LEGEND OF THE GODDESSES
Whispering Desert, 1,003 years ago
Celestia flew through the chilly and dark skies over the Whispering Desert, soaring frantically in huge circles.
The moon was setting. She winced in fear and pain, but couldn't stop herself: she turned to the opposite horizon, where a second moon was rising. She let out a primal scream of anguish.
You know, that's become my favorite part of the day, Discord said thoughtfully. The moon sets and another moon takes its place? It's so beautifully surreal. His mental apparition turned to Celestia and patted her head. But it seems to affect you a bit differently. It always fills you with despair, doesn't it? Then just don't watch! I love seeing you upset, but when I'm not the cause, then your emotions just rub off on me. It's depressing.
"Get out," Celestia growled.
Mmmm, no. No, in fact, I think this is one of those times you really need somepony in your head. You have no idea what's actually going on in your mind. Can you honestly tell me you even know what you've been doing since you charged out of Canterlot like a crazy pony?
Celestia hovered in place for a moment more, then slowly sank to the ground. "No," she confessed quietly.
Well, let me spell it out for you. He pulled a lengthy roll of parchment out of her ear; the scroll was as transparent and ethereal as he was. You're looking for aid, Discord said, reading over the parchment. What Soledad said got you thinking hard. You didn't accept help from her because you were insulted by how wrong she was about you—which she wasn't, by the way—but at the same time you do recognize the value of having another powerful goddess on your side, right? Right!
Celestia grinned broadly. "Of course! I wasn't even consciously aware of it, but I set off to search the world for Annihilara. That's right! But I swiftly realized I have no clue where on the planet she might be located… so I came here. Yes, Lady Kolassa will help me. She helps those in need, right?" Her voice became higher-pitched with desperation. "Right? An arrangement can be reached… I'm sure…"
Oh, poor Celestia, Discord pouted. It's a hard moment in the life of any privileged and popular young filly to realize that nopony likes her.
"I am not a young filly!" Celestia snarled, stamping her hoof. She snorted and turned away from him, huffing and prancing.
Oh, yes, of course, my mistake, what was I thinking? Discord said dryly. Not filly-like at all.
"I need to find Lady Kolassa," Celestia said determinedly, mostly to herself. "Shouldn't be too hard, just need to locate the gigantic sand goddess… somewhere in the massive desert that covers most of this continent. Okay, the desert's big, granted, that makes this difficult, but she herself is also big, that simplifies things a bit…"
Heh, it's sort of like finding a whale in the ocean, isn't it? Discord chuckled.
"Sort of," Celestia agreed. "Although that does give me some perspective. It should be easier than that, at least."
She flew up until she reached what she estimated to be cloud level—what cloud level would have been if there were clouds in the Whispering Desert. She changed her course, flying horizontally. It took her only a moment to break the sound barrier, creating a burst of golden sunlight. She left a trail of such light behind her, but this lasted only a moment before the ribbon of light faded. At that point, she was simply going fast, travelling in an ever-widening spiral around the desert.
It was many hours of unceasing flight before she spotted her quarry: an earth pony as big as one of the desert's own great sand dunes, wandering away from a seaside town.
"Lady Kolassa!" Celestia called out. She braked in mid-air, hovering by Kolassa's face.
Kolassa had to squint at her for a moment, then brightened. "Ah, Princess Celestia. The whole world's been buzzing with rumors and hearsay about where you've gone."
"Well, now you know the answer to that," said Celestia. Overcome by curiosity, she asked, "What brought you to that little town? I always understood you spent much of your time out in the open desert."
"Yes, well, the past month has been something of a dark time, if you will, for the world," Kolassa said solemnly. "The people's morale is slipping. I thought I could renew their faith if I made a personal visit to each city, town, and settlement in my realm. I've been interacting with the people in the hopes of brightening their day… but sad to say, that's speaking metaphorically.
"How about you? What's been going on with Celestia, eh?" She raised an eyebrow.
"I've been searching for a solution," Celestia replied, bristling when a dismissive smile started playing at the corners of Kolassa's mouth. "Smirk at me if you wish, but I'll have you know I've spent the last month tirelessly searching for a way to bring back the sun. It feels as if I've searched the whole world."
"Gone around the world looking for the sun?" Kolassa pondered. "You haven't been flying west, have you? Because they say if you fly west hard and fast enough, the time of day never changes…"
"I hardly think this is the time for jokes, Kolassa!" Celestia snapped, her eyes angrily flaring gold. "Two moons sit in the sky, the world is getting colder, crops are dying all over the world…"
"Well, I wouldn't know anything about that last one," Kolassa drawled. "This is a desert. We don't really have crops."
Celestia glared.
"I tease, of course. We have food. But those plants we do have, those have already been alchemically adapted to grow in moonlight."
"Alchemically?" Celestia repeated, taken aback at the unfamiliar word.
"Alchemy and transmutation are the latest thing around here," said Kolassa. "It's gotten pretty big. Pick up a book, Princess, you might learn something. And just for the record, you're mistaken… the world is not getting colder. The temperature has actually been holding stable as that of a chilly night ever since the first sunless day. Perhaps the people can learn to live with it."
Celestia fumed for a moment, her wings beating angrily, then forced herself to relax, flapping very slowly and releasing the tensed muscles in her legs. "Kolassa…" she said softly. "For what transgression do you treat me so disdainfully? For whatever it is, I am truly sorry."
Kolassa tilted her head. "You are," she realized. "You genuinely are sorry… and you truly don't know how you've offended me."
"I don't," Celestia confirmed in a pleading tone. "I can't recall ever doing anything that might have wronged you."
"You haven't hurt me," Kolassa replied. "I would have simply let it slide off my back if you had hurt me. But the harm you've caused to others… I find that harder to forgive. I witnessed your mistreatment of your little sister. It ate at her core, and the more piled on, little by little, the more she lost her calm and her sense. The psyche is a delicate and brittle thing, and with all the stress you've placed on hers, it's like you took a battering ram to it. I was not at all surprised to learn she had given herself up to the darkness within us all."
Celestia stared daggers at Kolassa, her lip thinning. "Really? You too? You're also saying that this was my fault?"
"Oh?" Kolassa said innocently. "You've heard this from somepony else?"
"Yes," Celestia sneered. "From Soledad. As if I have any sort of influence over the way my sister behaves! She has free will, you know! She did this, not me!" She turned away from Kolassa and crossed her arms over her chest. "Not! Me!" she enunciated through gritted teeth.
"And yet," Kolassa said softly, "the decisions made by free will are almost always dependent on external factors. Choosing wisely often requires the kind hoof of guidance…" She raised her own hoof and slowly turned Celestia to face her again. "Did you ever show your sister guidance?"
"I did!" Celestia retorted instantly. "I tried teaching her how to be popular and charismatic to get what she wants. She wouldn't have any of it. She was too preoccupied by this strange obsession with 'being herself'. If her true self is a misfit that nopony likes, that's not my problem." She looked away again. "She is weak-willed. Always has been. And now her will's been overtaken by whatever sort of dark consciousness Nightmare Moon is. And letting herself sink that far was her! Choice!" Her voice had escalated into a harsh yell. "It's her fault there's no sunrise in the morning!"
Kolassa took a single step forward, coming closer to Celestia's turned back. "You're distressed," she stated. "She's taken your happiness away. You are powerless to bring it back under the blanket of darkness she's cast over your life."
Celestia snorted and refused to look back at her. "Why do I get the feeling you're going somewhere with that?"
"That is exactly what you have done to her," Kolassa continued, never raising her voice, speaking in a firm but non-judgmental tone. "You cast a shadow over her entire being. You took away the light in her heart long before she ever took the light of the sun away from you."
"Well… but… yeah, but… well… SHE'S WORSE!" Celestia exploded. "She took the sun away from everypony on the planet! I would never do something so foul!"
"Of course not."
Celestia tensed up in fear at the realization that Kolassa was now pacing in a circle around the spot where she was hovering—it felt uncomfortably like being circled by a fortress.
"You're all about giving ponies what they want," Kolassa said calmly. "You get up in the morning and put on your face, your 'princess face'. Not a physical face, but one of expression and posture and tone of voice. You find out what will get ponies to like you, and you do that thing, and they like you. It's what you did as a teen, it's what you did as an adventurer, it's what you do now as a princess."
"And what, pray tell, is wrong with that?" Celestia demanded, a quaver making its way into her voice.
"In a perfect world, nothing," said Kolassa. "But you figured out at a young age that not everypony can be popular. You figured out that sidelining your sister would help you on that path to being loved. Less love for Luna means more for you. And when that doesn't work, such as in front of a peer group of your fellow goddesses who know full well what you're up to, you just can't deal with it. You push us away for daring to make you look at yourself. You did it to Soledad and now you're doing it to me as well.
"Now take this Nightmare Moon situation from your sister's perspective. She's just making use of the tricks you taught her: getting rid of you so there's more attention for her. Help me comprehend, Celestia: is being loved really worth it when you're hated by those closest to you, who have always been there for you?"
"Feh!" Celestia snorted. "I don't need to take this. I came here seeking an alliance, but if all you're going to do is psychoanalyze me, I don't need that kind of help. I can save the world on my own, just like I've done everything else on my own. And I'll be a hero again, and I'll be loved again, and the world will wonder what Lady Kolassa was doing to help, and I'll give them the honest answer of not a damn thing. Good day to you!"
Celestia whirled and started flying back into the desert, going straight for Equestria.
"Hey, Celestia!" Kolassa called calmly.
"WHAT?" Celestia screamed.
"I move slowly because I want to, not because I have to."
Celestia frowned, unsure of how to process that statement until she heard a rumbling sound. She turned her head slightly, and saw that Kolassa was galloping straight for her at an unbelievable speed, a mask of calm fury on her face.
Celestia's eyes bugged out of her face. "Holy shit!" she gasped. She tried to pick up speed, but Kolassa was still gaining. Desperately, Celestia slowed herself so she could change direction: she started flying straight up, but Kolassa's eyes followed her carefully as the giant mare slowed her run and sprung off of the sand, sailing into the air and catching up to Celestia.
Kolassa batted Celestia hard, sending her plummeting back to the ground, where she landed with an immensely heavy impact, creating a crater in the sand.
A moment later, Kolassa hit the ground as well, landing shoulder-first and flawlessly rolling onto all fours. She glanced around and spotted Celestia, quickly pouncing on her, pinning her down with a hoof the size of a grand mansion.
"You disgust me," Kolassa said calmly. "The whole world is in danger now due to psychological scars inflicted by you."
Celestia squirmed, rolling so she was facing Kolassa. "Sh-shut up!" she sobbed. Her face was streaked with torrents of gushing tears. "Stop this! You can't judge me! You have no right! You don't know who I am! You're just guessing! You don't know the first thing about me."
"I've seen enough of your surface to know that there's nothing underneath," Kolassa retorted. "Give me one good reason I shouldn't leave you as a bloody smear to be swept away by the wind and sand."
Ooh, that's one pop quiz you don't want to fail, Discord commented, seeming to appear at Celestia's side. Better be sharp with this one.
"Because my sister is out there!" Celestia exclaimed through her sobbing gasps. "She's trapped inside that thing called Nightmare Moon! I can't just leave her like that! She's my little sister, and I'm supposed to be there to teach her and guide her! The truth is, I can't live without her. And I can't die knowing that she's still in trouble. Not when there still might be something I can do."
She continued weeping and choking, but didn't make another attempt to speak.
Oh, how moving, Discord sneered. Yet another epiphany for you to completely ignore once the moment is gone.
"You lie," said Kolassa, pressing down on her harder. "You don't know or care how to be a sister. You're more of a monster than Nightmare Moon could ever be… the monster who creates monsters."
"YOU'RE WRONG!"
Celestia screamed out that statement with both her voice and her mind, both absolutely deafening, echoing for miles through the desert, leaving both Kolassa and Discord to back away from her, flabbergasted.
"I mean… you're not wrong," she muttered. "You're right about me. But… I have psychological scars too, you know."
Kolassa narrowed her eyes.
"Until you've lived inside my head," Celestia declared, "you are in no position to judge me."
From her mouth and eyes she created a massive wave of golden sunlight which seared Kolassa's face, sending her stumbling backward.
Kolassa staggered and brought a hoof to her face, freeing Celestia… but the princess stayed flat on her back on the ground.
"I can't let anypony… know me," she mumbled. "They wouldn't like me if they knew me. But I could make them like me. And I could make sure they knew that unless they stayed with me, nopony would like them! Maybe I didn't have love, but I had that power, at least." She sighed. "When I grew up, it… it didn't work anymore. But I don't remember there being any other way. I haven't had a friend in four hundred years. I can make a crowd bow down to me, but one on one? I don't know anymore. I thought the Gathering would mean new friends… you… Soledad… but I guess that didn't work out."
She chuckled bitterly. "Does everypony in the world know what you know? That this was all my fault? That would explain it. When the night first came, I heard creatures all over the world praying to me, begging a sun-goddesses many of them had never seen for salvation from the darkness. In a way, it gave me strength. But those prayers are gone now."
Celestia slowly began standing up. Kolassa noticed and tensed up, at the ready. Wary of that, Celestia stood up very carefully.
"Without ponies who like me, what am I?" Celestia asked sincerely. "I used to be something. I raised the sun. Now, there's no more sun. I'm less than nothing."
Discord smiled. Celestia, I'm impressed at your maturity. It takes guts to admit you're obso—LEEEE!
Celestia imagined a noose appearing around his neck and tightening; on the representation of Discord that lurked in her field of vision, that very thing happened, choking him, causing his eyes to bulge in shock.
You will be silent, she told him in her head. Torment me no longer.
The scorch marks on Kolassa's face had completely healed, and Celestia froze in fear as her great sand-carved eyes stared sternly down at her.
Kolassa was silent for a few moments. Finally, she proceeded in a businesslike tone. "Well then, I suppose you should be on your way. If Nightmare Moon can be reasoned with, great. If not, you'll need superior power to take her on. Such a thing can be found in your castle, unless I'm mistaken."
"The Elements of Harmony!" Celestia realized. "But… I haven't been able to breach the walls of Clovenshire without being beaten back. I'd never get all the way into the castle, to talk or to fight."
"Yes, I've heard," said Kolassa. "As I understand it, though, all your attempts to get back in have been through attacking the front gate. If we're going to get you face-to-face with Nightmare Moon, that needs to stop. You'll have to find a way into the city without all your guns blazing. Be subtle for once in your life. Stealthy. Can you do that?"
"I suppose," Celestia said nervously. "You know, it's not as if that didn't occur to me. I just thought…"
Kolassa smiled. "I'm afraid I can't go with you. Stealth isn't one of my strengths. If you need a castle knocked over, I'm your goddess, but discreetly broken into, not so much. And it's discretion that's going to win this, if anything does. But it's not the tactical question I'm wondering about. If you save your sister, strip all the darkness away from her with the Elements of Harmony—what's to stop this from happening again?"
"I won't let it," Celestia said firmly.
"Oh?" Kolassa said nastily. "How can you be so sure? Are you going to kill her? Or just kill Nightmare Moon? Perhaps that would be easier on your conscience, to let yourself forget that your sister is in there somewhere."
"She won't do this again because her darkness will be gone," said Celestia. "The Elements will obliterate it."
"Darkness comes back," Kolassa countered. "And I'm fairly certain we've established where her darkness came from. It's torment that brings out a pony's inner demons."
"Yes, I am aware," Celestia said calmly.
"Will she begin to hate you again? If there's any chance at all of such a thing happening…"
"There isn't."
"How will Celestia survive with no one to torment? It's in your nature…"
Celestia responded with an explosion of golden light, expansive and powerful enough to send Kolassa skidding backwards through the sand dunes.
"You still don't know who you're talking about, Kolassa!" said Celestia, flying over to hover in front of Kolassa's face. "I am the greatest hero of the past eleven generations. Doing the thing that saves everypony… that's in my nature."
Kolassa smirked. "Frankly, I'm just wondering why you're still here."
"I'm not!" said Celestia, turning and flying off.
Kolassa laughed uproariously. "Go on, get out of here." She scooped up a giant sphere made of sand and tossed it at Celestia, who dodged it. "Fight to heal the scars, Celestia!"
She teleported into Celestia's path. "Heal the scars you left on your sister. Heal the scars the world left on you. And only then can you heal the bridge that connects you."
"Oh, I'll show you exactly that, Lady Kolassa!"
Celestia flew straight up once again, her eyes glimmering gold. She corkscrewed as she ascended, leaving behind a spiraling trail of golden dust.
"I'll show you," she repeated. "I'll show you ALL! I'll prove to you that there's a new Princess Celestia in town!"