For over one thousand years, Princess Celestia ruled over Equestria as its sole monarch, raising the sun and moon each day and night, and protecting her citizens from any harm that threatened them. It was lonely. Even though she was constantly surrounded by her ponies that loved her, she was alone. Those advisors or guards over the years that she had been close to all faded away, their years catching up to them in the blink of an eye. After a while, she decided that there was no point in getting too close, as they would all leave her soon enough, and make that hole in her heart grow even larger with the grief that came with loss.
It had taken her almost a thousand years to reach out to another, one she saw to have the potential to become an alicorn, immortal like herself, or at least with a much extended life span to match hers. The mare in question, her name was Cadence. And it was wonderful to have someone close again. She had missed it, simply talking to one without a mask to hide what she felt underneath. But she could not replace what she had lost.
Her sister had been banished by her own hoof a millennium ago. Banished to the one thing she loved the most, and Celestia only prayed that she would not despise the heavenly body once she returned. Returned. It had been so long, so many years of blocking that memory out that she had nearly forgotten that she would not be alone for much longer. That was...if she was able to find ponies that could wield the elements and purge the darkness that overcame her. Nightmare Moon. Had she forgotten her sister's name? No. She couldn't have. It was beautiful, just as she was. The Moon. Her sister's name was Luna.
The school of magic that Celestia had constructed in the years prior seemed to be the best place to look for a magically inclined unicorn strong enough in power and in heart to have the elements accept them. Sunset Shimmer had been the first beacon she believed had the ability to do so. She was strong, incredibly so, and was determined to get even stronger. But that power was enough to corrupt her heart into the pursuit of more advanced knowledge than what she was ready for. Her desire to be liked, her inability to understand that she couldn't have it all, was what brought her to her own downfall. She could have, no, should have tried to handle the situation better. Sunset had betrayed her trust and disappeared into a mirror that would bring her to a new world. She was likely to never see her again. She should have seen it coming. This had happened once before. The signs were there. But Celestia was good at driving others away. It was as if her loneliness did not want to leave her alone.
Her second attempt, however, went much better. A young filly named Twilight Sparkle. She had abilities much like Sunset, and like Cadence, the potential to become an alicorn if she stayed on the right path. She could not lose this chance again. She tried harder than she had with Sunset, making friends with her and raising her, rather than just being her teacher. It had worked. But she still refused to make any friends. The ones that she did have, she ignored to pursue her studies. And while she was not as demanding with her advancements, she did not want Twilight to end up like Sunset. This time, she noticed the signs, and tried to stop them before another pony close to her fell into the clutches of darkness.
And it had worked. Twilight had been sent away from her to make friends, to start her life anew in a different town under the guise of preparations for a festival. They had found the Elements of Harmony, now their new bearers. And her sister had been freed. She wouldn't be alone any more. She had found the cure.
They were all back, it seemed. Luna, her younger sister. Starswirl, their teacher, and the old pillars that once kept the world from harm. Discord, Spirit of Chaos, was free. Even Tirek, as awful as he was, had made a return. After one thousand years of loneliness, she wasn't alone anymore. These ponies had known her before her perfect image that had been meticulously crafted over the years for the ponies of the land.
But none of them had really been gone, she realized. Her sister that she had banished was on the face of the moon that she raised every night, staring down at her in all of its beauty, reminding her that she was still there. Discord had been a stone statue in the gardens of her castle, reduced to a mere decoration of symbolic nature. But he was always there, listening. Had he heard her, those nights in the garden, when she would cry for the ones she lost by her own hoof? Did he find delight in the chaos of it? He had always tormented her for being too straightforward. The Pillars, while stuck in Limbo, were always around, the in between, everywhere and nowhere all at once. She had not known where they had vanished too. They had disappeared without a trace. Tirek was the only one who had not been gone, unconscious the whole millennium, trapped in the dark cages of Tartarus for his crimes against the nation in its early years. At least, she had hoped he was the only one that was conscious the whole time. Discord in his stone sleep, being unable to move. Luna, in layers of a prison in her mind, body, and place, desolate without anyone or anything there but her own rage and loathing.
Were they just as lonely as she had been? Stuck in exile while she had been free to do whatever she wished, power over all under and within the sun. She had been trapped in an exile of freedom of her own doing. They had been punished for crimes they committed against her values. That's all they had been doing, following their own beliefs. Loneliness was a deadly curse, searching for anyone it could. No matter how she looked at it, she had been alone, they had been alone. Together, they had all been alone. So close. Yet so far.
It was what she had learned. From those past thousand years.
