All Ponies Die

by Proper Noun

Sunrise

{Dark}

"Sister, I implore you to fight this." Luna sighed at Celestia's naiveté, and settled herself more comfortably in her bed.

"Nay, Celestia. I have told you many times: The deal was struck, and I knew the price. The time has come for payment."

"The price is unjust!" Celestia protested.

"So was I," Luna said quietly. She closed her eyes, and tried to shut her mind's eye against the memories of Nightmare Moon. She would let Celestia rant against the issuers of her contract; the elder Princess had a way with words, and if she really listened, she would likely succumb to the insanity of resistance once more.

It would go on for hours. Celestia would try to convince her to fight the stars themselves, to save herself, to stand in defiant default of her debt. She would beg, or reason, or try to poke legalistic holes in the contract itself. And at the end, Luna would always rise, agree with her, and fight on. It would not happen again.

"Luna, please," Celestia pleaded, around half an hour in. Luna braced herself for the words that had turned her the past four times. "You know you are the most precious thing in the world to me. Please, don't make me live in a world without you. Not again."

"I am sorry," the Night Princess murmured. She did not bother to stop the tears from coming. It was a waste of energy that might break her resolve, as it had last time. "I must do this. Or rather, I must stop. I will not stop you, sister, but neither will I join you. The cost to Equestria is too great."

"For you, I would give up Equestria in its entirety!"

"You already have," Luna countered wearily. "To them, our kingdom exists as leverage, to be bent and broken until I give them their due." Gaining momentum, she cut off Celestia's pleas.

"Leave the darkness of my chamber and look out any window. On all points of the compass, our enemies are their pawns. To the north, few crystal ponies have survived the gryphons' genocide. In the east, Zebra warriors loot the ruins of Baltimare and Manehattan. In the west, we have lost our croplands to the fury of the Buffalo, dooming our ponies to starvation. And in the south..." She shuddered. "In the south, the minions of Tartarus itself march freely through the country. In their wake, even the soil is burned away, and the land is only rock and lava."

Luna sighed, allowing herself to deflate, and opened her eyes. "I know my duty as a ruler, and I shall not be responsible for their destruction any longer."

"And as family, I beg you, sister, please don't leave me. Even if they take away Equestria, they can never take you."

"I..." Luna started, before managing to get her quivering heartstrings under control. "That is incorrect. Were it their way, they could simply have snatched me away long ago. If I were your equal in power, they could not take me, that is true; but then this would never have occurred. If I had ever been your equal, I would never have traded what I did for..." She had to grit her teeth and brace herself. "... for Nightmare Moon. Do you truly think if we lost Equestria, they would not resort to brute force?"

"I stand by what I say," Celestia said quietly. "You are the last family I have left. I love you, and I cannot let you go again."

"Oh, Tia," Luna said, and reached out to brush away her sister's tears. As she'd thought, the sudden tenderness brought fresh tears from them both, but she had to stay focused. "I shall miss you, too."

"No! I won't let - " Celestia started, but Luna interrupted her with a burst of magic that knocked her clear across the chamber. She quickly followed up by erecting a powerful barrier around her bed. A few practiced modifications to her technique would hopefully keep her older sister out long enough to, finally, carry out the necessary ritual.

"Alanielle! Alanielle! Alanielle!" she shouted, as Celestia tried to mask her attempts to undo the spell with crying and pleading. "Star of despair, queen of blood oaths and arbiter of fell contracts, we call upon thee! Willingly have we bound our word; willingly we offer fulfillment of our terms! Come unto us, Alanielle, and take what is thy due!" Scarlet starlight flooded the room, and Luna noticed her sister resorting to brute force, throwing spells and everything not bolted down at her barrier. Though it looked like desperation, she knew it was hardly such; Celestia was more powerful than she was by far, and the spell would not hold. She was glad she'd also thought to make it a guard against various materials; things passing through shield spells had a tendency to weaken them.

"Ah, my little nightmare," a hollow voice somehow cooed over the chaotic din. "Finally broken, have you?"

"Yes," Luna said simply. It was pointless to mention how long she had been trying to get this moment past her sister. "Our only request is expediency. The bargain we have struck with thee is threatened by another." The voice laughed.

"Oh, that is adorable. Come then, child - raise your chin before the scythe." Luna did as she was asked, and before her, a reaping blade formed over the bed. She took in the irony that it was made of the same flowing stars as her mane, before closing her eyes for what she knew would be the last time.

"I love you, sister," she murmured. She didn't bother raising her voice, as Celestia was probably knocked silly from bashing her head on the barrier. Maybe she truly had been desperate. "Please, let this never happen again." She shivered as the chill of the void passed through her neck, what she knew was her essence passing from her body.

The darkness embraced her.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Celestia was hours past rage, pleas, or even just crying. She had run dry not long after Luna's body fell.

She had failed. She had tried to protect her sister, and was left with a corpse and the ruins of a kingdom. She had sacrificed her ponies and lands for nothing. Luna was all she'd had left, and the younger princess had willfully opted to take away even that.

"Why?" she murmured into the corpse's mane. "I would protect you with my life. You are all the family I have. I would follow you through Tartarus." She paused.

"... I will follow you through Tartarus. I will track you through the limitless reach of the Void," Celestia swore. "I will find you again, little Luna. We are sisters. I cannot be without you."

Celestia prepared a spell for her journey - a simple one that would only take a touch of fine telekinetic manipulation. All she had to do was disconnect a particular set of nerves from the brain, and -

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Princess Twilight Sparkle tore through the halls of Canterlot Castle, teleporting past those without the reflexes to get out of her way. The entire city was celebrating that morning - morning had come, as the cycle of day and night was something delegated to her when the wars intensified more than fifteen decades ago. She understood the necessity; Celestia and Luna had far more power than she could ever aspire to, and Equestria needed every optimization of process it could get to fight its manifold enemies.

But not today. Today, the sunrise had been met with abandoned battlefields and empty war-camps. The siege of Canterlot had lifted overnight, and diplomats began to arrive as enemy warriors turned their eyes towards home. This was the best news she'd had for her former mentor since the end of Discord's second rebellion.

Twilight ran straight to Luna's chamber. She had let the sisters think she didn't know Celestia would cry herself to sleep at the foot of Luna's bed for the past few years, but she knew she would find them both there; Celestia barely slept in her own room anymore.

She burst through the door, crying, "Celestia! Luna! I think we won! We - " Twilight's eyes caught up with her mind. The room's eternal night had lifted, and the scene before her was perfectly clear. "I... but..."

On no other day would Canterlot's refugee crowds have drowned out the wails from the Lunar Tower.

Comments

[FinnPony]

I don't know if I should say 'I love it', but I really did love it!
Any ideas when next chapter will be published?

[FenrisianBrony]

I love it. More please?

[Proper Noun]

3640939
3640897

Well, um, thank you both!

This story remains "on hiatus" due mostly to my weird update plan for it, but I'm already working on the next installment. For this "story", that's usually a good sign.

[TreasuredMemory]

All of my sadness for Luna going out this way but you handled it well enough to where it made sense. I give you two hooves up for that.