All is silent. The audience sits in shocked disbelief. Then a voice erupts from the crowd.
"LIAR!" Rainbow Dash's voice cracks as she shouts the word. She leaps from her place, and is kept from the stage only by the quick action of her friends. She struggles against them, tears streaming down her face.
And like a pebble beginning an avalanche, that word is the catalyst for a torrent of shouts and exclamations. Some, like Rainbow Dash, accuse Joe of lying. Some level their accusations at the Princess, calling for answers from the leader of Equestria. Many ponies begin to push forward against the guards again, and in the chaos, Rainbow Dash breaks free from her friends and shoots toward the stage, faster than they or the guards can react.
She is halted by magic, held tightly in a glowing yellow aura. Another word cuts through the air like a shockwave:
Silence.
It is not a request. No pony is certain whether the word was spoken, or whether the will of its originator was imposed directly onto the world around them. What they do know is that they are silent. Their shouts die in their throats as the air around them seems to thin, and the shoving subsides. All eyes go to the princess.
"The accused will be allowed to speak." The simple words are precise and controlled, mirroring the cold steel in Celestia's expression. Rainbow Dash is placed firmly back among the others, and makes no effort to fly up again. No pony dares defy the command.
Joe continues his story.
Her eyes left mine, and she lowered her head, her ears hanging limp in her shame. I tried to stroke her cheek, to reassure her, but she lifted a hoof and brushed mine away.
"We spent the rest of the week together, there in the castle. I won't say I didn't enjoy it, having her all to myself like that. She's a goddess, Joe, and she was all mine. All the secrets of magic she knew, they were open to me. All the forgotten stories of the world, they were only the right question away. The knowledge and the riches of an entire kingdom were at my hooftips. I had only to ask, anything I could imagine, and she would give it willingly. And you can't imagine the pleasures she showed me...
"I deserved none of it. Even as she draped me in silks, as she gifted me with the brightest jewelry, as she opened up the deepest secrets of magic to me, even as her great white wings enfolded me and we made the most beautiful love imaginable, I knew in my heart that I didn't deserve it. Because, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't return that love.
"And she was so kind, so understanding through it all. That was the worst of all, I think. If I wanted attention, she was there beside me. If I needed space, she would leave me be, just waiting patiently for me to be ready again. She listened so intently to everything I said. Just like she always has. I could tell her anything.
"Anything except the one thing I most needed to tell her.
"By the end of the week, I couldn't stand it anymore. Every word of love I spoke rang false in my ears. Every touch of her body was poison against my skin. I had to get out. So I gave her an excuse about having to get back to my duties at the library. She was completely understanding, of course.
"I made some empty promise about being back soon, and I ran. I think I was originally planning to go to the train station, but... instead, I found myself walking into the one place in Canterlot where I'd always felt safe. Where I could tell any secret and not fear being judged.
"Even this one.
"When I saw you, Joe... I knew what I needed. I needed somepony to take away all the things I didn't deserve. To scour away the gentle touches. To burn off the kindness and understanding. To punish me for all the things I had stolen with the lie of 'I love you.'
"I knew you would do it for me. You were always there when I needed you."
She pressed herself into my embrace then, and buried her face against my neck. I felt her tears start to flow again, and I held her. She was right. I would always be there for her.
"She invited me back again the next week. I went. Of course I went. How could I refuse her, of all ponies? We spent the week together. Even when she was attending to her duties, she always made sure I was attended to just as dutifully. If she couldn't be there, there was always a new book from her private library for me to read, or a servant waiting to pamper me with some treatment or another.
"It should have been bliss. Instead, it was torture. Because it was all built on a lie: 'I love you.'
"At the end of the week, I ran again. I came to you again. And you washed it all away. But it wasn't enough. Each week, she invited me back. I started making excuses, arriving later and later and spending less time there, but I always went. And it always ended the same way: I ran to you. But it wasn't enough. It was never enough."
She burrowed deeper into my embrace, and I held her. What else could I do? I held her, and stroked her back. Slowly, with her energy and her anger spent, her breathing slowed. Soon, her body relaxed against mine, and she drifted into an uneasy sleep.
I carried her to my room and laid her in my bed, then lay next to her, watching over her and thinking over what I had heard. It was nearly morning by the time I slept.
As always, she was gone when I awoke.
For three more weeks, she came to me, and I took her to my bed. For three more weeks, I absolved her of the sins she assigned herself and then released her to commit them all over again. For three more weeks, I used her body as she demanded I do, and she took her comfort at my hooves.
On the fourth week, she came to me broken.
I don't know what happened. I didn't ask her, and she didn't tell me. But she moved listlessly, with her head hung low, as if she simply didn't have the will to lift it. When she met my eyes that evening, there was an emotion that I had never seen there before, even when things were at their worst: hopelessness. They were the eyes of a mare who lost the will to change the world.
I took her to my bed, but she demanded nothing from me, and I forced nothing upon her. I simply took her into my embrace and held her. We lay like that for a long time before she spoke to me, her voice quiet.
"I can't go on like this, Joe. There's nothing left of my life but lies. I smile for Princess Celestia and tell her I love her. I smile for my friends and tell them that everything is wonderful. I come to you and tell myself that you can make it better.
"I can't tell her the truth. I couldn't bear the hurt that would be in her eyes. I couldn't bear how she would lock it all away in a moment and put on the mask of the untouchable princess again. I couldn't bear the way she would apologize for what she did, like it was all her fault. But it wouldn't be her fault. It would be mine, and I would know it. And she would never smile for me again, not the smile she used to give me, not the one behind the mask. She'd never be just Celestia to me again.
"And I can't tell my friends the truth. The pity on their faces, all the ways they would try to help me... they could never understand. They never did. They never took me seriously when I was worried about things. They always laughed and said, 'Oh, that's just Twilight fussing over nothing again. Don't mind her.' They would say, 'Just tell her what's wrong. She'll understand.' Of course she would understand. But they never will. And I couldn't bear all the things they would say because of it.
"But it's time to tell myself the truth, Joe. And the truth is that it will never be better."
She looked up then, and in her eyes I saw that little purple filly of years ago. A spark of hope, an unquestioning trust. I had always had an answer for her before. Whether the problem had been big or small, I had always known what to say, what to do, to make my favorite customer smile again. Now the unspoken plea was there again: do something. Anything. Let me smile again.
She no longer knew what she wanted, what could be done. She had reached the end of her last checklist, and despite every device of her brilliant mind, she was without a solution. But she knew that whatever it was, whatever answer had eluded her, I would have it. I always had.
"Please, Joe..."
You may call what I did wrong. Maybe it was. But you aren't me, and you weren't there. To me, there, as I gazed into her tearful, hopeless eyes, as the little filly in the mare's body stared up at me, seeking any escape from the torture that her life had become, it was the right thing to do. The only thing I could do, if I wanted not to let down the filly who had put all her trust in me.
It's a simple bit of unicorn magic to stop a heart, or to cut the flow of blood to the brain, or any number of other tiny but fatal changes. Most of them are entirely painless. All of them are easily shrugged off by pony's natural defenses. She could have resisted. She could have countered the spell, could have told me that I was wrong, that there had to be another way.
She didn't. Her face registered surprise, then recognition--I don't think there's a spell in Equestria that brilliant mare wouldn't have recognized--and then it became a sad sort of gratitude. Her smile started to return at last, a little half-smile that told me she understood. Then, as her eyes closed and her breathing slowed, she lifted her muzzle to mine.
We shared our first and last kiss that night. And then she lay still.
Joe's voice, steady throughout his story, catches on the final words. He falls silent, and that silence is reflected throughout the theater and the gardens surrounding it. Even the birds have stopped their songs to listen, and the breeze itself dares not blow in that moment.
Joe turns, finally, to face his accusers once more. Twilight Sparkle's mother and father stare at him, unable to reconcile all he's told them, but unable to simply dismiss it as a lie. Shining Armor has shifted his attention to Celestia, his face uncertain.
And Celestia's mask has broken. She meets Joe's eyes with sadness written plain across her features, and his own face mirrors it. There is no anger or malice in their gaze, no animosity. Between them, there is only grief, and a shared regret for a tragedy that need never have happened.
Then Celestia delivers her judgment.