When the Goddess spoke to her, Celestia was lying on the grass.
Luna was snuggled into her side, her smaller body wrapped in Celestia’s wing. They were watching the rising sun together, which they had just set back on course after Twilight’s mistake. That was technically work, but Celestia insisted on not counting the vacation over until the floral shirts came off. She wanted the perfect moment to end the perfect week.
An entire week of just her and her sister. Of ziplining and beaches and makeovers and hiking and travel snacks and theater and yes, of being bored and frustrated and tired and antsy and clashing and arguing and making up. A week of life. Real life. Life that she ate and drank fully of, as if she truly were a mortal just like any one of the ponies that flocked around her for autographs and selfies. As if she were unburdened by the boredom and indifference that more than a thousand years of life would imprint permanently on anycreature.
That was because it was true. Celestia had not lived for more than a thousand years. She was only seven days old.
Luna was asleep now, so snug and comforted by Celestia’s soft wing feathers that she could not stop herself from drifting off into her own domain. Celestia gently stroked her cheek with the tip of her other wing. She spoke to the Goddess.
“If I only had a week to ever live, this would be exactly the life I would have lived. It was perfect.”
Celestia looked up at the heavens.
“Thank you.“
The Goddess corrected.
this was not done for your sake.
Celestia laughed and said “I know”. But the Goddess already knew that. It was also not the Goddess that she had thanked. But the Goddess already knew that as well.
“This is one of them, isn’t it?” she asked the Goddess idly, in a way she had never done before. “One of the few moments where I would be as happy as I was before Twilight left for Ponyville.“
The Goddess confirmed.
yes.
“Is this the happiest me or any of my selves will ever be?”
The Goddess confirmed.
no version of you will be as happy as this as far as I can predict.
That was more definitive than the answer she had gotten from that earlier conversation, now eight years ago.
She felt the freshness of the air in her lungs. The light of the emerging sun on her face. The coolness of the morning dew on the grass underneath her back. The heat of her sister’s body against her side. Everything was perfect.
Everything was perfect, for just a moment. But all moments end. And though they normally give rise to other moments, this one would not for her. This one would be the last one she would ever experience.
She looked down at the face of her sleeping sister, and smiled.
“That is just fine with me.”
Celestia died, content.