Have you noticed we’ve been gone?
Luna poured a cup of steaming tea from the teapot. It was her favorite blend—slightly bitter with an herbal aftertaste. The Sun lazily cast her rays through the open window, illuminating the modest kitchen. Luna closed her eyes as she did every morning, thinking back to the time when she drank it first, weeks after returning from the Moon. Her sister grew to enjoy it sometime during her absence, but she initially found the taste bland and uninteresting. Perhaps one comes to appreciate it with time, she mused, stirring the liquid in the teapot with an old silver spoon. It was unnecessary; the tea had long since cooled down.
Stepping out of the house, Luna took a stroll through the garden, watering the plants along the way with small rain clouds. They didn’t need to eat, not really, but without the garden, they’d have to do away with the morning tea that they both took for granted.
It’s not like they could buy it from anypony.
She walked through the remnants of the collapsed fence, or rather, through the place where the fence used to stand a long time ago, and let her hooves carry her along the familiar path, avoiding all manner of vines and thick roots sprawling across the road. Cutting them down was a waste of time. No matter how far they went, the plants would grow back in a few short decades at most.
She entered the park soon enough. The crowds inside made further journey on hoof impossible, so she opened her wings and flew to the center of the park. Though there was no natural wind, she enjoyed gliding through the still air. She always did; it was one of the little things she never grew out of. Landing by the chessboard, she noticed another of those little things—a torn and faded page from a newspaper she left here for her sister. The placement of the pieces on the board hadn’t changed since she last visited the place, either. They always took their time these days, letting matches stretch into months. It was far too early to tell with certainty, but Luna appeared to be in a favorable position.
The gazes of the gathered ponies didn’t follow her as she left. They were too absorbed in doing nothing.
The other houses in the town bore little resemblance to how Luna remembered them. Nature greedily reclaimed the territory, trees and bushes taking an inch after an inch like a relentless army. Vines clung to the derelict walls, and larger plants burst inside through the windows, where they could grow over the collapsed ceilings. There was a chance she and her sister could push them back, and for a time, that’s precisely what they did—back when they foolishly believed that keeping things from changing could somehow bring back the world they lost. Luna shook her head. The shallowness of that idea echoed in her every hoofstep as she walked through the rubble from a hundred ruined buildings.
Wherever she went, she saw scores of ponies hewn from the same stone that was once used to build their shelters. They were in the streets and in their houses, poking their muzzles into shops, watching the passers-by from the rooftops, and sticking their heads out from under the ruins. Their number greatly exceeded the population of Ponyville at its peak, but they didn’t represent just one generation. Amethyst Star could be found in the market, reaching out with a stone hoof for stone fruits from her great-great-great-granddaughter’s stone stall.
Luna hummed her latest ballad. It was a tale of a mare bested at her special talent who then spent the rest of her life striving to improve. The song ended with the mare successfully running for mayor—something the real Amethyst never mustered the courage for but always wished she had. It was the most Luna could do for her now, for any of her subjects. A lone tear hit the pavement.
The sound of a chisel striking stone reached her long before she saw her destination. It was not a pleasant sound, but she welcomed it all the same. Her throat was getting sore, and anything was better than the deafening silence of the once-bustling town. She entered a three-story building that looked like it had been ready to collapse for decades. Nothing could be heard inside, barring the creation of a new sculpture. Celestia worked in silence.
"Good evening, sister," Luna greeted her.
"Evening?" Celestia didn’t interrupt her work. "I suppose I’ve been here longer than I planned."
"We’ve both been here far longer than any of us planned."
"That’s also true." Celestia put away her chisel and sighed. "Is there something on your mind, Luna?"
"Yes, you are. You’ve been slipping up." Luna walked to the unfinished statue. "Who is this supposed to be?"
"Don’t you recognize Bon Bon?" Celestia raised a brow.
"Well, don’t I?" asked Luna. "She prepared the sweets for my first Nightmare Night. But—" She tapped a stone protrusion on the unmoving mare’s head "—I don’t recall her having a horn."
"She’s not—Oh." Celestia hung her head.
Luna wrapped a hoof around her sister’s neck. "She was dear to me, too. Perhaps more than anypony else, given how much I—no, we—how much we owed her and her friends."
"We’ve raised them dozens of statues and composed hundreds of songs, but ultimately…"
"Vanity of vanities," said the princess.
Celestia raised her head, looking into the distance. "Have you ever wondered why—"
"I have."
"And?"
"Because that’s all we can do." Luna turned away and continued in a shaky voice. "Because when you raise the Sun, there’s nopony left to see it. Because when I enter the dreams, the corridors are all empty. Because… it’s only the two of us now, Tia."
The sisters stood there wordlessly, in the silent company of a thousand statues looking at them with a mixture of longing and surprise. The two alicorns weren’t all that different from them.
