In the time of shadow, long after the last days of her children, she called her siblings to her bedside. They came, sisters, brothers, they came; past dust-fields night-bleached, past ice-sheets summer-frozen, they came; from beyond stars and beneath stone, from the hidden lands, they came.
On a day of shadow, under a sun's languid pulse and thin, they came, and her sunken eyes had no smile to greet them.
Luna Void-Born, first-redeemed, returned first. Though her journey spanned the dream-wastes, always had she been closest to Celestia's heart. The pair sat in silence, watching the frost of morning arc onward into the chill of day. One by one they trickled in, then, and two by two. Cadance Jewel-Heart, never-fallen, with Stalwart Oath-Bound, twice-tempted, he who was once called Sombra. Discord Many-Faced, far-seeker, the eternal prodigal, holding appendages with Monarch Echo-Heart, long since emerged from chrysalis. Tirek Ever-Hungry. Scorpan Ever-True. Starswirl Age-Lost and Grendel Hoard-King and Sunset Mirror-Bound, all in all they came; with one seat left unclaimed.
Celestia beheld it.
"Sister," they said. "World-light, Invictus, Mother-of-All, first among equals. We are here."
Celestia said: "Not all."
"All who will," they said.
Celestia looked outside. The sky trembled. Celestia closed her eyes.
Celestia said: "She knows she must."
They waited, then, as the sun sank to kiss the horizon, then limned the sky anew into saffron semblance of day. They waited, until "I will go to her," Starswirl said, and they waited, until the rocks had worn into sand and the stars had winked out one by one, and two returned at the moment he had left.
The Nightbringer took her seat, stonily staring into the pale marble of Celestia's eyelids.
Celestia said: "My ages end."
There was no rending of garments, nor beating of chests. The days of mourning had occupied the Last Age. The world had outlived history.
"Sister," they said, all but one. "Whose world is next to come?"
Celestia said: "Hers."
"You bless the Unredeemed?" they protested. "The Destroyer? The Furthest-Fallen?"
Celestia raised a hoof, and harmony's dissent silenced.
Celestia said: "She is our sister," and their hearts were jewel-hard.
Celestia said: "She brought each of you to the Light," and their hearts cracked open.
Celestia said: "In the end, there is nothing but forgiveness," and they bowed their heads.
The Nightbringer did not smile. Staring only at Celestia — "very well" — she turned to leave.
Celestia said: "Twilight."
She stopped.
Celestia said: "A final word."
"I owe you nothing."
And Celestia said: "Please."
The Nightbringer's jaw quivered. She approached Celestia's bed.
"You, alone, will die unforgiven."
Celestia said: "Then so must it be."
"No apology is sufficient."
Celestia said: "And yet I am sorry."
For an age, they stared at each other, and the sun sank, sputtering and silent.
The world ended.
The Nightbringer said: "It is my time now," and her siblings trembled.
"A request," Celestia said, "for your children, when they come."
The Nightbringer hesitated, and she spoke.
"Let there be Light," Celestia whispered, and closed her eyes for the last time.
Twilight lowered her head, for an age and an age.
Then, she raised the sun.
Author's notes:
Back in the competition that spawned this, I spent a while brainstorming different ways I could use the "Famous Last Words" prompt, and somewhere along the line, made a little side expedition into the phrase "The king is dead; long live the king". Upon discovering that the name for the figure of speech seen in that phrase's first-last repetition is "epanalepsis", and with a subtle one-letter change I could have the horse pun of the ages, my muse grabbed me by the throat and refused to let go.
The fact that a literal translation gives you "seizing horse godhood", as Xepher pointed out in an early review, was a happy and unintended coincidence. The fact that this was written a month after Bad Horse's "Elpis", and made readers question whether the story was derivative during the judging, was equally unintended and far less happy.
I tried to bake in that theme of endings reflecting beginnings on multiple levels; the pretentiousness of the text (which was its most divisive aspect in the competition) was a direct result of me trying to evoke a foreign grammatical structure through epanaleptic repetition. The last words borrow explicitly from Judeo-Christian origin myth, and the story borrows more broadly from that structure. If you're trying to write an epic in 750 words, might as well evoke the heaviest allusions you can.
Unfortunately, the deadline nailed me; I had to finish slapping it together at literally the last minute. I posted it with 90 seconds to go, including a crucial last-line grammar error (since fixed). I've fixed the small stuff, but I doubt I'll be able to work up the urge to go back and make it better the way it needs to be (add consistency to the language, flesh out the worldbuilding, etc).
Still, worth presenting here.
The interruption here feels less like "experimenting with grammar" and more like "typo", although maybe I'm not extending enough benefit of the doubt.
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( They waited, until ("I will go to her," Starswirl said), ) and they waited.
Though, yeah, it's pretty shaky.
Of course Starswirl would have been the one that could bring Twilight along.
An interesting roster of immortals there. And I wonder what the G5 world of Twilight's creation will be like.
This line stands out because it seems copy-pasted from another, far less florid fanfic. It's dull, it's off-tone, it's an enigmatic aberration.
But the rest? Fucking epic. :D
Here via PP's review, that was pretty awesome.
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Glad you enjoyed!
Re the sitting in silence: I don't think I can patch in a quick fix for that line, and rather than add this to the ever-growing list of stories needing edits, I think I'm going to let it go and learn from this to do better next time. I do appreciate the feedback, though!
Holy CRAP I love this so much!
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Well, I just reread it having completely forgot I made that comment, and it worked for me this time, so I guess you're good.
On which note:
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I think it's interesting that different aspects of the language didn't work for different people. I'm a little curious if there are more examples in the original write-off thread, although not enough to dig it up and sort through all the other comments.
I did you a thing. :B
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