//------------------------------//
// Chapter 2 
// Story: Why There Are So Many White Unicorns in Equestria 
// by Captain_Hairball 
//------------------------------//

One Month Ago…

“And here,” said Star Swirl, moving his scalpel across the cadaver’s pelvis, “we see where the common femoral artery enters the thigh. This is the inguinal ligament, and…”

“Teacher,” said Celestia tapping her chin with the end of her quill, “am I going to die?”

Star Swirl looked up from the cadaver, and blinked at them through his spectacles. “What?” He was dressed in a white medical robe, and his beard was knotted into a bun to keep it from getting embalming fluids on it.

“Am I,” said Celestia, “going to die?”

“Do not be foolish, sister,” said Luna. “Everything in nature dies.”  Her notes were much more thorough than her sister’s. Celestia’s were a mass of blobs with arrows pointing at them and chicken-scratch hornwriting not even she could read. Luna had drawn some very lovely diagrams of the cadaver’s internal organs.

“But we are no longer part of the order of nature.” Celestia rustled her wings meaningfully.

Luna raised an eyebrow and turned to Star Swirl. He cleared his throat and looked back and forth between the teenage fillies. “I… well… I have to say I don’t know. I don’t know if I’d call you unnatural. Pony magic can’t go against nature. You know that.”

“But you told me you used things you learned from observing Discord’s Chaos magic to make us alicorns.” Celestia felt she was on to something, here. She knew the answer she was hoping for, if Star Swirl would just spit it out.

“Yes. I did. I did. But I used it to unlock something deep in pony nature. Something very old. There’s information inside our bodies. I wish I could understand it. But anyway. I suppose you might live a very long time. You might have to wait for something to kill you. But you will probably eventually die, yes.”

Luna looked smug. Celestia seethed. That was not the answer she had wanted.

“So,” said Star Swirl, “back to the femoral artery.”

“But if I’m going to die,” said Celestia, “then what’s the point of learning? What’s the point of anything?”

“What?” said Star Swirl.

“Everything I learn is going away when I die. Everything I do, and experience and see is going to be lost. So why even bother?”

“There is always loyalty to one’s duties,” suggested Luna.

“We live in the present,” said Star Swirl. “The years after you die will be no different to you than the years before you were born. If you’re concerned about your legacy… well, you’ve already done great deeds. Perhaps you could write a book? So ponies can read your words after you die?”

Celestia rolled her eyes. “I’d still be dead.”