The Night of the Fallen Epilogue:

Luna’s moon hung high in the sky, signaling the several long hours it had been since she took her position. Despite this Celestia wasn’t able to sleep. Instead she was sitting up, reading through some letters she had hidden away, making sure nopony ever found them. In them were various moves for a long standing game of chess she had going on. It had been several long months since the last reply, and now she was getting worried. All she had was the last letter sent to her,

‘To my close friend, I’m truly sorry I’ve been so late with my replies. Things have been steadily growing worse up here, though we’ll manage, we always have. I do wish I could send you good news of my condition for once… alas, I’m stuck with only bad news to reply to the amazing news you’ve been sending me. It’s wonderful to hear how everything’s going well for Equestria, especially with the new princess. Hopefully with my next letter I can send you something good…
Your friend, Tharian. PS: Knight B4 to C2. Your move.’

This last letter from him in truth didn’t explain much of his situation, but from the tales she’d heard recently from the edges of the Crystal Empire, things had grown only worse… A cold and ancient storm was blowing in, and she didn’t know if Tharian’s tribe would be able to handle it. Though, she knew how horribly it’d hit his pride if she just outright sent help.

He needed the help though. There was no way around it. His pride wasn’t worth the cost of his tribe. Not for her, they had always been there for Equestria in their time of need. It was her time to repay that debt, but… with his lack of responses or any shows of power or force from him… she was worried it was far too late.

Celestia was so absorbed in reading over his last letter that she didn’t notice Chrysalis had entered her room.

“My, you’re up quite late…” Chrysalis hummed, leaning up against the wall.

Celestia jumped and her magic lit up, quickly teleporting the letters away. “What are you doing in here?” She questioned.

“Checking on you. The growing depressing feeling you were giving off was beginning to make me sick, so I came to see what’s wrong. Can’t have the sun going out, now can I?” Chrysalis said. “And, you were honestly beginning to worry me.”

“Hm… well… thank you.” Celestia sighed. “And… it’s nothing you can help with…”

“Why not?” Chrysalis asked, “Is it somepony you lost? If it is, maybe talking about them will help.”

“No… no I hope not.” Celestia sighed. “I… Hope he isn’t dead…”

“Him? Oooh, juicy…” Chrysalis mused, though it was less prodding then she usually was. “Tell me, why would you be getting depressed over him then? Is he a close friend, ooh, family? Do you have a mysterious brother that’s been lost forever?” She joked halfheartedly.

“An old… old friend. I’d trust him with my life… because he’s saved it so many times.” Celestia sighed.

“If you’re so worried about him, why don’t you send a detachment out to find him and bring him here?” Chrysalis suggested.

“Because, he’d take that as a challenge. If he wants to come he’ll show up with no warning.” Celestia said. “And… I’m hoping he does. It’d do so much to make things better… knowing he’s alright.”

“Celestia…” Chrysalis said.

“Don’t worry about me… this comes and goes… he’ll send me a letter, and everything will be alright.” Celestia reasoned, though she didn’t feel that’d be the case.

Chrysalis was silent.

“Now… please go. I’ll be fine. I just… need some sleep.” Celestia slowly stood up, her magic lighting up and moving a piece on the chessboard she kept set up on top of her dresser. “Tharian… you’d better find a way to unfuck yourself… that was the stupidest move you’ve ever made in all of our games…” She muttered to herself. “You’d better win this one…”

Chrysalis closed her eyes, “Goodnight Celestia…”

“Goodnight Chrysalis.”

Insomnium:

Celestia’s head was spinning, she couldn’t quite pin where she fully was. There was a cold and biting wind blowing all around her, and the sunlight was blinding as it bounced off the snow.

She shook her head trying to clear it, for now at least, she could see shelter from the wind just ahead. She walked into the ancient looking stone structure, it was deathly silent, unnervingly so.

“Hello?” Celestia called, her senses and wits slowly coming back to her. Her voice bounced off the walls, only calling back to her.

The light filtering in was barely enough to see, so she cast a simple light spell, and at once, she regretted it.

Now she knew where she was… the large split open bodies of the northern horses splayed out was enough to tell her…

She was in their mead hall, an ancient and well cared for part of the castle they had. It stood at the center of their city, a monument to all that they were. It appeared that whatever had happened occurred during a feast. Food was scantily laid out on the tables, as if most of it had been consumed already, weapons jammed into the wood, or laying discarded, it appeared the warriors had attempted to fight what ever attacked, but they only delayed the others deaths.

She could tell very easily who had fought and who had tried to run. Those that had raised weapons could barely be considered bodies, only bone and torn muscle lay about their resting places. Some that still held noticeable forms beyond bone were gripping their weapons. Those regular horses and foals… gods, Celestia had to hold back vomit. They were piled up off to the side, some of the carcasses picked clean… others strewn about like forgotten toys.

She noticed one thing however, the icy blue coat of Tharian was missing from any of the piles, nay, any sign of him was missing from this carnage. She covered her nose and mouth to avoid breathing in the stench of death, and pushed onwards.

As she delved deeper into the fortress the warriors that hadn’t been at the feast had been ripped to utter shreds, messes of shattered and splintered bone, blood, and gore lay around where they had tried to make a stand. It wasn’t a massacre, or even a slaughter, this was purely a genocide… this was all this species had remaining… and to think, they were all dead.

These wounds and tearing weren’t done by any weapon she could recognize… no, she could tell it was done by fang and claw. They were utterly torn apart by some sort of creature.

Celestia knew where the seat of the fortress lay, and she rushed their, hoping beyond hope that Tharian was still alive… or that he had died slaying whatever had wiped out his people.

She burst into the seat of the fortress, and was met with a more breaking sight. Tharian was atop his throne, he hadn’t even had a chance to fight… no, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t had a chance to fight… something much worse had happened…

“No… no why… why would you…” Celestia approached his body, her eyes moving down to the sword lodged in his heart. He had taken himself out… but, why would he? This was so far from being like him…

Then she looked closer, there w… “W… what d… ha…” She could barely choke out. There was blood around his mouth, and remains of gore on his hands. “N… no… y-you cou…” She nearly broke down, thinking that Tharian… would do this… it couldn’t have been him, something had to have gone wrong… he must have bitten into the creatures neck in a last ditch effort to kill it, he had been clawing at it to get it off of himself… and when he knew he’d succumb to his injuries he killed himself… yes, that had to be it…

She stepped back, hoping that was the truth. Then she made the mistake of turning around to truly look at the rest of the room. She saw something that made no sense, s… she was right there… but, sh… she was laying on the ground, she could tell it was herself… the burns on the ground around the body made that clear… but beyond that, there was nothing else to tell her who it was… the body was torn apart, mangled and utterly consumed…

She heard something behind her, and everything came to a grinding halt. The only thing there was Tharian.

“Celestia…” The icy voice wasn’t his, no… his was warm, calming… friendly… this brought chills worse than the utterly consuming winds outside… it was as if part of her soul had just tired to leave in fear. “C… lestia…” It whispered again, she felt something unnaturally cold touch her shoulders. “I’m so hungry…”

Her horn was beginning to light up as she prepared to defend herself, even if it meant truly destroying him.

“You already tried that…”

“No… I haven’t.” Celestia growled, but before she could do anything, another pair of hands grabbed her, yanking her clean out of the horrific dream.

Luna’s eyes were wide and utterly fearful, her little sister was shaking so violently. It was as if she had seen the face of death and barely escaped.

“C-celly… w… what the hell wa… was that?” Luna finally choked out.

Instead of answering Celestia’s horn lit up once more. She forced herself awake, breaking free of Luna completely.

“The end… and it can’t… ever happen…” Celestia muttered quietly as she opened her eyes and gazed upon the ceiling of her room.

Author's Note

Holy shit. This one was a ride to write. I hope you all enjoy it! This one is going to be more... action filled since I don't have alternate universe or worlds to worry about. Just ancient history, and prophecies. This will be fun... But, don't worry there will be sex and romance, that's not something I'm going to forgo.

• Patric12345