//------------------------------// // Epilogue - Sunset // Story: Sunrise // by Winston //------------------------------// Sunrise ​    Epilogue - Sunset ​    “But you ARE good ponies!” Twilight Sparkle protested earnestly as she stood up, leaning forward and looking up at Celestia with an intense stare. Her eyes were shining in the brilliant sun coming through the windows of the private solarium they were in, up at the top of one of the high spires of the palace. “That’s very kind of you to say,” Celestia spoke softly, meeting Twilight’s gaze. “…Still, I—” Twilight coughed delicately and flicked her eyes away to the polished tile floor momentarily. “—I can’t really imagine you killing somepony. It’s… just…” “It was only the one time,” Celestia said. “But once was enough, Twilight, to leave a scar that lasts forever.” “But it doesn’t mean you’re not good. It was over a thousand years ago, and you’ve done so many good things for everypony since then,” Twilight argued fervently. “Maybe I have.” Celestia nodded. “I’m not saying it’s still an open wound, or some great inner conflict I’m not at peace with after all this time. It’s just something I can never change. It taught me to be careful of the scars I take on, because even if you can let go of them, they might not ever let go of you.” Twilight lowered her head. “Yeah,” she sighed, and nuzzled Celestia gently. Celestia returned the gesture, lowering her muzzle to gently ruffle the back of Twilight’s mane. “Anyway, so that’s what really happened?” Twilight asked after a long pause. “Everything you just told me is the real story of how you and Luna ended up here as princesses? It seems so… well, I don’t know.” “Were you expecting something else?” “No, not exactly.” Twilight shook her head. “It just surprises me, I guess, how you started out so… normal.” “Of course we did, my little pony.” Celestia nodded. “We’re merely flesh and blood, like you and everypony else. We were born, we started our lives from scratch, and we had to learn and grow into what we are. Nopony, and certainly not a princess, just wanders out of the woods one day fully formed.” “No, I…” Twilight thought for a moment. “I guess that makes sense. I just honestly hadn’t thought about it that much. I mean, of course I know the traditional Hearth’s Warming story, and obviously I knew parts of it were probably mythical after so much time. I just didn’t really consider which parts.” “I may not have made that story up myself, but I certainly didn’t get in the way of the narrative being about the three pony types of Equestria finding they could come together on their own.” Celestia winked. “Over time, the story has become the story ponies needed, which is often more important than the literal version.” “I can see that, but I’d also assumed that the essential kernels of truth about the main players were more or less accurate,” Twilight continued. “Clover the Clever, Commander Hurricane, Princess Platinum… they all seem so much more… well, complicated, now that you’ve pulled the curtain back for me.” “As I said, merely flesh and blood, like everypony else,” Celestia repeated. “Please try not to think too harshly of them. They all had their motivations for what they did, and I understand that now only too well. Besides, you’ve only heard my side of the story, and none of them are still here to tell you theirs. It wouldn’t be fair to put them on trial when they can’t defend themselves. However imperfect they may have been, Equestria wouldn’t exist without them. That much of the, as you put it, essential kernel of truth to the Hearth’s Warming tale is indeed true.” “Right, right.” Twilight nodded in agreement. “Everything you’ve told me still leaves me with so many questions, though! Like, what about Quartz City? And where did Storm Grey come from? I’ve never even heard of her. And… well, there’s about a million more I could ask!” “Yes, you always did love to ask questions. To be brief about your first one: Quartz City never really went away. The rise of House Umbra, and eventually King Sombra taking the throne, led to its transformation as the seat of the Crystal Empire in the North. That’s a separate story related to my earlier days as Princess. This was all when Luna was still with me, of course. And as for your other question…” Celestia started pacing around the solarium. Twilight waited patiently, though the faint clicking of Celestia’s horseshoes on the stone-tiled floor started making one of her ears twitch just a hair. “Storm Grey and her tragedy is another long tale in its own right,” Celestia finally said. “Long enough that I think it’s a story for another time. Perhaps I’ll tell you one day, but not now.” She stopped and stared out the window in thought, her gaze far off in the distance. “Not now.” “Can you at least tell me why she’s not mentioned in the traditional story?” “She…” Celestia paused. “Well, I don’t think it’s what she would have wanted. Fame, I mean. The immortality of living forever in celebrated myth. I’ve tried to avoid talking about her to prevent that from happening.” “Um.” Twilight hesitated, with something visibly not sitting quite right with her. She lifted one forehoof, set it down again gently, and took a breath before she spoke her mind. “Did you really avoid her because she would have wanted her privacy, or because you were still upset with her? I’m sorry, there’s no great way to ask that, I know.” Celestia stared blankly at Twilight for a long moment with a shadow of the slightest frown on her lips. Twilight fidgeted awkwardly and began to shrink back the tiniest bit. Then Celestia’s eyes softened and her characteristic gentle smile returned. “It’s true, she hurt me deeply by what she took from me.” Celestia nodded. “I was very upset about it for a very long time. Hating her is something I’m not proud of, but it’s the truth. Your intuitions serve you well, Twilight. They’ll be a valuable asset as a princess.” “I’m sorry for the part of your life that you’ve lost to her,” Twilight offered. “If it makes you feel any better, sometimes you were like a second mother to me.” “Twilight.” Celestia let out a pained sigh. “I’ll be honest, I’ve tried to avoid assuming that kind of role in the lives of any of my students. I never thought it was my place, and besides…” she trailed off. “And you didn’t think it was possible anyway?” Twilight suggested. “Possible, I didn’t know. But more importantly, I never saw it. Not in the vision.” “Well, I wouldn’t have minded. I don’t believe in fate,” Twilight stated. “Fate?” Celestia laughed briefly. “Oh, no, Twilight. Surely you’re right about that – Storm Grey wasn’t lying when she said the universe wasn’t so cruel as to impose fate. I always—” Celestia paused “—I always had a choice, of course.” “Then why?” Twilight asked, her face suddenly somewhere between confused and angry. “Why hurt yourself like that?” “Because it wasn’t in the vision, I told you.” Celestia hung her head. “You have to understand, Twilight. There was a path, a very clear path but only one path, that led here, to all that has happened in the time I’ve reigned as a princess. To the bright future ponykind has ahead of it now. And, ultimately, to you. I could have deviated from that path. I could have turned aside from it, chosen a good stallion, had my foals when I still could. But there was no seeing what would have resulted.” “Would not knowing the future really be so bad?” Twilight asked. “Most ponies live that way every day. It doesn’t stop them.” “There was just so much to lose,” Celestia replied mournfully. “On the one hoof, I saw a future I knew to be good and prosperous. On the other… I’d have to trade it all for a sheer roll of the dice so that I can have my foal. And I… I made a promise to somepony else that there would be a good future for her children. Didn’t I?” “I guess you did,” Twilight admitted grudgingly. “Did Winter Wheat have her foal?” “An adorable little unicorn filly.” Celestia nodded. “I taught her to read myself, as well as many other things. She was my first student.” “Aww.” Twilight smiled. “I wish I could have met her.” “Every time you look in a mirror, you see some of her.” Celestia returned the smile. “She lives on in you, Twilight.” “She’s my ancestor?” Twilight asked, leaning forward excitedly. “Yes, although after more than a thousand years that could be said of a great many ponies from back then. Still, I’ve followed her lineage particularly. More than one student of mine has been drawn from it. Some quite recently. Your predecessor, even.” “Sunset Shimmer?” Twilight grinned. “Indeed. You are, oh, what is it? Fourth cousins, I believe, after all?” “I hadn’t checked.” Twilight’s smile only widened. “I guess I should look at the genealogy.” “Perhaps you should sometime,” Celestia agreed. “But for now, come sit with me and just enjoy the day for a bit, won’t you?” Twilight came forward to stand side-by-side next to Celestia. They sat down together on the stone-tiled floor. Both of them closed their eyes and spread their wings slightly and passed the time in silence for a little while, basking in the warm sun. “So…” Twilight finally spoke again, cracking open an eyelid. “I’m curious. What does your vision tell you about the path from here?” “Oh, it doesn’t,” Celestia responded casually, eyes still closed. “It– wait, what?” Twilight turned her head to look over at Celestia in confusion. “I left the vision’s path to save Luna,” Celestia explained. “You see, Twilight, there was a fork: I could continue down the road I’d been walking for a thousand years, or I could take my chance to get her back. This fork would only come exactly once, in the thousandth year after her banishment. Never again. Stars drift over time. They orbit through the galaxy. They end up in new, unpredictable places. They even burn out and vanish. They would never again align to aid her escape but for that one singular moment, and I had to choose, so I did. I don’t know what it means for us all, but heaven help me, I chose.” “Well, you know what? I’m glad you did,” Twilight said reassuringly. “I’m glad Luna’s back.” “So am I, Twilight.” Celestia nodded. “So am I.” Twilight leaned against Celestia’s side. “I sense a ‘but’ coming,” she said. “But, was I wise to make that choice?” Celestia acknowledged the inevitable question while she wrapped a wing around Twilight and enveloped her in great, shining white feathers. “What are you talking about?” Twilight laughed. “You couldn’t have handled that whole situation more wisely. You knew exactly what you were doing even when I had no idea yet. Sending me to make friends with just the right ponies to find the Elements of Harmony—” “No, Twilight.” Celestia shook her head. “That was perhaps very clever of me, but there’s such a world of difference between clever and wise.” “Well, if it all turned out to have a good ending, I don’t see what the difference is.” “The difference is that cleverness is merely knowing how to make something happen,” Celestia said. “Wisdom, though: wisdom is knowing when to ask, ‘But at what price?’” “Isn’t it also knowing when to ask the same question about the price of not doing something?” Twilight asked. “Because the price of not acting would have also been a high one.” “That’s a very comforting justification, if I was looking for a way to rationalize to myself,” Celestia said. “But I fear that accepting the offer of easy self-assured comfort in my own correctness might not be setting a very good example for you.” “No, maybe not.” Twilight sighed. “I just don’t want to see you unhappy.” “Believe me, this is happier than the alternative,” Celestia reassured her. “I think it’s the first time in a very, very long time that I really have been happy, truth be told.” “Hmmm?” Twilight looked up curiously at Celestia, prompting her to continue. “Making the choice to save Luna is where I parted ways from the singular path I could see, and in a way, that departure is very freeing,” Celestia explained. “I suppose that’d be true.” Twilight nodded. “You finally freed yourself from Storm Grey’s curse.” “Oh, no, not at all.” Celestia folded her wings and shifted where she sat. “Storm Grey’s curse, vision, prophecy, whatever it may be called, worked perfectly, as it turns out. Storm Grey was certainly smart enough to know that nothing lasts forever, including the scope of whatever path she could convince me to follow. The more I look back upon it with the advantage of retrospection, the more I understand that, somehow, it was meant to end here.” “So she won?” Twilight’s ears lowered. “After all this, she gets to win?” “I wouldn’t frame it in those terms,” Celestia said. “It was never about winning or losing. I may have hated her, but we weren’t enemies. We each had a part in doing what it took to fix a terrible, terrible mistake and heal the rift that would have torn our three races apart and destroyed us all.” “Maybe, but I still don’t think it was fair to put the price on you,” Twilight said resentfully. “It was never about fair, either.” Celestia shook her head, mane rippling ethereally in an unfelt wind. “Luna and I came from the unicorns who oppressed our fellow ponies. We were part of the problem, and so it fell on us to be part of the solution. It was never going to be fair to ask such a thing of anypony, but it had to be somepony. And now I’m sorry, Twilight, that I must do the same unfairness to you.” “Unfairness?” Twilight tilted her head in confusion. “Being offered the throne is an honor, if that’s what you mean.” “You never asked to be made an alicorn,” Celestia pointed out. “Again, another honor, really,” Twilight countered. “I’m glad you see it that way.” Celestia smiled. “Perhaps that’s a better view than the one I took for so long. I should try learning a thing or two from you, for a change.” “I don’t know, I still feel like I have a lot to learn,” Twilight said. “For example, I wouldn’t mind learning that future sight spell. Might come in handy, if—” “No, Twilight!” Celestia’s voice was suddenly stern, her eyes narrowed and hard. “You must understand, there’s a reason I never taught you such things. I would never give you or any of my students any future divination spells or show you visions of the kind I was shown.” “I just…” Twilight looked away sheepishly. “…Right. It would be Storm Grey all over again, wouldn’t it?” “The cycles that have caused us trauma and hurt tend to repeat themselves, inflicted on others in turn at our own hooves,” Celestia spoke softly, nodding. “We have to be aware and diligent about breaking them if we want to build something better.” “Maybe mere ponies shouldn’t have that kind of power anyway,” Twilight murmured. “I guess I still have a few things to learn about temptation, too, huh?” “Believe me, I understand how alluring it is. But the very reason I’ve asked you to take the throne is because you don’t need that kind of power.” Celestia said. “You don’t need to be bound by the chains it causes you to make for yourself. Not like me. That path has ended, Twilight. That’s the entire point of putting you in charge. We, ponykind, have a boundless, open future ahead now, instead of something prosperous but nonetheless static and predetermined.” “You needed it?” Twilight asked skeptically. “Princess, I don’t believe that.” “Yes,” Celestia whispered. “I did.” “Why?” “Twilight,” Celestia began slowly, “to explain why, I have to make a confession. It’s my deepest and darkest one. It may change how you see me, and I’m afraid of that because I value our friendship very greatly.” “Nothing will make me stop being your friend,” Twilight said. “You’ve gone this far already. You know you can tell me anything.” Celestia took a deep breath and let it out. “The truth is I’m an incredibly selfish pony, Twilight.” “No you’re n—” Celestia raised a hoof, stopping Twilight’s words of protest. “I am,” she continued. “Selfishness has, in fact, been the defining quality at the very core of my reign for a thousand years.” “How can you say that?” Twilight pleaded. “I can say it because when I had to banish Luna, my heart was broken in two, and I was missing half of myself,” Celestia said. “All I cared about was getting her back, so I did what it took. The hope of just seeing her again drove me forward all this time. It led me to do the things I’ve done as Princess in the hope of creating the right circumstances and the right world, the right Equestria, for her to return to and be saved in. Following the vision was how the Equestria you see today was made. I know it’s a good place for ponies to live. It’s a place where they’re happy. That’s how I know I’ve done well enough as a Princess, so far as that has motivated me, but the truth underneath it is that I’ve been selfish, Twilight. So completely selfish.” “Well, how far would any of us go to save our own sister?” Twilight asked. “You love her. That’s only to be expected.” “Love is a strange thing,” Celestia said. “It’s selfless, but viciously selfish at the same time. Nothing you do is for yourself, but you’d do anything – anything – for how you feel. I would have done anything for Luna. Love can make you do the right thing, but I don’t know if it can do it for the right reasons. Being selfish is why I followed the path for a thousand years, and being selfish is also why I left that path. Storm Grey’s vision was so effective at convincing me to put myself in a cage of my own making because she understood me better than I understood myself back then. She understood how selfish I am because, at the heart of it, that’s how she saw all ponies. I was no different.” Neither of them spoke for a long time. “That is why this must end,” Celestia said. “As a pony who knew well about these things once told me, a ruler needs to know when to step down for the good of her people.” “What, because you have Luna back?” Twilight asked. “Because your need has been satisfied? So that’s it? You just w-walk away and l-leave us behind?” Her voice quivered. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “You’re r-right, you really are selfish.” Just as the dam crumbled and broke completely, Celestia reached out and pulled Twilight in. She collapsed into the fur of Celestia’s chest, sobbing. The sobs slowly faded and quieted over a few minutes as Celestia held Twilight, gently rocking her side-to-side. “No queen rules forever, my student,” Celestia said softly, resting her cheek on the top of Twilight’s head. Finally, soothed in her teacher’s embrace, Twilight was still and quiet again. “I know it must hurt,” Celestia whispered into Twilight’s ear. “I know, because even as a filly, you so rarely cried. You’ve always been so brave. I need you to be brave again now, and understand that my time must end for us to move forward.” “But I don’t understand!” Twilight cried out bitterly. “What was so bad about how you were running Equestria? Things were fine!” “I wasn’t fine, Twilight,” Celestia said. “Remember what I said about cycles of trauma repeating themselves. Luna and I can never be ‘fine.’ We’re products of the time we come from – ancient relics of a Unicorn Kingdom guilty of many sins against ponykind. And remember, some scars never let go of you.” “But you don’t seem so scarred to me.” “Again, awareness and diligence,” Celestia said. “That’s how destructive cycles are broken, and new, more positive ones begin in their place. I’ve tried my best to start a new self-perpetuating culture of tolerance, friendship, and acceptance. Those things give us freedom, and in turn, freedom gives us more of those things. The opposite, the decline into mutually reinforcing tyranny and bigotry, is also true.” “Sure, but again, that’s not YOU,” Twilight insisted. “No, it may not be me – at least, not all of me,” Celestia acknowledged. “But it’s a seed, buried deep within. Our formative years are the most important, Twilight. Look at it like this: what we learn as foals literally wires our brains for the rest of our lives, inextricably. Language. Customs. Behavioral standards. Those sorts of things. And in some ways, the same is true about the first time you learn anything, at any age. What you see from your prime role models is critical, and when it comes to the nature of power, my first role models… well. That’s what this whole story has been about, hasn’t it?” “Oh.” Twilight looked saddened. “Clover. Platinum. Hurricane. Star Fire. The whole… the whole system you grew up in. Yeah. I guess– I guess I see. Like Luna said. The hardest thing to change is yourself.” “Yes,” Celestia agreed. “It’s not that I would ever set out to be a monster. Nopony ever does that. Pure evil is never an end for its own sake. And why would it be? That doesn’t make sense. No, it’s the little steps, the ones that do make sense, bit by bit, that ultimately get you there. It’s the cleverness of little things that seem harmless, that seem like a smart move, even seem necessary at the time. That’s what does you in. I’ve tried to be wiser, but Clover’s cleverness, I’m afraid, has nonetheless rubbed off on me, and I can’t deny that this is so. The ruthlessness of the clever option for gaining the power to solve whatever problem is at hoof in the most expedient way is always something that lives in the back of my mind, thanks to her.” “For what it’s worth, you have been wise,” Twilight said hopefully. “Looking around at Equestria today it’s obvious.” “Thank you, Twilight.” Celestia smiled, basking for just a moment in the flattery. “Still, foundationally, myself and Luna’s first exposure to role models of leadership was from those with a despotic lust for power. And when it seems the sensible thing, when we get desperate enough, that’s what I fear we may turn to. That’s where Nightmare Moon came from. That’s why Daybreaker will always live somewhere inside of me. On a long enough timeline, something, somehow, will eventually precipitate them again. Cycles, Twilight. The cycles of trauma echo for so long.” “I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through,” Twilight said. “You needn’t be.” Celestia waved it off. “It’s not as if I’m still in pain, as I said before. It’s just that the potential never completely disappears. That’s why, ultimately, my real job, more than anything else, was to be a better role model to you and all of my students than my role models were to me. I can’t rule forever because I wasn’t meant to be the end of history, only another step in an ongoing process – as are we all. That’s the final secret of what Storm Grey really intended: this was never my story. Like Clover, Storm, and Hurricane before me, I find that I was just the harbinger for something better.” “But I don’t think that’s so different from me. I worry about the same things!” Twilight fretted. “I worry about how to build something beyond myself. I worry about putting more important things ahead of my own desires. I worry about being a good princess. Isn’t that what any good leader should do?” “Understandable. But let me tell you something, Twilight: Clover was clever. I like to think I have, for the most part, been wise. But you: you can do better than any of us.” Celestia spoke as warmly and hopefully as the sun glowing behind her, illuminating her face around the edges in a halo. “You can, at last, be the truly good princess we’ve been waiting for. Equestria deserves a good pony on its throne – and what’s in your heart shines like a rainbow. I’m so proud of you, Twilight Sparkle. You’re everything I’d hoped for you to become.” The old Princess embraced the new, and there, in the high spire bathed in shining sunlight, they hugged each other for a long time. “You are a good pony,” Celestia whispered.     ☀ ​  ​  Sunrise ​  ​   The End ​    Writing began on a cold but sunny ‎winter’s day, on February ‎7, ‎2016 Completed on the day of the Summer Sun Celebration, June 21, 2021     ☀ ​  ​