//------------------------------// // Age 7: Oblivion // Story: The Seven Ages of Pony // by ObabScribbler //------------------------------// Age 7: Last scene of all, That ends this strange eventful history, Is second childishness and mere oblivion, Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. I stood on my balcony and stared at the near-full moon high in the night sky. Tomorrow night it would wax completely full. However, tomorrow night the pitted facsimilar of a face on its surface would be absent. A thousand years. Had it really been a thousand years? So much had changed since the last time I saw a moon that did not bear the mark of my own failure. On that auspicious occasion I had decided to take leave of everypony in my court and spend some time alone with my thoughts. So much had be set in motion already that I felt the need for room to breathe before all my plans came to fruition - or failure, as was still very much a possibility. Raven was a good assistant. Sometimes she was hard to look at, such was her resemblance to her ancestor Writing Desk, but she could hold down the fort while I collected my thoughts. The breeze was cold against my face. I closed my eyes and turned my face into it. It was nights like this I missed glamouring myself as a mere pegasus and going for a night flight over the Everfree. I hadn’t done that in a long time. There always seemed to be something requiring my attention that absolutely, positively could not be put off until later. Even an army of royal assistants could not insulate me from the responsibilities of ruling for more than a few hours at a time. I sighed. One thousand years. The number has seemed interminable at first but now I stood on the cusp of the final morning and I … was not sure if I was ready. I had set into motion all I could think of to safeguard my little ponies while also healing my poor sister and returning her to me as she once was. Right now Twilight Sparkle, my latest student, was in Ponyville meeting with ponies I hoped would be suitable candidates to wield the Elements of Harmony. They seemed to embody the various attributes necessary, plus after extensive investigations into their histories they all seemed to be good ponies. Twilight herself I did not doubt would do her best to achieve the most optimal outcome. Her nature was rather bookish and a little too introverted but she had an inner strength I had seen only a few times in my long life. Something in her chimed with a part of my soul I had not heard in … well, in far too long. Since before Equestria made peace with its political enemies; before my beloved school was broken into factions while I brokered that peace in distant lands; since before the council ate its own tail and collapsed, only to be born anew as the Equestrian Parliament. Decades had passed like eyeblinks, it seemed, and yet they had also crawled by, allowing me to absorb my triumphs and tragedies in excruciating detail. So much had been done and yet there was still so much to do. Would I get the chance to do it all? Would I continue to shape our nation alone from my pedestal of memories? Thoughts of the future dominated my mind tonight. When I pushed them aside, however, thoughts of the past rushed to take their place. It seemed I was caught in an unending nexus of ‘never was’, ‘never will be’ and tentatively hopeful ‘maybes’ that grew only more insistent as the minutes ticked by. Luna… The sudden detonation of magic behind me was almost welcome in its distraction. When I turned to see the cause, however, I did not welcome it at all. “Celes … tia…” Starswirl stumbled towards me, dripping blood, his beard and cloak stained angry red in far too many places. I dived forward to catch him as he crumpled like a puppet with all its strings cut. “Starswirl!” He weighed practically nothing. He was so old, so thin and sickly looking. I immediately thought of that long ago time with the bear prince and my confusion of his departing words abated. “I will be there … at the end … I promise you.” At the end of a thousand years of waiting. All this time and he had not forgotten. “Starswirl, old friend, can you hear me?” His breathing was shallow and when I felt his pulse it flickered under my magic. “I shall fetch a doctor, you must -” “No …” His hoof shot out and grasped mine much tighter than I expected. “This is as it should be.” His eyes when they met mine were bright and alert, albeit full of pain at his injuries. “I’m full of manticore poison, Celestia, and half of my guts rotted away long ago on the floor of the Everfree Forest. I know I’m dying. Medical science has improved much in this time but not enough for me. This is the when and where I have chosen for my end. Here, with you, so you aren’t alone as you wait for the dawn.” “Starswirl.” A lump caught in my throat. This was hardly the first death of a loved one I had ever endured but it cut deeper than any other. Even Purple Pumpkin has not hurt this much. I had known his end was nearing for weeks before it came and had made use of the time to make my peace with it. This was an unexpected blow. “Can I at least make you more comfortable?” “I’m as comfortable as I’m going to be, girl.” He coughed, flecking me with red. I did not care. I cradled him like a nursing foal, heedless of the mess he made of my regalia. “H-how long … until the dawn now? Did I … did I make it in time?” I tried to swallow. “Mere minutes. The time is nearly up. Luna will return soon and I …” “You will not face her yet,” Starswirl said softly. “First … your student and her … h-her f-friends will … will meet her in Ponyville. But not you. You will see her when she ...is Luna … again …” I gasped. “She will not be the Nightmare when I see her?” Starswirl smiled. “I have … seen it … in my travels ...” Joy blossomed in my heart unlike anything I had ever thought I could feel again. Luna - the true Luna - was going to come back to me. I could hardly believe it. “Why did you not tell me this before?” “Because … what has happened … must happen no matter what I … d-do … time is not … is not …” He closed his eyes. “Starswirl?” Joy ceded to desperation. “Starswirl!?” “I’m not … dead … y-yet,” he wheezed. “My molecules … all scrambled from time-shifting … when I go … no body … I’ll become one w-with … with the t-timestream …” He smiled as if at some private joke. “And then I shall know all its secrets at l-last …” The world broke apart into wet fragments. I felt the tears pour down my cheeks. I was no longer sure who or what they were for. I held my oldest, dearest friend and choked down my sobs. “I’m sorry, Starswirl. I’ve made so many mistakes in these thousand years - ” “Pshaw. You made the mistakes you were meant to. Even one thing different and this m-moment right n-now might not have happened.” He opened his eyes and stared piercingly at me. “And this moment … this moment is … what was meant to … m-meant t-to …” On the other side of my chambers the grandfather clock began to chime the hour. A bright white light shone through the open window. I heard an echoing laughter, cruel and mocking, that I had last heard a millenia ago. “I’m coming, sister dear!” “Do not give up hope, Celestia.” Starswirl’s breathing hitched and slowed. His horn ignited. I felt myself lift off the floor and was surprised when the dark shadow riding into the room on a beam of moonlight screamed in anger. “No! She is mine! I have waited too long for this!” “You cannot have her, Nightmare. I am hiding her where shadows dare not go for fear of being snuffed out of existence.” His eyes met mine one last time. “In the heart of the sun itself.” The Nightmare’s voice laughed. “You think you hide her but I will chain her to the sun so she can never be free of her hiding place - just as she bound me to the moon! Enjoy your exile, dear sister. Only you will ever see the sun again.” “So you think, Nightmare.” Starswirl grunted and slipped from my grasp. His hooves dissolved into glowing pinpricks of light. Each pinprick darted away, becoming lost in the shadows filling my room. “My time has come. Goodbye Celestia. Goodbye, Luna.” “You dare call me by that name!” screeched the darkness. Starswirl exploded into white light. For an instant the room was as bright as day. The curtain next to the window blew back, revealing a much younger bearded face, expression a mask of horror. His horn was already glowing to whisk him away from this time and place. I caught a glimpse of slitted turquoise eyes in the shrieking shadows before the world became nothing but heat and fire and the peace of oblivion.