//------------------------------// // Dreams and Revelations // Story: Apoptosis // by Biochi //------------------------------// Apoptosis or Twilight Sparkle Must Die Celestia awoke from sleep into dreaming.  The wisps of half-formed oneiroi swirled and crept around her hocks.  Instinctively, she expected their touch to be cold and damp, like the fog they so resembled, but she was surprised by the sheer neutrality of their caresses.  The goddess quickly remembered that, in this realm, the body she occupied had condensed out of the same material only seconds ago.  She stretched her newly formed muscles, flaring her wings while arching her back, to get a feel for this temporary vessel for her consciousness.  Before she had entirely finished, a voice called out one of her many names. “Sol Invicta,” boomed the resonant voice from all directions. “Somnus,” she named him in reply.  She let the draconequus’ name hang in the imaginary air. “I have summoned you forth through the gates of horn and blood,” the god of sleep declared in a tone full of majesty. “Yes, I can see that,” Celestia answered in a deliberately unhelpful manner. Sharing the Draconequuic love of banter, Somnus was thrown off balance by the alicorn’s laconic response.  After a few moments of awkward silence the primal force replied in a now-irritated tone, “Are you not curious as to why I have summoned thee before me?” “Not particularly,” she said, sounding flippant and disinterested.  Her statement was, of course, a blatant lie.  The simple fact that it was she and not her sister called into the Dreamlands was enough to warn Celestia that something most unusual was happening.  She did not want to give the wily god any leverage so the goddess affected her most disinterested façade.  The silence stretched between them for several moments. “Regardless of your seeming apathy, my duty requires me to do so,” the voice blustered. She prompted him to continue with a quirked eyebrow. “I have agreed to guide you to another of my kind,” explained Somnus.  “I am providing a neutral space for the meeting.” “And?” she said. “And what?” the voice sounded rather confused. “And why are we still here, talking?” at this she allowed the smallest of smiles. “Oh… um…yes,” was his off-balance reply. A moment later the mists swirled past, giving the impression of movement.  Several subjective minutes passed while Celestia was pulled through countless half-formed dreams.  The images streaking past were peaceful and beautiful when they started but as the metaphorical distance they traveled increased the visions darkened into fear-choked nightmares.  The goddess began to develop unpleasant suspicions about who they were supposed to meet. The sensation of motion ended and Celestia found herself surrounded by darkness.  Adding to the deep murk were the dark, jagged wisps of nightmare oneiroi.  As the alicorn’s imaginary eyes adjusted to her surroundings she noted lightning-blue pinpricks of light approaching from the sector that appeared darkest.  The lights grew brighter and more distinct as they approached the gleaming white mare. Somnus’ voice boomed forth, “As requested, I present Celestia, Dea Solis, styled Princess of Equestria to answer for her crimes against nature.” Celestia’s composure cracked.  “What?” she blurted, while looking around.  Her previously careful control having deserted her, she refocused upon the approaching lights.  As they grew near, the motes resolved into three paired sets of eyes gleaming in the darkness.  Celestia’s previous hypothesis as to her summoner’s identity died unspoken as she asked the approaching form, “Who are you?” A trio of voices spoke, ignoring the goddess’ question.  Each mouth took a portion of the sentence.  “Twilight Sparkle; She is yours; Is she not?” Celestia could just barely make out eight long, sharp limbs in constant motion; spinning, weaving, and cutting countless threads simultaneously.  The alicorn’s expression changed from one of puzzlement to one of dread as she identified her accuser.  “Kind Moirai, I ask for clarification.  Twilight Sparkle is my what?” she answered cautiously. A cacophony of answers answered her. “Faithful Student.  Beloved Daughter. Apprentice and Heir. Tool and Weapon. Prized Possession. Hero under your aegis.” “She is my student,” Celestia acknowledged, fearful of inadvertently damning the young mare.  “Do you take responsibility for her actions?  Are they her own? Is she yours?” The three-faced god asked.  “That depends,” the alicorn equivocated, “Some things she does on her own, others she does for me.  Of what is she accused?” “A god lies shattered and broken in the frozen north,” said one of the voices. “Erebus’s failure is his own.  He chose to join himself to Sombra and his near destruction is the result of that choice.”  Celestia countered. “A god, dead and forgotten, walks the earth,” another voice accused. “I have deemed Grogar’s crimes to have been paid for by the punishment he endured.  I take responsibility for his freedom.”  While Twilight had indeed freed Grogar, Celestia had subsequently issued a formal statement to the effect that the Goat’s debt to society had been paid.  In Celestia’s eyes, this made Grogar her responsibility. “She has died and yet lives,” the third accused. “She is an ingenious mare.  She used the properties of Tartarus to save her life,” was Celestia’s third rebuttal. “You are wrong.  Incorrect.  Mistaken.  She perished, crushed between the horns of Grogar and the teeth of Tartarus.  Her soul left her body.  She died.” “She found a very creative way to heal her body,” the alicorn tried again. “Wrong.  Incorrect.  Mistaken.  One cannot heal the dead.  She is dead yet walks.  She is mortal yet unkilled.” “She managed to dodge your fell shears this one time, Atropos,” the goddess attempted to defend Twilight for the third time. “As with all mortals, you will have her in the end.” “Her thread was marked and cut and yet she exists.  She has no thread to cut, no destiny, and yet keeps acting upon the world.”  The triple being raised four arms wide and the myriads of threads pulled taut, exposing the tangled web of interconnected lives.  “She is abomination, an unnatural thing, she cannot exist,” they accused.  To illustrate their point, the Moirai carefully plucked a single thread with the fine tip one of a free leg. Celestia’s blood ran cold as the implications were made clear to her.  Not only did the plucked thread vibrate but all of the other threads that touched that one began to oscillate.  Almost instantly, yet more threads, those in contact with the now larger vibrating set, took up the frequency.  Freed from the constraints of her own destiny, all of Twilight’s actions were now unaccounted for in the destinies of everyone else.  She existed outside of fate, the divine counterpoint to causality, and could theoretically cause the collapse of the entire metaphysical system which ordered their world.  As it was, any action she took that affected anyone else in any way derailed that pony from their destiny and then anypony who interacted with that pony became derailed. The goddess of daylight shivered in the dark and asked, “What was Grogar’s fate?”  “The god is/was/should be dead.  Slain by you,” they answered. “Erebus?” she asked, the expression on her normally serine face looking nauseated. “He and Sombra are/were/should have become the Crystal Emperor,” they replied. In a voice thick with dread the alicorn asked the Moirai, “What happens to destiny itself?” The terrible creature before her sounded scared, “Everyday we are less; we fall apart a little more; become undone.”  The Fates took a moment to collect themselves and then continued, “So we ask again, ‘is she yours?’  Are you causing the world to end or is she an aberration?  Will you correct this?”  “How can I fix this?” Celestia asked, fearing the answer. “Twilight Sparkle must die,” they said in perfect unison. The Moirai’s message sent, Somnus released Celestia.  She awoke in darkness, gasping in horror. --------------------- There were very few individuals in the world with which Celestia could have a rational discussion about the destruction of by the unsanctioned resurrection of her protégé.  Discord was disqualified by the stipulation of the conversation being rational.  Cadance was physically too far away while at the same time being emotionally too close to the subject at hoof.  The gods of Griffonheim and she were not currently on speaking terms.  Chrysalis still wanted to kill her.  And Grogar, to put it simply, was a jerk who delighted in being unhelpful.  “That,” she thought, “leaves Luna as the only remaining choice.”  Celestia was slightly concerned about the emotional entanglement her sister was developing with Twilight but, given Luna’s relative proximity, the convenience of being able to walk over to talk to her about this outweighed any trepidation she was feeling about their deepening friendship. Having decided on a course of action, Celestia doffed her nightcap (her favorite one: pink with a white puff at the tip.) for the sake of dignity and set out to find her sister.  The first location she searched was Luna’s throne room.  The large chamber was dark and nearly empty.  The only occupant being the extremely awkward zebra Luna employed as her chief accountant.  At the sight of him, Celestia sighed internally. “Excuse me, Mister Ponzi, I am looking for my sister.  Have you seen her?” the alicorn asked in the vain hopes of a yes or no answer. “It’s Mister Pyramid, your highness.  Ponzi is my given name.”  A second later, the odd creature’s eyes widened in panic and in a rush he added.  “-to which I...claim.” Celestia’s centuries of experience with zebra nobles and diplomats had led her to the belief that the race possessed a natural talent for poetry.  Over the last few months, Mister Ponzi Pyramid had proven that assumption quite thoroughly wrong. “Yes…Mister Pyramid, if it is easier, you have my permission to speak in prose. “I could not be so rude to she who…pays for…my food.” “That would be my sister who pays your salary; and not to belabor the point, the pony I’m here looking for.” “Ah, yes.  Tonight she had canceled court so that she could go make s-.“ The zebra seemed then to cut himself off and struggle to find a suitable replacement word.  After far too long, he blurted, “book forts!” Celestia felt pity for the poor mad creature.  “Perhaps, I should just go,” she said as she edged towards the nearest door. “You will not find her amongst the midnight’s heathers for she is currently betwixt…” Ponzi cut himself off by forcibly shoving a hoof into his own mouth. “Right…” Celestia replied while affecting the carefully non-threatening smile of somepony dealing with the mentally ill.  “I’ll be going now.”  Celestia backed out the doorway, not wanting to break eye-contact with Mr. Ponzi.  “I do hope you find a form of treatment that helps you with your affliction,” she said before slamming the door shut behind her. She blew out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.  “Well, at least I now know that she’s not in the garden either,” she said out-loud to herself.  “That was more helpful than average for her staff.” Celestia then proceeded onwards into the ghastly, subterranean warren of cubicles filled with even more ghastly ponies that her sister humorously referred to as her “offices.”  So far, she had tolerated Luna’s practical joke of filling the refurbished dungeons of Canterlot Castle with criminals as one of her sister’s exercises in creative irony.  Celestia had identified the prank from the outset and had deliberately chosen to not acknowledge the farce.  She was confident that her willpower and patience were better developed than the younger alicorn’s and that it was simply a matter of time until Luna exploded from unfulfilled expectations.  While it had been over a year since Luna had begun building her uncivil-service (a pun for which Celestia was inordinately proud), she was certain that her sister would crack any day now and call the whole thing off as a ruse. The typing pool was normally awash in a dissonant mix of writing machine clatters and gossip of the basest sort.  Presenting a vision of the solar diarch in full glory, Celestia was pleased that silence spread among these ponies even faster than what she presumed was the transmission rate of chlamydia.  Despite having left her golden regalia behind in her bedchambers, Celestia projected majesty with every step she took amongst the commoners and could feel their reverence (with a dash of fear) caressing her.  Approaching her goal, she passed through the ebony double-doors separating her sister’s private offices from the riff-raff. Seated behind the reception desk was a dark-coated stallion.  He was fussing with one of the new, unicorn made, self-heating coffee makers.  Apparently, the strange pony was of the opinion that the contraption was possessed of too few tubes, as he was diligently soldering yet more onto the device.  Several heartbeats passed and the unicorn continued his project without acknowledging, or perhaps even noticing, the radiant goddess not five feet from him. Celestia cleared her throat. The unicorn stuck out his tongue and bit it in concentration as he continued to manipulate brass and tin. “Um, excuse me?” Without raising his eyes, he spewed forth a series of noises that may have been some form of Equuish.  Replaying them in her mind she approximated his dialogue as: “I know yer there. I’ll be wit’cha in a minute. Take a cuushion o’er there.” Celestia blinked, the most surprised she’d been in decades.  Perhaps he only knew that somepony was here and had not noticed her identity.  “I’m Celestia.” There was no reply. “The Princess.” Silence continued. “Diarch of the Day, Sol Invictus, the Morningstar, Immortal and Loving Goddess of Ponydom.” Nothing. “Luna’s...sister,” she growled. “Ay, I’ve ‘erdof ya. A bonnie great white ‘orse, whasshat makes tha da’light,” he said, evidently finished with whatever mechanical manipulations were distracting him from the eternal source of light and life confronting him.  Celestia’s eyes narrowed as she wondered just how upset her sister would be with her for banishing the unkempt and impertinent pony for the furthest corners of the world. “Sign da list,” the beastly pony ordered the princess, gesturing to a clipboard perched on the edge of his desk. “Really?” her brows rose in incredulity. “’E’erwan signs,’ I was told.  Yer parta e’erwan.” “I’m going through those doors to speak with my sister,” Celestia pronounced with the weight of a royal decree. “Surest thing, juist sign-in foremaist.” “I do not want to sign the bloody list.   I want to talk to my sister.”  Celestia’s temper was beginning to obviously fray. “Am I gonna haf’ta call security?” the stallion persisted in his quixotic quest. “Fine!” Celestia finally broke in the face of what she cataloged as impenetrable stupidity and grasped the clipboard in her aura.  Looking about she noticed the absence of a quill.  Turning her fiery gaze back onto what she was beginning to think of as’ the suicidal stallion’ she queried, “Where is the quill?” “Don’ gots one, somebloke walked off with’en last one.” Celestia closed her eyes and counted to ten.  Re-opening her eyes she fired a beam of tightly focused sunlight from her horn at the paper, burning her signature through the list, clipboard, desk, and carpeting.  She swallowed, regaining her composure, and levitated the clipboard over to her least-favorite secretary in the world. “That’ll do,” he said upon examining her mark.  “Wha’ should I put duun as da rayson fur da gabber wit da Princess?” the stallion asked as he pulled a quill from his desk drawer. “You have a quill,” she said in the tone of voice she only used for issuing death sentences. “Yer wainten a meetin regaierden stationary?” he asked. “No, you just told me that there wasn’t a quill for me to use.” “Och, nay. Dere ain’t a quill fur visters. ‘Ow am I gouain ta doo mai work widout one? So, whatchoodai put deuun fer da reaison fer gabbins?” That was the final straw.  “Preventing all of creation from collapsing,” she confessed, broken on the rack of bureaucracy. “I’ll mak’a note o’ tha an put yer request in tha ‘important’ queue.”  The stallion placed the clipboard back onto his desk and promptly began ignoring Celestia once again. “Queue?” She asked, now near tears. “Luna isnae here.  She teuk da nacht off.” Celestia reminded herself that it had been centuries since she last immolated anypony and that this horrible little stallion was not worth ruining her “years since immolation” record.  Trembling from the titanic struggle to contain her wrath, she asked in a light tone, “Couldn’t you have told me that she wasn’t here at the start?” “Dis isa bonnie job, I ain’t gonna break protocol an risk loosin’ it onnae lark,” he answered as if that explained everything. Celestia instead broke protocol in response, teleporting away from the stallion before she lost control.  She appeared several floors above, startling the pair of night-guards that were standing outside of the entrance to Luna’s private apartments.  As per terrestrial and divine law, Luna’s rooms were her own domain and even Celestia was unable to teleport directly into them. “I am here to see my sister and if you present me with any paperwork I will destroy you,” Celestia intoned, daring all sign-in lists, queues, or forms to face her wrath. A heated debate about who should do the talking was carried out between the two guards by means of worried, sidelong glances.  The loser of the debate having been decided (the one on the left), he answered.  “I’m sorry your highness but Princess Luna has requested privacy this evening.” “Yes, but I am quite confident that does not include me,” Celestia claimed without any actual justification. Another silent conference was held between the two guards to decide which unfortunate had the duty of telling the Princess “no.”  Left again was forced into speaking, “Your majesty, given the circumstances under which I was issued my orders, I can confidently say that you were included in the category of ‘everyone’.” Celestia’s eyes narrowed as she contemplated the obdurate guard.  “I will take full responsibility for any consequences for disturbing her privacy,” she offered by way of negotiation. Right chose to speak this time, “I’m sorry Ma’am, I don’t think that’s possible given the particular circumstances.” Celestia noted but dismissed the odd emphasis the guard used.  Instead she said, in a kind but firm voice, “Gentlecolts, please step away from the door.  I am going through, you cannot stop me, and I do not want to accidently hurt either of you in the process.” Right replied with a dyspeptic grimace, “I’m sorry, Your Majesty, our duty prevents us from doing so.” Left closed his amber eyes and clenched in an expectation of extreme unpleasantness. Celestia summoned forth her golden magical aura and gently wrapped each stallion up in a cocoon of her energy.  It was harmless and would only feel slightly over-warm for the duration.   “My apologies loyal knights but I cannot allow you to delay me any further,” the diarch said apologetically.   Levitating the immobilized ponies out of her way, Celestia passed through the double doors into her sister’s private realm. The apartment was a worse mess than she had expected.  Cushions were displaced from their respective couches.  Numerous paper delivery containers from an elaborate, Neighponese meal cluttered all flat surfaces not covered with what appeared to be her sister’s laundry.  The clothing, both formal and casual, was tossed about as if in abandon.  Celestia vowed to include in her talk with her sister an anecdote about straining the goodwill of the cleaning staff. Hearing a noise coming from the bedroom, Celestia crossed her sister’s chambers to the appropriate door and was about to pull it open when she heard Twilight Sparkle’s voice and froze.  The white mare stilled the nervous flicking of an ear and placed it against the cool, smooth wood.  Though the voices were still muffled by the door’s thickness, Celestia could make out urgent, throaty whispers and embarrassed giggles from both Luna and Twilight. Celestia’s eyes widened in her suddenly flushed face.  In her embarrassment, she pulled her face away from the door as if burned and stumbled, landing roughly on her rump.  The voices within the bedchamber suddenly stopped and the goddess held her breath, praying that she hadn’t betrayed herself by making too much noise.  The silence held for a few moments and then she heard the familiar clop of Luna’s hooves touching the floor.  Celestia’s mind raced, desperately searching for any plausible excuse for such a severe violation of her sister’s privacy.  Twilight’s voice called Luna’s name, the following words were unintelligible but the imploring tone was unmistakable.  Celestia could feel her sister staring suspiciously at the sealed door but after a moment Luna acquiesced to Twilight’s request and returned to bed. Not daring to use magic within Luna’s personal realm, Celestia gathered her hooves underneath herself with painstaking care.  “Silence,” the goddess repeated within her own mind again and again, until the mantra filled every nook and cranny of her mind.  Willing herself to become silence itself, she tiptoed while gently fluttering her wings to reduce her weight and soften her hoof-falls.  As she passed through her sister’s living room she re-interpreted the pattern of detritus around her; this was the remnant of a special night spent in together.  Accelerating as she gained more distance from the bedroom, she passed through the outer doors at a near gallop and skid to a stop in front of the wide-eyed but still immobilized guards. Panting now that she dared to breathe, Celestia gently closed the ebony doors.  She then turned her attention to the guards, releasing them from their magical constraints.  All three equines stared at each other awkwardly.  At the same moment, all three spoke. “Well, I should be going.” “I tried to warn you.” “Could you not tell our boss about this?” Celestia raised a hoof to indicate that she should be the one to speak next.  “Thank you for your efforts to save me and your mistress from embarrassment.  Your loyalty is to be commended.  I am going to go now and drink as much wine as I physically can in a vain attempt to forget that this ever happened.  And yes, I do not intend to ever speak of this again and I would ask the same of you.  Does that cover everything?” The two night guards nodded. “Good,” and with that Celestia turned around and headed directly towards her own chambers.  She was so agitated and embarrassed she didn’t actually think about what happened until after she was back within her own bedroom sprawled across her bed.  It was then that the thought hit:  Twilight Sparkle was visiting Canterlot, was actually within the Palace itself, but hadn’t informed Celestia nor requested any time to visit with her supposedly beloved mentor. “Oh,” she said into the darkness as a bit of her heart broke.