I don’t know how I knew, but it was clear to me that I was dead.
The smell of the sea was pungent, and the crystal blue far below roared at cliffside. The sky overhead was vast and blue and unblemished by a cloud or even the sun. Underneath my hooves was a perfectly uniform field of emerald grass, dancing in a breeze I couldn’t feel, stretching on until it met the edge of the cliff at the horizon. At the edge of the cliff was the mare, a white unicorn, with her back to me. Her pastel pink mane spilled over her withers, defiant and unwavering in the breeze.
“Hello, Sunset,” the mare greeted without prying her eyes from the sea.
Her voice was familiar. She was familiar. The aura that was undeniably motherly and tender was familiar. But I couldn’t recall who she was, nor place her anywhere in my mind.
“Who are you?” I asked. “And where am I?”
“It’s a lovely day today, isn’t it, lil’ Shimmy?”
I was skeptical of the mare. Normally there were parts of my brain that would sound off alarms, focus better on my surrounds, do everything that the Royal Guard taught me during my time as Princess Celestia’s personal student. But none of that happened, like I was in a dream, where details were foggy and my memory was short. I felt more docile and zen than I had ever been.
A strong wind brushed past me from behind without touching me, and my hooves started to move of their own intentions. They walked me toward the mare, who remained entirely motionless in the aggravating winds. As I neared her, a radiant warmth enveloped me, sending goosebumps crawling across my skin. My hooves stopped me just short of viewing the mare’s entire face, hidden behind that curtain of a mane.
“‘Lil’ Shimmy?’ How do you know that name?”
A grin appeared. I couldn’t tell if it was sweet or mischievous. Perhaps a mixture of both?
“I’m only going to ask once more: who are you?” I demanded. “And where am I?”
The grin grew wider and toothier. The mare leaned her head back, granting me a glimpse of more of her face. Her eyes were shut.
“Do you remember what I asked you?”
I knit my brow at her. “What?”
Her head moved fluidly, turning toward me. Her eyes remained closed until her face was directed squarely at me. She looked like an average mare. Not a pony you’d take a second glance at. Short snout, circular head, vaguely symmetrical face.
“You were small—well, smaller. I told you of your destiny. A Princess. I told you that when I pass, Equestria, the world, would become yours. And I asked what you would do with it.”
The expression on her face became nostalgic, as if a happy memory was playing behind those eyelids.
“I remember it like it was yesterday. ‘I would do like you always did. Keep Equestria peaceful and prosperous.’ You were so, so proud of yourself.”
She opened her eyes, and I had to looked away. They weren’t the normal, shimmering gateways to the soul of an average pony. Her eyes shined blindingly bright, white as snow, and I couldn’t look directly at them, or else spots filled my vision.
I had found the sun.
“Our little ponies. Our kingdom.” Her head tilted. “Are they just as peaceful and prosperous as ever, Princess Sunset?”
And like that, the identity of the mare occurred to me.
“P-Princess Celestia?!” I sputtered. “How—?! What—?!”
She redirected her eyes to the sea once more. “It’s good to see you again, Shimmy,” she said.
I felt…nervous? I couldn’t be sure in the moment. I felt no heart in my chest, thumping heavily, or a blush in my cheeks. Beside me stood a princess of Equestria, whose life I saw leave before my very eyes years ago. My breaths shortened as my list of questions grew.
“Princess…where am I? Where are we?”
“Now, Sunset, I know I taught you better than that. You have to give as much as you take.”
I felt like a little filly being scolded for not doing my magic homework. I hung my head low. “Okay, Princess. What is it that you want to know?”
“Our kingdom? I take it you took good care of it while we were away.”
“‘Our’?” I cocked an eyebrow—or tried to, anyway, but everything short of my mouth and eyes remained paralyzed. She kept using the words “our” and “we.” It sounded quite unlike Celestia; in the past she used “my” and “I” and so on. But never inclusive or collective.
“Yes. And?”
“It’s…good, Princess.”
She shook her head, and I wanted nothing more to shrink into something microscopic. “After twenty years, do you expect me to not know when you’re lying, Sunset?”
I swallowed. She had a point; I could never slip a lie past her. So I had no choice but to fess up.
“Equestria is…dead, Princess.”
Celestia hummed to herself. I was scared, scared that she was going zap me to dust right there on the cliff.
But she grinned oh-so toothily to herself. Then nodded and let out a tiny, mirthful giggle from her throat.
“I was correct,” she said with a slight undertone of disappointment. “Wings do not suit you, Sunset.”
Confused anger blanketed me. “What do you mean ‘do no suit me’?” I asked. I tried to ruffle my feathers at her, a tick I had developed over the years, and then I realized that I had been stripped of them, just as Celestia had hers. “Are you saying that I don’t deserve them? That I didn’t deserve what you called my destiny?!”
“You didn’t deserve what they represent, what baggage they come with. You were not ready.”
“Not ready?!” my indignant self shouted at her. “I was the strongest unicorn in all of Equestria! And the wings of an alicorn represent power! After all my hard work, how am I undeserving—”
“Virtue, Sunset!” Her voice boomed, and her sunlit eyes glowered upon me. I shrunk instinctively. This was the side of Celestia that I knew, perhaps too well. “Ascension is supposed to be the recognition of virtue! Of which you so desperately lacked!”
Her accusations lashed at me, cutting deep, but I was not a pony to take a beating lying down. My body asserted itself upwards, almost standing taller than Celestia herself.
“I was finished with waiting! With training and lessons and fixing other ponies’ problems, which had nothing to do with magic!” My face closed in on Celestia’s, inches from her face. I returned the dagger glare of the sun with my own. “I was ready for my wings, Princess. I could have defeated Nightmare Moon in time if I had them! I could have saved you!”
Celestia’s eyes closed, and she shook her head. “I wasn’t the only one that needed saving.” She spun around, starting down the cliffside knoll.
“Princess,” I began, “I answered your question. Now can you answer mine: where am I?”
There was nothing but the quiet whisper of the incorporeal wind passing and the roar of the ocean far below. I tried to gauge how far up we were, but from my place I couldn’t see where the base of the cliff met the water.
Then ever so softly I heard a sigh. Celestia stopped and said, “Come with me, and you’ll have your answer. And a few others.” And she trotted off, with me trailing behind.
As we closed in on the broad, dark forest, the time of day shifted from the blue afternoon to a chalky pinkish-orange evening. Every few steps advanced time by an hour. Just as we reached the edge of the forest, blackness consumed the starless sky.
As we entered, the encroaching darkness overtook us, and I could no longer see Celestia or even my own hoof in front of my face. My only method of keeping up with Celestia was her hooves’ heavy thump against the dusty path. I focused my thoughts to ignite my horn for light; nothing happened, however. I tried again and again, to no avail.
“Attempting an illumination spell is fruitless; magic doesn’t exist here,” I heard Celestia’s voice say.
“N-No magic whatsoever?”
“Correct.”
“So how do you know where to go? Or that nothing will leap out at us?” I asked, fright shaking throughout my words. Magic was my source of power, where I put my faith. And now that had left me, alongside my wings.
“I know these woods. No life exists here. And how I know the way is easy: I just follow my heart. Something with which you had trouble.”
I rolled my eyes and swallowed. We passed through the shadows, never straying from the path that was made or bumping into trees or shrubbery. The woods were deathly quiet, which sent chills down my back.
Minutes—or what only felt like minutes—ticked away as we walked in silence, until a dull speck of light peeked through the dark. As we closed in on it, I could tell it was firelight by the flickering orange tone; and as we were closer still, the light formed into a distinct retangular shape surrounded by a looming shadow.
It was a cabin, much to my surprise, in a clearing in the woods. A pillar of embers and smoke, blue and wispy like a phantom, rose from the cobblestone chimney. It was made from alien-looking gray logs. From a distance it was a horrifying monster, like mothmares awaiting their prey. But as I grew close and details rendered, it felt more homely and calm.
Celestia strode right up to the front door and swung it open with a hoof. It creaked as she did, as if grumpy from being awoken by the princess. I followed by squeezing through the gap she left behind. It closed itself after me.
Despite the popping fire and heartwarming look of the cabin, the air chilled my bones. My breath hung visible in the thin air of the cabin. The interior was a single large room with the stone-gray wooden walls decorated with numerous tapestries of blues and purples with vivid, white stars forming constellations. In the center, there were two chairs positioned to face the fireplace.
And there was a mare sitting in the one on the right. I could see her horn over the top of the chair. A pit formed deep within my stomach.
“Sister, we have a guest,” said Celestia as she circled around and sat in the empty chair.
‘Sister’? Celestia had a sister?
“I see that,” the other mare replied. Her voice was harder, more rigid than Celestia’s. Less motherly, and closer to a Guard Captain’s. “A shame it is, the circumstances under which we are meeting.”
“A shame indeed,” Celestia said. She turned, watching me with her closed eyes.
I walked around the mare’s chair. Surprised to see the colors I did: blue. Deep blues, dark as a summer’s night, colored her coat. Her mane seemed as though a whole world resided within it, and I could just as easily trip and fall inside. It hung more to her sides, avoiding her face unlike Celestia’s. Her eyes too were closed.
“You are confused about who I am,” the mare said. “I can see it written on your face.” She turned her head slightly in Celestia’s direction. “For a prized personal student groomed to be our successor, she is quite ignorant of Equestria’s history.”
“I taught her what I could. She wasn’t much for reading anything that wasn’t a book of spellcasting.” Celestia huffed. “Sometimes I wish I had taken up a bookworm—”
“Excuse me?” I butted in. “I’m standing right here.”
The mare chuckled and nodded. “She’s quite fiery, however. No wonder you picked her. Reminds me of you in our youth.” Her head tilted toward me, looking directly at me. And her eyes opened.
Expansive, blacker than anything I had ever seen, dotted with white, blue, and pink twinkles. Staring into them sucked me in, magnetized my vision to them. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t blink. I was but absorbed in the mare’s gaze, mesmerized by the dancing stars.
“Yes,” the mare began, “a wildfire indeed. Lives only to eat, sometimes at the sacrifice of others.” Her words escaped me in their meaning; I was still hypnotized by her night eyes. Her eyes shut, and she allowed me a moment to compose myself. “My name is Luna, young princess. I am—was the princess of the night, and the younger of the Royal Sisters.” The shadows on her face darkened, the air became frigid, and her mouth twisted into a frown. “But mayhaps you know me as the Mare on the Moon.”
“N-Nightmare Moon,” I stammered out. “You…you’re the one—”
“—who slayed our older sister?” Luna finished. “Yes.” She just batted the fact away, as if it was inconsequential. Instead, she seemed to focus more intently onto me. “Just as you are the one who slayed us, and purloined our wings.”
Fear without the senses of one’s own anatomy is a strange sensation. No heartbeat to thump anxiously or blood to run cold. There was just a uniform coldness that covered me.
“I-I had my reasons for what I did,” I defended, stumbling over my words. “A menace scouraged the land, slayed Equestria’s sole princess, and I was the only one poised and trained to deal with it. I was groomed to be a hero. A powerful hero, that would soon be another crown princess of Equestria. And to do that, to save Equestria, I needed wings.”
“You did not need wings,” Celestia said with a straight edge to her voice.
“But only an alicorn could have slay—”
“You were not supposed to slay my sister!” Celestia stood up from her seat, and even with her majestic size gone, I felt small. Puny. An anthill before a mountain. And I despised that feeling.
“Then what was expected of me, Princess?” I asked as the last word oozed with venom. “What was I supposed to do?”
“Make friends, Sunset! It’s why I prematurely sent you to Ponyville after Luna was freed!”
Luna chuckled casually from her seat. “I always told you to never make exceptions on my account, sister.”
I looked at Celestia incredulously. “And how would friends have helped me?”
Celestia rubbed her temples with a hoof. “Because you and friends you would have made were supposed to wield the Elements of Harmony and purge the evil from my sister!”
Confusion came over me—what was she talking about? How would something as trivial as friendship help with the Elements? They were artifacts, conduits to magic as a magnifying glass is to rays of sunlight.
Luna shook her head. “’Twas an awful plan, sister. Relying too much on the stars when the stars themselves are anything but controlled and predictable? Awful, absolutely awful.”
Celestia’s right ear swiveled toward her sister. “And what were I to do then?”
“You should’ve pulled your young student aside, point out the significance and importance of companionship, ready her for the inevitable that was myself.” Luna shifted, and I could’ve sworn dust fell from her. “But that is to say that your young student isn’t entirely innocent of fault. Failure to read history has been the downfall of history itself as we are doomed to repeat it.”
As her words shifted to me, her tone changed, too, from the disapproval of a sibling to the disappointment of an aunt.
“History is a necessity, Sunset. Without the knowledge and wisdom derived from one’s ancestors and their mistakes, your authority is questionable at best. You did not know about myself, as a princess nor as a menace, because you did not study it. The same goes for the true nature of the Elements of Harmony. Truth is, young princess, since you are here with us, your tendency to use force and the magic solely within you has failed you. And so you have failed a princess.”
“Failed?!” I hissed. My face grew hot as the seething anger inside me started to boil over. “I failed as a princess?! I saved Equestria, and I ushered in a new era! I—”
“Equestria is dead, no?” Luna asked, cutting me off.
I closed my mouth and clenched my jaw. The seething in me evaporated, leaving behind nothing but shame.
“And what happened?” she pressed.
I turned around, facing my back to her. Even with their cosmic eyes closed off to me, I could still feel their gaze on my back. “It was as if the Mare on the Moon had released Tartarus with her. Everything just…fell apart shortly after her. Discord returned. I vanquished him, but things were never quite the same.”
One-by-one, I recounted the events—tallying my ‘failures’—since I had seized the throne: the changeling invasion and occupation of Canterlot, the return of the Crystal Empire and resurrection of King Sombra. Vines born of chaos overtaking Ponyville, Tirek, war, rebellion—Equestria wasn’t pretty anymore. It wasn’t peaceful.
I felt like I was breaking down into madness. So much had happen in these years, and spilling everything that made my heartache felt fantastic. I wept as I spoke about the invasion of the possessed Crystal Empire at the same time as my advisors and guards were slowly turning against me in favor of somepony lesser.
And as I talked, I began to realize: I did fail. I failed my teacher. I failed my subjects. I failed myself.
I detailed everything I could, up to the last thing I could remember: the storming of Canterlot Castle. A battalion of cloudy crystal ponies battered the gate like the drums of war.
And the next thing I knew, I was in a field of grass, smelling sea salt and looking out at an endless sea.
When I finished, tears continued to stream. Behind me I heard the clop of hooves against the stone floor, and then I felt somepony drape their neck over mine, wrapping a hoof around my neck. Celestia shushed my whimpers and sniffles, petting where my mane grazed my neck.
For the first time in years, my soul felt at peace. Like a hefty weight had been lifted off my shoulders. It felt good to cry, to break down and let everything out—the stress, the heartache, the loneliness. I forgot how good it felt, being held, especially by the closest thing to a mother I had.
“I’m so sorry I failed, Princess!” I sobbed. Celestia immediately shushed me.
“There’s no need to apologize, Sunset. You did your best.”
Phantom voices thundered in my ears. They were chattering and distant, and assuredly came from no direction other than my own head. Something heavy began pounding in my chest.
“Princess, what—”
“Shh…it’s okay, Sunset. You weren’t meant to stay here anyway.”
The pounding harshened, and the voices became sharper. They sounded worried, as scared as I was. A sensation of lightness came over me, as if I was disappearing into nothing.
“Princess—”
“Remember what we talked about, Sunset. And please just make some friends.”
Lightness into nothingness. The pounding in my chest settled into a steady rhythm, and the buzz of voices became recognizable. One of them was my guard captain. One of them was royal physician. One of them was her apprentice.
They were calling for me. “Return to us,” they cried. “Come back, Sunset,” they begged. Somehow I sobbed harder hearing them.
There in Celestia’s hooves I vanished, fading into nothing, crying and wishing to remain for only a few seconds more. In the dawn of consciousness, sensations returned to my body in waves: the pounding heart, two heaving lungs, the sterile bitterness of medicine, and a breathing tube invading my throat.
My eyes flew open. I shook. The breathing tube felt as though it was on the verge of choking me, and my body fought against it. My eyes glared at the hospital lights, unblinking. They were dim compared to Celestia’s vicious stare.
Shadows rushed over to me. Lots of voices, speaking too quick for my ears to comprehend their words, buzzed about me. A light flashed into my eyes one at a time. One muttered something to another, and the tube was being pulled from my throat. I gasped, sucking in the sweet, cold air. A true sign of life.
It was a miracle. But it didn’t feel like one.