I shouldn't be dying. Not me, not now. I am an immortal goddess in my prime, embodiment of the sun itself. I shouldn't be dying!
But I am dying, and nothing I say can change that. Nothing will take away the pain of pins and needles, and nothing will stop the tearing in my heart as the vision of my grieving sister flickers in front of my eyes. I pity my little ponies. I can understand why they all live in a perpetual terror of this pain, terror of this sunset of their time that we call death. They all live in the peace of my sun and Luna's moon. They don't know pain. They're not used to it. Me? I'm used to pain. I fought Discord and Nightmare Moon, Sombra, and many others long forgotten by the passage of time.
But nothing could have prepared me for the emotional pain, not even banishing my own sister to the moon for a thousand years. I can see it in their eyes, that flickering light slowly dying. They try to cover it up, but I have had millenia upon millenia of practice at discerning expressions.
I hardly ever see Twilight, as she throws herself into research, trying to find any cure to my dying light. I fear that this will scar her beyond repair. It was hard enough for her after the death of the other Bearers of Harmony and her family and friends, but she had told me many times how grateful she was that I also lived on. But now I am going, slowly cooling my blood, trying to keep a stoic face, not letting my pain shine through. I have to be here for her in these last, painful days. There is nothing she can do, though. A pure obsidian spear imbibed with basilisk venom through the heart is something not even my mother, Creator, could have healed.
Luna buries herself in paperwork, only emerging for court and visiting hours at the hospital. She is taking this hard, harder than I would have thought. Harder than I took her banishment. She can tell that I am in pain though. We've been together since the creation of the universe. I can't hide from her as well as she can hide from me.
The painkillers help, but not for long. They offer a momentary haven from this hazy pain, a moment of clarity. And then the moment is over, and I am returned to the throbbing torture. It hurts, especially knowing that it causes my loved ones pain. I was, after all, the element of kindness. I always hated seeing others grieve, and I always did what I could to stop the pain. I would always do my best for my ponies.
But apparently some ponies don't appreciate what I do for them. I bring their sun, the very thing that gives them life and I rule them fairly and peacefully. And what did they do? That ungrateful airhead stabbed me for it! I'm dying and I'm in pain because one mortal pony decided that I made a bad decision. He couldn't have come to talk to me, no. He had to turn my kindness against me, convince me to dismiss the guards while he talked to me. It was so unexpected, so sudden. There was nothing I could do. He was a skilled unicorn, teleporting the spear to his side with a burst of grey magic and quickly stabbing it at me. I barely had time to let out a shriek before it hit me, and by the time the guards had galloped in, I was unconscious, black spear still jutting from my chest. The unicorn was long gone.
The thing I remember the most of that day is my sister, summoned from her sleep by the intense pain she could feel through her magical connection to me. She was angry, so very angry. I remembered then why she had been named the High Lady of War, and why she had always been at the head of the charges against enemies of Equestria. She was terrible in her rage, yet so beautiful with that star field of a mane whipping around her angry muzzle, perfectly preened wings flared in grief. She screamed and shouted and raged, stomping hard enough to create holes where she had stood, a web of cracks leading from her hooves across the lunar-steel floor of the throne room. No one dared approach her for almost an hour as she mourned for me in her own, special way. It was painfully thrilling to watch her rage, but so heartbreaking to see her weep and wail in grief.
***
Today, I am happy, yet I am sad. I am happy, for soon my pain will end. Everything is in order, and the doctors don't expect me to live for any longer than a few hours. I can feel my magic confirming it. Yet, still, I must grieve with my sister, my former student, and my niece. They grieve, and I grieve with them, for no longer will I be here to rule and to love and to teach. I worry about my sister most, but when I voice my concerns for her, she brushes me off. She seems weary, her eyelids always drooping and her hooves always dragging. Her relatively scruffy coat barely covers her skinny barrel and jutting ribs. Her starry mane has receded to the powder blue of her fillyhood and her unpreened wings can't seem to get her off the ground. I think it's my fault. I told her that she'll be a wonderful ruler with Twilight at her side, but she seems convinced that she'll lead the land to ruin without me. I must get the truth through her head somehow; Equestria will be depending on her.
***
"Sister? Are you still awake?" I was impressed. Even in her depressed mindset, Luna managed to remember her lessons in modern Equestrian. I opened my eyes in response, immediately wincing at the sight of her skinny frame, more bones jutting out than when I last saw her. I needed to fix this.
"Good afternoon, Lulu. How has the sun been responding?" I could not tell if her wince was caused by the question or the sound of my hoarse voice.
"It has been... alright." I raise an eyebrow at the hesitation, and she blushes in what I think is embarrassment. I can never tell. "Terrible! It has been terrible! It refuses to listen to my commands, and each raising and setting is a hassle!"
"Did you not listen to my lesson? The sun and the moon are opposites, just like us. The moon requires a firm hoof, and it needs to be forced along. Once you have established that you will be controlling it, it shall obey your every command. But the sun is different. You must be kind, and gentle, and do more than offer a guide for it along the path. It shall never listen if you try to treat it as you treat the moon." I smiled gently at Luna, but she avoided eye contact and scuffed her hoof along the ground like a schoolfilly in trouble. I knew what was coming, and nodded my head before she even finished asking her question.
"Do... do you think you could... um... help me set it this evening?"
***
Together, we reached out for the sun with our magic. My whisper broke the minutes-long silence. "Can you feel the Song of the Sun, Lulu? Can you feel the music of its magic through your horn?" She shook her head. "Then probe the area, calmly, gently, until you can feel the energies and their rhythm. Remember, be kind and gentle, not like the moon." She closed her eyes, and in a few minutes I felt her aura join mine around the sun. "Now you need to give it a light push towards the horizon, and maybe also a gentle tug. Softly, without as much force as with the moon. I'll lend you some help." Slowly, I merged a tiny fraction of the magic that the sun had been forcing into me with hers, and within a minute I could feel the sun moving, floating towards the horizon, it's song of magic fading with its light.
Her smile lit up the room more than the moon she brought up a few seconds later. I was just as happy, and for the time being it had driven away the pain. She had succeeded, and for a moment it seemed as if everything was back to normal. A glance at her still-ragged mane convinced me otherwise, and it was barely longer than a moment, though, before her features sagged back down into the weary look she had worn since her fit of rage in the throne room. And that is when I remembered the real issue at hoof. I narrowed my eyes and gave my younger sister as stern a look as I could manage. She returned my gaze with confused eyes.
"You do not believe you can rule Equestria without me." It was not a question. I was simply stating a fact.
"I do not believe it. I know it." She sighed with regret, her confusion changing to a rueful gaze. Luna wasn't holding back right now.
"And what makes you assume such a lie?"
"'Tis not a lie, Sister,and you know it."
It was my turn to sigh. "Yes, it is a lie. Didn't you notice how well you've been running Equestria lately? You've caught up on every important thing that you missed, and all the ponies have either forgiven you for the Nightmare Mo-" I was cut off by a ferocious glare. "Okay, almost all the ponies have forgiven you for the Nightmare Moon 'incident'. Equestria needs you, and I have complete faith in you. I am positively sure that you can step up to the challenge. And don't forget, you'll have Twilight by your side, and Cadenza and Shining Armor will be no more than a few teleports away in the Crystal Empire. You will not be alone, Sister." Speaking so much had exhausted me, and I broke off in a fit of coughing. When I resurfaced, she seemed to have gained a new, hesitant resolve.
"Are... are you sure? Completely sure?"
I raised an eyebrow, gave her a deadpan stare, and replied, "A hundred percent sure, Lulu." I gave her a reassuring smile and painfully invited her for a hug.
"Thank you... 'Tia."
***
It is almost time to leave this land. I can feel the magic coalescing in my body. I am glad I managed to convince my sister of her worth. By the time we had finished talking I had felt the energies. I knew what they meant. Luna raced to inform the doctors and the other princesses, her once-again-starry mane billowing behind her. The doctors had no clue what was going to happen when I breathed my last. Luna and I knew though. We remembered our mother's death. It was terrible.
***
Twilight still has not arrived. I have said my goodbyes to everypony that matters, except for her. She might miss her chance if she doesn't come soon. Ah, there she is. She doesn't seem to be in a good state. Her fur is a mess, matted down on her cheeks from her tears. She rushes into the room, tail streaming behind her, galloping legs skidding to a stop at my bed as she throws herself on top of me. Her sobbing is loud in my ears as I force my throbbing limbs to move to hug her. But then Luna is there with a worried expression on her face, trying to get Twilight to move away. She ends up having to magically lift her and drag her to join the rest of the ponies. Luna still looks worried, something I understand. She gets the ponies to form a large circle around me, making sure nopony is close to me. She knows what might happen, and I confirm her suspicions with a pained nod. I am, after all, the embodiment of the closest star. The sun is trying to force my body to live, and it is turning my own magic against me. This happened to Mother also. It doesn't end well. A moment before I die, my body will no longer be able to contain the magic and full might of the sun, and the energy shall explode outwards, a burning supernova on a smaller scale.
Twilight is still trying to reach me, wailing, trying to force her way past my stoic sister.
***
The pain is fading, and so is my consciousness. Everything is flickering. I turn my muzzle to smile reassuringly once more at my distraught family. This is it. Now is the time.
I feel my heartbeat slowing, my blood boiling with the heat of the Sun's magic. My limbs weaken, my eyesight fading. The last thing my eyes focus on is the sobbing, trembling form of my former student reaching for me, barely held back by my silently weeping sister. The last thing I hear is the heartbroken shriek of the pony I cared for as a daughter, ringing deafeningly loud in my ears, flooding my consciousness with her grief, even as my world explodes into shards of white, pink, and gold light.
"CELESTIA!"
Author's Note
Hmmm, wonder what that pony thought was such a stupid decision that it made killing Celestia justifiable in his eyes.
But I seriously think this version came out way better than the first. (And the second.
) Sorry it took so long. I hope you enjoy this super long (relatively) chapter. I could have made it a separate story if I had wanted to, but I don't want to. Enjoy!!
I worked my whole life to stop this from happening. Yet here I am, hidden in the dark shadows of a back alley. Pretty ironic, how the one thing I feared was the one thing I got. I'm not scared of it anymore; I grew numb to that fear a while ago. I do wish still, though. I wish I could fly. That would fix a lot of my problems. Too bad wishing doesn't do anything. I figured that out pretty quickly. I wish and hope and dream, yet my wings remain withered, the bones cracked, the feathers molting. If only I could fly. If I could, I would go up and up and up. I would escape the pain and sadness of the streets, and start a new life and build a new home. It isn't very difficult to make a cloud house... I guess knowing that it doesn't help doesn't stop me from fantasizing. It doesn't stop the slap in the face I get, either, when I blink myself back to reality and see my poor wings, grey mane, and dulled coat.
***
I worked my whole life to stop this from happening. Yet here I am, rain mingling with the tears running down my face. Is it normal that I should know which drops of water are rain, and which are my tears? Probably. After all, my tears are warm and salty, and they burn tracks down my grimy coat, and the rain is cool, and washes everything away. My eyes burn, but I don't care. Anypony could see me, but I don't care. I lost my egotistical pride a long time ago.
***
I worked my whole life to stop this from happening. Yet here I am, regret clawing at my heart and constricting my throat, shame ringing in my ears, and anger boiling in my veins. I have accomplished so much, yet the bad outweighs the good. I can't deny what I did, or what happened to me. Some my own fault, some the fault of others. I've been broken, both in pride and spirit, but I can't do anything about it. I learned that a long time ago.
***
I worked my whole life for this not to happen. Yet here I am, all alone.
Forgotten.
Author's Note
If you found anything wrong with this story, please tell me through a comment or PM.
Silence. It is a funny thing, this... silence. It used to describe an absense of noise, but an absolute silence is so loud. The pure nothingness weighing on your ears, deafening you. If it is an absense of noise, how can it be so loud? The weight of it is painful, a searing reminder of what had been, when reality had been. When my world had been, when my masterpieces, the gentle moon and bright stars had decorated the beautiful swath of night sky visible from it. When my sister and her sun had been, a supposedly eternal figure of hope for all. After all the hustle and bustle of a royal life, how can I live with this silence?
***
It has been so long since I have heard a voice. It has been so long since I have heard my own inflection, I have forgotten what I sound like. I whisper a name into the nothingness, but the vacuum sucks it into its depths. The whisper is gone like the wind, and the name goes unheard by me, myself, and I, the only thing left in this reality. But I know what it was that I said, a word that I consciously formed in my own mind, a word that I could feel moving through the vibrations of my throat, until I lost it to the black. Oh, how I yearn for anything but this black, this nothingness that claims my own ears for its own! I can still remember days long gone, days of colors and voices and ponies, and something other than this horrible vacuum. I miss that life, that past life belonging to a pony named Luna. How I wish I could be Luna once more, to live that life once again. I wish to feel the soothing touch of my sister's wing, see the colorful mane of my niece, hear the sweet voice of my savior from the Shadows.
***
My dear sister, please forgive me! I promised you that I would lead our little ponies after you were gone, shattered into pieces of light that floated through your sun's rays, but I failed. I have failed you, I have failed the little ponies that depended on me. I have failed my world, my universe, and my reality. I miss you so much. If you had still been, this would not have happened! You could have prevented this! You could have prevented the ponies from ripping the fabric of space-time itself, a lethal side effect of the Project of Desire. If only... if only there were something... something other than this silence...
Something other than this void.
Author's Note
The story Void by Jorofrarie motivated me to write this down. I thought it would be longer, but I like it this way better. If you feel that I should add onto this, just say so in the comments or PM me, and I might consider cintinuing it in the future. I also said I would have Supernova rewrotten before this, but I don't have a computer to use and it is practically impossible to rewrite it on my phone. I'll have a computer again on Friday, so don't worry.
