The present day:
The Sunlit Blade’s eyes were filled with tears. “My beautiful child…. I failed her so. She was too young, too innocent of the world to counter such an evil.” The look on the crone’s face was one of ancient pain. “I had plans to adopt her formally once we imprisoned that monster. I would be freed from my vow, and I had planned to adopt her and love her as she deserved to be,” she bawled, “and instead my foolishness killed her.”
Twilight didn’t know what to say. She’d read about the destruction of Mareocco in a history book, but it had been written that the catastrophe had been due to an inexplicable sandstorm too strong for the small weather team to deal with. To find out the truth now….
“With that, I doubled my pursuit of the monster, no longer intent on capturing him, but murdering him for taking my child from me. And I pursued, even as I grew older and my bones no longer as strong, my step no longer as strident, my wingbeats no longer as swift. And finally came the day when I could pursue no longer, and I was ordered by the Grand Master to cease.” The look on her face was one of utter agony. “And thus my failure to both my liegelady and my daughter was complete.
“But then you came, your highness. You, with your incredible powers and your shieldmaidens. You swept the battlefield clear of the threats to Equestria as if they were nothing before your skills. And in time, you faced my foe – and you succeeded where I could not. You proved yourself truer than any warrior I have ever known, and even Her Divine Majesty saw fit to honor you with Wings of Holiness. It was Providence that you were born and fulfilled the ancient words: ‘The stars will set us free’.” She looked at Twilight’s cutie mark. “It was always destined to be you.”
She sighed. “But even still, I have failed, and it falls upon me to beg your forgiveness. For letting you, a child, face countless monsters because I no longer have the strength. For letting you and your shieldmaidens risk your lives when you could have ended up just as my own charge did. Please, forgive this old fool. Forgive me!”
Twilight looked at her for the longest time, and then a smile crossed her face.
“There is nothing to forgive,” she said, “because you did not fail.” When the mare looked at the alicorn with rheumy eyes, Twilight reached over and took her forehooves in her own. “You continued to keep on going, when others would have given up. You continued to protect us all, even at great personal cost. Even until you had no choice, you kept going, relentless and determined. I don’t know if I have that kind of strength in me…but I’m glad somepony did.”
“But Princess….”
“No. You did not fail. You led the way for me to succeed, me and my Bearers. Our victory is as much yours as it was mine.” Twilight reached over and gently kissed the frail mare on the forehead. “You may think you have lost, but I promise you: you beat him.”
The Blade shed tears once more, but now they were ones of relief and joy. “So I did not fail?”
“Never. You succeeded where nopony else could.”
“I have redeemed myself,” she said in a soft voice, a smile coming to her paper-thin lips. “I am free at last.” Then she sighed in contentment…
…and breathed no more.
A week later:
“Thank you for arranging this, Celestia,” Twilight said to the senior princess.
“And thank you for doing the research,” the sun alicorn replied. “I wouldn’t have known where to begin…I didn’t even know her name, as she’d been introduced to me as ‘the Sunlit Blade’ from day one. Regardless, I always wanted to make sure she got her final rest in a place she deserved, but I wasn’t sure where.”
“Going through her private journals…they were amazing,” Twilight said with a tone of awe. “I’ll be sure to talk to a publisher about getting them out there. More ponies need to know about who she was and what she did.”
“You’ll get no argument from me on that,” Celestia agreed.
The two stood in an alpine clearing on the far side of Mt. Canterhorn, a distance away from the city’s eastern gate. Though it was still within the city’s grounds and thus upkept by earth ponies from the Forestry Service, otherwise it was a slight distance away from the mountain pass road and thus not often disturbed. Several feet away, the Bearers, Shining, Cadance and Luna stood, present for the funeral but otherwise not sure of what to say. In the distance, an honor guard saluted the fallen warrior.
“At least she’s at peace,” Twilight said sadly. “She deserved so much better. She made an error and it cost her the entirety of her life.”
“She did, true,” Celestia noted, “but I don’t think she deserved so much better.” When Twilight looked at her mentor with shock, the elder mare explained: “She had the choice to walk away, and yet she didn’t. She chose time and time again to put aside her own desires for the safety and security of the realm, so that ponies could rest easy at night. So that nopony else would have to take up her burden.”
Celestia was silent for the longest time before she admitted, “At one point…I was going to send Sunset to her to be her new Squire. I’d…been fed up with her attitude and this was before we finally parted ways, but…the Blade asked me not to. Said that daughters were too precious to waste in an endless war, and that her losing hers was enough. She couldn’t bear to see me lose mine.” The mare sighed. “I often wonder if I made the right choice.”
“Given all the good that Sunset has done in her world, you did,” Twilight assured her. “Without her, the Sirens would still run rampant, my counterpart could have gone insane from the magic overload, and so many other things. I know it seems hard, but she made the right choice.” Realization came over Twilight suddenly. “She knew, didn’t she?”
“Of course not. But I always suspected she knew Sunset’s destiny would be different than her own. Her burden was hers to carry, and it pained her to have somepony else do it. And now that course is run and she sleeps soundly until the end of days.” Celestia summoned a spray of white roses and placed it on the grave. “Rest now, my little pony,” she said in a soft but somber voice. “Rest and know you never relented.”
Twilight summoned the Sunlit Blade’s sword, polished and restored to perfection. “May it serve you until the end of days,” she said, placing it in the niche engraved into the tombstone. The magic spell she’d placed on it would protect it from the elements for centuries to come, until it was needed again, or until it was never needed once more.
Twilight looked at the two graves. That of the Squire, a young mare of sixteen that had fallen too early. Now she would forever rest with the pony that was her mother, in all but name. And then finally, Twilight looked at the grave of the Sunlit Blade, now and forever identified by the name she never used in her life.
Here Lies
HOPEFUL INNOCENCE
The Sunlit Blade of Celestia
“Forever she kept us safe
and forever was she relentless to her foes.”
Twilight wiped away tears. Somehow, she suspected the Blade – Hopeful Innocence – wouldn’t want that. That she would want Twilight to be strong and persevere.
To be relentless.
“Let’s go get some lunch,” Twilight told her mentor. “Maybe if her schedule’s clear, I can ask Sunset to join us. I’ve read some stories in the Blade’s journals that I think you might find interesting.”
And with that, the two walked away from those forever slumbering, and towards the living, and the world forever moving on.