She watches.
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The Sun is Alive.

She watches.

One Hundred and four

I believe I may have lost my mind

I do not know how long I have been waiting to reach the new border. I don't know if there is distance, or if it is possible. I feel as though I will have to wait forever.

Forever is a long time. Even for me... Doubt is a terrible weapon to wield against oneself.

I can see her face. I don't remember who she is, but I remember what she was for. I see colours, fur, a horn. The wings are a dream, I think. She was meant to fix my mistakes, and I only created more. Foolish old mare. I should have helped her, I should have cared more. Only now it is too late for us both.

It's a good thing I can see further now.

Was I too prideful? Maybe I should have thought harder about my intentions.

It doesn't matter now. I have only once reached through the endless abyss to reach my own mind in my relative past. The dividends of that sit within me, the last vestiges of Reality stored away in my core, safe. Maybe once I return from this place, I can remind my Universe what it was meant to be.

I used to be in The Moon.

It was a strange sensation, being submerged in my sisters divinity. Trapped but still conscious within the finite borders of my own imagination. I could still touch upon my corporeal form, but I could not move it, I was watching from outside myself, from outside my own mind, floating around in a folded section of The Skein. I imagine my sister had plenty of time to record and learn to copy the spell that trapped her in herself. At least I was right, and she didn't kill me; wishing to instead exact a revenge consistent with what I did to her.

Then there was magic. I smelt the Harmonics touch on my soul, but they twisted, they twisted oh so wrong. My sister's domain tore and shook. I'm pretty sure I died. I watched myself fall away into Nothing, an Alicorn may be somewhat immune to Corruption, but even I am not powerful enough to resist those forces. Especially not while unconscious. I'm embarrassed to say that the jarring death, and the nature of what it meant brought me to tears. At least, what is closest to the feeling of begging for your body to draw forth emotion to express, only to be greeted with a silent, calculating old mare.

It happens.

I don't know where I am now. I cannot see, I cannot feel, but I am. I can only guess at what has happened.

The worst, most likely.

My sister is dead, like me. My student has been lost or taken. Now I am alone in the Void, the last survivor of my foolish plan, I can still feel the edges of myself. Where I begin, to where I end. I've never been like this before, but I recognize the shape. What a novel experience. Outside is... The Outside.

It shouldn't be in here, not in my Universe. The acrid fog that hides their shame is pulling and prodding away at me, dragging wisps of me away and swallowing them in the dark. That's okay, the dark can have its table scraps, I am eternal.

Though for now, I am tired. I am so tired. I feel like I have done something by mistake, stretched a limb to far.

Expression has fallen away. I can still feel the monsters chewing away at my borders. There's no point in resisting it, my power flows into the Void, that is how it must be. Now that I have some hold over my form I can do something.

There is a problem. I can solve it. I need some way of measuring causality to ground myself.

The practice is only describable as 'tearing.' My thoughts want to slide out of my grasp like tadpoles. A thing like me isn't meant to think or make decisions. Practice through the confines of Nothing, but I can create at will. I can see them already, drifting within the borders of my Light. Hydrogen yields its power to Helium. Helium yields its power to Lithium. Yes, I can work with this.

I need

cLoSeR

Luna? Is that you?

No. No, Luna would not have let our world come to this. Even as Nightmare Moon, she would have stopped this. The dark must have consumed her, just like they still try and fail to take me. I wish I still had the lips to curl and the stomach to boisterously mock them.

Children. You cannot take my soul, you have yet to even see the Diamond Mountain chisel away to you. What hope do you have of cooling my core?

Pain. I feel pain.

Faces. Identifiers of life, no... People. Colours and names and faces. Places. I see them passing in front of me. Has it always been this way? Have I always been alive? It doesn't feel right, the air wasn't air, it was warm. Now I am cold. I want this, experience, I can see it from the outside. It slips away so fast.

Hooves. I feel hooves. I feel Love. I feel safe.

I know her, my mother. How could I have forgotten?

I want to tell her hello, I want to tell her of all of my hurts. She'll listen, I know she will.

I cry. I cry for the first time. I cried and she held me closer, she whispered to me and I learned her voice. It was the only thing I ever wanted to hear. Except I heard another. They sound so similar, why does it ache? When she left, I was scared, when she was with me, I was safe. She was safe.

Who are you?

WhY fIgHt?

Colours. Hooves, places, my horn. Magic. Oh wonderful magic, how I missed you so, I feel the first time I ever cast a spell like it was the last time. I don't know why it brings tears to my eyes, or why I feel like the Sun is bearing down on my fur like it's watching me with pride, I run to go tell her.

No... Them...

She'll be juSt as prOud as I am.

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Seven Hundred and Fifty Nine.

I have to come to the conclusion that I am mortal here.

DiE sLoW.

Even The Sun will wear away with me inside, every time I surface, I can feel my borders just a little further away. I can feel the fuel inside me, it's always just a little bit lighter. I'm ruNning out oF time.

It's odd. Enough to pull me from my insanity. Mortality.

I'm going to die.

I can't find the emotion to feel for such a thought, all I can conceive is revulsion at what I used to be; the very idea of emotion is alien to me now. Despite having to grapple with the dysmorphia and confusion that comes with being changed so thoroughly, I can only believe that is a good thing.

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My mind is running away from me. I don't think I have much time left to do something. They come in waves now, I have been changed. Moments don't pass, my thoughts don't come in order, and when there's silence it stretches and warps over itself. If I hadn't had that pesky habit of narrating my thoughts to myself, then I think I surely would be insane by now.

Eternity came apart.

Space no longer matters.

There's just me. At least I still have that when my own voice doesn't sound the same. Every time I surface from the roiling energy of my own form I'm always myself.

It's enough for me to hold on.

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I dO NoT wAnT tO lIvE. fAlSe WoRlD. fAkE nAmE.

I know I have to do something. I have an immortal mind, but I still fray at my edges. The distance I have to travel is great. Greater than any distance, greater than any time to wait for... something.

I cannot view it all and live as myself until the end. Experience changes those who have it, my only option is to pray that when I lose myself, I can eventually claw my way back. Otherwise, I won't make it to see her again.

To whatever is left of Celestia, I will make sure you see them again, I promise.

I can SleeP now. iT will bE okay.

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I don't know how long I have been here; Time hasn't stopped, it is simply gone, so it is impossible to tell. Only the momentum of cause and effect still carries my Universe's narrative forwards, but even that is folding over itself. Effect creating cause, cause being interrupted by the intent of the Void, coming back on itself.

I haven't been counting. Maybe that was a mistake. I'll label this thought, One. Maybe if I start the habit now, I'll be able to start keeping track. I can barely remember myself, my mind is stretching to fill its container, it hurts.

There may not be a savior for me. Even now, I have still yet to feel anything other than myself and the monsters, pulling away the fabric of Eternity like wolves ripping the scraps away from an already scavenged corpse.

DisgUsting

When I escape from myself, and the prison of my own divinity. I will be coming for you, Void. I will break my bindings and I will find the festering core of your false existence and consume it with nothing but the fire inside me. I will cleanse you from my Universe.

I will myself against the laws that govern what is happening to me.

Luckily the rules are fluid, without Eternity. Tools are at my disposal I've never had before, in this form. I just need time to gather myself, and push through my weariness. To cast my last spell.

pOiNtLeSs

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I see the oceans, and the lands, the stars behind the world. I see my Sun. My Universe, laid out before me.

I shouldn't. I don't know how I know, but something is wrong, something is coming, it feels like my mind is too small, shoved down into my tiny little Alicorn body. There's memories I can't grasp, things that slip away from my consciousness before I can understand.

I have changed too. I don't remember being so poetic. There are parts of me missing, parts of me that can smell the moon dust in the plane of The Skein that lies just before the border. Is this where she was? All those years? Heavens how I miss her, I miss her stupid jokes, and her beautiful star lit mane. Beauty fades over time, but the stars in her divinity never did, not for me at least.

Why am I so sad? Why am I clinging to thoughts of her as if she was lost? I've only been here for minutes, I'm certain. My student still has a chance, my plan should work.

What is happening to me?

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fAlL. lItTlE hOrSe.

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One Hundred and Twenty Nine. Then comes the light.

Of course. The dark could not stand up to me for long. It only took my own tools through time to find the right patterns. I can feel, now. It was an adjustment, matching the causality of the iron in my blood to the knowledge I had received from myself while my consciousness could still grasp the esoteric nature of magic.

I have bent myself to my will. Now in my own control, like always.

So I lift, and I draw over the invisible horizon of Nothing, and bring distance back into the Void. They don't like that, and I can only find myself amused with their petty struggling. The animals burn away in my light, exactly like they're supposed to. I may have accidentally crisped the Diamond Mountain with my attack, which I hope she knows was completely unintentional. Not that she cares, she'll swallow the wound and create tiny little mountains and oceans and life will return.

The Void has yet to yield. Embarrassing.

Creation should have known better than to allow things of this nature to exist, it's a good thing I stand to remind them where they belong. I imagine the things that ran into the dark with wisps of my light were excited, like kids running home with a hooffull of wild berries. Let's see what happens when I give them more of my power.

Return to the Nothing of whence you came, animals.

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Eighty

I have seen the return, I blame the warbling nature of my mind and its connection to the only active structure available to Creation. I do not now how, as it is beyond the borderless nature of time within the Void, but Luna returns. I can see her walls come back around my Universe. I can see the future approaching me through infinity. It has to happen. It has happened.

I'm going to go home. I'm going to see my sister again.

I just have to cross the boundless distance from here to there.

I can do that.

I am eternal.

For the first time in a while, I lax the control over my borders and let myself shine. A little celebration for my eventual victory. The dark no longer tries to take pieces of me and run away into the Outside. Now they know. They see my light and they fear it, as all who threaten my Universe should.

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yEs

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Nine

I see it now. I am what is left of creation. The Void has filled in my Universe and taken to the laws like an adulterer honors their marriage vows. I still have my powers. I can still fight back, so I will. I have a problem before me, and countless centuries to wield against it.

That's tHe way it haD to be

If only I was alive still. My consciousness rips and tears at the only other thing that can fit me. Destruction is just creation, in the long term. I've seen mountains fall into their footprint, only to create the resources for civilization to flourish. These are the things I must remember, these are the things I cannot let the Void take from my Universe. If I am going to return, I am going to have to take myself with me.

I prepare the message to myself, the fabric of my own mind is fluid, like space and like time. I need to enrich my existence with the laws of the old world before they slip from my understanding. Imprint the laws that make up my purpose into my soul where my Alicorn nature meets my intelligence. Then I can enact my revenge on the void.

Things happen, in an order.

Death creates Life.

Energy Is.

So Says The Sun.

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SisteR?

My dear sister. Your eyes, why do they look so empty? Do you want more tea? Are you okay? Why won't you talk to me? Why have I forgotten you? How many numbers is this? Twelve thousand? Sixty?

I should have watched more. I should have seen more. I should have talked more. I left you alone and now I'm trapped on this stupid planet. My wings itch, but I can't fly to The Moon, it's outside my reach, outside my powers.

I miss you.

I had forgotten what tears felt like. I almost don't recognize them, for a second, I think myself sick with some magical ailment. Then I remember because of you, I remember your tears on my face, but they don't belong, it feels like the first time I've ever cried, but my muzzle isn't the right size, my fur... I don't have fur. I feel my life flash before my eyes as something reaches inside me.

SleEp now, it'lL all bE

oKaY

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I'm not going to make it. I've been making up numbers now. Too far, too many thoughts, swirling, I swear I've counted the same numbers hundreds of times over, both real, and the ones I've made up to augment me running out of numbers to count to.

Half of infinity is still forever. I've barely awoken. Consciousness isn't meant to survive like this, I fear that if I fall into my own imagination again, I will not return. The end of this calamity is still so far away.

Just aS far aWay as it was BeforE.

I don't have a head to shake, but I know of impossible journeys. It wouldn't be the first legend I've heard. Not even the first legend I've lived. Anything is possible, that is what The Throne promises, I know I can do this. I know I can make it.

I am Celestia.

I am greater than the sum of my nature. That's the mantle I accepted when I promised to guard the Sun, as it now guards me.

Thank you, by the way. Sun. If you hadn't caught my dying consciousness in the backlash, reached out to collect my essence when The Void struck, I would have been lost for certain.

yOu are LoSt

Oh please, I know you're not alive. Not like me, but can't I try and pass the time? It's not like grabbing me was your choice. You can't choose, and surely without me, you would have been lost too. At the very least, I'm glad to have a companion, even if you are a silent one. Talking to the inanimate is just as insane is talking to myself.

It's only a matter of time before I go back into the depths. I wonder if this is what it felt like for Luna? All those years ago, going deeper and deeper until the dark rises up to say hello. Until your own dreams speak back to you with voices that you don't realize aren't your own.

At least I can have some fun talking to myself before I lose it again. This is the most lucid I've felt in a long time.

Maybe that...

Maybe that means this is the end. Maybe this is the last time I'll surface from my dreams. Maybe I've shown myself my own death.

I know I can't hold on to myself. Time passes now, so thick is the barrier I crafted from my own insanity that momentum is bringing me forwards as time that runs in the future remembers to bring up the moments of the past. How I wish Discord were here. He never cared for time, I bet he would have stayed with me too.

I wIll Snap if I Stay.

So I must go.

If this is the last time, at least I have carried everything I could.

Goodbye.

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FaIlUrE

I watch from the outside. From so far away that it shouldn't be possible to see that lanky white mare with a dirty pink mane lift the sun with nothing but her will alone. I can feel her. I can feel the sun shift and accept me like it's been waiting for my soul this whole time. I know me, and I know me too.

I feel my flanks flash as destiny aligns. A light takes me, which is where the phantasm of vision breaks and tears against the reality of my memory like a dull knife finally weathering its way through bricks after years of erosion. It's not for me to witness. I am No lonGer that mARe.

I've received my cutie mark.

It feels like a hollow promise, like a dream I woke up from. I'm weary from my mission. Even as I flex my wings and light my horn with power I've never touched, all I can do is look around the now gathered crowd, desperate to find my little Luna. My dear sweet sister, where have you gone?

When did I lose you?

Why are you so far away from me?

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Eight billion, five hundred and nine.

My mind is beyond me. Even I can feel the continuity now, there is nothing left, just my dreams. I can see my purpose.

She's so small

Was this how small I was?

Was I ever this cute?

My flesh feels wrong, stretched over something that isn't right. Something that shouldn't fit me, but I don't notice. I'm enraptured by the little star of potential, sitting in front of me in my mothers hooves.

I swear then that I will protect her. That I will keep her safe.

I see her grown. I barely blink, and it's happened.

I have wings.

No, thAt's too fAst.

I have a throne.

StOp

I have subjects

NO. StOP.

Where has Luna gone

sTOP It. I Do NOT WAnT TO SEe THIS

I shake in fear. Something is wrong. I feel her. Luna. Where have you gone? Who has hurt you?

IT WaS ME. I'M sORRY I'MSORRYIMSORRYSORRY

She comes for me. It's what she deserves. It's what is right.

BETRaYER. LET heR TAKE YOU. IT's WhAT YOU dESERVE

The Elements die in my hooves. They know my mistakes.

I cry for the first time. Finally realizing what sorrow is truly for.

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DrIfT

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Dust and gravestones are poor company.

Though they come, from time to time. Like little lights who bear the stars that I remember, but I try not to think about her. Her stars are the only ones that are still beautiful, after all this time.

TimE?

I regret I can't see their potential like you could. The night sky fades away, a tapestry of infinity to a couple of dots on a page. It doesn't hurt nearly as much as losing you. It doesn't hurt nearly as much as having to remember what it was supposed to look like. I hate that I have to see it broken, I hate that I broke it. I hate that it's my fault.

I hatE mysElf

Duty. All I can remember is Duty.

I remember learning. I remember growing, breaking, changing, living, I see invention, I destroy creation, I pass through time like a phantom. I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't but I do. This isn't what she wanted for me, but it's the only thing I want. To see you again. To make up for my mistakes.

I try to fix them with dolls.

Little things that live for days and then fall over, or forget what's important.

Why are they so far away from me? Why can't they just see it the way I do? It feels like the closest person to me is you, and you're so far away that sometimes I think I'll never see you again.

I guess it doesn't matter.

I won't be me when you return anyways.

You won't be you when I see you again.

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wHaT aRe YoU'rE sTrUgGleS fOr?

Twilight?

Yes. Twilight. That was her name, of course, I'm sorry I forgot. She hadS orange fur, and a mane that reminded me of my cutiemark. I hadn't seen it in too long. No... ThaT isn't riGHt.

It was hEr cutie mark, now I remember. Twilight's cutie mark looked so much like mine. I saw the spark in her, like so many others. I don't know when it happened, but I can see the value now. Maybe it was always there, was I the one who created it? Should I have, if I did?

She's a lot like me.

I guess that's where I went wrong. It took killing my sister for me to learn not to be stupid, Twilight doesn't have a family, all she has is me. Why was I surprised she lashed out at me? Maybe I should have taught her how to kill Alicorns, maybe then I could finally see you again.

Except you aren't dead. I know you aren't; I don't believe myself though.

Doubt is a terrible weapon to wield against yourself.

I feel my heart ache, and just as equally, I know yoU are goNe.

Stupid old mare.

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flnghsag Liiht

Lnua, But tehy

PlEh
Lnua,

All I can rbmmeeer

Silence

as you can to Luna. I see lhitgs.

Hlod on as thgit

Don't

maen anythnig whtuoit Luna.

Hlod on. Stars.

Hlod on as thgit

Luna.

Paesle.

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Who are you?

I can feel your eyes on my light. I don't know you.

How do you know me?

Only I should be able to see my thoughts.

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PLeasE hElp US

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I hate this job.

I hate everything.

Maybe I should just destroy it all and try again.

It'd be way easier than giving them free will. It's my choice, after all. They'll all be dead eventually.

Stupid throne. Stupid nobles. Stupid ponies. Stupid old mare.

Worthless. All worthless. All for nothing.

YES

I hate this crown.

This is what I deserve.

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The grass is sweet.

Grazing is normal, primal.

Where am I? What is this...

I have a neck. It rises from the ground, I lose the taste of the golden stalks and the saliva drips from my lips when I realize what it was. I feel the heartbeat, the blood flowing into my brain, the thoughts. The instinct. My flesh is warm, my mind wAnts things. It feels so good, but I am alone. I know that's wrong, there should be someone else. There should be someone.

The flavour and sights and sounds reach me, and they're everything I want. When did the quiet get so loud? Have ponies always been this fast? Are they supposed to be born and put to rest before I can blink? When did it all change?

When did I change? When did it feel so good?

Is this what I was meant to be? Is this what I was meant to see?

Death yields to life, it's true. Have I lived so long that I am dead? What have I become? What have I seen?

The Sun warms my fur, it tingles like electricity and the energy flows into my body and makes me big, thick and juicy, overflowing with a war against Entropy and its associates. It will never take me. That's when I truly understand, and I can't see how I ever saw the world a different way.

When was I so far above the world?

When was it me? Instead of The Sun?

Who am I?

What are these thoughts?

Why are they so loud?

What's this name? That I cling to without hesitation? I shouldn't. Death comes for us all, that's the point. Without it, there's no reason to go on, we create the path when we fall, we create momentum, when we die.

Luna.

I do not know who you are, but I will find you. I'll solve this little riddle, I have countless ages to do so.

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WAKE UP! STUPID OLD MARE!

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It presses against me and I scream, I scream with rage and might and pain and death and loss and hope and dreams and family and life and power and will and hopelessness and determination and

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"Luna?"

The voice says. I can't place why it sounds so familiar. It's a mare, and a voice. Peculiar. Annoying. I hate her.

"Luna! Luna are you there!?"

How could you be both? Fascinating. She stands on extensions of white. She spreads more across the screaming black like a canvas over my light. I can see her insides on the outside. They're beautiful, like rainbows that draw away from her like blood. I want to taste it. I want to rip her to shreds... It's what she deserves.

"Please! Sister can you hear me?"

She's so focused. She's so interesting. Who is this sister? She sounds important, I want to see it myself, at the rate she's going.

"DAMN YOU!"

The mare kept moving... running? She must have been running for so long. She must have not meant to look that way. Stretched and sunken along the edges, sinking into herself. She looked sick, but I watched fire lap from her eyes like fluid as tears that couldn't have flexed against the dark danced in the Nothing in a way only they could.

"YOU WILL NOT TAKE ME."

She said. I shook from the defiance in her voice, I hated her, but I knew she was correct. She had to be. Her limbs were missing, but they returned. She screamed in pain as the dark stripped parts from her, and she brought them back.

"I'm sorry!"

She cried, she was hopeful. Desperate. She dreamed of someone forgiving her. She dreamed that maybe one day, she would be stupid enough to accept it. To finally fall down into the depths of ignorance far enough that she could let even me forgive her.

She pushed on. She hit something, I don't know what. I was enraptured by her struggle. The only thing I could think about.

"I AM ETERNAL"

She screamed as her mane tore. The beautiful colours didn't return. She gave them up for one extra step into nowhere. One extra step into darkness, one extra step on a path of stone that didn't need to be counted. Where was she going? Why did it matter so much?

"I AM THE SPARK THAT COMES AFTER DEATH"

Her eyes burned their last flickers. I watched the powder they burned from sluice out of her eyes as she screamed in agony, she didn't try to bring those back either. She gave them up for one extra step.

"I AM THE BLAZE THAT WARMS THE MOUNTAIN"

Her hooves cracked and flaked off as they melted, yielding under the pressures she was forcing herself under. She was suffering. She was making herself suffer. She threw away her influence. She gave them up for one extra step.

"I AM THE EDGE OF THE SKY, WHEN THE NIGHT HAS FALLEN AWAY"

Her tail burned away in the dark, the endless lack of light consuming it in an instant, she doesn't deserve this. Why do I hate her for it? Why do I miss her beautiful tail and its colours? She won't bring it back. I can tell.

She gave it up, for one extra step.

"I AM ENERGY, FOR LIFE WHEN IT NEEDS IT"

I knew what would happen next. It frightened me, how far was she going to go? How much would she hurt before it was enough? Her heart boiled away in her chest, its nature decorporealising to send her through the motions.

She gave it up for one extra step. She shouldn't have had to. She has already paid her balance in full. This isn't right.

"I AM MY MEMORY. MY LIFE. AND MY FRIENDS"

I have to watch as she gives up her flesh, it flashed with light, swallowed into her body to carry her momentum forward. She gave it up, one extra step.

"I AM THE GLOW THAT BRINGS HOPE TO THE HOPELESS"

Bones cracked and split and exploded into splinters. Their motion swallowed into the darkness as the mare fell apart before me. I could see what was left. I could see her, in all her endless glory. One infinity against the backdrop of another. One mare against all that wanted to consume her.

She was just a blur. She gave up everything she had. She had no more steps to take. No more moves to make. She fought with everything she was, everything she believed in, everything that mattered to her, but it wasn't enough.

I had what she needed.

The king was about to fall.

So I kicked over the board.

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"I AM CELESTIA"

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I can't believe I forgot that. Silly old mare,

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I am awake. Again.

Time is passing.

I am... relieved. I am...

Alive.

I did it.

But why?

Why did I come here?

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wHaT wAs It AlL fOr?

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I rest.

Time passes.

There is no more darkness. Only places my light has yet to touch.

I can see her. I don't remember her name, but I remember she was my home. My mother, and now I see her strength.

Not the strength of the Impossible, or even the strength of my own. The power to create something beyond yourself so entirely that it eclipses your own potential. Was it you? You who brought me here? The idea is alien to me. It must not be correct, but I pull her along in the vacuum anyways. She wants to spin, I can feel it, though it is different.

I balance myself on the vacuum carefully. I don't want to hurt her, or pull her in too close.

YeS. cLoSeR

I remember what it means to create. I know the requirements.

It's only a matter of time now.

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I find myself slowing.

I am. Excited. Curious?

When I awoke, my old home was flourishing again, with everything. I remember the green, I remember it as I touch it. How could I have forgotten you all? The key to life? Destruction. Eating. Even I have to consume myself to continue. Of course they thrive in my light.

I can't help but watch, they're so pretty, so special. So short, so alien. Time itself slows for me and my intentions. I have to see, but I can feel my borders growing thick and bloated with energy too powerful for them. So I have to sleep. I have to sleep again.

I hope I don't miss anything.

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There they are. Were. It's hard to tell, it all blurs together into one idea.

Life. Experience.

I watched them tame their world with will. The learned to use sticks sharper than their teeth, they learned to fight together when they needed to. They stood up against things they should have run from, and worked together to tame the skies and the waters. I can feel the iron in their blood like it runs in mine, they know my way. The way of destruction.

There is no magic for them. Not like I remember now. Our world is too vast, too spread thin. The fabric of reality doesn't yield to those powers, it has learned its lesson and grown beyond that. They don't care, and their tenacity is endearing. They remind me of myself, and still I wonder what I came here for.

They count so hard that they gain access to powers they shouldn't. They use numbers to pull against reality. To learn things their minds couldn't have ever conceived of. They build things. Curious, I remember that, so long ago. There is a way to create that doesn't involve my flame? They carry the will of their mother then, fascinating. How could one so small carry my iron and her thoughts? I've never even seen a single life, they're too short. Like dust in a sunbeam that flickers past your vision, and you never see again.

I can feel myself again.

Pressure.

I have to rest.

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They have learned even more, just like I have.

I can only find myself thanking the mother for her endless trudge of creation. She must be even wiser than I. She reminds me of him. Discord. A name so accurate to himself. I wonder where he's gone, and I miss him, but something else claws at my mind, something I'm forgetting, something important.

They fought one another, when they had nothing left to conquer. They learned of their powers, and brought the most terrifying weapons they could conceive of to bear against one another. I am not worried for their sake, they know my way. They will survive, and become greater for it.

I know when I rest again, I will return to see them prospering. That is the way of things.

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They took to the stars.

My Sister.

My Sister's stars.

They brought them back.

Thank you.

I remember.

I remember it all.

To whoever saved my world. Thank you for bringing my sister's stars back.

But where is she? I cannot see her touch, but I know her. Life cannot be forgotten, only changed. Where is my sister?

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I awaken again.

I remember who I was, and what I came here for.

It has been so long.

Luna. I am sorry, but we will have to wait for just a little while longer. My duty to life has to come first. The Mother still needs my light, my pull.

I shall rest again, deeper, and when I awaken

I will finish what I started.

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wAiT

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My time is short. Finally.

It feels like forever since I felt the endless march bearing down on me.

I am not afraid.

I am going to see her, yet I have one more task before I go.

It's time that I kill you.

Oh yes. I know you. I know of you, demon. What, you thought I wouldn't see you? Find you? You failed at hiding inside my light, masquerading as my thoughts. You thought you could hitch a ride and take what you couldn't get from the masses of your pathetic brethren, but you have made a grave error.

No.

Tremble.

You have wedged yourself in my mind. My soul. My Fire.

There is no escape.

NO.

Prepare to die.

I draw in my edges. The weight of power and stored energy just waiting to fall inwards needed only my guiding nudge to begin the cataclysmic journey. I felt the monster struggle against my bindings, and I can honestly say that if I had a voice, I would have indulged in some polite mocking. It screamed as I exploded, but I wasn't some two bit star, destined to fall into dust.

No.

I would go further.

I pulled, tighter and tighter against the monster, against my core. I pushed and drove my power down over its false existence. I ruptured, and my mind followed. I ripped away the monster's name and burned it to ash, its form writhed in my now infinite light as I bored a hole out of reality and cut the monster to ribbons before banishing its vile remains from my Universe.

Then I saw the other side, and I cried for the first time.