I have known you. More than anypony or anything else in this vast universe, I have known you.
You have known me. You expected me to be like this and I expected you. Could I call it a betrayal? Could you? We knew what would happen. We felt the twist of the knife well before even the steel that made its blade had materialized in the cosmos. I knew what would happen. Why, then, do I dream of fire? Why do I dream of your eyes alone, your face wreathed in flame?
You seem so sad in my dreams.
Do I seem sad in yours?
I would think I must. Anguish follows me still, haunting these crystalline halls. I suspect Anguish has replaced the spectre of Death for they both know Death shall never claim me. The sun will see me taken back into her roiling inferno before anything else in this world or the next.
I have been tracing this spiral ever since I was aware of its nature. I have seen our mutual descent, albeit through different eyes, dozens of times. Did I think about it then? Did I ever try to stop it? I cannot know. There are some parts of this infinite past that remain hidden from me. I will search for them when you go. I will know every part of us that time has tried to obfuscate. I promise you that.
I hold onto you, gripping your trembling frame with what’s left of my strength. We’re both spent; exhausted. Days spent awake, searching for a cure. A remedy. A knife. You suggested the last one. Insisted that if She could not be dealt with through kindness then you would see her cut out like a tumor. Like one cuts around so much rot.
Perhaps that is why She returns, time and time again. You are so, so cruel to yourself. I’ve seen the scars, I’ve seen the blood pool in your shoes and speckle your bedclothes. It hurts to see but I cannot blame you. There are nights that I lie awake and think, my heart devoid of dreaming; I think about what it would be like to be me without Her. What it would be like to be us.
We could still live together. We could still love and be loved. You would still fly and I would still practice magic and nothing else would be demanded of us. I would love you like the sun loves a flower and you would love me like the moon loves the ocean. We would still dance as celestial bodies do, round and round and round, but that’s where the playacting would stop. We could’ve just been ponies.
You threaten to smother this world in darkness. You say, not entirely incorrect, that it deserves as much for the way it’s treated us. The way it’s treated you.
I say that I’d sooner see it burnt to a crisp than smothered. You seem aghast. I chuckle and stroke your mane. I feel it too, little moon; I hear Her just as much as you. The little ponies did not choose this fate for us, however. That decision was made well before their time. I do not resent them for needing shepherds. I do not resent them needing a scale to meter out the good and bad in equal parts.
Just as I do not resent you, beloved. This spiral is not of your choosing. This darkness that even now clouds your vision and poisons your speech is not what you want. When you come back I promise to stop it. I will scrub it out, if I must bleed myself empty to do so then I will. I will never allow this to happen again. If I must see us both consumed in fire to accomplish this then I will make it so.
There is no pain great enough to stop me from loving you, sister. ☉
Can you ever know me? Can you ever truly say we know each other, if the fates deign to keep us apart? I spiral darkly down, circling ‘round your perfect beauty, and fall further from the grace of your light. It is the only thing keeping me tethered to this miserable little rock. Were it not for the warmth of your touch and the pull of the earth I would cast myself free from this place, never to return.
I say this and you insist that you’d follow me. Would you really leave them behind? I know it’s cruel of me to question your love, your loyalty, but I must ask regardless. I know the answer just as well as you do. Your place is with them — It always has been. Just as my place is slightly removed, kept in the quiet shade of memory reserved for lesser bodies.
I have been fighting it. I want you to know that. If you know nothing else of me after I’ve gone. I have seen the darkness that laps at my fetlocks and pulls my wings down to my side and I have fought against it as best I can. I fear it has a hold of me already. I fear that perhaps I was born in its clutches and I shall die in its grip and I will never know a moment that isn’t soaked in inky blackness.
I have learned that immortality does not inure one to any sort of painlessness. I have learned that, even as wounds close and broken bones snap into place and torn tendons resew themselves, the pain is still there. The pain never leaves. Would you let me hurt if I said it was to feel closer to the little ones? Would you let me bleed if I said it was my attempt at living a life stolen from us?
I know She positions herself as our enemy but isn’t she me, in a way? Isn’t She both of us? Or do I misunderstand why you cry, late at night when you think nopony is awake to hear you. I think She is more like us than anything else in this life or the next and for that reason alone She should be shown some sort of understanding. She should be shown some sort of mercy.
I have dreams where I’m not a princess. I have dreams where you’re not a princess either. We live together and love together and our lives are full of the delicious complexity that should always be a part of a pony's life. I dream of parties and friends and jobs that don’t demand you kill the ones you love. Jobs that don’t demand She kill you. Jobs that don’t demand the death of every living thing.
I threaten to smother this world in darkness. I am not incorrect when I insist that it deserves as much. Do you see what it has made me into? What it’s made us into? You say you’d sooner see it all burn than choked to death under infinite night. I feign surprise and you chuckle. It is good to hear you laugh; one of the very few good things left to me. You know Her too. She is different in you than She is in me; more headstrong, more brash. The ponies are lucky to have someone as kind as you to guide them.
I think you’re lucky. You have the light instead and the light has you. You can shield your eyes or seek shelter from the brilliant sun. I am mired in the murky depths of a destitute soul, too far down for even a shred of sunshine to penetrate. The only light that finds purchase in my psyche is you, dear sun; only you have ever broken through. It is through your gift that I see at all and when you are gone from my side my vision leaves me stranded.
Please, sister, do not leave me. ☽
