Princess Celestia sat in her study.
For five, long, bloody years, she had been secluded within her bunker as thunder roared above. Behind miles of concrete and stone, she had heard the cries of her ponies, her Equestria, through wire and paper. It had only been a year since the Changelings had been driven from the foothills of Canterlot and the borders of Las Pegasus. Six months since the rubble of Canterlot Castle - a target much beloved by Chrysalis's bombers - had begun repairs. Only a day since she got to give orders from her old study, which had miraculously avoided destruction, once again.
On her shelves, artefacts from all across the world sat, glimmering in the morning sun that shone through the grand windows. Gifts from many a dignitary, consul, prince, king, emperor, and tyrant. Some could be sold for millions, some only held sentimental value to the aging alicorn, all of them were obtained through peace. Often, when she had a moment, she liked to look over them to reminisce. To look at her past granted perspective on her present... and gave her insight for her future.
Celestia paid them no mind, not today.
A clock sat on her desk. Gold plated, with a gleam glinting from the beams cast by the window. The sun had risen early at five AM. Now, at nine, it was already halfway up towards its apex at the peak of the sky. The Summer Solstice was usually a date to look forward to in Equestria. A holiday for the young and old. The brilliant rising of the sun on the longest day, one which every mare, stallion, and foal would enjoy until the restful embrace of the night.
Of course, it never had held the same amount of celebratory power over Celestia. It was the day on which she banished her sister, the day that sounded as the final bell for one of the greatest mistakes she had ever made.
In the present, she felt a similar sense of looming dread. The air felt cold around her despite the blazing heat. The reds and gold of her opulent royal space almost seemed to have the life sucked out of them. Even Philomena, sitting in her cage a few meters to the right of the desk, met her eye with a cautionary gaze. Today would stamp yet another bloody mark on this damnable date. Today, another bell rang.
DING!
Celestia almost flinched as the little bell rang on top of her desk clock. Her eyes had wandered towards her phoenix, and as they jolted back towards the face of her clock she saw the hands resting on eighteen minutes past nine: the time she had set an alarm for. By now, the Lancaster bomber had left Equestrian-controlled airspace and likely its special mage crew had engaged its cloaking device. They now had orders to not respond to any radio traffic until their mission was completed and they were back behind friendly air defenses.
The red telephone on her desk gazed back at her, silently. It was too late to call it off now.
Her dry throat scraped against the glob of spit she swallowed as she reached out with her trembling magic, picking up the clock and winding the alarm for another forty-five minutes. What a terrible quickness it all was now. They had projected, 'optimistically', that perhaps fifty thousand would die in the blast. Only an hour after the preparations had been finished, granted from a strategically planned and well-suited position, but only an hour.
Of course, battles had always been rather chaotic and the killing had always been expedient (if the advantaged side was truly committed to winning anyway). She had seen swords clash, cannons roar, and blood spill in real time herself. She was no stranger to war, even if she was very rarely part of a true conflict. However, the advent of telecommunications had changed so much. Now, it felt like war struck like lightning and rolled like thunder. She preferred the feeling of the enemy hiding in the dark until they were seen by the eye, unlike a modern enemy who marched on far away maps, their positions constantly updated as casualty counts rolled in.
Philomena suddenly screeched, flustering in her cage. Celestia didn't need to look to know who it was.
"What was that about 'Might never makes right', Tia dear?" She asked, voice silky and lecherous, yet backed with the fury of a star.
"I don't recall saying that," Celestia answered, only now realizing she was still holding the clock in her magic. She set it down. She didn't know enough about clockwork to know if holding it tilted on its side messed with its counting of the seconds.
Philomena puffed up her feathers, tongues of flame licking up her wings as she clawed at the bars of her cage with her talons. The voice moved to her left as She said, "I know when you're lying, dearest. Let me remind you anyway: One thousand, two hundred years ago, when negotiating with Princess Platinum. Or how about six hundred, when you first met with the Griffons? Or maybe three hundred? Three days before you dueled the Dragonlord?" she leaned in close, and Celestia's ear felt the fever of two thousand summers rake its claws through her flesh, "Or how about nine? When you gave that... hideously boastful speech at the gala?"
Celestia pursed her lips, "You know, many would say that kind of restraint would be an admirable quality."
"Yet what has that gotten them? Surely not peace, it would seem," the shadow moved in front of the window, looking out to the cracked streets and collapsed buildings. After a moment, She spoke again, "Maybe... instead just a feeling of their own morality? A holiness no other mortal possesses? The great and almighty alicorn princess, who can do no wrong. Who always puts peace and their own ponies first?"
"Why must you prattle on so?" Celestia sighed, looking down into the polished hardwood of her desk, "Even if I signed your pact now, you would have no chance. You would be defeated before the moon's rise. You have not yet laid your traps and your machinations, like your sister did. Is this just to torment me?"
Her face appeared in the wood beside Celestia's own. For one moment, Her orange, blazing eyes met with hers, before Celestia snapped her head away to look up to Philomena. Smooth fur brushed against her withers as a leg was draped around her neck, and she shivered in disgust.
"Of course I'm just trying to torment you! Aww, did you really think I was just here to pay a social call?" She questioned, voice laced with satire, causing Celestia's ear to flutter, "That's so sweet of you that you think so highly of me. Maybe you really didn't mean it all those times you've called me devil or demon or tried to blast me with your cute little spells."
Celestia rolled her eyes, "Presenting yourself directly to me while I am sane allows me to rationalize you as something aside from myself, thus hindering your own goals. We gain nothing from this. Begone, demon."
"And there's that inflated sense of self, once again. The great priest casting out the devil with its holy light," She sighed, "That's the difference between you and me, I suppose. You brag about your restraint while millions die. My hoof comes down to shield the weak quickly and decisively..."
The clock in front of her suddenly slid forward. A terrifying reminder of Her power, even while contained, "At least you get there eventually, Tia my dear. I wonder, sometimes. How would they have remembered you if you annihilated Chrysalis back in the chapel, killing the young Princess Cadance and her consort, before the Changeling could hurt anypony? Do you think they'll remember you better for ending this war, for using your restraint," She spat the word out like a cold sip of tea, "While millions more perished as you waited?"
Celestia didn't honor Her with a response. She simply stared onwards at the clock face. Five minutes passed, then ten. She didn't even feel the devil leave. It was only when she looked up to see Philomena settling back down in her cage that she realized Her presence around her withers had disappeared.
The silence was nearly deafening. Only the occasional flutter of Philomena's wings, the steady ticking of the clock, and the sound of her own breaths permeated the room.
There was paper on her desk. Reports and action plans that needed her own hoof's approval. Yet, no matter how much she wanted a distraction, she could not take her eyes off the clock for more than a moment. Only thirty minutes remained; it felt longer than her millenias-long life.
Had peace ever been possible with the Changelings?
She had mulled over that many times over the past half-a-decade or so. No sane pony would have ever agreed to the terms presented during the war, of course. Even if it would have technically been peace, it would have been nothing of the sort for the common pony.
She was more thinking about the years before the Great War. Maybe she could have done this, maybe she could have done that. Surely there had to be a path where she could have showed Chrysalis the light, liberated her indoctrinated people, preemptively struck, guided her student and her friends to cleanse the threat...
'What was done, was done' she had told herself many times in the years after Luna's banishment. She told it to herself again, yet it offered little comfort. Oh, to be able to turn back time and to do it all over again with foresight. To go back and to show herself all the visions of death on the streets, to urge herself to action, to-
She paused, eyes wandering off the clock towards the window. Her mind scanned for the images, the images she knew she had of the dead... the images she thought she had. Had she seen a single pony die? She'd known it, theoretically. She'd seen the aftermath in photographs and in reports... she'd heard eyewitness accounts. Yet, not a single time had she seen the harvest of war laid out in front of her. Her hoof went to her cheek. It felt cold.
For a moment, she imagined it. A dark shadow flying above. Perhaps warning of a bombing raid would be announced, perhaps not. Perhaps Blueblood's plan and Twilight's spells would work all to well, and they would be completely unaware.
Then, light. Like the sun's dawn on a new day. The flames moving skywards in glorious pattern, dancing and twisting. There would be screams, for but a moment. Sound travels fast, after all, and so do shockwaves.
There would be a roar. Buildings would crumble and turn to dust. The air would be squeezed out of your lungs. In an instant, every cell in your body would be unravelled by an untenable tide of the very essences of the universe. Creatures would be turned into shadows, cities into wastelands, and the land itself would boil with the tremor of its might.
She may as well have pacted with Her and dropped the sun on them herself.
She shook her head. That's what she had said when they invented dynamite. That's what she had said when they invented gunpowder. That's what she had said when they invented the sword. That's what she had said when the Changelings had charged the border...
No, it was the natural course of war; it was the natural course of the world. The old would be outmoded and replaced with the terrible new. Yet she would remain, as stalwart as ever. Did that make her better? To stand by and swing the sword forged by ponykind, rather than to cast it aside and stand alone between them and their oppressors? It made her feel better whenever she did it sure, but was that what was right?
Five minutes remained. The seconds ticked away steadily.
What was her right? Was it the wings at her sides and the horn on her head? Was it her crown? Her empire? Her good deeds? Why had she been chosen among the billions to wield the gavel? Was her questioning even just? Was she bemoaning a fate that many would beg to have, sitting alone in her office, friends and family waiting just outside, safe and sound while she agonized over her misdeeds and missed opportunities?
The last minute ticked over. Clasping her hooves together, Celestia leaned forward and rested her forehead on top of them. She counted the seconds as the appropriate hand moved forward, tick by tick. What was done, was done. On the longest day of the longest year, Celestia cried.
DING!