One Thousand Autumns

by Camolot the Creator

Remembrance

It had been a year, a whole year almost to the day, since-

No. She told herself. Don’t think about it.

But it was all she could think about. Her sister, her beloved and beautiful sister, head framed by that wonderful rippling starfield that Celestia had come to know so well, ripped away in an instant, by that… that…

Monster, came the thought, unbidden. Celestia, enraged through even her grief, crushed the thought against the interior of her mind. No, her sister was not a monster. She had been jealous, sad, lonely, and perhaps even a little vindictive, but that had been Celestia’s fault, not L- not her sister’s. And that… THING… was not her sister either, nothing it had done had been her sister’s fault.

So then why did you banish her? Her mind whispered back.

She didn’t try to deny that. Didn’t have the strength, the mental fortitude left, to even mount a proper defense against her own assault. She should have seen the signs, and looking back, they were so obvious: L- her sister, had been so… withdrawn. She had seemed melancholy, almost depressed, and avoided the presence of their little ponies, not to mention Celestia herself. And Celestia had let it happen, had ignored her sister’s cries for help even if they had never actually been spoken. Celestia had given her space, when that had been the last thing she needed.

Well, she’ll be getting plenty of that now.

Celestia wanted to blame the Elements, blame their bearers, for tearing her sister from her. But, in the end, she wanted that, had been so scared of this thing that had so easily taken hold of the sister that she had loved so dearly that she had wanted to push it as far and as fast as she possibly could. No, it was not the fault of the Elements, for they had simply responded to her wishes. It had not been the fault of the bearers, for they had simply been the vessels through which the magical artifact had acted.

Instead, it all came back to her. Her fear, her loss of composure, her neglect and ignorance. She had distanced herself from her sister, had attempted to help her grow into a ruler in her own right, but that had been a mistake. She had attempted to move her own shadow away from her sister, but had only succeeded in throwing her darling sibling that much deeper into the darkness that she cast. She had tried to be reasonable, logical, but had only come off bitter and cold, when what her sister had truly needed was warmth.

Even through the sheets of tears pouring down her face, she let out a bitter chuckle at that. She, Celestia the Undimmed, the Blinding Light, the avatar of the sun itself, had been unable to give just a little bit of warmth to one that had needed it most. And here, on the first eve of her loss, when ponies would be celebrating her glorious victory over the evil Nightmare Moon, she would be reminded how she had lost.

A short rap came at the door, and the alicorn’s head jerked slightly. She had asked not to be disturbed, been quite emphatic about it: even in all the panic of the kingdom attempting to consolidate itself around a single leader instead of a pair, she had been adamant about leaving this day clear of anything, and had been crystal clear with every noble, every guard and every servant that she was not to be bothered with trivial things. She had threatened to duel her hypothetical tormentor ‘to the pain’, and had continued with a detailed and extremely graphic description of what that entailed, just to make sure that the point had come across properly. All that effort, all that time spent preparing her single day, and here she was with an exceptionally dense stallion or mare sitting outside her door, with blatant disregard for her wishes.

She grit her teeth and, with near horseculean effort, had pushed her roiling, turbulent sea of emotions down back where they had come from. Her eyes she dried with the fur on her foreleg: if her eyes appeared bloodshot, there was naught she could do about that now. She had not the strength, nor the concentration, for an illusion spell: for once, she was glad that most of her subjects spent all their time in her presence groveling and avoiding eye contact.

“Come in.” she intoned, nearly succeeding in keeping the anger and annoyance out of her voice.

She had expected a guardspony, or one of those in the servant’s clothes: nobles hardly ever came to see her in person, lazy sacks of potatoes that they were, and the normal pony citizen would not dare to approach her chamber, something she was saddened by. However, the figure that stepped through was none of these.

It was clear that he- for it was a stallion- was not a noble. A noble would have kept their fur, mane and tail in perfect order, would break down completely if they appeared as anything less than perfect: however, this stallion’s mane and tail were a complete mess, ruffled and frayed, standing almost on end here and there. It looked as if the wild tangle of brown had never felt the gentle touch of a brush, a sentiment that extended to the equally unkempt fur, which was a shade of turquoise. However, what had really struck her was his gait, his posture: he seemed tired, exhausted, on the edge of falling over, but there was no deference there. This earth pony had not groveled like the common ponies, nor had he gone through the bow of the nobles or the salute of the guard.

Instead, he had looked her in the eyes, forest green into purple, the moment that he had noticed her stare. After a moment, where Celestia refused to break eye contact, the small figure had glanced away from her and endeavored to examine the rest of the room, moving into it and closing the open door behind him as he went. His eyes skated over the smashed furniture, the ruined drapes, the general damage the room had sustained, and finally alighted upon the bed she sat upon. The furniture in question was a crescent-shaped affair whose star-spattered sheets were, unlike the rest of the room, left untouched.

“Yes?” she said, an edge of impatience coloring the single word.

His eyes flicked back to hers, and she again couldn’t help but note the weariness of the gaze, one that spoke of long nights and little sleep. She knew that look well enough: she had seen it in her mirror, near every morning for a year. A moment passed, and she noted that he seemed to be debating something with himself. Perhaps, she thought, he is searching for a method of expression that would suit his aims. Indeed, the small stallion- for they were all so small to her, and her so large to them- seemed to be rolling several words around on his tongue, debating whether or not expressing them aloud was the best of plans.

Celestia, for her part, was tired. She was tired, frustrated, and more than a little sad. She had wanted time alone, time to grieve and deal with things that she had not been allowed to in public, as most of her life was. She had needed time to fight her demons, and here this intruder, this stallion, had decided that whatever petty concern that he had was worth more than the only bit of solace that she had managed to scrape together in months. And here he was, staring at her, ignoring her query as if he had perfect right to be here.

Then, he did something that, in all honesty, surprised her. Seeming to realize that words would not have the impact he wanted, a realization that came with no small sense of resignation on his part, he approached the bed with slow, measured steps. Vaguely, the portion of her that had once wielded a greatsword and worn armor registered that his walk was that of a fighter, one trained by long hours and experience to maintain balance and poise. This, she wondered at: he was not a member of the royal guard, that much was certain, for he had shown none of the respect. Indeed, he had not even saluted her.

She was broken from her reverie when the small blue stallion had, to her continued astonishment, made his way across the room and right onto the bed next to her, where he sat and gazed at the wreckage that was all that remained of the beautiful room. She opened her mouth to admonish him, to demand what he was doing-

“You know…” She hesitated. His voice was soft, low, almost apologetic. “I had a sister.”

“Had?” the word had slipped out unbidden, a question she had not meant to ask, but he nodded once in response, a flicker of pain crossing his expression: a tightening of the mouth, skin slightly stretching around his eyes.

“My little sister. She was… lovely. All the stallions wanted her, even some of the mares. Sporty, artistic, intelligent- academic institutions went after her in droves, but she wanted to help ponies.” His gaze was unfocused now, staring not at the wall, but past it, beyond it. “She wanted to become a doctor, saving ponies and helping families. She wanted to make a difference, and I told her that I would be with her every step of the way, with whatever little support that I could offer her. She never got that chance.” He swallowed and breathed deeply, blinking once, slowly. “I made a mistake, and she lost everything.”

The silence was deafening, and Celestia used the momentary break to examine the figure with more scrutiny. With a twinge of concern, she realized that he was ridged, every muscle strained and taught, standing out against his fur like steel cords. Even with all that effort, the slightest of shudders managed to make its way through his guard. A long moment of silence followed, as the stallion began to slowly relax, taking hold of himself once more, then began to speak again in the same tone.

“She refused to blame me, of course: insisted for years that it had not been my fault, that I could not have known what would be done to us, but I was inconsolable. I had not had much of a life before: I was not such a catastrophic loss for the world, not much of anything in the terms of scores and balances, but she was a weight of terrible size on those scales. And I had removed her, broken what she could have had. Her future, her hopes and dreams, gone out from under her, like a carpet in the process of a particularly ill-spirited joke.” The words poured out now, the earlier reservations that had seemed to make him hesitate to speak gone, broken before the torrent. “She insisted that we remain together, was adamant that I needed her as much as she needed me.” There was the tightness again, the suppressive action. “But every time I looked at her, I was reminded of my every failure. She was my sister, my family, and I had let her down so wholly and completely that no amount of effort could ever fill the gap, could ever be enough to repay that debt.” He raised his head slightly, the far-away look returned. “So, one day, I packed some supplies and left. I left a note behind, three words inscribed on a piece of paper left on the dining room table, and I walked through the front door and out of her life.”

Celestia’s reaction of anger had been entirely dulled now, replaced by sympathy and not a little bit of sadness. His story, while so markedly different from her own, had some veins of similarity that had been nothing short of remarkable: it dawned on her, slowly, that the little stallion had been attempting to make a connection, to tell her through more subtle means that she was not alone. The action, small and tentative though it was, warmed her heart a little even here, where the cold sorrow was thickest. Sadness hung over the room like a deep, wet fog, but the little one had dispelled it for an instant, and for that she was grateful, even if he had simply displaced it with sadness all his own.
They sat there, together, in the silence and the cold, bearing the load of their collective regret, even if for but a moment. Without words, they bore the crushing weight together, and Celestia, for the first time in a year, felt lighter. Even if only a little, even if for only an instant, she felt the oppressive and crushing feelings that she had carried for a year that might as well have been an eon lighten ever so slightly. When she finally broke the silence and spoke, it was quiet, devoid of the frustration that had raged within her but a few minutes before.

“And what of your sister?” he did not react to the soft question, staring straight ahead as before, the only motion his jaw as it formed the words.

“I do not know. She may be dead, or she may yet live, healthy as the day that I left our home. No matter her state, she is better off now.” The last sentence had been bitter, surprisingly so, but the emotion had been focused inward instead of outward.

Once again, they lapsed into silence. This silence, however, felt different from the ones that had previously broken the flow of the… conversation? Celestia supposed that that was an accurate enough description, though it seemed ill-fitting. Yes, this silence felt satisfied, complete. The earth pony had told her what he had come to tell her, and was patiently awaiting her response. And she… and she…
“My sister was…” she swallowed, this was harder than she had thought. She started again, slightly stronger this time. “My sister was nothing short of beautiful. Everything about her was as close to perfect as anypony could be, as close as anypony could ever even be. She gave so much of herself: every night, she fought a never-ending war against terrible dreams, and soothed many in their slumber. She was there whenever I tired, whenever I flagged, whenever I felt like giving up. She was the unwavering rock, the immutable constant that stabilized my every thought. And somehow, every single night, she still managed to paint the sky in colours that made even the most talented and gifted masters of the arts weep with their beauty. I was the unconquerable sun, brilliant and shining, and she was the unwavering night, dark and mysterious and lovely beyond all comprehension.”

Now came the truly difficult words, those that tore and screamed at her, those that denied her sleep and reduced her thoughts to ribbons.
“But, in the end, she was no more perfect than I. I relied on her for everything, and she was my only island in the storm: she could do no wrong, and I could only do right with her by my side. My love for her was so strong, so b-bright…” unconsciously, she mirrored exactly what the earth pony had done: a swallow, a deep breath, a single, slow blink. Such was the suppression of such things. “I failed to see that she was lonely, miserable, and she would not admit it to me. I relied on her so much that she had come to believe that if she wavered, if she showed weakness, then she would be depriving me of the foundational bedrock on which I stood. And I was so caught up in my admiration of her perfection, that I did not notice when she began to distance herself from others. She began to spend more and more time alone, in the library or the observatory. Slowly, as she disappeared from the spotlight, the attention shifted away from her. Ponies began to focus on my blinding light, on my infallible guidance, and ignored the night more and more.

“Thus, did nopony, not a single one of my ponies, notice when the night began to change. It happened slowly, over the course of years, but the colours that had once flown banners through the sky slowly dulled, turning grey and black. The stars, once holders of mysteries and epic tales, slowly began to tell simpler and simpler stories, until they did not speak at all.

“The more the beauty of the night faded, the more focus was shifted towards the glory of the day: the more focus shifted away from the night, the more the colours disappeared and the stories eroded. This went on until there came a time that none payed the night any mind.” Celestia turned her head, staring out the windows, over the balcony and towards the night sky. The full moon, which had not changed phase since… since then, was emblazoned with a dark pattern in the shape of a dark alicorn. The stars were faded, not the bright and colourful jewels of her sister’s time but simply small pinpricks of white in the void. She had tried, once, to replicate the wondrous skies that had once graced the dark, but her efforts had been that of an imitator, an apprentice, and failed to capture the majesty that it had once held. She had not tried a second time.

“Nopony knew when the spirit rose out of her, born of her loneliness and sadness. It told me, as we fought, that L- that my sister had been so broken, so easily convinced… the spirit complemented me on the damage that I had done, had said that it could not have done better given years more. It had not broken my sister, it said, it had simply built on the foundation that I had left behind. I did- I just- I-“
She was crying again, tears streaking down her face as she shook. A sob rose in her throat, only to stop at the feeling of the slightest of pressures. Celestia looked down, and realized that the small pony had placed one hoof against her, and was staring up with a reflection of the grief and sadness that she felt. Without a thought, she swept up the small form with her wings, and he placed his forelegs around her neck and held her tight as she sobbed into him. Vaguely, she realized that the fur of her neck had been wetted, and realized that he was crying as she was.

How long she cried, how long they sat together like that, she had no way of knowing: the clocks in this room had all been shattered, and she had no practice telling time by the moon. All she knew was that she grieved, and the small form wrapped in her wings, clinging to her as much as she clung to him, grieved with her. After a long time, their shuddering began to calm, their sobs began to quiet.

They remained there, together in their sadness for a while more, before both slowly began to release. Celestia withdrew her wings, pulling them back from where they had pinned the earth pony against her. In response, he withdrew from the desperate clinging that he had maintained throughout the ordeal, though he did not truly break contact. One hoof, trembling ever so slightly, remained against her, and she did nothing to push it away.

Time passed, but the ponies- alicorn and earth pony alike- did not mark its passing, instead focused inward at the bittersweet contentment that had, for the moment, replaced the sorrow. Instead, they gazed out at the moon, which had climbed in the sky now until it was nearly invisible from the interior of the room. The two of them watched as the silver and black orb slowly made its way upwards in the sky, completely and utterly assured in its role in the cosmic dance. They watched until it had gone out of their view, but even then they stood silent and still, instead shifting their attentions to the stars, observing them in their nightly track across the sky. They felt the hours pass unbidden, but did nothing of note, simply enjoying their moment of peace. They both had too few of these moments in their lives.
A knock at the door, soft as it was, startled them slightly.

“Princess?” Celestia recognized it as one of her guards, though the name escaped her like so many other things these days. “It is almost dawn…”

The stallion retracted his hoof, stepping to the floor as he did so.

“I suppose that means it is my time to leave.” He intoned.

She nearly let him go, as he moved to the door, but a question unanswered crossed her mind.

“ A moment…?” She realized, in a blatant sort of way, that she had never asked his name, nor had he spoken it.

Fortunately, he noticed the question and divined its aim. “Written Cog.”

“Written Cog.” The question surged once again to the forefront of her mind. “You mentioned that you had left your sister a note. If you do not mind-“

“I am sorry.”

Celestia blinked. Written Cog, noticing this movement, reiterated.

“The note read ‘I am sorry’.” He had turned to her when she had asked, and now turned away again. “Those were my last words to her.”

With that, he left, the door thudding slightly in the frame behind him.

Author's Note:

I do not know why I wrote this, or where it originated from. Suffice to say that I sat down intending to write a chapter for one of my other fics, autoplay directed my phone to Lullaby for a Princess, and the words simply flowed.

Cover comes from here, and is the property and work of one Cizu.

Comments

[Auron Solaris]

very beautiful story filled with grief and ease of guilt, not quite a tearjerker but enough to stir some emotions.

well done

[Stradinius]

Almost unseen and definitely under-appreciated. As Disciple said, not a tearjerker, but definitely one for my shelf. I look forward to seeing more of your work.

[Camolot the Creator]

8018031
Consider this: this is the first draft, I wrote it completely stream of consciousness in one session, and I had no idea how it was going to play out until it ended.

Thank you for the compliments. They are much appreciated.