Chapters Celestia rested her head on her silk pillow staring at the top canopy of her bed. It was not particularly interesting, just fine made silk with bits of gold leaf woven into it for the hell of it. Celestia was not staring at it because she was generally interested at this boring sight. She was staring at this canopy because it helped try and put her mind at ease, her thoughts were troubling her and prevented her from entering the blissful realm of sleep.
'Am I a god?' She finally said out loud, breaking the hour of silence she had kept. It was that question that had plagued her all night. She could just not get it out of her head and she just didn't know how it had even gotten there in the first place.
Ever since ponies were first around the idea of a god or creator had always been thee, dwelling in the background of Pony thoughts and culture, but the great scholar Starswirl the bearded was the first pony to ever give a proper definition. He claimed that if there was a god it would have three traits: Omnipotence,Omnibenevolence and Omniscience. All Powerful, All loving and all knowing.
Celestia pondered these words, mostly in the attempt to get some sleep. She groaned and rolled her eyes bringing her hooves to them rubbing them carefully.
'Let's just get this over with brain.'
She started with Omnipotence, shouldn't be too hard.
She looks at the table next to her luxurious bed seeing a small portrait. She examined it to see.....him. Portrayed on the picture was a stallion with a deliciously well combed brown mane, his whole body appeared to be made from real gold, shining in the sun outside what appeared to be a Shisha bar in Saddle Arabia with a charming grin on his face. Celestia sighed, it was difficult even after three hundred years to forget the charming Earth Pony.
'Oh Autumn Wind......Why did you have to leave me?'
He closed her eyes as if by doing this all tragic memories of her love for the stallion would vanish and as soon as her eyes opened again he would be standing right infront of him with his trademark grin ready to melt her icy outlook on love.
This of course did not happen stressing her statement before. Not matter how powerful she was no matter how many ponies had kissed her feet in an act of fealty to their lord. She was not all powerful, and try as she might she could never bring Autumn back even through days worth of magic on his lifeless corpse nothing could bring him back to embrace her once more. And soon she knew Cadance would befall the same fate. When Shining Armor's mortal body ceased to function Cadance too would grieve and try with all her might to bring him back. But she will be unable to save him, and will be unable to end her life either so that she might find some consulation in the fact that their souls may meet again. And Celestia would only be able to watch as her fellow Alicron wept and mourned for the passing of her one and only love.
Celestia felt a tear run down her cheek as she looked back at the canopy of her bed. How many other ponies had she watched die, knowing that she would continue on while she would have to stay their until even their tombstone were dust. All those servants, friends and proteges she had come to know were all dust and bones who she would never see again. Her eyes began to leak as she laid her head back, wishing nothing more but sleep but her mind kept her painfully awake. She still had some questions to answer.
Celestia closed her eyes tight her mind digging for that final word.
Omniscience.
Celestia closed her eyes tighter as if trying to stop water her eyes while swimming. She then opened them revealing eyes of nothing but pure rage as she charged up her horn about to obliterate her room. At the last moment however, before she sent the room to oblivion she stopped the horn's charge and sighed and just lay on the bed sobbing uncontrollably.
'IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED STARSWIRL? DID YOU DO THIS TO SPITE ME? WAS THIS YOUR WAY OF PROVING ME WRONG?'
She closed her eyes again letting the tears stream down. She pictured the aged wizard laughing at her, satisfied that his ideas of Godhood had thrown the princess off her moral high ground into the land of depression below. The wizard had always been bitter in the last years of his life of the princess when he was denied the chance to be an Alicorn when his ideas of magic without friendship were defined as foolish by Celestia. Now it seemed that his ideas of Godhood were just a ticking time bomb that was devised to upset Celestia. She began to think of the word, again trying to forget Starswirl and his grinning, patronizing face.
As she thought, it was not good examples of how wise she was and how she had averted hundreds of disasters using her wisdom and foresight. Quite the opposite. She remembered quite humorously that time she did not foresee that the so called famous chef from Manehatten was actually a famous prankster who filled the whole banquet at a festival in Canterlot with laxatives. The sewers were clogged up for weeks.
She remembered the time that time they had been building a house inside Canterlot. It was a massive building project and many workers and architects had come from all over Equestria to build it. It was going to be a hi-tech forge for the Equestrian military . She had even visited the site many times before the disaster. Nopony knows what really happened but the scaffolding collapsed sending it toppling to the ground. Of course the ponies on top of the scaffolding were slaughtered, but so were the ones underneath. As well as ponies who were killed by bricks that fell from the scaffold. Celestia could not remember how many had died. However it was in triple figures.
Could she of predicted that? Could she of appeared at the last moment and prevented the scaffold from falling and killing so many of her loyal subjects. Or was it darker then that. maybe deep down in her subconscious she had known what was going to happen, but some sick part of her didn't care, or worse to pleasure in the butcher of those poor ponies.
Her mind turned to Luna. Her beloved sister. Had she foreseen her fall from grace? Had apart of her subconscious wanted her sister to fall?
She screwed up her eyes and thought of the present.
Would I be able to see the signs before she falls again? If she does fall again that is?
She rolled over closing her eyes tight again. At last it fell apon her. Sleep. Precious, needed sleep.
Her sleep was undisturbed by pleasant dreams or nightmares. Her unconscious world was a void, just like her feelings at the moment and just like her position. She was neither a God nor a pony.
She was nobody.
Celestia tried to remember what the next word was as she wiped her crying eyes with her blanket. The thought had been in her head just a few moments ago but now it had disappeared like a show off magician with smoke bombs. Finally she tackled the fleeing word.
'Omnibenevolence.' She said aloud in almost triumph.
She then began to think about the word, carefully analyzing the word as if she were a jeweler studying a gem. She said the definition out loud.
'All loving and all caring, one of Starswirl's ideal traits of God.'
She then thought about the word deeper for any comparison to her. At first she thought that maybe she was this. Her subject loved her, during her reign her acts of charity and liberal policies had earned her many friends. Maybe this was the trait that she could actually relate to. However it all went crashing down as she looked at two small words that were carved into the canopy that she only just saw.
Don't Forget
At first she looked confused, wandering which maid she would have to punish for such an act of vandalism till she remembered. It was her. She had wrote that on the canopy. Why she had written such a remark down was slowly becoming clear to her.
It was about a two years ago. There had been an orphanage in Canterlot that was funded by the state. Originally it received money for what ever it asked for such as beds, food, heating etc. However a scandal came out that the orphanage had secretly been using these funds to spend on alcoholi and parties for the owners of the orphanage. Celestia herself had condemned the action and banned the Orphanage from getting any more funds. Then there had been a fire in which all of the orphans died in. Worst of all a few days before that the orphanage had begged for money so they could buy much needed fire extinguishers to this Celestia had personally said no.
'Why couldn't I of forgiven them?' Asked Celestia bitterly.
She had ever right to be bitter about it. She felt as if the deaths of all those orphans were in her hooves had she forgiven the owners of the orphanage they could of had the fire extinguishers that would of saved those children. Celestia closed her eyes tightly as her mind started to sting from the events she was remembering. Was she really to blame for their deaths?
As this came out more and more examples of her harshness came into view before her. She had banished her own sister to the moon for a thousand lonely years for a minor crime, was she even a good person at all? Could she of forgiven Discord sooner? Was is hatred of ponies her fault?
She closed her eyes as tears streamed down her face.
Only one word to go.
