“A long time ago, a time when the universe was still young and chaos reigned. In that time, the first alicorn, with a coat as white as the stars and a mane as red as the cleansing flames, saw the light of the world. Forged from the fires that strived for harmony, Albia the First, the alicorn of creation and creativity, was brought to life. She, the mother of all life, saw the chaos and began her work. She created our galaxy, our planet, and everything that would ever wander on it. She also created her first daughters, Life and Death.

“Life did as her mother and spread life in all its forms while her sister Death closed the circle. When their own time came, neither Death nor Life wanted to part. So Death took the ability to die away from the alicorn so that she would always watch over her subjects.

“But with time came loneliness, the craving for a companion. Life, who had to watch as all the other creatures were allowed to procreate, especially envied her subjects for that. So she used her power, as her sister had done before, and gave herself and her kind the ability of reproduction. Since they were the only one of their kind, aside from their mother, they allowed themselves to choose any companion they saw fit. Both Life and Death had many companions across the ages they walked over the world. Life gave birth to Happiness, Trust, and many more, while Death bore Anger, Hatred, and Grief.

“Albia saw what her daughters had done and tried to dissuade them from their path. She did not believe that every aspect of existence required a guardian, an avatar which represented it. But the sisters disagreed with her mother, whereupon she disappointedly turned away from them and left creation in their hooves, following the rules she had set for herself. Albia no longer sought to interfere.

“As the time passed, the children of Life and Death sought out companions as well, and the once few alicorns became many. Settlements began to spring up. Alicorns of similar beliefs joined together, forming their own clans and houses. However, the children of Life and Death mostly stuck with themselves.

“As even more time passed, the settlements grew into cities. They began to further research magic, deconstruct alchemy to its core, and develop technology that surpassed any imagination. The cities grew into empires that spanned across continents and eventually covered every last inch of the world.

“Then, after all that time, Life and Death began to understand what their mother had tried to tell them so long ago. Their children began to suffer. The place to live grew smaller for their subjects as their own children needed it. They wanted more and more; enough was never enough. Eventually they began to grow envious of the place of another. It is said that Envy was the first alicorn that was overcome by its own power.

“War was the natural outcome. The alicorn used all their knowledge of magic, technology, and alchemy to put themselves above their siblings. Their mothers, Life and Death, tried to reason with them one last time but fell victim to their own powers as well which threatened to consume them. Without the guidance of the two, the alicorns began to lose control. Taboos were broken, chains sundered. The children of Life dared to play with her power, power that was never meant to be wielded by anyone else. To win the war against the children of Death, they wanted to create the perfect soldier after their own model. Eventually they managed to do so, but it was too late. The children of Death had worked at their own method to end their immortal siblings. A weapon created of pure magical energy that was capable of breaking immortality itself, as it was the magic of Life that created it. Magic that could cut magic.

“Only very few alicorns were spared from the chaos of war. The few that did swore to never forget so that this would never repeat itself.”

Cadance sighed after the last word left her mouth. “Your mother, Twilight, is the last descendant of Life. Born in the middle of a war, she has felt the chaos, the suffering, and despair herself. Your aunt Luna was born at the end of the war in the house of Death. Celestia took her under her wing as she wandered through the ruins of the once great civilization of the alicorns. A foal in the ruins who was screaming for her mother. “

The younger alicorn gulped as she heard about the origin of their kind and their fall. Thiemo didn’t even want to imagine what was going on in her head right now. He had his own thoughts to deals with. “It makes sense,” he quietly said. “I mean the part about Celestia. Eris had told me that she was a marked child.” Now he could understood why she had welcomed humans so warily. “She has seen what technology is capable of and the humans who were almost solely using it to build weapons. She doesn’t want history to repeat itself. She is scared. But at the same time, she wants life to persevere. That’s why she just banished the humans on Ti.” Cadance nodded and looked at Twilight, who was slightly shaking, still wrapped in her thoughts. “And when Luna confronted her about the Children of the Night… She wasn’t scared of her sister but of what might follow. What really followed.”

Cadance attention turned towards Thiemo. “The Children of the Night? How do you know that name?” The human freed himself from his coat so that only his sleeveless shirt was covering his top and showed Cadance the cutie mark on his shoulder again.

“When I got this, we were below the Chain, deep underground on a path none of us had planned. We found something: the archive of the Children of the Night.” Cadance’s eyes widened. “Index, an AI that Blue Light created, showed us records from back then, from the time before the war with the humans of Amissa Heaven up until the point where Luna transformed into Nightmare Moon. And I have spoken with him, with Blue Light. His soul is possibly staying down there and watching over his legacy. When Amaryllis and I were fighting against the guardians, which might have been some robots that Echidna had left there, I got messed up pretty bad. In my weakened state, his soul must have managed to interact with mine or something like that. I’ll have to ask Zarni about the details. Anyway, it was him who gave me this mark.”

Cadance thought quickly and then nodded, determination in her eyes. “We have to secure the archive.”

“No chance,” Thiemo replied and shook his head as he put his orange coat back on. “The archives have run dry. Everything is dead down there. But we have backup.” For a few seconds, silence fell on them. “Something else. When you spoke about the alicorn wanting to create the perfect soldier, you weren’t speaking of Echidna by any chance, were you?”

“Indeed. Echidna was the result of those… experiments. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about her since Celestia hasn’t even told me everything.

“Hold on, does that mean you were born after the war as well?” Cadance shook her head.

“I neither know when I was born nor who my parents were. Celestia found me many thousand years after the war in some ruins. Someone had hidden me there when I was a filly and put me in a time vacuum, presumably so I could avoid the terrors of war.”

“Then one more question. The Crystal Empire is a place from the times before the Alicorn War, right? How then is it still standing after all this time?”

“The same answer: it was also locked in a time vacuum. But unlike me, it was locked until after the war when the crystal ponies chose this location as their home. They were locked into the vacuum with the town. Based on our records, it happened around two thousand years before the years with the humans. Before I was even found.”

Thiemo tapped between his eyes. “How did… Of course. Celestia has her own crystal archives underneath Canterlot. Blue Light spoke about it in the records. If it is from the times of the alicorns, then all their cities should be marked in there.

Silence fell on them until Cadance turned to her sister-in-law. “How are you feeling, Twilight?”

The younger princess nodded faintly but eventually began to move her lips. “Cadance, what are we?”

“What do you mean, Twilight?”

“You said we are the avatars of what we represent. What does that mean?”

Cadance put on a small smile. “Well, it means that you are magic and magic is you. All magic that exists is a part of you. When you grow older, you will realize this connection. You will feel it like it’s a part of your body.” It again made sense as to what Cadance said. Echidna had told Luna back then, when she had found the underground base of the traitors, that Gaia would usually annihilate anyone who dared to dig so deep into her. If the avatar of earth could feel every dig of a spade, then he wouldn’t even be surprised. The question he had to ask himself now was what Ariel felt when he sped up his body with wind. Or what Undine thought when he hurt his enemies with ice shards. Then he remembered what Zecora had told him. He had been using their power for so long, the bodies of the avatars, but he basically didn’t even say ‘Thank you.’

“Don’t worry, Twilight,” she assured the still shaking alicorn. “It may sound overwhelming, but it is in our nature. I feel every bit of love that exists, even if the ones feeling it haven’t realized it yet themselves. Each time, it is like discovering a part of me that I hadn’t known before. But it can also be a wild beast that, from time to time, tries to overstep its bounds. Then our duty is to show it its bounds.”

“Achoo!”

“Gesundheit,” said Cadance, Twilight, and Thiemo. Then they all looked at each other, wondering who had just sneezed.

“Thiemo?” Cadance asked, but the human shook his head. “Twilight?” Again a headshake.

Thiemo took a deep breath and closed his eyes. As he opened them again, he saw the familiar magical fields in the air as the magic seemed to play with the wind while it wandered through the world. Over the table they stood at, over the counter to their left, some waves that came from behind there seemed to interfere with them. Very familiar waves. “Lyra?”

With a hanging head, the turquoise unicorn appeared, a sheepish smile on her lips. “Uhm, I was actually just hiding from the guards.” Realizing that that wasn’t a good reply, she coughed and looked at the wall. “I mean, I’ve come to speak about the discoveries we made in the archive.”

“Miss Heartstrings,” Cadance snarled at her. “What has been said here was not meant for your ears. I’ll have to ask you to leave it keep that to yourself.”

“No!” Cadance blinked, confused. “I have kept my mouth shut long enough. I have devoted my life to anthropology, and after I finally made a gigantic breakthrough, I have to stay silent? Only because bad things happened in the past? That’s the way it is, and no one can change it. Whether you like it or not, I will go to the public with it. The ponies of this world have a right to know the injustice that humans are suffering from Princess Celestia because she is scared of them. No, not of them, but of technology!” At the end of her little outburst, Lyra lowered the threatening hoof again that she had raised against Cadance.

“Lyra, please. We’re trying to fix this!” Twilight turned to her. “But we have to take it one step at a time. It would only cause new chaos.”

Before Lyra could respond, Cadance spoke up again. “Miss Heartstrings, I’m with Twilight here. The current situation is too delicate for the public. Surely we can agree on postponing the information a bit longer?”

Thiemo didn’t like to admit, but the two princesses were right. From what he knew, the humans were causing a lot of problems in Equestria right now. Not like they were his people or anything. The information they had gathered would surely make the ponies reconsider the choice of their leader, no matter how much they loved them. Destabilizing a country, one that basically was the biggest force on the planet, never was a good idea. “Lyra, I have an offer for you. One that I haven’t even made Amy.” The eyes of everypony wandered to him. “I’m still looking for a way home. If I managed to find one, I’ll take you with me. And I’m not talking about Ti. I’m talking about the planet that I came from. A planet filled only with humans.”

“I knew it!” shouted Lyra and grinned from ear to ear. “You are an alien!” Her eyes widened. “An alien!” She blinked. “An alien who wants to take me to his planet.”

“I take that the deal is to your liking?” Cadance asked. Lyra nodded hastily before collapsing, unconscious before her head hit the ground. “I think we should leave it for today. I don’t want any more listeners.” Thiemo and Twilight agreed to talk later in the castle.

Thiemo sat again in the small comfortable room that seemed to always draw him back to it. He had chosen one of the many bottles of alcohol, this time a salted whisky, and tossed the drink in the little glass in his hand.

Quietly, Cadance opened the door and joined him on one of the cushion. “Twilight has gone to sleep in one of the guest rooms. I think she will need some time to understand all this.”

Thiemo just nodded and took the small stone out of his pocket, which he had readied there while waiting. “Here, this is the backup of the archives. Twilight already tried to read it in your archives, but it appears that your technology is incompatible to that of the humans.”

“Then we will have to recover the archives to see what we can do.” Thiemo emptied his glass. His face grimaced as the whisky ran down his throat and left a disgusting aftertaste. With his tongue hanging slightly out, he put it back on the table.

Cadance smiled faintly. “That could be done. But we could also not do it, to not disturb the undead down there.” Thiemo filled up his glass again. “Blue Light experimented a bit with dark magic. It had to do something about the animation of robots.” The princess levitated the bottle over to her and took a sip as well.

“So, Thiemo, what are your plans?”

“Plans? I’d say to win the tournament.”

“Didn’t you make Lyra a promise?”

“Have I ever said when I’ll be going home?”

Thiemo’s glass clinked against that of Cadance’s bottle.

Author's Notes:

Take everything Cadance told us as with a grain of salt. Like she said, Celestia told her what she knows.
Also, act 14 is nearly finished. Next week we have the intermission and after that, like always, a one week break. I hope you had fun reading and I'm looking forward to your feedback/comments/insults.

Thanks to Gron for translating this chapter.
Special thanks to JBL for proofreading and editing.

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