mind. I let my hooves glide through the thin air around me, mimicking the picturesque moment from thousands and thousands of years ago.

Another moment ticks by. Slowly, hesitantly, I open my eyes to peek at my craftsmanship.

The drawing is crude but recognizable, and that’s good enough for now.

I stare up at it, and it floods me with memories. I push all but one of them away. That one remaining memory bursts into life, and for a moment, the filly in the sky is right here with me.

Her eyes are wide as dinner plates, yet somehow void nevertheless. Her smile is anything but, and I can tell she’s trying her darndest to hide the fact. The worst part is that I know she’s smiling up at me, waiting for something, anything to save her.

In her early years, Celestia was lonely.

I tried creating parents for her. A few years later, I even tried making her a sister. None of it worked. Her father was always out in the fields working, and her mother always scurrying around their home cooking and cleaning and caring for her foals. And, for her part, Luna barricaded herself in her room and slept the first few years of her life away.

It was because of those things that young Celestia was often left to her own devices. As opposed to her reclusive sister, Celestia had a desire for adventure. She wanted to be out in the world, growing, learning. She wanted to live. Unfortunately, life with her family made that feat nigh impossible.

The desire washes over me again, and this time I allow myself to smile the tiniest little bit. Even back in her early years, it was plain to see how much potential Celestia had.

To be honest, it’s because of her loneliness and natural curiosity—and admittedly a bit of my own foolishness—that little Celestia first stumbled across me. Though it’s millennia old, the memory is still fresh in my mind.

I close my eyes. When I reopen them, the frosty peaks of the Frozen North have been replaced by the towering oaks and dense underbrush of the Everfree…

“What kind of pony are you?”

I felt the urge to gasp in surprise. I almost lost control and let it slip out, regardless of my decision not to. I had been so immersed in my own thoughts—in planning—that I hadn’t even noticed her approach.

The little earth pony cocked her head to the side, eyes hungry for answers like a lone manticore for its next meal. “Wait… are you even a pony at all?”

“Shouldn’t you be back home with your family?” I asked once I found my voice. “It’s dangerous to be out here in the forest alone.”

Her ever-present smile fell from her face faster than the speed of sound, only to be replaced by a pout a moment later. “But I asked you first,” she said. “You’ve gotta answer my question before I answer yours.”

I decided to play along with her little game, knowing full well that she would forget our discussion as soon as I was out of sight. She would remember what she had learned and the emotions she had felt, yes, but nothing of the circumstances surrounding them. Her subconscious would fill the void however it could, likely by writing the experience off as a hazy dream, or even as a bedtime story of which the specific details were lost on her tired mind.

“No, I am not a pony,” I said. “It’s hard to pin down exactly what I am, but I am definitely not a pony.”

“That doesn’t answer my question,” she stated.

I rolled my eyes and let out a low chuckle. “I suppose you could refer to me as something along the lines of a deity, though that still doesn’t give you much to work with. Tell me, what do I look like to you?”

The answer varied from pony to pony. To some, I was the large, shadowy creature they saw in their peripheral vision darting from tree to tree. To others, I was the icy shiver running down their spine when there was no cool breeze. To most, I wasn’t even there.

That fact was precisely why I was so surprised when she had trotted right up to me.

“You look… kinda like a pony, but, like, three times as big. And you’ve got these big horns sticking out of your head.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Like a steer?”

“A what?”

“A four-legged, horned animal.”

She blinks twice, then waits a moment before answering. “Yeah, I think so.”

I let out a small huff of air. That was certainly a first.

I cleared my throat and shot her a pointed look. “Okay, now you need to answer my question. What are you doing out here in the woods all alone?”

In truth, we were only a few hundred yards from her family’s wheat fields, where her father was undoubtedly working. Still, for a filly of barely seven, being alone anywhere—especially the forest—was dangerous.

“Daddy’s not very far away, and I was bored,” she explained as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “Now it’s my turn to ask you another question. Why are you here?”

I smirked at her. “Why, to talk to you, of course.”

My response didn’t faze her in the slightest. “Okie dokie!” she said, sporting a chipper smile. “My name is Celestia. Do you want to be friends?”

I let out a warm laugh. It was an innocent enough question, to be sure, but one that packed much more weight than she realized. “Sure, Celestia, I would love to be your—”

“Celestia!” a masculine voice cut through the air. “Celestia, where did you go?”

She shot me an apologetic smile. “Sorry, but that’s my daddy. I’ve gotta go. See you soon!”

And just like that, she was gone. I was left to my own devices once more, only this time, I had a new memory as company.

I blink and I’m back in the Crystal Mountains, wrapped up in the comfort of the cold. The memory is now long gone, a moment of the past once more. I feel the urge to sigh, but I ignore it. It simply sits there, nipping at the back of my mind like a puppy begging for attention.

Equestria wasn’t my first project, nor will it be my last. It is, however, my first serious attempt at creating my own universe. My earlier attempts were all experimental, and the results reflected that—a universe wherein dragons were the dominant race; a universe wherein all life lived in a post-apocalyptic wasteland; even a universe wherein the final member of a species of anthropomorphic, cat-like creatures with very large ears fought villains of all different sorts.

In hindsight, all those projects were destined to fail from the start. But that was in the past, and I’ve learned much since then.

After noticing that I was struggling, one of the other, more experienced gods showed me what I was doing wrong—my approach was off. My scope was too broad, too unfocused. I needed to narrow my aim so that it was laser-thin. Fortunately for me, the other god knew exactly how to do that.

First, it needs to be understood that, even though we are gods, our power is limited. Yes, we can will anything to exist and so it will be. The catch, however, comes with the universe’s inhabitants.

There is one cardinal rule that all gods must follow. Other than this one specific statute, everything else is fair game. The rule is simple—never, ever let the universe’s inhabitants notice your presence.

Though the rule is simple, it certainly isn’t easy. I’ve known many a god who’ve broken the rule—almost always by accident—and the results have been invariably catastrophic.

If a god goes creating and expunging and remaking left and right, someone is bound to notice. Once they notice, that someone is never happy because they feel their free will is being obstructed. If that someone is unhappy, then, well… there are a million different things they can and will do to the one who caused them to be that way, and none of them are pretty.

Thankfully for me, my little encounter with Celestia was not that situation; it isn’t until you give them a reason to be looking that they truly start to notice you. Celestia’s mind was young and impressionable, and therefore malleable. I merely tweaked her memory ever so slightly, and knew that she’d never be the wiser.

Regardless, it stands that the problem with my earlier projects was that my scope was too broad. In the first, I tried to focus on a whole entire species. In the second, I tried to focus on an enormous setting. In the third, well… I simply tried to focus on everything.

Because I bit off so much more than I could chew, I needed to make many large alterations to those universes: alterations which would have undoubtedly broken the one cardinal rule of creating. Instead, I was forced to sit there and watch as my own craftsmanship crumbled all around me, leaving me to bask in the rubble of my own shortcomings.

To keep this from happening, the older, wiser god told me that I needed to focus in on one specific creature—one specific character—and then let the universe snowball from there, all while discreetly guiding everything in the right direction.

In my most recent case, that one creature happens to be a pony. A white-furred little filly with a gentle pink mane, to be exact.

And so I created young Celestia. Soon afterward, I then crafted a little microcosm for her—her own tiny sandbox to play around in while I slowly created the rest of the world she would inhabit, along with planning the path to the eventual endgame—the final goal—of the universe.

It wasn’t until it dawned on me how lonely and bored she truly was that I finally set my little scheme into motion. I could’ve sat there for years more and nuanced all the finer points of my plan, but honestly, it would have been fruitless. No project ever goes exactly as planned, and with one as grand as this one, that was doubly so. It was better to just get started.

With a sigh, I lift my hooves once more. They flow seamlessly through the air, manipulating the bright reds and greens and oranges of the aurora. After a few minutes of working my magic, a new image has taken the place of the previous one.

In this picture, the filly is a year or two older than the last one. She is curled up in a tight little ball, shaking like a leaf. Her eyes are clenched shut, almost as though she thinks that if she can’t see the gruesome scene before her, it doesn’t exist. She’s not crying, but the tear stains tainting her cheeks prove that she once was. It’s likely that there are simply no more tears left for her to cry.

My expression hardens. Even today I regret doing it to her—and creating him—but it was a lesson she needed to learn. Still…

“M-Mom? D-Dad?”

She’d just returned from her latest “adventure” into the woods. She’d been leaving for longer and going farther recently, even for hours at a time. This time she’d been gone for five hours; she’d seen a hawk flying southward and decided to follow it on a grand adventure the likes of which she’d never experienced, putting a huge smile on her face.

The sight that met her upon entering her home quickly sobered her from that elevated state.

Her parents’ mutilated bodies lay unmoving on the floor, eyes gently shut for one final, everlasting dream. Chests unmoving, hearts unbeating, mouths unspeaking; they had, unfortunately, surrendered to the ghost.

Still, Celestia had hope. She darted over to her parents and put her cheek to her father’s chest. She stayed there for an eternity, praying, but in the end, there was nothing but emptiness.

Then, finally, the gravity of it all sunk in. Her mask of composure slipped, and she shattered like glass into a million little pieces scattered about the floor.

“M-Mommy… Daddy…”

Suddenly, her head shot up, heart racing at a million miles a minute. One thought and one thought only dominated her consciousness:

“Luna! Luna, where are you?”

The single-story home went painfully silent. From that silence arose a whimper.

It wasn’t Celestia’s.

“L-Luna!”

Celestia sprinted across the main room and into the smaller one on the left. Once inside, she skidded to a halt. “Where are you, Luna?”

She listened ever so carefully, and, after a moment, heard the muffled sobs rolling out from underneath the old, creaky bed. Celestia dropped to the floor and peeked underneath it, only to see a navy little pegasus filly staring back up at her.

“Luna, come here…”

Luna shuffled out from underneath the bed. Once she was standing upright, her head fell, eyes not meeting Celestia’s.

Celestia raised Luna’s chin with a hoof so that she could look her in the eyes. “Luna, what happened?”

“H-he… he… it… came… M-Mommy and D-Daddy…”

Celestia swept her up into a hug, squeezing her as tightly as she could manage. Staving off tears herself, she whispered into Luna’s ear, “Shh… it’s gonna be all right…”

They stood there for a while, quietly and unsuccessfully trying to comfort one another.

I closed my eyes, mentally steeling myself for what was to come; that was my cue.

“H-hello?” I called from the front entryway. “Is anypony home?”

I could practically feel them both tense up from the other room.

“Oh my… what in the universe happened here?” I added in hopes of emphasizing my benevolence.

After a moment, Celestia’s head peeked around the doorframe. “W-who are you?”

I gave her my best apologetic smile. “I’m just a travelling merchant. I saw your door ajar, so I came to see why, and…”

“Oh… okay,” she managed. “I… I guess you do look kinda familiar.”

A small chuckle jumped from my throat, forced out by the stress of the tension in the room. “I’ve been through here once or twice before, so it’s entirely possible that we’ve met already. So, uh… what happened here?”

Her jaw muscles relaxed, but her droopy expression remained. She pulled herself around the corner and into the main room, followed immediately afterward by her little sister.

Celestia pursed her lips, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I… I don’t r-really know what happened…”

We all stood there in stark silence for a second. Nopony moved in fear of shattering it.

Finally, Luna, barely above a whisper, said, “I-I’m scared…”

After glancing over at her parents’ bodies one last time, I took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and trotted over to them. After making a split-second decision, I wrapped both fillies into a gentle embrace.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I said. “I can’t imagine how hard this is going to be for you.”

At first, Celestia resisted the hug. After a few seconds, however, she fell into it, even going so far as to hug me back. Her facade of composure—the one she’d put on once more for her sister—shattered again, and tears poured from her eyes, drenching me in my own remorse.

“I don’t want them to be gone…” Celestia pleaded.

I squeezed them both a little tighter. “That’s it,” I whispered. “Let it hurt. This might not be what you want, but it’s what you both need. Just let this work its course.”

“B-but I don’t wanna be s-s-sad…” Luna said.

“Showing emotion doesn't mean that you're weak,” I said. “Since the second you were born, it's meant that you were alive.”

A second passed. Then another. And another. I could barely even hear my own breathing.

Celestia let out another muffled cry.

I pulled back, looking her directly in the eyes. “Are you all right?”

At that, Celestia hugged me as tightly as she possibly could, hiding from the real world in my warmth. A muffled “Thank you” was spoken into my chest, and I replied in kind.

I sighed. This was going to be a long, long road for her—for us—to travel.

I stayed with them for another hour or so, reassuring them with forgettable lines of my condolences. Once the tears stopped flowing, the mysterious travelling merchant took his leave, and the two fillies were alone once more.

In the following months, they lived alone in their home. Every week, Celestia would travel many miles to the tiny marketplace in order to restock their cupboards and to learn of the goings on of the rest of the world.

As it turned out, their parents’ deaths weren’t an isolated incident. Each and every time Celestia went to the marketplace, more and more stories of sudden deaths cropped up. The most anything anypony ever caught of the perpetrator was a horribly disfigured, disproportionate, strewn-together mockery of a creature.

That only made her more scared.

I purse my lips and fold my hooves over themselves, trying to push back the icy winds of the Crystal Mountains. I could have simply willed the wind to stop blowing or even just teleported somewhere else, but neither of those options would have been fair. Besides, a little cold never hurt anypony, and up here alone in the Frozen North is where I think best.

After a several more months of that same routine of visiting the marketplace, the stories of deaths became less scattered. Ponies began to live in fear of this hideous, chaotic creature, and he revelled in it. Celestia began to leave their home even less, and poor Luna wasn’t even allowed to go near the windows, let alone outside.

Then—at the suggestion of a certain mysterious travelling merchant—the creature, the dictator, stumbled upon a horridly wonderful idea. Tragedy soon struck Celestia where it hurt the most.

At this point, it’s muscle memory for me. Unfortunately, I only get halfway through painting my picture before I stop. The image is vivid enough in my mind, and I’m not entirely sure I want to see it up in the sky, haunting me so.

This time, Celestia isn’t just sad. She’s broken. Pure, unadulterated pain pervades the very fiber of her being; even the picture living only in my mind makes me want to keel over and vomit.

Suddenly, the memory washes over me in a sea of emotion so deep that I can barely even breathe…

“L-Luna? Where are you?”

Predictably, the empty house didn’t respond. Celestia’s shoddily sewn-together saddlebags dropped to the floor, and a few apples rolled out.

Celestia paid them no heed. “Luna! Oh goddess… Luna, where are you?”

She spun on her heels and darted back outdoors. A ways in the distance, deep in the forest, she saw a roaring inferno. A whirlwind of thunderclouds whipped around the forest fire in a cyclone, and a familiar, disfigured, chimera-esque creature sat calmly in the middle of it all. It was a maelstrom of chaos.

Suddenly, she seemed to know exactly where Luna was.

And so the filly did the exact opposite of what her instincts told her to do and galloped full-speed toward the enormous blaze. She weaved in and out of trees and bushes and branches, garnering more than a few scratches, cuts, and bruises along the way. Eventually, sweaty and out of breath, she reached the heart of the fire.

The flames had already cleared out a sizeable amount of the forest, leaving them with a suitable stage for the event about to unfold. In the middle of the clearing sat the creature, and in his clawed hand sat Luna, bruised and bloody and barely conscious.

Celestia began to sweat even more, though I wasn’t sure if it was from the intense heat or from the fear—not that it mattered either way.

The left side of the creature’s mouth pulled into a wicked grin, and he beckoned her closer with a finger.

Celestia, the damned fool, did exactly as the creature wanted.

“Why hello, little filly,” the creature boomed in a deep, strangely comforting voice. “And who might you be?”

“I’m Celestia,” she managed.

“And why are you here?”

She choked under the weight of the question. Her eyes looked everywhere but at him, and she shifted from side to side.

“What’s the matter?” He leaned in close, face inches from hers, and whispered, “Cat got your tongue?”

Her left eye twitched twice. After a moment, through clenched teeth, she spat, “My name is Celestia… and you’re going to give me my sister back!”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Am I now? Well, you’re certainly a feisty one. I do hope that you’ll put up a fight—” he poked her right on the nose with a bony finger “—all the others have been far too… easy.”

Without a second thought, she opened her mouth and bit down on his finger.

Hard.

The creature let out a yelp of surprise and yanked his finger back. He held it close to his chest, glaring down at the filly. “You filthy, ungrateful little wretch! Do you know who you’re dealing with? I am the one and only Discord, first of the draconequui, lord of chaos, and your new ruler! Bow down before me or you will feel my wrath!”

“Give me back my sister,” she growled.

“You want her? Fine.” Without a second thought, he took the little pegasus in his arms and threw her across the field like a dirty dish rag. She landed on the other side of the clearing with a sickening thud before bouncing and rolling a few times. She came to a stop on the border of the forest, where the fire was burning its strongest.

I felt the burning desire to gasp in surprise from my spot the sidelines, but I somehow managed to suppress it.

This was not what was supposed to happen.

This was not what I had planned.

This was wrong.

Discord was supposed to be cruel and menacing, yes, but never to the extent of killing Luna. The other ponies’ deaths were quick, and they were all fated to die from the get-go. But Luna wasn’t just another pawn. She was an important piece to this little chess game, and I couldn’t have her damaged. Discord definitely needed some… tweaking.

Before I could regain my train of thought, Celestia ran after Luna, coming to a screeching halt before her limp form. She tensed, and slowly put her ear down onto Luna’s chest.

It took a moment, but she heard it. Breathing. It was faint and shallow, but it was there. Miraculously, Luna was alive.

Discord sauntered over to the pair of sisters, a smile playing across his features. “Oh, am I going to have a lot of fun with you two. I’m going to make your deaths long and painful,” he said, shooting Celestia a glare.

Celestia began to shake, broken and curled up into a little ball around Luna. The sight broke my heart.

Discord grasped Luna between his claws and pulled her out from underneath Celestia. He lifted Luna up, taking care not to break her fragile form quite yet. Smiling devilishly, he unfolded her wings and carefully pinched one of her pinions between his claws. He plucked it out, eliciting a muffled yelp from the filly.

“Stop,” Celestia mumbled, still curled up and hiding in her little ball.

“What was that?” Discord asked. The edges of his mouth pulled upward a little bit more. He pinched another one of her feathers and, ever so slowly, yanked it out. Luna let out a small, pleading whimper.

Celestia sat up, now shaking fervently. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. “I told you to stop.”

He let out a low laugh. Still grinning, he reached down and pinched a third and final feather. Slowly, he pulled it out, along with a cluster of other feathers around it. Luna didn’t have the energy to object this time. Blood from her wing began to trickle and pool onto the palm of Discord’s mangled hand, though he didn’t seem to notice.

I sat there, watching in utter silence. I loathed the thought of watching this universe fall apart like my last, but if I were to interfere, I would undoubtedly break the one rule that I needed to follow. As much as I hated to admit it, Celestia was on her own.

Her violent shaking suddenly reached a fever pitch, her face burning a bright, rosy red. She huffed through her nose, and, in the way only a foal could, screeched, “STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!”

As the cry drew out, it began to sound less like an actual word and more and more like a fierce battle cry: a harbinger of the bloodshed to come. After a moment, both Discord and I covered our ears, trying to fight back the oppressive, invidious screech. It solved nothing—the sound still penetrated my ear drums, increasing in volume and pitch by the second. My earbuds threatened to shatter.

As her tiny vocal cords and the sound they produced reached their zenith, a small, almost invisible sphere of white light coalesced around her. Slowly but surely, it solidified, then began to expand at an alarming rate. Before long, it encompassed her, Discord, Luna, and finally, myself.

Suddenly, her voice cracked up an octave or three. The ethereal echo violated my ears, and the light quintupled in intensity. The intangible force threw me back ten yards. I sat up, dazed and barely able to see. The light must have stretched out for miles. Accompanied with the devastating shriek, it would have been impossible for anypony not to have heard or seen it.

Eventually, my temporarily blindness subsided. The powerful, aggressive light began to fade. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Once it was completely gone, I had to rub my eyes to make sure the sight before me was truly there, and not just a strange fever dream plaguing my stress-addled mind.

Celestia was wrapped up in a new column of light. She hovered there, suspended a hundred feet above the ground. Only her silhouette was visible, but I could still make out the smaller pony, Luna, cradled close to her chest. Celestia’s eyes glowed a bright, fiery red as she glared at something across the burning pasture.

The whole meadow rested in abeyance, unmoving. Discord sat on the far side, curled up in a helpless little ball, much like Celestia had been moments earlier. He cowered beneath her presence, and she glowered down at him.

It all happened too fast—a roar broke free from the silence. The noise flew faster than the speed of light, flying straight into the helpless draconequus. He lurched forward, almost as though he were about to vomit. Suddenly, he was on his feet, staring up at Celestia, pleading. Before he could open his mouth, her glare electrified him into stillness.

Starting from his feet, the stone began to crawl up his body. In no time at all, only his head was left uncovered. He muttered something breathlessly, though I couldn’t make out what. It was only then that the curse fully encased him in his own cold, rocky prison of solitude.

I turned my gaze back to Celestia, who was now gliding back down to the forest floor. My ears were ringing with silence. My hearing slowly came back to me, and the only thing I could hear was the roaring of the fire around us.

Celestia gracefully landed on all four hooves, folding her wings in against her sides. She placed Luna down onto the ground, taking care not to damage her smaller, more fragile wings. She planted small kiss on her sister’s forehead, making sure to steer clear of her horn, and sat back on her haunches, trying to catch her breath.

They both looked strangely different to me, sprawled out there on the grass, bloody and bruised. New horns and wings aside, I could clearly see that they both were both four or five inches taller, though I didn’t think that was quite it either.

Then it hit me.

I looked down at Celestia’s flank.

It was no longer blank. A large, burning orb of white light covered it, painting her a new mare. Same with Luna’s—the image of a large, shadowy ball of rock illuminating a darkened night sky rested upon her side.

Suddenly, I realized the world around me seemed much, much brighter than it had minutes earlier. Shakily, I turned my gaze up. The air was now a bright, inviting blue instead of the dark, hazy, pinkish-purple it had been for years past.

I knew exactly why.

That filly never ceased to amaze me.

There, up in the middle of the sky, rested the huge orb of light that had encompassed Celestia during her ascension.

The urge to smile flooded me, drowning me underneath its warmth. Just this once, I allowed the corners of my lips to curl upward.

On that day, the sun and its mistress were born, along with it the moon and its own alicorn. Equestria had been blessed with the gift of night and day, and along with it the presence of two benevolent rulers.

My grin grew a little bit broader.

“The tyrant is dead,” I breathed. “Long live the princesses.”

That one moment in time signified several different things.

First and foremost, it iterated the fact that I am indeed vulnerable to failure. I can most definitely make miscalculations, even grand ones, as the whole Discord fiasco taught me.

Naturally, as soon as everything began to settle back into its natural order, the draconequus was my first order of business. To be fair, he played his role just as he was supposed to—I had misjudged and made him far too malicious. It was a terrible mistake on my part, and one that almost costed me everything at that. But as much as I wanted to, I knew I wasn’t done with Discord quite yet—all his cards had not yet been dealt. And so I made him into a far more jovial creature. Cotton candy and chocolate milk instead of thunderclouds and forest fires: things of that sort.

But beyond my own inadequacy, that one instance in time taught me of destiny. In the moments leading up to Celestia’s turnabout, I saw armageddon flash before my eyes. We were all lost in the smoky haze of the antebellum. Celestia’s and Luna’s deaths would be only the beginning of many more to come. Years and years of chaos and entropy would have ruled until the world’s destruction some years later.

Somehow, against all odds, Celestia persevered. She was fated to die that day. I know that for a fact. But she didn’t. I do not understand how or why, but some greater force, a force greater than even I, decided that she would not only live to see another day, but that she would become something much more than just another pony. She would become the pony.

The alicorn.

Their alicorn.

It was then that I first knew what must be done. The thought had crossed my mind earlier on, though back then I had dismissed of it as attachment to her—artists will always love their children, after all. But right then, after all I had seen, the compounding evidence was irrefutable.

Celestia was—Celestia is far too special to waste on a diversion as silly as this one.

She is destined for something much greater—and it is my duty to bring her there.

I shiver. This time, it isn’t because of the cold.

My vision blurs. Torrents of slow-falling snow surround me, propelled by the whipping wind. I close my eyes and the sensation of dizziness falls away, though I can still feel the particles of ice brushing up against me.

A few more years passed before Celestia needed me again. She breezed through those early teenage years, careening into adulthood far earlier than any child should have to. She made that transition very well, for which I am very glad.

The same cannot be said about her transition to power, however.

In the early years of her reign, Equestria was prosperous. Those ponies who had survived the revolution readily accepted Celestia, and by extension, Luna, as their princesses. They built them a castle on that hallowed ground where everything had nearly fallen apart, followed by a town around it for all of them to live in.

And for a while, everypony was happy. Celestia settled small disputes on the rare occasions when they cropped up. Without the threat of Discord looming over their heads, life expectancy skyrocketed, as did Equestria’s population. Soon, their reach began to expand. Small towns started to pop up from nowhere, along with markets and fairs and even celebrations in the princesses’ honor.

It was then, when Equestria as we know it truly began to take shape, that Celestia started to fall apart.

In those times, it wasn’t so much that she was a bad ruler as she was an emotional one. She had a hard time being impartial, and often drowned in the nostalgia of her yesteryears. The weight of the responsibility on her back weighed her down, pushing her to her breaking point.

My eyes flutter shut, and I’m back in her throne room, watching her slowly crumble...

“They worship me like I’m some kind of god!” Celestia wailed. “I’m not! I’m not, I’m not, I’m not! Why can’t they see that?”

Her looks were a far cry from what they had been back when she was a filly. She had filled out nicely since then, and it was easy to see why the ponies of Equestria had taken to her so. She was easily a head taller than any other pony who stood beside her, though I knew that she still wasn’t as tall as she would be. The same could be said of both her wings and her horn. Her mane poured from her head down to her shoulders, still that familiar childish pink. Highlights of blue and green were beginning to form, however—she was reaching maturity.

But looking at her now, sobbing in a throne far too big for her still, I couldn’t quite appreciate the transformation for what it was.

“You can’t live in the past,” I told her. “You’re their princess now. They look up to you. You have to accept that burden, lest you crack underneath their scrutinizing gaze.”

This time, I played the role of the forgettable servant instead of the forgettable merchant. By coincidence, I had stumbled across her crying and decided to cheer her up. At least, that was what she thought.

“But what did I do to deserve all of this?” she asked. “I’m not special. I don’t deserve any of this. None of it.”

My brows furrowed, and I shot her a well-meaning glare. “Don’t say that. You are gifted, Princess, and you know as much. Both you and your sister are special. Don’t ever tell yourself otherwise.”

She rolled her eyes and stifled a sniffle. “Bah, all Luna ever does is hide in her quarters. I’m out here, facing the ponies of Equestria alone while she just pretends that I don’t exist. I doubt she even cares.”

Harmlessly, I mumbled, “Has it ever crossed your mind that maybe she feels the same?”

“What was that?”

“Nothing of importance,” I said. “At least, not yet. Now tell me—why is their worship of you so upsetting?”

She wiped away a stray tear. “They come to me for advice, but what if I the advice I give them is wrong? They blindly follow everything I say. What if I end up hurting them?”

“Take a step back and look at it objectively,” I said. “You’re not always going to be right, and I’m sure they know that. So long as you do what you feel is best, everything will sort itself out in the end.”

She frowned. “But what if it doesn’t?”

“I promise you that it will,” I said. “You mustn’t be so attached to your subjects and their small grievances. Somber as it is, you will likely outlive all of them. Those petty little squabbles you settle on a daily basis? In the long run, they mean nothing. Think for the future, not for the present.”

Her expression leveled. The tears stopped flowing, and she stared at me, completely deadpan. After a moment, she nodded once, softly, subtly.

“I understand. Thank you.”

I smiled a smile of melancholy. “You are most welcome, Highness.”

That day, she learned one of the most valuable lessons an immortal can learn. She learned that one cannot grow attached to those who do not live forever, or one will make brash decisions—a lesson which I still struggle with to this very day.

The desire to sigh tingles at the back of my mind. Once more, I let it sit there, silently tearing a hole through the back of my consciousness.

Once it subsides, a new sensation takes its place. I can feel the sun approaching the horizon; its warmth enraptures me. Yes, within the hour, dawn will break… whether or not I am ready.

This time, I do sigh.

Many, many more years passed before Celestia needed me once more. She blossomed into a strong, intelligent, powerful alicorn, and she was more than capable of helping herself. She taught herself more than I could have ever hoped to in that time. I still watched silently from my perch the whole time, of course, but I never intervened. I simply didn’t need to.

Then, with the passage of a few hundred more years, the ponies gradually segregated themselves into three separate tribes—the pegasi, the unicorns, and the earth ponies. When that societal divide between the three became detrimental to Equestria’s unity and future, Celestia pulled their respective leaders together and convinced them to work out their differences. They objected, but she stood up in the face of adversity, even though she was standing alone. Eventually, they saw reason and agreed to abolish their tradition of alienation.

Of course, as time went on, the truth behind the event faded into obscurity. Years later, Celestia implanted the idea that the tribes had united themselves on their own. A harmless lie meant to tie all species of pony to one another, and it worked like a charm—I had never been more proud.

A century or so after that debacle, everything began to crumble from the inside out. Luna’s resentment toward Celestia and her little ponies reached it’s apex, just as Celestia’s own toward Luna’s apathy did the same. One night, after a particularly nasty argument, Luna retired to her quarters. It was then that the Nightmare took over. A creature of darkness lurking in the Everfree took hold of the jealousy rooted in her heart, and transformed her into Nightmare Moon. She launched her attack, catching Celestia by surprise and plunging Equestria into an era of eternal night.

Then, as the story goes, Celestia broke free from her prison and banished Luna to the moon in an act of cold, painful irony. Amidst the battle, The Castle of the Two Sisters crumbled. Once the conflict had reached its end, the ponies of the capital began the long trek to Canterlot Mountain to start anew.

What is usually left out of the stories, however, is that Celestia was plagued by guilt in the following years. Questions of whether Luna’s punishment was too steep, or whether she was really the one to blame tormented her every night. Hours of sleep were lost, alongside more tears than one could possibly imagine.

But, as with most things, this faded. TIme healed all wounds, and as she realized this one inevitable truth, she came to terms with the fact that her decision had been made already, regardless of whether or not it was the right one. The past was in the past; this she knew.

Time flew by like the wind. Days, months, years, centuries… all of it in the blink of an eye. Small things transpired on a day-to-day basis, but nothing significant or at least worth noting happened. The years treated Celestia well, and she grew into the powerful, wise, and ever-so-slightly intimidating ruler that she is today. I watched this slow-but-too-fast transformation from just out of sight, and was more than pleased. At the rate she was growing, I figured that my plan might’ve even reached its endgame earlier than I had predicted.

The next time I spoke with her, nearly a millenium had blurred by since Luna’s exilation. However, Celestia wasn’t so much in desperate need of my help as she had been in past instances. This time, she was merely facing a moral quandary. I decided to speak with her of it, in hopes of assuring her…

We sat long, short-ceilinged corridor redolent of wax crayons and eraser shavings. Young unicorns carrying stacks of books taller than themselves milled about the hallways, travelling from class to class. Most paid no heed to the perplexed princess positioned right outside one specific classroom—Celestia’s presence at the School for Gifted Unicorns was hardly a rare occurrence.

“Hello, Princess,” I said, bowing deeply.

This time, I had taken the guise of an elderly mare, one who Celestia likely assumed to be a teacher at the school.

“Please, rise,” she replied, “I have no time for formalities. What is it that you need? Did one of my advisors send you?”

“None of that, Highness. You looked troubled, and I simply wished to see if I could help alleviate that burden,” I said, feigning innocence.

She cocked an eyebrow. “That’s awfully observant of you, my little pony. And it’s been centuries since anypony has referred to me as ’Highness‘ instead of ’Princess‘.”

I smiled a toothy grin. “What can I say? You’re very approachable, Princess. That, and I’ve always been stuck in my books. I suppose I must’ve picked up the word ’Highness‘ from one of them somewhere down the line.”

Look on her face made it clear she wanted to press the issue further, though didn’t have the patience to. “I suppose your input couldn’t hurt.” She sighed. “See the little purple filly in that room?” she asked a beat later, gesturing through to the closed door behind her.

I tilted my head and peeked into the room through the small glass slit on the door. Inside sat a beaming filly, wrapped in a tight embrace from both sides by her parents, who both looked slightly frazzled.

“I just agreed to be her personal tutor,” she added, face level.

“…And?”

“She turned her parents into potted plants.”

“…Oh.”

She nodded. “Precisely. And I’m not sure if it was the right choice. Her raw magical power is astounding—she’s easily in the ninetieth percentile of students, which, considering that this is already a school for gifted unicorns, is impressive. But she has no control. She turned her parents into potted plants, for goodness’ sake! Something which, had it happened under different circumstances, might have landed her jail time. There’s always the possibility that her parents might have been stuck as potted plants forever, and, well…”

“I understand,” I said. “She’d only be able to tap into more of that arcane magical power if you were to tutor her. If her level of control doesn’t catch up to that, which is likely, then she might accidentally transform ponies into something far less benevolent than a potted plant.”

She cocked an eyebrow once more. “Again, that’s very observant of you.”

“Like I mentioned earlier, I am well-read,” I said with a giggle. “Topics such as this, magic especially, interest me. Though if you don’t mind me asking, I do still have one question. Why did you agree to tutor her in the first place if you are so worried about the repercussions?”

“I’m not sure,” Celestia said. “It was a spur of the moment thing, really. Instinct told me to. I didn’t want to just pass her entrance exam and let her into the school, because that could be potentially harmful to the other students. She needs more attention than that. But on the other hoof…”

I smiled up at her. “Listen to your gut. Chances are that it’s right.”

And right her gut was. Years later, as fated, the stars aided in Nightmare Moon’s escape, and she enacted her vengeance upon the ponies of Equestria. However, the purple filly—Twilight—alongside her friends, channeled the power of harmony and expelled Luna’s inner demons. The helpless moon princess from a thousand of years before was left in their wake.

From there, the two sisters quickly reconciled. Grudges forever make the heart heavy, as the two of them had learned in their long cessation of communications. From then on, they were one: a team, rather than two individuals. They split their duties evenly and happily, glad to have some sense of regularity.

Until Discord returned.

Fear seized them both, once the initial shock settled. Memories of his previous appearance tormented them—Celestia especially. The carnage, the inferno, the ascension… she shut down, her subconscious blocking out everything but the painful memories. Thankfully, Twilight proved herself an asset once more and righted the situation in Celestia’s stead.

Amidst the chaos, I briefly entertained the thought of knocking Celestia out of her funk myself. I ended up deciding against it, however. It was a test of sorts—if she couldn’t handle this on her own, then she couldn’t handle what I had planned for her. It was as simple as that.

As expected, she picked herself back up, even though she was a tad too late to truly help Twilight and the others. Still, she had learned that she mustn’t let fear rule her, and that was good enough for me. Admittedly, I was slightly disappointed in her, though the next few years easily made up for it.

For example, in the year following came the changeling invasion. In a time when she should have been panicked, she decided to give her pupil a test of her own. She purposefully succumbed to the changeling queen, to see if Twilight had the mettle to succeed on her own. Nothing was truly at stake—Celestia could have easily broken free and saved the day at any point, as could have I. However, Twilight proved herself, and everything went exactly according to Celestia’s plan.

Some time afterward, once Twilight was ready, Celestia sacrificed some of her own power to grant the unicorn a passage to alicornhood. A new princess was born, just as another was about to leave. It was almost as if Celestia knew what was to come—I had planned to just leave Luna at the head of it all, though having Twilight by her side was twice as reassuring. Celestia’s brilliance once more shone through, even though it hadn’t been intentional.

Then, a few weeks back, came Tirek. Again, she handled the situation beautifully—she continued to slowly feed more and more power to Twilight before she would take Celestia’s own place, unbeknownst to either of them. Celestia was showing all the signs. There was no longer any doubt, not that there had been in the first place. In that moment, I knew that in a comparatively miniscule stint of time, my plan would finally come into fruition.

The thought makes me want to smile. The desire washes over me, and I revel in it, contemplating.

Just then, the sun finally breaks over the horizon. A bright orange light shoots across the sky, pushing back the cold, black night. The snowflakes are illuminated by the brilliant glow, glittering all around me in a surreal display of beauty.

After another moment, I let loose a small smile, finally giving into the desire.

Slowly, I turn my head skyward.

Yes, in a few short years, Celestia will be ready to ascend to divinity like all of the other gods have in turn…

I do hope that she’ll be one of the nice ones.