Celestia hated hospitals.
In many ways, it was a passed-along hate. She had also spent time over the centuries (years, it had to be accumulated years doing just this) in hating trenches dug out for what was supposed to be shelter at the absolute edge of the battlefield, a hypothesis which had never come close to any level of proof. She had hated emergency tents, triage sorting stations, healer's huts, and those little patches of ground where the soil was just beginning to change color, the wounded not yet aware of their life's blood released into a final spoiling of the canvas.
But hospitals... there was just so much to hate there. Passed-along, yes, even accumulated -- but some of that loathing had evolved with the facility itself.
Start with the smell. Some medicines required the mixing of herbs and chemicals which would otherwise never even be acquaintances: the meetings always seemed to lead to olfactory arguments which were never fully resolved. More than a few diseases had their own stink: a sweetness to the breath here, the hint of rot within feathers when a patient no longer cared about preening. Disinfectants did not erase or mask, but simply added their sting to the assault, putting her eyes on the perpetual verge of watering. Her mane and tail often seemed to shrink in on themselves when she was in a hospital, as if attempting their own form of retreat, or at least cutting down on the space they needed for movement.
Which led her to the scale of the place. There had been a time in Equestria's history -- actually, several of them -- when Celestia had sincerely considered forcing through a permanent change to building code standards. The heart of all those self-rejected proposals was simple: Every Single Site In The Realm Will Be Able To Accommodate Me. (Or Else.) But... it was unfair. To design around her dimensions was to leave normal ponies with windows they couldn't casually open, doorways where levers were nearly unreachable, benches which turned into extremely hard beds. So she'd always discarded the idea... eventually. She was the only pony who had to suffer through that exact level of problem: giving everypony else the flipside of her issues helped nopony at all.
Hospitals, though... something about them seemed even smaller than every other normal type of pony construct. More cramped. As if the only way to keep sickness confined was through the savage overpressure of squeezing walls, which incidentally concentrated all the smells. Every doorway required ducking, her flanks scraped along hallway corners. Rooms were generally filled with devices to the point where she couldn't take a full breath without breaking something: hallways saw continually-pounding hooves which her mere presence inevitably slowed or blocked. (There was no room to fly over her. There never was.) She could barely maneuver through the typical hospital, and the slowness of her passage added a tiny layer of frustration to that part of a pony mind which always wanted to gallop. It didn't help. Nothing did.
Celestia had to make her way through the narrow hallways on hoof. She had no teleport arrival site for this (or any other) hospital, not one within the structure, for open space had been the first thing killed by the lockdown of disease. Even when she'd tried insisting that one room be kept totally clear as a perpetual just-in-case, gone so far as to try legislating it... well, exhausted interns had looked at a place where nopony was to ever intrude and seen only a safe room, the lone site in the facility where they could finally get some sleep without interruption from the insane demands of supervisors who had blocked out all personal memories from their own sadist-driven years. Celestia could maintain an arrival point in a nearby building -- but to teleport directly into a hospital was often to find an entire nest of those pushed beyond all endurance, and the crashing impact of her recoil had occasionally sent them into proper beds. The ones reserved for patients.
There were patients calling to her now.
The forced slow passage gave them so much time to spot her. Rumors flew down the halls where she could not, arrived well ahead, alerted the entire structure as to the presence trying to work its way within. There were times when visiting family members would make the first sightings: others saw staff trigger the inevitable before sending it rushing in precisely the worst possible direction, or one of the ill would glance out an open doorway at exactly the wrong moment. Regardless of how it started, the result was always the same: they called out to her. Every time.
After so many centuries, Celestia no longer heard her own answering words. She knew what they were. (Blocking her ears had never produced any effect on the echoes within her heart of hearts, but perhaps one day...) So she spoke to them. 'Later' was used, frequently. There was somepony she was here to see now, and that was her priority. But she would come back... unless there was a crisis, or an emergency, or anything, she had once found herself internally begging for something to happen which would legitimately call her away, and then realized that such a horrifically selfish wish would only fill more places with those calls.
She would come back. That was the essence of it. When she had
done nothing
finished.
And she would come back, as the word continued to spread, as every bit of the stinking air vibrated with the power of need...
There were many reasons Celestia hated hospitals, and never having found a stronger word than 'hate' was not the least of them.
Seventeen cramped hallways. Four ramps. She'd asked for directions three times. The first two sets being wrong was not the fault of the directing ponies: one had been too new, the other simply overwhelmed. But now she was at the proper door.
It was open, of course. This kind of door always was. In theory, there was simply too much traffic to allow even the briefest memory of privacy, much less reflection or thought -- plus there was another requirement. And once within...
More pony voices came from behind her. Bodies pressed against her legs, and many of them were slick with the sweat of desperation. She softly answered them, telling them that this was where she
don't want
had to be. That she needed some time. The occupants within might have heard her, might not: for one, there were other sounds which required far more attention and with the other... sound was not important, and never would be.
She could not make the voices understand, not the heart of it. She would never be able to, and had sometimes even wished to give up on that part, let them have whatever dreams they wished with all protests buried forever. But that was surrender on a level which meant losing the last of her, and so wishing was as far as it had ever gone.
All she could make them comprehend, generally with great reluctance and often greater pain, was that they had to wait. In time, they grasped that. The voices moved away, the bodies gave her space, if only for a little while. And Celestia went inside.
There were devices. Some flashed small, soft lights, all of gentle hues meant not to offend weak eyes. Others made tiny sounds. Two vibrated, but only slightly. One simply hummed to itself, and that was the one which always drew Celestia's attention. For most, it would quickly become background noise, falling beneath conscious notice -- right up until the moment it stopped.
There was a bed, one which barely qualified for the word. It was smaller than her head, and still so oversized for the glow-covered occupant as to make her near-watering eyes force back the first of the tears.
There was barely enough room to move. Or breathe. 'Exist' could be added to that list, but not for long.
However, there was still just enough space for a pony to shove his way in past her left flank, and the little red eyes stared up at her with genuflection, one which the cramped room thankfully prevented a physical expression of.
"Princess!" It came out as welcoming, grateful, subservient, and slime-coated in a way which the off-green hue of the pony's coat had already more than suggested. "I just heard you were in the building! I am honored to have you here, honored, and of course I'll be more than happy to give you the full tour later! After I'm finished helping this very special patient, of course. You can rest assured that I am dedicating my full and complete attention to this case, the most important of cases, no effort I can personally make will go unchecked as long as this very special patient needs my help... Oh, where are my manners?"
Celestia, who had been wondering the same thing, simply waited it out.
"Doctor Haysew," the unicorn went on. "Director Haysew, actually, lead administrator for this fine facility, the finest in all of Equestria, one which is giving over every resource it has to our very special patient. But for this, I'm just a doctor again, one who has been lending his decades of medical experience to the most important of cases. So if there's anything you require of me at this time, anything at all --"
"Thank you, Doctor." She was cutting him off. She had to. There was too little space here, and the walls closed in all the more every time his sentences sucked the sincerity from the room. "I understand completely. But for now, the only thing I require from you is -- privacy. Whatever you can grant of it. I know that you and your staff need to make frequent checks, but... if it's at all possible to grant a few minutes, or at least keep other ponies away from this area for a time... A closed door would be a help, or at least as closed as it can be." And not in small part because she knew this kind of personality, understood that the next word would get the job done because he would personally hear it as her asking a favor of her superior, "Please?"
Instantly, "Of course, Princess! We'll speak later, you and I. During the tour. We have so much to discuss, but... your time with my very special patient comes first! I can hardly bear to tear myself away from her for even a moment, but since your royal needs require my assistance..."
The rest of the noxious words sank into her coat, fouled her hooves and nearly brought her mane and tail to a complete stop. But in the end, they also brought results, and the calls moved back to a distance where she could almost pretend they were background noise, as persistent as the humming, meant to be noticed only if it stopped.
when
The administrator was the last to leave, and he dropped still more words of taint as he exited, ones concerning ponies she simply had to be introduced to at dinners which needed attending. Every last syllable echoed with the rattle of future transferred bits.
Finally, it was simply her in the room again. Her and that most special patient, along with...
"He's never been in here before," said the tired voice. "Not for so much as a single heartbeat, Princess."
She carefully angled her head in that direction, avoiding a pair of devices as she did so. He was at the base of that too-small, horribly-large bed. Curled up in front of it as a final defensive line against the assault nothing could stop, ready to give his life if it would mean... anything. Anything at all. And it would not.
He had been described to her: how he was so much older than his sister as to belong to another generation entirely. The normal kindness in the bright copper eyes, the shyness which so often rode in his words, right alongside the joyous surprise at not only getting to exist in so wondrous a world, but to do with company. The last had been a recent addition and, according to his sibling, a constant one.
The only thing which linked him to the pony whom Glimmerglow had spent so much time talking about in her desperate attempts to make Celestia go was the age. And at that, there had been too little mentioned. A described generation separated him from his sister, who had not been so much a surprise pregnancy as a reality-breaking shock. But the dove-grey pegasus curled up on the floor... it could have been centuries between him and the rest of the family. To look at him was, for Celestia, to fall under the momentary illusion that one of her own generation was somehow present in the cramped room, one who had been through every century she had -- only aging all the way.
His coat needed grooming. His feathers were desperate for a preening. He seemed halfway along the road to dehydration, on the verge of cresting the midpoint before plunging down the final cliff. Clouded eyes begged for the release of sleep, and that only as a first step. But there was something worse than deprivation and pain starting to dawn in those eyes now, and Celestia had to force herself to keep looking at them.
"I had guessed," she softly said. Because that very important patient had only become so at the moment the administrator learned exactly where she was going. "How have the other doctors been treating her?"
"They care," he said, and the dullness was beginning to lift from his voice as that worse infused it. "But... it's from a distance. The youngest... they're dedicated, Princess. They feel for her, they watch her, sometimes it even seems as if they breathe with her. And even then, there's a shield across the gap, an invisible one, trying to protect them from... With the older ones, I can almost see it. That they treat her only as... something in the bed. And when she -- leaves... somepony else will be in that bed, and the shield will get harder every day for all of them, because to care about everypony, to bleed with everypony... is to eventually run out of blood entirely."
She wished he wasn't talking about blood.
"But that one... he doesn't bleed at all, does he? There's no shield because there's nothing to hold back..."
Celestia nodded. The door was open, just a crack, because it had to be -- but there were no pony eyes watching through that gap. And even if the administrator was still within hearing range, he would not hold the words against the speaker, and would in fact not even consider doing so. After all, the patient was the most special one.
The pegasus stallion forced his head up higher. Celestia did her best to sink down, spare his poor neck from the assumption of a painful angle, and found the room doing its best to forbid it.
"You came..."
Another nod. There was nothing which would have let her add a smile to it. "I did, Fajr."
He smiled.
And that was still not the worst of it.
She let him talk. He needed to: it had been building for days, time during which Glimmerglow had begged her to go. Time which changed nothing real.
Celestia knew most of the story, for his sister had related it in great detail, hoping the flood of emotion would eventually build the pressure which would force Celestia down those too-narrow hallways. Glimmerglow, for her part, was generally known for being... delayed. Unavoidably, or so she claimed every time. Her conception had been ridiculously past the normal window for such things, her birth had been a moon overdue, and so the pattern had been set for a life which tended to be running about an hour behind everypony else's. She was a good Guard, one of the best among the Solar staff, and that forgave a lot -- but to schedule Glimmerglow for anything was to deliberately give her a launch time two hours before anypony else was due to arrive. There were times when it was almost enough.
Fajr, in some ways, was worse. He was late for practically everything, as long as that thing was among the most important in his life. And he found them all the more precious for the time it had taken to reach them.
A delayed mark, one of the latest Celestia had ever heard of: he had been trotting towards the stage to pick up his diploma and it had manifested in front of the entire school. As gasps and cheers came from the audience, he had nosed the scroll back to the principal and proclaimed his inability to accept it, for such was only for those who were leaving, and he never would.
Even with talent driving the way, it had still taken him two extra years to finish his degree in education. He'd gotten distracted a few times along the way.
A decade of travel before he'd found a settled zone he could call home for more than a semester. All the children had been loved, every parent dealt with... but ultimately, nothing had felt right until he'd gazed at the ocean from San Dineighgo's shoreline and let the salt in the air call him home.
One full stretch of years from kindergarten through graduation with a bright-eyed tangerine filly staring at him with adoration from the front row.
Eight seasons beyond that graduation until he had come to understand that a former youngling's precocious crush had never gone away, had in fact become something much more. Another two before he made the first fumbling steps towards accepting it, then a mere day before realizing the entire settled zone had only been waiting to see if he would figure it out already.
First date. First anniversary. First (and only) proposal, leading to the lone wedding he would ever wish to have. First pregnancy. First vacation trip, even with her partway through term, for there would be no time once the foal came.
First air path safety breach.
First monster.
Celestia had heard all of it from his sister. But she listened. She allowed him to press against her, meshed her feathers with his dirty ones, wondered if he felt like a foal himself at that moment. Protected in the huge shadow of something a newborn barely understood. And she waited for worsening to become worst.
"They said... it was too early," he softly said. "But the pain... before she..."
Celestia waited, for it was all she could do.
"...it triggered labor..."
She looked up at the little form in the tiny/huge bed. At the glows surrounding the miniature pegasus body. Every so often, a spark would detach from a field, float through the gap in the doorway, seeking out the original caster. It was an effective trick when it came to updating physicians on patient condition, but the nature of it meant the working had to be regularly renewed.
There were at least six different fields wrapped around portions of the tiny foal. There could have been more. The hues had started to blend into each other after a while.
A filly. Pale tangerine, just like her mother. Just a bit of mane and tail hair, and that dove-grey. The eyes hadn't opened since Celestia had entered the room. The wings did not flutter. The rib cage shifted just enough to barely see with each bare breath. And the departing sparks continued their slow march towards death.
"Have you named her?" The words hurt. They all did.
"No..." he said. "I wanted to, but..."
Her mind finished it for him. But it would make things that much more real. Because to name her was to care all the more. To invest everything left, to give every bit of love to somepony who will never know about it. To pin all remaining hope and life...
Because you already love her enough for two, and fear that simply letting yourself speak an expression of that love is what will bring you to none.
And because you're lying to me. You've already named her. You did it at the moment you first saw her, the instant you gave every broken fragment of your heart to this foal and decided that her life could make you whole. You're just terrified of saying it. Because that would be the moment the world noticed she was holding on, holding you... and took her away.
"Say it." It was not an order.
"...Princess?"
"You gave her a name in your heart. Let her hear it."
But he took it as one.
For the first time in hours, he staggered to his hooves, or tried to: all four legs cramped, and he tried to hold back the gasp, keep his volume down so he would not disturb his daughter. Celestia helped him up.
He stared down at the tiny form.
"Aurora."
Her mother's name.
Celestia's eyes squeezed shut, but only for a moment. "So now she knows."
"I... guess she does." And he smiled. "I was being stupid, wasn't I? You can't live without a name..."
Celestia shook her head, and knew (too late, always too late) that it had been the wrong thing to do, for his smile grew all the stronger.
"Glimmerglow told me... she would ask you to come," Fajr quietly went on.
"She did." Begged. "I just didn't have the time until now. There were duties. Day Court sessions. Appointments. Liaisons and ambassadors to see. Foreign policy..."
stalling
"I understand, Princess," and the horror in the words came from the sincerity. "I know how busy you are, how much you have to do in looking over --"
Not 'after'. 'Over'.
"-- all of us... but that you knew you would come... now. That you could come now, and she would... still be here... waiting for you..."
It had been inevitable from the moment she'd agreed to go. She tried to tell herself that. Her arrival had removed the only means of stopping the words, and to not have come would have meant so many others.
So many excuses, and every last one of them brought her to the point of agony.
"...Princess... please bless my daughter."
He paused, just long enough for the spear to sink deeper into Celestia's heart.
"Save her," Fajr begged. And the copper eyes, bright with the horror of hope, stared up into her own.
Her knees bent. She sank to the floor, as best she was able, as much as the stifling room would permit. And it still left her taller than him, confused face tilted up, trying to figure out what was going on...
Devices beeped. One hummed. Three sparks floated past her nose, went out the door and alerted their casters as to the total lack of freshly-arrived miracle.
Celestia allowed herself a moment of blocked vision, just enough to concentrate, hiding her field from sight. An invisible casting, one which would be all-too temporary because she'd altered the energy through concealing it. But it was a necessary one. The sounds of devices would pass freely through the gap. For precious minutes, words would not.
"Fajr..."
And yet she
still
had no words ready, for words were weak. Useless. They were tools which never built a structure, or tore down a barrier, or let ponies understand. She had learned that over the centuries. Over and over.
There were times when Celestia hated words, especially when there was nothing else and the same tool kept failing again and again and again...
"Princess?"
"Sit with me. Please."
He started to sink down --
"-- face to face. If you can. I know how cramped this place is, how much worse with my being here... but try."
He did. They almost made it. And then Celestia let her field visibly flow forward, surrounded him, gently lifted the stallion just enough to let him look directly into her eyes...
Confused now, horribly so. "Princess?"
"...Celestia."
The next words held a tiny note of terror, and the little vibration was all the more astonishing for its having overthrown the entire orchestra. "Princess, I --"
"-- Celestia. If you feel you need permission, you have it. If you think it's --" the next term fouled everything clean in the world "-- blasphemy, it's not. There are no titles here. There is no royalty, no castle, no Houses..." A portion of her field split off, went up to her head, surrounded and lifted. "...and no crown. There are three ponies in this room. One is Fajr, one is Aurora, and one... is Celestia. Please."
The eventual nod was a lie, and she knew it. But it was the only lie he had to offer.
She took a small breath, one which shifted her ribs just as much as Aurora's were moving on every inhalation. Just enough to stay alive, and not for very long.
"I can't," she said, and wondered if the humming would choose that exact moment to stop, the world punctuating her statement with mockery unending. But the sound continued, and until the moment a startled Fajr spoke, it felt as if it was the only one in the room.
"...can't?" Half whisper. All denial.
"Can't," Celestia softly repeated. "Not won't, Fajr. Can't. If I could... if I ever could have... even with ponies lined up to the horizon and beyond, begging, every illness, every misfortune, every disaster finding its way to an endless queue... if all I could do with my life was bless and save... I imagine it would exhaust me in time. It might even kill me. It's possible, you know... any pony can put the last of themselves into their magic, give up that final portion of life for a closing surge of strength. Any pony at all, if the desperation is truly there. I'm no different. Eventually, somepony would come to me when I was on the verge of collapse, somepony for whom I was the only answer, and they would need me, and I... I used to have dreams about that. Ponies encircling the continent in an endless line of need. How many of them I could help before I would have to choose between the energy required for saving them and that of manipulating Sun and Moon... it's an old dream, and..."
I stopped having it for a while, and then a thousand years of going through it in the nightscape again and again
She trailed off. Waited.
The copper eyes widened, and she waited for the hue to harden into the metal of anger. Rage. Fury which she had earned, deserved.
They did not. They simply became questioning, and that stage of worst began.
"You're the Princess."
"Yes," she said, and a distant part of her wondered how many years it would take for some ponies to stop using the singular. "That's what ponies call an alicorn, after so much time on my throne. Aspects of earth pony, pegasus, and unicorn. I have strength. I have access to all three categories of magic, for those I can learn, and there are workings I've never been able to master." Along with others she had never risked trying, plus one which she often dearly wished she'd never cast at all. "Sun and I are linked in some ways, and that gives me some talents no other pony possesses. I won't deny any of that, Fajr. But I'm tied to Sun. If you see me as a Princess, then see me as the Solar one."
His expression was a familiar one. It was the look of a pony who'd decided he was being challenged. That there was a battle he had to win, a war-blasted field to cross before receiving his reward on the other side. His voice chorused all of it.
"But as a Princess --"
"-- you're using the wrong word."
He blinked. "I don't understand." Which was a lie. He knew exactly what she meant, if not entirely on the surface of his mind, and a deeper layer was ready for the next part of the challenge for his daughter's life. Her field was giving his face a beatific glow, made all the more grotesque when added to the hope which would not fade.
"You keep saying 'Princess'. You mean 'deity'."
Two more detached sparks, seemingly moving faster now.
"So what if I do?" An honest confusion. "What else would it take to be immortal? To move Sun? To create day and night with a thought --"
"-- I have a talent," Celestia quietly broke in. "A singular one. My mark reflects that talent. I live without aging, but I breathe, eat, get sick now and again. I've been injured, sometimes badly, and had to heal. I can die. I'm sure of that. Obviously I've never... tested it."
thought about it
She pushed the thought back, forced herself to go on. "But it's possible. My magic... I'm strong and I can learn, more than most. I can make ponies recover from injuries faster than they normally would. I've always been able to burn out infections: subtle heat channeled with absolute precision. But I can't bless, Fajr. When ponies first began asking me to... I tried. It never happened. I tried to learn workings which manipulated luck, hoping they would substitute, but that talent is so closely tied to the matching mark, and that mark hardly ever appears... without it, those workings are almost impossible. Fajr, my mark ties me to Sun. My body has aspects for all three of the major pony races. My mane, my tail... I'm carrying more magic than anypony is really meant to, and it has to express itself. 'Princess' is just a title. But my identity... is Celestia, and Celestia is, even after more than a thousand years..."
let him believe me, please, this time, let somepony believe
"...just a pony."
He rushed his words, fighting harder than ever as the battle entered the full gallop. "I understand." He did not. "If ponies really thought you could bless, if everypony believed it, you would be under siege, I can see that now. The line would stretch out forever, you wouldn't have time for doing anything else. But --"
She had to break in. "-- they do believe." More softly, "Oh, some understand that I'm not a deity. A number of those who are loyally opposed to me have at least a bare concept of it, although I've met far too many who seem to think they're struggling against an evil god, and the reason I'm evil is because I won't let them have everything their own way. The same evil any child sees in their parent the first time they're told something they really wanted to do is wrong, no matter how selfish and hateful that action is. But when a crisis comes... when monsters invade, protective spells break, accidents befall... then, even many of those are willing to take a chance, because they see me as that last chance. I'm just a pony -- until the moment they need me to be something other. When under fire, when everything is going wrong... it takes a strong heart to believe in nothing during those moments. Everypony else -- tries prayer. And if somehow, it all goes right through no action of mine, they give me the credit. More often, it fails, because last hopes generally do... and then..."
Those reactions were varied, and Celestia found she could speak of none.
Softly, denial thrusting forth as shield and weapon alike, "You've never blessed. Never saved anypony."
"I've saved lives. Sometimes my magic was just right for what needed to be done. But blessing... I can't."
"You've never done anything which could pull somepony back, not a single working, not one act --"
And the word slipped out. "Once."
The horror of it straightened her tail, sent her head jerking back, made memories crash into each other until nightmares were the least of what had been birthed.
"Once," he repeated, staring all the harder now.
Her eyes briefly closed. Shame did that. "Once. Once only. And... it wouldn't do any good, Fajr. It was a spell I cast for a friend, because at the time, I'd convinced myself... he deserved it. And I didn't even know how I meant that. Whether I was casting it to try and save him or punish him, and I still don't even..."
She could not bless. To make ponies forget... the right resonance could almost do that through projecting dismissive emotions into the recipient. To do so would make him disregard her words as having been unimportant... in time. But it was unfair. In this situation, it was abomination. So she simply stopped, and hoped his next words would come quickly.
"Then why wouldn't you cast it for anypony else? What was so wrong with that spell that you couldn't use it -- for her?"
"Because the spell only begins... when the pony dies. It doesn't heal. It doesn't save. I don't even know if it works. I..."
no more, too much and no more
He just kept staring at her. The disheveled mane vibrated, as did the wings. Forcing her words away.
"But you came," was the soft protest. "You came for Aurora."
"Glimmerglow asked me to." Begged. For days.
"Why... why would you come if you couldn't do anything?"
The humming was so very loud now. It filled her ears, it made the fur of her coat tremble, it shook the tiny bits of tail hair on the foal which were all there would ever be.
"Princess?"
I told him -- I gave him permission and he still won't...
"I live without aging," she said. "You've taught more than a few groups of students in your time, Fajr. You've probably noticed that things... repeat now and again. Similar personality types move around the desks. Events echo. Even the pranks become familiar. For my part, I've been... through this talk. A few times."
hundreds
Except for 'Once', which had been a true first.
"Then why don't you have an answer?" It was not a demand. She wished it had been.
"I have one. But --"
"-- you say you can't do anything, but you still came and that has to mean --"
He didn't stop: the coughing fit simply took over from there. And even in the midst of the repeated heaves, he tried to hold the sound back.
She gently settled him back on the floor, waited for it to stop.
"When was the last time you had a drink?"
"I -- don't know... I've just been... here..."
"Your body needs water," she told him. "And food. You can't stand vigil without strength, Fajr. The cafeteria is almost directly below us. Tell them I sent you."
"...I can't leave... I --"
"-- I'm here. I'll stay."
It had been the right thing to say and do. Also exactly the wrong ones.
She saw his eyes widen again. Saw him decide that he understood.
"All right, Princess," he replied, and there was a tiny smile there. "I'll go take care of myself. Maybe I should even... wash up a little? I know I must stink by now."
If she had even noticed, it would have been a welcome distraction from the odors of the hospital. "They have showers for the staff," she told him. "If they give you any trouble there..."
"I'll tell them you sent me," he finished, and left the room, that tiny smile staying with him the whole way.
Celestia closed the door behind him as much as she dared, leaving enough of a gap for the traveling sparks. Forced herself to her hooves, looked down at the tiny foal.
She kept looking.
Waiting.
The waiting went on.
How much time was passing?
Why had there been no doctors checking in for the entire time she'd been present? And to ask the question was to know the heartbreaking answer: because she was in the cramped room and was therefore managing everything. Until the final moment came (and perhaps even beyond), they trusted all of it to her presence. The spells would send the alerts anyway, and they weren't near needing renewal.
How much time was passing? Simple enough to find an answer. She could look at the clock: surely there had to be one in the room. She could consult the internal timepiece forever ticking within her, that which measured how long she had until the next effort of raising or lowering, and use it for an estimate. But she did not. She simply acknowledged the passage, and continued standing vigil.
Aurora was moving now, the first real movement since Celestia had entered. But it was not the little twitches of dream, or the vibrations which indicated waking would soon arrive. Shivering. All over, hard enough as to seemingly send extra sparks flying in all directions.
Centuries without aging. Centuries without dying.
Centuries of learning exactly what dying looks like.
The room was warm enough, for the very little that was worth. Aurora was shivering because her body was beginning to shut down and when that happened, it so often produced a false sensation of cold for those who were dying. The shiver was a completely familiar one, and hated all the more for the companionship which insisted on remaining with her no matter how much she resented the company. A so-called friend who only spoke to her through others.
The sparks would be truly flying soon. There would be doctors everywhere, all fighting for a few more seconds of existence under Sun, and all of them would be as powerless as she.
She could call for Fajr. She would not.
He's already seen his spouse die. He doesn't have to be here when his daughter passes into the shadowlands. Too much, too much already...
Had she meant him or herself?
She didn't know.
The shivering was intensifying quickly.
How much time was passing? That was an easy one. A lifetime, passing before her eyes.
"This much," she whispered. "This much I can do..."
She angled her body carefully, shifted her head, brought her horn down as the lowest level of corona silently ignited, the energy caressing the tiny foal as it flowed forth.
Princess of the Sun. How many times had she wished to be something
less
more? Or for somepony else to transform, ascend, as far as she could see the second term as something other than a cruel jest? For a Princess (or Prince) of Healing to appear? One of Luck or Fortune? Or simply Blessing, a Princess whom ponies could believe in because there was something there worthy of that belief...
They swore on her: that had actually begun before the end of the war, and it had started as a joke. So many prayed to her: she knew they did and it did nothing to let her hear them, something she was thankful for because to hear prayers which could not be answered was an agony nopony should have to suffer.
To hear about those unanswered prayers after the fact... that was a pain no doctor could ever treat.
scrolls, letters, screamed accusations at the Open Palace sessions
But the cold which so often came in the last moments of life... that was something she could deal with. The only thing.
"Be warm," she whispered to Aurora. "I can give you that much. You will know Sun before you see the shadowlands. But your first flight will take place at your mother's side. All I can do, little one, all I can ever do, and..."
She had been holding back tears since she had entered the hospital. She could keep it up for a while longer. The last sensation known should not be salty liquid splashing against thin coat. Just -- warmth.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, and hated the word for being the weakest one to exist. For being the only one. For all the times it had been true in the past and every time to come.
The shivering was starting to slow down.
"Be warm..."
The door opened.
Celestia's head jerked up: her body started to turn and stopped just in time to prevent jarring any devices. And Fajr was standing in the opening.
The tears were streaming down his cleaned face, and every one carried a bit of the pain away.
"I knew it!" A shout, one of triumph, of victory. "I knew... it was a test, you wanted to see if I would doubt and I was almost beginning to, but I believed in you, Princess! I always --"
A dozen sparks flew past them, scattered in all directions as they moved down the halls.
The humming stopped.
The administrator would not stop talking.
"-- and we did everything we could, Princess, you saw me in there, I gave over every portion of knowledge I had and used them all for the situation. But the truth is that in some cases, there's just nothing to be done. The foal came too early, and some of the injuries the mother suffered... the kicks were hard enough to reach the womb, and... we did what we could, we used every spell we had, and it was only my expertise directing those efforts which let her get this far..."
He initially looked sympathetic, but he wasn't particularly good at it, and so the odious attempt at a gentle smile took over.
"I have a room you can use if you want to rest," he said. "And after that, I'm sure a good meal would suit you. I'm getting off shift soon... there's a restaurant I have a waiting table at, a touch of exotic food is just what you need to restore your spirits, along with some good company which I'll be more than pleased to introduce you to --"
"-- there is something very wrong with you. You do know that, yes?"
The words had been her own, as had the voice. But for both, just barely.
He stared up at her. He kept staring.
She wondered what was in her eyes at that moment. Then wondered why she cared, and so let more of it out. "His daughter is dead. His daughter. Your most special patient. Along with his wife, and that only a few days ago. And yet you are speaking to me. Even when you rushed in here two minutes after everypony else, you addressed me first. You kept giving me updates: you were very dedicated to that. Oh, you have told me everything you could, including a great deal about yourself which I'm sure you didn't mean to include in the one-sided conversation. And the whole time, you have not spoken to him. Not once."
"Princess --"
"-- what's his name?"
His mouth opened.
His mouth closed.
"I am going to have a few words with him," Celestia said. "Then you will, and I will be listening the whole time. I hope they're the right words, Mister Haysew, as much as any words ever could be right now. Because if they aren't, the next words will be mine, and they will be spoken to this hospital's board of directors. Do we understand each other?"
He nodded. He also used the time for sweating through nearly all of his garment, which gave her no pleasure.
"Good. Learn his name. I'm sure you'll be able to pretend you always knew it. And I'm equally certain nopony will believe you."
She worked her way out of the room, barely bothering to retrieve her crown as she exited -- a crown she could not be bothered to actually don. Ponies had crowded past her. Ponies had done nearly everything they could to make space. With one exception: none had dared to make her leave. Instead, they had cleared Fajr out. He had not seen his daughter die. He had simply heard it happen from the hallway.
Slowly, Celestia forced herself to approach him. Only eight body lengths away -- hers, not his -- and the distance seemed endless.
She was waiting for the next words, ones she had heard so many times before. About how he hated her.
deserve it
How weak she was, how stupid, how pointless and useless.
deserve more than that
Echoes where the volume increased every year.
He was huddled against the wall, collapsed in on himself in every way. For all that remained of the stallion Glimmerglow had told her about, there might as well have been a shadow resting on the paint. But what was left managed to look up, and words came.
The worst ones of all.
She emerged from between in a small cave, perhaps two gallops from the Empire. The cave was always empty, and she did not care if this time would have proven to be the exception.
The land outside was cold. Barren. No animals, no plants, much less anything which thought. It had been like that for centuries. There were stretches of tundra where life could scratch out some level of existence, and there were places which simply weren't worth the effort -- at least not any more. This place had held some degree of life once, right up until it had become the location of her first meeting with Sombra. And after that, she was the only thing which had ever returned.
Knee-deep snow melted around her hooves as she trotted out of the cave. Drifting flakes puffed into steam before reaching her. During her last moments in the hospital, no thermometer could be trusted in her presence, and she'd felt as if the paint on the walls had been about to bubble.
How long had it been since she'd last come here? Well over a year, possibly two. Enough time for some things to have visibly recovered from the last visit. For any other location, life would have flowed in by now. For this one... the land remembered Sombra, and did so with its own clarity. It was why she kept coming back: because nothing else would.
She stared up at the snow. The grey clouds darkened before her gaze.
Pick an aspect...
She already had. In some ways, it had been chosen for her.
To hold the emotion... to let it fester... to be around others while it built...
It would eat at her. It would gnaw on her heart and claw pieces from her soul. It would do that no matter what she did.
But there were ways to lessen it, at least in theory which never seemed to find full proof. And they were things best done in a place where no life remained.
...and let it out.
The clouds turned black.
And then there was no snow on the lifeless ground at all, for the air had swept it away.
She stood at the center of the tornado, watched walls of blinding white stretch towards the sky, enough weight carried on the wind to crush her, all of it spiraling about, blocking her view of anything except the dark core of sky. And she dropped to that wounded earth, let the tears come at last -- but never felt them, for at the moment they touched her face, they boiled away.
Lightning struck all around her. Thunder exploded. The dead soil was scorched. The wind screamed for her and the power of that agony shook the land, made the cliff face behind her tremble. Three simultaneous strikes collapsed part of the cave entrance. And it went on and on, rage and pain and hatred which was just now partially her own blasting against the world, every last bit of it carrying a single word.
"WHY?"
But she was only a pony, and so no answer came.
She had returned to the palace, for there was nowhere else to go. The news was... as she had expected, and Glimmerglow was already gone. A note was sent to the payroll department, informing them that her Guard was on bereavement leave and would be absent, with full salary still being paid, for the duration. Whatever that duration turned out to be.
A few seconds were spared for checking on her internal clock and when the time came, Sun was lowered. That was what she was good for, after all.
And then she went up to one of the balconies. Looked out over Canterlot, and barely saw it. Tents flickered across her vision. Hovels. Huts and burrows. All things which had been. All places where she had failed.
Fajr's final words would not leave her. They were familiar words. The worst ones so often were. And they had joined the echoes from years and decades and centuries past, all of them working together, getting louder and louder...
"He did it to me first. Do you recall that? My having been the initial subject of that particular jest? The longest-lasting he ever played?"
She didn't turn. "Not now, Luna --"
"-- I remember it exactly, sister. His words to the letter, and the little laugh he placed at the end of them. 'Fine... then I'll swear it on Luna's horn. Happy now?'" And then there was a laugh, and it too would have echoed if not for the bitter note at the end. "I have often sworn, sister, that if we had not mutually used our single attempt at the time travel spell for what was indeed the best of all reasons, I would go back to that moment and kick him. In fact, I would do nothing except kick him until the duration ran out and if he did not know why he deserved it, I would. In fact, the only things which have prevented me from the attempt is the certain knowledge of exactly how that spell works -- and the fact that I did not see it happening in front of me, so I know I will never attempt it..."
She hadn't seen it either -- but the image was within her now and on another day, it would have made her laugh. "Luna, I could really use some privacy and I don't know why you're bringing this of all things up right now --"
"-- liar."
The silence from when the humming had stopped.
"...what?"
"You just lied to me. I thought I should point it out."
"Luna, I am not in the mood --"
"-- yes, you are. I know that mood rather well." Still from behind her, but now slightly closer. "Did you even see me when you passed in the hall? No, of course not: your attention was elsewhere. I am not certain as to the exact location, but I believe I can guess what had happened there within a rather narrow category. You did not see me... but I saw you. I saw your exact expression, and that is one I know in my heart of hearts, the one I keep coming back to because it is an odd quirk of my magic, having no power to control my own nightscape..."
I won't turn. I won't.
Because to look at Luna would be to remember. The words were already doing it. The sight would be so much worse...
"We guard each other, do you remember that?" the younger softly continued. "You have a talent for forgetting such when it comes to my watching over you, and a second for kicking yourself every time you think about a single moment when you were not there to guard me, a moment you had no way to be present for, something you could not have known about, had no way to see coming, and still blame yourself for, because such seems to be all you know how to do. I am here at this moment, sister, and that is simply luck, to have passed you in the hallway and seen that expression. The one which says you wish to take it all back. To find a way back, and have another carry the burden in your place. I know that face so well, Tia..." and a tremble entered the voice, she could hear the shaking of knees and feathers which accompanied it "...because when one is buried within oneself... there is nopony to speak with, at least none who love you. What there is... mockery. The forcing of memories upon you, especially those which would do the most harm, no matter how much you try to defend yourself against them. Replaying the events which led you to that point. There is no love. No help. No hope. But... there are mirrors, endless mirrors, and every one showing a face whose bearer is screaming to let it end..."
And now the silence from when life had vanished.
"How many times?" Luna was right behind her now. "During abeyance. How many times have you done this? Stood here, stared out, thought about an ending?"
"...I don't know."
"Liar."
"I don't count. I..."
"Why are you still here? Why have you not?"
"Everypony... everyone, all the nations... the damage, you know they're not at the point where they'll work on their own yet, if I died or -- found a way back -- there would have been nopony at all. Without me..."
"But now I have Returned," Luna softly said. "I manipulate Sun as well as you do Moon, if with as much pain. So now once again, there is another. Perhaps Cadance could even manage the feat, yes? Have you even asked her to try? The heart of her magic is so different from ours... but I am here, and you are fully aware that I am capable. And if you laid your burden down... would I not have to take it up?"
"...yes."
"Is this the first time you have had these thoughts since I Returned? The first occasion which brought you to this exact point?"
She nodded.
"You are aware that you are on the ledge?"
She blinked. Her hooves jerked, and she stumbled, pitching forward --
-- stars surrounded her, and Luna's field pulled her back.
"Pointless, really," her sister gently said. "Your wings would have flared out on instinct, or you would have teleported before any real acceleration could accumulate. Some part of you knew that all along, and would have overridden the rest. But the desire remains -- something we must always be on guard for. We watch over each other, sister: you always insisted on saying that to me, even in the first nights. Now -- please turn around, and let me watch over you..."
Celestia slowly turned. Saw the patience, the empathy, and the wisdom.
They stood there together for a time, the elder and the younger, looking at each other. And in the end, they went inside together, to find a place they could talk, one where they could simply be ponies for a time.
Princesses didn't always get to cry. Ponies did.
Luna had always been an excellent listener, at least when she wanted to be: she would interrupt whatever she saw as stupidity, and such verbal jolts would not be kind. But for honest emotion... she listened.
"Why did you go at all?" she finally asked, after Celestia had reached the end and the last scarf had been wrung dry, with tear-stained couch cushions set aside for the most discreet members of the cleaning staff.
"Glimmerglow... you know, I always thought she was one of those who understood? That at most, she saw leadership and not any kind of divinity? But when a crisis comes... Luna, she begged me. She offered up everything she had, everything she would ever have, if I would just go and speak with her brother. And... I don't even know if that was her trotting into the illusion, or if poor Fajr simply believed it so strongly and kept begging her to find a way of sending me. I can't even ask her..."
"In either interpretation, she was begging on his behalf," Luna pointed out. "And you still went to see him. You could have made your excuses: we almost always can. A benefit of sorts from being a ruling Princess, if 'benefit' can be used at all. Why did you go, Tia?"
Celestia would have smiled at the latest echo, but it would have been a false one. "We've had this argument before, haven't we?"
"And we are having it now. The question stands."
Celestia searched within herself, found the answer, and the edges of it cut all the more for not having changed in more than a thousand years. "Because... if I didn't go, he was going to hate me. And if I went, he was going to hate me. And in the end, Luna, I wanted him to hate me for the right reasons. But what he said..."
Luna's field surrounded another scarf, floated it over. Celestia wiped her eyes, blew her nose.
"Do you still try?"
"To what?"
"To bless. To make a real effort and hope that somehow, just that once, a blessing will truly occur."
"No. I gave up... a long time ago, Luna. It never happened. It never would."
A tiny nod. "In my case..." The dark eyes closed. "...last week."
Luna was supporting Celestia, mostly using her own body, with occasional assistance from her field: even Luna's size wasn't enough to fully prop Celestia up. They had been talking for hours, and the natural last part of the verbal run had turned into a physical stagger towards Celestia's bedroom. Those hours together had brought them to the point when the time to create dawn was rapidly approaching. For Luna, that was the natural thing. With Celestia, it meant the elder had not slept.
"I ask permission to take Sun."
"Luna, it'll hurt..."
"As much as moving Moon pains you. I am aware. It does not matter. You need rest, sister... true rest. And so I ask for Sun, for a single raising and lowering. Take up your part of the burden again tomorrow."
"...I -- grant it."
Luna's field opened the bedroom doors, and she led Celestia inside. Got her into bed, tucked in the sheets. Her horn inclined, came close to touching Celestia's forehead.
"No dreams," Luna said.
"Luna, that's not --"
"-- if we need to discuss this more in your nightscape tomorrow, we shall. And beyond, every time it is required, until there is no longer any need for such talks at all. But for now, sister, I said true rest. And that means no dreams."
A slow nod. "I'll -- see you after sunset?"
"Yes."
"Promise?"
"Of course."
More echoes. They had so often said that to each other in the deep past, once after had struck and the younger had been forced into a nocturnal existence. They had even gone through the exchange a few times since Luna had Returned.
But the next words, the ones which emerged without Celestia's full awareness as her weary eyes slowly closed and a battered soul made ready for dreamless sleep, were a true first.
"Don't leave me... don't ever leave me again... not alone..."
Luna's horn glowed, touched Celestia's forehead. The elder sighed, the slow exhalation almost disrupting the sheets again, and her eyes remained closed as her breathing began to deepen and sleep started its approach. Luna settled down next to the bed, watched, made ready to stay there for as long as she could before having to go out and perform Celestia's duties throughout a rest-free day.
But there was a place between waking and even dreamless sleep, one where memories had a chance to do their harm once more. And so as Luna guarded, her sister's mouth moved, and the words which emerged were only Celestia's own in the most important way. The elder had not been the one to originally speak them: they had been said to her by a father who had just lost what he saw as his last link to life. A pony who had attempted suicide less than an hour after she had left the hospital, and it had only been an attempt because Celestia had seen it looming ahead and instructed the interns, those young enough to have cried over the too small, too large bed, to never take their eyes off him for a moment.
The words had been his. But now they belonged to Celestia, for she had taken them into her soul, where they would reside alongside all the echoes from ponies before. Until the day she finally laid the burden down.
"It's my fault, Princess... I didn't have enough faith..."
