There Is No Time To Frown
Princess Celestia cracks a smile. It's a radiant thing, full of warmth and earnestness, yet a reservation which belies her truly ancient age. The solar alicorn diarch is 3030 years old, not that she looks a day over 243, winning the genetic and magical lotteries as she has.
It is almost dawn.
As the warm water of her private grotto, a short waterfall cascading warm water down her back, gives her her own private running river to bathe in, she smiles. It is not for her, but rather, for all those who are not her.
Celestia's first thoughts turn towards her sister.
Dear sweet Luna, oh how far she has come. Far indeed. She treats her with less reverence than anyone else. Of course, how can you really display true reverence to one who knew her as a young foal? The one who saw her get ice cream all over your face, the one who saw her cry over her first crush, a unicorn so ancient that Starswirl lived closer to the present time than he to him. Her sister had been there when she couldn't yet fly well. Her sister remembered back when the current Equestrian language was still in its archaic stage. Her sister remembered when, at long last, she had first joined with a male and came back blushing, unsteady, and giggly, and how they'd laughed about it, Luna recounting similar awkwardness. How they'd mourned together over the loss of their first dearest ones. They, who at the not immodest age of more than half a century, had ascended into alicorns, forging a pact with the True Divinity to guide the ponies and be wardens of the world. Their strife with King Vortex during the migration to Equestria, and their battles with him and Discord, leading to the former's exile and the latter's petrification.
There had been a darkness there. For a time, they had grown apart for who knew how many. Then Nightmare Moon happened. A battle. Then a thousand years of loneliness. Then a return of her sister. Oh joy! But then, Luna was different, alien, somber. Years of tension again, until Starlight Glimmer had brought them back together, albeit at a nearly apocalyptic cost, as seemed to often happen with her around. Time lost. Time lost. But it was okay, right? It wasn't like either of them was dying.
That wasn't how it was with everypony else, however.
What else is history but a pile of names and bones on a river of blood?
Everypony the two of them had ever known had died. Indeed, the lives of mortals were often nasty, brutish, and short -- nothing like the vast millennia of theirs. And everyone they knew at the moment was going to die as well.
Celestia threw the bucket of water over her shoulder perhaps a little bit harder than she strictly speaking had actually needed to.
Perhaps the greatest blessing God had ever given the mortal was that the mortal did not know the time and place of their fate? That way, they could live in ignorance and pretend they would live forever. She, however, being in allegiance to the True Divinity, was keyed into what Fate was thinking. that was seldom pleasant.
She had to know the fates of her friends. That always was unpleasant.
She had a meeting later with the Yak ambassador. That too was always unpleasant. And here the was, in the last days of peace, her government holding its breath. A invasion was coming, but when would it start? Who would be the first to fall, who would be the last to stand? Could anyone stop this madness with unfathomable consequences? Yes, she could. Millions would live now, albeit many would not survive the next twenty years, but billions would never be born. The hell coming on now was going to secure something that otherwise could never be: a future. Without this war coming on, ponykind would forever stay in Equestria, like they had for the past three thousand years. They had found paradise. It had made them happy. It had made them wise. But it had made them complacent and it had made them weak. For them to spread across all of Equus and then across the stars, they needed to be made unhappy, they needed to be strong, they needed an incentive, the kind that living in Eden wasn't going to give.
And to start out a millenium of transformative but necessary, hateful misery, nine of her dearest ponies had to suffer, and most of those would have to die long before their time. Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Rarity, Applejack, Starlight Glimmer, Mi Amore Cadenza, and Shining Armor.
The one that hurt the most was Twilight Sparkle. The poor mare, she had known her since foalhood -- the most powerful unicorn since Starswirl. At least her little Twilight wouldn't suffer long. The neurotic intellectual had lived well, achieved more than her dreams, and left a huge, positive imprint. In the wars to come, she was as likely to bend the knee and become a good yet subversive vassal, as she was to just be taken out back and shot before rebellion rallied around her.
Pinkie Pie could handle anything, except for sugar. If the war didn't get her, diabetes would.
Rainbow Dash was the opposite of how it was going to go for Twilight. Hotheaded and brash. She was right now fighting for her life on a special operations mission in Yakyakistan to sabotage the Yakyaki military preparations to invade Equestria. Too bad she was going to either be killed or captured any day now. She was not going to survive the month. Just as planned, sadly.
Fluttershy was docile and mostly harmless. As far as things were concerned, she had no doubt the shy mare would live long and without too much trouble. After all, she was the least likely to do anything to get herself shot.
Rarity, being a high society lady of Canterlot, and aging well, would also likely be spared. Granted, her position within the nobility would necessitate her exile to some boondock province where she couldn't cause trouble. Naturally, her children, her lovers, and her entourage would come with her. Soon, there would be a merry little outpost, a microcosm of ponydom and Equestria. And thus the Scattering would begin, with ponies spread all throughout the world and out of paradise, where they would have to toughen and innovate to not only live but thrive.
Applejack didn't have much time left. A true patriot and a warrior, she wouldn't care if it was a losing battle, she'd go anyway. Only too late would she realize that death was meant to be her fate.
Starlight Glimmer wouldn't last long, either. Powerful, dangerous, impulsive, and more than a little sociopathic. She herself wouldn't've let her live, given her penchant for playing fast and loose with truly powerful magic. The Yaks wouldn't disagree there.
Mi Amore Cadenza, being royalty, naturally would find herself facing the gun. Perhaps she'd go down defending the Crystal Palace with her husband?
Shining Armor, the last of them, as a soldier, would naturally die fighting.
And as for her and Luna? They could look after themselves. All they had to do was making a good show of somehow escaping to a hidden valley somewhere, promised lands and messianic figures for the scattered clades of ponykind to rally around again when the time came for their ascendancy. And, in the dark times, a state of mind to take comfort in.
She brushed herself down from her head to her flanks. That felt good. Perhaps it was the last thing that would feel good today? The thought occurred to her to visit the royal harem -- she was going to need it since Luna and Blueblood had recently depleted the royal liquor cavern. Who said being Princess of the Night ruled out having fun on the job?
So much pain and death to come soon, but to make sure that her little ponies would thrive and live on forever instead of stagnating and dying in paradise. It was a mercy they did not know what was to come. And in that moment, she had to agree with something she had once read long ago: "but today, the living is easy."
Celestia stepped out of the bath. She magicked herself dry. This day was not going to be pleasant. She forced a smile back onto her face. it was a perfect, practiced thing. In a world so full of death, there was no time to frown when around mortals. After all, in comparison, they were as mayflies. And in time, everything would pass, even death and pain.
She took a sigh and walked back inside, the smile firmly now entrenched onto her face. She found the clock. It was now just a few minutes after five on this warm springtime morning. Indeed, time didn't wait, even for her.
She lights up her horn.
Now it is dawn.
Author's Note
Thanks for reading! I give massive thanks to The Descendant for the inspiration with his story The Living Is easy.
I know, serious fare is a bit out of character for me these days, but I figured you'd all want a bit of a change from the jokes and clops. Support me on Patreon.
Keep calm and brony on.
