***
"The Year Of Bleeding Sun, ANMM 3244, is known amongst Equestrian scholars as the single greatest catastrophe the country has ever endured. It is pointed to as a sign of the negligence of alicorn authority figures by Equestria's detractors, and as a sign of negligence in the fair treatment of alicorn authority figures by its supporters. While the precise catalyst for the disaster can be attributed to exaggerated stress and pressure, it is frequently agreed upon that the true cause was a failing both of subject and ruler alike to acknowledge the extent to which emotional distress impacted the latter."
Stage One: Denial
Celestia watched the court with distant eyes. The discussion was something her mind was easily able to keep up with on most days, and she often surprised the opposing parties on a good day by proposing solutions better than either of them had thought of. This was not, however, a good day. Nor had the day before been. Nor had the day before that. She could not, in point of fact, remember a day she could classify willingly as "good". However, each of those days had also not been bad, per se. There was a certain unreality to them, as if she was living a parody of her life from the beginning of the day until the end. She did not feel happy, or sad, or any of the above. She, quite simply, felt nothing. But while she could not feel, she could still hear, and what her ears picked up at the current moment was a sudden rise in volume in the midst of the debate.
To her left sat Tax Minister Cloistered Coin, and to the right Minister Of Economics Pressed Check. The difference in budget they were discussing was a few hundred thousand bits. Typically, she would have found a way to satisfy both parties. These days she acknowledge whichever one gave the most convincing closing arguments, nod to note the court was dismissed, and promptly return to her room to read. Something about reading still comforted her. It felt like she was alive again.
Voices around her rose. The tax maker was looking to her for support. A dim, barely-functioning part of her mind recognized that he likely expected her help on this matter. The truth was more complicated than that. She was not for government control of wealth or industrialist control of wealth, but rather responsible management of it. Thus, her policies on economics shifted frequently, based upon who commanded the money in Equestria and how equitable it would be to take it from them based upon their uses of it. However, it was harder to decide this when her clarity of mind had change, as if by alchemy, from crystal to fogged glass.
She nodded to the opposition, biding him continue, when the exceptionally flustered tax maker, now red in the face, cut in. "This is patently ridiculous! I request another member of the cabinet be the deciding factor in matters it is clear Her Majesty has no investment in or attention to!"
The businessman coughed. "Minister Coin, is this truly appropriate--"
"No, this has gone on far enough! I cannot work under these circumstances! No ruler who receives her tax forums slipped under her door at the crack of dawn and returns them four hours late in the middle of the night should be overseeing a meeting of this importance!"
"Cloister, she's--"
"No! We all have been very understanding of Her Majesty's--"
"Loss?"
Celestia's voice cut through the room, her immense form rising like a fallen angel, wings spreading half-open, as if preparing for flight. The temperature surrounding Minister Cloistered Coin plummeted, and to this day rumors persist that the very light around him was plucked from the air.
"I believe, Minister Coin, there is an issue in semantics, here. You have accomodated my, as you would say, "loss", most admirably, and for this I am very grateful. You obviously, however, have not understood my loss. And, as a result, you cannot accommodate it satisfactorily. However, if you so desire, we may finish this meeting by allowing you to understand my loss, and from there I can find a representative of my authority more to your liking."
"Your Majesty, I--"
A crown slammed against Cloistered Coin's podium with the force of a battering ram, cracking the wood and filling the hallway with the sound of metal being crushed into ribbon. Celestia advanced towards the trembling minister, her face as flat as a lake of ice, stepping out of her shoes as she did so. At once, her eyes started glowing, but where before they glowed with a golden magic, now they were filled with the lifeless, dull red of the setting sun. Her necklace dissolve into molten metal around her chest, and then into stardust. The same dead fire erupted from her horn, and enveloped Cloistered's own, and, at last, he understood.
A hollow cave formed, somewhere deep in his soul. Or, rather, it had always been there, but only now was he realizing it lived there. And this cave was hungry. It was alive with desire and mockery, and it fed upon things that were loved. He saw a hundred thousand happy memories fall into the jaws of this beast, forever to be locked in its guts. He saw this repeated over eons. And all the while, the creature screamed. It taunted him with its existence, telling him it would come for everything one day, and it laughed at how it took the beautiful things he had seen in this world and how pointless they all were, since it could eat them and lock them away for all eternity. And this he suddenly knew to be called the song of hatred and despair.
But then he saw one who fought this monster. One who was safe from it, and who laughed and danced and tore away a hundred thousand from its jaws in a sweep of her hoof. He saw her blushes, kisses, her laughter and love. He saw her mourning, her fears, her dreams that never came to pass. He saw her share her life with him, and like a ray of dawn, he knew they could live together at last without fear of being eaten. And he saw that she, and only she, drowned out the screams of the monster. She lived free of knowing what the monster did, until at last she saw it for herself. Seven times, she saw it, and then an eighth last of all. But she still was happy, because she had a family that was free of the monster. And they knew it was still there, but he didn't care, because he had a family, and it could survive the monster and escape. And then, quite abruptly, that fantasy of escape died around him. He and his family were walking through the woods on a lonely autumn day,
All at once, the creature struck her from within, forming a poison worm of agony in her heart, and the empty void tore her to shreds, laughing all the while. She writhed and screamed and then lay still, and the monster ate her whole. He saw her eaten by worms, and her bones left to rot in the depths of the earth, hidden by wood. And then he saw that nobody cared. She had lived so bright, and so brilliant a life, and in the blink of an eye it was swept aside. The world moved on, and he stayed in place. And all at once the screaming of the monster came back, louder than ever.
And the world told him to move on, too, but he couldn't hear them because the monster would not stop screaming, and it screamed at him until his ears bled and his mind echoed with the song of hatred and despair, and he wished he could give in and join the world in the belly of the monster, too. But he couldn't, because others depended on his life for their crops and their world to work, and he and only he could help them. And so he lived on, but all he still wished to join the monster, and so he lived a howling, empty void, screaming in silence at the song of hatred and despair.
And then, at last, it was over, but not because it got any better. Celestia pulled her horn away, and the guards and minister watched their colleague collapse to the ground, weak sobs coming from his lungs.
Celestia's voice rang out like a funeral knell from above. "Minister Coin raised a very valid point. My rulership is completely insufficient, and I intend to remedy that today and forevermore. Take a record, secretary. Today, with a resolute mind and a heart full of regrets, I formally abdicate the throne of Equestria. May Queen Luna's monarchy be a long and happy one."
And then, in a flash of crimson light, Celestia was gone. She had been wrong about one thing. For the next four hundred days, Equestria would care very much. The death of Twilight Sparkle would hang over the heads of them all.