A scroll pops into being in front of me in flash of flame. I read it.
Your majesty,
Forgive us, we have been overrun. They have taken Saddle Row. We are retreating. Losses over fifty percent. We are all walking wounded now. We are protecting whatever remaining civilians we can and escorting them to the palace district.
Captain Shining Armor
I cast it down. Nothing good. We are being overrun. The night is glowing a bloody red. It's a particular disturbing shade of red, or what my little ponies would consider as such. I am not a true being of flesh and blood as they are, but I know that to them, it would look like the dark red blood of gore.
Queen Titania, Mother, help me. I can't do this. I hang my head over the balcony. All is lost. All my cosmic power is useless. I cannot employ it. I am too powerful. If I do not break the world, I will teach my dear ponies that might makes right, that might fixes everything. No, I cannot let that lesson prevail. To do so is unacceptable. I cannot do that -- anything but that.
There is no option. Darkness all about. I have failed. Tears begin to slowly crawl down my manifested cheek.
Now I give into despair. We immortals are good at despair. When what is ultimately left for you at the very end is the heat death of the universe, hope is relative but despair is absolute. Verily, we immortals keep nothing for ourselves -- our creator made us to help the mortals. For every trillion of them, there is one of us.
What a curse.
I don't hate it. I accepted this over a million years ago, as another goddess on another world to another race.
In my despair, I weigh my options. Nothing is good. Fighting myself will teach that might makes right. I cannot let that lesson be learned. There are a billion sentient races in this world; if even one percent of them become violent, that means millions of civilizations at war and unending horror. The hard way is so hard, but it must be taken.
My options are few. I know they expect me to take the field. In ancient times, I did only when faced with threats beyond mortal ken, but these threats are not inherently beyond them. I cannot help them with all my divine might. I grit my teeth. All this power and to much wisdom to use it! What can I do? What can I do. Something must be done. It's not over yet! I feel the tears on my face. What display for the mortals. I don't cry. I don't a lot of things in actuality, but I simulate them for the sake of the mortals. I don't really breathe. I don't really eat. I don't really sleep. I don't really drink. I don't really walk. I don't even really mate, but I take lovers. About the only thing of me they truly see are my mane and my feelings. A glorious existence, being an energy being, truly.
Not being bound by corporeal concerns, it makes us free to do the work of our Lord, as distant from our subjects as we are.
Sometimes, we must make the hardest of choices. This is one of those times.
One solution drifts through my mind, though I recoil from it. It is repugnant to me, and I have never even spent a moment in a body of flesh, one that would suffer and die from what I am considering. It is an ancient magical plague. It is a weapon of last resort. A plague. Its name is pastromorbo, a name derived from a language long since dead with its speakers.
This plague is devastating, because it can be targeted to species -- some can be immune to it while others suffer and die horribly.
Can I do this? To make the slightest mistake with this means genocide. Can I bear to inadvertently kill my little ponies? Not through murder; I have abolished capital punishment, but ponies die all the time under my orders -- on my missions, enforcing my laws, building my structures...
Pastromorbo means a plague that lasts generations and kills nearly all it touches, and what it cannot kill, it maims. Queen Titania once employed this most destructive creation of our Lord and wiped a planet clean of a virulent civilization. I cannot imagine the terror of my world ending, of being mortal and realizing that my number was up with the first bloody cough. The first twinge of regretful compassion hits me. I've seen how these mortals die. Changelings and crystal ponies die like any other, even if they are enslaved or otherwise perpetrating evil. That shock and fear as the darkness covers their eyes is universal. I truthfully shudder to think about it. But I know what will come if I don't do this.
Horror.
is a life enslaved or as a livestock truly a life? Chrysalis and Sombra are powerful; they're strong enough to theoretically threaten me. What chance do my ponies have? Their soldiers outnumber ours eight to one. What chance do my ponies have? Blue sadness is coming over me. I don't want to do this, but I must, for not just my ponies, but for also this world.
I will be the executioner of this world.
I ready the spell. It is difficult. My power flexes. Light effuses from me. I chant.
"Lux caeli, umbra infernalis -- venti vitae et mortis. Aegrobiant, decediant. Ego voco, Pastromorbo. Mordeas voleasque, in nocte et in diem. Modo ut inimicis occideres, ut nostros liberos viverenti erint ob hac res!"
I flash like a supernova. My mind says to target the changelings and the crystal ones. I will the plague into existence by visualizing its effects, eating away at bodies, destroying tissues, eroding minds away into the abyss. Then, just as I tell it to be so, my mind flashes back to my dear ponies. Lord, no. For just a second, the spell targets them too. I try to pull it off, but too late! I can only direct the worst of its effects away. Spent, I collapse.
A scroll pops into existence in front of me. I read it.
"Princess Celestia
Something is happened to the enemy. I can't believe it; they're retreating -- we won!
Have we won? Perhaps the spell didn't hurt my ponies. My hopes soar. I scan the paper one more time. At the very bottom, despair's abyss open up to me. There is the slightest spray of blood and mucus. I am seeing the very first pony to die of my mistake. The effects won't be immediate; there is still time to react, perhaps, if Luna and I try, not all of them will die...
Author's Note
Submitted for a contest by Aeluna. You should check out the source material "The Pastromorbo Epidemic".
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