A soft light shone through the thin white curtains, the ocean breeze and the sound of the Manehattan traffic wafting gently in. A vase of lavenders rested on a table beside it, a get-well-soon card from Canterlot signed by six ponies back in Ponyville attached. The calendar told her it was the next day...
Twilight groaned, turning in the hospital bed. Her wings felt like a sack of rocks inside the casts, and her entire body was more than sore otherwise. She heard a stirring next to her, and carefully turned her bandaged head to look.
An alabaster mare with a shimmering mane had been sitting on a pillow nearby. She set her book aside, her broad wings shuffling at her sides as she stood, the sun glinting off the golden crown which sat beside her horn.
“Twilight...” Princess Celestia said, a small half-smile forming on her face, “You gave us all quite the scare back there.” she set her hoof on Twilight’s shoulder.
“Princess Celestia...” She squirmed a bit, grunting against the pain, “Spike! Where’s Spike! Is he ok?”
“Spike’s fine.” Celestia gently pushed her back down, “He’s resting in the other room... The two of you will be coming back to Canterlot with me on the next train.”
“The Mare in White... I saw her... She was real...”
Celestia nodded sadly, “I had suspected as much. You see, I’d never been able to find her. I knew her madness was dangerous, but I thought that, perhaps, you might draw her out. That was why I didn’t tell you about her. I wanted you to investigate with an open mind.” She sighed, sitting down on her haunches next to the bed, laying the foreleg over her former student, “Obviously, I used some poor judgement.”
“Who was she? When she was alive, I mean?”
Princess Celestia sighed, a deep pain, centuries old, weighing down on her as she closed her eyes.
“She was... She is... One of my greatest failures.”
Hooves touched down softly against the grass, a cloaked figure tucking its wings, glancing over the edge, taking a moment to look out over the ocean view. The moon sparkled against the ocean like a second set of stars, as if there was no horizon, and heaven and earth had become one. Slowly, the tall and slender pony turned away, stepping towards the ruin of a familiar place. It had once been a major guard post, flaunted as an essential tactical asset during some now-irrelevant war, fought by ponies even she didn’t remember, and had become completely disused over centuries, lying now as little more than rubble, a fraction of what it used to be.
A hoof came up to push the hood back as the pony surveyed the ruin. One might have thought her a stallion, for her muscled build and the near hulking sway of her shoulders, if not for the soft features of her face, hardened with time and loss.
Tenderly, she climbed the steps, treating the place with the reverence of a sacred shrine to something long forgotten, placing a hoof against the stone where a grand door once stood. Now, even the metal of it had rusted away to dust and been lost to that calm, ocean breeze. Her nostrils flared as she took in a breath, allowing the smell of salt and sand churning far below to wash through her as she stood lost in ancient memories.
Behind her, she felt a stirring. She turned and saw Her...
The Mare in White.
She looked at her without fear, without anger, or even wonder, and when she spoke, the only tremor in her voice was the ache of melancholy...
“I... heardst thou might be here.”
“I never left.”
“This I can see.”
“I waited for you.”
The visitor paused, closing her eyes. “...I know.”
“They expelled me from the guard as soon as you were gone.”
“I know.”
“They called me ‘The Night Witch’. They accused me of murdering foals and consuming their flesh.”
“I... Read the stories.”
“They tried to kill me... but, as you said, you know.”
The living mare stood silently, looking down at the echo of the one who was gone.
“When I ran, they chased me. Everywhere I tried to hide, I was soon found out. They made me live as if I were a ghost, with no place I could truly live, no shelter for my so called sins.”
...
The Mare put her icy hoof against the worn stone. “This was the last place I came to, the only safe place I could think of. Our old secret. I lived here for some time, just... grazing for food, staying in this place for shelter...”
“Our secret...” the mare smiled bitterly, “A funny way to describe your former post... Then again, you were the only caretaker to truly appreciate its beauty.”
“But, in time, the loneliness became too great for me to bare. After all, we were the only ponies to come here, in the end, weren’t we, Princess?”
“I suppose so.“
“I had much time to think, just... angry... hating... but other times, I imagined what could’ve been. What would’ve been in a world where our love wasn’t looked down upon, a world where I could have you, a world where you were still here.”
The living mare closed her eyes, taking a deep breath, the air cold and crisp, like that of a calm winter’s day.
“I remembered our secret liaison here, when we were wed. The lavenders you hung were beautiful under the light of your moon, as were the candles I brought. You were wearing that uniform you were so proud in, I was wearing a beautiful white dress. We spoke our vows with the sea at our backs, the lonely guard house our only witness. You held me, and I held you, and in that kiss, I thought we shared a love that would never be broken.”
The Princess opened her eyes, looking down at her with woe, reaching out a hoof to touch her face.
The Mare turned away, stepping slowly down the stairs, heading towards the cliff, “And when the memory that was true was not enough, I imagined what it would have been like if our love hadn’t been so taboo. If you were not a princess, and I were not your guard, if ponies like us... If the love between mares was not looked down upon as it was. I imagined your sister was there in pony, as if she ever approved of what we had. I imagined my whole family was there, not in shame for their wayward daughter, but in joy for out matrimony.”
The Princess only stared, having stopped a few paces short of her, following her gaze out to the ocean.
“And when I couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t live with it...” the Mare stared coldly over the edge, giving a gentle shrug of defeat, “I just wanted that view, our view, to be the last thing I ever saw, and that memory of that ending which never was, to be the last I ever remembered...”
“I’m sorry...” The Princess grit her teeth, holding back tears, “I’m so sorry, my dear sweet Serenity...”
“What’s done is done.” the echo of Serenity stated solemnly, “I stood for something that could never be, and this is where I Fell.”
Her lover stepped beside her, draping a wing over her withers, as if unsure what she might do to make up for so much time lost with the shadow of her former love.
They stood there for a moment, but there was no warmth, for all warmth had left the Mare far too long ago to ever be regained.
“The sun will be rising soon.” She finally said, “I think I should like to watch it with you... One last time.”
“...I... Suppose it was wishful thinking, to believe I might somehow bring you back...”
“I died long ago. All that remains of what I was is my pain, my loss...” she glanced upwards at her long-lost-love returned, “And now that I have you again, I have nothing more to be.”
They gazed out at the moonlit sea, the stars shimmering, as if they were eyes and tears were forming within them. They hung like the condemned, so far above the endless expanse of dark waves that none could touch them, stretching beyond that horizon where the worlds of water and sky were melded into one. In their imaginations, they searched for a place, far beyond there, where they would ever find the happiness they had once had when their bodies had intertwined and their hearts had been one.
None could be found. There were only the fleeting moments of the now...
Soon, the top sliver of the sun appeared, shimmering overtop the clear blue horizon, splitting sky and sea.
Serenity took a deep breath as her pale form shimmered in the sunlight, and for a brief moment, the blue color of her coat seemed to return, her eyes sparkling a green as deep as the forest behind them, as if, for an instant she were alive once more.
Her lover looked down at her, staring deep, knowing this moment would be the last she ever saw of her.
She leaned forward, murmuring the words her ancient heart lent her, “Thou art more beautiful than life itself, my love.”
The Mare looked up into her eyes, her own sparkling like gems as they were lost in each other, “And thou art an angel, a miracle of beauty in the darkness of night.”
Their lips met, the warmth of life pressing against the cold of death, as they shared their final kiss, in a moment that seemed to last a thousand years...
A thousand years of death...
...A thousand years of loneliness.
The Princess let go, eyes still closed, a whispered promise uttering forth, “For as long as I live, should it be an eternity, I swear, I shall never forget you...”
She opened her eyes, and found herself alone, standing in the first warmth of the morning sun, the only sound in the silence that calming rushing of the waves against the rocks below.
Serenity was at rest.
Her long lost love was finally departed.
Luna laid her head down on that grassy ground...
...and she wept.
THE END