//------------------------------// // Epilogue: Some Greater Heaven // Story: Heavenly Sphere // by Seer //------------------------------// Celestia felt suspended in both space and time. It was as if everything had coalesced, crushed into a singularity from which there was no escape. The moment dragged, interminably, eternally, breath steadied and steadied and steadied and finally reached an absolute standstill. Motion ceased, time ceased.  Nothing moved.  And then, she snapped out of it.  “Princess!” called out the baroness, fixing Celestia with an haughty, arch stare, “Did you not hear what I asked? This filly controlled the elements, what would happen were the nightmare to return.”  “Twilight and Luna,” Celestia replied, leaving the noble babbling for a moment. “I beg your-”  “Twilight and Luna, not filly and nightmare.” Celestia was honestly shocked when the mare had the decency to at least look somewhat ashamed of herself.  “Uhm… Princess Celestia, if I may…” called out an old earth pony, stepping forward from the throng of braying nobles that were currently crowding Celestia’s throne room, “I think what Baroness Highrise was trying to say was-”  “I know exactly what she was trying to say, Duke Cloud Barrier,” Celestia interjected, her tone wasn’t precisely impolite, but it very much didn’t brook argument, either, “She is concerned about our nation’s safety, and I can understand why. My student was one of the elements after all, and until we find her, we obviously have a vulnerability.”  “However,” Celestia continued, speaking over the Duke and Baroness when they tried to talk again, “Until such a time as that happens, my sister, Luna, your sovereign by divine right, and I are more than capable of taking Twilight’s place, should the need occur.”  “But that’s preposterous-”  “I wielded the elements long before your line had even existed, let alone usurped power from your former lieges, Highrise, I think myself more knowledgeable than you on the subject.”  The crowd went deathly silent, shocked into merciful quiet by Celestia’s acidic tone. It was not a manner she found she had to affect very often these days. But looking over the fear in the eyes of all the braying jackals that had come, for the tenth day in a row, to crow self-interestly at her, she was reminded it had its uses.  It would do them all very well to remember who the princesses were in Equestria.  "Now, my Lords and Ladies, I am very weary, and will be retiring for the evening. Please direct any queries or concerns to the steward," and, pointedly ignoring their cried for clarification, for reassurance, for attention, Celestia left the hall. The inner residences of the Palace were thankfully for staff only. In here, ponies knew the princess well. They knew her grief well. As such the guards and staff that she passed gave her nothing but plenty of space and respectful nods.  She was grateful for their discretion, their reassurance, though well meaning and kind, would have very unwelcome at present. Still, though she was happy for the wide berth she was being afforded. Celestia couldn't help but feel like the space of the halls was overwhelming. Gods, was it always so big in here? It had never felt that way when she walked these halls with Twilight.  It felt like a void. Celestia eventually found herself at the office of her head civil servant, Snowbird. She knocked once before opening the door, whereupon the mare inside looked up from her work and stared owlishly at Celestia.  Across Snowbird's desk was a stack of the daily papers. Celestia sometimes missed the days when politics didn't involve quite so much wrangling with the press. These days though, it was an integral part of the job, and so Celestia was able to get a very good look at all the days headlines. Every picture of Twilight stuck a knife in her stomach, and every headline twisted said knives. ELEMENT OF MAGIC STILL MISSING SPARKLE FAMILY REFUSE TO SPEAK TO PRESS, DO THEY KNOW MORE THAN THEY'RE LETTING ON?  TWILIGHT SPARKLE STILL NOT SIGHTED AFTER NEARLY TWO WEEKS ELEMENT OF GENEROSITY BREAKS DOWN AT PRESS CONFERENCE  It made Celestia absolutely sick. "Princess!" the pegasus called out, hurriedly sweeping the papers out of sight with a practised motion of one of her wings, "How may I be of service? Do you need some sustenance made in the kitchen? How about some fresh bedsheets? I can have the castle staff help you with whatever you need!" She was a faithful, fussy little thing, Celestia thought with a faint smile. Even though she'd been promoted over a year ago, she still had never quite gotten out of the mindset of being Celestia’s palace administrator. "Snowbird, please, I'm sure you have more important things on your plate than babysitting me," Celestia replied, allowing herself a small laugh. Gods, that felt nice. She hadn't laughed even once in a good few days. "Of course princess. So, how can I help?" Snowbird asked. "I was hoping yourself and the steward could handle any business tonight. I was planning to retire, if possible." "Absolutely, who has stewarding duty tonight?" Snowbird mused, already summoning a clipboard and looking through it, "Ah! It's Wild Lavender. He's one of the most experienced stewards we have, I'm sure he and I can handle anything that comes through!" Celestia looked at the mare for a moment. She was beaming dutifully at her sovereign, proud of being able to handle anything that Celestia asked of her. "Snowbird I… I'm sorry. I shouldn't be asking you things like this. You're head of the civil service, not a palace administrator anymore. I could have just asked my secretary to handle these things." "What do you mean? I'm sorry if I did something wrong princess, I-" Snowbird babbled, worry overcoming her professional decorum. It broke Celestia's heart. "No, you've not done anything wrong. You've never done anything wrong, Snowbird. I just shouldn't put so much on you, and I'm sorry." "Princess, it's okay. It's really totally okay." Pained, worried eyes stared at Celestia, magnified by milk bottle glasses. She had been a student of Celestia's growing up. She was a decade older than Twilight, still very young for a mare in her position, mind. A decade older… she'd probably watched Twilight growing up in these halls. Like Celestia had. It was more than she could bear. "I… thank you, Snowbird, I'll take my leave."  The trip back to her chambers was mercifully quick, and featured no further conversations. She didn't need to tell the guards outside that she wasn't to be disturbed under any circumstances. The implication was more than sufficient, and to hammer it home, Celestia clicked the door's locks behind her. The room was empty, all the curtains were drawn, but the princess still gave it a moment before walking over to the far wall. She leant forward, touching her horn to the stones, before muttering an incantation under her breath. The room was soundproofed, and no one on the outside would have been able to detect anything out of the ordinary was happening. And still, as the walls moved, groaning with the force and friction, Celestia cringed slightly. When it was done, the princess lit her horn, and began to walk down the gloomy stone passageway that had been revealed. The trip wasn't long. Not nearly long enough, that was for sure. It was one single hallway, curving ever so slightly. When Celestia reached the centre, she paused. The lights from her room had faded from view, and the lights from her destination hadn't appeared yet. She snuffed her horn, and allowed herself to be plunged into darkness. In the void she found herself suspended in. Celestia closed her eyes. And then, she opened them again, and found there was absolutely no difference to what she saw. Far enough from her room, not close enough to the room she was headed to, it was nearly like Celestia had died. Something about the darkness seemed to make time stand still. She felt like she could stand here for as long as she wanted, suspended in this one infinitesimal node of infinity, only to find that aeons had passed for the outside world when she decided to rejoin it. There would almost be some comfort to this. She kept her horn snuffed, hiding away in the infinite pitch dark. She wondered what Twilight was seeing… Celestia didn't try to stop the sobs. Great ugly, heaving wails, everytime one left her, it felt like amputation, like vivisection, there was no comfort or catharsis. Each one was a marker of misery, and each passage brought nothing but the promise of more misery to come. Celestia didn't know how long she cried there, it was hard to judge time frames when simply immersed in a void. A small instant could feel like an eternity. But, as she always did, Celestia eventually composed herself, took a steadying breath, and continued down the tunnel. At its end, there was a small, but luxurious, chamber. Luna greeted her at the other end, favouring her sister with a sympathetic smile, and a brief embrace. Celestia tried to enjoy it, but found her attention constantly distracted by a patient, rhythmic beeping noise. She sighed. "How is she?" "No change, I'm afraid," came the reply from her personal doctor, over in the centre of the room. In this room were the only four ponies who knew of its existence. Herself, her sister, her doctor, and the royal guard's second in command, answerable only to Shining Armour himself. Celestia would have dearly loved to have the stallion she'd named captain with them here. But she couldn't. She couldn't put him through that. The fifth pony in the room didn't even know that this place existed, she couldn't. Perhaps she'd never be able to again.  Twilight was only visible by the flashes of mane or tail that escaped from under the sheet she was beneath. When Luna had found her, the unicorn's face had apparently been fixed in such a ghoulish mask of abject terror, frozen in a silent, ceaseless scream. Celestia was glad she hadn't needed to see that. Luna was always made of stronger stuff, and repeatedly insisted that she was alright. And yet, with no one to watch the dreams of the mare who guarded the realm of the sleeping, Celestia wondered how her younger sister might ever find rest again. "You don't tell anyone outside of this room, understand? And if my sister and I never explicitly rescind that order, then you take that to your grave." "Yes Princess," both stallions replied dutifully. She'd told them that every single night now, but even so… It made her feel better to repeat it. "Sister," Luna muttered in her ear, "Should we not make our plans to tell her family and friends? We were lucky that no one found her before… before I did. But still, do we plan to just keep her in this room forever?" "We'll tell them soon," Celestia replied, both taking her eyes off the covered form of her student, hooked up to all those machines and wires to make sure she was still breathing, still living.  And that was just the thing. She did still breathe, totally unaided. Her eyes still reacted to stimuli, her body still functioned. She clearly wasn't dead. But it was like, for lack of a better term, that her soul had been sucked from her body. Twilight was here, and but Twilight was somewhere else entirely. "We'll tell them soon, we just need to plan what we're going to tell them," Celestia replied blankly. "Should… shouldn't we tell them the truth?" Luna asked, and Celestia turned to her. "If this happened to me, would you want to know? And I mean really, Luna," Celestia pressed, preempting any response that hadn't been fully considered, "Do you think your life would be remotely improved by knowing the full, cold truth." Luna opened her mouth, before faltering. She simply nodded, and turned to face the bed.  Celestia mirrored her sister, looking down at the sheet that covered the unicorn. Ever since she'd grown into an adult mare, Celestia had thought she was so big, nothing like that tiny, stressed out foal that had hatched a dragon. But now, Twilight seemed more little than Celestia had ever realised. The beeps continued to ring out, marking rhythmic time. Counting passed, wasted seconds. If Celestia looked closely enough, she thought she could make out the mask of agony and horror hiding just beneath the thin, white fabric. "Couldn't you have stopped her?" Celestia whispered, and she knew it wasn't fair. When Luna had told her what Twilight intended to do, she confessed herself much less concerned than Luna. It was as Twilight had said, astral projection is harmless. This shouldn't have happened.  Yet again, not paying enough consideration to Luna’s words had cost her someone she loved more than anything in this world. Was the universe punishing her? Playing a joke on her? She did her best, for god's sake. What had she done to deserve this? But, it was like Luna said. The universe cared not for the morality plays of little ponies. It didn't care what anyone or anything deserved. Time passed along dispassionately, with another bleeping heartbeat, heedless of the agony in the room. "I'm sorry, my sister, I tried my best, I-" "No, no I'm sorry Luna," Celestia replied, voice tearful and shaky, "You did what you could. Nothing short of locking Twilight away would have stopped her doing this, and even then, I wouldn't bank on it… this isn't your fault." "It's not yours either, Celestia,"  Celestia changed the subject. "Do you think… maybe she hasn't come back because she found something wonderful out there? Maybe she found heaven, a real heaven. We can't know, after all, maybe she could be happy out there?" The princess turned to her younger sister, who did her best to keep the discomfort off her face. The expression told Celestia all she needed to hear, but still. There was something beautiful about being reassured by someone else. You could just take refuge in their words, their conviction and sincerity, and ignore all that doubt in your own mind. You could allow them to let you think, just for a moment, what you dreamed of believing yourself. "Yes, of course, Celestia… she could possibly be happy out there." Luna's smile was somewhere between reassuring and grimacing, but Celestia decided not to dwell on it. Instead she forced herself to believe that, as the heart monitor's tone marked another passing instant of the eternity they found themselves in.