Sometimes, death can be a gift.
Celestia’s eyes brimmed with tears. Her shoulders shook with heaving sobs as she looked to the small roll of parchment by her hooves. Not again! Why do they all do this? It makes it all that much harder when they finally pass on! Why? The falling tears sounded almost deafening in the cavernous throne room, not a soul was in site. The princess was alone.
Slowly as time progressed, hoof steps began to sound out from the open door by the side of the two grand thrones. A female voice could be heard, echoing against the narrow walls of the hallway. “Yes captain, I will take your advice under consideration. No, no, it’s fine, I can make it to the throne room by myself thank you, it’s only Tia in there anyway.”
One of the set of hoof steps faded away into the distance, leaving the other set to wander into the throne room alone. Luna’s beautiful face immerged from the gloom of the hallway and into the warmth and glow of the many bracketed torches on the walls. She closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief, finally some peace and quiet to talk to her sister alone!
“Tia, I was wondering seeing as we both finally have some time if we could”- She stopped at the sight of her weeping older sister. “Tia?” She asked unsure, but slowly she realised it could be no one else. Her sister sat at the base of the stairs to her throne, had she fallen? Luna almost called the captain back.
She then saw the parchment. She edged closer. “Tia? Whats the matter?” She cooed. She reached the slumping Celestia and lay a foreleg over her shoulders. Instantly Celestia turned and flung herself on to her smaller darker sister.
“Oh Luna! It’s Twilight!” Luna’s stomach plummeted! What had happened? Oh dear! What could be so terrible that could get Tia this upset?
“What’s happened Tia?” she asked as she stroked her sisters flowing coloured mane. “Is Twilight ok?”
Celestia nodded slowly against her sisters face. Luna breathed a sigh of relief. “Then what’s wrong? She’s ok!” She pulled herself away and smiled at her weeping sibling, trying to infect with some of the happiness that so often flowed from her every pour. But Tia simply scrunched her eyes shut and shook her head wildly, her mane began to break apart over her face, making her look far less regale as different coloured strands fell onto her face.
Luna was lost. She wasn’t sure what was the matter. Her eyes travelled across her sisters face, still stricken with sorrow. Her gaze then travelled down to the floor between them. Luna could now see the parchment.
It looked like any other friendship report from Celestia’s favourite student. She couldn’t quite see every word, but all in all the letter looked as though nothing was amiss in Ponyville. The note seemed to mention something about friendship (as always) and how all of Twilight’s friend’s cutiemarks were linked with one another. Luna could read it later when she had calmed her sister down.
“Tia, please, it’s alright. Twilight’s fine!” Celestia’s eyes opened, they were dark and bloodshot. Brimming with newfound tears she said in a horrified whisper.
“But for how long?” She was worrying something was going to happen? What could possibly happen that Tia couldn’t control the outcome of? There was something Luna was missing.
“I don’t understand...” the dark princess said slowly.
Tia’s hoof slowly lowered from her sisters shoulder, it slowly lowered down to the letter. It was shaking with the misery and sadness that filled the bright princess. Roughly, the golden slipper’ed hoof pushed the parchment aside and revealed something beneath.
A single photo lay on the floor. It depicted Twilight sparkle, she was surrounded in a circle of her closest friends from Ponyville. They all looked wonderfully happy! For how long? Luna had a nagging suspicion she understood what was wrong, but the penny hadn’t dropped yet. She propped her sisters face up to look her in the eye. Pink met blue, and Celestia’s breathing seemed to become less shaky.
“She’s happy Tia, she has friends, just like you’d hoped! That’s good isn’t it?” Celestia closed her eyes once again, a shaking hoof rose and pointed to her throne atop the few stairs that towered above the two intertwined sisters.
“B-behind... behind the t-throne...” She stammered through her still shuddering sobs. Luna looked up to the grand golden rimmed seat, and then back down to her shuddering sister. Should she investigate? Or should she calm her sister down?
Celestia’s other hoof made the choice for her, the only one now resting on her shoulder came away and gently pushed at the dark blue fur of Luna’s chest. She understood the silent request. Tia couldn’t explain, she was too distraught, but she wanted Luna to know still.
The dark Princess began to climb the stairs to her sister’s throne. It had been a long time since she had last done it. Her own thrown had its own staircase, so she never needed to use this one. She almost saw a vision of her younger self –Still only a filly- running with difficulty up the –what was then- a towering amount of steps to reach her father sitting grandly atop the solar throne.
Father... he had passed away so long ago. Luna wondered if he would even realise this dark blue mare was that same little filly if he were alive today. Probably not. Too much had changed, Luna had been touched by darkness, and that kind of contact changes a pony beyond repair. She looked older than she should, she looked far closer to Tia’s age now. Father and mother would probably be ashamed!
Luna refused to give in to the morose thoughts, she powered through and reached the top of the stairs. She looked back down at her sister at the base, she looked up at her little sister, still sobbing as she did so.
There was a time –When she had been the dreaded Nightmare moon- that she would have given anything to stand where she stood right now! To have her sister broken below and to have herself towering above her seated at the very pinnacle of power in Equestria. But now the sight only made Luna feel sick with herself for every wanting this.
She continued round to the side of the grand throne. There was a small ledge behind it that Luna had never noticed before. She carefully manoeuvred around it and looked to the floor behind the throne. Nothing. There was nothing at all.
She looked up and shouted to her sister. “Tia there’s nothi”- Her words faded as her eyes fell upon the back of the grand seat.
There hung a picture, very old and faded. It had never housed colour, it was simply a muted grey image of six ponies. They stood in a line all smiling up Luna, all happy, all joyful. The group looked oddly familiar to the dark Princess. As though through a heat haze she saw their faces, their colours began to swim into focus, each wore a necklace of grand jewels. They all seemed to loath her as they glared at her.
Her mouth opened and she cackled loudly! Her voice was distorted and terrible as she demanded “THE ELEMENTS?! HONESTLY? IS THAT ALL YOU COULD THINK OF SISTER?!” she looked to her left and there stood her sister. There were no signs of sadness on her face, she looked on with the same distaste as the other six had.
“You are no sister of mine! You have taken my sister, you are nothing but a monster!” the haze began to fade, and the picture came back into Luna’s focus. The element wielders, the ones who had imprisoned Nightmare Moon –and subsequently herself- on the moon.
Why had Tia asked for Luna to see this one pic- Her gaze travelled to the sides of the little image, layers upon layers of faces plastered the back of the throne. A few Luna recognised as former students of Tia’s, long since passed. Starswirl The Beared’s face was one that stuck out to the side, his goofy teeth emphasised by the awkward angle he sat as his portrait was painted.
Some were pictures, others were paintings. Luna reached up and pushed some of them up; to her shock she found even more faces. How many were there? A hundred? Two hundred?! She dug through the layers and found the largest of them all, a painting it seemed to be painted into the back of the throne itself.
With her magic Luna slowly and carefully removed the other layers and let them hang in the air as she looked; Two Pegasy, two earth ponies and two unicorns stood proudly as they smiled up at Luna. On either side of the group stood the two princess’s Tia looked younger, Luna even more so! The group all wielded blades that were connected to braces on their forelegs. Those old weapons, the ones they had used against Discord. Only to discover they all held the strongest weapon of all.
How had they found the time to paint this? Luna had never remembered posing for it. None of them had had time, and during the fight... she reached out to the face of one particular Pegasy. It was a male, large strong and majestic looking. Luna’s hoof slowly traced over his lips, those lips she had only tasted once before they left for Discords castle –the castle in which Luna now stood- how long had Tia had these? So many were faces Luna hadn’t known.
The realisation hit her quickly. They were the faces of all those who Tia had become close to, the ones that Luna didn’t recognise were obviously from when she had been trapped on the moon. Luna quickly replaced every picture to its correct place, and then scanned for one particular face. Twilight’s wasn’t there.
Slowly Luna trudged around the side of the throne and looked back down at her distraught sister. She now understood. How many? How many of those ponies sent Tia pictures of themselves and their friends to keep her feeling close while she stayed in this castle managing the day and night? How many of those ponies were now dead? All of them.
Years, centuries, even millennia’s worth of dead friends hung on that wall. It was amazing that Twilight’s sending her picture hadn’t done more to Tia. Even through the growing sadness, Luna couldn’t help but admire her older sister. She was so strong to keep going, to still seek out new friends, even if she knew she would long out-live them.
The image of the Pegasus stallion flashed across Luna’s mind yet again. He was dead, long, long ago. He had died before her very eyes, at the hand of the Draconequus that now stood in the statue garden frozen in stone. Luna could only imagine how terrible it must feel to experience that pain again and again for countless centuries!
She slowly came down the steps, and stood next to her sister once again. She fell to her haunches, and held Tia close to her. Tears began to fall from both their eyes. Tia’s falling to the floor, and Luna’s into her sisters usually dazzling mane. Now if father was watching, maybe he’d recognise the two of them. The two had lay here as young fillies once, crying with confusion and pain, as they had tried to understand how an immortal mother could die.
An immortal father had comforted them, telling them they would be fine. ‘It’s terrible I know, but far to rare to happen to either of you.’ He had said to them. Not knowing that within weeks he too would fall, to the claws of a rising monster who would then take over Equestria for nearly a Century before the sister’s rose to defy him. Immortals could only die if they were attacked, if they suffered a wound too strong that even they could not recover from.
So the two immortal sisters now sat there and wept, knowing that with the peace that now rained over Equestria meant they would live forever, live to see new friendships blossom, whither, and eventually die. This was the price of peace, this was the price of immortality.
The picture lay between the two sisters, its colours beginning to run under the barrage of saltwater tears that fell on it from above. Yet another picture for the wall, soon enough it would just be another source of pain to Tia, but also to Luna. The six friends below them would be one of the few additions to that collage of lost friends that the dark princess would also miss.
The two sister’s wept, they wept well into the time the night should come, and yet it didn’t come. Luna had no time to focus on her duty. A thousand’s years of pain and anguish were being let out between the two celestial sisters. Ponies throughout Equestria enjoyed their extra long day, playing games for longer. Laughing with one another for longer. Unaware of how lucky they were.
With a fleeting life, so many great things can be achieved, and when it’s over we lie down and prepare to rest for time eternal. Unaware of how lucky we are that as we die, we will soon be joined by those we love and cherish, and meet those that we have already lost.
Do not pity the dead, pity those that last forever, those that see all they love leave them behind as they pass on to whatever lies beyond. Eternal rest is a gift, eternal life is a curse far worse and far more unimaginable then anypony can hope to envision.
Sometimes, death can be a gift.
