The cry of a familiar bird woke her with a start. Her body burned from her myriad injuries, the marks of ghouls having attempted to rip her apart. Blinking blearily she stood up carefully and looked around the barren landscape, save for a bird in a dead tree. Their eyes met, magenta and yellow, and there was sorrow in the vulture's gaze.
"You brought me here, didn't you? But, you didn't have a choice."
It let out a mournful cry before it spread its wings. Celestia watched as it took off into the blackened sky and disappeared into the dark clouds. When she brought her gaze back down, she was in the middle of a graveyard, tombstones as far as the eye could see.
She stumbled forward through the graveyard, along a cracked and broken path. Dead trees cloistered in around her as she looked from grave to grave, countless names she did not recognize. Crows had suddenly appeared in the decaying branches and cried right above her, circling around and waiting to feast. Her lips were dry but every time she tried to wet them with her tongue it felt like sandpaper.
The path ended in front of an ornate, but weathered grave. She stared at it in disbelief and a shiver ran down her spine. Luna's face was carved into the rock, bitterness writ plain in the features.
Here Lies Luna, Betrayed by her Sister.
She backed away and turned, only to smack her face into a monument. In a daze she slumped to the ground and looked up, seeing the stone statue of Cadance, face twisted in terror.
Here Lies Cadance, Abandoned by her Aunt
Her hooves scrabbled against the uneven earth below, going down a well worn path. As she ran along it grew narrower and narrower, thorny branches sticking out into the way and pricking at her face and body. She shut her eyes tight but the moment she did her snout collided hard into solid stone. She staggered backwards in a daze from the blow, blood pouring freely from her nostrils. When her eyes opened her heart froze.
Here Lies Twilight Sparkle, Forsaken by her Teacher
Celestia's horn shone brightly... and sputtered out. The crows above her began to cackle as she backed away from the grave, the stone statue of Twilight looking right at her with eyes full of sorrow. She turned to escape, only to see the graves of Luna and Cadance blocking her path. Continuing to turn she was surrounded by the three graves and she shook her head, sweat and blood running down her neck.
“No, no! I didn't betray you Luna, you told me to go! I didn't even want to at first, but you wanted me to do anything besides mope around! Cadance, oh my dear niece, I would have stayed, I would have had the armies fight to secure passage out of the Empire but the front was just too large and you and Shining gave me Flurry to keep safe! Twilight, Twilight, you know I would never forsake you! You were always so loyal and kind and I paid it back to you in return. I kept begging you to come with me but you didn't want to leave your friends, and I knew how important they were to you. If... if you had come with me, you would have felt as much of a failure as I am!”
The statues grew closer and hemmed her in, pressing against her. She squirmed and tried to climb out. A hind leg got caught and she choked out a gasp as she felt it be crushed. Her foreleg grasped desperately onto the stone Cadance's horn to try and pull away only to hiss in pain as the horn changed into a blade and sliced into her. They pinned her in and she could feel creaking in her bones and muscles as they pressed against her.
“Maar!” she cried out.
The crows cackled louder and flew off of their branches, spinning around in a cyclone of feathers, beaks, and talons. The wind grew harsh and she was blinded by a curtain of oily black feathers. She fell to the ground as the statues vanished, her body screaming in pain from the fresh injuries. The crying of the crows died out, as did the wind, and when she looked up she saw a crow-like griffon, his head a blackened skull. He smiled at her, his beak full of teeth.
“Ah, the Sun Queen has come to me at last. Not my preference of course. Moonshadow would have been more appropriate. Even the vaunted divines of love and camaraderie would have been more fitting than you. Alas, I take what I can get,” the dark god spoke in a voice slick with blood, wet and throaty.
She hobbled up onto three legs and glowered at him. “Why have you dragged me into your realm?” she hissed out, the blood leaking from her nose wetting her lips.
Maar spread his arms out. “Why? You died of course, and in Griffonia I am lord of death.”
With her breathing ragged she stared up at him, the pain in her nose subsiding and the blood clotting up. In her crushed hind leg she could feel the bones scraping against one another, pain shooting through as they worked to realign.
“Why torment me with these graves then? Luna's not even dead!”
Maar's smile widened. “So you do believe the Librarian and the Matchmaker are truly gone.”
She grit her teeth as she limped on two legs, trying to back away from him. Her horn flared but the magic was quickly snuffed out.
“Your connection to the sun is irrelevant here. This is a realm of death and madness,” the deity proclaimed with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“The sun can cause death too!” she shouted, gold forming along her horn once again and shooting a beam. The magic sputtered out before it reached Maar and the divinity gave an amused clacking of his beak.
“You try and try and try, yet your failures are many. Too many to count. And now that you are within my grasp your failures shall continue to grow! Look, let us see the paths you have set those closest to you upon...”
He spread his wings wide and darkness surrounded her. She tried to cast her magic to dispel it, but was swiftly engulfed in the oily black.
She stumbled out of the shadows into a crowded changeling city. There was panic in the streets, soldiers directing civilians while the civilians tried not to trample around in terror. She looked around before her ears perked up at the sound of an air raid siren.
“See now one of the greatest weapons ever conceived,” Maar said.
There was a flash of light in the distance, then a roar. A wave of pressure shot right on through, breaking glass and throwing changelings around as they screamed in terror. Celestia raised her injured hoof to shield her face in reflex. The light continued to spread further and further, a shimmering pink shield.
“Cadance...?” She asked with a furrowed brow.
As it passed over, buildings were obliterated, changelings turned to ash. As suddenly as it came, it vanished, leaving a large crater where the city center once was. In a daze she walked over to the edge of the crater, still limping on her legs. She looked down, and her jaw dropped at what stood in the center.
“Flurry!”
Clad in armor of blood red crystal, as tall and lean as Luna. From the distance Celestia could see that her eyes were slits. Her heart sank at the realization of what stood before her as Flurry Heart took to walking out of the crater.
“Look at what she will grow up to be because of you, you weak nag,” Maar hissed out into her ear, disgust oozing in his words. “You did this to her.”
“No! No!” She cried out as she stumbled over the edge of the crater. “No, not Flurry, why would she give in like this?”
“What else was she to do with everyone else gone?”
Celestia stumbled again and right before her snout hit the ground shadows came around once more. She wound up falling flat on the ground in a muddy field, artillery roaring. Close by she saw a command camp with the Imperial colors being assaulted by various young dragons, cries of terror from the griffon soldiers as they were overwhelmed by their numerically inferior but vastly more powerful foes.
She watched in horror as a particular purple one easily slew a griffon in his path. “Spike?”
“Twilight gone, you gone, who else could he turn to but his distant kin?”
Her eyes widened. “Meyer.”
“Yes. Conqueror of the dragons, king of Vedina! Without you, what point would there be in helping Equestria? Ah, the whelp will grow up to be a good and proper dragon in time. Not without any old mares holding him back.”
She raised her cut hoof out to Spike, seeing the griffon blood streaked across his arms. Then much like before darkness enveloped her.
The room was dark and quiet, but she recognized it right away as the den of their home in New Mareland. Dust has covered the furniture, the curtains drawn shut.
“What is the moon without the sun?” Maar hissed into her ear.
Celestia bolted right for Luna's room, her heart racing as she barged through the doors. Once inside she saw Luna just staring out the window. In the reflection she could see her sister's face sunken in, heavy bags under her eyes. Her body trembled as she approached and saw the skin so tight that Luna's ribs were showing through.
“Oh, she still felt miserable for leaving you for a thousand years, and you repaid her in kind by leaving her for eternity! What immortal sister could stand such a loss?”
Luna's horn glowed and day slowly shifted to night.
“She... she still moves the sun and moon for the world.”
“She did not forget her duties to others.”
Celestia turned around, the room vanishing into mist, leaving her and Maar in the infinite graveyard. New gravestones, with carvings of all sorts of ponies. Fancy Pants, Blueblood, Sunset Shimmer, the Pillars, and many, many more whom she had known throughout her life. Maar remained standing before her, his arms spread wide.
“And now, because of you, innumerable dead will continue to call for vengeance, for succor, for reasons why.”
She looked at one particular grave. Somnambula. Unlike all the twisted visages of pain and fear of the other graves, she was at peace. Clarity of purpose ignited inside and quenched the fear that threatened to drown her.
“...Hope.”
“Hmm, what is this now, nag?”
Celestia turned to Maar and stomped a hoof into the ground. “I had forgotten my roots. The Pillars, their virtues never truly matched equally to the Elements. Hope begets Kindness, but it is still something unique of itself. I forsook Harmony as Equestria knows it now... but that just means I must embrace Harmony as it used to be!”
Maar began to laugh, his cackling the clatter of bones. “Harmony? Death is the only harmony here, Sun Queen!”
Another stomp of the hoof, this time causing the stones beneath to shatter into dust. “If I cannot be honest, then I can be strong!”
“Strength withers away.”
“If I cannot be loyal, then I can be brave!”
“It takes but one moment of doubt for cowardice to sink in.”
“If I cannot be generous, I can inspire beauty!”
“A vapid thing.”
“If I cannot make others laugh, then I can heal them!”
“Wounds scar.”
“If I cannot have the magic of friendship, I can still commit to sorcery!”
“Such powers have languished too long.”
“And if I cannot be kind, I can inspire hope!”
“Hope is the first step on the road of disappointment.”
Celestia took in a deep breath, her horn pulsing with power. She shot a blast of magic directly at Maar.
It dissipated right before him and his cackling grew louder, ringing in her ears. Barbed chains shot up out of the ground and wrapped around her, hooks biting into her flesh and dragging her down.
“What a grand and intoxicating innocence!” he laughed as he looked down, another chain going around her neck to keep her flush to the ground. “How could you be so naive? This is the realm of the dead, my realm! There is no Harmony to be had here other than the peace of the grave! I should end your miserable existence, but oh I am enjoying this!”
She struggled against the chains, feeling how they bit into her skin. New tears were made, blood weeping from fresh wounds. Celestia looked up at Maar and his jovial expression, the skull somehow grinning without flesh. Her breathing slowed and she closed her eyes.
“I am weak,” she confessed readily. “I am weak, because I am afraid. I was always afraid of losing myself like Luna had. Like Flurry will.”
“Ah, such a sweet sound, greater than any siren's song! The Sun Queen, admitting she will never rise again.”
Her eyes shot open, and there had been a change. Instead of magenta her irises were a deep yellow, almost gold. “I did not say that.”
Maar watched as her mane shifted from the aurora to roiling flames and his laughter continued. “Ah, so you are embracing the Nightmare within! Do you think letting her take over will help you?”
A flash of light erupted from her and the chains melted off, the alicorn standing up onto all fours and glaring at Maar.
“Take over? No. I am not my sister. This power is not some separate entity to keep locked away. It is my power to use when needed and I have need of it now.”
“You cannot escape the realm of the dead, Sun Queen,” Maar stated.
“I could not, if I was dead. But I am still very much alive Maar and I. Am. Leaving!”
The god let out a screech at her as oily shadows tried to grasp onto her before the heat of her flames boiled them away, barbed chains melting as soon as they erupted out of the ground. The dead grass and trees began to char from the heat and the alicorn's horn flared with the power of the sun, then she vanished with raging solar winds.
As she forced herself out of the godly realm, she could hear clattering bones ring through her ears, a blood-slick voice laughing uproariously.
“Go forth and bring death upon your foes!”