//------------------------------//
// To Be a Pony 
// Story: Timed Ramblings 
// by Midnight herald 
//------------------------------//

	Celestia had hoped more than anything that she wouldn’t find Twilight here. She’d checked all of Twilight’s usual haunts - the observatory, the ancient Everfree Castle, the Crystal Empire... she’d even gone as far as to look in the old library in Ponyville. And finally, with a heavy heart, expecting the worst, she’d turned wing to the hills outside of Canterlot, making her way to the last place she could find the missing princess.

Sure enough, Twilight sat still in the light rainfall, bowing her head to the fresh granite monument. Mud from the fresh-turned grave had splattered upon her regalia and stained her legs and drooping wings a deep brown. Celestia could barely hear Twilight muttering something over the drizzle and moved closer, slowly and cautiously. 

“Twilight?” she called out. Twilight flinched, but otherwise ignored her. Celestia settled down beside her and wrapped a wing around the smaller alicorn. “We missed you in court today,” she murmured, nuzzling Twilight’s soaked mane. Twilight stiffened at her touch and shrugged off the wing around her, ruffling her wet feathers aggressively.

“You got on fine without me before I was a princess,” Twilight growled. “Can’t I have a few days to mourn her alone?”

“Look, Twilight,” Celestia reasoned gently. “I know she was important to you, but Equestria needs you right now.”

“She was the last, Celestia,” Twilight shouted, finally meeting her gaze. Even through the rain, it was clear Twilight had been crying. “When the others had ... gone, at least I had her by my side, but now she’s dead, too!” Twilight slumped and shivered. “I... I can’t do this right now,” she whimpered. “I just ...can’t.” She lifted a hoof and gently traced the three engraved balloons on the stone before her, while a low, keening whine escaped her throat and her wings trembled with unshed tears.

Finally, after several minutes, Twilight cleared her throat. “Have you ever been in love, Celestia?” she asked. Her eyes never left the gravestone, nor did her hoof stop its compulsive tracing.

Celestia’s wings drooped as she thought. “I loved your friends dearly,” Celestia answered finally. “And I love you dearly as wel, Twilight, and Luna and Cadence besides.”

Twilight stiffened. “That’s not what I asked,” she snapped, before continuing her study of the rain-soaked granite. “Have you ever loved somepony so much that you ould do anything for them, everything for them, and watched them wither and die before your very eyes?” Celestia wilted at the intensity in Twilight’s rough voice. “Have you ever loved anypony as much as I loved them?” Twilight gestured to the five headstones in their perfect, crisp semi-circle and hit Celestia with a look that could freeze blood.
Celestia looked away from those burning purple eyes, cowed. 

“Then don’t you dare judge me when I choose to mourn,” Twilight growled. Something in her voice changed, and Celestia looked up suddenly. She watched in horror as Twilight’s eyes changed slowly, turning catlike and slitted. She took a step back as Twilight’s fur darkened and changed, as her limp and dripping mane began to glow with unearthly fire.

“Twilight, please don’t do this,” Celestia begged, taking a cautious step forward. “This isn’t you.”

“You’ve been looking down on me since I Ascended,” Not-Quite-Twilight growled, crouching and ready to attack. “You’ve been judging me, reprimanding me, just because I was brave enough to open my heart to the five ponies I would trust with anything.” Celestia backed up, calling on her magic and ready to defend herself against anything Twilight would throw at her.

“You think you’re so high and mighty, so uncorruptable?” Twilight screamed. “You’ve never really lived! Not once, not ever! YOu thiNk yOu shouLD RuLE, WHEn yOU DoN’T KnoW WHAt iT IS TO BE A PONY?!” 

Twilight Sparkle called upon her magic, filling the entire graveyard with thrumming oppressive power, that set Celestia’s horn aching and her hair on end. Then Twilight grinned, a terrible, merciless, inequine thing born of hate and pain and grief.

“Pray all you want, Celestia,” she hissed, charging a spell, one that Celestia herself had used once in her life. “But not even the stars will aid you now.”

Celestia didn’t even have time to scream as the spell hit her. All was confusion and pain, and then it was fire, and time was lost to her.