Epilogue
Celestia watched.
There wasn’t much more she could do, after all. Not anymore. She was inconsequential now, as irrelevant to the world as any mortal. Perhaps even more so.
She shifted slightly on her cloud, kicking up a few wisps of water vapour. She watched them dissipate in the thin atmosphere of her perch, before returning to watching the land far below her.
Her sister had been right, it seemed. Ponies were capable of so much more than she’d ever realised, when they were given the right encouragement. Celestia was certainly not that encouragement. In fact, her removal from the equation was that encouragement.
She watched her little ponies scurry back and forth through the paved streets of the sprawling supercity that was Canterlot. She saw the palace, and wondered how her student was doing these days.
She felt the resentment build inside her, and she quickly redirected it. No, Twilight wasn’t to blame for this. If anything, she was the victim.
Celestia knew who did it. She was all too aware who ruined everything, all those years ago.
A stray voice whispered inside her head, But she didn’t ruin everything, did she? She ruined you, and only you.
Celestia barked out a laugh. Of course, she was only deluding herself. She was the monster here. It just took her longer to figure out than everyone else; even after her sister left, it took an intervention from her most faithful student to knock some sense into her.
She looked down at her hooves. She remembered, vaguely, that she used to wear gold on those hooves.
It had been rather normal, at first. She’d taken her student’s words into account, given her ponies some leeway, stepped back from the proceedings. She had tried to stay, tried to keep them on the path she’d set for them.
And when she had eventually left, she had tried to be happy for them. Even though she had lost everything except her name —a name that had long since transcended history and become legend— she was still happy for them.
But as proud as she was of her little ponies —she still liked to think that she was their mother sometimes, watching from afar— she still couldn’t stop asking herself that one impossible question.
“What happens next?” she whispered, in a voice torn by time.
“That’s for you to decide, sister.”
Celestia’s heart froze. She turned to see an ancient, teal-eyed alicorn with terrible bedmane, smiling a smile that she hadn’t seen in a very, very long time.
“Did you miss me?” she said.
Celestia wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. She wanted to shout. She wanted to laugh, and keep on laughing until her flesh faded and her bones crumbled.
But most of all, she wanted to cry.
Her sister smirked, donned her cloak, and turned to walk away through the field of clouds.
“Don’t leave!” Celestia hated herself just for saying it, but she couldn’t stop, “Take me with you!”
Luna glanced back over her shoulder at her sister. Slowly, she pointed at the sun as it rose over the horizon.
“Come, sister. Come with me towards the sunrise.”