She started the incantation, summoned the magical wind and slowly felt the world fading all around as she kept her entire mind focused on the end of world. A flash of bright light blinded her and she felt herself fall on a ground made of grass and dirt.
She wasn’t in the castle anymore and Starlight was nowhere to be seen. Quickly regaining her senses, she looked around, curious to see what the end of Equestria could look like.
She hadn’t expected anything like what she was seeing.
There was a lot of fire, of course, but those were fireworks illuminating the sky. There was a lot of noise, but it came from a distance, the sound of ponies singing and partying. There was a setting sun, but it was made from the bright and flamboyant orange of spring. It was warm, it was comforting and it was calm and slow.
Birds were singing, flowers were blooming and it was altogether a beautiful end of a day. A nice breeze was caressing the leaves of the brown, yellow and green trees, whose colors weren’t quite right, but in a joyful way. As the day was stretching, so were the shadows all around, shy yet playful they embraced the scenery to lull the witness of their dance in a calm and well deserved sleep.
One bush’s silhouette caught Twilight’s attention. The other bushes had been left free to grow in whatever shape they wanted, which was usually chaotic taken all alone, but harmonious taken together.
But that bush’s silhouette looked like it had been expertly pruned into many nice flowing curves, like a cloud forced to stay on the ground. Twilight thought that it actually could have been a cloud, given that it was entirely covered in shadow. That would have made sense, if the cloud hadn’t let out a little giggle.
“Where am I?” Twilight asked herself out loud, the word echoing in her mind and around her.
“The end of the world.” The giggling bush replied with a voice that sounded both familiar and completely unknown, the same way something weird, like water colored in pink, is still familiar old water, but pink. Weird, yet familiar.
“I admit that I didn’t quite picture the end exactly that way…” Another voice responded, passing by Twilight’s side with grace and beauty.
“Princess Celestia!” Twilight called, recognizing her instantly despite her pink fur and mane and how younger she looked.
She was happy, relieved and a bit surprised to find Celestia in such a place. But Celestia didn’t reply and passed right before her without even one glance in her direction.
Twilight called out to her again, without any better result. She stepped back and her left back hoof fell on a branch. Instead of breaking under the pressure, the branch let Twilight’s hoof pass right through. She tried to touch the grass but her hoof wouldn’t grasp onto anything around her.
Celestia’s voice caught her attention again as the princess of the sun had taken place near the silhouette she had noticed earlier, two shadows in the light of the majestic setting sun.
“I cannot help but feel your place isn’t here, all alone, away from everypony else.” Celestia said.
“I am in the company of a great friend of mine.” The silhouette replied. “This is most certainly my place.”
“Where is your friend?” Celestia asked, as the black shape of her head turned left and right. “Do I know her?”
“Of course you do. It’s you, you silly old prankster!” The silhouette responded.
And the silhouette hugged Celestia who let herself be hugged and hugged the silhouette back.
“I wish it would last forever.” Celestia let out. “The songs in the air, the caress of the wind, the warmth of a friend in my hooves, the joy of every creature all around. This moment is just perfect, I do not understand why you want to end it all.”
“It’s not that I want to…” The silhouette responded. “But I have to move on. It wasn’t clear to me when I started creating this world why I was doing so. At the time I was just scared, I was lost, and I really, really needed a friend to comfort me. I am older now, I am not scared anymore and I am ready to go where I need to go and do what I need to do.”
“You have grown tired of us then?” Celestia asked. “Aren’t we making you happy anymore?”
“No! Oh no. I love each and every single one of you very, very much. You’re all my friends and I still feel like we could party forever. But I grew wiser. It’s my fault, I made you the way you are, so it’s normal you don’t understand. I used to not understand. Things cannot last forever. Things mustn’t last forever.”
The two silhouettes of Celestia and her interlocutor stayed there in silence, embracing each other despite the divide in their thoughts.
“Couldn’t you stay and explain?” Celestia asked eventually.
“And there you go again being all silly.” The silhouette replied. “This world is going to end. Were I to stay another million years and explain everything to you in details, you wouldn’t remember any of it once the world has ended. It could make you feel better about it, but I will make you feel better anyway. I will make sure everpony feels great and that your last moments are happy ones. My world’s end isn’t a tragedy. I want my world, any world, but my world at the very least, to end in bliss.”
Another silence ensued. Celestia slowly let go of the embrace and looked at the sun in the distance.
“So… how will it happen?” She asked.
“Once the sun disappears behind the horizon, you will all fall asleep and I will paint your dreams with joy and happiness. It will lull you until you lose consciousness and the world will have already ceased to exist.”
“I see.” Celestia replied.
She waited a bit, then stood up and started walking away. She did so slowly. She would raise one of her hoof, extend it and put it back onto the ground a bit further away. Then she would wait for a second or two and eventually raise another hoof that she would put back on the ground a bit further.
It was awkward at first, but she got better at it and her walk became more fluid with time, with less time between each movement, with more determination and confidence in each step.
“Do you hate me now?” The silhouette asked.
Celestia didn’t reply.
“I’m sorry. I really am.” The silhouette continued.
Celestia kept on walking her slow walk away.
“Please don’t leave…” The silhouette pleaded.
Celestia stopped. She didn’t turn back. She didn’t say anything. She just stood there and waited. She had stopped right in front of Twilight and still wouldn’t acknowledge her presence. But Twilight was in a perfect place to observe her face. The eternal smile had faded away, but she wasn’t frowning, or clenching her teeth. Her face was relaxed. Her eyes were sparkling with thousands of tiny light reflection that would overstep a bit over her cheeks. Her mouth moved:
“You have to leave us, I get that, I really do.” She told the silhouette. “We were there to make you feel better and allow you to continue your journey. We were just a small stopover in the way. I do not blame you. Were it not for you, none of us would have ever existed.”
Celestia paused for a while, then continued:
“And you have always been kind to us. You protected us, you helped us, you made us discover happiness and learn to enjoy every day. I learned to smile from you.”
Celestia turned back toward the silhouette as the setting sun touched the horizon and started to disappear behind it.
“You don’t have to destroy our world. We can keep on existing, even without you.” She added with determination.
“I cannot stay.” The silhouette replied.
Celestia firmly made her way back to her interlocutor while she kept on speaking:
“You cannot stay, but we can. All of us can stay here. You are obligated to go, but you aren’t obligated to destroy us. You could just leave us be.”
“But you would be all alone. I wouldn’t be there to protect you, to help you…” The silhouette defended herself.
“That will be for us to take care of. We are bigger now, we are stronger thanks to you. We are grown up enough to live on our own.” Celestia replied.
“You don’t understand!” The silhouette pleaded. “I genuinely don’t know what would happen if I left you behind, all alone. You think I’m a goddess, but I already told you I’m just a simple pony. While I’ve been here, I could always correct the world and provide what was missing. Once I’ve left, there will be no one left to maintain it. So many things could turn wrong on a scale way above your powers to handle…”
Celestia put her hoof on what was probably the silhouette’s shoulder, which made her stop. Twilight saw a new black curve appear and change the silhouette’s shape, which she understood to be the pony’s muzzle looking at Celestia. And despite the shadows, Twilight saw that Celestia’s smile had come back, bringing light even in the deepest darkness.
“Please. If you truly consider us your friends, I beg of you, please do not end our existence.” Celestia asked.
“Isn’t it better to disappear in an ocean of happiness? You don’t have any reason to exist anymore, it would be pointless. You would have to endure all the harshness of life without any goal, all alone in an abandoned world…”
“We won’t be alone. We will be together, among friends.” Celestia replied.
“But…” The silhouette started to respond.
“Please.” Celestia begged. “I don’t want to die!”
Twilight’s ears started to whistle, overcoming the singing of the birds and the songs of the ponies in the distance. Twilight closed her eyes, grabbed her own head with her hooves to make the sound stop, tried to breath heavily to make it go until, suddenly, it disappeared on its own, to leave place to the silhouette’s words:
“I know the feeling.”
The silhouette hugged Celestia and Twilight was pretty certain that Celestia was crying, but she couldn’t say for sure.
“It’s wrong.” The silhouette said. “I know it’s wrong. Every part of me tells me it’s wrong. The worst part would be that I made you to be immortal…”
She paused for a few seconds.
“But if that is what you truly want, then I won’t erase everything.”
Celestia’s mouth moved, but no sound came out of it. It seemed to form two words, or just two syllables. Twilight couldn’t say for sure.
“It’s okay. It doesn’t change much. No matter what, this world is ending tonight. It pains me to leave you behind, but I guess it will be fine in one way or another…”
Suddenly, the silhouette jumped into the air, showing very clearly her shape as a pony with a very cloudy mane.
“Wait!” She shouted. “I have a gift for you.”
The silhouette’s hoof appeared out of the shape she formed and seemed to reach inside its own head and take out some sort of weird tool, a magical wand of sort as far as Twilight could tell. Then the silhouette turned to Celestia’s shadow and put two eyes and a smile on it, with drawings a child would use.
“Don’t worry, it will adjust by itself.” She told Celestia. “But now you won’t be completely all alone. You will have a friend to play with and help you watch over the others while you sleep.”
Celestia looked at the drawing on her shadow and smiled.
“It won’t be easy. It won’t be easy at all. Please forgive me, I have created so many things in the past and you will probably have to deal with most of them. I may have been a bit more… unstable, chaotic even in the past. I used to be like that. I guess you will find out in time.”
The silhouette looked at the setting sun and so did Twilight and Celestia. Only one third remained visible.
“The time has come. All good things must come to an end.” The silhouette said. “Are you really, really sure you don’t want me to just bring you to eternal bliss?”
“We will never forget you. And I sure will miss you.” Celestia replied.
“I doubt I will ever come back. I will probably never be able to. But I left parts of me everywhere. You won’t have to miss me for long. In fact, you might have to face way too much of me for your own taste. I don’t really know. What happens from now on is beyond my power to influence or predict.”
The sun was now nothing but a small filament of light over the horizon.
“Time to go.” The silhouette said. “I really love you!” She added, embracing Celestia.
“I love you too.” Celestia replied.
Then, the silhouette jumped into the air, showing once again her clear pony shape. She used her wandy thing to draw a huge “Good bye, good luck” in the sky, and plunged into the horizon, just where the sun had been a second ago, and disappeared along with it.
Celestia stood there, her gaze lost in the horizon.
Twilight, who had stayed back in fear of disrupting the scene finally accepted that she was just a ghost in that moment in time and space. So she advance and went to sit next to princess Celestia.
She looked at the princess and felt a tremor in her heart by the distress of her look. Never before had she seen a pony more in need of the comforting rays of light of the sun and the hug of a friend.
She tried to hug Celestia, but her hooves went through her. So she just stayed there and observed the horizon, thinking again about everything that had just happen and trying to make sense of it all.
“Did I make the right choice?” Celestia asked out loud.
Twilight looked at her again. She couldn’t remember another time when Celestia had openly admitted uncertainty about what should or shouldn’t be done.
“I was afraid to die.” Celestia said. “And now, I am afraid to live.”
Twilight didn’t understand. She herself wasn’t afraid. She felt great about the idea of living. She had her friends, adventures, new things to discover every day. She wanted to comfort Celestia, but of course couldn’t.
Suddenly, Celestia turned her head toward Twilight, looked her right into her eyes and asked:
“Tell me, Twilight Sparkle: what would you have done in my place?”
Twilight jumped out of surprise, shrieked and instinctively closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she saw Starlight’s face looking at her and saying words she was only now starting to discern. Her shoulders were being held by hooves and she was being shaken so hard she felt her stomach revolting pretty violently.
“Twilight! Twilight! Are you okay? Oh please tell me you’re okay!”
“I’m fine. Please let go!” Twilight replied.
“Oh thank Celestia!” Starlight let out in a sigh. “I thought the spell had taken your soul away and I was afraid of how I should have been explaining it to the others… So… what happened?”
Twilight tried to collect her thoughts, but if the memories were there, she still couldn’t make much sense from what she had just experienced.
“Come on Twilight! What’s the answer? What is the goal?”
Twilight looked at Starlight’s eyes and the huge flames of expectation that were burning them with passion. Yet she had no good answer to provide. At least not one that Starlight would really appreciate. But she had something in mind nonetheless.
“The library.” Twilight said.
“The library? What about it? Is the answer in the library?” Starlight asked back.
“Let’s gather our friends, go to the library and find a good book to read together near the little lake.” Twilight explained.
Starlight tried to complain, totally in vain. In the end, she recognized that Twilight had given up on their quest. Or more probably, that Twilight now knew something she wasn’t ready to reveal right away. At least, Starlight knew that Twilight was now in possession of the answer and that she had played her role making sure of that situation.
So everything was now back into place, and reading a book as a group near a lake under a warm summer sun was as good as a situation as one could imagine.
“I wonder…” Twilight let out.
“What is it?” Her friends asked.
“Nothing.” Twilight replied. “Just something princess Celestia told me… So, where were we?”
“She still hasn't left him.” One of them responded.
They all laughed at the weirdness of the book they had chosen and kept on reading and having fun, just enjoying being there all together.
THE END