Twilight's notes note how the Elements of Harmony were used with some frequency from the sealing of Discord to the banishment of Nightmare Moon, and how they had to be used again by her and her friends after a thousand years of peace and the Elements being forgotten. Posing the question, are the Elements a force for good that awaken in times of need, or are they somehow inviting all of these dangers and therefore something more enigmatic, and possibly more menacing, than was believed?
"This second conclusion is almost certainly the correct one."
Yeesh, not used to seeing Twilight so pessimistic about something she held so dear. No doubt she has good reason by this point, though.
Dash has calmed down, and we finally learn what she last remembers before she arrived here (what would have been the night before "Hurricane Fluttershy"). Inquiring/arguing about the Everfree-esque lack of weather control, Star Fall informs her that they are in fact in the Everfree- the Verge, at least, while the old forest is farther inside, around the ubiquitous Everstorm. Star also tries breaking the news that Celestia and Luna have apparently been the sun and moon for centuries and that Rainbow Dash, Hero of Equestria, has been dead for over a thousand years.
And now we get to something rare and awesome- Dash keeping calm and thinking things through. Since she already wondered if she might have gone back in time to the period of Luna's banishment, and she's read a Daring Do book about time travel, she quickly gets used to the thought of the time displacement, and just looks forward to talking to Star's teacher and figuring out the details. She also asks more about the world and its history, and about learning the language.
Astrid and Star talk a bit about their actual mission (apparently they were also keeping tabs on Max Cash, though Straff last chapter had suspected Cash of colluding with the Solar Kingdom, Star's people) and Star's own doubts about Dash's story (it doesn't bother Astrid so much, partly because Dash knew a now-obscure griffin greeting). Dash sucks Star into a bet on her mastering the Solar language over the next week, and... it takes her about half that. After all, her talent is "being fast. Being fast and winning."
XD
Dash finally asks about the Everstorm and the oft-referenced Schism. According to legend, a very long time ago, Luna had put forth theories of self-governance and laissez-faire capitalism, and a lot of ponies bought into them and caused friction with the nobility and their supporters, but since the Princesses are not in fact total incompetents (and there were local elected governments), they kept things pretty peaceful. Up until they decided to merge with the sun and moon to somehow protect against a vague threat to Equestria (I guess Twilight's research into the Elements for that sake didn't yield fruit in their eyes). One wonders who took over sovereignty in their absence (surely not Blueblood?), but it hardly mattered once the political divisions erupted into decades of open war, with all sorts of weapons and horrors being thought up and all of the other races being pulled in and devastated as well. (And they didn't even have the zebra to blame this time.:P) The bloody equilibrium was only broken by the arrival of the threat the Princesses had sensed: Nightmare Umbra, a.k.a. the Shadowed Alicorn, the Gray Mare, or the Destroyer.
After Nightmare DESOTROYAH attacked a few armies, the two sides decided to try wiping each other out in order to focus on stopping her, but she arrived at the battle site and informed them that their fighting just increased her power before wrecking everypony's shit, changing the landscape and finally just straight-up trying to kill everything. Fortunately, while her magic was still stretched out, Celly and Luna finally did something, forming an eclipse and using their power, along with most of the magic in the surrounding world, to seal her into what would become the Everstorm, leaving the separated Solar Kingdom and New Lunar Republics to rebuild and almost everyone else to die off.
Dash decides Nightmare DESOTROYAH was responsible for her current predicament, flinging her into the future so the Elements of Harmony couldn't be used on her. The foooolish pegasus warrior. Though, despite Rainbow Dash and her friends being known for saving Equestria, no record seems to have survived of the Elements of Harmony....
Ah, sweet, sweet historical context.
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