It was somewhat funny, Celestia thought, how poor her writing truly was.
None of her assistants would have admitted it, of course, they wouldn't have even thought to. As far as they were concerned, the style of her writing was simply a call to change, and they would obey with a smile. Like her sometimes embarrassing manework and dress choices, she was some strange causality that so many ponies sought to work around—a bygone relic masquerading as a leader into the unknown.
Celestia was not quite sure it mattered to her. The letter, for what it's worth, could have been written for a child, for all the contents it had contained.
Luna, please come back. I said I was sorry.
She had stared at the words for a long time. Longer than she supposed was healthy, for what sane mare expected a reply when the years had passed and the means had burned to ash long ago? She had written them in a flurry of emotion, taking no time to think back on them, no time to think on consequences or outcomes. Luna had always chided her for overthinking like that when action was required, and so it seemed only right to obey her this time.
The days were longer now.
Celestia was glad. She was tired of those years of near-eternal night, and those sad, taunting stars.
Were her friends out there? She had used to wonder, but the question had gone unanswered for so long that she did not quite know why it mattered.
It was just her and the Sun now, and that strange stubborn fear that straying too far from it's light would bring. For a mare whose heart burned for discovery, Celestia was often surprised how terrifying a world of uncharted darkness seemed to be for her.
The buildings around her were still as she had left them. Everything still stood as it was meant to be, even if it did not matter much to anypony but her. Why would she want to leave what had been keeping her safe for so long? Why would let go of the only thing that hadn't left her?
Because the rest of them already have, she reasoned. Hardly fair of you to blame them for leaving you when they're the ones who begged you to follow.
It was true, and she hadn't ever really doubted it.
Luna had been the first to go.
Celestia had seen it coming... after so much had changed, less of it mattered. Time had stretched their togetherness until it was no longer there and it was all around, and neither quite knew where to go.
The day Luna had finally left, Celestia had not been afraid.
She had been relieved, for Luna had finally done the one thing she never would have had to confidence to do first.
Cadance had asked for answers, and when Celestia's explanations failed, she could only ask again. Their talks had become a feedback loop—a little worst each time, until finally Cadance's exhaustion drove her into the same trough as Luna.
But at least her niece had said farewell.
Celestia had been patient, but when the Moon's orbit finally collapsed, dragging the celestial body before Equestria's sky like a cosmic vivisection, she had finally conceded. A quill in her glow, she finally sought to break their silence.
And nopony seemed to have heard her.
Twilight had been the last to go.
Celestia had already forgotten why she had stayed so long.
If Celestia rested her hoof on the cobblestone streets, she could swear that Equus was shaking.
The logical part of her reminded her that it was. It was indeed shaking. It was a ball of earth being rapidly pulled through space around a cooling ball of flame.
Of course it would shake a little bit.
If the days were growing colder, they did so too slowly for her to care. Celestia did not notice the day it had begun, for it had always been happening—so slowly, that she hadn't been paying enough attention.
As Equus cooled and the shaking continued to grow, Celestia found herself unable to ignore it any more. Not when bits of the cobblestone streets and roots of ancient trees had begun to desecrate her familiar world.
It hadn't felt desperate when she had begun, for what harm was there in casting some magic every once in a blue moon to keep things in order?
What harm was there in keeping it aglow when she had no use for it?
What harm was there in devoting herself to something that mattered?
When she had first found her favourite spot, rooted at the peak of Canterlot Mountain, her magic spindly tendrils stretched forever, she had smiled.
Equestria was still here. She just needed a bit more of her help, and he had always known it would.
That grouchy old draconequus really had been good at fortunes.
The final days with Twilight had been the worst.
Celestia couldn't pretend she had seen it coming—she had been too firmly grasping to the hopes that things would stay the same, that the prospect of change could not be.
She couldn't remember the signs. She remembered that Twilight had yelled, but she couldn't recall what about.
How could something that had meant so much to her then be so lost to her now?
Celestia was growing tired of failing.
She had been trying for so long, and she had been succeeding! But now, as more and more of Equus drifted out of her grasp and into empty space, it was clear to her that she had underestimated eternity's endurance.
She had continued to try for too long, and eventually, she had lost. She had felt her horn begin to crack, and over the course of a year it had only spread across the delicate thing.
Her hold on Equus collapsed more and more. She lost so much, and when her horn finally flickered out, Equus was left helpless.
The planet's destruction, now left unimpeded, had overtaken swiftly. In hours, the last surviving chunks of Luna's Moon were joined by the great structures of a world now extinct. The colours of earth and space blended as they faded into the distance, and Celestia could do no more than watch through teary eyes.
Celestia had watched the last of Equus's collapse from the cosmos. The air had become dirt and dust and ash, and she could no longer see, and so she had taken flight until the planet had begun to curve. She left the immediate violence behind in favour of the mighty sight of her home's collapse.
It had taken years, but Celestia couldn't even blink. It was beautiful and transfixing to her thoughtless and purposeless mind.
The Sun would take a while longer, but Celestia wondered if she had reason to stay for it's fall, too.
She had risen the Sun for Equus. Now, Equus was gone. Was there reason to stay any longer?
Celestia pursed her lips. Perhaps tomorrow, she would think on it.
Author's Note
