“[I] wish th' estate o' the world were now undone”
-William Shakespeare, MacBeth, V.v.50
Celestia. Queen. A land serene.
My tortured body and tormented soul for these long years has so oft been lost to the pain. My days are endless, my hours filled with agony as the pricks and barbs of her sharp spears consume me. I am no longer what I was; I know not what I am. Only briefly, dimly, can I conceive of anything besides the pain. Of what I once was. The fragmented memories lurk in the recesses of this torment, dimly seen as though through the murky depths of the deepest ocean. But when by some chance of fate, some quirk of fortune, it comes to pass that I can see clearly....I see her.
Celestia. Queen. A land serene.
Certain scattered thoughts have come to me so frequently over the aeons that they are branded permanently into what remains of my memory. I see the ageless mask set upon her face, and the endless depths it concealed. Depths of cruelty and capriciousness, forged by a timeless existence that had permanently set her apart from her pony nature. What is life, when death holds no meaning? Under a cloudlike coat and behind a face so fancy-free, she sat in judgment of us all, aloof and remote. The fawning masses lifted up her gilded throne to the celestial skies that are her namesake, so that she could fan her alabaster wings and envelop us all under the aegis of her all-consuming love.
Celestia. Queen. A land serene.
What is life, when death holds no meaning? It is a thought that has come to my fragmented mind, time and time again. For my crime, no mere mortal punishment would do. No swift beheading in hidden back rooms, as befit common criminals to preserve the facade of her gentle reign to the masses, for me. No, for I, formerly her leal and devoted servant, a cunning and cruel part of her soul decreed that I would become as ageless as she. A great crime deserved a great punishment, reserved only for the most terrible of traitors. Perhaps, having spent so long chained by the iron hooves of time, she sought to impart in me, in some small regard, how the weight of aeons did wear and weary the soul. Perhaps she even thought that punishment a mercy, for I would lack even the illusion of agency that I, at the time, imagined chided and harried her in the darkest depths of her soul while she made her decrees and dictates. With magic might and spellcraft bright, she cast a spell to twist my body's essence most cruelly, and used her art to set me in the center of her kingdom.
Celestia. Queen. A land serene.
But her art, oft so carefully bent to her cunning, did go awry from her that day. Perhaps my betrayal against her capricious reign had kindled some ember of despair at what she had become, and her guilty soul did fan the flames and work the bellows of her conscience to make the spell subtly fail by some knavery of the unconscious. Whatever the cause, no sooner was I set in my place upon this ancient pedestal which far overstrips the minds of ponies to conceive, there to work this cruel machine to sustain her reign for an eternity of days, that her spell worked against her. She had set me where all the ponies of Canterlot could look upon me, and I upon them. They would not know me, and I would be trapped and unable to make them know me. But in the moment her spell went awry all did know me, for I began to scream against the darkness that surrounded me, the darkness that bound me fast. The ponies stopped and looked to me, their faces wide and fearful, and then they turned their eyes to she who reigned over them, knowing in their hearts that their capricious queen's hoof did draught this sinister design.
Celestia. Queen. A land serene.
My machinations against her were more fruitful than they seemed at first. To ease my suffering, all the ponies of the land did turn against her. She fell from her apogee in a fit of feathers to the hard ground, and proved herself not so ageless as she thought, and though she had done me such a grievous wrong, I could not help but spare a pang of sorrow for my fallen friend in the midst of my eternal torment. And those moments of sorrow only grew more numerous in the days and years and decades to come, for when the dust had settled the ponies found none around who could set my pain to rights. I bore witness to their agony, kin to my own, yet was helpless to ease it. My soul had impelled me to endeavor to lift the burden from off the commonfolk of this green and pleasant land, and it was for that reason that I plotted against she who I was once proud to call friend. Yet all my grand works turned to ash, for I became the ruination of all there was or ever shall be. My ponies, who I loved as a parent would, grew ever more dispirited with every passing day. They ceased to play, they ceased to love, they ceased to care, until at last the final one of them had laid down for the last time. I watched her bones turn to dust. And so the end came to Celestia's kingdom, and all the kingdoms of this our old world.
Celestia. Queen. A land serene.
Before my eternal eyes, every work she had wrought -- some of which my hoof did help her to craft -- crumbled and was swallowed again by the land, for the land could not sense my agony. It could only cover the alabaster walls and golden minarets of Canterlot to keep me better company. I am trapped in torment by this infernal machine, this endless engine that she set in motion in the hopes my essence would allow it to function forever. And for aeons it has, and I can do naught but rage against the darkness. But there is nopony left to bear witness. Only an empty and silent world once full with ponies, who in their folly did raise their queen to the heights of the celestial vault until she overreached her bounds and brought its vaulted ceiling crashing down around her and all her kind.
Celestia. Queen. A land serene.
But in the abyss of eternity, as my torment drags on with intolerable slowness and my thoughts span the dusty stretch of years, something new has come to my realm. A bright spark of hope alights itself in the profound darkness of my being. I see them walking in their strange way, in their strange dress, treading the grass that covers what once was the shining city of Canterlot, turned to dirt by the hubris of she who once thought to rule it wisely and justly.
Celestia. Queen. A land serene.
More than anything, I desire to speak with these newcomers, but in my ancient shell, racked with burning pains and sharp agonies beyond mortal imagination, I can do nothing but scream. I have been screaming for so very long now.
