— What is Power? —
– We have the power to kill, that’s why they fear us. –
-Amon Goeth, Schindler’s List (1993)
She shifted slightly as her eyes gazed down upon the stallion that had thrown himself down on the ground to plead with her and her sister, the sound seeming unnaturally loud after the silence that had began to press down on the room as soon as she had held up her hoof for it. Her look wasn’t harsh, however, despite how threatening she may have seemed standing there above him; how she seemed with her judgment hanging above just waiting to fall. “As I understand it, you, Shroudy Shores, were caught committing the crime of theft from a merchant in the market two days prior to toda–”
“It was just a few apples, Majesty! I swear it!” The pony swiftly looked back down as she held up a hoof once more, her gaze hardening softly. On either side of the criminal stood two guards who both moved a little bit closer to him, ready to silence him forcefully if he spoke out of line again. They stepped back once Celestia waved her hoof side to side, looking at her confusedly.
“I was not asking what you were stealing, merely confirming that you indeed committed the crimes that you are charged with.” She stood up from the cushioned throne and began to make her way down the steps, her stare not faltering as she closed the distance between them with every click of her hoof on the floor. Each time one of those echoing sounds made it back to the accused stallion, he simply cowered closer to the ground with fear.
She reached out a hoof to bring the stallion’s eyes to her own, Celestia paused as a memory ages old resurfaced.
”Luna! I will not fight you! You must lower the moon! It is your duty!”
“Luna? I am Nightmare Moon.” She could help but recoil slightly as her sister’s eyes narrowed dangerously, unable to see any trace of the pony that had ruled Equestria by her side for centuries ever since they had defeated Discord together. “I have but one royal duty now!” Celestia’s muscles tensed as a cobalt light encompassed Luna’s horn with power, shooting out a dangerous beam of light as she pointed it at her. “To destroy you!”
Only her quick reflexes kept her from being struck by the magical blast, though Celestia could still feel a few shards of rock hitting her back hooves as she flew into the now-nighttime sky. Time seemed to slow as she turned around to see the black-hearted mare shooting upwards towards her, horn glowing with yet another attack that she only just dodged. She felt the heat burn away the fur at her hooves as the boiling magic jetted past, shivering a little as she realized how close she was to missing a pair of hooves.
She fled as fast as she could as even more beams of the blue lances of light lit the sky around her, dodging frantically side to side as she tried to think of something, anything that would save her sister from whatever it was that had taken hold of her. That’s when it clicked, that she could use a spell to dive into her sister’s mind and clear it of whatever hateful magic that had taken hold. As she turned around to cast it, everything grew bright for a moment and then dark the next.
“Tell me, stallion, why were you stealing those apples?” Despite her soft words, the pony in front of her cowered and shivered as if he were freezing to death.
“To f-feed myself, Majesty. It has been hard for one such as myself to find a job here in Canterlot, and I have no other place to return to as I was sent away from my hometown.” The stallion looked up only slightly, staring hard at her hooves as he continued to speak now that he was given the chance to, though his words came hurriedly as if he expected to be silenced once more. “And it were only a few, I swear it, Majesty. I didn’t ever take more than I needed, or more than another jobless pony needed as well.”
“So you also admit to stealing in other occurrences?” Her tone wasn’t accusing, merely inquisitive, though the way the stallion looked up in alarm with his eyes as wide as they could go made it seem as if she were ready to drop an axe on his neck already. She held up her hoof as soon as his mouth opened to object, silencing him before any distraught words could come forth. “That is enough. I have heard what I need to.”
The silence that now hung over the room was nearly overwhelming as she stepped back up to her throne. “According to the old Equestrian Law, the age-old punishment for thievery is death.” A few whimpers accompanied that last word, though she held up her hoof once more to prevent any outbursts. “Be thankful that you do not live in such a time any longer, Shroudy Shores.” Her horn glowed as she lifted up the scroll that was still in the hooves of one of the guards off to the side of the room, bringing it before her to read it. “Shroudy Shores, accused of thievery on multiple counts...”
Her horn glowed as she lifted the secret panel in the floor, her hooves shaking slightly with both effort and grief as the Elements of Harmony ascended from their place in their underground vault. “You have given me no choice but to use these...” Her wings sent a bit of dust from the destroyed roof into the air as she flew over to the pedestals, a few tears threatening to fall as she also hoisted the glittering gemstones to her side, the last of which, Magic, emerging from the stone ball on the top.
The air around her whistled softly as the gems swirling around her, going faster and faster until they were simply a blur of color. Power coursed through her body as the Elements mixed with her magic, pulsing with her heartbeats. The darkness around her recoiled from the shimmering light that began to encompass her in a vaguely familiar feeling; it was a feeling that she had shared with her sister that fateful day they defeated Discord, but now it was mixed with emptiness and agony instead of companionship. Tears began to stream down her face as she was forced to pass judgment on her sister, the rainbow-colored stream of magic heating up the air as it poured forth from her horn.
Time seemed to slow as the beam drew closer and closer to the pony she had grown up with, the pony she had spent years on a journey with to defeat Discord, the god of chaos himself. It inched closer. Closer.
Closer...
And then she was gone, her image burned into the side of the moon that she had raised in defiance of the sun.
“I pardon you of all your crimes, listed and unknown, and I also offer you a position in the castle kitchens so that you may spend your time to create wonderful food instead of stealing it.” The scroll burned to ash in the air as she smiled down at the awe-struck stallion. “Now go, my little pony, find a place in the world.”
“They fear us because we have the power to kill arbitrarily. A man commits a crime, he should know better. We have him killed and we feel pretty good about it, or we kill him ourselves and feel even better. That’s not power, though. That’s justice. That’s different than power.”
“Power is having every justification to kill, and we don’t.”
-Oskar Schindler
Author's Note
Random story is random, more or less inspired by a certian scene in Schindler's List (which is an amazing movie by the way and you should make every effort to go see it somehow.
I don't know where I was headed with this one, and to be honest I just wanted to write it and get it out of my head.
Tell me what you thought of it in the comments!
As always, thanks for reading.
EDIT: Let me reitterate, I didn't really know what I was doing with this one, did it just randomly and let it go where the pieces fell in my head.
