Celestia sat in the ruins of the Great Hall and watched the sunrise through the hole in the roof. She hadn’t been sure she would ever see it again. Apparently, she could lower the moon as well as raise the sun now.
Marvellous, she thought dully.
Obligation and guilt had made her try it. She would rather have crawled into a hole and never come out again but Equestria needed her to change night into day. The pattern and balance needed to be maintained. The remaining five founders had died to make sure Equestria was safe and its ponies could continue to live. She could not betray her friends again by not even trying. She had a legacy on her shoulders now. It was even heavier than duty; heavier than a crown; heavier than any of the burdens she had ever railed against since she took the title ‘Princess’.
The crunch of glass behind her made her turn. Her heart lifted for the first time. “Starswirl! Thou livest still!” He had not been seen since the battle ended hours earlier and she had thought for certain that she must count him among the dead.
“Aye. I do declare that even if I should ever master time magic, teleportation shall remain the best spell I ever did invent, even if it did render me unconscious from exhaustion.” Starswirl stood amidst the wreckage, looking up at her sitting on the broken table. “Celestia. Thou art different than when I did see thee last.”
She pulled a lock of mane over her shoulder to examine it. When she let go, it drifted back into place as if she was drowning and it was buoyed by the water slowly killing her. “The colours are from when I was caught by shards of the Elements’ magic. T’will serve as a reminder of this night and all that occurred in’t.” She lifted her eyes once again. She couldn’t see the moon anymore, nor the impression of a mare’s face picked out in rocks on its surface. “Amongst other things.”
“I have heard ponies talking,” Starswirl said softly. “Is it true?”
“That the founders did perish in battle?” Celestia laughed bitterly. “Aye, ‘tis true, though ‘tis not as noble as they believe.”
“Prince Goldenmare is bereft. He believes his mother died a hero.”
“She did.”
Haltingly, Celestia told him what had happened, unable to watch his reaction. He made no move to come closer but also did not turn and leave her to rot in her own failure. She was not sure whether that was a good or a bad thing.
“So, Starswirl; thou art now the cleverest pony in Equestria. Was I mistaken? Should I have let Luna die? Was her life worth those of five other brave ponies who did nothing but care for Equestria?” Tears choked her voice, yet no longer cared about the propriety of a princess crying in public. “I … I heard her. At the end. Deep within the creature she became, she was still my Luna. And yet … my decision cost so much. I can never forgive myself for this, just as the Elements cannot forgive me. They did allow me to retain my sovereignty over the sun, and now the moon also, but my bond with them is broken.”
Starswirl was silent for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was so low that even her enhanced alicorn senses could barely hear him. “It is not my place to judge thee, Celestia. I have my opinions but they are mine to keep. Thou doth weep – and have been weeping since the battle did end. Thy tears say enough and my words would add nothing to the grief already affixed to thine heart. You shall carry your guilt and see it in each mirror’s glance, each sunrise and sunset. Who am I to add to that millstone about thy neck?”
“I shall never forgive myself,” she hissed.
“Forever is a long time, Celestia.”
“I know what I say. I am an alicorn, Starswirl. I am made of forevers.”
He had nothing to say to that, so he instead asked, “What of those ponies who did flee into the forest?”
“Some hath returned already. Royal Guards have pursuit of the rest with news of the battle’s end and Lu- and of the nightmare’s defeat.”
“Nightmare?”
“They know not that the alicorn who waged war on Everfree was my dear sister.”
Starswirl nodded. “And thou dost intend this ignorance to remain so?”
“I do.” Celestia raised her head to look once more at the sky. “They shall think her the first casualty of the conflict, taken unawares by the dark force that did seek our destruction. It is not an untruth.”
“Nay,” he agreed. “Is it not.”
“You think me a monster for keeping this from my subjects?”
“I think thee in mourning, Celestia. Whether dead or imprisoned, thou hast lost a brace of kin tonight. Moreover, thou must consider the health of thy subjects’ minds and hearts. This night hath been traumatic for all and sundry. Luna will not return within their lifetimes, nor the lifetimes of their children or their children’s children. What purpose wouldst serve for them to know they were duped? Other than to make them trust thee less and thus imperil them through distrust, t’would serve none.”
“More lies,” Celestia muttered. “So many lies. So much hurt. So much damage. All because of me –”
Starswirl reared and struck the floor, hooves ringing out as clearly as a knell to a funeral. A small piece of ceiling broke off in a flurry of dust and crashed into the debris nearby. He ignored it and shook his head. “Nay, Celestia! The would-be-queen, Nightmare Moon, did steal away the Elements of Harmony and murder the valiant Princess Luna before any could know of her presence and she would have done the same to thee had the Founders not aided thee and laid down their lives to vanquish her and avenge thy fallen sister. This is what history will show. Thou art the ponies’ hero, Celestia. It needs must be thus, for the ponies’ trust shall be what allows thee to rebuild and protect them henceforth.”
“No.” Celestia closed her eyes and gave a shake of her head. Her new mane moved on its own, undulating around her head. It was a curious, not unpleasant sensation but she was still not used to it appearing in her peripheral vision.
“No?”
“I will not rebuild.”
“Celestia, thou remaineth a princess of the realm –”
“Not here,” she cut off Starswirl’s protest. “I shall not rebuild Castle Everfree. The magic of our battle hath altered the forest. The ponies who did flee into it hath reported … oddness abroad in the woods. Strangling vines that do seek to honour thy names by actually strangling ponies. Roots that do drag the unwary beneath the ground to nourish the trees. Creatures that turn ponies to stone with but a glance. Yet others whose hue and cry did shake their bones with fright.”
Starswirl stared. “Is’t credence to these claims?”
“I have flown above the treetops and sensed deep magic there that was not present before. Mayhap it is of the Elements’ doing, as is my mane. Mayhap it is yet more punishment for my crimes.” Celestia shrugged. “There be nopony to ask who may know.”
Starswirl’s resounding quiet drew her eye. She recognised his expression as one of deep thought, characterised by a relentless tugging at his beard that tinkled the bells on his hat.
“What then be thy plans?” he asked eventually.
This time, Celestia watched his face when she spoke. “Canterlot shall be the new capital of Equestria.”
“Canterlot?” he boggled. He knew of her history with the place – her and Luna’s both.
“Aye,” she said resolutely. “A fortress city of unicorns, earth ponies and pegasi, set between and within all three provinces. We shall build it together, using skills of all three pony races. It shall not be a place for pomp but a place from which I shall rule and be ruled by the needs of my ponies.”
For they were her ponies now – hers alone to care for, nurture and love. And if she was also trying to recapture some of the happiness she associated with the place where she and Luna grew up? Well … that was a fact pushed so far into the back of Celestia’s mind that even its echo echoed.
Starswirl looked unconvinced but something else stole across his face and twisted his mouth. “Then I shall help you build it.”
“You wish to help me rule?”
“Nay. I am not a ruler, Celestia. I am thy friend, guide and confidante but mine is not the mind to rule. I Have no stomach for politicking. Mine hooves would itch to travel soon enough and I would not wish to deceive thee into thinking I wouldst remain forever.”
She nodded. She had half-known he would answer this way and yet her heart still ached a little. “Thou art a nomadic scholar forever.”
“Not forever. Just this single life of mine.”
And I am made of forevers, she thought sadly.
Starswirl went on: “And, I fancy, I wish to know more of the forest of Everfree and its changes herein. Mayhap I can return it to normalcy someday, or perhaps distil the source of its strangeness. If t’were indeed the Elements’ magic, and it did happen while Princess Luna was banished, then mayhap …” He tugged ferociously at his beard. “Mayhap there is some secret to her imprisonment and restoration of her true self upon her return.”
Celestia’s jaw dropped. She had not even considered such a possibility. “Thinkest thou this may be true?”
“Only study shall prevail in my answer.”
She leapt to her hooves. “Then study thou shalt! Starswirl the Bearded, I do give thee this castle and as many servants as thou doth wish to aid thee in thy studies.” A thought struck her. “And the Elements! Thou shalt keep them here for study also.”
Her sudden movement made him jump back. “Princess, I am old and set in my ways – and those ways are the kind unused to servants.”
“But thou must have aid in thine endeavours!”
He closed his eyes in something a little too long to be a blink. “I should like … to take a student and train them here with me, if thou wouldst allow, much as I did with a precocious young colt many years ago.”
Clover’s smiling face flitted briefly through her mind, along with an accompanying stab of grief through her heart. “Of course!”
He nodded slowly. “When I did teleport away, sapped was my strength. I did land in the closest open space my magic couldst find. T’was the West Tower, whereupon I did collapse and remain insensate on a dirty floor for the remainder of thy defeat of the Nightmare.” For a moment something like guilt tilted his mouth into a grim line.
“Your comport is unquestionable, Starswirl,” Celestia hurried to reassure him. “Without thee, I would surely have been slain by my sister’s poison.”
“Ah. Yes. The poison that she did procure with no knowledge of herbalism or the like.” Starswirl huffed cautiously into his beard. “T’would seem Luna’s betrayals did stretch further than this night.”
“Of what speakest thee?”
“Not what but whom. Upon waking I did find my head upon the lap of a chained earth pony. She did prattle overmuch but I did perceive that Luna … that Nightmare Moon hath practised strange magics upon her and twisted her secret hedgewitch herbalism to her own dark ends.” He met Celestia’s gaze squarely. “And did twist her love for thy sister also. The poor mare is much broken by this violation of her thoughts and trust, Celestia; broken in spirit, in heart and in mind. Her ramblings did tell me as much. Even as I burned away her chains and brought her down to the care of physicians, she speaks naught but gibberish and madness sparks within her eyes. If left unchecked, t’will surely soil her soul irreversibly.”
Fresh tears clogged Celestia’s throat. Luna’s long-standing plans continued to unfold like a foul-smelling flower blossoming in the cool of evening. How long had her own sister been plotting against her in this way?
How long since her Luna had been overtaken by the cunning, deceitful Nightmare born of Sombra’s evil magic?
How long had Celestia failed to notice what was going on right under her own nose?
“It is this mare I wish to take as my student,” Starswirl finished.
Wanly, Celestia asked, “Wherefore?”
“To heal as much as to teach. Thou doth carry guilt in thy heart but … in truth, we were all to blame in Luna’s fall to darkness. We all failed to see, failed to perceive, failed to understand the truth of what was happening. Now we must all seek to help and to heal the wounds left in the wake of our failure.” Starswirl looked up at the roof and the burnished orange sky visible through it as the sun ascended. “We are powerful, Celestia. It is the task of the powerful to care for the weak. I am not a ruler. I am not even lesser royalty. I cannot care for a nation. But maybe … maybe I can save one pony.” And then, in a whisper Celestia somehow knew she was not supposed to hear, he added, “As I could not save Clover.”
“Wouldst thou sit with me a while?” she asked suddenly.
He blinked at her. “There is yet much work to be done.”
“I am aware. I ask not for the whole day. Only a while.” She swallowed but the lump in her throat did not disappear, only eased a little with the tilt of her neck. “Old friend.”
It took a moment but Starswirl clambered up and grunted as he sat his rump down beside hers. He was much older now and they had each changed a lot, but they sat together as they had, a long time ago, when a travelling magician found two strange fillies with wings and horns, sitting on a hilltop watching the stars with wings stretched over each other so tight that it was hard to tell where blue feathers ended and white began.
Thy sister shall live for a thousand years as part of her beloved moon, Celestia.
And I shall await her return, Celestia silently promised. Whenever and however that may be. And until then, my little ponies shall want for nothing and fear nothing. A tear slid down her cheek and vanishing into her undulating mane. I am diminished, but I am still Celestia, Princess of Equestria, and I vow that I shall never make the same mistakes again.
Silently, the old unicorn and ageless alicorn watched as the new day began.