A rumbling from above sent a small shockwave through Celestia’s sleeping body. Her coat bristled in shaggy, tangled locks, her ears shook, and the muscles from her shoulders down to her forehooves tensed for an instant. From a hole in the roof above, a trickle of water started, falling down the height of her chamber and splashing behind her ear. She gasped awake as the water slid across her neck and fell onto the damp, matted velvet, and yet she did not get up from her side immediately. Without rising, her eyes looked around. Grey washed over the chamber, vines and moss growing from chunky cracks in the ivorystone. Above, many of the roofing stones and shingles were gone. Around her, the pattering of rain grew in a deep white noise, and the rain fell through the roof with ease, plopping into her coat with marble-sized drops, soaking down to her skin. She shivered in seconds and pushed herself off the bed, which groaned and bent inwards under her weight. She backed to the wall, eyes darting as she got to her hooves. The mattress had a tear in it and damp pigeon-grey feathers were around the hole in a soggy cake. The covers were tangled and torn, the carved wooden frame was splintered and rotting, and the bed’s canopy hung in tatters.
She clamped her eyes shut and opened them again when it started to hurt. Thunder rolled through the chamber, shaking the shards that remained in her stained glass windows. Rain ran down both sides of the glass. In a quiet flash of lightning, the white glistening of the water hid the colors of the panes. She drew a succession of quiet breaths, looking down, and started when her mane fell over her face, knots of colors clinging wet and to her muzzle over an eye. As she swept it back with a hoof, she felt no golden weight on her head. Her shoes and peytral were also gone and were nowhere in the room. Perhaps they were in the armoire. She looked, and the furniture was just a pile of soggy, broken wood with shreds of lace and silk shoved out by the splintered beams. There was nothing here for her. The chipped, muddy tile beneath her hooves had been laid a thousand years ago. It was not possible for there to be nothing here. This was her home! She pushed off the wall, blinking as the rain tumbled over her eyes and loaded onto her wings, and went for the chamber door. It was never a good idea to panic. Luna would be there, no matter the trouble, to explain this all to her.
The door fell out from the doorframe at her magical touch and slammed down on the floor in front of her. She stepped over it and into her hall towards the tower solar. The stained glass was missing entirely in the hall, giving her a view of the tower wall, all cracked and coated with vines. Away from there, however, she could not see more, the rain falling so thick from clouds so wide that that mountain below was impossible to see. She continued, her breathing growing intense yet again as she made the last strides into the solar. It was supposed to be the most relaxing place for her and Luna, a large room filled not with things that should go in a palace as such, but things that made them feel like it was home. The walls would be decorated with tapestries, banners, paintings, but without a shred of desire to coordinate; the decorations would be things they enjoyed. The floor would host a veritable hill made of all manners of cushions and blankets with just a little space for a table in front of the fireplace so they could just relax together when opportunity provided. The solar would have a large swinging door with panels of clear crystal leading to the balcony, where they could look out to all of Canterlot and to the sky, raising and lowering their Sun and Moon by the old telescope. But that wasn’t the sight that Celestia found when she entered the solar.
She found nothing. The walls were bare, the comforts at the floor gone, the fireplace caved in, the door to the balcony hanging by a single rusty hinge, the crystal scattered about the floor dipping in, a small pool forming on the floor where Luna could have been, pretending to be stern and overly diligent until catching sight of her. The room was barren, on its way to being reclaimed by the mountain. She looked around helplessly as she walked further in, and then rushed to Luna’s hallway. There, she only found a scene like her own hall and chamber, a sagging, frail room that smelled of a chilly sky. Celestia ran from Luna’s hall and stopped at the door of the balcony. She didn’t want to walk forward. Her shoulders pulled back and she looked down, her mane tumbling over her eye again. Thunder filled the solar and she shook. If her own home was this way, then there were only so many possibilities as to what the capital looked like below the tower. She held a forehoof to her face, breathed like she had escaped drowning, slowly swept her mane back again, and forced herself forward past the door. Though half-shut eyes, she watched the tiles go by, one by one, glistening and lighting by the arcs above, and then she arrived at what was left of the ivorystone bannister. She stood still for a long moment, long enough for the rain to soak her. And then she held her breath and raised her head to see.
What she saw was like a grey cobblestone crushed into gravel by a heavy sledge, lumps of small, wet, drab rocks all bunched together. Below, Canterlot was perfectly still. No ponies walked her sidewalks or rolled down the Royal Boulevard in carriages. The Guards were gone from their posts, the air held no steam from locomotive engines, no Pegasai were battling the storm above, and the only sound continued to be the vast breath made from a trillion drops of water showering miles of caved-in roofs and forgotten gardens, grass, trees, and ponds breaking and settling into the corpses of roads, shops, and streets. She shielded herself from the sight with one of her large wings, the feathers holding droplets shining like a drab kaleidoscope in the flashes. She withdrew the wing and looked out to the ruins again. Her teeth met and ground, her knees tensed for a fight, and she turned. How could she have been so naïve?
This was a dream, a nightmare. This wasn’t real. It was impossible, a phantom of her long-lived mind, a specter of fear, but it was still very much impossible. Luna. Luna could find her if she called, and bring her out or wake her or help her! She turned and shot into the solar. “Sister! Please! I’m trapped in a terrible nightmare! Wake me, take me from this place!” Her voice echoed throughout the empty room, tinny and trembling. She waited and heard nothing. “Luna! You … you’ve heard me before and I know that you can somehow hear me now. Please come get me out of here!” Thunder shoved her voice out of the room, yet her little sister did not arrive on that wave of light and sound. Her voice did not arrive afterwards in the minutes Celestia stood there, looking for the first sign of her. Minutes piled on, then hours. The storm never ceased, not even when Celestia howled at it and then threw her magic at it with all her strength. The rain ran down the wall she leaned against and dripped off her cheek without change of any kind.
***
She swept a hoof across the small pane of glass, wiping the mud off, and looked into the faces of two ponies she had never met preserved in photo paper. One mare had pearls on, a feathered hat, and a familiar smile of a Hightown Canterlot pony. At one point, she must have met this mare at one of many occasions that used to be on an endless list waiting for her every single day after she raised the Sun and bid Luna a day of peaceful sleep. She was so busy, too busy to remember every face. Now that she had nothing but the rain and photos of ponies to keep her company and not a royal task in the world, she couldn’t remember most of the faces she saw when she went inside of the homes of the city. She was all that was left to remember, and yet, she could not remember. She sat the picture frame upright on a barren end table, got up from the pony’s bed, and started to walk away from one of the few dry rooms left in the city, down creaking steps, and into a kitchen with a tray of rusty utensils and no food.
As she did every day, she walked from shelter into the rain, her hooves dragging along the inches-high stream of the Royal Boulevard, and wandered. Her world now had limits she couldn’t explain. Whenever she thought of going into that infinite grey through the downpour above, her wings went numb and lazy. When she tried to go into one of the train tunnels and leave the city that way, her legs did the same. Somehow, she was a prisoner, left to wander through her city. Her body had started to go thin, her mane and tail stringy and dull. Her ears rested flat against her head as she walked. She felt of roll of thunder reverberate in her stomach and for a time, just stared upwards, tasting the rain, blinking only occasionally. It felt somehow nice to have the rain hit her eye. The water would roll away like tears. She somehow could not make any of her own.
When her neck started to throb, she slowly looked ahead and shuffled on. “Sister …” Nopony answered. They never did. She pushed on a bit further, but this time, she stopped after only a few more minutes, and sat down in the water, just for a rest. No … she wasn’t going to try and fool herself. She cracked a dying mare’s smile and fell onto her side in the water, half her face submerged, half above the surface. It was a different noise she heard in her right ear, the sound of the water from within it, flowing, dotting, but for the first time, the din above was dulled. If she focused on that right ear alone, she could hear her own faint heart among the rumbling. Maybe this was what the world sounded like to somepony before they were ever born, she thought. It was a strange thought to have, she knew, but it was the weightless sort of wondering she had never really done. There was never any time for pointless questions. Again, she cracked a smile, and then she closed her eyes. Somehow, despite everything, a single thought came up: it was quiet now. It was over. She took a breath through the nostril above the water and took the breath that invited sleep. But just before sleep made her neck relax and her face to settle completely into the water, something in the neighborhood next to the street tumbled and broke through glass, and her ear picked up an annoyed gasp.
With that, Celestia gasped herself and rose to her hooves with a moan, then stumbled trying to lock the direction the sound came from into her foggy mind. Was it Luna? Was it anypony!? She pushed out from the street onto the sidewalk, panting from quick exhaustion. “H-Hello!?” Nopony answered. “Hello!?” She yelled the word until she coughed, then listened, and heard another thump and shatter somewhere on the other side of the half-collapsed café in front of her. She got her hooves firmly back under her and ran into a large hole in the wall of the shop, rushing through to the storeroom, errant cans lying about, then out through the back door into an alleyway maze filled with wild growing shrubs. Her Alicorn ears picked up a crunch of glass in the next building, so she bolted in, already shaking, brittle, and panting. It didn’t matter if this killed her. She had to find them, whoever they were!
She tore through a store of some kind, she didn’t catch the details. It didn’t matter! She looked around like a firemare trapped in a burning building, looking for any sign of escape from the nightmare. And yet, while she found the broken glass, she found nothing else. “Hello?! Please, if you are here, don’t be afraid!” Hearing nothing new, she continued to run, through rooms and buildings, shouting out, jumping through windows, bashing open doors; blood seeped from cuts, leaving drops to thin out in the puddles she passed, but it didn’t matter! She went and she went, but she heard nothing more. And so she wandered outside, wobbling, real tears streaming from her face, and finding a tiny courtyard between crumbling Commontown houses, collapsed into a bed of waterlogged grass. “Please …”
“Hush.” A low, sultry voice sounded from somewhere near her. “Be quiet. Let me enjoy the rain.” Having yelled herself faint, Celestia didn’t yell again, but made her eyes stay open. She saw a pattering of blood on the grass in front of her face. In front of that, somepony tall and dark sat in the shadows against a brick facade, their large eyes looking to her green and slit of pupil. Celestia knew those eyes, yet her insides didn’t roil in fear.
“Chrysalis.” Celestia coughed after saying the name. “Did you do this?” The Changeling Queen snickered with tired eyes.
“No.” She snickered again. “But I wish I did.” She coughed a few weak laughs at Celestia from her corner. The rain ran down her dark, polished shell like it was a mirror.
“What … what do you mean? Did … did Luna …”
“Not her either. Shame really … I always wanted to meet your sister. Her reputation’s a bit more interesting than yours. I think we’ve established you’re more bark than bite anyways. Now be quiet. Before I starve, I want to relax.”
“Answer me, Chrysalis.” She tried to yell, but her voice had gone weak. Chrysalis remained quiet. “I said to answer me.” Chrysalis’ response was to splash water and moss at Celestia’s face.
“Shush.” Celestia gritted her teeth as the debris fell from her face, and shoring up with a few deep breaths, started to drag herself across the yard towards the Changeling. At first, Chrysalis only looked upwards, but as Celestia neared, she watched her. “What’re you going to do? Going to come here and beat it out of me?”
“You’re … you’re going to tell me.” Her vision blurred, and it was not just from the water in her eyes. She lowered her head as she neared, and pointed her long horn.
“Are you seriously going to try to stab me?”
“I …” She took more bracing breaths. “I’ll do what it takes. Tell me what happened, or … I … will do what I must.” Chrysalis only sighed.
“If it means that much to you, I guess I’ll tell you. Doesn’t make any real difference to me at this point. BUT! I’ll tell you only on two conditions. First … I want you to look at me and say please. Say it like you did when you were hoping I was your little sister or your little protege.” Chrysalis managed a smile, her fangs shining behind drawn lips.
The first condition was always the easiest, and this was easy. One word, one inflated ego.
“Please … please tell me.”
“You can’t go on unless I tell you. Say it.” Celestia took a moment and looked into her own face reflected in a puddle of water.
“I … cannot go on unless you tell me.” Chrysalis grinned.
“Second condition. I’m … going to die here. But it doesn’t have to be soon. Come here to me and let me feed on you. You’re all skin and bones, Princess, but cake or no cake, you’re still fat with Love. Let me do that, and you’ll know exactly what happened.”
Celestia didn’t move. She knew well enough what would happen to her. Everything would become meaningless to her. Equestria, Luna, Cadence, Twilight … everything she cared about the most would cease to matter. She may learn the truth, but then the truth wouldn’t matter to her anymore.
“I refuse.” She pulled herself towards Chrysalis, horn pointed, hearing Chrysalis’ bored hum, then felt magic wrap around her head, forcing her face into the mud, and then saw a brick raise. How stupid of her. She had never been in a position to deny the Changeling to begin with. She closed her eyes. For seconds, it was quiet, just the rain and thunder, and then with a grunt from Chrysalis, she heard the brick whoosh down. It came down on her horn with a wet snap, and if she screamed, she was not conscious to hear it.
***
“Wake up.” Celestia did as the voice said, barely breathing past the sudden rush of pain to complement the ever-present chill of the water. In the fog of her vision, she saw two round orbs of green.
“Chrysalis. W-What … have you done?” She said the words, but felt nothing behind them. They left her mouth lazily. She only noticed the hooves under her when they lifted her out of the mud and pulled her into the corner. There … was warmth, maybe the only warmth left.
“I finished the deal, Your Highness, and I have never, ever felt better.” Her tone was a bit more cheerful, but sour. Celestia couldn’t find her own anger, not even when she thought of the reason why.
“Then … you win. Does … it feel so great?” Nothing followed her words, not tears, frowns, or smiles.
“Not that it matters. I can’t escape here, but I get to relax. You’ll probably die before I do, if that’s even something you can do.”
“I … I’m not sure. I have never wanted to discover the truth. If I die, then Equestria … Equestria’s gone.”
“Yes it is. Guess that means you and I have nopony and noling left to protect.” Celestia heard a laugh, then a choked laugh that quieted to sniffling. She felt a gentle squeeze around her.
“Nopony.” She felt nothing. She said the familiar and important names in her mind. They were just syllables now, and Celestia felt little else but a strange restfulness. The rain tickled her hind hooves next to Chrysalis’.
“Do you want to know what happened to … your precious Equestria?” Chrysalis’ voice was rougher than before. Precious Equestria. What a strange thing to say.
“No.” Celestia closed her eyes and gave the smallest, faintest smile she had ever given. Water was dripping from her mane, dripping upwards from the puddles, trickling off windowsills, rolling through storm drains, filling the air in a haze of sound.
“Don’t you want to know why –“ No more voices, she thought. No more questions to ask. No more answers to give. It was time to listen and enjoy what she couldn’t before.
“Hush,” she whispered. “Be quiet. Let … let me enjoy the rain.” Every muscle finally surrendered and loosed save for those at her tiny smile. The Changeling was surprisingly comfortable.
“…” Celestia heard a familiar voice. Thunder drowned it out, and her smile remained to the last second.
