I tried to wrap my head around that. It didn't make any sense.
"But the princesses, they're immortal—!"
The caretaker shrugged. "They're still gone."
"But... how?!"
The stallion shrugged again and resumed eating. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and it had taken me this long to start to really understand it fully.
Some part of me was excited by the possibilities. I was free, after all; nopony was left who knew who I was, except, apparently, this 'caretaker'.
But most of me just felt... empty. Even if I ruled over the entire world, it wasn't like I could show off to anypony I knew. I couldn't lord it over Twilight Sparkle and her friends. I couldn't ever see any of my friends... if I'd still had any.
I sat down to eat, absently despite how hungry I was.
My head was swimming from the implications. On a deep-seated level, Equestria had come to expect its princesses would never go anywhere.
"Wait a second!"
I sprang up in my chair and fixed the caretaker with a firm glare. "You must be fibbing! Without the princesses, nopony could raise the sun or moon!"
The caretaker didn't even look up from his meal. His horn simply glowed, and the drapes came open.
What I saw put a feeling like a rock in my gut. The sun and moon were both visible, each on opposite sides of the horizon; the world was bathed in a perpetual twilight glow.
"N-no, no, no, NO! No way! Are, are you trying to tell me they've just been stuck like this?! For how long?!"
The caretaker shrugged again, but I slammed my hooves down on the table next to him.
"No, don't just give me that dumb shrug again! Tell me! How long has it been?!"
The caretaker rolled his eyes, as though it was the most pointless question he'd ever heard. "Who knows? Time has no meaning without day and night. Could have been a year or a thousand and it would still be the same."
I sank back into my chair. The sheer apathy he had... something about it really, really bothered me. It ticked me off!
"Well, you still know what day and night are, so it can't have been that long, right? I mean, it hasn't faded from all, like, all pony knowledge or whatever!"
The caretaker snorted in something like amusement, and that just ticked me off more. "I doubt you'll find other ponies who know the terms. I'm a bit more well-read than most."
I glared at him as best I could from down on my seat. "Well, if you're so well-read and know eeeeeverything about me, why did you free me, huh?"
He finished eating and lifted the dish from the table as he stood up, not even bothering to look at me. "I freed you to take care of you. It seemed like the right thing to do."
At that I actually laughed. "Oh, so you just wanted to take cawe of the pwecious widdle pony, is that it?! Well I'm not your daughter, and I'm not your toy!"
I heard his voice as he left the room. It was as deadpan as ever. "I know."
And then I was alone.
I don't do well on my own. My strength is in getting other ponies to do what I want them to do. And right now, I had no ponies.
Forget that stuffy old madpony! He said I can leave?! Well I'll leave! I'll find somepony who's more... I dunno, ALIVE!
I huffed and trotted angrily out of the dining room. I found myself in an ostentatious foyer, with checkered floors and a crimson carpet, complete with gold tassels. There were several tall doors, and an elaborate spiral staircase leading to a balcony overlooking the room. I snorted and trotted to the front door, pushing it open.
The bizarre purple and orange light of the world poured onto me. It wasn't as dark as night-time, but it was still a bit hard to see everything; colors seemed to be washed away under the perpetual late-sunset, and the dim light made my eyes struggle to adjust properly.
I growled at the stupid world with its stupid horseapple lighting.
Why would anypony let Equestria get to this point?! It's like nopony cares at all! They need somepony smart to start running this place!
As I stomped away from the mansion – passing by an elaborate garden and courtyard in the process – I came to the crest of a hill and glared down from it, only for my jaw to slacken.
I vaguely registered that I was looking at Ponyville – or what was once known as Ponyville – but it was as different as I could imagine. Gone were the buildings I recognized; instead, there were tall, angular stone buildings, dotted with windows, spreading out more than three times as far as Ponyville ever had. It took me a second to realize that the Everfree Forest was just... gone. Not even stumps left; it had been completely removed, and in its place were more of those ugly buildings. It all reminded me of Manehattan, but left out to rot for decades; I saw mold and stains under the windows from water damage, the streets – Ponyville had actual paved streets now! – were cracked and pocked and uneven, to the point that a dirt trail would have been preferable. Sweet Apple Acres was still there, but there was a lot of machinery there; it looked like someone had tried to mash up a science lab and a farm just for the absurdity of it.
That's when the reality of what had happened sunk in for me.
How long did they leave me a statue?! All of them, ALL OF THEM, Twilight, Starlight, Discord, Celestia, none of them cared at all! Not a single pony decided to free me for... how long has it been?! Centuries? Millenia?! They just left me out and... they forgot about me!
For a second I was torn between feeling devastated – at how reviled I must have been, at how utterly the world had rejected me, at everything I had lost and how miserable everything looked now – and sheer, white-hot rage.
I chose rage. I howled in anger and stomped the perfect, smooth pathway leading from the manor in fury.
This is so utterly, utterly unfair! First they cheat and beat us even when we had everything perfectly set up, and then they do THIS to me?! I just wish I could go back in time so I could hurt those stupid, STUPID ponies, and those other creatures, all of them! What in Tartarus were they thinking?! Leaving me and just forgetting about me?! Letting Equestria get like this?!
Despite myself, I laughed as a thought came to me.
Look, princesses! This is where Equestria ended up! Nothing you did mattered at all! It all went straight to Tartarus anyway!
I kept laughing, until my sides were aching and I had to lie down, gasping for air. I kept laughing until tears came to my eyes from the strain. I kept sobbing until I passed out.