Tell Me Why
Celestia sighed, letting her head fall back into the cold, cobblestone wall pressed against her back. Her eyes trailed the ceiling, and she noticed several cracks running through the masonry. She wasn’t really surprised by them; the dungeons beneath Canterlot Castle had not seen use in hundreds of years. Though she’d have to have somepony come down and inspect their structural integrity; they served as the foundation for a good portion of the castle, after all.
The chains that rattled every time she shifted made her shelve the thought for later. She was surprised the old chains and shackles had survived this well. Fitting, she thought, that she should be the first prisoner to use them since she ordered the dungeons closed with the introduction of a proper criminal reformation system. She supposed she would hardly be the last, with the way things were going.
Ears perking, Celestia looked to the door at the end of the dimly lit hall outside her cell. The handle rattled, and the hinges groaned with centuries of disuse as a guard stepped inside. Dressed in deep purple armour, his face obscured behind his helmet.
“Rise, Tyrant Queen,” he demanded sharply, producing a ring full of keys. “Her Highness wishes to speak with you.”
Celestia almost laughed at that. “Tyrant? Me?”
The guard didn’t respond, and the door swung open. He remained outside and stepped aside.
“What lies has she been feeding you?” Celestia asked even as she complied with the request, wincing slightly as every step dragged her shackles across the floor, producing a sound worse than nails on a chalkboard.
“Her Highness does not lie,” the guard hissed, and he was joined by two others who took Celestiua’s chains in their magical grasp, guiding her down the hall. They likely wouldn’t have been so relaxed were it not for the magic inhibitor clamped around the alicorn’s slender horn. “She has shown us the truth of your rule. Revealed you for the monster you are.”
“And what have I done to earn the title of Tyrant? Were there ponies whose struggles I ignored? Did the laws I passed cause suffering I wasn’t aware of? What rebellions did I quash? Which objections to my policies did I not hear? Please, tell me what I could have done better to prevent this from happening.”
The guard scoffed. “This was inevitable. There is nothing you could have done to save yourself.”
Celestia’s shoulders sagged slightly at that, her brow knitting. “It is beginning to feel that way.”
No more words were exchanged as the alicorn was lead through her own castle in shackles. The halls showed no sign of the upheaval that had gone on within, pristine glass windows looked out over Canterlot, the streets filled with confused ponies looking to the castle for guidance. What remained of her guard ran amongst them, just as uncertain but still doing their best to calm the populace.
Celestia was stopped by a tugging at her chains, and she looked forward at the doors to the throne room, flanked by guards in the same midnight purple armour. They exchanged a look, and the heavy slabs of marble swung open without a sound.
Sighing as she was all but pushed into the room, Celestia stepped up to the base of the stairs leading to what was once her own throne. She looked up at the mare that now occupied it, and despite how often she’d seen it, Celestia’s heart still cried out for her.
“Celestia,” Twilight Sparkle greeted coldly, her dark, ethereal mane billowing in a nonexistent breeze, cackling with magic untold.
“Hello, Twilight.” Celestia fell back onto her haunches, far too tired to deal with the weight of her shackles. “It’s been a while.”
Twilight sat more upright in the throne, the slightest smirk on her lips. “Three years. It’s been a fun reunion.”
“Depends on where you’re sitting,” Celestia quipped, and she smiled slightly, gazing past the imposing unicorn. “You always did love my throne. You were much smaller, back then. Do you remember? We used to play hide and seek in this room.”
Twilight’s lips curled down into a scowl. “Lies. I remember so such thing. You were always too focused on yourself to give a damn about me.”
“Ah, perhaps it was another life, then,” Celestia conceded with a simple shrug. “How’s Spike?”
Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “Gone,” she said shortly.
“Gone?” Celestia echoed, raising an eyebrow. “What happened?”
“It doesn’t concern you. He was my brother. Not yours.”
“Ah.” The alicorn nodded to herself, looking out the large stained glass windows. “Is that how the Nightmare took advantage of you? Or did something else happen? Tell me about your childhood as you remember it.”
“Why would you care now?”
Celestia examined her restraints, poking at them with her hoof. “I want to know how the Nightmare took advantage of you. For next time.”
“Next time?” Twilight echoed, quirking a brow. “There won’t be a next time, Celestia; I’ve summoned you here for your execution.”
“Really, Twilight? Is my death really what you desire?” Celestia asked, and there was an almost pleading tone behind it that made Twilight smile. “Please; tell me what it is you want. Tell me how to stop this.”
Twilight laughed deeply, throwing her head back and crackling in a way that reminded Celestia very much of her sister while under the Nightmare’s influence. “There is no way to stop this, Tyrant.”
“I refuse to believe that,” Celestia all but hissed, standing and taking a step forward. “I only need to know how. Please, Twilight; tell me where I went wrong. Was I too distant from you? Too close?”
“You want to know where you went wrong?” Twilight asked rhetorically, throwing out a hoof to the city beyond the castle’s walls. “Why did you order your guard to stand down? Why did you let me walk in and take your capital? I never took you for an idiot, Celestia. You didn’t put up a fight for a reason. You think you can still best me. That is your mistake; I am far more powerful than you now.”
Celestia sighed, shaking her head. “No, Twilight; I don’t intend to fight you. I will never fight you. There is so much good in you. So much potential. How could you throw it all away? Please, help me understand.”
Twilight growled, jumping from her chair and stomping her hoof on the ground. “You wish to understand my pain? I can make that happen; I can make you feel the pain I lived through as your student. The isolation I felt, the constant strain of trying to please you. And for what?”
“Should I not have accepted you into my school?” Celestia’s voice rose to match Twilight’s. “Should I have ignored your talent? Do you want to hear how that went?”
“What?”
Celestia pushed forward, climbing the stairs that separated them. “You became embittered by my rejection. You shut yourself off from the world to study magic. Shut yourself off from your friends, your family. You isolated yourself. Constantly wondering why you weren’t good enough. Why you didn’t make the cut even though you passed the test. You started dabbling in darker and darker magics, until they started taking a toll on your mind. You all but went mad, obsessed with proving yourself, obsessed with beating me - and guess what? Guess how that ended?”
Twilight blinked, confused. “What are you rambling about? Have you gone senile?”
“It ended with us, right here!” Celestia’s hooves slammed down on the floor, cracking the marble. “And even then, with your mind all but lost to obsession bordering on insanity, I refused to fight you. That broke you; your entire life was spent trying to find a way to best me, and when I denied you at every turn, the dark magics consumed you. Do you know how much it hurt me to see you like that? The mare I raised countless times, eaten alive by the results if my actions!”
“Are you insane? What in the world are you talking about?” Twilight demanded.
“I tried to make you feel less alone!” Celestia continued, search Twilight’s face desperately for something she knew she wouldn’t find. “I’ve sent you to study abroad. Phillydelphia, Trottingham, Manehattan, I even sent you to Saddle Arabia once! Everywhere I could think of that would allow you to connect with others, but you never did. So I tried to fill that roll myself, and when Chrysalis took on my visage you were lost to her spell. The next time I kepy my distance, allowing you into my school but not as my personal student, and when the teachers could no longer keep up with your appetite for knowledge you turned to other sources. That is how Sombra got his claws into you, taking you down the same road that turned him into a shadow of his former self.
“Once, it seemed as though I’d finally found the right path. You were happy, living with Spike in my school. I took care of you as though you were my own child and, in an effort to get you to make some friends, I asked you to oversee the Summer Sun Celebration in Vanhoover.” Celestia paused, her frown deepening as she recalled the events. “There was an accident, and Spike was killed. Your grief consumed you, and you became obsessed with finding a way to bring him back. Somehow you were convinced I knew how and was hiding things from you. Once more you turned to dark magic, and found a half-baked spell in the scribblings of a pony who lost their mind to the magics you were toying with. And of course, it required the sacrifice of an alicorn.
“I did everything I could to help you. I arranged for counselors and therapists to help you with your pain. I cried with you over his loss, but still I lost you. I always lose you!”
Celestia took a slow breath, centering herself. “We’ve done this dance countless times, Twilight. I’ve tried everything I can think of to save you, to defy the role Fate seems to demand that you play. But I refuse to give in to Fate-” she spat aggresively “-I refuse to allow you to become this. I need only figure out how. Which path is the one that will guide you to the brightest future?”
For a few moments everything was silent, with Twilight doing little else but staring in shock at the alicorn before her. Eventually, she laughed. “You expect me to believe that?” She asked through her mirth. “Tell me, then; if it’s true that you have found a way to reset time and try again, and you have done so several times, why am I still alive? If this happens every time, would it not be easier to kill me as a filly? Before I’m able to challenge you?”
“I will not!” Celestia yelled, teeth grinding together. “I will not kill an innocent filly for crimes she might commit in the future. I will not punish you for my mistakes. Several times now I have taken you on as more than just a student; I have taken you under my wing as though you were my own daughter. I am to blame for being unable to guide you properly.”
“And that is how I know you’re lying, tyrant,” Twilight said smugly. “The Celestia I knew would never put a single pony above the safety of her country. She had more sense than that.”
Slowly, Celestia nodded. “Perhaps, once - a long time ago - I would have been able to do so. But I’ve watched you grow up dozens of times. I’ve been there with you through the happiest and hardest moments in your life over and over again. You are important to me, Twilight. Possibly more so than any other pony I’ve ever met. So please, please; for next time, if there is anything I can do to stop this from happening, tell me now.”
Twilight rolled her eyes, her horn lighting. “I told you already; there won’t be a next time, you old fool. From the moment I got my cutie mark my destiny was written. That rainbow that filled me with magic I’d never felt before or since - it sealed your fate. Now die, and usher in a new dawn for this country.”
Suddenly, Celestia’s horn grew an angry red as the raw power of the sun was forced through it, melting the inhibitor into molten slag that dripped to the ground. “I’m so sorry, Twilight,” she said, her tears evaporating as fast as they fell. “I’ll do better next time.” There was a flash of magic, and when next Celestia opened her eyes she was alone in a black void illuminated by dancing ribbons of colour not unlike the aurora borealis.
She looked down at a tree-like shape made of a single, shimmering white thread. The string started at the trunk of the tree and snaked its way up into one of the many branches, and at the end it doubled back on itself, wrapping back around to the base and repeating the process, this time following another branch, each time the trunk and the branches grew thicker the more layers built up. The end of the string was glowing slightly, at the tip of the newest, thinnest branch, made of only a single strand.
Celestia frowned at the tree beneath her, following it back down to the base of the trunk and stopping. She lifted a hoof and pressed it against the nothingness in front of her. It held fast against her, shimmering slightly but unwavering, separating her from the rest of the thread, the rest of her timeline.
Eyes closing as more tears slid down her cheeks, Celestia pressed her forehead against the wall that prevented her from going back any further. After a moment, she took a breath, and turned back to her timeline laid out below her. “This time,” she said to herself, horn glowing. “I promise, Twilight; I’ll get it right this time.”
Celestia looked up in time to see the head of a dragon burst out the top of a tower, the remains of a rainbow fading from the sky. Her eyes widened, slightly.
“That rainbow that filled me with magic I’d never felt before or since - it sealed your fate.”
Celestia looked to the horizon, eyes narrowing.
Maybe it wasn’t an ordinary rainbow after all.
Author's Note
What tags do I even use for this? Dark? Sad? Bittersweet? I don't even know. It's a thing. Have a thing. Enjoy the thing.