The Faceless Princess

The subdued ring of golden hooves on stone, echoing in the empty halls. The soft susurration of a mane that never stills.

The throbbing of an old wound torn open. Another betrayal. Another family broken. And the constant rubbing of the bandage against my furless flesh.

With a sigh, I take hold of the bandages in my magic and peel them away. There’s no one here to see, and the bleeding has long since stopped. I heal fast, but it seems there are some wounds even goddesses can’t recover from. This is the first time I’ve ever hit my limit.

The air is cold against the fresh-grown skin, still raw and pink. Puckered and withered. I don’t need to see myself to know exactly how I look. Magic dark enough can taint anything. Even me. And five thousand years of youth have ended in this.

There’s a mirror up ahead, covered by heavy damask, and I shy away.

But I was a vain pony when I was younger, and the palace is full of reflections. Ancient silver polished to a high sheen, huge sheets of modern glass. Even the bright panes of my stained glass windows are made to throw my own beauty back at me, pale imitations of my light and the rainbow of my mane.

All covered now, curtains and drapes and even bedding from the guest chambers, dredged up and used to smother any hint of the thing I’ve become.

The stone tunnel is dank and dark. Water drips somewhere far behind me, and the air is too humid for comfort. The only light comes from the golden glow of my horn. I stand before the brick wall, and I listen.

“Mother!” She is screaming again. She screams so often now. “Mother!”

It’s been so long since I have been anypony’s mother. I’d almost forgotten what it felt like. The joy of a foal looking up at you, their eyes bright with a new discovery. The warm weight of a trusting little soul in your arms, drifting away to sleep. The magic of seeing them blossom like a rose in spring.

“Mother!”

Now I remember the worst part of it, the only part that matters.

“Let me out!”

The loss.

My ponies are so good. So faithful. I asked for solitude and peace from myself — reflected either in the mirrors or in the horror of their expression — and they have given it to me. But now I wander alone in my echoing palace, isolated as a star in the night, as a pony alone on a barren planet, and I wonder...is this how my little sister feels?

Somewhere in the archives is my first mirror, a small disk of obsidian that we pulled from the earth in the crater that marked our descent. Luna polished it herself, long hours spent scraping it with fumbly magic, so different on this plane from the one we were used to. When she was done she turned it round to show me. Glossy and black as her night, my pale face and rounded eyes the moon within it.

The next corridor is lined with my portraits. One after another, more reflections dressed in the ever-shifting fashions of successive ages. In togas, crinolines, high lace collars. My hair piled and plaited and twisted in a hundred different ways. Only my face is unchanged. Always the same beautiful smile, secure and serene. A pillar for my ponies to look to, a beacon to light their way.

Those painted smiles make me sick. The faithfulness of the artists, the loving labour in every brushstroke — all of it now reduced to lies.

I will have to do what I did with Luna’s portraits. Nine hundred and ninety years ago, though it seems like yesterday. One by one, taken down, wrapped carefully and trapped in stasis spells so they won’t decay.

I thought it best to hide her away, while I waited. Let them forget her, one by one, as the decades passed. Why should all of us wait, after all? Why should all of us mourn, when I can bear the burden alone?

I’ll do the same with my own pictures. Close them up and lock the door. In a hundred years, my ponies will hardly remember that they ever had an unscarred princess.

When you are back, little sister, I said to her last portrait as I sealed the door on her, We’ll hang them up again.

Always when. Never if.

And until that night, I believed it. I worked for years. For centuries. Training myself to wield the elements alone, without her. I did it once. Why not a second time? Purge her as I sealed her, free her from the shadow. But the elements turned from me. I used them against her, when she was theirs and they were hers every bit as much as mine.

When I realised I was incapable I turned to my ponies. In Starswirl I thought I found my answer. But he was four hundred years too soon, and dark magic stole him away.

Now it’s stolen Sunset too.

She was noble, courageous, kind. With enough raw magic to stop a meteor in its tracks. She could have built a team, forged the harmony needed, and saved my sister. In saving Luna, she could have saved me. Instead she’s doomed us both.

They come to me when I dream. Dark faces. Voices whispering in the night. Failures and deaths and losses too numerous to count.

Luna is not here to protect me from the nightmares anymore.

“Celestia,” a faceless creature whispers. “Celestia.”

From behind a brick wall, Sunset screams for me.

The creature steps forward into the light, and I realise that it is me.

I round another corner and come face to face with a pair of dark oaken doors. As sparkling clean as everything else in my beautiful home, glossy and polished to a high sheen. And I see my ruined face staring back at me.

My left eye is amethyst-bright, shining and soulful in the pure white fur of my face. My cheekbone is high and fine. My flesh is firm and plump. I am as I have always been. Glorious. Flawless.

But then the shifting rainbow of my mane moves, and the cavity beneath leers out at me.

Blasted red flesh, scars raised and hideous. A drooping mouth, the muscles wasted and vanished in the dark flames. A mere whisper of flesh left over the skull beneath — and the gaping black maw where my left eye once was.

Like the dark mouth of a cavern, it yawns wider and wider. An endless pit, a black hole. A monster coming to swallow me up, like it took my sister and my student and a thousand others. A curse I will never be free of, no matter how long I live.

It’s more than vanity. It’s a failure, another failure in an endless list of failures. Another loss, another scar that I will bear for all eternity. Luna, Starswirl, Clover, Morningstar, Magnolia, Mistymorn, Sunset. How many more will I lose? How many more losses can I bear? I’ve seen a thousand thousand ponies born, and all of them die. Without Sunset, even Luna is lost forever. My one constant. My only hope of getting her back. Gone.

I stare at the ghoul in the doorway, and my breath is jagged as glass, catching in my throat. I am the face of a nation, and now I have no face.