The grass was nice and cool, Twilight decided. It felt good just to lie there. Nothing seemed to hurt anymore. It just felt…peaceful. She wasn’t sure she wanted this to end.
Am I dead? Twilight asked herself. I must be dead. Despite herself, she found the thought fascinating. Nopony really knew what happened after one died; there were many theories, from the scientific to the metaphysical. She wanted to find out, but then felt sad that she wouldn’t be able to report to Princess Celestia what being dead was like.
She thought she heard someone calling her name. It sounded dimly familiar. Pinkie? No, it’s not Pinkie or Applejack. Rarity? That makes sense. None one of them would’ve gotten away in time. Maybe Dash made it, but I guess we’re all dead now. Could be worse, I guess. At least we’re still together.
The voice was insistent, coming over a curious ringing, buzzing noise. Twilight risked opening an eye. At first everything was white, then slowly she could make out shapes, and then colors. Funny, Twilight mused, the afterlife looked a lot like the woods outside Ponyville.
“Twilight Sparkle, can you hear me?” Twilight blearily looked over, and saw it was Princess Luna. Her voice sounded like it was coming down a tunnel. Why was Luna here? Luna wasn't supposed to be dead. “Speak to me, please.”
“Um,” was all Twilight could muster. She wetted her lips and tried again. “Luna? Princess Luna?” She could see Luna nod and smile. “Am I dead?”
“No.” Luna could be very direct at times.
“Oh.” Twilight tested her limbs. All answered her, though slowly. Now the pain returned, building from slight aches to real hurt. “Ow.” Suddenly everything snapped back into place. Twilight leapt to her hooves—or tried to. She was upright for a second or two before she collapsed.
“Now you stay down, sugarcube.” Applejack came into view. “Doctor Stable’s on his way. You’ve been through the wringer, Twi’.”
“Applejack? What about the others? What about Ponyville?”
She felt soothing balm being spread over the cuts on her shins. Rarity was at her side. “We’re quite all right, Twilight, but you’re not. Lie still, please.”
“But—Trixie’s last spell! It was a mass disintegration spell—it should’ve killed everypony—“
Rarity nodded down at her. “It should have.” She motioned at Luna. “But it didn’t.”
“L-Luna? How?”
“Spike contacted me. Luckily for all of us, I happened to be napping in my sister’s bed when the message came in.” Luna gave a shrug and a half-smile. “As for the spell, I cancelled it.” At Twilight’s expression of shock, the smile grew. “Twilight Sparkle, I am an alicorn and a princess of the realm. I do have certain powers.” She looked up. “Again, luckily Trixie picked the night to attack, when I am strongest. If it had been during the day…” Luna preferred not to finish that sentence.
“Trixie!” Twilight tried to get up again, only to have Applejack’s hoof firmly planted on her chest. “What happened to Trixie?”
“She’s alive,” It was Spike who answered, in a tone of voice that obviously wished Trixie wasn’t. He climbed down from Applejack’s back. “Barely.”
“For now!” Rainbow Dash landed next to Twilight. “Oh my gosh, Twilight, you look like crap!” Rarity thumped her with a hoof. “Hey!”
“Bedside manner!” Rarity exclaimed. “Really, Rainbow!”
“Well, she does!”
“But you don’t have to tell her that!” Fluttershy was remarkably firm, Twilight thought. She turned to the unicorn and began to cry. “Twilight, oh no, Twilight…”
“Is she okay? Really okay?” Pinkie Pie bounded over. “Twilight! You’re okay! You’re okay, right?”
“I’m all right, Pinkie.” She was not all right, but there was no point in upsetting Pinkie.
“You’re sure?” Pinkie’s eyes were huge—well, more huge than normal. “That’sgoodbecausewheneverythingturnedblackIthoughtweweredeadandIdon’tknowifdeadponieshavepartiesandIwassadbecauseGummywouldbeallaloneandIcan’tbelieveTrixiecoulddothisandyouwereawesomeTwilightsogladyou’reokay!”
Twilight smiled, though that hurt too. Her friends were alive. She lay back. The pain didn’t seem so bad now. Doctor Stable arrived with Nurse Redheart and gently pushed them aside. Stable was going to help her sleep, which sounded like a very good idea to Twilight, but as the sleeping spell began to take hold, she grabbed for Luna. “Luna, please!”
“Everything’s fine now, Twilight,” Luna reassured her.
“No, no…Trixie. Don’t let her die, Princess. Please.”
“That’s not up to me.”
“Please, Luna…” Twilight’s eyelids fluttered. “Please…don’t let her…die…” Then the black curtain of unconsciousness rolled down and Twilight drifted into blissful, painless sleep.
Princess Celestia stared out the window of her palace. Behind her, Luna waited patiently. She had been waiting for several minutes now. They were alone; Celestia had ordered the guards to leave them. Celestia glanced at her sister, but Luna was not asleep on her hooves. She was awake and alert, which was something, given that it was well past noon. Briefly, Celestia wondered when Luna learned patience, but remembered, and the memory was like a spike in her heart.
“No,” she finally said.
“’Tia,” Luna pleaded. Only Luna ever called her that. It brought a brief smile to Celestia’s face, like it always did; she had not heard that pet name for a thousand years. The smile faded as quickly as it came.
“No,” Celestia repeated. She turned back to Luna. “I can’t, Luna. It must be done.”
“You can’t do it,” Luna told her. “You didn’t do it to Discord. You didn’t do it to me, for heaven’s sake.”
“Because you are my sister,” Celestia replied. “As for Discord…” Her voice trailed off, and she looked out the window again. Discord’s statue sat in her line of sight, just below the window, frozen in an expression of abject horror, as he realized that he had underestimated the power of friendship. Celestia ordered the statue placed there instead of in the garden, both to keep an eye on the Spirit of Chaos and as a lesson, to herself. Why didn’t I kill him? Celestia asked herself, not for the first time. It would make things so much easier. She herself had underestimated Discord, twice now. It made sense to simply do away with him, and now it would be ridiculously easy…except for their past history.
Celestia put that aside and returned to the matter at hoof. “Discord is different,” she said to Luna, who gave her an expression of disgusted disbelief. “Luna, Trixie embarked on a personal vendetta to murder Twilight Sparkle. Even if Twilight wasn’t my student and, yes, my friend, it wouldn’t make a difference. Moreover, she intended to destroy Ponyville and everyone in it. At best, Trixie is dangerously deranged. At worst, she’s a mass murderer. We’ve had those before, Luna, in the past.” Long past, Celestia added to herself. Equestria had a violent history that the plays and books tended to gloss over. “And the punishment was the same.” She shook her head. “Luna, I’m sorry, but Trixie must pay for her crimes with her life. No pony kills another. That is my rule.”
Luna stared at her sister. “And will you do it yourself?”
“You know that I will.” Celestia refused to ask a pony to do something she would not do herself. “It will be private, and swift. I shall not let her suffer. I am not cruel.” She could swear that she could hear Discord’s mocking laughter behind her.
The two sisters stood in the center of the throne room for long minutes, neither speaking or looking at the other. Then Luna spoke. “What if I could reform her?”
“No, Luna.”
“’Tia, please, listen to me. Trixie’s not beyond redemption. If nothing else, let me try for Twilight’s sake! She begged me, pleaded with me, even as she sat there bleeding into the grass, to spare Trixie’s life. Believe me, ‘Tia, my first instinct was to let Trixie die right there. But Twilight, the very person she was trying to kill, stayed my hoof.” Luna paused. “How is Twilight, by the way?”
“Twilight is recovering. Trixie did no permanent damage.” Celestia faced Luna. “And my answer is still no.”
“But Twilight—“
“Twilight will understand!” Celestia shouted, causing the castle to reverberate and the windows to rattle. Celestia rarely felt the need to use her palace voice, but Luna simply would not give up.
The echoes died away, but Luna did not turn away. “Trixie will die, then, for the crimes of attempted murder—“
“Attempted mass murder.”
“Attempted mass murder,” Luna amended, “along with treason, ergo the attack on Ponyville and purposely training in the art of death magic from a known rogue—who we still haven’t identified yet.”
“Once Trixie awakens, she will tell us before her time comes—before she’s put to death.” Celestia hated herself for trying to use an euphemism. Death was death.
“And if she doesn’t tell us?”
“She will.”
Luna shook her head. “And now you’re advocating torture, ‘Tia.”
“Compelling magic—“
“Torture. I’ve seen compelling magic used, ‘Tia. Remember? Call it what it is.”
Celestia’s eyes narrowed, and Luna saw real anger mixed with anguish on her sister’s face, enough to make her take an involuntary step backwards. It was the same expression that was her last memory of Celestia for a thousand years, as she was propelled to the moon. “Luna, enough! You know why I have to do this! It’s for Equestria! It's always been for Equestria! Don’t you realize that? Do you think I want to do this? I have to! I have no choice. I must choose between the life of one pony and the lives of all. To do that, I must be prepared to use everything I have to defend the realm.
“I let Twilight talk me out of this before, and the result was nearly the death of an entire village—to say nothing of the Elements of Harmony! What if you had been too late, Luna? Think about that!” Tears welled up in her eyes. “Think about that…”
Luna trotted to her sister and put a hoof around her as she began to weep. This was the Celestia nopony, not even Twilight Sparkle, knew. Everypony else saw a demigoddess, a being of near unlimited power, a princess that had ruled benevolently for a millenia, somepony that was above emotions and the petty squabbles of the world below Canterlot, a pony of absolute reason and goodness. Luna, however, knew that the crown rested uneasily on a princess who had to make all the hard decisions, who could never truly be friends with someone, who gave up everything for herself to preserve her realm. She knew Celestia would carry out Trixie’s sentence, and that was the problem: she would carry out Trixie’s sentence, no matter how much it hurt Celestia personally. Everything for Equestria, as it always had been and always would be, as long as Celestia drew breath.
Luna had one last card to play, and hated to do it, but it must be done. Twilight wanted to save Trixie’s life, but Luna wanted to save her soul. “Then why didn’t you kill me, ‘Tia?”
Celestia looked up and shook her head slowly. “That is a horrible thing to say to me, Luna.”
“Were my crimes any worse than Trixie’s? She only wanted to kill Twilight—admittedly, a terrible thing. I wanted to plunge Equestria into eternal night.”
“You—you weren’t in control. Nightmare Moon was.”
“A valiant effort, sister, but we both know that the choice to become Nightmare Moon was mine. Yes, I was corrupted, but I made the choice to be corrupted. I was not wholly in control of my actions, but ultimately the responsibility was mine. I won’t attempt to claim otherwise. It is something I must live with.” Luna gave her sister a friendly nuzzle. “I can live with it because of Twilight and her friends—and because of you. Let me try, ‘Tia.”
Celestia moved away from Luna, to face the window again. She let out a long sigh. “All right, Luna. All right.” She smiled wryly. “I never could deny you anything, could I? You’d just look at me with those eyes, and next thing I know I’m handing over my tea set and my dolls. Father used to say you must have taken a thousand bits off of him with those eyes.”
“Yes, but he always liked you best, ‘Tia.”
“Hm.” She fixed Luna with a stare. “Reform her, Luna. If she can’t, or she tries anything, then the sentence will be carried out. Explain this to her. As far as I am concerned, she remains under a sentence of death, and I reserve judgement. Do you understand?”
“Completely.”
“Very well.” She went back to staring at Discord.
Luna paused. “’Tia, this probably isn’t the right time to ask, but…we didn’t spare Sombra’s life. I’ve never regretted that. It had to be done. But you spared Discord—twice. I was surprised you didn’t take his head after what he did to Twilight and her friends. Why?”
“I don’t know.” Celestia’s eyes were hard. “Maybe it’s because I want to see the bastard suffer.”