Carpe Diem

by Helrael

1 - Crumbling Mirrors

Carpe Diem

Chapter 1 - Crumbling Mirrors

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She stood proud upon her perch, her closed eyes speaking volumes of the emotions brimming within that serene facade. Her cold lips curled into a gentle, heartwarming smile as she allowed herself to breathe in the frigid air that had surrounded her for so long; no longer one of those many harrowing trials she had overcome, but a friend: a witness to this, her moment of victory. It caressed her as she stood there, her beautiful jet black mane floating upon the wind that also carried that little red cape she always wore.

She stood upon her hind legs as she, with her front hooves, drove a flag into the rock she stood upon, doing so with surprising strength for a mare of her background. The flag itself fluttered upon a different wind altogether, proudly displaying the mare's cutie mark for all to see: three bright yellow diamonds standing in a row.

The figure conveyed many emotions as she stood there, holding her flag for all to see. Happiness was an understatement. Pride, a better description. But above all, Victory was the title she so rightfully held and represented.

"Princess?"

The pony standing before Celestia froze. The almost unbearably cold, vicious winds that howled in her ears faded into memory, and Celestia breathed an inaudible sigh of disappointment as the pony was drained of all color, turning into stone again. Stripped of the princess’s vivid memories, the pony appeared as a statue once more, and Celestia’s attention turned back to the present. She tore her gaze off of the statue and only now noticed the royal guard standing at her side.

"Is something bothering you, Your Majesty?"

"No... No," Celestia replied, trying her best at a reassuring smile. She returned her gaze to the statue standing near the entrance to the palace labyrinth and sighed. "Maybe."

"Did you know this pony?" the guard asked, his eyes following Celestia’s.

"I knew all of them," she answered, a sad smile upon her lips as her gaze swept across the Canterlot sculpture garden. Familiar faces all seemed to look back at her, all locked in stone. All dead. They looked disappointed. "I have many friends here..." She nodded her head at the one in front of them. "Tell me, when you look at her, what do you see?"

"Uh, well... a mare," the guard replied lamely, obviously uncomfortable with the question. "I-I didn't know her, Princess. I don't want to insult you. Or her."

"You won't," Celestia reassured the stallion, giving him an encouraging smile. "What I desire most of all right now is the truth."

The guard nodded his head hesitantly, turning his gaze back to the statue and gulping nervously. "I suppose I see a very proud mare. She doesn't look... ecstatic, but she's happy. Composed. She's, uh, holding a flag, like she's standing in the center of some... battlefield, maybe?" He shrugged. "Victory is a pretty fitting name for someone like her, I'd say."

Celestia nodded, looking at the statue while the guard spoke. The smile she had been giving him faded when he finished. "And when you look at her again?"

"I... don't think I understand, Your Majesty. She... doesn't change, does she?"

The princess rose onto her hind legs and planted a hoof upon the pedestal, her other foreleg reaching up to caress the side of the pony cut from stone. The guard flinched at the sudden movement, and although it bothered her, Celestia didn't let it show, focusing her attention on the statue instead. "Each time I lay eyes on her, she brings back so many memories," she explained in a pained voice. "I see a young filly, her body left broken beyond repair by the accident that had claimed her family. The filly I took under my wing. I see the pony who should have succumbed to her innumerable afflictions, but carried on... Because of me, she always said." Tears formed in her eyes as she gently ran her hoof down the worn stone. "I see the... the daughter that rose above her limitations, the disabled mare who taught herself to walk, to run. The little hero who finally climbed the tallest peak of Canterlot Mountain and planted her flag for all to see. To show the world that no matter who you are, nothing is impossible."

Celestia stopped as her hoof reached the pony's knee. "And then my hoof snags." She removed her foreleg and placed it upon the pedestal with the other, revealing a tiny crack running across Victory's knee. "When I look at her again, I notice the chinks all over her body, the weatherworn stone, her... coldness, and I realize: I'm looking at a statue. A statue that's three hundred and ninety-two years old. And she's crumbling."

"She wasn't damaged in the invasion, was she?" the guard asked worriedly, eyeing the statue from different angles before coming to the conclusion that it hadn't. "If it's bothering you, you could always have somepony restore her," he suggested helpfully, but was ignored by the princess.

"Barring Discord's reimprisonment," she continued, nodding at the draconequus frozen in terror, "Victory is the most recent addition to the garden. All these friends, but a fraction of my own age, are slowly but surely turning to dust. Crumbling and deteriorating as the centuries roll by."

"I'm sure somepony could fix them," the guard repeated, and Celestia breathed a sigh of disappointment. He didn't understand. Nopony did.

"Immortality can’t be easy," the guard offered, making another effort at levelling with her. "You must miss them."

"Not in the way you think," Celestia replied, giving a wistful smile. "That’s the thing about immortality. You have plenty of time to get used to it." She stood still there for a moment, trying in vain to call back the memory she had been reliving a short while ago. After a long period of awkward silence between her and the guard, however, she finally gave up. "I shouldn't keep you from your post," she told him, slipping off the pedestal to stand on all fours again.

"While Princess Luna wants us patrolling the castle grounds, our first priority is keeping the two of you safe."

"I'm sure I'll be safe within my own sculpture garden," Celestia assured him, taking a step away from Victory to gaze at the rest of the statuary. "Besides, I'd like a moment to be alone with my thoughts."

The guard hesitated for a moment, reluctant to leave the princess unguarded, but even more reluctant to refuse her order. "As you wish," he finally said, bowing before turning his back to her and leaving behind the statue garden.

Celestia waited by Victory until the stallion had rounded the corner of the palace labyrinth and was out of sight before moving, casting a longing gaze up at the face of the pony that had been gone for four centuries. "They all think I miss you," she told the statue. "I do, I always will, but I let you go so very long ago.

"But you aren't just faces I once knew," she said, more to the statues themselves rather than the ponies they represented. She walked down the cobblestone path that ran through her garden, and after a few steps found herself standing before one of the very first additions to the statuary. Three little foals were playing happily with each other, one standing atop the other as they smiled from ear to ear. It was a moment she found herself clearly remembering, even after nine and a half centuries. It was the sight that had first brought her out of her stupor of self-loathing and grief. Those three foals had helped her take her first steps toward recovery after she had lost her sister.

The statue had been restored many times over the centuries, and yet, of all the statues, it bore the strongest signs of time's passing. One of the faces had lost so many of its features that it had become unrecognizable, and a chip had gone off another's nose. "You aren't just memories," she continued, very carefully running a hoof across the smooth, worn stone, afraid that the slightest errant touch might turn the statue to dust. "You're mirrors, aren't you?"

With a sigh, she drew away from the three foals and once more regarded the sculpture garden as a whole. "How old we all are, how our common ages tie us all together. Truly, the one difference between you and I is that all ponies see your worn facades. None see mine... and why should they?" she challenged of the stone ponies. She received no answer, of course, and she sighed deeply. "For more than a millennium, I’ve stood strong, I’ve overcome every obstacle I’ve faced. Not even I knew I was crumbling. Not until..."

With a grimace, she rubbed the tip of her horn, still sore even after three weeks. In her mind's ear, she heard the changeling queen cackling even as the ponies attending the wedding gasped in shock. She shook her head to rid herself of the bad memory, but it clung to her mind stubbornly. In its grip, the cracks riddling the surfaces of her oldest friends became all the more apparent, and their hollow, lifeless eyes stared back at her. Sad. Disappointed.

It became too much for her to bear, and so she fled the crumbling mirrors, striding quickly out of the Canterlot sculpture garden and into the palace, the interior of which would only remind her so much more of her failure.

Comments

[Arasam]

OOOOOOHHH DAAAYYUUUMMM! So you finally published it!