Everything Ends

Chapter 2

A Family 'Til The End

White snow fell from the night sky, highlighting the sky in the occasional twinkle of light reflecting off the flakes, if not for a single second.

"Tears of the Princesses, sparkling from the moon, Luna's child," Eclipse said to no one in particular. In fact, she was still sitting outside waiting for the others to finish gathering supplies. The town around her groaned for mercy, to be put away from it's miserable existence. "Isn't that right, Luna?" she questioned, looking to the moon, barely visible behind the cover of snow. Her eyes shined from the light entering them, illuminating her beautiful violet eyes, the pain they suffered washed away by the cleansing light of the moon.

"Sugarcube, what are ya'll doing?" Applejack asked, shattering the silence like a thin sheet of ice.

"Just admiring the beauty our Princesses left for us," she replied, sighing happily as the wind blew her mane every which direction. "You know, that place I awoke... It was the only place with was grass left. Even though it was cold outside, I was so warm. I believe to this day that Celestia was there, next to me, cradling me in her arms, protecting me like a lost child."

"Well, that was... deep."

"Nothing deep about it," she lightly replied, her voice sweet and caring. "Our Princesses are gone, but yet they never left. In our hearts, they still live on, protect us as they always have. And they always will."

"Look," Applejack sighed, "I don't know who you are, or if we can trust you. But if you really believe that, then you and Twilight are two of a kind, so you're good in my eyes. Just please, for Twilight, refrain from mentioning them around her. She took their loss hard and never got over it."

"Everypony did. I wasn't there for it for all I remember, but even though I wasn't, I still hear Equestria's screams of sorrow from losing its protectors. Our land is still only a baby and those Zebras ripped its parents away from it, took the bottle right from its mouth and forced it to grow up."

"Alright, enough with the personification," Applejack groaned.

"It's not personification if the land is alive. But some ponies just weren't to ever understand, so I'll keep to myself."

"Yeah... You do that," Applejack replied, backing away to the library.

Eclipse stood and shook the layer of snow that covered her back and made her way to the library. Not because she was cold, nor feeling lonely. Rather because she felt, deep inside her, that she was always meant to find this library. What fate meant for her to find, she'd never know until she looked. Until now, she had simply hid in the shadows, hoping that one day somepony would just tell her who she is.

"-all I'm saying is that she might be working with the Zebras," Rainbow said, her and the rest of the group just around the corner. Quickly, Eclipse hugged the wall, listening to the conversation.

"If she was, don't you think she would have already called them in?" Eclipse hadn't heard this voice yet, but it sounded more ladylike than the others.

"Maybe, but she could easily be getting on our good side then leading us into a camp of theirs!"

"Quiet, she'll hear you," Twilight scolded. "I know you're only trying to protect us, but we have to learn to start trusting our fellow ponies. It's the only way we're going to survive here."

"Just look at those things on her hoof! You expect me to just believe she killed a Zebra just like that and stole their boots? Even I'm not that heartless," Rainbow snapped, growing angry at her friends trying to defend a stranger. Eclipse allowed her mouth to droop to a frown at being called heartless. Sure, she wasn't the nicest pony to ever exist, but she wouldn't call herself heartless.

"Enough, Rainbow. What do you propose we do? Use your head. If she is indeed working for the Zebras, which I highly doubt, then she'll just tell them we are hiding out here," Twilight explained, trying to remain calm with the hardheaded Pegasus.

"I know that."

"Look, if it will make you feel better, we can leave her the moment she starts to do anything suspicious."

"We can't just abandon her out there in the cold," a kind voice said. Eclipse peeked around the corner to see who had spoke, revealing the yellow one with the pink mane standing up looking around at her friends. "What happened to you all? Before all of this, none of you would have even thought of abandoning a fellow pony."

"Fluttershy, we-"

"I'll leave right now if you all want," Eclipse interrupted, stepping around the corner. She glared at each and every one of the ponies, each of them looking away from her judgmental gaze. "I've survived this long alone. I don't need any ponies that don't trust me next to me," she growled, immediately turning around and making her way outside.

"Wait, Eclipse! See what you did, Rainbow?" Twilight chided, chasing after the offended pony. She stepped outside and quickly looked left to right, searching for any sight of the mysterious mare. Her eyes quickly locked onto the figure walking away from whence she came, her hood up. "Hey, wait!"

"Look, I said I'm leaving, alright?"

"Don't listen to Rainbow, she's just a little hardheaded is all." Eclipse stopped and swiftly turned around to face Twilight.

"It's not her, alright? I was listening to you all, and I just got to thinking... I'm always running into trouble, problems that have a good chance with me ending up dead. I don't want to be responsible for anything happening to any of you. I'd never forgive myself is all."

"We can take care of ourselves, you know." Twilight explained, trying to give some comfort to the depressed pony.

"It's me that can't take care of myself, Twilight. I'm on a steep slope down with the only thing at the bottom being my death." Eclipse turned back around and looked over the white field, the clearing night sky with its sparkling stars. "I'm careless, dangerous even. Those three Zebras... I could have easily escaped them. But you know what I did? I killed them in cold blood, just because I could. You know something else?" she asked, turning around once more to stare Twilight in her eyes. "I'd do it again in a heartbeat. That's why I had second thoughts."

"Look," Twilight said, putting a caring hoof onto Eclipse's shoulder, an amount of care she had never had before, "I'm not saying it's good what you did, but it was probably necessary. Killing is never anything us ponies ever dreamed we would ever do, nor something we ever thought was a reality three years ago. It was nothing but absolute peace back then... But that's just not the way things are anymore. Never will I approve of killing, but neither will I judge anypony for killing either."

"Will you hold those thoughts in your head even when you are the one that just claimed a life?" Eclipse asked, "It's always that first time you take a life... You see the pain in their eyes; their begs for mercy piercing your heart. Those wounds never heal, so you as yourself: can I carry on?"

"I'm sorry..."

"There'll be plenty of time to be sorry. But not for me, for yourself. Whether you like it or not... there will be a time when you have to kill. It'll stay with you forever; you will lose sleep, wish you could take it all back." Eclipse sighed and looked up to the stars, the sky completely clear for the first time in days. "Each day I tell myself that I'm a monster. And each day... I die a little inside."

Twilight began to open her mouth to say something, but instead just remained quite and looked sheepishly at the ground.

"There's nothing glorious about war. Each death is needless, but still each side wades on, never relenting until they die. On the battlefield, you don't think about any of the lives you end... the families they have that will never see them again. But when you go to sleep, you see that very family, crying at the loss. The child that gets to see his or her father or mother again.

"These Zebra's aren't heartless. I've snuck by a few camps, heard a few of them talking about how they too wished things would return to the way things used to be. Neither of us want to fight this war anymore, but we have a choke-hold on each other... If they withdrawal, we'll retaliate, then it will be their lands that suffer. But if they continue on, our lands will soon be gone. So we do the only thing we can... We fight."

"Do you think things will ever return to the way they used to be?" Twilight asked, her voice choked as she tried to hold back tears from the horror of the situation.

"Only time will tell," she said, slowly walking away from Twilight.

"Wait!" Eclipse stopped as Twilight called out to her. "I don't care if your dangerous, or even if you've killed hundreds of them. We're in this together, so please, stay with us." Eclipse sighed and turned back around, looking at the mare as she smiled lightly.

"You'd really have me? As a friend?"

"No, not a friend," Twilight replied.

"Then what?"

"A family member." Eclipse perked up as Twilight smiled. And for the first time since she woke up in that ditch, she smiled. Not a dead smile like usual, but a genuine smile. For the first time in her whole life, she was happy.