LEGEND OF THE GODDESSES
Ribbondale, 1,399 years ago
Off in the leafy forests of birch and aspen outside of Ribbondale, two gangly teenage fillies giggled as they flew in circles around each other.
"Oh, come on, you can't be entirely out of ideas," Annihilara chided. "There must be something we haven't tried to get our cutie marks."
"Well, let's look a bit… closer to home," Luna suggested. "I've always been interested in what my mother does. She can walk down a paved road and grow flowers out of it. I wonder how she found out how it's done?"
"Why don't you ask her?"
"Oh, who has the time?" Luna said dismissively. "Let me just try it." The little blue filly dropped to the forest floor and started strutting around.
"I'm concentrating," she declared. "Very, very hard. Are there flowers following me?" She screwed up her face in determined focus, her horn sparking with midnight-blue light.
"No, but zombies might," Annihilara said in amusement. "With your 'concentrating face' and the walk you're doing, they'll think you're their queen."
Luna giggled. "Let's see you do better, cousin."
"Very well," Annihilara said solemnly, dropping to the ground herself. "How about we try out my mother's skill? Harsh weather manipulation via unicorn magic! Get me a cloud and a big strawberry milkshake and I'll show you what the daughter of Tempest is made of!"
"I like the sound of that!" Luna said gleefully. "You have so much confidence, I can't imagine you not… strawberry milkshake?"
Annihilara laughed hysterically. "Oh, nothing. Let me try something."
She darted off to above the trees, and returned with her legs wrapped around a cloud. She set the cloud a few feet off the ground and returned to the forest floor alongside Luna.
"Mother gave me a few hints on how she does it," Annihilara explained. "Let me give it a go…"
She clenched her green eyes shut tightly and gritted her teeth, her entire body quivering. An aura of pitch-black surrounded her horn, flickering on and off, until it flared up powerfully. The same aura surrounded the cloud, which crackled with thunder and released a few lightning bolts before disappearing into nothingness.
Annihilara collapsed to the ground, and Luna gaped at her.
"That was… the most amazing thing I've ever seen…" she muttered.
"What?" Annihilara demanded, standing abruptly. "Is it my cutie mark?"
"No… no, you don't have one yet," Luna said softly. "It was your aura. I've never seen one so strong, not even on a grown-up. For a moment, it swirled around your whole body. And it was… black. Blacker than black."
The pink filly whistled. "Wow. I wish I could have seen that."
"Well, a hearty hooray and huzzah," said a sneering voice. "Looky who we have here."
The little fillies turned to see Ragnarok and Xanadu. The pair were nearly fully-grown, with their auras of crackling lightning and sparking fireworks constantly active. Ragnarok smirked at them viciously, pink lightning shooting out of her eyes as they lit up with sinister joy.
"Off of another zany scheme, you two?" Ragnarok taunted as she circled around the two younger ponies. "Looking long and hard for your cutie marks? Please. Sometimes I wonder why you two even bother. Trying to find your special gifts? As if. It's obvious that all the talent in your family went to one place and one place only."
Xanadu tilted her head. "And where's that?"
Ragnarok sighed. "Celestia, you numbskull. I'm talking about Celestia."
"Oh, right!" Xanadu said, nodding rapidly, making the beads in her orange mane rattle and click. "Yeah… yeah, Celestia's great. She's real 'alpha pony' material, you know? Nopony else comes close. If you two fillies think you're gonna get a cutie mark as special as hers, you're… you're gonna be disappointed."
Ragnarok ground her teeth. "I'm the alpha pony around here, Xanadu. I didn't think I'd catch you forgetting about that too."
Xanadu shrugged. "Sorry. Point is, Celestia is crazy-cool and we're going to make a huge production out of beating down her little relatives."
"Mmmmm, too true, too true," Ragnarok drawled, leaning down to stare at Annihilara in the eye. "It's pretty clear why Celestia hates you two so much. She talks about it all the time, you know."
Luna abruptly jumped at Ragnarok, wrapped her arms around the pale gray older filly's neck, and flung her over her head and to the ground.
"Hah?" Ragnarok peeped, flat on her back and utterly shocked.
Annihilara followed Luna's cue and flapped into the air, grabbing Xanadu by the sides of her head and lifting her off. The black-furred filly cried out in alarm and started flapping her own wings in an attempt to get away, but Annihilara gave a deft and masterful twist that flung her into a nearby pool of mud.
"Quick, cousin!" Luna called. "Here, here, here!"
Annihilara raced to Luna's side, and both of them gripped the end of Ragnarok's blue-and-white tail in their teeth, spinning her around once and tossing her into the mud as well.
"Ha-ha!" Annihilara declared. "Who's the alpha pony now?"
"We are!" Luna chirped. She extended her wing, and Annihilara slapped it with her own.
Ragnarok clambered to her hooves angrily, her horn crackling with magic.
"Oh, no you don't!" Luna cried out, tackling her. She stood atop Ragnarok's back, smiling invitingly at her cousin. Annihilara took the hint and hopped over to Xanadu, pushing her down further into the mud as well.
"So, cousin," Annihilara said casually, "as long as we're talking about things my mother's been teaching me, we've been working on how to river dance."
"Oh?"
"Yes, let me show you." Annihilara got onto her hind legs, with her arms held stiffly at her side, and broke into an elaborate jiggy dance right there atop Xanadu's body, her hooves flailing about wildly.
Luna laughed. "Oh, that's marvelous, Lara! It kind of reminds me that I've been skipping rope lately."
"Ooooh, how wonderful!" Annihilara gushed. "Let's see it, then."
"Well, I don't have a rope, but it goes something like this…"
Luna hopped up and down on the back of Ragnarok's neck. Annihilara broke out in fits of hysterical giggling. Luna noticed tears running down Xanadu's face.
"Oh, let's stop this," Luna said hastily, taking to the air. "Bullying may be a problem in our lives, but bullying back never solved anything."
"Feels good, though," Annihilara muttered.
"Sorry, say again?"
"Nothing, nothing…"
"Here." Luna offered her hoof to Ragnarok, who grudgingly took it, allowing the little filly to help her out of the mud.
"So how's it feel, getting your butts kicked by a couple of teensy-tiny blank-flanked fillies?" Annihilara said sweetly, offering the same aid to Xanadu.
"Not a whole lot better than getting our butts kicked by anypony else," Xanadu said glumly.
"Precisely!" Annihilara said, as if genuinely impressed. "You hear that, Lulu? Ragnarok's toady can be taught!"
"Toady?" Xanadu said blankly. "Do I look like a toad? But I always try so hard to look good…"
Ragnarok sighed in annoyance.
"Oh, don't cry, Ragnarok," Luna said, gently tapping her shoulder. "Did you learn your lesson about respecting your elders?"
"My elders?" Ragnarok sneered.
"Well, of course," Luna said cheerfully. "The alpha—"
"What the devil is going on here?"
The four turned around rapidly, witnessing the sudden arrival of Celestia. As large as an adult of the common pony races, the pale pink young mare glared at them, her hair now immensely voluminous as it floated around her, and her pink eyes smoldering with outrage. The outline of her entire body glowed with an amazing expanse of gold light.
Annihilara flinched away from the terrifying sight, but Luna beamed. "Hello, sister! We were just teaching Ragnarok and Xanadu how to pick on somepony their own size."
Annihilara glanced at Luna and drew some courage from her apparent lack of fear. "Erm… that's right," she said. "Just making sure they know that next time they're pushing little fillies around, we… we…"
"We will find out!" Luna declared.
"That's right!" Annihilara said hastily. "We'll find out, and we will most thoroughly mess them up."
"So, at least try to keep your lackeys under control," Luna concluded. "Come on Lara, I think I have a few new ideas for our cutie marks…"
The two little fillies started to walk past Celestia, who unexpectedly raised her hoof and struck Luna across her face. Luna gasped and stopped walking, her mouth hanging open.
Annihilara growled. "You—you nasty—YOU MONSTER!" She jumped at Celestia, who casually batted her away with a wing and struck Luna again, and again, driving her backward toward the mud pool.
Annihilara wrapped her arms around one of Celestia's hind legs. She sparked with black energy as she began making very real attempts to pierce the flesh of Celestia's flank with her horn.
Without speaking a word, Celestia shoved Luna harder and harder against her chest and throat. Luna regained steady footing at the very edge of the mud.
"Lulu, fight back!" Annihilara pleaded, as Celestia shook her leg to try to force her off. "Are you crazy? Fight her!"
Celestia jabbed her hoof mightily into Luna's forehead, dropping her into the mud. She then flew off into the air and twisted, pulling Annihilara off of her leg and swooping in a circle, viciously pounding Annihilara into the muddy pool alongside Luna. Finally, she set down on the ground alongside Ragnarok and Xanadu.
"Come on, girls," she said coldly.
Annihilara worked her way through the muck to reach for Luna and help her get up. "Lulu," she whispered. "Are you okay?"
"Mm-hmm," Luna peeped, a torrent of tears gushing from her eyes.
"You're bleeding!" Annihilara exclaimed, wiping blood from the spot at the base of Luna's horn, where Celestia's final blow had hit. "Lulu… we creamed Ragnarok and Xanadu. Why didn't you fight Celestia?"
Luna's lip quivered. She barely managed to force out her response through her choking tears. "She's my sister!"
"You're her sister," Annihilara countered. "She has no problem hitting you."
"Yes," Luna managed to gasp. "But I didn't know that." Her meaning was clear: Annihilara recalled the shock and surprise on Luna's face when she was first stricken, the near catatonia that had followed.
Annihilara quaked with rage. "CELESTIA!" she called, snarling and growling every syllable. "I hate you! I've always hated you! And now… now I know for sure that I will always hate you! Do you hear me? I'll hate you forever, cousin!"
Celestia, walking away with her two friends, paused. "That's quite all right," she called over her shoulder before proceeding. The other two older fillies followed nervously.
Annihilara leaned against Luna, inspecting the hoof-shaped wound on her forehead. She leaned close and kissed the spot where Luna's horn met her skull. "It's okay, cousin," she whispered. "I'm here…" She glared at Celestia's retreating form. "We don't need to stay friendly with vile and monstrous ponies like them."