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                       A Gentle Dusk                       
                       -by Starsong-                       
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                         Prologue                          
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Prologue
This is not my story, or perhaps it is not a proper story at all.  Stories start at the beginning, and end at the end.  They are Creation—the first thing to be and the last thing to be undone.  Yet I put quill to scroll, again, and again, and first I write the end.  I hope in time I will be satisfied.  For now there is only work, only hope, only the story.
It ends, thus:
Princess Celestia walked on the empty plain, that was once ash, and before that rubble, and longer ago still the ruin of Equestria.  She did not allow herself to imagine how it had once stood.  No lush fields.  No pearl castles or lovely villas, no millions of children growing against the vastness of her land.
No.
The first time she'd experienced this, she wept.  Now she was like a grandmother picking up after her children, and their children, after they'd left from a long visit.  She'd pick up a toy and smile to herself, say nothing, and put it back where it belonged.  Bits of mountain, mane, or a little bit of a filly's dream that got lodged into the cracks of reality, forgotten until now.
“Are you just going to throw that away?”
A voice that managed to irk Celestia, even at the end of all things.  Discord wove out of the ether, out of a wisp from her ear and then became himself, a large and silly mess of a creature.
“How is it that you are here,” said Celestia, jaw set, “when the rest of the cosmos is still?”
Discord traced a dragon's claw up her chest, to her chin.  “Except for you, and the others.    Your heart is just the loudest.”
She shoved him aside with a wing and hurried on.  Most of the time she could tolerate his antics.  There was only one time when he got under her mane, and that's when he was right.  Even at the end of the world, she still had a decision to make.  One that would shape the course of the next incarnation of Equestria.  One that would inevitably end the same.
“I don't suppose you'll met me keep that?  As a memento?”
Celestia glanced down.  The draconequus was coiling about and tapping at the shard of a child's dream as a flutterpony might have been once drawn to a lantern.  “No,” she said, and with a brush of her wing, dusted it back into nothingness.  “Don't you have somewhere else to be?”
“As if.” Discord sighed dramatically.  “There's not even a stray bit of stardust to spin the other way.  No diverting paths remaining in this universe.  Most of the others have moved on already.  And I don't want to wait with her.”
Princess Celestia cracked a smile.  There were only a few that Discord ever feared, and the one he feared the most was the Pale Mare.  Enough so that the beast hid in Celestia's shadow when they gathered at the center of nothingness.
There are many reasons, beyond mortal pain, that would make an ageless being leave this realm.  Some, satisfied that they had done enough for the world, simply vanished, though Celestia never knew if they had actually died or chose to roam in solitude.  Others had lost loved ones to the passage of time, and resolved to follow them into the unknown.  Some passed on with a manic glee to explore beyond the reaches of their world, leaving their responsibilities behind.
Only four remained.
Princess Celestia stayed out of a sense of duty.  She knew that the work of creation would be unbound and rewoven, but she still put it all to order in the end.  Though the sun was no longer there, and there was no longer a sky to hold it, Celestia would not depart until her work was finished.
Princess Luna remained to keep her sister's company, and because this was the only time she could truly dream her own dreams.  Unlike her sister, she shed her royal regalia, save for the few remaining stars which lived in her mane.  Princess Luna would not depart until her sister was satisfied.
Discord, as far as Celestia could tell, could not leave as long as any aspect of the world was still in motion, which naturally meant he had nothing better to do than follow her like a lost puppy.  Celestia pretended to be annoyed, because it seemed to entertain him, and if the draconequus got bored he was prone to antics like trying to create his own universe, which meant that her job became much, much more complicated.  When they had moved on, then so would he.
Death.  The Pale Mare, the most distant of their kind, looked around the void like a filly being outside for the first time.  It was a peculiar gesture for a mare as timeless and ethereal as her.  A tall alicorn coated in the truest white, both coat and mane.  Her duty only bound her to the mortal ponies, but she always stayed until the very end.
“Is that the last of it?” asked the Pale Mare.
Princess Celestia nodded.  “Not an idea or a fancy left.”
“Just the four of us this time?” asked Princess Luna, looking around the void.  “This is starting to become rather lonely.”
“It's getting old,” said Discord, unwrapping himself from Celestia's shadow.   “You wouldn't think the end of the world could be so boring, but after the hundredth time or so, you've just about seen it all.”
The Pale Mare glanced in his direction, and he stopped mid-gesture.  “He is right though,” she said.  “We have to change something.  You know the solution I propose.”
Celestia knew.  “I can no more bring myself to hurt her than you could bring back the dead.  It is against our nature.”
“I know it,” laughed the Pale Mare.  “She knows it.  That's why we always end up here, unable to change anything.”
“Who would have thought your little protege would be the one to throw Equestria into disarray?”  Discord laughed.  “I might have been able to pull it off on a good day, if I put my head to it.”
“Enough,” said Celestia.  “We've already made up our minds.  If we end here again, then so be it.  We must move on.”
The Pale Mare nodded.  She lifted a star from Luna's mane and set it against the empty tapestry about them.  She leaned down, tapped it once with her horn, and it burst into a rainbow of colors.  A gate of pure light opened in front of them, leading to a place that not Chaos, nor the sisters, nor even Death knew.  One by one they filed into the gate and began the journey across the golden seas to the lands beyond.
All except for Princess Celestia, who took a turn just before Oblivion and stepped into a vast library.  The corner of the universe contained a building of infinite dimension, whose passages lead in every direction, and contained every language and knowledge ever held or hidden in Equestria.  She moved swiftly past titles like 'The Secret Life of the Amber Dragonfly,' and 'Courtship Rituals of Ouroboros'  beyond a stack containing every conceivable way to cook a strawberry, and treaded where the eternal candles began to dim.
Every now and then she thought she could hear another pony's hooves trotting through the galleries, but she could not find shade nor shadow of them, nor did she want to chance an unwanted family encounter.  After wandering longer than she could remember, she found what she sought: in place of a towering shelf sat a room sealed in a block of the purest metal, that no force or spell could ever penetrate.
“You may as well make yourself useful,” said Princess Celestia.
Discord sprung from one of the hairs on her chest and huffed. “I'm always useful, dear Celestia,” said the draconequus.  “The universe couldn't run itself without me.”  The beast turned and considered the wall.  “Aha.  I dare not dream who could build such a wall in the first place, but there's nothing I can't change.”
He plunged his claw into the wall like a fist into butter, complete with the accompanying squelch and solid ripple of metal into liquid.   A circle of blackness grew from where he'd penetrated the wall, and then began to trickle down the hallway like spilled paint.
“If you can change anything,” said Princess Celestia, “then maybe you're the best one to stop her.”
The Draconequus chuckled nervously.  “Oh, I'll think of something.  You'll see.”
Princess Celestia did not want to know what he had in mind, because if she disapproved, it would only guarantee his efforts to thwart her.  She stepped through the hole and into a small, square alcove.  Each wall supported just a single old, wooden shelf, and only a few sparse books remained there.  Most were blank, their forbidden secrets hidden from all but the archivist.
Once, long ago, she asked the librarian to take a certain book, a black book, handbound and full of research notes of an old friend, and bury it at the end of the universe.  Celestia knew now that that was not enough.  She needed to recover it and destroy it, even if it meant incurring the wrath of a family member.
She knew exactly where to look, and she knew that she would not find it, but it still saddened her.  Instead of the book she found a single purple feather, warm as if it had just fallen.
“I hope you've got a plan B,” said Discord.
Princess Celestia drew a sharp breath.  “I will do what I must.”
Which by itself, she knew, would not be enough.  Twilight Sparkle was the key to saving Equestria, and also the one who could so easily destroy it.  Her pupil eventually would come to know all that she knew, and more.  Each of them bound to their destiny, one that she could manipulate.
The alicorn and the draconequus left the library and returned to the golden road, following it to where it shrunk to a single point, where it became a thread leading to the next life.  Celestia turned to Discord and smiled.
“It was fun,” she admitted.  “Even when you were a bit of a jerk.”
“Of course it was,” said Discord, puffing up dramatically.  “This is me we're talking about.”
“There are a lot of things I'd like to tell you,” she said, “but we're not going to remember it anyway.”
“Enough with the dramatics,” said Discord.  “Get on with it already!  There's a whole new Equestria just waiting to happen.”
Celestia nodded her head.  It was a mixed blessing.  For every failure, she had another chance to make everything right.  Brand new, she would experience every joy and every sorrow.  Yet their fate also meant that all that they ever accomplished would eventually be undone, and whatever awaited them at the other side of the door would be forever a mystery.
She would not give up.  She could not give up, and could never experience true despair.  Hers was to hope, to be Hope, and to ensure that the sun always rose again.
“Thank you for everything, Discord,” said Celestia, before passing into the light.
Nothingness, and then light.  The rest you might know.
Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there lived two sisters, one to raise the sun, and another to raise the moon.  There lived another mare who knew could read the hearts of any pony, who knew the words that love spoke.  There lived countless magical creatures and wonderful ponies, each with a story and a precious existence.  There lived, not at the beginning, but certainly at the end, a mare named Twilight Sparkle, who swore that she would save them all, even if it took an eternity.