Two alicorn princesses stood side by side on a mountaintop. Princess Luna admired the sunrise, as it colored the sky and spilled light across the landscape. "It's a very primitive land, but I've always found it quaintly scenic."
Beside her, Princess Celestia nodded. "And what excellent cuisine. That salad we had for dinner last night, with the olives and the little fishies? Simply scrumptious." She looked down at an abundance of hills, with rocky slopes planted in rugged-looking olive trees, and somewhat greener patches in the valleys between.
Celestia glanced back at her sister. "So what's on the schedule for today?"
Luna levitated a clipboard in front of her. "First thing this morning, I signed us up for a winery tour. After that...there's supposed to be some kind of festival in the city."
Celestia remarked, "I always enjoy the happy ponies at the Summer Sun...I mean, the Festival of the Two Sisters. I wonder if this festival will be as pleasant?"
Luna shrugged. "We'll find out soon enough. But first, the wineries!"
***
"Winery number six is wonderful!" Celestia cheered. "I'm feeling mellow! Top me up, amphora bearer!" She reached out with one forehoof, clapping the servant boy on the shoulder. He staggered, almost dropping his multi-gallon clay jar. Wine sloshed out, some of it landing in the large glass drinking cup that Celestia levitated in front of him. "More wine, boy!"
Celestia floated the cup to her lips. "Down the hatch!" she shouted, and gulped another cupful. "Aaah! Thash the good shtuff!"
Luna's eyebrows rose apologetically. "I'm very sorry. She isn't usually like this."
The boy smiled. "Even if she's already drunk more wine than any fifteen men could without collapsing, I'm glad she's enjoying it. She's a lot happier than my boss has been lately."
"Oh?" Luna asked. "What's wrong?"
The boy's eyes darted from side to side. "People have been talking a lot about wine lately. Mostly, complaining about ours?"
"But why?" Luna asked, as the boy refilled Celestia's cup again. "When I tasted your wine earlier, I thought it seemed very good."
"There was a wedding. The wine there was better than anyone had ever tasted before. People used to tell my boss, 'Your wine is the best in all the land, Shmuel!' But now people say, 'Why isn't your wine as good as the wine at that wedding? You should go ask that winemaker to teach you how to do it right!'"
Celestia gave the boy a royal look of command, and he poured again.
"Hmm," Luna said. "A wedding should be an occasion of joy. I'm sorry that instead, it has brought your master sorrow."
Celestia shouted raucously, "Seven ish the lucky number! Who catered that wedding? We should visit THAT vineyard, to top this winery tour off properly!"
The boy looked around again, to see if anyone was eavesdropping. He whispered, "The caterer who provided the wine was a man called ben Joseph."
Luna asked, "Where can we find him?"
The boy whispered, "I heard, because of his fame he was taken into the city. The Romans have had some strange ideas about how to add to the festival." His eyes darted back and forth again. "To keep myself out of trouble, I should say no more."
Celestia shouted, "If anycreature can make wine even better than you've brought me, it would be a miracle! So let'sh go see--" Luna put one forehoof over Celestia's mouth.
"Hush, sister. You're shouting so loud, you could almost raise the dead." She dragged her fellow alicorn away, stopping only for a moment to pay the vineyard's overseer with a few gold coins.
***
Luna and Celestia flew high over the city, looking for the festival.
"Look at the crowd!" Celestia pointed with a forehoof. "That musht be the place!"
Luna's eyes followed her sister's gesture. She squinted against the sunlight. "I...am not sure. Something feels wrong."
Celestia brayed with drunken laughter. "Hee haw! Hee haw! What could be wrong at a feshtival? Feshtivals are happy times!"
"I tell you, we should be wary of that place. I have a bad feeling."
Celestia snorted so hard, a nearby cloud blew away. "Party pooper." She pointed again. "Look! They're having a race!"
Luna peered down doubtfully. "Three humans, each pulling a large, wooden cross over one shoulder. That looks unpleasant."
"You know whatsh wrong with you, Luna? You're LAZY! You're the kind of pony who likesh to sleep all day! You jusht don't understand the sacrificesh creaturesh will make to be the besht!"
Luna shook her head. "We should not hurry down there. In that place I feel...a danger that could imperil even a god."
"Fine!" Celestia blew a raspberry at her sister, spewing wine breath. "We don't have to go down INTO the city to watch the racesh. The view ish better from up here anyway."
Celestia watched the three moving figures. They looked like ants...not only because they seemed so tiny from high above, but also because they pulled heavy objects longer than themselves.
Luna's ears swiveled, trying to hear what the people below were saying.
After a few minutes, Celestia spoke. "I wonder where that caterer ben Josheph is. Do you think he'sh watching the racesh too?"
Luna frowned. "I've been trying to listen to the conversations down there. And it sounds like...I could be wrong, but...I think one of those three people dragging those big wooden crosses IS ben Joseph?"
Celestia's eyes widened. "Thish ben Josheph ish SHO TALENTED. The besht winemaker in all of thish land...remind me again of where we are, again?"
Luna reminded her sister.
Celestia enthused, "And Benny ish a big athlete, too!" She held her forehooves up on either side of her mouth, and shouted with her Canterlot Voice's careful diction and enormous volume. "Hoooray for ben Joseph!"
"Sister!"
"Go ben Joseph! Ben Joseph is my favorite! Ben Joseph is SO WONDERFUL! Ben Joseph is the BESHT! YAAAAY!"
Celestia turned her face towards her sister. "Do you think he heard me?"
Luna hissed, "I think the ENTIRE COUNTRY heard you, Celestia. Creatures are staring!"
Celestia shouted, "Yaaay! I love ben Joseph! Ben Josheph, I want to have your foal!"
In the city below, people pointed and gazed upward in amazement. Even the three people pulling their crosses slackened their pace.
In a more normal volume, Celestia said, "Oh, fooey. Now they've stopped racing. We should go down there and apologize for dishturbing the racesh."
"Yes," Luna said in a tight, sarcastic tone. "If we just go down there, nothing more could POSSIBLY go wrong."
"I'm glad you agree!" Celestia zoomed downwards towards the broad, crowd-lined road that led to a city gate.
"Oh...ME." Luna followed the other alicorn partway down, but slowed before she reached the ground. "Maybe it's safer to watch from up here."
Minutes later, with wings spread wide, Celestia alighted upon the paving stones in front of the three cross-bearers. She looked very graceful. Only somecreature who knew her very well, like Luna, could possibly guess how drunk she was.
"Excuse me," the gleaming white alicorn said. "Is one of you ben Joseph? I have an apology for you."
The man on the left end smiled. "I am ben Joseph. Although I am called by other names, too. Some even call me the King of the Jews." He shrugged.
Celestia nodded a greeting to him. "I am SO SORRY. I know I've caused you so much inconvenience, distracting everyone."
The man chuckled. "That's quite all right. To some, your actions might look like interference, but I'm sure everything will go in accordance with the prophecy."
"What prophecy is that?" the alicorn asked.
"Don't you worry. Everything is taken care of." The man reshouldered his cross, and started dragging it down the road again. Roman soldiers looked back and forth between the man and the giant winged horse from the sky, blinking in disbelief.
A Roman sergeant said, "Maybe there's been a little mistake here. How about you put that thing down, and we go talk to Pilate again. Or we could go straight to King Herod's palace. I'm sure he'd want to meet your...flying horse."
The cross-bearer stopped pulling for a moment. He replied straight-facedly, "What's wrong? Getting cold feet?" He snorted. "Don't worry. Everything will turn out as it should. Even though you might not see it that way, at first." He looked away from the sergeant, and returned to pulling the implement of his own death towards the city gate.
"Such dedication!" Celestia said. "Ben Joseph, you are truly the greatest athlete ever!"
The man laughed. "I don't ask to be crowned with laurels. I'm playing a greater game, for more important stakes."
Celestia blinked. "So this isn't an athletic contest at all?"
"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. All three of us go to the same hill in the end, and it matters not which of us arrives first."
"I have completely misunderstood this festival," Celestia said. "May I...help you with that local handicraft you're carrying?"
One of the other cross bearers sagged under his load's weight. A soldier reached towards his own hip, as if to strike that bearer with a whip or the flat of a sword. Ben Joseph gestured at the staggering man, and said, "You may help him, if you wish."
Celestia's horn glowed, and the convicted thief's burden lightened. The man walked no faster, but at least he didn't fall.
Celestia walked alongside ben Joseph. "You have given me such a puzzle to think about, with the three racers who might or might not be swift, and why it doesn't matter who gets there first. Perhaps I shall remain silent for a time, while I ponder your riddles."
Listening from high above, Luna said, "Thank...Celestia. For the first time this morning, she might finally shut up and use her brain instead of her mouth."
***
As Celestia and ben Joseph neared a hilltop outside the city, the gleaming alicorn said, "How fascinating! You gave those people such interesting answers, when they asked about divorce and tax law."
Ben Joseph shrugged. "Sometimes you have to be indirect, and make people think for themselves a little. If you try to answer every question in the most foolproof way possible, the next thing you know, someone will figure out how to be a bigger fool."
Celestia laughed. "Spoken like a true king...oh, sorry. Again, you don't claim to be anything of the sort."
Ben Joseph smiled silently.
"Oh, of course. No direct answer. Making people think for themselves."
Ben Joseph looked at the ground before him. Three stands planted in the dirt and rocks had one hole each, just large enough to support a cross like the one he'd dragged all the way from the city.
"I apologize," ben Joseph said. "This next part...you might find it very unpleasant to watch. Not as painful as I'll find it, but...some things are necessary. Surely you, as a reigning monarch, have sometimes had to do things you didn't enjoy?"
"Surely," Celestia agreed. "But what IS the next part? I don't understand this at all."
"I suggest you return to the city. Or at least don't watch. I can tell you are a gentle soul." He smiled wistfully. "A place where a monarch can hold true power for so long, and not be hardened by it any more than you have been...it must be like a paradise. A place with more goodness, and less sin. A realm where your subjects have never fallen to the depths that we humans have."
"What are you talking about?" Celestia asked. "The humans in this place call you a king, and I have found you perfectly delightful."
"I cannot make you leave me now," the man said. "But if you keep watching...you'll find out more than you want to know."
A soldier approached. "Enough yakking, your royal highness. I don't care what kind of ridiculous creature appears on your very special day, but if it doesn't want to rescue you, I'm not gonna rescue you either." He scratched his head. "But I'll tell you what...if you want to go last...I can do that much for you."
Ben Joseph shook his head. "I ask you to put up all three crosses first, before you place any of us upon them. I have a matter to discuss with the thief first."
"Whatever you say." The soldier took ben Joseph's cross away from him.
To her credit as a strong monarch, during the next quarter hour Celestia didn't scream, not even once. She didn't even vomit.
As more minutes passed, she looked upon the soldiers playing dice for ben Joseph's clothing, and wrapping twigs from a nearby thornbush into a crown for his head. Among the people who had followed from the city, a few of his enemies jeered at him, "Who will save you now, you pretender? You charlatan?"
But as did many of the other onlookers, Celestia silently wept.
After a little while, Celestia said, "Enough." She looked up at the creature who bore his pain almost silently, with only intermittent gasps. "You told me to let this be done to you. You said it was...NECESSARY."
Struggling for breath, the Crucified said, "It...is."
Celestia slowly turned, looking all around. The Roman soldiers, having learned that Celestia would do nothing to them so long as the condemned forbade it, smiled nervously, or shook in their sandals and clattering armor, or did some of both.
"Somehow," Celestia said to the soldiers, "You have power in this place, over this creature who I think is better than any of you, or than all of you together. But you will learn, I am not without power myself."
Celestia's horn glowed brightly. In the sky above, the sun's face dimmed, and turned black. The sky went dark, and the stars came out.
"As long as this man remains condemned to death, and is tortured in this way," Celestia said, "the very heavens shall protest, and mourn for him as I do."
***
Three hours later, the condemned said, "My Lord...why hast thou forsaken me?"
Hearing this, Celestia bounded towards her new friend, her horn lighting up to rescue him. But as she tried to support his weight, to spare his nail-pierced flesh...she perceived it was too late.
Death had taken ben Joseph.
Celestia rolled up into a ball, her legs and belly downwards, her face pressed against the hill's dirt and dust.
A few minutes later, a woman approached Celestia's shoulder. "Great One," she said. "If you darken the sun forever...have you brought the end of the world? Is everyone to die now? Or shall the sun return to us?"
Celestia blew air through her nostrils. She lifted her muddy face out of the dirt, and looked the questioner in the eye. "Yes," she said. "Of course."
A moment later, the sun brightened, and pale blue sky hid the stars once more.
Beside Celestia, a midnight blue alicorn's hooves touched the earth. "Sister," the alicorn said, "it is time for us to go."
Celestia's wings unfolded and flapped. She rose from the hilltop, into the heavens.
"I am so sorry," Luna said to the humans around her, both living and dead. "It is not my place to interfere, much as I might yearn to." With powerful wingbeats, she followed her sister skywards.
***
On a barren hilltop surrounded by desert wilderness, Luna and Celestia watched the reddening sunset.
Luna said, "I am so sorry. I had intended an innocent little vacation to help my sister relax. I did not intend...anything like THIS."
Celestia had recovered much of her self-control. Her eyes were now perhaps TOO dry. "I understand completely, dear sister. I know you love me more than you love anyone. And yet..."
"And yet?" Luna's eyes narrowed slightly. "And yet what?"
Celestia sighed. "As horrible, as tragic, as that poor creature's fate was...yet, I have been given much to think about."
Luna grimaced. "I suppose that is true."
Celestia nodded. "Next time I complain about my job..."
"You have every right to complain about the unpleasant and horrible parts of your job, dear sister!"
Celestia snorted. "I'm sure that's true. I'm only a pony, after all. And I can only be expected to bear so much, at least with grace. It's not as if I were a god."
"Do you think it's true, then?" Luna asked. "What a few of the gentiles are saying about ben Joseph?"
Celestia shook her head. "I am not fit to judge."
Author's Note
I wondered whether to use the Crossover tag, or if that would confuse people even more.
Another interesting crossover, which I highly recommend, is Undome Tinwe's beautiful "Passion." (link)
