//------------------------------// // Chapter 5: Final Segment // Story: Twelfth Equestriad Interview // by Jordan179 //------------------------------// "Ready for Final Segment ... lights check ... cameras check ... three, two, one, now!" Once again the reassuring, distinguished pale-orange face of Cutting Question, framed in its well-coiffed silver mane, filled the video frame. "Cutting Question here, with the final segment of this very special edition of Canterlot Comments." The view cut to reveal the two Alicorn Princesses on their settee. Luna Selena Nyx and her consort Twilight Sparkle face the camera, with expressions of calm resolution, such as Luna in particular might have directed toward an approaching, potentially-hostile army. Twilight Sparkle looked superficially-friendlier, but anypony who knew her well would realize that she was a bit tense. *** "She don't seem too happy," commented the elderly Earth Pony stallion. His light-yellow face looked at his wife with some worry, his features framed between increasingly wispy, flyaway locks of long gray-and-white streaked hair that had once been two-toned green. His dark green eyes retained the lights of kindness and intellect which had won that wife's affection, long ago before the Wars, when they had been innocent children at play in her family's orchards. "She's not," replied Applejack, frowning. There had been a time when she'd been bigger than him, with the quicker physical growth of fillies, and then a time when he'd surpassed her stature, increasing to the full size of a rangy stallion, while she had remained compact, though hard-muscled. Starting three and a half decades ago, she had begun growing again. She was now as big as her brother Big Mac, and considerably stronger. Her husband Landscape was almost insubstantial next to her, but it didn't bother either of them in the slightest. They were just glad to be together again, after their decade of forced separation. Even when Applejack Ascended, the obvious potential problem had seemed merely potential. They were in their thirties, and with modern medicine Earth Ponies routinely made their centuries. Of course there was a war on, and they both had to fight in it. And not all wounds are visible. *** "Your Highnesses," Cutting said. "Everypony knows that you are good and wise rulers of Equestria, and we are your loyal subjects. But since the War some Ponies have pointed out that as Alicorns you are not actually one of the original Five Kinds, that you are in fact of a Kind which was created by Cosmic beings who were not Ponies at all, but took the form of Ponies to better interact with Ponykind. How would you describe your claim, then, to rightful rule over Ponykind? Would it be literally divine right?" *** An elderly Unicorn mare sitting surrounded by books hissed with mingled appreciation and apprehension, as if she had just witnessed a really good play in a hoofball game ... by the other team. "Someone on that show's read Smirk's books," she commented. "And that was a bold move, given what he always wanted to provoke. I wonder if they know that?" "Basic public-debating tactics against Imperators," pointed out the stallion who sat beside her. "Ambush, goad, and see how they react. Even a slight scent of tyranny now, and they'll be paying for it politically for a long time to come." He sighed sadly, as if at a memory. "We wanted to hurt the Alicorns -- once," Moon Dancer said. "Times change," her companion said. "For some, more than others." *** Anger flared in the depths of Luna's blue eyes, and something even deeper, something the cameras couldn't catch, but from which Cutting Question recoiled with a look of visible fear. "Had we not come to ward ye --" Luna began, slipping into outright Old Equestrian in the grip of her emotion, and she stood, dark blue wings flaring. Her star-filled mane whipped wildly in an unseen wind, her horn fluoresced ... Dragons had fled from Luna in that mood. To his great credit, Cutting Question merely cringed. "Dearest friend," said Twilight Sparkle, placing a hoof gently against Luna's side. "Let me take this one." Luna's head whipped around, and for a moment she glared at her consort. Then the anger faded from her eyes, her wings half-folded, and the fluorescence faded. Her mane settled, and she seemed again merely an especially large and impressive Pony. "Of course, my beloved," said Luna. Then, looking at Cutting Question, who was now shivering slightly. "Pardon my passions. They can run hot at times." Cutting Question gratefully nodded. "I was born Pony," began Twilight Sparkle, "and until the age of twenty did not suspect myself to be anything more. I am in my first life since connecting with my Cosmic Self, and that Self was born with me. It is, as much as such a Being can be, Pony writ large. "But I have been at the Cosmic Level," she continued, gazing intently into the camera, "and I know what it is to be Cosmic as well -- know it as well as any Pony, even an Alicorn, can ever know, for the Cosmics are truly far beyond us in intellect and power. They are the very Concepts by which the Universe is organized, while we are merely life within that Universe. "They are essential to the Universe. They protect the Universe and all who dwell within it, from forces that would destroy all Creation in ways which even I find difficult to comprehend or explain in plain Equestrian. The Shadows were but an external threat; were the Cosmics not, there are internal contradictions which would tear apart All that Is through rampant Paradox. "Over two thousand five hundred years ago, two Cosmics chose to be born as Ponies. They did this not to rule us, for at the time they had no design to claim any Realm. They did this because they loved us; they cherished what we were as unique and special in the Universe, and they wanted to help us and guide us back out of the darkness into which the world had fallen. They did not pretend to be Pony. They were Pony. One of them still is Pony. "Celestia and Luna might have simply left North Amareica to fall into anarchy, with Ponies suffering under brigandage and war. Instead, they created the Realm; they unified Equestria from dozens of squabbling feudal principalities; they brought peace and enlightenment; they taught the Harmony that we enjoy today. And they never claimed to be divine, nor to rule by right of such divinity. Rather did their claim rest on necessity, and the acclaim of those they ruled. "Though Luna rules now as monarch, she is quite aware that all rightful rule rests ultimately on the consent of the governed. She rules only because she knows she has this consent, that she is your beloved Ruling Princess. She is no tyrant; in fact her history is littered with the would-be tyrants she has vanquished. Were she a tyrant, would you have even dared to pose that question? "You may one day withdraw that consent; she may one day step down. But if and when this happens, you had all better be ready to put a better rule in place of hers. And -- good luck finding anypony or any assembly of Ponies who could rule better or more justly than Luna Selena Nyx! For once she lays down the yoke of rulership, you may find it hard to persuade her to pick it up and once again draw the Cart of State!" Twilight had spoken clearly and distinctly, she had covered the subject well, as if she had been lecturing a class, and she was a very good teacher, having learned the art at the hooves of an even greater one. Nevertheless, was she perhaps a little stiff, a little overly-formal? A generation who had grown up since the War, who increasingly valued style over substance, was judging her. *** Applejack winced as she noticed this. "Aww, Twi, yer not being honest with them. Yer leaving too much unsaid. Too much that anypony knows, anypony who's studied on your past -- or Luna's." "Give her credit," pointed out Landscape. "She's been ambushed, she's speaking in public, and she only has so much time. It's like it was when I was walking into an enemy Hive: you'd better talk fast or they'll just cut you down. And you have to choose yer words pretty careful. She did pretty good, I reckon." Applejack extended a wing to enfold her husband. "Ah suppose you're right," she admitted. "Ah'm being too hard on Twi, because Ah always expect the best from her. But she's caught twixt a rock and a hard place there, trying to head off Luna's temper and answer that question at the same time. She couldn't really give them a full answer. Ah don't know how Ah manage to be a halfway-good politician, when we wind up in spots like that." "You're a good politician on account of you care, and you speak the truth, and you know how to keep from speaking on a subject where you can't speak the truth," Landscape said, leaning into his wife's side. "Folk trust you. On account of you don't betray their trust." "It's never as simple as just telling the truth," Applejack grumbled. "Guess I knew it wouldn't be when I became a Delegate. I ain't got no cause to complain, really -- I knew what I was letting myself in for." "That you did, Jackie," agreed Landscape, gently kissing her neck, eliciting a faint happy noise from the orange Alicorn. "That you did." They settled down to watch the rest of the show. *** "Very well said, Your Highnesses," commented Cutting Question. He looked relieved -- perhaps that Princess Luna had not executed him on the spot. Not that she had been known to do anything like that, but he had seen real rage in her ancient blue eyes, and it had not been until he actually asked the question and saw her reaction that he realized how close the very question had come to open sedition. It had all sounded better when the staff had hammered out the list a few days ago. "Thank you," said Twilight Sparkle. Luna remained silent, but she nodded graciously, and the fire in her eyes had faded. It had clearly been but a momentary lapse -- though given her power both magical and political, a terrifying one. "Now a question on policy. It's well known that the Realm officially supports research into life extension technologies. How far do you intend to go with this? Do you believe it is possible for Ponies to live forever? And would it be good if they could? What about overpopulaton? Boredom? What about the role of death in making us value life more? Should Ponies live forever?" Cutting Question got through the very long question very smoothly, using his skilled voice as a tool to keep the two Princesses listening, and his larger audience engaged. *** "That's silly," said the blue-eyed, extremely pink Alicorn watching the show. "Who wouldn't want to live forever? There'd always be more parties and more fun things to do with your bestest friends!" She turned her head and looked fondly at one of her very bestest friends with very special benefits -- the friend she'd married. "Hey, no argument here," replied Cheese Sandwich. Age had been kindly to him; it was as if at each decision point when his body might or might not have handled a particular insult to its chemical and anatomical architecture, his body handled it. The causes of aging are mostly hidden, and mediated by molecular-level interactions, ones small enough that quantum effects are not entirely irrelevant. These are the sorts of processes easily affected by the power of reality-warping. And Earth Ponies are in any case a long-lived Kind; even in the days before the Wars and the huge technological advances they brought, they often lived to be 100, and the occasional Earth Pony would survive to 150 or even 250 years old on sheer toughness. So, it was not that strange that Cheese Sandwich, born almost 68 years ago, looked and felt as if he were still in his mid-forties. Everypony who knew him suspected the reason why -- they knew of the powers of his wife, Pinkamena Diane Pie, the Alicorn Thalia, Pinkie Pie, the Joy Bringer and Most Beloved Pink Daughter of Paradise. They also noticed that Pinkie's parents were still remarkably spry for a mare in her 80's and a stallion of over 100. Though none of this actually contradicted known plausible reality. None of this created significant Paradox. Pinkie Pie had plans for her parents' 500th wedding anniversary, and she fully intended to use them. She figured that by that time, one or more of the many immortality projects would have succeeded long ago, easing the drain on her powers. And she wanted Cheese Sandwich to be right at her side when she threw that party. *** For a moment, it seemed as if Twilight Sparkle was about to repsond to this question as well. "I will answer this," announced Luna. There was a brief flicker of annoyance on Twilight's face, but she deferred to the senior Princess. "First," stated Luna, "it is of course possible for Ponies to live without definite end, both because any pattern can be endlessly remade, and because I was born over two thousand five hundred and fifty years ago and yet still live and breathe this studio air. "Second," she continued, "there are diverse ways to do it. Unfortunately, we do not know how to transform everypony into Alicorns. My Sister and I were born Alicorns, for reasons which do not apply to most Ponies; and Twilight and her Companions went through very rare and difficult Ascensions, which could not be readily duplicated and which I doubt most Ponies would survive. Celestia prepared the ground very well so that they did survive; I cannot claim her mastery of transformations, and have no wish to kill a group of admirable and worthy Ponies figuring out how she did it. "However, there are several other paths we know to be possible and probably practical. We are researching them all. We have already managed to greatly extend Pony lives -- my Sister had in fact already accomplished this to some degree simply by improving sanitation and medical care in the centuries I spent in exile -- and we think that within a half-century we will have doubled Pony lifespans; in a century, we will have achieved full biological immortality. "Third, as to whether immortality be desirable ---" Luna peered intently into the camera. "I ask ye all, for the next day, would ye rather live or die? If you would rather live another day, woud ye not answer the same for a week of days? A month of weeks, a year of months? And so on, on to decades, centuries and millennia? Clearly, you do each desire the continuation of your own lives, increment by increment! "Fourth -- the opposite of Life be Death -- and make no mistake on this: if ye do reject the extension of a Pony's life, where pratical, ye do condemn that Pony to an early and needless death. Ye well may deem this a tolerable fate for other Ponies, ones ye know not, ones that are to you mere numbers, competing with you for the goods of the world. Ye should mull on this: if ye deny immortality, that same doom of Death shall come to your friends, your families -- and your own selves. "As to the problem of the multitudes, of a throng in which there is birth but little death -- yes, if we were all mere animalcules growing in laboratory dishes, we would be doomed to misery as we ate all the food and used up all the jar, and then perished amidst our own wastes, unable to fare any further. A sorry fate, to be sure. "But we are not animalcules. We are Ponies! We have minds, and we can judge whether or not we can provide for our foals, and on this decide whether we shall conceive them. If our worlds be too small, we can find new ones. We need not be limited to just one Earth, or even just one Solar System, we can and shall make ourselves at home in the whole Universe. Our lives are a blessing, not a curse, upon the common weal! "To be sure, we must not fear Death unduly. If we live our lives in terror of their ends, we can neither do our duties to our own selves and others," her face grew stern as she contemplated this, "nor enjoy that which is sweet in them," at this she looked upon Twilight, and her expression softened. "And this be true whether we live a decade, a century, a millennium ... or more." She looked once again directly into the camera, her jaw resolute. "I have led Ponies into battle. I have sometimes had no choice but to hazard their lives --" she frowned, "-- aye, and too often at long odds, for t'were the only road to victory, to the warding of our homes and foals. Sometimes Death must be risked, sometimes lives lost, to gain a greater good. This is sad, but true. And some of those lives lost were ones dear-beloved to mine own self." She was looking past the camera now, to battlefields forgotten by all others save military historians, upon corpses who had once been friends. Her ears drooped, eyes closed briefly, a moisture glistening under her lashes. Then she opened her eyes and gazed directly into the camera. "But never," she said, "never have I in sound mind and full knowledge simply thrown away those lives entrusted to me. Never would I march my Ponies into holocaust, for no better cause than that I felt I had of troops too many for ready provisioning! "That is what t'would be were We -- knowing it both possible and practical for Ponies to live Undying -- to instead decree that they must die, beause we found it too weary a task to change our laws in such wise as to avoid sudden overpopulation. Did I do this, I would be the most bloody tyrant ever known, for I would thus condemn all my subjects to death! Has any ruler ever been so cruel?" She smiled. "Nor am I, Princess Luna Selena Nyx, that cruel. I reject Death, and choose Life -- for my subjects as for mine own self -- and would rather suffer the problems presented by messy, living Ponies, than be the keeper of a lich-field, be it the most tidy and pretty lich-field that ever was!" As she said this she rose, and flared her wings, her expression defiance, and stamped her hooves, as if to challenge Death to personal combat. Spontaneous applause erupted from the studio audience, startling Cutting Question with its explosive intensity. Ponies rose and stamped their hooves in response, shouting "Luna!" and "Life!" Luna clearly could have started an insurrection then and there, had not she in point of fact been the Ruling Princess. Luna bowed to her audience and camera. The cheers grew deafening. Then she sat down, and smiled. Twlight's eyes shone with admiration as she gazed upon Luna. As the cheering died down, she spoke: "And of course, the benefits of our anagathics will be extended to all the races of the Earth, rather than being kept for Ponies alone. For reasons of biology Ponies may be first to benefit, but the principles on which we conduct our life-extension research are universal to all Earth life and some of them universal to all conceivable life forms." She smiled. "I have a little brother I'd like to keep around for a good long time, thank you." Laughter in the audience. Cutting Question knew he'd just been upstaged, and by both of them. He didn't mind. He knew this would happen when he'd invited them on his show. He was glad they'd come, and glad that they were making this the best show of his whole career. *** "Oh, very good, Luna," said the blue Alicorn, "and nice save, Twilight." Her horn glowed, and she swept back her ethereal mane, which was of a blue so light it was almost white. In it glimmered the stars of imagination. "But you'd better get moving on that research. Some Ponies can't wait fifty years." Her wings, which glistened with all the colors of the rainbow, and some which existed only in her own imagination, fluffed with agitation. "It won't be in time to save me," pointed out the very old gray Unicorn stallion. "We both know that, and it isn't anypony's fault. There's no point blaming Luna. Or Twilight Sparkle. They're doing the best they can." "Shut up!" the Alicorn said, turning angry eyes upon her husband. "Do not say that! Trixie does not want to hear that!" "We each get our time on stage, hon," Piercing Gaze replied. "Mine's almost done. I've had a good long run. And the best possible leading lady." He smiled at her, and in his intense dark-brown eyes flickered the fires that had drawn Trixie to him in the first place, almost half a century ago, when he had been the owner of the Hippodrome and she merely a strolling player. She could almost ignore that his black mane was now stark white, but not as easily ignore the terrible gauntness of the once-muscular form she knew so well, its former solidity now wasted by repeated cancers. "Trixie does not want to end the show," she said. "Trixie ... I still love you. I will always love you." "And I'll always love you too. I'll just be in the audience." Piercing told her. She embraced him, and enfolded him in her rainbow wings, and the tears flowed freely down her lovely face. What was the point of being Great and Powerful, for real, if all one's Great Power could not save the one who mattered most? In her forelegs, Piercing was so light, so frail, as if any stray wind might blow him into dust. He returned the embrace, and she could feel the discontinuity of his prosthetic hoof, the one he'd lost saving her from the Night Stallion in that last fight, the one in which Trixie had finally killed -- to save Piercing. She knew that the Shadow taint he'd taken in her own defense had weakened his system, made it easier for the cancers to come, though at ninety, that might have happened anyway. But every time she thought about it she felt a little flare of rage, that anypony should have dared to maim her sweet love! She would at that moment have killed the Night Stallion again, and again, and again. She would have killed Death Himself, if she might have done so. It was not fair, but Trixie was not at that point in a mood either just or merciful. "Yeouch," said Piercing, and Trixie realized she was hugging him too hard. Fool! she lashed herself with guilt at her thoughtless action. Piercing needs comfort, not pain! She relaxed her grip slightly. He sighed happily, and enjoyed the embrace. So they held one another, the immortal Alicorn Trixie Lulamoon, and her all-too-mortal husband, as the screen continued to flicker and the show, as always, went on. *** "One final question to finish the show, and it's for both of you," said Cutting Question. "What would each of you say is the most important thing to remember about Princess Celestia? What would she want for us if she were still here?" Luna and Twilight looked at each other. Luna gestured with her head, and Twilight nodded, and leaned forward. "I'll answer first," said Twilight Sparkle. "What I remember most about Princess Celestia was her kindness. She was burdened by all the cares of state, she didn't have all the help that Luna and I have because there were far less Alicorns back then, and she faced all sorts of dangers in her future that she knew were coming and dared not yet reveal, so nopony could comfort her when the pressure mounted. And yet she always had the time for an encouraging word to me, I saw her be gracious and loving to so many other Ponies, and she always tried to help in even the smallest things. She held absolute power, and remained yet uncorrupted. And I think it was because she was kind: she did not have it in her to become a tyrant, because to do so she would have had to become cruel. And cruelty was simply not in her nature." Her eyes were misty. "I don't know where or what she is. I know that she ended her life as a Pony as soon as she rose into the sky at the end of the Last Battle and began growing and changing -- we all saw it -- became some impossible vast creature with so many horns and hooves and wings, something utterly alien to Ponykind -- and yet something that loved us. We all felt that, too. She should have been horrible, but she wasn't, because that Love meant that she was instead glorious and wondrous beyond all comprehension. And she destroyed the Second Shadow Armada, almost casually, with such strength that it's almost incomprehensible in our terms, and passed through the Rift, and sealed all the Gates behind her so that the Shadows could never hurt us again. "And then there was this great disruption on the other side of the M-brane. The gravity waves rippled even across the dimensional barrier; on the other side there was an energy release equivalent to a thousand Solar masses being converted into energy in an instant. The most titanic astronomical event we've ever directly detected, aside from the Big Bang itself. On the other side -- nothing could possibly have survived such an explosion. Compared to that the Cataclysm would have been a firecracker to a sunfire bomb. And we've never seen the Shadows again, only the residues some of them left behind. She saved the Earth. She saved us all. We're alive, each and every one of us, because of Celestia's Sacrifice. "I've been Cosmic, briefly, and I can't imagine what she did or how she did it." That was a slight lie. Twilight actually had a good idea in general of what Celestia had done, and she was worried that it might be done on a smaller scale to single stars -- or even sunfire reactors -- so judged it best not to reveal right away how it might have been accomplished. "I can't really understand how a Cosmic Concept thinks -- we Alicorns only get flashes of insight from our greater Selves, our incarnate minds are simply too small to contain the vast ideas of the Cosmics. But I do know this -- Celestia did this because of her great Love, and Kindness. "I think that, wherever she is, she wants us to be well, and do well. She always wished that of me. She was my Beloved Teacher ..." Twilght's voice broke a little as she said that "... and I will forever and always be her Most Faithful Student." The last words came quickly, and finished on a sob, and for a moment she hid her face under her mane and in her hooves. Then she recovered her composure. "Pardon me," she said, and fell silent. Luna waited a moment. Then she took her turn. "In this Pony life I was born with her as my Sister. We were twins, but she was born first, as she is always," A faint moue quickly flashed across her facce. "So she is -- was -- my elder Sister. "From the start she was sweet. She loved all and was beloved by all in return. Most especially including mine own self. One could not resist her when she smiled, and one did not want to resist her, for she meant only good. "In the many centuries I knew her, she bore up under the worst losses and most terrible tragedies, the direst emergencies and most crushing pressures -- and never did she cease to love us all. It was not that she was unselfish -- it was that her Self shone with such love that to help others was what she most dearly wanted. "What would she want of us today? Why, the same thing that she always wanted of us. That we love one another, and know joy in the Harmony, and let love light our way in a Universe that can at times be dark. Love and Light, that was and is Celestia, and ever shall be Celestia. And when things seem blackest, let us keep Celestia in our heart, and we shall be not alone in the night. Luna rose. "Ye Ponies, one and all, I am your Ruling Princess, Luna Selena Nyx, of Paradise Estate and Equestria, and I am proud beyond measure to lead a species such as ours. Good be the night for all of you, and pleasant be your dreams!" Twilight rose as well. "Good night," she said simply. "And be good friends." They curtsied and made their exit, to applause. "And this is Cutting Question, for Canterlot Comments. Good night!" Fade to credits. *** And the broadcast went out, to Equestria and around the world, and out to the worlds beyond. It reached Apple Bloom in Tranquility City, the Lunar settlement she was building around Dusk Skyshine's old landing site and the Lunar Tree of Harmony, and the tough middle-aged life support engineer and statespony nodded, and hoisted a glass of foaming hard cider to the loved ones she still had, and those she had lost in the War. It reached Rainbow Dash where she was training her latest class of Space Guard recruits on Mars, and she smiled at the image of Twilight Sparkle on the screen, and said "Egghead," but very fondly. It reached Fluttershy and Discord in airless space in the Asteroid Belt, where he had conjured up a big-screen television and some air for himself and their family to enjoy, and Discord cried at the memorial to his old love Celestia, and later claimed that it had been just some flecks of fine asteroidal dust that had gotten in his eyes. And hours later it reached Scootaloo, where she was testing a new long-duration fighter out around Neptune, and she made the time to listen to every minute of it, for she and Luna had been friends for most of her life. And some of the feed went through the Gates that Claire Pie and her equally-strange children had made in spacetime to the worlds of other stars, and across dimensional barriers to the World That Was Restored, where most of the Ponies there glanced at it uncomprehendingly, because the issues touched upon were not those which concerned them. But Goldie Pie and Jasper Quartz, who had been born again there in full renewed youthful vigor, smiled at each other and at the image of the two Princesses. "That Luna sometimes seems a mite touchy," commented Jasper. "You reckon she can haul the load?" "I don't rightly know," Goldie said. "She's had a hard life. But Twilight's at her side, keeping her sane and happy. That's what wives do." "Don't I know that," said Jasper, grinning. They embraced. And some of the signal, as it was being transmitted through hyperspace, leaked out. And something else heard it.