Luna's Daughters

by SockPuppet

Tranquility at the Bridge

Red against the midnight sky, Celestia's realm burned. Towers of black smoke rose from every outlying village and town, blocking the stars and dimming the moon. Celestia stood on the highest scaffold, hidden within the half-built spires of Canterlot.

By torchlight, refugees trudged away from the fighting, up the roadway that lead into the new capital: elderly dragged on travois, pregnant mares waddling as best they could. Orphans sobbed.

Celestia's tail swished as she beheld the ruination of all her dreams.

"My son? My niece?" she asked.

"Hidden in the catacombs, with their nannies and praetorians," said Duke Cloudsdale.

A pegasus refugee screamed as she birthed on the back of a wheeled cart.

"Did you pass my final order?" Celestia asked.

Cloudsdale nodded. "The crown prince and the princess are... are..."

"Are?"

"Are not to be taken alive."

"Correct."

Mares and stallions were pulled from the crowd, given a helmet and spear, and sent to muster with the forming militia companies. Celestia closed her eyes and imagined the slaughter those untrained irregulars would soon endure.

"My husband?" asked Celestia.

In the distance, beyond the miles-long string of refugees, spells glittered in the dark as the Guard died to hold back the Maretruscan army, making time for the civilians.

"We believe his battalion destroyed, highness. He.... always fought in the front line."

Celestia sniffled, and wiped tears from her eyes.  "Captain Tranquility?"

"Princess Cropped Ears is at her post," replied Colonel Bronze Spear. "Today may be the day she gets her wish."

She looked upward, wondering if the unfinished spires would ever be completed, or if they would burn and fall before the next sundown.

Celestia whickered, then asked, "The latest tidings?"

"Messengers fly from east and north. Horsena routed our battalions, but our troops reform south, in the Everfree. They plan a flanking attack this afternoon. Reports of rape and torture abound. Crops are burned. This winter will be hungry."

"We will endure, together."

"The army has not wrapped itself in glory today," said the colonel.

"I was wrong to discharge the officers of the Lunar Battalion," Celestia said. "They wished only to serve. The traitors have manipulated good stallions and mares to their cause."

Cloudsdale spat on the scaffold's planking. "Accursed Nightmare Moon!"

"Our enemies use her as a symbol. She holds no other power."

Refugees streamed across the bridge, filling Canterlot.

Celestia sniffed the rank breeze. Waste already overwhelmed the sewers. If the siege lasted long, disease would ravage her little ponies.

One more sign of her failure.

"I'll procrastinate no more," she said, and cast a spell. A thunderous crack rang across the valley, knocking scree loose from the cliffs. A translucent-yellow dome shimmered over the city, reflecting the light of ten thousand torches.

The refugees stumbled and looked up and around, and saw the dome ended about six feet above the deck of the bridge.

"Our pegasi will be unable to fight," said Cloudsdale.

"Our pegasi will fight on their hooves," said Celestia, "and we will not worry about their pegasi landing amongst the refugees. Nor will their archers bother us."

"You will be unable to fight."

"If their pegasi deliver firebombs into our civilians, our lines will crack, and the battle is lost. I fight by holding my spell."

By noon, fighting echoed up the mountain passes and switchbacks, close on the hooves of the refugee column.

From the city wall, Celestia watched an entire battalion of her guard die to slow the Maretruscan advance. As the last refugees neared the bridge, the enemy's van broke the final line of defenders downvalley.

"And lo," she said, grinding her teeth, "passes the dream of a nation where ponies live in Harmony."

A messenger flew up the mountain and landed just in front of Celestia's shield dome. She trotted across the bridge and genuflected before the wall.

"Highness!"

"You're bleeding," Celestia said. "Arise. Give me your tidings, then to the healers with you."

The messenger stood up, then looked at herself. Blood stained her right wing, and ran from under her tail, dripping down the insides of her thighs. She shook her head then looked at Celestia. "Highness, Baron Peganiculum is dead, and his battalion destroyed. None survived but I. The road is clear to the enemy."

"Thank you. To the healers."

"I prefer to join the line, if somepony can spare a weapon."

"To the healers."

"Peganiculum is burned! My husband and foals are dead in the ashes! I prefer to kill than to live. Please, somepony give me a weapon."

Celestia dipped her head. "As you wish. To the muster with you."

The messenger bowed and flapped away, trailing blood.

"If we can hold," Cloudsdale whispered, "there is hope. Our distant legions sortie to the capitol. Our broken battalions reform and rally."

Celestia flapped down to the guardhouse at the end of the bridge. Cloudsdale followed on elderly wings, and her other officers took the stairs.

The river surged beneath them, yellow with the mud of autumn rains. The bridge loomed over the chasm, a work of enchanted stone and timber, intended to last ten thousand years, and immune to spell or magical weapon.

Cloudsdale lifted a spyglass with his wingtips, and looked down the valley. Celestia simply squinted.

"A pall of red dust," said Cloudsdale, "and I hear their tramp and trumpets."

"Twelve banners," Celestia said. "I see the rapist Sextus's banner, as well as prince-consort Astur's. My brother-in-law has found a place where his talents are valued."

Cloudsdale stomped.

The last few refugees, an elderly unicorn mare with four grand- or great-grandfoals who matched her coloring, crossed the bridge into the city. The mare's walking stick sounded against the bridge's deck. There was no sign of the foals' parents.

After two deep breaths, Celestia called, "Lieutenant Dark Cloud."

The young pegasus flapped to her and bowed, wings flared. "Liege."

"The bridge must go down, forthwith."

He stood to his full height, and looked at the bridge. The sapper rubbed his heavy beard. A sledgehammer hung low across his withers. "It may take an hour or more. Spells will not avail us; it shall be crowbars and axes and sweat."

"We have not an hour," Celestia said.

She looked from the bridge to the city's inadequate walls. "Their van will be upon us before the bridge goes down; and if once they once may win the bridge, what hope to save the town?"

Princess Tranquility teleported in, landing before Celestia, levitating off her helmet to tuck under her foreleg. The scarred stumps of her ears flicked, and her light chainmail clinked.

"To every mare born to this realm, death cometh soon or late. And how can mare die better, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of her sires, and the temples of her gods? And for the tender mother, who dandled her to rest, and for the daughter who nurses grandfoal at her breast? And for the holy maidens, who feed the eternal flame, to save them from false Sextus, that wrought the deed of shame?

"Haul down the bridge, my Aunt, with all the speed ye may; I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play. In yon strait path a thousand may well be stopped by three."

Tranquility turned to the ranks of armored troopers standing nearby, and levitated her helmet up, waving it like a standard. "Who of our land will with me stand, and keep the bridge with me?"

A small pegasus of the Canterlot militia stepped forward, seafoam green. Spurious Larhorsius, his cutie mark showed a winged sun half-hidden by clouds. He shook his head under his helmet, and the leading edges of his wings glinted where sunlight struck their blades. "Lo, I will hark to thy right Mark, and keep the bridge with thee."

An off-white earth pony, Hereford, a praetorian of Celestia's personal guard, as tall as Tranquility but twice her weight, stepped forward. Plate armor as thick as Celestia's forelegs covered her. "I will abide on thy left side, and keep the bridge with thee."

Tranquility looked at her aunt.

"Tranquility," said Celestia, "As thou sayest, so let it be."

Luna stopped reading, and looked up at her sister. "You say these words are true? All true?"

"Aye, Luna. Every word. Some details didn't make the poem, however, because Dark Cloud either wasn't privy, or could not find a rhyme."

"Tell me."

"Tranquility levitated her helmet back on. She looked at me, and I saw tears in her eyes. She said, 'Aunt?' I looked at her, and fought my own tears. Tranquility said, 'Thank you for trusting me, Auntie Tia.'"

Luna clenched her eyes, and wheezed through a clamped jaw. "What did thou reply?"

"I told her, 'I trust nopony more. Fight hard. Die well. I love you.' ...To tell her 'good luck' or 'be safe' would have been insulting."

Luna turned back to the poem and read, And straight against that great array, galloped the dauntless Three.

Celestia watched her niece and the two troopers. They waited at the far head of the bridge, tightening their armor and harnesses, shaking their heads to seat their helmets.

Tranquility levitated up sword and shield, spinning the sword in figure-eights.

Spurious danced from side to side and flicked his bladed wings.

Hereford stood, glacier-like as only an earth pony can, the bone-crushing knobs on her foreleg armor glinting in the noonday sun.

Horn glowing with the shield spell, Celestia could not levitate anything. She took an axe into her teeth and landed the first blow against the wooden trestle of the bridge.

And nobles mixed with peasants, soldiers mixed with shopkeepers and farmers. Everpony that could wield a hatchet, axe, or crow swarmed the bridge. Unicorns and earth ponies smote upon the planks above, and pegasi loosened the props below.

The din crescendoed, as the hundreds attacked the bridge, struggling to break its enchantments and throw it down.

The Maretruscan army paraded up the path, rank behind rank, their gold armor a rippling field of grain kissed by the sun. Four hundred trumpets sounded, the peals echoing off the cliffs. Their phalanxes advanced with banners spread, rolling toward the dauntless Three.

Suprious's hopping and flicking calmed, and Tranquility steadied her sword and shield. Hereford tapped the deck of the bridge with one forehoof, tail flicking.

The bridge trembled with the fall of axe and hatchet, and groaned as crowbars attacked its joints. Pegasi voices and flapping wings sounded below the bridge.

From the Maretruscan vanguard, laughter rose. Had they not destroyed battalions and legions of Celestia's Guard already, now to be challenged by three?

Three of their own champions, nobles proud, galloped ahead of the van and closed on the head of the bridge, to win the narrow way.

Darting low and fast, Spurious Larhorsius struck across with his right wing, blades slicing his foe's forelegs off, then reversed and struck underneath a swinging sword, left uppercut opening throat and jugular. Larhorsius butted with his head, and threw the Maretruscan noble into the rushing waters below.

Hereford rode out her opponent's blow, her armor barely dented, and she uppercut with her foreleg, smashing his chin upward, flat against the roof of his helmet. The body flipped over backwards and bled into the dust.

Tranquility, with a parry of her shield and one fiery thrust, drove her swordpoint deep into the noble's eye, and stained his jeweled and gilded armor with brains and blood.

At the sight of three of their best-born dead, the invaders shouted curses and struck their shields, trumpets blaring.

Larhorsius flared his wings. The blood dripped off. Hereford stood still and quiet, foreleg caked in gore. Tranquility wiped the blood off her blade, onto her victim's cheek.

Across the bridge, Celestia paused, head ringing from swinging the axe with her teeth. Her niece stood, anchoring the line of three defenders, standing over the body of a Maretruscan.

Three more of the enemy broke ranks and ran forward, to slake their thirst for glory and fame by breaking Canterlot's final line.

Herford smote down a unicorn, Larhorsius sliced open the chest of an earth pony, and Tranquility severed the right wing and split the spine of a pegasus.

As the severed wing twitched in the bloody dust, Tranquility raised her sword and screamed, "Lie there, fell marauder!"

Celestia returned to her task, and swung her axe against the trestle, again and again.

Now, no sound of laughter was heard among the foes. Their clamor rose, wrathful and angry. The marching phalaxes halted six spear-lengths from the Three. Celestia's dome shimmered above, frustrating teleporter, archer, and pegasus.

And, staring at the piled corpses and spilled blood, nopony sallied forth to win the narrow way.

A single trumpet sounded, and the ranks divided. Two colts marched forth, carrying upright a banner of a black crescent moon on a silver field. Behind them strode the great Lord Astur, a unicorn stallion almost as large as Hereford, coat mustard-yellow, mane and tail indigo, cutie mark hidden under bronze armor.

A tremendous shield hung across his withers, and two fillies hauled a cart bearing his sword, which burned with black flame, a sword none but a sorcerer of his power and malice could wield.

He smiled at the Three, and eyed his own flinching ranks. His lips twisted and ears flicked at the sight of the cowards in his own array.

His voice echoed off the cliffs and scree, "The sun-goddess's foals stand pathetically at bay, but will ye dare to follow, when Astur clears the way?"

Astur levitated up broadsword and stepped past his ensign-bearers.

"Beloved daughter," he said, "you have grown! Shall you come to your father's side, or shall you die in the service of the monster who banished your mother? After we sack the castle and take the Elements, we will bring your mother back. Bring her back tonight. Shall you greet her in honor, or shall she lament your disloyalty over your trampled corpse?"

The white tail and cropped ears fell. Tranquility slouched a few inches, head drooping. Her sword and shield wavered.

Watching Tranquility, Celestia's stomach burned with an urge to spew.

"Come to me, my child," Astur beckoned.

Tranquility straightened, and her sword twirled once, slashing the air. "I name you traitor, not father, who whispered disloyalty into mother's ears. I hold this bridge: come take it."

The great stallion surged forward and black spell-light trailed his sword.

He swung down, a smiting blow at Tranquility's head.

Tranquility turned the blow and her shield shattered, staggering her.

The flat of the massive sword struck her left foreleg. Spell-light flashed, rendering the bright noontime into darkest midnight for a moment. Blood flew. A crack echoed against the cliffs. Bloody white bone tore through Tranquility's skin.

Shouts and trumpets rang from the Maretruscan line; Celestia screamed, and dropped her axe.

Astur's sword cleaved into the deck of the bridge, stone smoking where it stuck.

Captain Tranquility staggered into Hereford, screaming in agony.

Astur strained to pull his sword free and finish his daughter.

Still leaning against Hereford, Tranquility slammed her sword into his muzzle, teeth flew, and her sword tip punched a hoof's-breadth out the back of his helmet.

The Great Lord of Lune fell at the head of the bridge. His blood stained his daughter's hooves, and mixed on the ground with her own blood.

His sword collapsed into dust.

Luna lowered herself to lay flat on the damp grass, and covered her eyes with her hooves. "My daughter killed my husband. My daughter slew her father."

"War is harsh, sister, and he was no longer your husband by that point, but a vassal of wickedness and an apostle of disharmony."

"His words and physicality seduced me. I knew he was worthless, but for a diarch to admit error, and divorce....? I was too proud. And he did sire incomparable foals. I was... I hoped for a third foal, I hoped for a son, when instead I fell into ruin and banishment."

"Did he really whisper treason into your ear? For one thousand years, I've wondered."

"No... no, my sins were my own."  Luna uncovered her eyes and sat up. "I shall continue to read."

Celestia sat down next to her sister, and wrapped a wing around her.

Shattered left foreleg tucked high, blood flowing freely, Tranquility stomped on Astur's dead throat with her right forehoof, and wrenched her bloody sword free from his face.

She held it aloft, and blood dripped onto her mane and ears. "And see!" she cried. "See the welcome, fair guests, that awaits you here! What peer or noble scion comes next, to taste Celestian cheer?"

At the end of the bridge, Celestia tossed her head and sobbed a single deep breath, and then took up her axe again, and rejoined the frantic demolition.

The Maretruscan ranks murmured with fear, shame, and dread.

Stallions and mares of prowess and noble house were all gathered in the vanguard. But all of the enemy's noblest stared at the corpses littering the path to the Three.

"Cowards!" shouted Larhorsius. "You thought you cornered a rabbit, but find your head in the den of a mother ursa. Come taste the bear's reception!"

None galloped forward to lead a fresh attack. Those in the back cried Forward! Those in the front cried Back!

The phalaxes became jumbled together, and the trumpet peals faded away.

The only sound was that of axe and crow on wood and stone, as Celestia and the rest hauled the bridge down.

One pegasus, then, broke from the ranks. His coat charcoal grey, his armor blued steel, and blades glinted on his wings and forelegs.

"Lord Sextus!" jeered Hereford. "Welcome, honored guest! Welcome back to your home! Come back to our justice, fugitive, if thou wish more virgins to molest!"

Three times Sextus looked at the city; and three times he looked at the piled dead. Three times he flared his wings in fury; and three times he skittered back in dread.

Tranquility brandished her ruptured foreleg. "Come, foul rapist, a mare is in distress. Come take her, if thou dare."

Sextus's gray face paled, and he scowled at the narrow way, where the bravest of the glittering host lay.

Beneath the bridge, Dark Clouds and the pegasi wrenched pier from bracing, and above, Celestia and the unicorns and earth ponies plied with axe and lever.

The bridge tilted, tottering, above the raging current.

Celestia dropped her axe. "Come back, Tranquility!"

"Back Larhorsius, back Hereford!" shouted Cloudsdale. "Back, before the ruin falls!"

Hereford scooped up the crippled Tranquility onto her back and bounded, from tottering timber to falling stone, and crossed the bridge to the Canterlot side. Spurious Larhorsius flicked blood off his wings and ran across the gap, wings spread for balance, Celestia's dome-spell too low to the bridge deck to allow flight.

Hereford gently lowered Tranquility to the paving stones of the bridge approach.

Two healers ran to Tranquility, whose shattered foreleg hemorrhaged.

Before the healers could reach her, Tranquility looked over her shoulder and saw Sextus standing at the head of the stricken bridge. He flared his wings in challenge.

Pegasi engineers swarmed out from below and bridge and back to the Canterlot side, as the first timbers and stones cascaded away.

Sextus and Tranquility looked into each other's eyes.

Tranquility teleported and swung her sword as she landed.

Luna turned, and buried her face under Celestia's wing. Celestia nuzzled her sister, cheek against ears as Luna sobbed.

"My daughter died alone," Luna whispered. "My daughter died alone."

"She did not," Celestia replied. "Read on."

Celestia gasped. Larhorsius and Hereford turned to cross again, to rejoin Tranquility.

The bridge fell.

Sextus parried Tranquility's blow with his wing-blade, then struck across Tranquility's flank, opening her light chainmail and her ribs.

Tranquility staggered back, gasping, and dropped to her knees.

Sextus loomed over Tranquility, "Yield! Yield to our grace, and swear fealty to the new Crown."

Tranquility's sword slashed, rang against his wing blade, against his armor, and then drove beneath his left wing.

Sextus coughed blood, and collapsed across Tranquility, crushing the weakened unicorn into the bloody dirt with her victims.

The ruins of the bridge struck the river, and yellow water splashed as high as the battlements.

Maretruscans gasped, and their banners swayed. Soldiers in the phalanxes murmurred and elbowed each other.

Tranquility stood, shrugging off Sextus's corpse, and then collapsed onto her ruined leg. Her scream echoed across both armies.

Celestia looked at Duke Clousdale. "Their morale collapses like the bridge. What news of our civilians?"

"Almost all are in the catacombs," he replied.

"We will sortie," Celestia said. "Ready your pegasi, and I will telep--"

Tranquility shouted, voice amplified by magic.

"Ponies!" Tranquility yelled, trying to stagger to her hooves, but then collapsing to her face. She lifted herself half-up with her good foreleg. "Ponies! See what you've done! Pony slays pony, and for what?"

She stood up for a moment, and then fell once more. Her horn glowed, spluttering, as she held to spell amplifying her voice, and her words echoed off the cliffs.

"Horsena uses my mother as a symbol! My mother was wrong, and fell into ruin! I am Princess of the Blood, I proclaim parole and pardon to anypony who turns their weapons to Celestia's service--"

A spell hit her in the head, rupturing her left eye in a spray of blood, and knocking Tranquility down for the last time.

Celestia cut her spell, and the magical dome collapsed.

The sound, like shattering window panes, rolled across the city and off the cliffs for ten or twenty heartbeats.

To Celestia's host, it was a rallying cry.

To Horsena's, it was the sound of doom.

And with a teleport, Celestia brought her unicorns and earth ponies across the river and against the wavering vanguard of the enemy. Cloudsdale's pegasi surged upward, and delivered firebombs and bottled spells into the enemy's rearguard.

Tall stood Celestia, and her spells lashed the enemy. Her battalions charged, more with enthusiasm then skill, but the Maretruscan lines waved, bent, broke.

A single unicorn's horn, devoid of the rest of its skull, landed at her hooves.

Celestia blinked at it, for a moment.

She threw another spell, and saw a platoon of the enemy burn to ash.

Baroness Baltimare approached Celestia, threw down her sword and helmet, and prostrated herself.

"I repent my treason, Highness. Princess Tranquility offered pardon... the Nightmare is passed. Accept my sword, and forty of my vassals."

Celestia glared at Baltimare. "Arise. Go prove your loyalty."

Baltimare stood, waved her sword to her company, and took off toward the fighting at a gallop.

Celestia prepared another spell... but the lines were too intermixed. She could not bring doom down on the enemy without striking her own ponies.

She trotted to Tranquility, and knelt down next to her niece.

Blood poured from the young mare's foreleg, eye, and flank. Breath sucked through the chest wound as she panted, and she stank of foul urine. Her body trembled in agony.

Celestia's horn glowed, and the aura enveloped Tranquility.

Celestia gagged as the pain left her niece and came onto herself. She felt her foreleg twist and break, felt jagged bone slice skin and muscles, even as her eyes saw the appendage was undamaged. Celestia's flank burned with an agony beyond anything she had felt even during Discord's reign, her left eye went blind, and blood she was not shedding wet her cheek.

Tranquility's remaining eye opened, and her breathing calmed. "Aunt....?"

Celestia shook her head, trying to think through the pain. "Tranquility. I'm here."

"I tried.... I tried..."

"You succeeded. Listen. The enemy is in rout."

"My lung is opened," Tranquility said. "I'm dying."

Celestia kissed her forehead. "Yes."

The monarch nuzzled her niece, cheek to cheek. Like on the day Tranquility had sworn her blood-oath, Celestia's cheeks were red with blood.

"I--have I been good? I've tried every day, to repay, to be mother's penance."

"You've repaid her debt ten-thousand-fold."

Tranquility closed her eye, and her head slumped back against Celestia's chest. Celestia looked down, and saw her own entire torso was red with Tranquility's lifeblood.

"Your mother will return," Celestia said into Tranquility's ears, "return in glory, and not in infamy. Your heroism today will be still be sung of, and I will make sure she knows."

"Thank you," Tranquility said. "I love you."

"I love you," Celestia whispered, into the cropped ears.

"Do not let my sister follow my path, Aunt Tia."

And Celestia felt the pain--the destroyed foreleg, the opened lung, the ruptured eye--fade away as Equestria's first hero passed from life to legend.

Luna was beyond screams or banshee-howls; she simply buried her face into Celestia's neck and sobbed. Distantly, thunder rumbled. The moon moved far across the night sky before Luna could speak again.

"Was... was her sacrifice in vain?"

Celestia shook her head. "No. She made all the difference. The time she bought us allowed us to hide our civilians underground. Her example made those ponies of the enemy's horde who were still capable of thought question their loyalties. We were able to sortie just enough of our own troops, and turn just enough of Horsena's, to make the difference. It was the closest-run thing I've seen in my long, long life. Four thousand two-hundred nineteen commoners, ninety-three nobles, eleven Peers, and one royal died, just on our side. Tranquility made all the difference."

Luna sat up, and wiped her nose on her foreleg, then blew snot into her feathers. She looked at her wing and said, "I have been one thousand years without a bath. I suppose a little more filth matters not. What happened? How did the battle progress?"

"It was the bloodiest day in Equestria's history. Even our wars with the griffons were fought with quarter, with mercy, with mutual respect for healers and the wounded. That day... was not. Six noble houses were wiped out, and I created seventeen new. There were many heroes, many who sacrificed, but none with your daughter's tenacity."

Celestia gently laid Tranquility's head down. Celestia's head, ribs, and leg tingled with the aftereffects of the spell, with the echoes of her foster-daughter's murder.

She stood and flared her wings, feeling blood drip off her coat. She bent at the knees to take the the air--

--and Duke Cloudsdale's corpse splatted to the ground next to Celestia, smoking from a spell-strike driven straight through his armor.

A filly, perhaps five or seven years younger than Tranquility, landed next to his body. Oversized armor flopped against her flanks and wings, and her helmet fell off, revealing a blond mane tied in a foalish bow.

"Granpa!" shouted the filly, hugging the bloody corpse, smearing his blood across her cheeks and chin.

"Duke Cloudsdale is dead, Cold Front," Celestia said. "And your father died yesterday."

Cold Front looked up at Celestia, and her jaw dropped open. Bright green eyes in an ivory face widened, and filled with tears. She mouthed words, but only a faint gasp could be heard.

The teenager genuflected and flared her wings.

"I am your vassal," she croaked, her voice tiny. "Accept my service."

"Arise, Duchess Cloudsdale," Celestia said, and pointed a hoof. "The fighting is that way."

Celestia leaped into the air, and Duchess Cloudsdale flapped against ill-fitting armor to stay at her side.

"And that foal was dead fifteen minutes later," Celestia said. "She was fourteen. She carried a magic charge into an earthwork, knowing the blast would kill her along with the foes. Yet more blood on my hooves. I awaken in the night, two or three times a moon, smelling the stench of a millenium of blood. Cold Front's infant brother inherited the Cloudsdale title and was a thoroughly mediocre noble for his long life."

Luna's tears had stopped, but her body still shook. "It is my fault.... sister, they used me as a symbol to rally forces to their banner. My daughter died to prove she was better than her blood."

"You've paid for any crimes you committed," Celestia said. "Nopony in history has suffered a thousand-year sentence. And your daughters--the foals you raised, for your husband took no hoof in that--they repaid Equestria back manyfold."

"That foal!" Luna shouted. "Duchess Cloudsdale? That foal with a bow in her hair... you say she carried a satchel spell into a bunker? It is my fault!"

"Horsena would have launched his insurrection, sooner or later. Nightmare Moon was a symbol, but there were other symbols I know he contemplated before the Nightmare came. Ultimately, you were irrelevant."

Luna sniffled, then sat up.

"Let me read to you how it ends, Luna," said Celestia. Celestia's voice sang the words, quietly into the stillness of the Sculpture Gardens, under Tranquility's proud images.