I just noticed, while writing a scene for Piece of Parchment that I messed up on Harpyja’s eyes. They’re not ‘icy blue’, but ‘stormy grey’. The one with icy blue eyes is Gwineth, the griffoness that was with The Harpy in Gilda’s dream, when Ghadah presented the zebra’s heart as a sacrifice.

Gilda’s head spun from all the emotional turmoil of her dream. The only thing she felt for minutes was the convulsions in her stomach and the general awful feeling of nausea at the images, noises and smells that forced themselves on her mind. But there was nothing in her stomach to expel other than the pain. She collapsed on her side against sandy ground and moaned helplessly, hoping that it would pass soon.

The sand was wet and refreshing, like a beach with a soft breeze. She heard distant thunder over the sloshing of the water. She needed several minutes with her eyes shut, listening to the calming sounds. Letting the cold soothe her nausea before she finally felt brave enough to move.

Standing up to her fours, she noticed the black sand at her feet and frowned at it. Slowly, careful not to provoke illness again, she looked around and regained her bearings with a worried frown.

She stood at the margin of a lake under a canopy of gray clouds in the sky. The lake was not filled with water, though. Whatever it was, it was thicker. She wouldn’t touch it, but it sloshed softly, and it was golden. Not as molten gold, but as light turned to liquid. It drew her eyes with its mesmerizing beauty.

The sand was black, fine, and cold. A little damp, and it twinkled like little stars. The lake was surrounded by mountains she had come to know very well. It was the Stormy Eyrie which cradled the lake.

Strange, as the valley in the Stormy Eyrie was a forest with a stream, not a lake. The pervading feeling was that there was some sort of meaning to that detail. But the most impressive thing wasn’t that, or the lake. It was the crystal palace that sat on an island in the middle of the lake.

“What?” She mumbled to herself.

It was a tall, multi towered palace made of softly glowing crystal. A yellow-brown palace with a balcony at the base. It supported itself at the top of a rock that occupied most of the small island.

She walked a few steps on the sand and her feet made soft chiming sounds against it. Amused, she chuckled and grabbed a pawful to let it cascade down in a soft melody, like a windchime.

“What is this place?” She frowned despite her amusement and directed her gaze at the palace again. That was clearly a dream, or something. And the fact that she could identify it as such might not be a good sign. Precisely because Luna was likely to be involved, given her previous dream. And she might not be happy.

Gilda's frown turned to a scowl. She may have no choice and the Princess was probably waiting for her there. But staying in the beach, looking at the place and thinking to herself didn’t seem to be helping. She opened her wings and took flight with a hop. Flapping her wings and steering her flight towards the balcony at the base of the palace, she prepared mentally for what might turn out to be a battle.

What chance did she have against the Princess? Still, as she flew, a foreboding sense of reverence took over her. Something told her that place was unbelievably important.

She landed on the balcony and the crystal didn’t fit very well into the base that supported it. Curious. As though that thing had been placed there and didn’t really belong where it sat. Like there used to be a more traditional building of stone, or something, and she could see its foundations where the crystal structure rested.

But that didn’t diminish that strange and unexplained reverence she felt for that place.

The crystal floor in the balcony had deep claw marks on it and so did the massive double doors of brown crystal. Something seemed to be missing in the middle. It was like a seal that held the doors closed. Like a base for a blazon, or something of the sort, but it was empty. Just blank crystal.

Still, it seemed as though something tried to enter and whatever it was, it was pissed. Deep gashes in triple crackly lines at the door and at the floor. It didn’t look like the sort of thing Princess Luna would do. In Gilda’s imagination, if Princess Luna tried to force her way into somewhere it would look like she blasted her way through with magic.

Memories from the past spoke of magical beams that melted stone and metal like a hot knife through butter, more than claws trying to rip at something.

“I wanna enter.” She spoke more to herself, taking a step back and staring up the doors. “I gotta see what is this place.”

As though her command was heard, the blank seal vanished, and magic filled the doors. Inside the crystal, an intricate decorative design of beautiful lines lit with yellow light, and the doors opened for her. Beyond was a long corridor.

There was something reverential about that long corridor and she took time walking slowly down the winding hall. It didn’t seem appropriate to rush her way forward. It had its own light, despite the lack of lighting fixtures and the crystal itself seemed to shine from every direction with a subtle light. A pattern of cut crystal repeated itself on the walls over and over until she found a break.

It was a door. Made of the same crystal, brown and cloudy enough to not allow vision through. It had a handle and Gilda tried it. The door opened effortlessly with nary a click. On the other side she saw a simple room of crystal walls. It had a simple sitting pillow in the center and nothing more.

Has she been in that room before? She could swear she had but couldn’t remember when or even fathom how that would make sense.

She walked around the pillow. It was a simple blue pillow, and nothing stood out about it. But something about it screamed at her from the back of her mind. Yet, she couldn’t understand what it was. What did that room mean? She couldn’t grasp some thought that was right outside her reach. But she was sure she had been in that room before!

She allowed herself a final stare at the pillow and walked from it. Closed the door on her way out and looked down the corridor again. Something that resembled a tree occupied the central place in the room at the end of the corridor.

She resumed her walk and as the end of the corridor came closer, she could see it was indeed a tree. But not any tree. She had seen it before. In the newspapers when some weird magical thing that didn’t interest her at the time happened in Ponyville. Shortly before Tirek, or whatever his name was, attacked. It was not quite exactly as the one she had seen in the news though.

True, she had only seen black and white, poor-quality photos of the magical tree in Everfree Forest, but the one that dominated the room looked different.

Crystal crackled and Gilda stared up at the branches out of the thing, taking a step back. It looked like a tree, but more like a branch that had grown out a tree and was planted there. Not only that, but it split into six branches that went in different directions and held colorful gems at different heights, hanging from silky threads. It was a light-brown crystal that looked like it had grown out of the floor in the center of the room with a small fence to protect it. But it didn’t really look like a tree to Gilda. It looked more like a six-armed scale, if such a thing would even exist.

She could swear that thing had some important meaning behind it, but it eluded her. The crystal crackled again, and the thing shifted along with the gems it held. They were beautiful gems of multiple colors, and each stood at a different height. She bent her head to the side a little as the whole thing seemed to be skewed to the side.

But something else drew her attention. There seemed to be something missing from the top of the tree. Scale. Whatever the feather that thing was. The top looked bare and had small outcroppings of crystal that looked like they should be holding something, but Gilda had absolutely no idea what it would be. Again.

Not knowing what was going on, after that whole dream and conversation with the princess put Gilda on edge, and she felt tense, but her curiosity won. That thing wasn’t the only distinctiveness in the room that warranted attention. It was a round room at the end of the corridor and it had four doors spread evenly, two on each side with an open passage to a staircase going down, opposite to the corridor.

The damndest thing in the room was not even the fact that there were four doors, but that each had an eerily known symbol. Symbols that really would be known across the world and Gilda had absolutely no idea what they were doing in those doors.

The leftmost one, closest to the corridor, was a tall arched door made with intricately crafted decorative designs that converged to the center where there was a seal. Much like the blank one in the entrance, but this one held a golden design in the shape of the sun. But not really ‘the sun’. It was the cutie mark on Princess Celestia’s haunches.

She barely registered the thought that she might have been abducted from the inn and placed in some weird magical prison, or whatever the heck that place was. The notion seemed unimportant because the second door to the right was exactly the same but held a dark background on its seal with Luna’s white moon on the foreground.

Perhaps even worse that the one further to the right, beyond the open way with the stairs held Princess Cadance’s cutie mark and the last held Princess Twilight’s. What the actual heck was that place?!

Instead of fear for the fact that she might have been kidnapped, that they might have hurt Grunhilda, or that The Harpy didn’t talk to her, and neither would Luna, it was the same curiosity that drew her to touch the seal of the Sun in the first door.

The door was warm, and it vibrated with magical power. A dim light rippled through it from where she had touched it, but nothing happened further. It didn’t even slightly move, as though it was sealed with powerful magic.

She distanced herself from the door and frowned at it, looking up. It was just a locked door, and she had no idea what was on the other side.

She turned to Luna’s door and approached it. Immediately she froze. Her blood went cold, and her muscles tensed. She frowned and sniffed at the air. It smelled of blueberries, but not the fruit. It was the smell of pony that smelled like blueberries.

The first thought in her head was that the Princess was there. And that she was trespassing. Gilda wasn’t entirely sure why she was so sure, but Luna was trespassing and that concerned her. Gilda’s demeanor changed to an aggressive posture with tense muscles and her wings opened slightly.

Much like Celestia’s door, this one had no knob or handle, and when Gilda touched it, soft light rippled through it, but Gilda wasn’t having it. She could smell the alicorn. She was in there, beyond that door. Gilda absolutely had to catch her and get her out.

Luna had inquired her on why she hated her sister. It brought forward the dream of The Harpy’s death. Of the Black Sun. Of how they usurped the world from her kind. The alicorn was messing around in her mind and she seemed to have found a way to defend herself! She wouldn’t let the opportunity slip.

She scowled, stood on her hindlegs, and clawed at the door. Her talons skipped off the crystal and an angry light rippled through it.

Instead of clawing at the door again, she stood on her hindlegs again and closed her eyes. Focused her ‘mind’s eye’ on her paws. On her magical griffon paws, with talons for weapons and that could walk on the clouds. Paws that could hold lightning hot steel. Paws that channeled The Harpy’s magic.

It happened so fast she would’ve missed it if she had not learned its workings. Magic flowed through her and focused on her paws. It pulled at reality until it snapped, and lightning crashed against the crystal inches away. The air filled with the smell of lightning and the door inched open.

She didn’t even stop to think. Gilda immediately pulled the door open and crossed the threshold in more ways than one.

The room on the other side greeted her. Spacious and luxurious, with a blue sofa and reading chairs, all adorned with silver linings. There was a slight hum in the air and the wall on the right was covered in a long and clear mirror. Acid-imprinted images of the moon and stars at the top adorned the mirror. The ceiling was cushioned with blue velvet and the corners had details in silver and black metal. The floor was crystal, but it had a blue hue to it. Lights traveled in pulses under the floor, like they flowed in pipes underneath, and the hum in the air intensified for an instant every time they did.

It was quite beautiful, but she wasn’t there to admire a room.

Behind the sitting area, on a raised dais on top of seven steps was a black, blue, and silver throne. And sitting on the throne was Princess Luna. Magical lights like floating images hovered before her, and she stared at Gilda through them.

“Hello Gilda.” The princess greeted her calmly in the usual Common Equestrian. She also showed an annoyed expression. “You know, you could have knocked.”

“Get out!” Gilda growled like it was a reflex and spoke in High Griffonese, prowling towards the steps.

Luna craned her head with surprise. “I apologize for rummaging around in your memories like that. I lost control of that dream and it wasn’t my intention to trigger such emotions in you. All I wanted was to understand. Regardless, we must talk. It is important.”

“I don’t care.” Gilda growled again, this time in Common Equestrian. “Get the fuck out!”

The princess smiled like a teacher to a stupid student as Gilda approached the floating magical images and walked around.

“What part of ‘get the fuck out’ do I need to explain further?” Gilda growled at her, standing on her hindlegs next to the princess on the throne. Ready to attack, only for the glow of the magical doodads to draw her attention. “The heck is this?”

Movement had drawn her attention. It wasn’t something one was used to seeing in paintings or drawings. And that thing looked like that, only magical. It was like a magical painting floating in the air, or something of the sort. Gilda couldn’t think of a lot of things to compare.

But what she saw, once she paid some attention to the image, mystified her. Looking from the princess’ perspective that thing showed her several moving colorful bars. There was a picture of herself in a corner and a weird hollow image of a griffon with some sort of aura around it. There was an image of the griffon head with the brain colored in various shades of blue, yellow and red. Number readings for heart rate, respiration rate and percentages along other stuff she had no idea what they were.

A long text with words she didn’t recognize and lines of characters that looked like griffon writing drew her attention further. It was a strange language, close enough that Gilda felt she almost understood, but the meaning behind the words and symbols eluded her by a talon’s width. It moved across the magical image constantly as though it had no end. All the while another of the magical images showed the words she had just now said.

‘The heck is this?’ and ‘Seriously, what the heck is this?’

Gilda stared at Luna and spoke with equal measures of surprise and shock. “Seriously, what the heck is this?”

And then she quickly looked back at the magical image. “What the fuck?!”

Luna giggled, waving away into nothing the magical image with a hoof. “Curious now, are you?”

“Bring… Bring that thing back!” Gilda cried at her and pawed at the empty air.

“Calm yourself… There is much, much we need to talk about, but our time is limited.” Luna levitated one of the fancy chairs for Gilda to sit. “Keep in mind that what I will tell you is the abridged version… There is more complexity to almost everything we will talk about.”

Then she pointed a hoof at the magical images. “For now, look at this…”

Gilda sat on the chair next to Luna and looked at the image her hoof indicated. It grew to be larger than the others, displacing them in the air as though the alicorn princess used her magic to move living paintings around and resize them for comfortable viewing. But rather than a landscape or a portrait, those carried… Stuff.

The first thing Gilda noticed was a map of north Griffonia and a red dot, next to her portrait was a small graph with wavy lines. That was concerning enough, but not the weirdest thing. Most of that floating image was taken by a strange text written in griffon glyphs. It ran quickly through the image as though someone was reading it impossibly fast. Above it the text in pony ideograms read ‘Throne of the Mind’.

Another floating magical image was titled ‘Throne of Life’, and it showed a cut-out horizontal slice of the map, showing the same red dot next to her portrait, but a line connected her to the sun above in the sky and another to the moon underneath. Or things that looked like those. Several lines lit in different colors too, but the red one was highlighted. More graphs and stuff Gilda didn’t understand.

A third window was called ‘Throne of Love’ and it showed a spinning statue of Grunhilda, sitting and doing her dumb ‘I don’t know what to do’ stare next to another one of Rainbow Dash in one of her ‘awesome’ poses. The fourth was ‘Throne of Friendship’ and it had a star-shaped graph that showed those jewels that Rainbow and her friends had, but Gilda couldn’t make sense of it other than that nothing seemed out of place, as far as she could tell.

There was something suspiciously ominous about those images. Not exactly threatening, or dangerous. But… It looked like something she shouldn’t be looking at. It felt forbidden.

Luna smiled. “Isn’t it funny the way you instinctively assumed I was trespassing? You didn’t even consciously know what this place was, but at some level, you knew this was inside your mind.”

She shifted to a curious tone, with a small frown. “In the experiments I made, ponies never assumed I was trespassing, but griffons did. And when they saw these, and understood what they were, ponies became agitated. They panicked and refused to believe. I had to erase the entire recollection from their memories. Predictions said they would eventually become psychotic and commit suicide.”

“Not so griffons.” Luna frowned a little. “They typically became curious or angry I was messing with something I shouldn’t, but eventually, most griffons trusted me; I was curious to see if you would.”

“I still want you out!” Gilda cried, but then made a confused frown. “I want to know what the heck is going on, but I want you to leave as soon as you’re done explaining!”

Gilda stared at the images again with her beak hanging. “Is this… Me? It looks like a feathering control panel for a teleporter or something. What the heck?”

Luna chuckled. “A northerner griffon would have asked ‘What in the Scorch is this?’”

Gilda stared at her, not knowing what to say.

Luna simply kept explaining. “I suppose most griffons accept that I am the guardian of their dreams. To guard the entirety of their minds is not that wide a gap to jump. Especially since I usually removed the interaction from their memories once we were done. Maybe for griffons and ponies the realization means something different because our minds work in such fundamentally different ways.”

“Is that why I’m here?” Gilda looked back at her, then at the mesmerizing moving griffon text. “Because you want to test something?”

“No. You came on your own. No one can enter, other than me. It’s been millennia since eyes… Well, metaphorical eyes other than mine, have seen this room, or the others of it.” Luna explained. “I don’t fully understand how you did it. Although, it has something to do with a peculiarity of your soul.”

“Others?” Gilda looked at her again. “Other places like this?”

“We called this place the Palace of the Self. It is a magical construct in a virtual space inside the minds of all sentient creatures in Equestria. What you are seeing is not really what it is. It can’t be seen; it doesn’t really exist as a place. What you see is my newest adaptation of the magical system so that it would be easier to interact with what this really is. The ones inside every mind in Equestria are connected to mine and are a copy of it…” Luna explained. “I modeled the present version after a fascinating story my consort told me from his original world.”

“Anyways, this exists because the pony goddesses that created the current version of the ponies used to reside inside their minds.” Luna touched her own head with a hoof. “And they assisted the ponies in their respective aspects. Thus, the ‘Thrones’. What we have today is a leftover that allows me to fulfill my duty of protecting your dreams.”

“Wait…. Uh…” Gilda grimaced. “Assisted?”

“Yes.” Luna smiled. “It is a difficult thing for you to understand as your mind was built differently. But the first ponies in our version of the world, lacked the ability of metacognition. Introspection and free-will were impossible. Certainly, because the original ponies in the first version of the world lacked those as well. They needed assistance from their goddesses to tell them what to do. Until they developed as a civilization and learned to think independently.”

“They… Jump started the pony mind, so to speak.” Luna concluded. “They showed them the way, until they could take care of it by themselves, and their own thoughts took the place of the voices in their heads. Then, the goddesses were meant to vanish away. Maybe all that would remain of them would be a few strings of magic, part of the processes of their independently functioning minds.”

“But I’m a griffon.” Gilda frowned. “What does any of this have to do with me?”

“Your kind was not meant to exist…” Luna spoke slowly and measured her words again. “At least not in the way that Sol-Estia had envisioned the world after the Allmother was destroyed. But once Life spread and took hold of the world in the later versions, other creatures arose. Griffon souls remained as the Allmother created them, though. Celestia theorized that Harmony recreated you from the information stored in the Black Sun. And that the fact that the Allmother created griffons with free-will may be the reason it exists in the world without the need for the same process that happened to ponies. And that is the reason the core of the system looks like griffon glyphs.”

“Or rather, griffon glyphs look like this…” Luna corrected herself. “The Allmother made the original architecture for the mind, and this is how my adaptation reads her magic within you. Me. All beings in Equestria. A magical notation in High Griffonese. The words of a god that resonated through Creation.”

Gilda took a second to herself, organizing her thoughts before she spoke with some confidence.

“Griffons were created with free-will, but ponies weren’t. And the reason the Palace of the Self exists is because, even if at its core the system was made by the Allmother, creatures in this version of the world use the mind model that the pony goddesses created…” Gilda mused, frowned softly. “And that is why you can enter the minds of all creatures, as well as ponies to help them against the Nightmares… And because of the way everything works, you have access to this place.”

“See…” Luna started. “Ponies were meant to make nature work. They were ultimately servants of Harmony. Tools of Harmony to spread its magic to the world.”

Luna cocked an eyebrow. “And still are, in reality.”

Luna resumed her explanation. “They were created with an echo of the Allmother’s own creation. She made griffons, and griffons needed meat to survive. So, Harmony reacted, and ponies were created to be the wardens of nature. A nature which would sustain all sorts of animal life the griffons needed. It was intentional on Her part. She meant for prey animals to exist, and their sole purpose would be to feed her children. Harmony put her in the world so that she would put events in motion. And we are the present result of that.”

“This…” Gilda thought for a second before she continued. “Is related to that nightmare… Isn’t it?”

As she dreamt, Gilda had no recollection of what had happened. Only after she ‘woke’ in the lakeside she remembered the dream in its entirety. From her recollection of her mother, and her time with the pegasi. And Luna talking to her. It was confusing… It was like watching a theater piece with someone talking to her. It was probably the pony princess messing around her head and preventing her from deviating away from what she wanted to learn.

Gilda should feel offended. She had failed to keep the secret away from the alicorn, but she was too curious in that place. Seeing those things.

Luna nodded. “The cornerstone of a pony’s mind is the Animus Imperative. It is a ‘mission’ given by Harmony of what a pony is meant to do once in the world. It used to be as simple as ‘go where your magic is needed’. Afterwards, the pony mind the goddesses created grew around that. Even if we achieved free-will, we are still compelled to follow a ‘destiny’. In the present version of the world, the Animus Imperative can be as complex as ‘make candy’.”

“This is about cutie marks, isn’t it?” Gilda grimaced. “What does it have to do with maintaining nature?”

“You are not paying attention.” Luna chided her and then rolled her eyes sarcastically. “What does it have to do?”

“Everything!” Luna replied as though it was obvious. “We live in a complex society now. We need ponies to fulfill diverse roles. If there is to be famine, more ponies compelled to do farming will be born. But also ponies who will dedicate themselves to hauling cargo, and those will need ponies that will dedicate themselves to fixing carts… All because Harmony seeks a balance.”

“What is this Harmony stuff?” Gilda asked her. “It sounds important to you ponies.”

“It is the most important thing in existence.” Luna told her patiently, and then her horn lit up in a cobalt glow. The room grew dark, and before Gilda understood what was happening, she found herself floating an unfathomable dark. Luna opened her wings and she spoke like she was the narrator in a theater. “First there was nothing…”

A bright flash blinded Gilda for a second, followed by a low rumbling that resonated inside her. The darkness had been replaced by multicolored clouds in the void. Their heat touched Gilda and was almost uncomfortable. Luna’s voice echoed inside her head though and distracted her from it. Her words were powerful and inundated everything with it.

Then, there was everything. A universe is created; rules are set. The primordial forces of creation forge it into something. Why does it exist? Why did come into being? Perhaps it is a dream that someone dreamt for us. All that matters is that it is.

Gilda felt silly, but she flapped her wings, floating in the sea of pastel lights. A hot wind washed over her, and the clouds danced in a myriad of shapes and colors like they had a life of their own. Luna’s voice dominated everything still.

As is the very nature of reality, Order and Chaos pulled in opposite directions. Too much Chaos and causality will completely lose its meaning. Everything becomes senseless and pointless.

As she narrated the clouds ripped themselves apart and changed colors around Gilda. They shifted senselessly and it threatened to give her a headache. Everything was lost in a meaningless sea of mad colors and shapes that refused to coalesce into anything Gilda could identify. Most of the time, she could almost see what they were, but then her eyes would slip into shapeless insanity, and it became unsettling.

A nightmare of everything unto all. Luna’s voice pierced through.

Gilda closed her eyes, but the unidentifiable sounds assaulted her until Luna’s voice brought sanity back.

Too much Order and reality becomes too rigid. Nothing is ever allowed to happen and a lifeless husk of what could have been is all that remains.

As she narrated, the insane colors and sounds became lifeless and dulled away into nothingness. All that remained was the impenetrable darkness and deafening silence. Gilda thought that she had heard something. Anything. A distant sound, like a rock that crashed into the ground, but it was gone before she could grab onto it.

A world that would not be. A dream left undreamt. A future not meant to be.

A terrible sadness grabbed Gilda with the weight of the limitless potential that was never fulfilled. Her heart cooled like the coldest wind had washed over it.

Then the stars shimmered in the distance. Gigantic clouds of reds, blues and yellows lit in the infinite. A sun shone in the distance and a giant marble made of pale yellow and white presented itself beneath them. There was no sound. It was cold. But it was, at least, sane.

Just enough Chaos, with just enough Order, and reality becomes possible. It is cold and lifeless. But it is. Uncaring and relentless, it does not know or understand, but it is.

Just as Gilda got tired of staring at the giant ball of dirt, it vanished, as did everything else.

But… If you add just a little more Chaos...

A show of lights filled Gilda’s eyes, sparkling everywhere. Wildly dancing to a soft chiming melody of consonant colors, like a rainbow had come alive and danced, happy that it existed.

Freed from the shackles of the deterministic, reality can dream! Magic is made real, and Harmony is born!

Fireworks. It reminded Gilda of fireworks. The kind she used to see every new year when the moved Cloudsdale closer to Canterlot. The unicorns let loose their magic in a show of sounds and light that bedazzled even the edgy, angry teenager she was.

What is Harmony?

Luna’s resounding voice distracted her.

It is Life. It is Death. It is Creation, it is annihilation. It is a dream, begging to be dreamed. It is a verb, yearning to be. It is magic. It is all. It binds us and gives us life. It flows into us and from us to the World and then back to us. It is a flux of energy. Magic in movement. It is purpose. The Dream the Dreamer has dreamed for us. It is the whole that we are a part of. It is what is meant to be!

With no warning gravity pulled Gilda and, next to Luna, she fell an immeasurable distance. So fast she had no time to be scared. When she noticed, her feet touched the cold stone and her legs held her weight. It was a mountainside. A terrible sound echoed in the sky as rock cracked and the ground moved. The mountains rose from the ground and the rock shook under Gilda’s feet.

She lowered herself and grimaced, ready to hop and flap her wings just as it stopped. A valley formed bellow, surrounded in gray and brown mountains of stone covered with dirt.

“Is this…” She caught herself drinking in the sight as her eyes tried to cover the entirety of the valley that formed right before her.

Luna said nothing. She merely walked down the slope and Gilda hurried after her. A soft rain started falling, but the alicorn didn’t mind it. It was cold and wet, but it carried with it soft inklings of magic, like each drop was the fire from a small candle that died upon impact, leaving barely a hint of its existence.

Gilda wasn’t a specialist, but she could feel. Almost taste and smell the subtle notes of different elemental magic. Ice, wind and raw power in the form of lightning. But it was meek and calm as they walked their way down the mountain. Little pebbles rolled and the dirt made it a bit annoying, but nothing Gilda couldn’t brave after the Princess.

They walked alone in the middle of the lifeless valley for several minutes and in silence. Only with the soft magical twinkling of the stars in between the clouds and the crunchy noise of their hooves and feet in the dirt.

Then the light from the stars darkened, and the sky roared. Tumultuous dark clouds covered the mountains and stole away their tips. Lightning danced in the stormy mass and magic filled the air. So powerful, so intense Gilda felt immersed in it. Her feet touched the ground, but she was lost in an ocean of unimaginable power. Unyielding magic that refused to be contained. It became stronger and stronger as the rain began to pelt the stone and loose dirt.

It was not normal rain. The drops exploded on the hard dirt at the base of valley and evanesced into sparks that crackled as the rain became a storm. The large drops drenched Luna’s ethereal mane and her coat as much as it did to Gilda’s feathers, and it was cold. Almost painful, beating against her fur and feathers. It overwhelmed her magical senses and she looked at Luna. Her horn sparkled and her feathers lit up with magical light. Her hooves seemingly had caught on some bizarre magical fire.

It was then Gilda noticed her wings were aflame with a white fire and so were her forepaws. She cried and looked up at the Princess, but Luna hushed her. She had a flaming hoof before her lips, and she hissed at Gilda for silence.

Finally, the alicorn pointed at the sky. She said no words, but her eyes commanded respect. Reverence. Gilda’s eyes followed Luna’s blue leg until her silver horseshoe pointed at the clouds and what she saw stole the air from her lungs and eclipsed her fear of the magical storm.

Light and shadow, bright as the day, and dark as the night. They danced inside the convulsing clouds in the form of a mighty beast. A giant griffoness made of cloud, lightning and wind shuddered and curled into herself as though in pain. Bolts of lightning ran across the immense cloud and thunder rolled. It clapped and it’s sound echoed in the mountains and in Gilda’s bones like the world cried in pain.

Then the almighty beast in the clouds screamed. A long and piercing cry followed by the rumbling of a distant storm and the roaring of the mightiest storm. It pulsated in the air and exploded in the mountains. The ground shook and lightning bolted to the ground. Not one, or two, but hundreds of blinding spears showered above the valley.

Gilda cried. She jumped back, but her body didn’t obey. All her existence was light and thunder. Her chest burned like her heart turned into a piece of molten iron. That piercing cry drilled into her skull and echoed inside of it for an eternity before she gathered her wits again.

“Why are you showing me this?!” She yelled at Luna that kept her stare forward, but now at the ground.

“Because this is the truth.” Luna responded calmly in the middle of the storm winds that flayed her mane around and carried the rain with it. Amid lightning that blinded, and thunder that deafened. “This is the beginning. Attest. This is how you came to be! Witness! I will bare the truth before your eyes! All of it! For you to understand! And then you will make a choice! And it will be the most important choice that has ever been made in your life, and in that of all of your kind!”

“What? I can’t do that!” Gilda cried and, once again, she wanted to move away, but her body refused to obey. “I wouldn’t even know how to! I don’t have the right to decide anything for other griffons!”

“It is not a right.” Luna stared into her eyes. “It is a duty.”

Once again, Luna’s leg guided Gilda’s eyes and she found a puddle in the ground. Fresh grass and a couple of flowers germinated and grew in seconds. Spikes of iron pierced the thick mud. Pure metal that undid itself and turned to red drops. They coalesced and became thicker. It shaped a heart, deep crimson and yellow. White vessels sprouted from it and a spark lit within its thick walls. It beat and spurted the red fluid of life, but instead of spraying to the ground, it shaped trunks. Arteries and veins grew out of the beating heart, and they throbbed in waves as they grew and became more intricate until an impossibly complex network closed on itself.

Gilda’s beak hanged as the impossible image unfolded before her eyes. The magic infused rain pelted that unimaginably delicate living sculpture and viscera grew inside of it. From its intestines and its liver that sprouted from the mesh of blood vessels to its brain and the structures of the creature’s neck. Bones grew and sinew clung to them, growing into muscles that covered the creature. Skin came after. Feathers and fur grew out of it and turned snowy white and bright cyan.

A complete, brand new (as outrageous as it sounded) griffon laid in the mud, curled before Gilda. Her cyan coat and white feathers rang eerily similar. The rain drenched her, and Gilda couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted to touch it or to scream and jump away from it. Everything about that griffon was uncomfortably perfect. The fur was velvety and glossy, while her feathers were perfectly symmetrical and straight. Not a hint of fat in its perfect body.

Then it stirred. The thunder rolled in the clouds above and The Harpy cried again. The griffon turned on its back with a jerk and inhaled noisily. Its chest expanded and it clenched its paws. It was a perfect young griffoness that lacked a navel. She stretched and whined while the rain washed away the mud that had clung to it. The grass grew from where the griffon was and drew Gilda’s eyes to the other griffons. Seven of them stood and shook themselves under the rain, flapping their wings or crying to the sky.

It wasn’t over yet. As the rain fell, not only the grass spread. Young trees sprouted off the grassy field and a river flowed down the mountains.

The griffoness next to Gilda and the Princess stood too and fixed her eyes on Gilda. Light pink eyes, sparkling with life. But what hit Gilda was how similar those eyes seemed. She saw herself on the other side of those eyes, but she couldn’t explain how. She felt it. In her burning chest.

Without warning Gilda finally had control of her body again. Her heart raced wildly and thumped in her ears. Her mind was a mess of towering, larger-than-life thoughts. She pulled backwards to sit on her haunches, but impetus stole balance away from her and she almost toppled on her back. Luna’s feathery wing held her.

Luna’s voice calmed her. “We are not done yet.”

Gilda blinked at her before she scanned their surroundings, frantically swiveling her head. They were on a cloud. A single, solitary, white cottony cloud, cold and refreshing, miles away from the gray clouds over the mountains in the horizon.

Above them formless clouds covered the sky like jagged patches of misfitting fabric a talentless seamstress might have put together. They did little more than hide away the sparkling stars and the soothing sky beyond them. Below was a wasteland of dead dirt and jagged rocks. Not a drop of water to be seen, much less anything green. There was no wind, there was no sound. Nothing that resembled life.

Gilda didn’t need to ask the princess if they were in the Stormy Eyrie anymore, but that griffoness’ pink eyes burned into Gilda’s mind and wouldn’t leave her alone every time she blinked. Meanwhile, Luna had her big cyan eyes on her. For a moment Gilda lost herself in those eyes. Few would have ever noticed, but there was something deeper behind Luna’s eyes. It threatened to swallow Gilda as though her eyes were a bottomless ocean.

“Stay with me, Miss Gilda.” The pony smiled at her with her clumsy lips and square teeth. “I’m just a pony.”

Gilda’s paw steadied her head and her world stopped spinning in a second. “What was that?”

“I showed you other universes. You witnessed the birth of our world.” Luna spoke casually. “And the making of your kind.”

Gilda frowned at her. “You sound like we just watched a random theater piece.”

“Those were events that happened. You would read about those in a book. Growing up you read about things that kings, queens, chancellors and princes did. And it would bore you.” Luna shrugged at her. “Things happen all the time. In the beginning, they had to happen for the first time in one way or another.”

Gilda just stared at her.

“The important thing is… Did you learn from it?” Luna concluded with a grin.

“I… I…” Gilda stuttered and rubbed her shoulder with a forepaw.

“Yes?” Luna nodded inquisitively.

“That was… Me.” Gilda mumbled. “Somehow.”

Luna nodded. “Your soul was there from the very beginning. She made you herself, as perfect as she could. It was the first thing she did. Probably one of the first things she was aware of when she became conscious.”

Gilda frowned and meant to tell Luna that she was being dramatic. She opened her beak to speak, but Mother Harpy’s words reverberated inside Gilda’s head. So many days ago, when She had, somehow, found Gilda in the mess that her life had become.

A mighty beast in My likeness;

A caged, proud and hurt lioness.

Throwing herself at the silver bars;

Held by the magic that moves the stars.

A toast to you, My Child, reborn afresh;

What did you dream of?

What reveries escape the grasp of the Night Made Flesh?

And, just as Master Gabriel had said… Gilda had launched herself into an abyss. And She had caught her.

Gilda’s beak didn’t close, and the pony princess kept staring at her with her huge, expectant eyes. But Gilda’s golden eyes stung, and wetness ran down her lores. Yet, when Gilda closed her beak and meant to speak again, Luna interrupted her another time.

“Well, not really ‘you’.” Luna rolled her eyes. “It is your soul that she recognizes.”

Gilda growled and meant to speak yet again, but Luna spoke first, sitting on the cloud like she wanted to chat over cookies. “A new Palace of the Self is formed when the nervous system is ignited, but the soul is present since much earlier. Yet autobiographical memories are stored underneath the Throne of the Mind and are destroyed, along with the creature’s identity when the soul decouples upon death.”

“I…” Gilda started.

“Although not everypony agrees with me that the individual begins and ends with conception and death. My sister, for example.” Luna interrupted her by raising a hoof. “Celestia believes the soul connects all individuals it has animated and there really isn’t a true difference between them. She makes an analogy… Says that a pony is not the same today as they were ten, or twenty years ago. That we change as we live our lives. That the self is dynamic and adapts to different circumstances. But we remain us. And she uses the soul memories to hold the argument that there is a continuity, even if we are not aware of it.”

Luna whipped out a crystal slab from under her wing. It was rectangular and glossy. With a texture like marble, but it was a crystal. And the alicorn stared at it with a focused frown.

“Soul Memories…” Luna mused. “Events so powerful, so emotionally charged they leave a mark upon the soul. Rare are the minds that can reach into those memories. I don’t really understand how you do it. It’s strange. It’s fascinating.”

She turned the crystal slab for Gilda to see. It showed the griffon characters running up a magical image attached to the crystal. Her horn shined and a few pony ideograms appeared in the image before they vanished and a whole block of griffon text became highlighted, appearing on the image.

Gilda understood nothing, but it was somewhat nice Luna tried to show her.

“Not only does your mind have processes that allow you to form soul memories so much easier, but also allows you to explore those memories.” She tapped her hoof at the crystal. “It is weird. It should erode your sense of self and you should confuse yourself with your past selves. But it is not happening.”

“I could see in the dream that your mind melds with them. But there was a clear boundary between Gilda and that tormented griffoness that lost her partner. Or poor Ghadah…”

“At the same time,” Luna spoke excitedly and tapped at the crystal thingy again. “This thing is growing. Even as your mind processes all these things I am showing you, it is becoming more active. As though your mind, the subconscious part that is responsible for summoning recollection into the conscious mind is learning. Soon you will be able to recall minute details of your past lives as though they were yesterday.”

“Is that… Bad?” Gilda risked a question.

“I don’t know.” Luna looked at the crystal again and frowned. “I have a theory, though. I think that this is a peculiarity of your soul. But I can’t peek deep enough to see that. I’d need Celestia. She’s the only one with access to the Throne of Life.”

Gilda recoiled a bit at the mention of Celestia’s name, and Luna had her eyes trained on her. The princess immediately spoke again. “If I am correct, your soul was made in such a way that when it's Akh, the part of the soul that deals with the intellect, interacts with your brain… This ability is unlocked. Maybe it required some tweaking too… I don’t know. It looks like She tweaked a few things here and there. Maybe this ability requires that She unlock it.”

“Anyways…” Luna stared at her. “Suddenly, it makes sense that the Northerners believe the hippogriffs damage griffons by introducing pony magic into them. Or perhaps it would be better to say that purer griffon bloodlines are needed for this sort of thing to become available. I do remember some Swordmaidens that shot lightning from their talons, back in the day.”

Luna giggled. “Chrissy hated them.”

“I need to study this further…” Finally, Luna frowned. “This is going to be a big problem, though.”

“Back to the issues at hoof… Did you figure out something else about that whole kerfuffle that was important?” She suddenly snapped back to looking at Gilda.

“Ah… What?” Gilda lifted a paw from the cloud. “I don’t know!”

“It’s easy!” Luna insisted with a grin. “You can do it!”

Gilda closed her eyes and turned to her thoughts. She saw the creation of the world. She saw The Harpy as she created griffons. Luna mentioned it must have been a significant moment to her. She also made Gilda realize that The Harpy not only thinks that she is important because she’s useful, but Luna implied a deeper connection.

Gilda smiled. It felt heartwarming that she was so important to the great griffoness. Important enough that she recognized her, even if she had changed… Even if she was actually so useless at the start. Well, Gilda knew full well she was expected to be useful. But that sounded fair. Especially with The Harpy’s brand of tough love. Not really a problem.

Gilda stole a glance at Luna, sitting in front of her and staring at her crystal thingamajig. Every once in a while, her eyes would look at Gilda over the crystal slab like Luna was studying her.

She gave Luna a soft scowl, but the alicorn didn’t let that bother her. Gilda did let it bother her, though. Her soft scowl turned to a furious grimace and she back-paw slapped at Luna’s gadget. She missed, though. Luna reacted too fast.

Gilda’s grimace turned ferocious. “Enough of this bullshit! This is why I hate you ponies! You think that everything is a game! Where is Grunhilda? Where am I? How did you find me?!”

“Fine.” Luna’s playful façade turned grave, and Gilda realized she may have done something stupid. Alone with the Princess of the Night. “If you want answers, I will give you answers. If you want to be serious… I can do that too. You and Grunhilda are both sleeping in your bed at the inn.“

“Now, how did I find you?” Luna stood and approached Gilda who found herself taking a step back and her legs trembled at the sudden anger the princess projected. “It was easy. You are not Ghadah!”

Gilda’s beak hung open yet again, but this time it was not in awe. Her legs locked in place even as Luna leaned menacingly with a scowl into her.

The cloud around them changed into a black background and Gilda saw griffonesses lined in front of her. Old and venerable griffonesses with the carriage of a queen, wearing their blue satin capes. The serious eyes and stern expressions she saw in Gladys, back in Griffonstone… The griffoness that took care of the teleporter for Lady Gwendolen. She saw Gaetana, the owner of the bank in Thunderpeak that kept watch over Gia for Lady Gwendolen. She saw Gelinda the old Loremaster that treated Gil like a cub when she behaved childishly in the bath. She even saw Gia, about as old as Gilda was, but so much more of a Loremaster, even if she failed in her ambitions.

“You do not have the mental fortitude of a Loremaster! Their minds were like a magical safe, almost impossible to crack. Loremasters were endless libraries of knowledge, wisdom and ancient lore. They would fast for weeks and withstand mental and physical torture like it was a soft breeze. But you… You could not hold your temper and assaulted a minor over a pair of coins!” Luna yelled at her, drawing closer, inches from her face and Gilda’s head turned to the side with a grimace and tightly shut eyes. “You are a delinquent that squandered your mother’s last hope at granting you a decent education. You are a hopeless rebel. Your mind is an open book. Bursting with childish sketches and malformed letters.”

Gilda saw Ghadah. Her elegant feminine shape holding her sword forward with forelegs stretched. The weight of that thing seemed to increase tenfold every minute, but her years of training and dedication had made her muscles strong like steel and she didn’t even shiver.

She saw herself, alone in a dirty alley. Under a torrential storm and begging for her life, at the mercy of three common thugs.

“You are not the Swordmaiden of the Shaddani! Everything The Harpy has told you was so that you will not despair. She is holding you by a thread so that you will not stop!” Luna didn’t relent despite the griffoness making herself as small as she could, cowering against the cloud. Her silver-clad hooves held Gilda and Luna forced Gilda to stare into her. “There is only one way this twisted fairy tale will end!”

Gilda saw The Harpy in the dark. A flash like the sun blinded her.

“Celestia will find her, and she will destroy her!”

The Harpy fell on her back and covered her face with her paws.

The raging blue alicorn let Gilda back onto the cloud and turned her haunches to her, flaring her wings after a few steps and turning again. “This time… With no Black Sun to spare her annihilation. Celestia fears The Harpy! You don’t understand her power; you don’t know her skill! She will not waver; she will not hesitate.”

“Gilad will try to fight Celestia, and he too will die!”

A griffon came out of the dark. He wore grey armor over his dark-brown body and his white head held a simple diadem made of iron. He held a heavy axe above his head and his wings spread wide. His wolf-skin cape flapped in the wind as he brought down his axe on Celestia.

She turned and the feathers in her wings shone with magical light. Her body was engulfed in an armor made of pure light with terrible blades at the leading edge of her wings. A crowned helmet and a cape of flowing light like she wore the sun itself.

Her wing slapped at the axe and the blade with shining blue runes shattered like glass at the magical feedback of her magical armor. The griffon flew on his back, and she lined her horn at him. A magical blast disintegrated him along with a strip of stone.

Other griffons attacked her, and she fended them off with summoned magical weapons of light and she cut a path through them. Celestia held a heavy and ornate spear made of bright chrome and gold. She jumped with a flap of her wings, holding it in her forelegs, and impaled The Harpy with her weapon. With enough force that it stuck to the stone tiles in the ground.

Gilda saw a wide street flanked by mansions and a red river flowed down around terrified griffons.

“His vassals will fight, and she will slaughter them like cattle to the meat market. The great walkway of Griffindell will turn to a red river! She will end her agreement with Empress Geneviere to leave the Northerners alone and they will be broken without their heroes! The Sky Sentry will shatter and the spawn of the Windigos will ravage the North unrestrained!”

Griffons flew away from the great city in the mountain in every direction and Gilda saw groups of griffons. Adults and children with few meager possessions turned to icy statues in a vast white desert castigated by a blizzard.

The giant black walls she had seen in the painting turned white and toppled. The city in the valley of griffons became a frozen ghost town. And the valley where her race was born was a forest of dead trees and frozen mountains.

Luna came close to Gilda again. “Without leadership, Griffonia will implode under the weight of its corruption. The impenetrable walls of Griffindell will crumble, and the Stormy Eyrie will remain frozen forever. Ageless tales, memories from time immemorial, will turn to dust. Everything the Astrani did will be for naught! Your disheartened race will be broken, and the future of the griffons will be a cold nightmare!”

Griffonstone was consumed by a blizzard and the new manehattian structures broke. Griffons fight on the street for scraps of food, and she saw Goldina, Greta and Gary by a flimsy campfire, trying to warm themselves in what remained of the plaza with Grover’s statue.

Gilda saw herself tied with chains, following Gertha and her brother in a line towards a guillotine as griffons shouted and pointed claws at them.

She saw Grunhilda tied with chains and her beak held by a bridle. A black iron door closed with a bang.

“Your new friends will be tried for treason and whoever Celestia puts in the Chancellor’s place will use them for scapegoats. History will repeat itself! One by one, they will lay their necks on the chopping block, and you will live long enough to see Grunhilda interned at Shatteredrock. Never to see the light of the day, ever again! Rainbow Dash and Greta will cry and wonder what they could have done to save you.”

All that remained of Griffonia was a newspaper article where a pony commented on the evil of griffons and that Rainbow Dash read with tears on her pony muzzle.

“An entire race, promised greatness only to have it crushed before them will wither away. The Harpy will be denied redemption. She will have survived annihilation, only to have existence stolen from her again. She is merciless. She is deranged. She is dangerous. And her love is twisted, but she loves you! She loves your kind as much as Celestia loves her little ponies.” Luna held Gilda’s beak in her magic. “To kill her again would be blasphemous!”

Finally, Gilda broke. An overwhelming mixture of sorrow and confusion released as a sob that escaped her aching throat. She couldn’t shift her eyes away from the princess. Luna held back her own tears with her ears hanging from her head. She held Gilda in her hooves again. “You are the only one I can reach that she will listen to. You have to stop this!”

Gilda blinked and mumbled incoherent words before she finally managed to speak. “You… You want to help us?”

Luna let her sorrow show again. Those ancient eyes that held untold power filled with regret. “I can’t tell myself that a creature sunken in darkness cannot make it back! But I can’t do anything alone. I need you to save her!”

Gilda’s beak trembled and she struggled to get the words out again, but she hardened her resolve. Without the echoes of past lives, or a magical sword forged for her by a legendary blacksmith. Without a voice in her head telling her how special she was or griffons telling her how great she was. Just the little scone baker from Griffonstone that never took responsibility for anything in her life. “What do I have to do?”