One thousand years… It was enough time for seas to dry, lands to drown, empires to rise and fall and the foundational paradigm to shift.

It was enough to make me flabbergasted.

And afraid.

The Tree of Harmony was so powerful it was considered absolute. Around it sprouted a forest that grew around this sheer force of nature. It nurtured the land, but warped it, and the beings around it, in a mysterious dance along invisible tracks of fate.

Even a draconequus with the strength to alter the nature of reality was fairly mindful around it. Discord once regarded the Tree with fear, but now did not mind it so much. I think that was part of the reason I feared its existence.

What could be so powerful that it could make the Lord of Chaos change his ways?

And a disturbing thought:

What if I rebel against it? Would I be considered a target for change? Was I in the crosshairs to reform my ways and come into its folds.

The roots of the Tree spread insidiously not just through the earth, but through the hearts and minds of those around it.

I stayed well away from it, usually.

Is an immortal subject to the corrective power of Harmony?

Possibly.

I didn’t want to find out.

Some immortals were happy to utilise it, some were not.

Angel, Gummy, Winona and myself were among those hesitant to interact with it.

Celestia and Luna were not afraid.

Forever they were relegated to being a part of nature, now neither mortal or immortal, but sort of between.

They had paid a heavy price.

I wasn’t willing.

Still, here I was, in front of something I barely understood, to a being accompanied by thousands of years of knowledge, cowering from an absolute force that it represented, now visited by the echoes of what I had run from.

I saw the last Bite die.

But they did not let me go.

They were back and they were here.

“Owlowiscious?”

Bright purple eyes tinged with seeping concern filled my vision.

“Ah, yes?” I answered, giving my head a savage shake to clear it of thoughts. “What’s up?”

Twilight looked like she wanted to say something, but then held it back. Instead, she gave me an affectionate rub with the tip of one of her wings. I felt embarrassed, but at the same time, a lot better.

Yes, the present is where the problem lay. I had to focus on the present. I couldn’t change the past.

“We need to tell the Whos about the Bites and help settle the Bites here.”

Twilight sighed. “Although not many venture into the Everfree forest, some ponies do. If I tell the Whos, they won’t do it, but what about later? Maybe...”

I caught the uptick in Twilight’s voice and smiled.

“You have an idea?”

“What if we task the Whos with being the guardians for the Bites and the Everfree? Nopony will venture in after that.”

“And after that?”

“Then after that, Pinkie can throw them a welcoming party while I—” she rubbed her eyes with her hooves “—sort out the paperwork.” She smiled. “But that’s worth it if they can settle here in peace, away from the horrors that chased them. I just wonder if they’ll be happy to follow along.”

“Heh.” I was impressed with her fortitude. “That’s perfect, they would definitely do that! Only…”

Twilight smirked, her head tilting in curiosity. “Only what?”

“Only... what’s that?”

Before I could shout a warning the Tree started glowing intensely, streaks of light streaming from the ground and coursing through the veins of its intricate crystal branches. Twilight gaped as the Bites made to back away from the Tree. Although the Tree was regarded as holy by the Bites, they revered and respected its power. They were just as anxious as I was feeling as the light steadily grew in luminosity.

“Twilight!”

“Right!”

Twilight sprung into the air, legs kicking off from the ground with such force that it cracked, but before we could even get a feet away, the light enveloped us and my consciousness sunk into a bright white oblivion.

The last thought I had was…

I wonder if this is what Discord felt?

Was I to be erased?

————————

It took a long time, but my eyes broke open to the glare of an unforgiving sun.

I squinted and tried to shield my eyes from the seething fury of its white-hot rage, but the action dumped something gritty into my eyes and I blinded myself instead.

“Oh feathers!” I cursed whilst rolling on the sand.

Wait.

Sand?

Heat radiated from the ceaseless dunes as I stumbled to my claws and fluttered my wings, dislodging the sand hastily in the process.

Wait a minute, this area felt familiar. Was this the desert?

Then it hit me.

“Twilight?”

“Twilight!”

“Streak?!”

“Alaca-whats-your-name?!”

“Anything! Answer me!”

I yelled this out to the boundless sands until my throat went hoarse.

Not good, I was overheating and panicking at the same time.

Stay calm. Find shelter. Find water. Find my friends, I told myself sternly.

I shot into the air. The best method for finding anything in this barren landscape was to scout by the air. I didn’t know where Twilight was, but I had to pick a direction or the sun would make short work of me.

Though the sun was still overbearing as the start, the wind was cooler in the higher altitude, though I kept close enough to spot any anomaly in the sands. I hope anyone who had come here with me had a better time of it.

I didn’t want to entertain the notion that I was alone.

Flapping ardently, I proceeded in what I thought was a northerly direction, judging by the sun. No reason I chose north. It was a featureless barren landscape; every direction appeared the same.

I flapped desperately, feeling myself become hot and exhausted as the merciless star bore down on me with all its thermal fury. If I didn’t find something, anything, I was going to cook.

There!

A small shadow that wasn’t cast by a dune!

Excited, I exerted a hungry burst of strength and shot towards the growing image of a rock. Corkscrewing out of the air without being able to control my descent, I tumbled to the rock and threw myself under its shade. Only… it was not a shadow cast by the lee of the rock, but rather the maw of a hidden cave instead.

I sighed in gratitude, flipping a humble wing to the high heavens.

Screw you, sun.

It felt like heat was rolling off my body in waves, but in the shadow of the cave, it was leeched away almost like it was lapping at it greedily. I was safe, for now.

All at once, the feathers on the back of my neck stood erect as a shiver crept up my spine. There was movement behind me! Whipping around, I came face to face with a vicious looking beak and golden eyes.

“Ah! Who! What? Who! Hoot!”

An embarrassing jumble of sounds and half-words tumbled out of me.

“Great Owl?”

I sighed in relief, flopping back as I shed some feathers with the stress of the encounter.

“Don’t scare me,” I muttered moodily after my brain rebooted. “Even a dragon would shed scales when you creep up behind them with a hungry-looking face like that!”

“Oh, my sincerest apologies, Great Ow—you can talk?!” Now it was Geneva’s turn to let out a muffled yelp.

I reared my head and swung back in no less surprise. “You can hear me now?!”

Geneva squealed in excitement. “G-Great Owl, I’m at your d-disposal.”

“Stop shaking so much, you’re weirding me out.” I grumbled something unrepeatable under my breath as the griffon bowed so low and quickly that she almost did a tumble.

“I-It is a great honour to speak with you, Great Owl!”

This is what Twilight probably felt like back then when she gained a lot of followers. I didn’t expect this to be… so intense. It was very unsettling. Stop staring at me like I’m Celestia or something.

“Well, erm, you can take it easy, uhm, Geneva. I’m just an owl, no need to go crazy.”

“I wouldn’t dare, Great Owl, you are the Prime Who and the core prophet of the Followers of the Whos.”

I clicked my beak. “Princess Twilight deserves that credit.”

“Princess Twilight is astounding, but you are supreme.”

“But she’s a princess, I’m simply Owlowiscious, her pet owl.” I arched a fluffy eyebrow. “There’s no need for your reverence and I’m certain you’ve got the wrong owl.”

“Fate brought us together and you are a part of our destiny. I believe you are the Great Owl, the fact that you are chosen by the Tree of Harmony marks you as significant, if not pivotal to the world!”

“You came through the Tree as well.”

“Merely to assist!” Geneva gracefully bowed in an overly humble fashion. “So that you may encounter less discomfort in your prodigious journey.”

What am I, a hero in a fantasy tale?

“I’m just Owlowisicious!” I snapped testily.

“Yes, oh Owlowiscious, the Wise and Just.”

I couldn’t find the words to retort her blind self-assessing verisimilitude. Her belief gave herself her own truth that barred any attempt for me to correct.

And boy did I want to correct her right now.

“Stop it with the titles.”

“Great Owl?”

“Oh, leave it!” I sighed, deciding to drop it for now. “We have to find the others. If you were dragged here somehow, I think Twilight, Griselda and the Bites must also be here.”

“Yes.” Geneva nodded. “As you command.”

She sprung up, but I hooted at her impatiently.

“You can’t go out there, it’s still blazing!”

“But—”

“I know you’re anxious to find the others, but there’s no point in going out there now!” I pinned her down with a steady gaze. “Stay here and rest. Food, water and other needs will be hard to come by, conserve your strength and wait for me. We’ll travel just before the sun sinks below the horizon and scan for additional shelter. We cannot trek through the desert aimlessly, it could cost us dearly, understand?”

Geneva bowed her head. “As the Great Owl commands.”

“No! Not as I command!” I poked her chest with an outstretched wing. “As you think! I value intelligence. Nothing is worse than thoughtless obedience!”

Geneva made to bow but then pondered a bit and then inclined her head.

“As you w—I will do as you say.”

Grunting, I shook my head. Instead of arguing with her, I decided to retreat back to the cave and get some rest. I gave her a curt nod and slumped into a corner of the cave to sleep.

There was a long way to go.

——————

My nap fared fitfully and I woke up bleary, not remembering my dreams. Other than a feeling of creeping dread, I woke up to a concerned face close to mine.

“Ah, feathers!” I flipped a wing and got to my claws in a hurry. “Will you stop doing that?”

Geneva bowed her head. “My sincerest apologies, Great Owl, you looked distressed so I came to check up on you. You were talking in your sleep.”

I quickly cooled down and turned my head away in slight embarrassment. Well, at least she had good intentions.

“Thank you,” I replied in a softer tone. After a pause, “By the way, what was I saying in my sleep?”

“You were apologising.”

“Apologising?”

“Yes, you kept saying you were sorry, but you didn’t say about what.” Geneva was studying me with discomposing amounts of pity.

I sat back and rubbed a wing under my beak, shrugging my shoulders. “I don’t remember my dreams, so I don’t know what I was apologising for.” I coughed slightly. “Don’t worry about it.”

Geneva opened her beak as if to say something, but then closed it slowly. “Alright, Great Owl.”

“Geneva, there’s no one else around here,” I pleaded, “call me Owlowiscious.”

Geneva paused. “But—”

“Please.”

Finally, she nodded. “Alright… Owlowiscious.” She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “It’s such a silly name. Who gave you that name?”

I smiled wryly. “The Princess.”

Geneva’s face had ‘dubious’ written all over it. I didn’t blame her, I almost rolled my eyes when I was first given that name. I mean, who calls their pet a name like that? Coming to think of it, the Bites have very similar names.

“The sun is setting,” she suddenly announced.

She was right, the light in the cave was dimming slowly. It wasn’t a problem as I had excellent vision at night, because I’m an owl. Hoot hoot. Anyway, for a second, I was worried about my other feathered and furred companion, but it seemed that Geneva didn’t have a problem making me out in the rising dark.

I flittered to the entrance of the cave and gestured for Geneva to come out with me. I estimated we had roughly ten minutes of light left before the desert ticked over to night. Luckily, the moon was almost full and I estimated that the light it shed would be enough to make out features in the desert.

“Okay, I’ll scout out ahead and you follow along behind me, got it?”

Geneva frowned. “Grea—Owlowiscious, won’t it be better if we split up to cover more area?”

I considered it. “It would, but we don’t have anything to help with our navigation.” I glanced back at the cave. “This is our only shelter out here and we need to be able to double back to it, in case we can’t find our way out of the desert.” I shook my head bleakly. “We don’t have any tools or anything we can use to survive. It might be better to stick together.”

Even though I had lived a long time, experience doesn’t put me in the best of positions. After all, I only knew a little about how to survive in the desert, but usually civilisation or help was only a short flight away. Just because I lived a long time, didn’t mean I was an expert on everything, and like anyone, I’d forget what I’d learnt if a long enough time passes. I was immortal not invincible. Knowledgeable not omniscient. Owl not deity.

Still, what little I had said seemed enough to convince Geneva; she nodded in agreement.

“Yes,” she answered slowly. “That makes sense. Great Ow—Owlowiscious, maybe we should split a little further? As long as we keep in eyesight of each other, we’d cover a greater area.”

“Fly in parallel?” I said, then nodded. “Alright, let’s—”

Geneva stared at me curiously. “Owl—”

“Shh!”

Geneva fell silent as I scanned our surroundings.

There was something out there.

My face plate was picking up minute sounds in the sands around the east, opposite from where the sun was setting. It sounded like the sea. That wasn’t right. We were in the desert, there shouldn’t be any water that large. And how did we miss it?

Geneva tensed next to me. It seemed like she also heard the sound. The rustling sound of the sea was increasing in volume, it was picking up, seemingly familiar and not at the same time.

“That sounds like… an hourglass,” Geneva commented softly.

Then it struck me.

“That’s because there’s a lot of sand moving! Up! Get to the air!”

I launched myself, desperately clawing the air with my wings to gain altitude. Geneva hesitated slightly, but followed me resolutely. After climbing about a few hundred feet, I finally took the initiative to scan below. My suspicion coalesced to certainty as I registered a black smudge sweeping across the horizon.

“Sweepers,” I muttered, feeling a shiver crawling up my spine. “But they’re supposed to be…”

Extinct.

I didn’t finish that thought out loud. Last time I thought that, I was proven horribly wrong. These creatures, like the Bites, were eradicated before the reign of Queen Griselda. Although the slaughtering of the Bites were wrong, the Sweepers were another matter. Part infused biological matter, part magic, all hostile, the Sweepers were creatures that bred and self-replicated as a destructive legacy of a long-lost creator. Driven mad without a directive, the Sweepers combed the desert, making barren any land it tread on and wiping clean the life from the land in the process.

In fact, it was I, accompanying Griselda before she was Queen, that wiped out the central core of the Sweepers and restored the desert to its former glory cementing the influence of the Empire and elevating her status from orphan to heroine.

But… that’s not possible. If the Sweepers were back, then the control core was either restored, or…

It was never broken in the first place.

A chilling realisation was beginning to form in my mind and every second the sun sank below the horizon giving way to a brilliant vista of twinkling stars only further cemented the horrifying notion. Those constellations were not identical to our own. To be more accurate, they were the same, but a little different.

I shot a quick look at Geneva, who cocked her head.

“What is it?” she asked timidly, looking at my grave expression.

“We have to find the others quickly.”

“Do you know what those things are? Are they dangerous?”

“Yes,” I replied grimly. “They’re dangerous and don’t belong here. And…”

“And?”

“And neither do we.”

Author's Notes:

Woah, like a chapter kind of like every week?!

IMPOSSIBLE.

It's almost like you intend to finish this story sometime this year...

Next Chapter: Like the wing in the sky and the rein on the sea... wait that's not right.

As always, my schrodinger: readers * authors < reduced Planck's constant/2, thanks for reading!

P.S. Word Worthy continues to be the best editor.