“Please excuse me, but did you just say the other soul is named Twilight Sparkle?” Twilight asked.
Celestia nodded:
“That is the name her parents have given her at her birth.”
Twilight just stood there in silence. She was looking at Celestia, yet her eyes were watching way beyond, or not at all.
“I really didn’t have a choice.” Celestia explained. “I had to protect Equestria from Nightmare Moon by any means necessary. I didn’t choose Twilight Sparkle for her abilities, but for her parents. They had already very well raised a fine young stallion who was a testimony of their competence as caretakers. They would raise you correctly. Twilight Sparkle wasn’t more than eight months old, so nopony would notice, even if putting you in such a young body had to force you to lose most of your memories. I tore you apart from me because you were the part of me that always had the biggest potential and yet at the same time, the one that would weaken me the least. Also, I admit it, it did allow me to stop having to repress you all the time.
I put you in the young filly’s body and convinced both Twilight Sparkle’s parents and Cadance that she should become your babysitter. All that was left for me to do was to erase Twilight Sparkle’s soul and everything would have been perfect.”
Twilight snapped out of her thoughts and almost shouted:
“What? No!”
“I didn’t, obviously.” Celestia replied. “I am ready to make all the sacrifices necessary, but I just couldn’t harm that innocent soul. It was too much to ask from me, so I just sealed it, hoping you would never notice… I was weak and because of my weakness, here we are.”
“You weren’t weak!” Twilight responded.
She calmed down a bit and added: “Compassion is no weakness.”
Twilight had expected to see a confirmation smile on Celestia’s face, but if she indeed was gently smiling, she could tell it was full of sadness and remorse. As for why, Twilight couldn’t really understand.
And Celestia didn’t let her enough time to:
“So, now that you know, I beg of you to let me seal Twilight’s soul once again. Equestria needs you more than it needs her. Equestria needs you more than you even imagine.”
It was time for Twilight to decide. And truth be told, she had no idea what side to take, or even if there truly were sides to take. Her head was hurting and she couldn’t tell if it was from the mountain of information she had just been entrusted with, or because of the other soul fighting her own inside of her.
She looked at Celestia and remembered her own words. Celestia had told her everything she wanted to know and she herself had promised to agree with her request if she did so. After all, it was princess Celestia, one of the ponies if not the pony she respected the most in all of Equestria. It was almost a crime to simply question her wishes. As a faithful student, Twilight should just accept that her teacher just knew best as she had always had. She almost couldn’t remember why she was debating that request at that moment.
Twilight Sparkle. Of course. She wasn’t deciding for herself anymore. There was another pony directly concerned by the matter. More importantly: that other pony was utterly innocent, yet was forced to suffer.
As she saw Twilight struggle internally, Celestia tried to plea once more:
“Please, we are princesses, we know that no matter how much we care for one specific pony, we must always keep in mind the greater good. Sacrifices must be made if peace and perfect harmony are to be protected.”
Those words cleared Twilight’s mind like a summer wind can chase all the clouds away. She was a princess and she had to act as such.
“I am sorry princess Celestia.” Twilight said. “I must save Twilight Sparkle. She too is one of our subject: it is our duty to take care of her.”
Celestia didn’t reply. She just looked away and sighed.
“Please, I understand how much you are counting on me, but if there is one thing I have learned during my life, it’s that every pony no matter how small or weak can make a difference. And even without that, don’t we protect Equestria so that ponies like her can enjoy life?”
“Is that your final decision?” Celestia asked still without looking at Twilight.
Her words had created a tremor in the cascade of sun rays falling from the sky. It was a completely new vibration that the universe didn’t know how to respond to because it hadn’t been made to handle such an emotion. It wasn’t sadness, it wasn’t regret either. It wasn’t anger, nor disappointment or guilt. And at the same time, it wasn’t relief, nor excitation or even madness.
And it didn’t undermine Twilight’s determination:
“It is.” She replied. “If I have to go so that she can live, then so be it. I just want to see my friends and my… her parents one last time before, well, before…”
Celestia slowly turned back to face Twilight while displaying her everlasting gentle smile:
“I do not understand you. From all the choices you could make, that is the least logical. But I guess I never understood you since we first met.”
A little silence ensued during which Twilight and Celestia just stared at each other with the distance between them growing with every passing second until they just couldn’t see but each other’s silhouettes.
“I will respect you decision.” Celestia finally said. “Once you are ready, come to me and I will seal your soul instead of sealing hers.”
At that precise moment, despite the deceptive smile, Twilight saw a tear form under one of Celestia’s eyes, but the princess had already moved away.
“I must go for now. I have a lot of guards to reassure. But I will be back in the throne room once you are ready.”
Celestia passed under an arch and disappeared into the palace.
Left alone, Twilight sighed. She looked at her hoof and saw how it was violently shaking against her will. Her heart was racing faster than she could have thought it possible and she was completely soaked with sweat. But still, she was victorious, or more precisely, she knew she would do what was right, even If the consequences for herself were very scary.
She wondered what it would feel like, or if she would feel anything at all. She asked herself if she would have the courage to keep her eyes open, or if she should just shut them when the moment would come. One thing was for sure, she would have to say goodbye to the sun and its light. Her world would be made of darkness. Deep darkness taking over from every side, surrounding her to the point of hiding the real world and becoming their own black universe.
Twilight noticed, but too late, that the darkness were indeed taking over her. The sun was already hidden behind a veil of shadow and a second later everything was black. She ran in a direction but encountered no balcony or wall. She ran in a different direction and didn’t encounter any object whatsoever.
Before she could panic, however, she felt a hoof grasping her head and found herself face to face with Luna.
“It’s you, isn’t it? I can’t believe it was you all this time!” Luna shouted.
Her eyes were scintillating and her rapid breath was betraying an overpowering wave of emotions.
“Princess Luna?” Twilight asked.
“Yes, it’s me. Oh I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you.” Luna replied.
At the same time, she hugged Twilight with all her strength and didn’t let go.
“I heard everything.” Luna explained while Twilight felt drops of water falling onto her fur at the place where Luna’s head was. “I always knew there was something special about you, but I could never figure out what. I even thought you were some kind of threat! How could I have only imagined something so incredible? Can you even forgive my blindness? Oh I missed you so much!”
Twilight was suffocating, but Luna still didn’t let go. She ran out of air eventually and only then realized she wasn’t breathing at all. Luna noticed her surprise and, happy to impress her, explained:
“We are in my realm of dreams. Here she cannot hear us. For anypony else, you have just fallen asleep.”
Twilight took the time to think that sometimes, the magical abilities of the two sisters were still so far out of her league that it was kind of scary.
Luna didn’t let her finish her thought though:
“So, what do we do now?” Luna asked. “I know, let’s fly away together. We can leave this world and resume our journey through the stars. There are so many places to see, so many possibilities left untouched for us to meddle with. I want to see it all and I know you will love it too!”
Luna’s horn lit up and the surrounding darkness covered itself with thousands and thousands and millions of stars and galaxies.
Startled for a moment, Twilight came back to her senses and finally escaped Luna’s grasp:
“What are you even talking about? I can’t leave. What about my friends? What about my family. Wait… what about the soul trapped inside me. I need to save her!”
All the stars blinked out at once leaving only the darkness to replace them.
“Oh…” Luna replied.
She looked away a bit and scratched the ground a bit with her hoof, but still kept her smile.
“You haven’t changed, have you?” Luna said before making a little pause. She then laughed and continued: “I guess space could become very boring after a while. It doesn’t matter, as long as we are together I don’t mind staying here and taking care of your precious ponies. So, what is your plan?”
“My plan?” Twilight responded, unsure of what was going on.
“Yes. You can’t truly think of sacrificing yourself to save one little filly’s soul. You too know why she didn’t try to get rid of the other soul. I can see right through you! You only let her think that was your intention so that I could help you destroy her and reclaim her body for you!”
“Wait, are talking about princess Celestia?”
“Yes, sure.” Luna replied. “We will pass through all of her tricks and defeat her together. Once she is no more, I will take your soul and put it where hers was. We won’t have to care about her anymore, you will be free and Twilight Sparkle as well. It’s a perfect plan!”
“No!” Twilight shouted.
Luna froze.
“No, no, no and no!” Twilight kept on shouting. “I have more than enough of all the machinations and plans of battle and epic fighting! This all ends now. I have no intention of harming princess Celestia: she is my friend, heck, she is your sister!”
Luna still didn’t respond, completely taken out of her element by Twilight’s vehement recrimination.
“I am going to save the one trapped inside of me and if I have to go so that she can live, then that is what I will do, not matter how much it scares me.”
“But…” Luna finally faintly responded.
“But what?” Twilight asked back, with probably a bit harsher tone than was truly needed.
“You can’t go when we just met each other again after all that time! Please. You won’t have to harm her, I can do it all on my own if need be. I just don’t want to lose you.”
“You certainly won’t! If you try to oppose princess Celestia, I shall be at her side and so will all of Equestria.” Twilight replied.
She then calmed down and approached Luna with a gentler and caring tone, one she had heard Celestia use so many times and she didn’t even know she was capable of:
“Please, princess Luna. I am very touched that you would care so much about me and I appreciate and respect you more than you can probably imagine. But there is an innocent filly that deserves a life that was taken from her. My time has passed, as everything must end at some point.”
Luna didn’t reply, but started to cry a bit, even if she was trying to hide that fact. Twilight hugged her and slowly, the dream faded away as she was waking up.