In Celestia we trust

“…and therefore, in accordance with princess Twilight, we ask you to consider the danger of letting the existence of the academy of science continue any longer.” Luna was saying, gathering the attention of absolutely everypony in the court room.

She had made her case, and looking at the jury and at the audience, she knew they were all agreeing with her. Even Matt seemed to have accepted in fate in his weird passive way of being. And for his submission to the greater good, Luna felt grateful to him.

But then, unexpectedly, the front doors opened wide and Twilight’s voice shouted:

“Wait! This trial isn’t finished yet!”

They all turned to the princess of friendship who, with a lot of confidence, walked to the judge’s stand.

“What are you doing?” asked Luna, without getting any response.

“Your honor.” Twilight said. “I wish to call one last witness to the box.”

“And who should that be?” the judge asked.

Twilight smiled and turned back to the door where all the enlightenment of Equestria was entering, surrounded by a huge halo of radiance and power.

By simple instinct, everypony bowed down, knowing not to look directly into the sun, caught in the amazement of being in the same room as no other than Celestia.

“We forbid it!” suddenly shouted Luna with anger. “This trial is over. Guards!” she ordered.

And ten bat ponies entered the court room, ready to execute their princess’s commands.

“Luna.” Celestia gently responded to all the fuss around her. “It isn’t for you to decide if I shall or shall not offer my words to this case.”

“Of course it is! It has always been!” Luna almost yelled with tears of violence in her eyes. “I won’t let it happen. Not today, not ever.”

“We owe them the truth Luna. The truth, just the truth and the whole truth.”

“I won’t let you ruin everything.”

“Step aside Luna!” Celestia said, with a slight tone of order in her voice.

But Luna stood there, in her path, shivering on her four hooves, defiant of her big sister’s authority, like a pale and afraid pony would defy a dragon.
It was clear Celestia could have just pushed her to free her path. But she chose to just approach her little sister and whisper in her ear:

“Luna, I love you very dearly. Please let me pass.”

And Luna obeyed, almost against her will, out of sheer love and admiration for her big sister. She saw Celestia enter the witness’s box and quickly went to the captain of the bat ponies.

“How many guards do you have here?” she asked her.

“I’m afraid the ten of us are it your majesty.”

“We need reinforcement.” Luna said. “And fast.”

As Celestia had taken place, and the guard ponies had retreated, under the reprobating look of Luna, Twilight began asking her questions. And just how happy she was to have achieved to turn the situation in such a favorable angle.

A few minutes before, she was walking outside, defeated. At that moment, she was certain there was no other way than to let the academy of science, the study of the natural laws and everybody who ever supported it disappear. And she had begun convincing herself that it was good that it be so.

That is when she had felt that presence, that everlasting comforting presence, at her side.

“Is it finished?” Celestia had asked.

“Yes.” Twilight had replied.

“You know, I may not want to help you as a friend and a mentor.” Celestia had added with innocence. “But I would be compelled to testify if you demanded it.”

Those words had left an imprint onto Twilight’s mind. She had obtained the proof she needed that Luna’s conclusions were wrong: Celestia herself was indirectly trying to save Matt and his peers. Celestia didn’t want her to give up. And that could only mean one thing: she had been right since the very beginning and was given the tool to convince everypony!

She had run back to the courtroom with Celestia behind her and was now ready to unveil her grand victory with just one argument: “Celestia herself doesn’t want you to condemn this pony, so you shouldn’t.”

She asked her first question to the new and regal witness:

“Princess Celestia… what is your opinion on what punishment should be imposed on mister Poly Matt for not believing in you?”

Celestia smiled and replied:

“I have never punished a pony that hadn’t done something wrong. I don’t see why, having done nothing wrong really, mister Matt should be treated otherwise.”

Twilight smiled too. This was going exactly as planned. All she had to do was push the advantage.

“So in order to punish a pony, he must have done something wrong. Do you think that not believing in your existence should be considered wrong?”

“Objection!” shouted Luna. “The question isn’t correctly formulated.”

The judge, not certain how to consider the objection, turned to Celestia and, interpreting the calm and comforting look of the sun princess as a confirmation that everything was actually alright, turned the objection down.

“No, I do not think that disbelief in my existence should be considered wrong.” Celestia answered.

“And why is that?” Twilight asked, knowing absolute victory was in her hooves.

“Objection!” Luna shouted even louder. “We do not need to know why. We accept that Poly Matt is innocent and shall be freed. There is no need to answer that last question.”

This time, the judge turned to Twilight, to make sure the princess of friendship agreed that, if Luna was ready to abandon all charges against Matt and forget about condemning the academy of science, he could end the trial at that moment.

But this was counting without Twilight’s devouring curiosity.

“What do you mean by we do not need to know why?” she asked Luna. “It is very important for everypony to understand that an opinion or a belief isn’t a reason good enough to judge another pony. There is a lesson to learn here.”

“Alright.” Luna replied. “Big sister, would you say that an opinion or a belief isn’t a reason good enough to judge another pony?” she asked Celestia, who replied:

“Yes, it is what I think.”

But still, something felt weird in Twilight’s mind. Something that was hidden from her. Something she had to discover.

“Princess Celestia, I would like you to answer my last question. Why do you think that disbelief in your existence shouldn’t be considered wrong?” she asked.

“Because it is illogical to consider it wrong.”

“Illogical?” Twilight thought out loud, not understanding the use of that particular word. “Why?”

“Stop that now!” Luna ordered, but too late.

“Because it is true I do not exist.” Celestia explained.

As you can imagine, a long, huge and deep silence followed that statement.

There was no way anypony could know how to react to such a concept. They could all see the princess of the sun, right in front of them. They had all observed the consequences of her actions every day of their lives. They had all seen the sun rise every morning under her influence. They had all seen her picture on every Equestrian flag. They had all heard the stories of her feats and how so many ponies had met her in Canterlot.

Or maybe the princess had become mad. Or was playing a joke on them. Or maybe this wasn’t the princess. Or they were all just having a terrible nightmare. Anything was making more sense than Celestia actually not existing.

“I don’t understand…” Twilight eventually said.

“Your friend Matt is right. I don’t exist. It is the truth.” Celestia explained.

“It can’t be!” Twilight responded, unable to accept the idea.

“Open your eyes and open your minds.” Celestia said. "And face the truth."

And when they all blinked and opened their eyes, the witness box was empty: the princess of the sun was gone, as she had always been. They all realized the incredible illusion they had been living in, fairy tales with no comparison. And one truth became obvious:
The princess of the sun didn’t exist. In fact, had never existed.

And that truth led to another one, more important in its consequences, that all the ponies quickly felt: they were alone.

Every pony there could feel the fabric of reality shaking all around them, as everything was revealing how threatening and mysterious it actually was. They were alone, they weren't safe, they had no light to guide them in the darkness, no voice to unite them, no goal to follow other than stumbling all over in a big empty world, blinded by their own weakness with nopony with the necessary power to help them out of that condition.
They were lost in the night, condemned to an eternity of going nowhere but struggle to find their way in a world that offered none.

Some simply stood there, too terrified to move, act or even think, just paralyzed by the shock. Many began to cry, many to feel a sudden an irrational fear for those at his or her side. And the more everypony was discovering how powerless they actually were, the more unrest began to build up.

Twilight first found her way back to her senses. The facts were clear. Frightening, disorienting, but clear. And in such a time, she had to help others face them like she would have to face them too.
She looked at Matt, but the stallion was way too shocked by everything that had happened to be of any help. He seemed to have never expected to actually be right on his beliefs. Or that the day would come everypony would join him in such beliefs.

Twilight took the matter in her own hooves and went on the judge stand to be visible from absolutely everypony and began speaking:

“Everypony, please listen.”

She hesitated. What words should one use in such circumstances? She had no idea, so she let her mind and heart run free.

“I can only imagine that you are all very afraid right now. I sure am afraid myself. And I think we are right for being afraid, because we just found out that everything we believed to be true was actually false. But in such times, we need to take hold on what hasn’t changed. For example: we are all still here, all of us. And we haven’t changed. We still have families, friends and a community to help us achieve everything we need to achieve. Maybe we can actually face the facts together and also overcome them together.
Those facts are first that Poly Matt here doubted the existence of Celestia before we all opened our eyes. Secondly, that Celestia herself told us she didn’t exist. And third, that we can all observe with our own eyes that she isn’t there, that the sun rises on its own every morning and that, in the end, the world is still the same than before, just with different weirder explanations, like maybe those “natural laws” we all mocked before. Facing those facts, and I can’t believe I’m going to say this because I literally spent my childhood with her, but I can only conclude that what we observe is true and we should accept it and find our own way forward: Celestia, as much as I would like it to be false, simply doesn’t exist.”

For a little moment, she saw signs of ponies agreeing with her, under the hope this new truth wouldn’t be that different from the old one. But then, one pony, in the crowd of the audience, shouted:

“They took the princess away!”

And those words echoed immediately in the heart of all the ponies present, as those hearts wanted nothing more than to see the princess come back.

“It’s their fault!” the ponies began to yell. “They planned it together. They made the princess disappear!”

“What?” asked Twilight, unable to understand why everypony was acting so irrationally all of a sudden when confronted with such clear facts.

But she felt something hitting the back of her head and fainted, as the crowd, guided by some invisible force made out of anger, fear and madness, had decided to take matters in their own hooves and taken custody of Poly Matt.

“Stop it! I order you! All of you!” Luna was ordering.

But everypony ignored her, as all authority had been ripped from her without the shadow of her big sister to make her shine.

“Protect the princess!” commanded the captain of the bat ponies.

They quickly regrouped and surrounded Luna, opening a path through the crowd and taking her away to safety, which was made easier as the crowd’s wrath seemed focused only on Twilight and the stallion she had tried to defend: Poly Matt.

The crowd took their two prisoners outside, joined by many other ponies that had opened their eyes too as the word was spreading all over town. Enraged, the ponies tried to argue about what had to be done in order to bring Celestia back to them, but couldn't exchange coherent ideas as they all wanted it to be done immediately and to give immediate results.
They wanted to bring the light back and as reason finally gave up to their pursuit of redemption, they figured out that by removing the cause of Celestia's disappearance, she would be allowed to reappear again.

And so they decided to burn the heretic stallion and the unconscious princess and in not time at all, two stakes got erected from the ground to which the two prisoners got tied up as fire was being brought under the fanatic and mad chanting of the crowd.

With only ten guards, the reinforcements too slow to arrive and her word having no weight anymore, there was nothing Luna could do without risking committing even greater crimes but watch in horror the torches come closer to the stakes to end the existence of her friend Twilight and the innocent stallion tied to the masts.