//------------------------------//
// Release 
// Story: White Sun 
// by The Psychopath 
//------------------------------//

Twilight found herself in a strange, dark reality filled with lands of sharp, black rock that seemed to grow at every angle and regularly crashed against each other while drifting in this liminal, three-dimensional space. The mare wanted out and to get to Celestia as fast as possible, but she could neither move nor use her magic. Her horn would fizzle out with every effort she used and made everything hurt at the same time.

She grunted in pain. "I need to get out of here," she said to herself. "Spike!" she cried out. "Help me!" She flinched and looked around in a panic when her voice started echoing back at her from everywhere at once. It was reflected multiple times at uneven intervals, and some words were either spoken first or completely omitted from the echoes. 

Twilight found herself shrinking in fear when the sky showed her in her predicament at various angles that were displayed in varying sizes and overlapping each other before they dissolved back into strange discs of blue spinning rapidly and both expanding and shrinking at the same time. The unicorn tried to make out what her surroundings were, but she had never seen or read about anything like this.

"Princess Celestia!" Twilight called. "I'll save you! I won't let them take you from me again!" she declared. As she struggled against the rocky ground that had enveloped her hooves, her growing frustrations and fears caused her to start tearing up again. "Come on! Let me go!" She started cursing as her efforts were proven unsuccessful by this place. "Let me go! I have to save her, otherwise no pony will! She just woke up and is lost!"

She froze when a familiar pressure came upon her. The floating islands around seemed to fold in onto themselves and were jettisoned far away to the sides, like something was effortlessly crushing them to get to the lavender unicorn. Twilight started struggling faster in a panic and grit her teeth when the pain of her limbs being overstretched reached her brain. She didn't know what it was that was coming after her, but she didn't want to stay around and find out. Unfortunately, it was too late for her.  

The mare looked on in horror as a familiar pair of rectangles started closing in on her from an axis she could properly perceive. She started to panic even further and, despite her best efforts, started to cry like a young filly again at this thing approaching her.

"Spike!" she cried. "Help me!" The mare tugged and tugged at her restraints, but it was no use. Her body was tiring and the terror filling up every fiber of her being was preventing her from thinking straight. "Princess Celestia! Heeelp!"  

The lights now engulfed her vision, and as they moved to engulf her, the mare screamed in terror. It felt like she no longer weighed anything, like her mind was a bed of sand and starting to get washed away by the current. Was this oblivion? Was that what the Elements of Harmony were giving her as a reward for all her hard work? All those years living alone in a cave with no one to talk to? Years of sheer terror that a pony might spot her and take away everything she had worked on?

"Twilight," a soothing voice called out.

The unicorn paid it no heed. She would join oblivion. A fitting end for somepony so engrossed in the fears that the world had given her.

"Enough of your theatrical dramatics, Twilight," the voice admonished much less softly.

Twilight opened her eyes to see a world of white, yellow, and sky blue. Everything around her almost seemed like it was underwater, and the light bloomed off almost every surface, yet it did not harm her eyes. What was this place? She looked down and felt her hooves grind against white stone placed on the surface of a cloud. Looking around, the mare could only register how alien the location was. Everything seemed to spin and sit at odd, impossible angles in the air. What she saw was either made of white stone mixed with static clouds, or shifting clouds mixed with warping stones. She had troubles focusing on anything at all. Even looking down, she just barely caught glimpse of an angular world of green that registered in her mind as nothing but farmland.

"And I thought you would be excited to see me again," the voice teased.

"Huh?" Twilight turned away from the alien geometry and started tearing up again. She fell to the ground and buried her face against the bit of cloud that hung over the white stone pathway. "No! Princess Celestia! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to have you killed again! I did my best! I studied for so long! For so many years! I did things I hated, like digging up graves to experiment on the bodies so I could bring you back as you were!"

The alicorn placed an ethereal hoof on the mare's shoulder. Celestia took a moment to try and formulate the words correctly. "Twilight. You didn't bring me back to life," she explained. "I've been here the whole time."

Twilight looked up, her face drenched and her eyes swollen. "Huh? No. I saw it. You got up, like everypony else. You were alive again!"

Celestia scrunched her face up. "My dear student, as much as I am loathe to admit it, you did develop a form of necromancy that does not rip the souls of the deceased from the other world or pull in wandering spirits to act as your puppets. Perhaps an unintentional side effect of what you were attempting, I'm sure."

The unicorn slowly got up, shaking her head. "No no no no no. I saw it. You were alive again."

"The magic of an alicorn is an incredible thing, Twilight, but it is unstable." Celestia sighed and walked around, her body leaving behind a wispy trail of color and light. "From what I was told, you did revive my body, yes, and in doing so brought back the magic I possessed, but in doing so, you corrupted what was in it with your ritual."

Twilight started to hyperventilate, both wanting to refuse to accept what she was told and wanting to accept what her teacher was telling her. "That's not possible. I was very meticulous. You should have been brought back into your body, too. Everything was supposed to go back to normal and the ones who did that to you were supposed to be punished." Her eyes lit up with an idea. "I'll go back, flee, restore your body, and try again! Science never succeeds the first time!" The mare laughed maniacally. "That's it! I should have experimented more!"

Celestia put a hoof to her forehead and shook her head in disappointment. "Oh, Twilight," she sighed.

"What? I can--ah! Wh-watch out!" Twilight warned. Celestia turned around, her eyes half-lidded when the sun split into two and rushed down for the two of them. The unicorn tackled her teacher to the side, saving her while her own tail was burnt away, causing severe pain. "I can't lose you again!" she cried.

The lights came back and Twilight stood firm in front of them, putting herself between it and Celestia. They stopped in front of the unicorn while Celestia lifted Twilight up in her magic and placed her to the side.

"You needn't worry, Twilight Sparkle," Princess Celestia reassured. "It is not evil..." She rubbed her chin. "Nor is it good, either."

"B-but it's been harassing me since Saddle Arabia!" Twilight accused. "It wants to kill me!"

The alicorn shook her head. "No, Twilight. It doesn't. It's difficult to explain to somepony still alive, but think of it as the level of an aspect, of sorts." She smiles and points at the immobile lights. "This one is one such aspect of death and life, as we understand it."

Twilight grimaced. "I don't get it."

"I know you don't, but it has been trying to dissuade you from your actions since you went to Saddle Arabia," the alicorn explained. "That being said, I'm very di..." Celestia caught herself. "I'm very sorry that you had to live through all that happened, Twilight."

"Then come back with me!" Twilight pleaded. "We can make everything the same again! I had so much more I wanted to do with you! There was still so much time left!"

"I know, Twilight, I know."

The mare pressed against Celestia's chest, her eyes consumed with fury. "Why did you let them kill you?" she asked angrily. "You could have just chased them all off! Punished them! Anything!"

The alicorn huffed. "Well...You've certainly heard all the reasons that caused this uprising in the first place."

"They were accusing you of a bunch of problems!" Twilight exclaimed. "Food, money. That's their fault! They keep blaming everypony else for their issues!"

"No, Twilight," Celestia stated firmly. "They were right. I was starting to be overwhelmed by the progress the world was making. All these nations suddenly opening up with new ways to trade. New technological inventions working in ways I never heard of. It started affecting my ability to rule, causing me to make very poor judgments. I didn't get enough seeds here because this place had always worked out for centuries, I thought of reinforcing the economy here because it had issues with something or another for decades." She rubbed the back of her head. "It's...complicated, to say the least." She shrugged. "The ponies were tired of it all going on for decades. So many famines..." she sighed. "Their anger was understandable."

"But there were other solutions to the problem!" Twilight said. "You could have just retired, then!"

"I'm immortal, Twilight, or at least I was." Celestia chuckled. "If I had opposed them I would have been seen as a tyrant by everypony in Equestria. If I had left they would have feared my eventual return in the future and the more paranoid would have sent assassins or caused other disturbances to affect the lives of those that were around." She scratched her head. "I know this isn't the explanation you wanted to hear, but I didn't want to harm my little ponies." The alicorn pulled Twilight into an embrace using her wings. "There's so much more I want to tell you, to help you understand why I let them take me, but this isn't the time for you, my most faithful student."

The unicorn nuzzled herself into Celestia's chest as the alicorn's wings tightened.

"I don't want to leave," Twilight said. "I can just stay here. With you."

Celestia looked down at the mare with worry. "Twilight, you still have a life to live."

"No I don't," the unicorn protested. She hugged Celestia. "I don't have anything left. I lost my home at the castle, my own brother wants to keep me imprisoned, and I can't even go back to Equestria. I don't want to go back there."

Celestia pushed Twilight away to lift her up and look at her at eye-level. She was drenched in tears and her eyes were red and swollen. "I'm so sorry, Twilight, but this is how it is. You must let go of me," she said softly. "I'll always be here, watching over you, and I need you to watch over my sister," Celestia explained. "She is also a filly lost in the new world like you. I'm certain you two would become great friends, if given time."  

Twilight found herself as a tiny filly again looking up at Celestia in the exam room after her magic surge. Her parents were healed up and the judges were doing just fine as well.

"But...if you go...what will I have left?" Twilight asked. "I worked so hard to bring you back. It's not fair that all of that was for nothing."

The filly felt a hoof press onto her head. "I know. Life never is. If I was able to understand and follow all of this progress, then I probably would have left Equestria in a better state than it is." She sighed. "So many towns abandoned. So many ponies in the streets." There was a moment of silence as the alicorn lamented the consequences of her actions, but seeing Twilight as a filly looking pleadingly at her warmed the mare up. "You need to live your life, Twilight. A proper life. I want to send you out into the world and explore it. Make friends. Even if you can't or simply don't want to set hoof in Equestria, don't forget that the world is enormous. You just might discover things that no creature ever has before," she said with a wide smile.

The lights started approaching Twilight again, growing larger in her sight. The mare held onto Celestia as hard as she could, refusing to let go.

"No! I'm not going! I don't want to!" she protested.

"I have no say in the matter," Celestia said without losing her smile.

The lavender unicorn hung onto Celestia's fur for dear life, refusing to let go even as the aspect pulled at her with enough force to deform the world around them further.

"Princess! Come back with me! Please! It'll work this time!" Twilight begged further. "I promise!" She looked up as her hooves phased through the alicorn's body, seeing tears streaking down Celestia's elegant face. Even in this situation she still held her warm, radiant smile. "No," Twilight whispered as the alicorn became smaller and smaller.

"Magics aren't inherently evil, Twilight!" Celestia shouted. "Your talents can be used for other things as well!"

Twilight tried clinging onto the clouds while the lights pulled at her. "But...but!"

Celestia waved the mare goodbye. "Take good care of Luna for me! She needs the company."

Twilight saw the outlines of two, large equine figures sitting behind her teacher before everything went dark again. All was silent again until the mare was stirred from her slumber by a male voice calling to her.

"Twilight! Thank goodness you're okay," Shining sighed in relief. "She's okay!" he said with a panicked laugh.

"What? What ha--Princess!" The mare pushed her brother away to see the burning effigy of Celestia still standing. She heaved a sigh of relief, seeing that it was all a bad dream. "Oh. I was so worried tha--" Her words caught in her throat when the body turned gray and started to dissolve into dust, making the unicorn scream in horror. "No no no! Princess! I can fix this! I can fix this!"

She tried using every spell in necromancy that she knew, only to see her teacher continuing to turn gray and dissolve. Twilight was watched silently by everypony present who bore witness to a broken mare that only wanted one thing in the world and was pushed beyond her limits to get it.  

"Oh! Oh wait!" Twilight jumped forward, successfully grabbing a strand of green hair from Celestia's mane as she dissolved away into a pile of dust and landed on her belly. The green fires flickered in her hooves, warming the mare up. "I can bring her back with just this," Twilight said gleefully. Her joy flushed out of her when the strand turned to ash in her hoof. She not only lost her treasure, but now she had nothing left to remember Celestia by.

The unicorn was frozen in place, her eyes locked onto the pile of ash in her hoof while everypony looked at her in silence, an instinctive pity coming from deep within them. All was gone as the world gradually healed and the spirits vanished.