//------------------------------//
// Chapter XI 
// Story: Relinquish the Sun 
// by Error732 
//------------------------------//

The council listened in silence as Rye Smile read a litany of readiness reports from towns across the kingdom.  Not a single pony objected to the tedium nor interrupted it; since Celestia's declaration, council meetings had taken on an entirely new tone.  Celestia had given them all a direct hoof in the protection of the kingdom against an existential threat and allowed no pony to detract from the efficiency of their exchanges by bickering over speaking rights or ulterior motives.

"In summary, our supply trains have prioritized populations centers and areas nearest the enemy.  We are marginally ahead of the demand stemming from new enlistments."  Rye Smile bowed her head, then sat down.

"Thank you, Rye Smile," answered Celestia.  "I now open the floor to—"

The castle floor shook beneath their feet.  A distant rumble sounded.  Several members of the council got to their hooves.

The door flew open, and a pair of guards galloped into the room.  The first bowed his head low to the council and began an apology, but the second cut him off, "Your Highness, we must get all of you to safety.  A dragon is attacking Canterlot!"

As if emphasizing his words, the ground shook again.  The council members exchanged looks of disbelief.  Faint screams crept in at the edge of audibility.

"All of you should take refuge in the undertunnels," barked Jet Stream.  "I will remain above ground to coordinate city forces.  Princess, as our highest priority, your safety is paramount."  He addressed the recently arrived guards as well as those stationed inside the chamber.  "Take the Princess and the other council members to safety."

"No," overruled Celestia, "take only the council.  The city will need my help."  When several present objected, Celestia raised her voice, "Guards, I order you to escort the council to the catacombs.  Jet Stream, you may remain if you wish, but you will not tell any pony to engage the dragon.  Do you understand?"

Jet Stream bit his lip, then stood at attention and saluted.  Celestia acknowledged his acquiescence with a nod, and he gave hushed orders to his fellows, who began leading the way to the tunnels.

As the delegates filed out, they gave Celestia abbreviated bows, all of them dumbstruck by her decision (even Rye Smile seemed puzzled).  Celestia had to remind herself that most of Equestria was too young to remember her last experience with mortal danger as more than legend.  They had never seen their princess fly into harm's way, veteran though she was.

Then again, even in her more adventuresome days, she had not usually faced danger alone.

Her horn sparkled with power, and space bent about her.  In an instant, she was no longer watching concerned faces shuffle out of a castle chamber but standing atop a castle parapet, looking outward.

Canterlot was burning.  Fires raged in every neighborhood, and screams and smoke floated up from above them.  Whole blocks had been leveled, and rubble blocked the streets.  From her vantage point, the castle appeared strangely unharmed.

Pandemonium plagued the streets.  The city's first responders hurried from street to street, loading injured ponies into stretchers and herding the rest out of damaged areas.  Fillies cried out for their parents and parents for their young.  A crowd was gathering at the castle gates, pushing for entry.

Above it all, two enormous, leathery wings sailed over the carnage, ferrying the monster that had wrought it.  Celestia recognized Zhuyin, gliding low and pouring down flames, then ascending with a few great wingbeats.  At the zenith of her flightpath, Zhuyin's silhouette eclipsed the sun, casting a draconian shadow over Celestia.  Her serpentine body jackknifed, and she sped downward at the crowd of ponies at the castle gates.

Celestia leapt from her marble perch and raced to beat her there.  A shriek welled up as somepony noticed their death fast approaching, and the throng of ponies began to scatter.  Unfortunately for those closest to the gates, the crowd's periphery blocked them from fleeing until it had dispersed.  Zhuyin fell faster and faster, and the cries below grew shriller with desperation.  Dozens of ponies cowered, trapped by their neighbors as Zhuyin arrived.

But the end did not come.  Zhuyin's descent halted on impact with a translucent purple barrier.  The magical force field had caught her a hundred feet in the air and struggled to resist her momentum until, only a few feet above ground, it and Zhuyin stopped.  Just below, Celestia levitated as she projected the barrier between her subjects and their attacker.

Most of the crowd took this opportunity to flee.  A handful, however, either due to injury or awe, remained, staring upward at their sovereign.

A deep cackle erupted from Zhuyin's belly.  "Princess Celestia!  You are at home.  And here I thought you'd gone missing."  As she said this, she slammed her tail down on the barrier for emphasis.  Each impact sent a wave of pain through Celestia; she felt as though every joint in her body was being hyperextended.

"Leave my kingdom in peace!" shouted Celestia, as if yelling could conceal her strain.  Beside her, her subjects watched the barrier move slowly closer to them under Zhuyin's casual assault.

Zhuyin drew her claws against the barrier, resounding with a dull shriek.  She examined her claws afterward, then began again.  "This is how you try to save your subjects," she hissed, "when you know there is a better way!"

Celestia could spare no effort to speak.  Sweat beaded on her face, and the ponies below ducked away from the encroaching barrier.

"Tell me, Princess, how do your subjects feel about your decision to refuse us?"  She slammed her tail toward the cowering ponies.  "Do you think they prefer things this way?  Do you think they want to see the day when we come in force and raze your precious cities to the ground?"

Gathering all her strength, Celestia forced out the words, "Leave my ponies alone.  Your conflict is with me."

Zhuyin inhaled deeply, then released a torrent of flame.  Celestia's barrier contracted to a dome just large enough for its occupants as the flames poured over it.  For an excruciating moment, they could see nothing but fire in all directions, heating their semispherical sanctuary like bread in an oven.  When the fire subsided at last, the area outside their bubble had charred as black as bitumen, and Zhuyin's face hung only a few feet above them.

"Relinquish the Sun, Princess.  You cannot protect them all.  Not from me."  With one last roar, Zhuyin leapt into the sky and flew away, vanishing quickly into the horizon.



Zhuyin had cut a wound all the way to the heart of Equestria.  Every city and settlement she had passed on her way to Equestria bore the scorch marks of her visit.  But, as deadly as many of these fly-by attacks had been, none compared to the damage to Canterlot.  Here, where Zhuyin had landed, buildings had toppled in every direction.  There was no one neighborhood or quarter to focus on, but a competing array of disaster areas where Zhuyin had indulged her hatred for ponies.

Overwhelmed rescue teams provided as much food, water, and medical treatment as they could, while the displaced were ushered into temporary housing within the castle walls.  Firefighters extinguished the lingering flames, then led the search for the trapped and injured.  Those lucky enough to have survived with homes intact searched for their neighbors who were not.

Celestia's heart stumbled when she realized she had not seen Inkstain since before the attack; she almost collapsed with relief when she found her, huddled away in the catacombs.  She had been lucky enough to have been one of first ones to reach them, which made the city's tattered state all the more shocking to her when she resurfaced.  Inkstain's despair was an echo of Celestia's own.

After several hours of vigilance for Zhuyin's return, Canterlot was deemed secure enough for the council to reconvene.  Jet Stream did not attend; he had excused himself to direct the relief effort.  None questioned his absence, though some wondered to themselves if he was also avoiding the council; Equestria's failure to repel the dragon sooner no doubt weighed heavily on his shoulders.

Celestia envied his atonement.  She had failed her ponies again, led them to a place darker than her nightmares.

For her part, Rye Smile agreed.  "The decision to go to war was a mistake.   We should agree to the dragon's terms before any more Equestrians die."

Had anypony else said them, Rye Smile's words would have sounded like an attempt to pass blame, but from her, they were merely a statement of known fact.  A mistake had brought destruction to Equestria; she had been generous to leave unsaid whose mistake it was.

Even Boutonniere seemed unhappy to have been right; his vulnerable tone and sunken face showed more melancholy than she had ever seen in him.  "We should send a delegation to the dragons.  Offer them our unconditional surrender."

The council held its breath.  Celestia nodded, "I will handle the matter myself."

She felt as though she had just removed her crown and tossed it into the nearest wastebasket.  After today, perhaps she ought to.

The rest of the meeting was spent coordinating relief efforts.  Celestia contributed little other than her royal agreement to aid proposals.  At this moment, she was the least qualified member of the council, the only one who had risked and lost a yet unmeasured plethora of ponies out of a selfish desire to see her sister again.  Worse, though she recognized with painful clarity that she needed to comply with the dragons, she still wished from the depths of her heart not to do it.  Even now, she caught herself entertaining improbable fantasies, trying to construct some narrative, however implausible, in which she could have both her sister and her kingdom.  Irate with her own childishness, she forced her eyes onto the tapestry depicting her sister's banishment.  Even she could have both, she told herself, Luna and Equestria wouldn't exactly get along.

After the meeting adjourned, Inkstain joined Celestia en route to her chambers.

"You're not really going to do it, are you?" she asked.  "You have a spell or something that can protect us?"

Celestia acknowledged the guards at the entrance to her rooms, then entered with Inkstain at her side.  As soon as the doors shut, Celestia addressed her.

"You know better than that, Inkstain."

"No, I don't," she insisted.

Celestia wanted to offer a warmer tone, but at present she had no warmth left in her.  "I accepted you as my assistant for your trust.  Though you have often questioned me, you have always believed in me.  I see now that that I have abused that trust."

Inkstain's face fell.  "Princess, I—"

"I have become proud, blind, and stupid.  I've allowed myself to indulge my own feelings over the needs of my subjects, and now many of them will never have the chance to hear my apology."  With a faint glow of her horn, she opened the doors to her balcony.  "Look," she said, motioning toward the scarred city, "at the price Equestria paid for my stubbornness."

"No!" protested Inkstain, taking offense, "you're the wisest, most powerful pony in Equestria!"

"That only makes me more culpable for my mistakes.  And for all my power, I was unable to repel Zhuyin."

"Then maybe we just need allies!" exclaimed the diminutive pegasus.  "The dragons can't possibly win a war against the entire world, can they?  What if we asked for help?"

"From whom, Inkstain?  The Griffon Kingdom?  The Minotaur Nation?  There are many friends to Equestria, but there are none foolish or desperate enough to join a war against dragons, especially not after today."

Inkstain's expression gathered like an oncoming storm.  She drew breath as if to speak but found no words.  She turned away from her liege and confidant, then stomped to the door.  On her way out, she muttered, "Then maybe we need some new friends."

Celestia stared in silence for a minute, half-expecting Inkstain to re-enter.  When she didn't, Celestia consoled herself that it was probably for the best.  She had to prepare.

The dragons would be expecting her; she needed to visit them.  Before that, she would need to scribe her official message.  Before that, she would need to regain her discipline and commit her heart to the task.  Before that, she would need to say goodbye.

She stood on her balcony, gazed down at the torn city, then skyward.  The dragons were patient creatures.  They would forgive one last sunset.

She entered her familiar trance, and the Sun replied in turn.  It sank below the horizon, making room for the rising Moon and brightening stars.  Neither Moon nor Sun nor stars suspected that this would be their last dance.

Luna's prison took its place above Equestria, and Celestia collapsed on her balcony.  For the first time in hundreds of years, Celestia struggled to begin.

"Today is hard to talk about, little sister.  Equestria suffered for my mistakes.  Maybe you can see it from out there."

She wrenched the words out like porcupine quills, bracing herself as she gave voice to her mistakes.  She recited the litany of incoming casualty statistics, the estimates of the depths of her error.

"It was one of the darkest days in Equestrian history, but the part that hurts me most has nothing to do with the kingdom:  I'm never going to see you again.  I have to give you up to keep all of this from happening again."

Celestia wiped tears from her eyes.  Luna was silent.

"I'm sorry, Luna.  I tried to do right by my ponies and my sister, and I've failed you both.  You'll be trapped up there, maybe forever, our subjects will live in a world ruled by dragons, and I . . . I will be alone.  Equestria will never trust me again, nor should you.  They should put me in the dungeon with Cocoon . . ."

Celestia trailed off.  An idea had planted itself in her head.  A fragile seed, struggling to germinate in the surrounding turmoil.

". . . I don't trust her.  Even if I did, no one else would."

Luna's silence continued.

"I don't know what she has planned.  It may not work.  And I can't give her what she wants."

The little seed, fertilized with the ashes of failure, began to germinate.  Hope crept in, despite Celestia's best efforts to rebuke it.  She was out of alternatives.

She rose to her hooves.  "I have to go.  I love you, sister.  And I will see you again."

She hurried back into her chambers and toward the hall, then caught herself before she exited.  If she was going to do this, she was going to do it with a minimum of witnesses.  She would teleport down.

In a flash of light and a blink of an eye later, she was in the catacombs, standing in front of the door to Cocoon's cell chamber.  The two guards beside it started, but relented when they recognized the princess.

"You're dismissed, thank you.  Please return to your normal duties."  They each raised a hoof in salute, then marched off toward the exit, surely wondering why now, after so long, Celestia would finally dismiss them from this post.

Celestia, meanwhile, entered Cocoon's chamber.  The queen of the changelings stirred at her approach.  Celestia spoke first.

"Queen Cocoon."

"Princess Celestia," returned the changeling, stretching her legs and wings.

"The last time we spoke, you implied you had a plan to defeat the dragons."

"I did."

"Was it true?"

"Of course!"  Cocoon said this as if she had never told a lie in her life, and Celestia had threatened to mar her perfect record.  "And, yes, it will work."

"Tell me your plan," ordered Celestia.

"Your directness is refreshing," said Cocoon, "but I take my freedom as a condition."

Celestia pointed her horn at the bars of Cocoon's cell, and energy funneled into it.  The aura that had clung to them dissipated, and the cell door swung open.  Cocoon's eyes widened, and she took a tentative step out.