LEGEND OF THE GODDESSES

Clovenshire, 988 years ago

Celestia stood on a balcony overlooking Clovenshire, the capital city with all of its tightly-packed, quaint little buildings spread out beneath the mighty stone castle.

Annihilara came up behind her, towering over the princess even more so than usual, as she was less than solid and floating a few inches off the floor.

"How long have you had that green stripe in your mane?" she said with interest.

"I'm not sure, exactly," Celestia admitted, running a hoof through her floating mane. "It just sort of… started appearing one day, so slowly that I didn't really notice it until it was… pretty much like this."

"You're taller, too," Annihilara observed.

"Yes, I am," Celestia said grimly. "I… I don't really know what that's all about."

Oh, you do too know what it's about, Discord said derisively from inside her head.

Celestia sighed. Yes, she admitted mentally. I'm beginning to understand. You not only turned me into a goddess, but I'm slowly evolving into a super-goddess. Why? What's the benefit for you?

It's amusing! Discord said brightly. It's an ironic hell for you. I find that entertaining.

Annihilara tilted her head, aware only of a long pause. "So," she said in an attempt to break the silence, "I heard that you've taken down all the temples and shrines in the country."

"Yes. A goddess I may be, but I have no desire to be a religious figure. Many still pray to me informally, there's not much I can do about that. And I don't mind so much, being worshipped, but… an organized religion in my name? After all that I've done? It makes me sick to my stomach."

"Oh, pshaw, 'all that you've done'," Annihilara mocked. "Hey, you make your mother proud. What more could a pony ask for?"

Celestia blinked in surprise. "My mother?"

"Yes. I speak to her all the time. Would you like to see her?"

"I…" Celestia stammered in terror. "No, no, please don't! I can't even look at myself in the mirror. What makes you think I can face my dead mother?" She shuddered. "Maybe someday," she added quietly.

"As you wish," Annihilara said graciously. "But she is proud of you, every day. I'm just itching to do something productive!" She swirled around Celestia, making galloping motions in midair. "Is there anypony else I can call up for you? A long-lost face from your past? How about your old friends Ragnarok and Xanadu?"

Celestia raised her eyebrows in surprise. "You would bring them forth?"

Annihilara shrugged. "They're not that bad, really. Being dead for a couple centuries tends to soften folks up."

"Sure, I'll… I'll talk to them," Celestia said apprehensively. "Call them up." She managed a small smile.

Annihilara raised her front hooves, and two translucent spirits came into existence immediately: two alicorn mares, young adults, one gray with a striped mane, the other black and orange.

"Girls?" Celestia said hopefully.

Ragnarok gave a dry chuckle. "Tia, hey. Look at you, all young again."

"Yes," Celestia agreed with an emotional catch in her throat. "You two as well."

"Yeah," said Ragnarok, chuckling and examining her own body. "Depends on how much we're dwelling on what we were back when we were alive. Sometimes we think about it too hard and go back to being sweet old ladies, but most of the time we're young and beautiful, the ideal, at the peak of our lives."

"How have you two been?" Celestia said, intrigued.

"Oh, pretty goooood," Ragnarok drawled. "Breezed through purgatory like it was nothin', you know? Since I'd done so much work to fix things and make amends before I died, I had precious few regrets to sort through."

"That's good, I… I guess," Celestia said uncertainly. "What's it like where you are now?"

"It's strange," Ragnarok said solemnly. "It's very strange, but somehow… somehow wonderful."

Celestia sighed longingly. "I wonder if I'll ever join you there. It seems more likely that I'll never die and this world will be all I'll ever know."

"Aww," Ragnarok pouted. "Look at you, all sad all the time." She stepped forward and gently placed her ghostly hooves on Celestia's shoulders; Celestia could barely feel them. "You grew up. I wondered if you ever would."

"You had us scared for a while," Xanadu agreed wistfully, speaking for the first time. "When you were all old and wrinkly and still had no regrets in your life, we started thinking it was too late for you. But then you became young again and we were all, 'Yay!' You had a chance to turn things around! Oh, we were so happy…"

"You've been watching me?" Celestia asked, tilting her head.

Ragnarok shrugged. "Eh, why not? We've had spare time, needless to say. We have your mom and your Aunt Tempest over for dinner sometimes, and we talk about you." She suddenly tensed up, and, for no discernible reason, slowly and nervously turned around to face the shadow who had summoned her up. "Hey, Annihilara."

"Hey, you guys," Annihilara replied with little passion.

"How have you been doing?" Ragnarok asked her, offering up another pout.

"Same as always."

"Well, you know, any time you want to talk…" she offered.

"I'll call," Annihilara promised. "You ready to be let go?"

"You know, it's not quite so unsettling once you get used to it," Ragnarok said cheerfully, taking in her surroundings. "But yeah, I think we've said all that needs to be said…"

"Okay," Annihilara agreed.

"Bye, Tia," said Xanadu. "Take good care of yourself, all right? You're very special."

The two ghosts dissolved and vanished. Celestia shook her head in disbelief.

"It's stunning, the thing that you do," she said to Annihilara. "Are you really aware of every creature that's ever died, and everything they've ever known?"

"Not… simultaneously," Annihilara said self-consciously. "It's kinda like… well, you don't remember everything you know all at once. Bits and pieces just come back to you as events warrant. For me, it's kinda like that, and it's also kinda like a library. If I just think really hard about what information I want, I eventually figure out the right path to learning it."

Sounds horribly tedious, said Discord. When I think about what I want to know, I just instantly know it.

Oh, shush, Celestia chided.

Surprisingly, Discord obliged, which rapidly brought Celestia back into the moment, unsure of what to say or do. Annihilara detected her hesitation, and thoughtfully gazed up at the stars.

"You know…" she said, "I got this major head-rush when you guys defeated Discord. It felt like… well, like I'd imagine a mass extinction event would feel…"

"Really?" Celestia breathed. "Why?"

"Come here, I'll show you."

Still floating in the air, not moving a muscle in her body, Annihilara led Celestia back into the castle, down the hall and to the throne room. Behind the throne, the six huge crown jewels were mounted on the wall.

"You know the rumors and hearsay about what Discord did with these crown jewels, right?" Annihilara said quietly. "It's actually true. All day long he'd torment and torture creatures just for his amusement. Sometimes, to death. Any creature who died on his watch, their soul would quickly be stolen and placed into one of the jewels. Those souls never passed on, so I never had access to them. But when you used the Elements of Harmony against him and undid everything he'd done to Equestria, all the souls escaped, hundreds of them, and I became aware of all of them at once."

She shrugged. "It's not like that was an entirely new thing for me. Large groups of creatures dying all at once isn't exactly a foreign concept. But those souls had a lot of baggage. Not their fault, of course, but it's going to take a lot of help, tender loving care, and group therapy before those souls are at rest enough to truly move on. What Discord did to them while they were inside the gems is far worse than anything you can do to a soul that's still inside its mortal vessel."

"Oh my," Celestia breathed. She heard a snicker in her head.

"There are more rumors… and I suspect, though I can't be sure, that they're also true… that each one of the crown jewels still has one soul trapped inside," Annihilara continued. "That the magic Discord used to bind all the souls was too deep for even the Elements to overcome entirely, that there was just no way to release all of them, leaving one behind in each."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because… I've searched and searched the afterlife and I've never been able to find Princess Bubbles," Annihilara said darkly. "Even though I know for a fact that Discord killed her and put her in this gem…" She reached out with a long tendril of shadow and touched the dark blue, sword-shaped jewel. "She was not among the souls that were released. The very fact that I had to search for her for more than a few seconds, I think that's evidence enough that she's simply not there to be found."

Celestia frowned. "Must you call her Princess Bubbles? It seems disrespectful. Her name was—"

"Princess Amethyst Abjurer Dweomer, I know," said Annihilara, lolling her head in such a way as to indicate she was rolling her eyes. "Come on, nopony ever actually called her that. She went by Princess Bubbles because it was just easier that way. And besides, 'Abjurer'? 'Dweomer'? Are those even words?"

"An abjurer is a practitioner of abjuration—that is to say, protective magics," said Celestia, "and a dweomer is the detectable magic aura surrounding a permanently enchanted object."

"Geek," Annihilara retorted in amusement. "Anyway, whatever you want to call her, I think she's right here, trapped and tormented, with no hope of moving on. Her, and probably five others, though I couldn't begin to guess who they might be."

"What can be done about that?" Celestia said quietly. "Is there no way we can release them to the afterlife?"

Annihilara shrugged very slowly, a strange-looking process that made every muscle in her body become less than solid for a split second. "The only solution I can think of would be to break the gems, but that would release them to here, not to the beyond."

Celestia frowned, not sure where she was drawing these conclusions. "Are you certain?"

"No," Annihilara said simply.

"Should we try to break the jewels?" Celestia asked.

"I wouldn't. Bubbles… Princess Amethyst, if you must… was already a deranged maniac who slaughtered ponies just for looking at her. After everything she's gone through inside this gem, you can be certain that she's become a whole lot worse. Releasing whatever's left of her onto this world would make her much more powerful as well. Same thing with the other five, whoever they might have been when Discord killed them, they wouldn't be those same ponies anymore, they'd have been driven mad long ago. There'd be no hope for salvation or rehabilitation for any of them. Breaking these jewels would just be unleashing a plague of abominations."

She shrugged again and turned to Celestia with her toothy maw half-open, the closest approximation to a smile she could manage. "Any other questions?" she said cheerfully.

"I trust your judgment on matters of death, cousin," Celestia said, perturbed. "If what you say is true, it's clear that the issue is closed."

"Well, I'm… pretty sure I'm not wrong."

Celestia nodded. "I have a… scientific inquiry."

"What have you got, geek?" Lara said brightly.

"Queen Soledad," said Celestia. "They say she was a vampire, a soulless monster. With what you know about the afterlife, does that mean her soul left her when she became such a creature, or did it stay with her until her suicide a thousand years later?"

"Well…" Annihilara said thoughtfully, gazing off into the distance. "Though I wasn't there at the time, from what I can tell, when she became what she did, her soul sat at the threshold of the afterlife, but remained in full control of her body rather than being aware of its actual surroundings. It's difficult to explain, but regardless, I couldn't communicate with her soul while her body was still moving around and talking. Once she destroyed her body, that threshold was open to her and she proceeded into what awaited her."

"So she's at peace now?"

"Peace? No, not by a long shot," Annihilara said bitterly. "Suicide never results in peace; I would know. She has many years of working out her issues in purgatory before she proceeds to anything even remotely resembling a final rest… or doesn't. Some souls never do proceed. Some bear too much weight to ever move on. I'm sure she will someday, almost everyone does; every moment in the between is a moment of learning and self-betterment. At any rate, at least she isn't damned, and it's unlikely she ever will be."

The two of them started absently wandering back toward the balcony. "So many scholars have explored the afterlife," Celestia muttered. "It's fairly accessible with magic, and yet there's still so much mystery to it that the living will never know."

"Yes… even for me," said Annihilara. "There are things that even I won't ever be able to learn until I pass on, assuming that's even possible."

"And Luna?" Celestia said anxiously. "Do you have any access to Luna?"

Annihilara stared. "Celestia… Luna is still alive."

"I know," Celestia said, flinching. "Just… if she was dead, that would be better than…"

"Don't say that," Annihilara urged. "Life is… strength. Hope. There'll always be a chance she can come back, as long as she has life."

Silently, they gazed out at the city, bathed in the light of the crater-scarred moon. Far off in the distance, a shimmering orb was coming closer at high speed.

"What is that…?" Celestia whispered, squinting at the object.

"Get down!" Annihilara cried.

She jumped on Celestia, her body wrapping around her like a second skin and forcefully yanking her deeper into the castle. The orb, a shining sphere of crackling electrical energy twenty feet across, hit the castle exactly where Celestia had been, vaporizing everything it touched, leaving a large sizzling hole in the side of the castle.

Lying prone on the floor, Celestia raised her head and stared in terror at what was left of that wall, that huge chunk of the castle disintegrated in an instant. "What WAS that?" she demanded.

Annihilara, herself flat on the ground and looking very much like a thick black rug, shook her head in stunned disbelief, offering no more answer than that.

A second, identical orb hit a random spire of the castle, blinking most of it out of existence, causing it to crumble under the structural damage.

Far into the city, a huge white hole appeared in the air, and an enormous red serpent slithered through it and vanished among the buildings, its tail eventually dropping out of sight and the hole vanishing.

Several blocks away from where the serpent had disappeared, it rose again, wielding a huge wand in one hand and casually pushing over a tall building with the other. The building's stones were sent flying all around, and its bulk crushed several small houses in its path.

Another two wormholes opened, one directly in front of the serpent, the other just in front of the castle where Celestia was attempting to stand, at the edge of the ruined floor. The serpent stuck its head into one wormhole and popped out of the other, a few dozen feet of its upper body rising to meet Celestia's eye, while the rest of its body remained behind in the city.

The red serpent had a nasty fanged mouth and a peach-colored underbelly. Its eyes were huge, round, and deep blue; it had a skinny pair of arms and slimy, dark red hair. The wand it carried was long and gold, with a bright pink, egg-shaped head.

"Hrmmmm," the serpent said, squinting and grinning at Celestia. "Do you remember me, Celestia?"

"…No?" Celestia replied nervously.

The serpent looked affronted. "I am Doldrum!" he declared. "Once high shaman of the acidscale serpents! Four hundred years ago, you destroyed my clan, and with them my plans for an orderly regime, where thousands would die and their life forces fuel the magic to unite all the different kinds of serpents in a blood-oath of universal harmony! Does that ring any bells?"

"N-no…" Celestia said again, bewildered.

"Hrmm," the serpent scoffed. "Stopping those who would forge order out of anarchy just another Tuesday at the office for you, is it, Princess? You'll remember my name after this day, 'hero'. I am now a chosen vessel of the Allmother. My time shall come again, hrmm…"

With a twitch of his wand, he opened another wormhole and dove backward into it, his entire body following and disappearing. Three wormholes closed, and Celestia, on her hooves and scanning the city frantically, could not see where Doldrum had gone.

"The Allmother?" she wondered.

Is that what she's making them call her now? Discord said in bitter amusement.

"What?" Celestia said out loud.

She's not all of the serpents' mother, he said. Just mine.

"Ohhh…" Celestia breathed. She turned to Annihilara, who was assembling herself back into a solid pony shape. "That serpent is working for Sørmur di Mitgaeard."

"That explains a lot," Annihilara said, her eyes gleaming. "I always thought serpents were pretty fond of anarchy. He must be a 'chosen one'—a champion chosen by Mitgaeard to further her agenda. She's had a lot of puppets like that since the last time she got locked up."

I bet she loved that guy, Discord said with a mental snort. It's not often one finds a serpent with actual leadership abilities, and interest in forming an organized society. Oh, but it's still not going to end well. There's no living thing in the world who'd willingly see her plans all the way to fruition, no. Not even the Beast is mad enough to want to see the ultimate destruction of the universe, as she does. That poor bastard is going to deviate from her plans sooner or later, and she will not be pleased with him…

Celestia continued running her eyes over the entire cityscape, only half listening to Discord's thoughts. "Gosh," she commented, "I kind of feel bad that I didn't remember him."

"Feel bad?" Annihilara exclaimed. "Celestia, he's a bad guy. You defeated him all those years ago because he was doing bad-guy things, and now he's doing bad-guy things again."

"Yes, but that's no excuse for hurting his feelings…"

"Hurting his feelings? Oh, for crying out loud…" She wrapped an insubstantial, boneless arm around Celestia's shoulder. "Listen, Celestia, I love you like a second cousin, but there's such a thing as too much character development."

Celestia frowned. "I'm your first cousin."

"And maybe someday we'll get there," Annihilara said, patting her affectionately on the head. "So, what should we do about this? Elements of Harmony?"

No good, Discord said quickly. He's imbued with Mitgaeard's powers of orderliness. He's a creature of harmony now. The Elements would only strengthen him. You'll have to fight him with your own power.

"No good," Celestia said to Annihilara. "He's imbued with Mitgaeard's powers of orderliness. He's a creature of harmony now. The Elements would only strengthen him. We'll have to fight him with our own power."

Discord scoffed. You couldn't have changed just one word? he said indignantly. That's plagiarism.

Shut up, Discord, she shot back.

Helping you out, he said innocently.

Celestia finally spotted Doldrum in a far corner of the city, spinning and spinning his wand to take out more buildings, both with bursts of destructive magic and physically using it as a weapon. Celestia spread her wings and sailed out into the city as fast as she could, conjuring a huge whip of golden energy at the tip of her horn, flinging it at Doldrum like a bola made of pure energy. It ensnared him and he fell harmlessly on the roof of a house, his arms bound.

His outline blurred and wavered, and a second later he was free, resuming his earlier activity.

"What?" Celestia exclaimed. "But I got him!"

Oooh, time displacement, Discord said appreciatively. Mother's chosen ones are capable of bending certain laws of reality.

"Well, that's just delightful," Celestia grumbled as she saw Doldrum slip into another wormhole.

Annihilara flew up alongside Celestia, riding on a cloud of smoke. "Oh dear," she said flatly.

"What?" Celestia demanded.

"Ursae."

Celestia's heart sank as she spotted the colossal monsters, bears made of pure starlight, some dozen of them stomping through the city on their hind legs, coming from every direction. Celestia had seen castles smaller than any one of the beasts.

"By the stars…" she breathed.

"Indeed," Annihilara said grimly.

"Where's Doldrum gone? Do you know?"

Annihilara shuddered. "Yeah. Apparently, he's in the catacombs of the castle. He just slaughtered a whole mess of guards down there."

"This is impossible!" Celestia groaned in frustration. "We could go after him, or we could go after the Ursae, but either route seems like an impossible course!"

"I vote that we go after the Ursae," Annihilara advised. "They're an immediate threat to civilian lives."

"We can't fight Ursae!" Celestia exclaimed. "Even at the peak of the immortal race, it would take a hundred of our kind a few hours at least to take down a single Ursa Major!"

"Good to know. You take that one, I'll get the rest."

"But—what?" Celestia demanded. Annihilara was already gone. "All right then…"

She focused her attention on the single Ursa that Annihilara had indicated. She pondered her strategy for a moment, then began spinning head over head in midair, building up magical energy around her body, eventually turning herself into a comet which lunged at the monster and slammed it right in the chest. It skidded backward, its heel reducing houses to toothpicks.

Celestia herself had tumbled backward after the impact, and spread her wings to steady herself. Without hesitating, she produced a wave of pure sunlight which shot out of her horn and her wide-open eyes and mouth. Once again, she used this energy to blast it in the chest, causing it to roar in pain but not doing any apparent damage.

It took a swipe at her with its claws, first once then again and again; each time, she dodged by banking and twirling in the air. After the third swipe, she saw an opening to suddenly lunge forward hoof-first, delivering a mighty punch to its chin, then twirling upward and around to smash it in the face with her entire body.

As it began to fall, she realized to her horror that there were buildings in its path. She dove down, zipping beneath its bulk, and pushed upward, trying to slow its fall. Just when it seemed like she would be crushed along with everything else, a mass explosion of golden light sent it flying, soaring in an arc almost to the end of the city. When it landed flat on its back, only its foot remained in city limits, crushing a building or two. Celestia winced, but sighed in relief that the destruction wasn't more complete.

Still intensely focused, Celestia cast a spell that brought a flaming meteor dropping out of the sky, landing straight on the Ursa's gut and leaving a gaping, sizzling wound there. Celestia twirled, once again performing her comet maneuver and hitting it in the exact spot where the meteor had, killing it. Standing in its gruesome stomach wound, she launched a fireball at its throat just to make absolutely sure.

She turned and looked back into the city. To her shock, of the dozen Ursae that had been attacking before, only three remained—all the others, nowhere to be seen.

"What in the fiery pits of hell…?" she whispered.

A tiny black speck rammed into an Ursa, and strange black energy exploded around the point of impact, wrapping around and around its body. The bear cried out in agony as it melted away into nothingness. Celestia could only stare in stunned silence. A few seconds later, the same thing happened to the second remaining Ursa, and then, systematically, to the third.

Celestia rapidly shook her head to break out of her dumbfounded reverie, and flew toward the site of the final Ursa's downfall. There, flying high above the city, she met with Annihilara, who was in her full pony shape and, unusually for her, seemed to actually be staying aloft by the strength of her wings rather than by magic. She stared past Celestia, seeming to be too dizzy to look at her directly.

"That… was not as easy… as I thought it would be," she said raggedly.

"Looked pretty easy to me!" Celestia muttered.

"Sure, but not without its price," said Annihilara. "I don't feel so good…" She slowly began to sink in the air.

"Lara?" Celestia said in concern.

"I… I think you're gonna have to finish this without me."

"Lara, please, I need you," Celestia cried out.

"Okay, but I'm not at my physical or mental peak right now…" Annihilara sighed, flapping her wings harder to regain her altitude.

"Neither am I," Celestia said grimly.

Together, they flew back to the castle—or what was left of it with nearly its entire front ripped clean off. They set down on one of the exposed floors to rest their wings.

"Oh dear," Annihilara wheezed. "I've never felt so… mortal. It feels so good to know I have limitations."

"Yeah, it's not such a hot thing to find out right now," Celestia replied tersely, scanning the room. "Where is that damned serpent?"

They passed by the throne room, and it took them some time to make their way to the open-air courtyard at the center of the castle, where they spotted Doldrum, twirling his wand before pounding it into the ground, sending out a shockwave that made the ground and the castle walls gently crumble and flake. A second shockwave started radiating out, slowly, from the original point of impact, and every bit of cracked stone touched by the shockwave exploded in a spray of lava, blasting into the sky.

"Get moving, get moving!" Annihilara roared, galloping away into the depths of the castle.

Celestia spotted the statue of Discord there in the courtyard. She hurled herself bodily through a window, shattering its glass, and scooped up the statue before the ground beneath it exploded. Screaming, she flew up and up into the air, riding the heat from the small explosions, before the entire castle was engulfed in a ball of flames.

Blown uncontrollably through the air, Celestia tumbled into the streets of Clovenshire, rolling over and over, still tightly clutching the statue in her arms. When at last she skidded to a stop, she turned over weakly, quivering in fear of what she might see. The castle was decimated, only bits and pieces of it remaining, and the surrounding houses had been simply flattened.

Well! Discord commented. We now have the answer to the question, what's the one thing Celestia would save from the flaming wreckage of her home? Turns out it's me! Who knew?

Celestia scowled at the statue and its smug, cackling face. "Oh, be quiet," she muttered aloud.

You like me! he sang. You liiiike me! Celestia likes Discord!

"I just didn't want your stone prison to break," she shot back.

Hmph! If it had, I could have helped you fight Doldrum, but okaaay…

Annihilara floated over to Celestia, still flapping her wings. In addition to her four legs, she had six tentacles growing out of the sides of her body, each clutching one of the crown jewels.

Celestia raised an eyebrow. "You stopped to save the crown jewels? Why?"

"Same reason you went back for Discord, I suppose," said Annihilara. "I didn't want what's inside getting out."

Doldrum appeared atop the wreckage of the castle, holding his wand high above his head. "DO YOU REMEMBER ME NOW, CELESTIA?" he shrieked. "Hrmmm… I, who destroyed your civilization! Now I will instate MIIIIINE!"

Wait for it, Discord said darkly. He's still a serpent, after all. No matter how orderly he wants his civilization to be, he's still got that uniquely serpent desire for freedom, wildness…

"I will now use the power granted to me by the Allmother of serpent-kind," Doldrum announced, "to turn this land into untamed wilderness where no city may ever rise again! Where your civilization is doomed, mine shall flourish!"

There it is, Discord said in satisfaction. Untamed wilderness. Oh, Mother's going to hate that…

"Where once ponies lived in their oppressive stone structures, the ruins of this city shall become a land free of pony influence, FOREVER! The real laws of nature shall be paramount here! It shall be… EVERFREE!"

He slammed his wand into the ground again, and instantly, thick plants began growing, creeping around the castle ruins.

Aaaaand, Mother's disapproving reaction in three… two… one… Discord whispered.

Doldrum seized up, twitching, looking a bit like he was about to vomit. A moment later he seized up and stiffened; it was plain he was having a heart attack. In a mere forty seconds, he was flat on his back, dead but still twitching.

A shiny silver shell seeped out of the ground and covered Doldrum and his wand, then shattered, leaving no trace that the shell, the serpent, or the wand had ever been there.

I have to admit she gets points for style there, said Discord.

"That's it," Celestia breathed. "It's over." She looked around. "Clovenshire's been absolutely destroyed, and there was nothing I could do to stop it, but it's over."

"What will you do?" Annihilara asked, almost as softly.

"I do not know," Celestia mumbled. "The population of this city, whatever remains of it, they're all refugees now."

Grass was already starting to grow over the remnants of the city's houses, while the castle was covered in trees and vines.

"Look," said Celestia. "This 'Everfree' zone that Doldrum created, it's still flourishing. We can't stay here. We've got to relocate."

"Where to?"

"I think Canterlot," Celestia said thoughtfully. "It's a small place, but it's the closest city there is. I… I remember there was a rather nice view of Clovenshire from that mountain."

"Will this Everfree area reach it?" Annihilara asked.

Celestia turned to the statue of Discord, and he answered in her head with the utmost sincerity and sympathy: No. The spell will expire… far past the city walls of Clovenshire, but it will expire, and nowhere close to any other town or settlement. Canterlot will be safe, as will all populated areas.

"No," Celestia said. "It won't grow forever."

"So… you're going to Canterlot, then?"

Celestia frowned. "Lara, why do you keep saying 'you'? Don't you mean 'we'?"

"I'm not coming with you," said Annihilara. She dropped the crown jewels at Celestia's hooves.

"Wha…? But…"

"This was my fault," Annihilara said, her voice quavering sadly. "I never should have agreed to come live with you."

"Your fault? How was this your fault? Doldrum came to this city because he was my old enemy. He was after me."

"And he never would have found you if it hadn't been for me," Annihilara spat.

"You told him where I was?"

"No."

"Then I don't know what you mean," Celestia said forcefully, "and I don't think it would have made a difference whether you told him or not, he would have found me anyway. I'm not exactly difficult to find. I have my own country, I'm the one in the big castle. Well… I had a castle."

"It was still my fault," Annihilara intoned.

"How?" Celestia growled.

"It just was, all right?" she raged. "It was my fault, and I can't live with this guilt! If I could die to rid myself of it, I would. But I can't, so I'll just have to ask you to allow us to part ways now."

Before Celestia could respond, Annihilara vanished in a sky-high, sparkling pillar of shadow, which reminded Celestia of something, though she couldn't place exactly what.

The princess gazed helplessly at the crown jewels lying on the ground, then noticed the ring of civilians gathered around her, all of them keeping to a cautious distance. She met their eyes, one by one, and stood up straight and tall so she could speak authoritatively.

"Come," she announced. "Let us search the wreckage. Rescue anypony you can find. We shall linger here as long as we can afford to… but it is not safe here while that overgrowth continues to spread. I want a caravan set up to relocate everypony in this city to Canterlot."

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

A day later, Celestia brought forth the moon, staring bitterly at the setting sun and at the thousands of ponies, accompanied by as many wagons as they could find, walking northeast through the rubble of the city in a long, thick, and uneven line.

Outside of the procession, Celestia herself flew through the air, personally pulling a wagon bearing Discord and the crown jewels. She spotted a familiar face among the trudging masses of Clovenshire's population, a figure that caught her attention when she noticed a pair of foggy blue eyes.

"Snowdrop," she said in surprise, approaching her. A deep blue-black pegasus stallion stood at Snowdrop's side, and they were surrounded by three small foals, each of whom resembled a tiny, solemn snowpony, white-blue with shimmering white manes.

"Is… is this your family?" Celestia whispered.

"Yes, Your Majesty, it is," Snowdrop said, smiling at a spot over Celestia's shoulder.

"Wow," Celestia muttered. "I never even knew you got married, let alone…"

"I did," Snowdrop said simply. "When we arrive in Canterlot, perhaps we'll share a cup of hot cider and I'll introduce you. Goodness knows we'll need such a happy gathering after this grueling trip."

"Yes," Celestia agreed slowly. "Although it may be a long time before I have the chance to take you up on that. I'll be a busy princess, to be sure. There will be much I must do to care for my people."

"Understood," Snowdrop said, grinning broadly.

"If you—any of you," said Celestia, addressing every member of the caravan who was in earshot. "If you have need of me, I will be flying a perimeter around our procession. You need only call for me as I pass by."

"Yes, Princess," said Snowdrop.

She flew in the opposite direction as the caravan, passing them all as they trudged along, offering the occasional smile or word of encouragement, even a leg up now and then to those who were struggling to continue. After what seemed an eternity, she reached the end of the procession and looked up at the Mare in the Moon.

"This is only the beginning," she whispered. "What have I done?"

Something approached her from above, something fiery that glowed in the night, brighter than the moon. Enthralled, Celestia's jaw dropped and, without thinking, she held out her hoof… and there the thing landed, huge but weightless, looking at her with an unreadable expression.

"Philomena," said Celestia, suppressing a sniffle. "You've come back to me."

The phoenix responded with a sympathetic coo.

"You must have sensed, somehow, that… I'm really in need of some family tonight. Didn't you?"

Philomena cooed again and leaned forward, toward Celestia's face. Celestia closed the distance herself, nuzzling her snout against Philomena's beak.

Celestia continued flying with the bird sitting on her arm, proceeding along the other half of her perimeter patrol, toward the caravan's front.

"I'll be getting to know Snowdrop once things settle down around here," she said thoughtfully. "I think I should get to know many of my subjects better. Family can come from odd places."