A command of three words would seem to be very, very simple. A foal should be able to carry them out with ease. She should have nothing to worry about as she looked up at the sky with eyes that saw past a scarred moon and into some shadowy place she could not be shaken from, even if anypony was there to do so.
Her legs were locked in place and she stood stone-still.
Do not move.
So she did not. She remained in a ruined castle, breaking around her as she broke within and her mane hung limp about her face.
Do not cry.
Celestia did not cry. She stood still and upset, but pristine all the same. She had her composure slipping, but nopony was around for it to matter... but she still tried to regain it.
It didn't really work. She was tired and hurt, and she hated that. Who had she helped in all of this? Who? Nopony. Nopony at all. Luna was gone.
Luna was gone.
She wanted to sleep so badly. She wanted to blink the world away, but it would not go. She stared into space, quit literally, and waited for Luna to tap her on the wither and tell her-
Something.
She wanted normalcy back, and this was not that. She was begging inside, a sea of unbearable silence that pleaded over and over again for anything at all. An answer, maybe?
Anguished was a good word for this.
She wanted to sit down and sleep the night away. All Celestia wanted was to curl up on her plush bed in her shining, clean home and fall into the deepest sleep possible and say good night to Luna, because hadn't she always done that, and then-
Never fall back out of it.
She wanted her sister back, and here she was standing up at the sky with a stiff an unnatural pose with all these thoughts like needles being driven into her head.
She forced herself to look up higher at the oddity apart from the stars - the moon glowing there for all to see.
And the scars on it, too.
Celestia wondered if the worst scars were the ones everypony could see.
...Had Luna had them? How long? She certainly had them now...
For a minute, her mind was just some kind of static she did not bother to hear past as she stood on, with her ears pricked forward to catch something she was supposed to hear.
Say good-night to Luna.
The little voice made Celestia's blood run cold and the echo of it wouldn't fade.
Her mouth tried to to form the words and she managed a creaking whimper.
Princess Celestia closed the door and did not allow herself to frown. It was only the sixth room that she had checked.
She closed the castle door and then moved down the hallway. It was a very simple task. There was nothing wrong today. The sun was quite literally shining high in the sky, just outside the castle. All of Equestria was basking in its light.
She was a little frustrated though. Something was missing. There would be a whole slew of petitioning ponies with problems that she never doubted were from whatever crops or land that peasants were arguing over.
She would be there to solve them all.
She never wasn't.
The castle may have been empty of servants, but there would be galas that she would throw, and it would be then that the castle was filled with her subjects.
Celestia opened and shut another door after she found the chamber to be empty.
Her hoof steps and breathing were the only sound.
The halls of the Castle of the Two Sisters were always rather dark and very labyrinthine. It was a complex and grim edifice that was right smack in the middle of a dangerous and enchanted forest. The distinct gloomy style of the place - her home - was formal and fitting for a ruler of her time.
She closed the eighth door and turned down another hallway that was just as quiet as the last one that she had been walking down.
Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.
All were empty.
She did not know why she was smiling. She did not think about why, she just knew that it was natural for her, and that it always had been. So she did it.
Then came thirteen. And fourteen. Another hallway when she turned. Now she was on empty room number fifteen.
It was getting late for her to keep putting off her duty like this. Celestia was certain that someone would be waiting for her and she did not like to keep ponies waiting. Her infinite patience was not always reflected in her subjects.
Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen.
And now twenty empty rooms...
Was something wrong? No, it was just a very large castle. Nothing was wrong. Not at all. The sun was even shining outside.
Twenty one. Twenty two. Twenty three. Twenty four. Twenty five.
All empty.
And then she turned down another hallway and kept walking.
Her brow was creased with worry. But nothing was wrong, it was just a delay. A minor delay.
She could take care of herself. There was nothing wrong. She was certain - very, very much so - that this had happened before and of course, there was simply nothing wrong. Delays happened. Nothing was wrong.
She was on door thirty now. Princess Celestia had not lost count of something like this. Would she ever?
The sun would always shine.
This was unusual, but not wrong. Nothing was wrong. This, of course, meant that there was simply no reason for Princess Celestia of all ponies to be doubting herself like this.
She was only opening doors, and that was a simple task.
In a hallway that she didn't bother to count, she heard her breathing calm.
And then she thought carefully. She thought of where she did not check, in this vast castle.
An answer popped into her mind, and for a moment, Celestia's smile returned. It was really so obvious and silly of her to forget!
Maybe Luna was in the throne room!
