//------------------------------//
// ~ I I ~ 
// Story: Him 
// by Zytharros 
//------------------------------//


II





Spike’s death was difficult and filled with regrets. However, I took Celestia’s death much harder. It was painful to watch my mentor fade like she did, that at ten thousand years of life, she would falter. It became apparent with twenty years to go. She was losing weight and magic power. Her horn and wings evaporated. All these things she took in stride.

What hurt me most, however, was the crippling dementia that took her mind. For five years she thrashed on the bed, barely able to remember her own name. She fought caretakers. She refused to see me. Luna and I had to usurp the political power she had and hide her in a cave to keep her from driving Equestria into ruin with irresponsible and wild spending, leaving her with but one attendant instructed to only get her what she needed to live, as well as whatever she would like for entertainment. I coaxed the Sun into working for me – that was a task and a half. Even getting Luna and the Moon on-side to negotiate with the Sun nearly proved ineffectual, but eventually the Sun conceded when Celestia tried to command the sun to “explode, implode, and combust for Mine entertainment”. Getting the nobility on board was no issue; apparently, some of them had been accosted for favours from the Princesses and rumours had been flying about as to how to dethrone her.

She lasted exactly one year after we seized power. In her last minutes, with the final vestiges of lucidity she possessed, she invited Luna and myself to her chamber by name and apologized for the pain she had caused. Luna was gracious and accepted her apology for the both of us.

As for me…

I couldn’t reply. I couldn’t watch her die. I had spent the last hundred years poring over every magical tome in the world in an attempt to save the life of this pony who had effectively raised me to be the leader I had become.

I fled from the room, from my family, from Equestria.

From life.

It was a bittersweet peace when she passed.

I went into mourning for a decade, losing myself in the comfortable familiarity of books and libraries, once again becoming a hermit, doing only what was necessary, and leaving Luna to bottle up her emotions and command Equestria as her sister had done. Yet, both she and I knew that Luna was merely one thousand years Celestia’s junior, and that her days were numbered.

However, I didn’t expect how fast her time was about to come.

When I came out of mourning, Luna herself was gray in entirety. She was exhausted and in pain, clearly suffering from an alicorn-sized helping of depression caused by being unable to mourn her sister. Health practitioners had no explanation. I had no explanation. I had done something selfish, and Luna had paid dearly for it. As penance, I devoted the last twenty years of her life to ruling Equestria so she could mourn. Like before, I threw myself back into the world of Equestrian politics and ensured the country did not miss Luna.

Yet, the damage had been done.

Despite the rest, Luna’s health failed rapidly. Depression had rotted away her will to live to the point where her eyes had gone glossy and everything she did was lethargic and languid. She barely ate. She didn’t sleep. She passed control of the moon over to me without a breath of acknowledgement, then teleported to Celestia’s grave and perished there not five minutes later.

Her wailing was heard across the breadths and depths of Canterlot.

In spite of all my efforts to the contrary, it was Luna’s death that was the worst for Equestria. Two royals in twenty years had been too much for the people. They looked to me more than ever before as a beacon of hope and light. They looked to me for food and shelter. I was now at a crisis point for my nation – the next thing I said would make or break my rule.

So I called a general audience.

And I blew it.

In haste, in rage, and in agony… in sorrow, in shame, and in delirium, I said three words that ended Equestria forever.

“Screw you all.”

My darkness came out in full force and effect. I became Silent Twilight, and I was unstoppable. Judgmental. Friendless. Angry. A tyrant to end all tyrants.




The Dark Age of the World had begun.