Twilight Sparkle looked up from the dying friend in her arms, his final words still ringing in her ears.
“Are the stars out tonight?”
And indeed they were, the sea of glittering stars filled the sky, countless diamonds shimmering as dusk gave way to night, an endless backdrop against the crumbled remains of castle Canterlot.
“An army of stars
stand against the dark
The dark glimmers back.
Who could survive the wounds
Infinite cuts of impending nights
The loss of a thousand friends
And yet still the stars
Stand against the dark
Shielding with their light”-somepony, Translated by Shimmer Bright, Collected Poetry of the Sky, Pg 106
Spike was dead.
Despite the gathering there, around his lifeless form, the earth felt empty, desolate, and alone.
Twilight looked out to the stars and reached out with her heart… The very substance of her soul.
She felt she could almost touch them.
They seemed to speak, a silent whisper across their vast array. They seemed to call out to Twilight, to the cold lifeless form of her friend, singing an endless song that had no words, a song of beauty, of grace.
But in truth, there was only silence.
She felt his form grow lighter in her arms, and then gasped as she held him no longer. Where once was Spike, her dearest friend, now embers danced gossamer in the night. They flickered joyously, wrapping themselves around Twilight in a final embrace, before flittering upwards in an emancipated stream, joining the night sky, joining the cosmos and the endless stream of stars.
The throne room was ablaze with Daybreaker’s hellish heat, despite the midnight hour the sun blazed high above the ruined opening that had once been the ceiling.
Spike tightened his grip around his lance. Dragons didn't sweat, and he was glad for it, except in that there was no escape from the disparate heat.
Despite his stature, he stood tall.
Celestia's malignant, twisted form would not see him cower. He gulped. Hopefully, hopefully not.
“Daybreaker!” he called out into the inferno.
Only silence answered him in return.
“Daybreaker!” He called again, “I've come to answer your challenge!”
The wind shifted, and a chill air touched the dusk.
As she lowered the sun to make way for the moon and its myriad of spectral lights,
Celestia watched wordlessly as the embers drifted against the backdrop of the evening, new stars joining the night sky.
There had been an old story told in moons past, about how when all seemed lost the stars would stand against the dark, even where the matriarch had failed. They would find off the impending Tantabus. It was said that the valiant dead would join their number. Spike was nothing if not valiant.
Tears touched her face like liquid fire, and they glided against her slender face, glistening gold to the shimmer of her horn.
Even if the stories were lies, if Spike was truly gone forever, could it all be for not… He had saved her, and in return. Celestia shook her head, refusing to finish that thought.
Evil laughter filled the palace halls, and stone melted in the sweltering heat.
There she stood, a princess more terrifying than any nightmare, Daybreaker ablaze.
“You think you can defeat me? Do you really think your fire can match my own, your beauty, your power?... Do you really think you're more fit to rule than me?
You're a fool boy to think anyone but me can rule, can protect Equestria.”
Spike shook his head and then removed his helmet, sticking it into the crook of his arm.
“No.” he said simply. “But I don't think you want to do it alone…” To his credit, there was only a slight tremble in his voice.
He approached the daymare princess. He looked up towards her with the sincerest expression in his eyes.
He dropped his lance.
“Luna no! “ Celestia reached out with her hoof, and strained with her sparkle, as to her horror her sister plummeted beneath her, embraced by the shadow of the infinite below, never to be seen again.
It was that realization that broke her, to know she would never see her sister again, that she was alone and powerless against the encroaching darkness.
It was that pain that twisted inside of her, that fire, that blaze, it was that pain which melted her heart into stone.
Luna did not go gently into that goodnight, her fearful cries, her screams still rang in Celestia's ears long after, ringing in Deybreaker’s mind an endless echo.
Spike's lance clattered to the floor with a resounding echo.
“I'm sorry about what happened to your sister” he said, before embracing her fiery form with a long needed hug.
Twilight Sparkle skidded into the throne room.
“Spike, no!” but she was too late, as she watched mortified as spike hugged the fiery alicorn only to be flung against the opposing wall, battered and bleeding.
“No! What have I done?!” And Daybreaker, no Celestia fell into a crumpled heap of sorrow and cried out in anguish.
And then there was a blood-curdling silence in the room. Twilight could hear her own heartbeat, her blood in her ears, as she reached towards her battered friend.
The sun fell as Twilight held Spike in her arms.
“Are the stars out tonight?”
For a moment, Twilight locked eyes with her fallen mentor, before wrapping her companion gently in her sparkle so as to not disturb his trembling form as she rushed him from the crumbling towers.
The earth lay cool and silent beneath the low and churning evening mist.
Cricket's hummed in the darkness, and wind rustled through the grass and trees. Lightning bugs fluttered like lanterns hanging against the dark.
Twilight Sparkle looked up into the cloudless night sky and knew she would always remember her friend.
For all of Equestria that watched that night, the sky seemed so much more alive and vivid than it ever had before, the entire cosmos dancing in rapture. A new constellation had joined their numbers.
Spike danced amongst the stars.
