Carry On

Open Sky flexed her wings in the environmental powered armor she wore, looking up at her namesake. It wasn't so open, though; more like her, it was clogged with dust and rocks, and had a beating heart of a sun, massive and overpowering. The joints in her armor were, thankfully, clean of grime. For once, R&D had actually listened to a request and installed filters...

That small comfort did not disquiet her uncomfortable fear as the wind swept around her, a small tornado of earth lifted up and tossed straight in her face. It rippled past and up, snapping around and pushing on the pegasus.

However, that was not what was bothering Open Sky. In fact, looking on the bright side, wind was the least worrisome thing of all. Totally nothing to worry about there. It was more the sense that she might be obliterated in a second by some unseen force of magic or technology that would burn her hooves to nothing and leave her with no children, no spouse, many regrets, guilt, never having gotten drunk (surprising enough on its own) and in general not experiencing life to the fullest.

Still, shouldn't really be that bad... right?

Her pistol came a little closer to her body as she waded through the thick, clouded fog of loose soil. As it spun, it clung to Open Sky's suit, mottling the deep gray armor with brown freckles. The visor remained mostly clear, however, thanks to a wiping laser that vaporized any debris.

She pushed through the whipcrack of the air, driven like cattle to the slaughter. Her shepherd didn't seem to have any specific direction, though, and it pushed Open Sky some distance from the pod. It was marked with a handy tracker beacon, thankfully, so losing the location wasn't that much of a problem.

Soon, though, as her fears calmed slightly, the trek became very boring very quickly.

What was she supposed to find out there, anyways? Open Sky had kind of wanted to go out, but that was just because... it was something to do. At this point, it didn't really seem like a great idea. What with the wind (which was beginning to slow) and the threat of random and violent death or any other fate this wasteland held, the adventure seemed more like a death march. Seriously, It wasn't like she was just going to stumble upon--

Holy crap, was that Princess Celestia?

It certainly looked like her. Well, sort of. It reminded Open Sky of her history books and the pictures therein--though the creature before her was smothered in a drab, inescapable red. It looked like someone had sat there throwing mud at the Princess for the million and a half years the other ponies had been gone. The immaculate white coat shone through, however. It glistened in a strange way, as if dense perspiration had built up on the alicorn. It almost shined like a diamond, were it not for the caked soil and earth dulling it.

At that point, Open Sky felt an immense sorrow. Here was a poor old mare who had been living since the beginning of time, and might meet her end in but a few months at best. Immortality would be a most terrible and horrific curse. She imagined to herself the extreme pain and suffering Celestia had endured for so long. Open Sky's only consolation would be that the agony would be done soon.

All the same, however, she tensed up and shifted her weapon warily.

For a moment, they stood together like that. A dying goddess and a frightened soldier, and their eyes spoke to each other. The first seemed mildly surprised, and a little confused. If anything, however, she was almost amused. As for Open Sky, her back hoof slipped back just a tiny distance. Her yellow irises twitched a little inside her helmet's clear faceplate. At a word, the tense trigger would plunge back and singe the alicorn a little more.

"Hello."

The word seemed both to echo out forever, spiraling out into the emptiness of space, while at the same time halting immediately. It came out clearly and evenly, but with a tint of uncertainty, as if it had been cooped up for so long it did not know what to do now that it was free.

"H-hey," Open Sky stuttered. Her weapon remained unholstered, but swung down, with the barrel nearly tapping the ground.

All of a sudden, a single tear crawled down Celestia's face, gripping with all its might to the rock wall it had fallen from. The salty liquid brushed away a line of dirt, desperately trying to find a hold, but meeting only tumbling stones.

The Princess only noticed it as it spilled from her face, and her head snapped down to watch its fall. A hoof shot out, to catch the falling star, the last one. It slipped out of her grasp, and with a sharp but soft inhale, she saw it die.

Plop. It shattered across the barren land, the only water the place had known for so many billions of long minutes; hours; days; weeks; months; years.

So many years.

It was then that Open Sky understood exactly what kind of pain the half-dead creature had suffered. Princess Celestia. She didn't look very regal. It was certainly nothing like Open Sky had ever seen before.

The eyes were the worst part. Before they seemed somewhat pleased at finding another pony out here in the endless plain. Now, only a look of anguish graced them, a supreme glare that called for mercy and revenge at once. For a moment, shooting her right there seemed like it might be a service to the poor old thing.

A sob racked the body, and all the pegasus could do was lock stares with those begging eyes, those eyes that bore into her soul. Those eyes that must have stopped even the relentless wind with their horrible misery, and as the gale thundered to a closing crescendo, it looked over to the wretched thing before it.

If, prior to the coming moment, the wind had not been beaten by that angry, enraged, deploring stare, then it was certainly thrown aback by the wail of overwhelming agony that came. Open Sky's blood rippled as the cry came, hateful, simply rage, then felt it snap her to pieces when it broke into a sob.

After everything, all she had ever endured in her hundreds of millions of years of life, from the beginning of time, Princess Celestia broke then, on seeing just one more of her subjects.

Just one reminded her of all of them.

Their faces were emblazoned on her memory, branded in. Sometimes, she'd forget one. But they always came back.

They always came back to her in her mind. Carrying on the endless struggle to die with her.

The suddenness of the whole experience was frightening, horrifying, spectacular, and beautiful to Open Sky, all at once. A feeling of total empathy met her, washing her down like the disinfectant shower aboard the Morning Star. She was with her ruler then, finding her strengths and her sorrows.

Once the yelp became wailing, then crying, then dry sobbing with sharp breaths, Open Sky administered her metaphorical morphine.

"It's okay. I'm here now. I'm here," Open Sky said, dropping lower to cradle the head of her righteous monarch in her hooves. She didn't really know what to say. What could she say, to this infinite being of light? What could she do, even? Bring her back to the shuttle? Take her away from her heart, take her from the only home she had ever known, take her from the depths of her being and soul, rip away anything, everything she had left, what little there was? Leave her there, in the empty, desolate plain that was the end?

Kill her?

How could she make that call, the executive decision, the uncaring stamp on the late library book? Could she be an executioner? It really seemed to be what this pony wanted. Celestia was practically dead already. Emaciating her to nothingness with the laser would be a far faster, less painful death than literally having your soul explode, and being caught in the resulting firestorm. Taking her away would be even worse--not being with the last thing the alicorn owned when she died. Open Sky deliberated, stroking the remains of a once sparkling mane on the last prisoner of death row.

Sand crunched behind her, and her head snapped up.