//------------------------------//
// A New Age Dawning 
// Story: The Sum of Her Parts 
// by IsabellaAmoreSirenix 
//------------------------------//

"Get out of my bedchambers."

Discord only laughed at Celestia's furious expression. "Why, is that any way to welcome a friend, Celly dearest?" he asked, sprawled on her bed as he idly turned her phoenix Philomena purple. "Whatever happened to Harmony, good will, and all those boring things you prattle on about?"

"The spirit of Chaos complaining about a lack of Harmony, that's the day," Celestia muttered irritably as she yanked the pins out of her hair in an attempt to focus her attention anywhere but on the obnoxious draconequus turning her quills into bubbles.

"Touché, but I'm afraid that doesn't answer my question," he answered.

At that, Celestia firmly turned her face away from him, still resolutely in denial. "Oh, I'm sorry," she declared in a scathing, mocking tone. "I can't hear ponies that aren't in my bedchambers."

"Thank goodness I'm here then!" Discord said with biggest smile adorning his face. "I wouldn't want you to miss a single minute of my next exciting musical number!"

Panicked, Celestia quickly blasted the disembodied trombone out of its misery before it had the chance to emit one tortured wail. Honestly, if there was one power of the universe she wished he possessed, it was a sense of pitch.

"Are you trying to get me to banish you?"

"That depends, would it be any less boring than whatever today's rant is about?"

"I'd make it so boring you'd want to scratch out your eyeballs if you don't make me do it first."

"Well then, I'm all ears!" he exclaimed, folding his claw and hoof in his lap while he crunched on a corn on the cob.

Celestia fought to repress a laugh as she eyed him crossly. "It's about my coronation," she began.

"Oh, was that today?"

"You would know; I doubt that anypony couldn't have noticed if you were absent."

"Oh come now, Celly, I was pretty good today," he said in his defense. "I was even one of the only ponies that didn't fall asleep during your crowning. You were far too beautiful for that."

With a passing blush, she brushed off his flattery. "Yes, but I'm talking about the times when I wasn't around."

He pressed his claw over his heart as he comically gasped. "How can you accuse me without eyewitness testimony?"

Celestia rolled her eyes. "You kept blowing raspberries during the opening hymn."

"Hey, it's audience participation!"

"You gave a potted fern wings."

"The Equestrian Triarchy!"

"You turned my Chancellor into a pig."

"I see no difference whatsoever."

The princess let out a groan of frustration, and unknowingly, a little bit of hurt. "Must you constantly mock everything I do?"

At that, Discord's eyes widened in concern. In a rare moment of seriousness, he advanced towards Celestia, and ever so gently cupped her face in his hands as if it was the rarest diamond. "Don't ever think that of me, Celly," he murmured, lightly tracing a spiral on her cheek. "I understand how important today was for you, and believe me, I'm doing my best."

It took all of Celestia's strength of will to resist the urge to fall into his arms, lose herself completely in his embrace. Tonight was not the night for that. No matter what, she had to maintain her resolve. "Your best isn't good enough," she declared, roughly jerking her face away. "I won't have you making a fool of me in front of the nobles."

"Last time I checked, I believe you were the ruler of Equestria, not them."

"But I have to take their opinions into account, along with those of everypony else in Equestria," she told him. "I can't just rule however I please and disregard the ponies I'm leading."

"Then lead some new ponies, ones who can have a little more fun in their monotonous lives."

Celestia shook her head, sending ripples of pink mane swirling around the side of her neck. "That's not possible," she whispered sadly.

Discord crossed his arms as his eyes surveyed Celestia's face intently. "I'm not going to become one of your orderly puppets, Celestia," he said, a little more angrily than he would have liked. "That's not in my nature."

"I know," she replied with a heavy sigh, "which is why you have… to go."

"Go?" Discord repeated, his voice strangely hollow. "Go where?"

"Somewhere in Canterlot, somewhere in Equestria, I don't know," she said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. "You can go somewhere, anywhere, just… not where I am."

A pause. Then: "If you wanted to break up with me, you should have just said so."

"Those are the facts," she said, stretching her swan-like neck with an air of superiority. "Our wants are no longer a concern to Us."

"Oh no," Discord retaliated sternly, grabbing her hoof and drawing her closer to him again. "You don't get to distance yourself from this with your high-and-mighty royal we. Besides, one of you is hard enough to handle."

Celestia only gave him an icy cold glare, though she did not pull away. "We are trying to remind you that We are no longer an individual. From this day forth, We are an avatar of Equestria, nothing more. We answer to their will, not Our own."

"But I'm not in love with Equestria," Discord said flippantly, resolutely ignoring the chord of desperation in his voice, before locking onto the twin mirrors of Celestia's rose-tinged eyes with frightening intensity. "I'm in love with you."

At that, Celestia reared up and turned away. "You don't love me, Discord," she told him. "You never did. You only wanted to play with a toy you could never have."

Wrathful lightning flashed in his eyes, a looming omen of the events to come. "How dare you," he said, ire seething in his voice. "I can understand if you want to end this, but can you at least be a mare enough to admit that it started? You cared about our love once, so you don't get to sweep that under the rug and say it never happened. Or do you have some other neatly packaged excuse for why the past two years somehow don't count?"

"I… I was young," Celestia admitted, "and foolish. Impressionable. Headstrong. But most of all, I was stressed. I wanted to escape the politics of court, and you were that escape for me. And while I am grateful for your service during that time, I cannot afford to escape from who I am any longer."

"Oh, well then, why don't I pick up my paycheck and be on my merry way?" he retorted, his normally playful sarcasm now burning like acid. "So, what was my position in your court, hmm? Court jester? For Equestria's sake, I hope you're not nearly as intimate with your other employees; you may end up having to abdicate yourself before a scandal reaches the presses."

Celestia had to blink back tears before she could say, "Lust is a petty thing. I am above such trivialities.  If I love, I love with my heart."

"Aha! So you do admit there was love!" Discord shouted triumphantly, watching her mouth fall into the daintiest little O.

"Th-this conversation is getting us nowhere," she stammered.

"Oh come now, Celly," Discord said, his previous vigor renewed. "It's unsportsmare-like to quit while you're losing. Now tell me," he continued, draping his pegasus wing across her back, "like the rational being you are, why you'll deny yourself the spirit of chaos but still admit to the chaos of love."

"Love… isn't chaotic in the slightest," Celestia breathed, fighting to keep her voice even as his touch sent burning shivers down her spine. Closing her eyes, she recited, "Love is a natural part of order for a community. It is the foundation of a community's unity and willingness to help its members for the betterment of all. It allows compassion, tolerance, and a single-minded goal that keeps the society functioning. It is a more complex form of altruism, a parent's self-sacrifice for a child. Love defines social structure and aids in the survival of present and future populations. It is orderly, not discordant."

"Oh really?" Discord asked in a low tone bordering on seductive as he twirled a lock of Celestia's mane in his talon. "Well, that's an admirable definition, but you and I know there's much more to it than that. What about how it makes you feel? The notion of doing the right thing while doing all the wrong actions, the feeling of dying even though you've never felt so alive? There's no way to choose who you love, but once that arrow flies, your life's all over, even though it's just beginning. The world hasn't changed, but somehow you see in a whole different perspective while still only focusing on the one pony that ever matters. You start doing strange things, irrational things, things that are stupid and you know are stupid but you can't stop doing them, because you're not in control anymore, even though you've finally become whole and complete and understand your place in the world. It's like a poison, and the only cure is to keep taking in more and more, never satisfied but always content. What do you have to say to that?"

"Yes, yes it is a poison, what you've given me," she spat. "And if you cared for me, you'd see that it needs to stop."

"I know what you're trying to do," he said, crossing his arms, "and it's not working. You can't hurt me that easily, though you're doing a good job at being aggravating and inscrutable. Come on, Celestia, what is this about? You've been growing distant lately, and it's worrisome. I thought it was the coronation or something stupid like that, but it's obviously much bigger. For weeks I feel like we've been going backwards, like you're becoming that distant Elysium by-product I met two years ago. You won't visit me, won't even talk to me. Please, you know you can confide in me—"

"SHUT UP!" she screamed, covering her ears with her hooves as she started shaking violently. "Can't you see you're making this harder for me?!"

Shocked, Discord stretched out a trembling hand. "C-Celestia, I—"

"Why?!" Celestia howled in anguish. Still turned away, she threw her head back to the sky, her distraught tears gushing from her eyes in full view. "Why won't you hate me? Why won't you make this easier? Can't you let me have this one wish, to spare you from suffering too?"

With a strangled cry, Celestia ran to Discord's embrace. "There's no use in lying anymore," she lamented. "I tried to keep it from you, but it's been getting stronger. I tried to fight the episodes I've been having because I wanted to be able to say goodbye, but I was too weak to say it. I wanted you to leave, to hate me so it wouldn't hurt, but you love me too much." She allowed herself a small smile that faded like whisper of a memory. "It's over now. I'm losing. She's taking over again, and I don't know if I'll be able to free myself this time. It doesn't matter anyway. I knew I was living on borrowed time. I've known I was going to leave. I'm leaving now, and I still can't bear to say goodbye."

"C-Celestia, you're talking n-nonsense," Discord said, fighting down the tremble in his voice, "and that's coming from me."

"Then I suppose it's poetic, isn't it? For the last few months you've been my only source of sanity as I've fought this curse I've placed upon myself. And even though this hurts, I am grateful for this fleeting existence. But I can't keep stalling the inevitable. My life has never been my own. I knew that before, and I understand that today. I can only hope that in time you too will come to understand that this is for the best."

With a sigh she slipped from Discord's arms and stood alone in the center of the room with the balcony behind her, bathed in the red light of the dying sun.

A single tear dripped from her eye. "Forgive me for leaving you," she said as her body began to glow white, "but you were never part of my purpose."

"No, Celestia!" Discord cried as he leapt into action. He tried to wrap his arms around her, only to recoil at her frigid skin. Her tears shone like glass as the light around her grew in intensity until Discord had to partially cover his eyes with his talon and paw to continue looking at his beloved. He staggered back like a drunkard, the raw magical force repelling him, filling the air with orderly magic. A swirling wind sprung up around her, sending her hair billowing wildly, the pink tresses twisting and bleeding into new colors.

There was a sound like breaking rocks as a strand of light traveled from the base of her tail to the tip of her horn until with one resonating crack, her fate was sealed.

Discord looked up into the vacant eyes of Constance.





From that day forth, two halves of a soul remained apart, one tormented in the forest of liberation and one suffering in the castle of luxury. It is an ironic instance indeed when a princess becomes a captive within her own body and a chaotic child chooses to remain confined, but as always, the universe strives to break its own rules. Though its contradictory nature can be perceived as chaotic, the consistency to always be inconsistent is one rule of the many rules that order thrives on. Consider the rule of surviving the universe to be 'expect the unexpected,' though such a phrase in itself could be considered a disorderly paradox, thus unceremoniously dumping any intelligent thought on the matter right at the start once again, completing a frustrating circle.

So it was that Equestria's elder princess found herself pacing in circles in the magical atrium beneath Mount Canterlot. So strong was her uneasiness that her flowing tail had several times come close to knocking over some priceless magical artifact balancing precariously at the edge of a table.

She winced as some bottles on the table rattled. Every creak, every plunk, every noise made her body tense up in anticipation. At any point she expected somepony to barge into the room and drag her away to some highly important meeting. Whether a part of her wished for such an occurrence was up for debate, but she knew she couldn't allow hesitation…

The princess froze. Her ears perked up, straining as high as they could towards a slight creak in the floorboards above the ceiling. Had Starswirl come back early? Or was Luna trailing her again, demanding to know what she was up to?

Celestia scowled. If I told her, she'd probably start crying like she always does nowadays. She doesn't even realize what a blessing it is to actually be able to cry at all.

Another creak. Oh Luna, why can't you stay out of things and let me handle it?

This time, the sound was accompanied by a tiny squeak. A mouse. Celestia breathed a sigh of relief, a burst of adrenaline sending a thrill through her veins. Disobedience. How strange that it should blend so well with her desire for order in her life.

Turning her attention towards the matter at hoof, Celestia stopped her pacing, though she kept her eyes fixated on the ground. It was always difficult to look in any mirror now. The threat of seeing her now hollow, vacant eyes haunted every reflection she glimpsed of herself, like the memory of a persistent nightmare.

But this mirror was different, she reminded herself with a smile. This one did not reflect the reality of her world, but the beauty of another, where life was filled with harmony and true love, just as the stories always said.

Within her, Celestia felt the spirit of Constance retreat in a further circle around her heart, lightening the burden, as if to communicate, It's alright. Do not be afraid. There is no need to serve us now. We will allow you your happiness.

Celestia's lips curled. As if Discord could ever be right about anything. The path of Order was hard, but it always came with a reward.

True love.

Raising her eyes, Celestia peered into the depths of Starswirl's mirror to see…

…A young draconequus, racing through the Everfree Forest, his mismatched body little more than a blur darting through the thick foliage, now varying shades of a putrid black. The brittle bark, the withered leaves, everything felt tainted with the stench of death, as if a dark fire had burned all life from the inside out. The forest's well known darkness, once caused just by the protection of the canopy, was now very real, exuding from every blade of grass Discord trampled as he ran. There was no real urgency behind his haste, just the overwhelming desire to run out of his own skin, his own heart, beating far too fast and loudly in this silence.

Indeed, the shrill mocking that had plagued Discord had for the past month been replaced by a perpetual quiet, unnatural and ominous. And as twisted as it sounded, he had come to find that he preferred the company of the spirits, even if poor company, rather than none at all. In lieu of their voices, he replayed in his head Kallisti's departing phrase on that day she emerged from the shadows, granted him a small smile, and then vanished into the mist:

"Rise above your suffering, kall gurdete ist dellu ahrai."

'Cracked seed that rises straight.' That was the meaning behind the phrase, spoken in his native language of Bedlam. It was a tragic phrase as much as a hopeful one, acknowledging both someone's suffering as well as the promise to overcome it and blossom into something beautiful. The usage was rare, as it was a term of endearment. Why Kallisti would use it was an enigma to Discord. But whatever it meant, it couldn't be good.

"What a bitter seedling you are, little one."

Discord looked up from the ground to see that his legs had inexplicably led him to the Tree of Harmony, where Kallisti was waiting, sitting on one of the roots, with her hands folded and her lips pursed.

The young draconequus' eyes widened. "I… I don't want to see you," he mumbled, slowly backing away.

"But you're not going to do anything about it," she said coldly, absentmindedly flicking her lion's tail against the crystal tree trunk. "That's your problem. Your desires are conflicted. You wish I were gone, yet you missed my company. You want companionship, yet you remain alone. It's a delicious sort of chaos, but I'm afraid it won't do. You'll have to use that chaos, unleash it from your mind and plant it in the world. Right now, you're just helpless and stupid."

Discord balled his hands into quivering fists at his sides. "Stop doing that," he said, his voice shaking terribly, his eyes watering. "Stop making me feel miserable."

At that, Kallisti stood up and started walking towards him. Her eyes, one hazel and one blue, narrowed in anger. "No, I'm not. I'm going to keep degrading you, attacking you, accosting you, until you get rid of those stupid tears of yours. For years you've let yourself live in a garden, safe and protected from anypony who would try to hurt you. But there's no pony princess to pull the weeds and wipe your eyes in the real world."

"I saw what happened with the bird," she continued, advancing closer to Discord, who had found himself unable to move. "You wanted freedom, but when it didn't work, you just gave up. You were a fool to do so. You won't accomplish anything by hiding in this forest. You must go out into the world yourself."

Discord hated the feeling of shame overwhelming him, hated her, hated everything. "You... Y-You don't know anything about what it's like out there. Whenever I try to go into a town, ponies run away—"

"Then make them stay," Kallisti hissed as she spread her wings, a swan's on the left and a raven's on the right. She leaned down so her face was inches from Discord's. "Command their respect instead of letting them push you around. That's why your friend is suffering. She lets Elysium control her like a puppet. She's not strong enough to think for herself, the coward, the weakling, the—"

A slap rang out in the empty air.

"Don't…" Discord growled, staring up at her with angry, watering eyes. "Don't ever talk about Celestia that way."

Kallisti placed a grey wolf's paw to the red welt on her cheek, then smirked. "That's what I'm talking about," she said.

She let her paw brush against the side of his face, then she pivoted around with a dramatic flip of her ebony hair as she walked towards the Tree of Harmony.

"It's a wonderful world out there," she called to the highest tops of the cavern. She threw her arms out wide, as if to embrace the very air of the mortal world she was unable to breathe as a mere spirit. "And you could experience it all, if only you were brave enough to embrace it."

Discord took a hesitant step toward her. "Why… why are you doing all of this?"

"Because you've become dreadfully boring to Eris, dear," she said. "But the promise of a romance might just be what it takes to peak not only their interest, but that of the whole world.

"The world's been caught in a boring cycle for eons. Good against evil, order against chaos. But for the first time in countless ages, you have presented a little enigma, a break in the rules no one has seen done before: love. It's different. It's game changing. So much so that it just might bring about…"

Kallisti tossed him a black seed.

"…a revolution."

Discord turned over the seed in his claw. "What is this?" he asked her warily.

"Oh, just a little something to give you an edge," she said with an innocent shrug.

He took a step back. "This is a trick, isn't it," he demanded, his eyes livid. "You're trying to trick me, aren't you, just like they did to her!"

Kallisti turned her head and raised her eyebrows at him before kicking aside a patch of dirt by the Tree of Harmony to reveal similar seeds underneath. "Tricking you would be detrimental to me," she said. "I don't need to manipulate you. You already have the power inside you to change this world; it just lies hidden underneath the earth, just like these seeds. No, what I'm offering you isn't a contract or a curse. It is, very simply, the chance to let you do whatever you want."

His eyes narrowed. "So you don't care what I do."

The spirit nodded.

"So… if I were to, say, save Celestia using this power, you wouldn't stop me, would you?"

At his words, Kallisti's eyes widened, and she immediately ran back to the young daconequus. She firmly clasped his hands in hers and looked him in the eye with a terrifying intensity.

"Don't you understand any of this? I would be ecstatic if you saved her," she told him breathlessly. "I would be ecstatic if you saved this whole world. I know what she's done in making that contract. Her head is spinning and spinning; she doesn't have any truth to guide her. But you do. Tell me, what do you know about yourself since coming to this world to be true above all else?"

The answer came surprisingly easy. "I love Celestia," he told her, staring mesmerized into her eyes. "I will always love her."

With a small, choked cry, she pressed her lips to his forehead. "Good," she told him. "Then let that guide you. Order is a curse; you know that. You've seen how it's made her suffer. Save her from the Order she was born into. It doesn't matter what you have to do. Even if you have to force her, even if you have to hurt her like I have done to you, remember that it is all for her. Nothing else matters."

Discord's eyes widened. "But will she know that I'm doing it for her?"

The spirit shook her head. "You don't need to explain it to her. She doesn't have to understand. They… they never understand." Kallisti blinked a few times, then gazed into her reflection within the crystal branches. "I… I know it will hurt you to hurt her, just as I had to hurt you, but it will be worth it, this I promise. As long as you do it for the one you love, nothing else matters."

Then she stepped back, leaving Discord standing alone with the seed cupped in his hands. He glanced up at her, then down at the plunder seed, and nervously chewed his lip.

A vein in Kallisti's neck throbbed. "What are you waiting for?" she demanded. "Think about Celestia. Her smile when she sees you, the light that glows around her, all of it could be gone if you let her go. Elysium will crush her with their oppressive rules. Show her the joy that only Chaos can bring, the joy that can break her curse and set her free…"

Kallisti's words faded into the background of Discord's mind. Though his eyes were open, he could not register anything he was seeing. All he could perceive was a tremor of power somewhere deep in his core where his magic resided. His magic felt like it was overflowing, washing off him in waves and into the Everfree Forest. It sent his body shaking, like an earthquake along his spine. Blood rose in a surge of heat to his head, his eyes, burning, burning, burning, as if to combat the chilling numbness in Celestia's heart. A rumbling sound escaped his throat to match the distant rumbling behind him, growing steadily closer.

Kallisti smiled. "It's time to go outside and make some friends."

When he blinked, he saw that Kallisti was now gone, replaced by a horde of creatures. Sea serpents, manticores, cockitrices, and many more of his half-finished creations flocked around him, the squawking and roaring of their living bodies disrupting the silence.

As if in a trance, Discord circled the crowd, trailing his fingers across their skin, pressing his ear to their beating hearts. Tears stung in his eyes. They were real. They were real.

Somewhere in his breathless admiration, Discord had dropped the plunder seed. When he circled around again, he saw that a beautiful flower had bloomed, complete with five petals as black as poison.

What he failed to notice was the slightly crooked stem.

Discord caught a glimpse of his face in the reflection of one of the Tree of Harmony's branches. While nothing drastic had changed at first glance, there was a definite change in his eyes, gleaming with something that went far beyond childish mischief.

He smiled at what he saw. I'm no longer a child anymore, he told himself.

I can make my own decisions, Celestia thought as she stared into the forbidden mirror. I'm not running away from anything. I know what I'm doing. Nopony has to understand why. They could never, ever understand. Their understanding isn't important.

The only thing that is important, he thought…

The only thing that really matters…

…Is the chance to be free.

As the draconequus looked into his reflection and the princess looked into the reflection of another, two alicorns of Elysium looked at reflections of them both, before one cut off the spell with her horn and the image faded into the mist.

"It is an interesting situation, is it not, Andromeda?" Sybilla asked. "The affairs of the heart are very strange indeed."

"It is," Andromeda agreed, her eyes shining brightly with a myriad of stars. "It would not be wise to interfere at this stage. I am confident that this situation will resolve itself."

Sybilla blinked twice. She was irked. "I wish we did not have to resort to something that would come out so… messily. We are better than this, are we not?"

"It is the only way to correct our failure," Andromeda said, "and to be certain that such an occurrence will never happen again. Thank you though for bringing this to my attention. If it is acceptable, I would like to be alone to consider the situation further."

Sybilla nodded and vanished into a whirlwind of leaves, leaving Andromeda alone. Her horn sprang to life with an amethyst aura, reviving the Vitreous Erudition that bore the holographic image of Celestia in front of the mirror.

"Revolution? Freedom?" Andromeda repeated softly to herself. "Your brightly shining heart brings about the strangest things, my daughter. I wonder, what would become of you if they actually came true?"

Then with a swipe of her hoof, she flipped the image upside down.





Celestia's life had – quite literally – turned upside down.

Pink cotton candy clouds stuck to her hooves as she walked on the sky, though her heart was far heavier than air. Uprooted houses on trampolines of bubblegum hovered above her head as they spun in lazy circles. A herd of tutu-wearing buffalo passed by her, dancing far more gracefully than she ever could. They spun like tops until they crashed into a tower of cards. Rather than collapsing, the cards flew like butterflies in frenzied acrobatics. Briefly glancing up, Celestia saw the undersides of two: the toothily grinning Joker and the Princess of Hearts. The pair pointed and laughed at the sight of grey ponies trudging drearily across the chaotic landscape, caught between inverted heaven and earth. It made Celestia sick.

Then, as if in lieu of a dark cloud, a fish-shaped kettle started floating above her. It took one glance at her, blew up its cheeks, puckered its lips in a pout, and spat orange soda in her face for good measure. A single drop rolled down Celestia's face to her lips.

It tasted bitter.

Celestia pressed forward, never pausing, even when the world shifted so that she was walking on checkered ground. Her eyes were fixated solely on the creature perched beneath the noonday sun. A mad god cackled with maniacal glee as he sat atop his twisted throne. Around him flocked cockitrices, manticores, sea serpents, and a horde of other horrors.

It was all so ugly.

Much had changed in the two-year period after Discord had exiled Celestia and Luna from Equestria, but to return and find the land virtually unrecognizable had not just been a blow to re-locating the Tree of Harmony, but a personal one as well. All memories of her youth had either been eradicated or twisted in Discord's madness. They had all been turned to dust.

The silence of this world was striking. Only the soft tread of hooves beside her echoed hollowly, reminding Celestia of Luna's presence. Like her sister, the night princess stared unflinching at the draconequus. Her tears had been spent privately, leaving her eyes hardened in the way she would look at a dead pony, too far gone and beyond her reach. If only Celestia could have believed the same.

The saddlebag containing the Elements of Harmony felt far heavier than it should have. She wondered if the guilt of this day would weigh similarly, if she would wander the mortal earth accumulating more and more until it crushed her. The weight of Constance was already enough. At least the spirit wouldn't take this away from her. If Celestia was going to condemn him, she wanted full responsibility.

Then Discord – or at least, the caricature – noticed them. His vermillion eyes were lost in madness, so much so that it was as if he wasn't looking at her at all. She tuned out his rambling of games that made her want to smack the insanity out of him. It made no sense why he was like this underneath, how he had been able to fool her for all those years. It was too much for her to understand.

Clarification? a tiny, hopeful voice inside her wanted to ask.

The Elements hummed to life. No, she answered. There is no explanation.





Silver moonlight shone down on Celestia's motionless body, lying defeated in the throne room of Everfree Castle. A soft groan escaped her lips as she struggled to raise her bleeding head from the ground and look up into the sky.

Pain that had nothing to do with Nightmare Moon's attack blossomed in her heart as she looked up at the twisted version of her sister that Hamartia had created…

"This isn't a diarchy, Luna," Celestia coldly reprimanded her sister, with her head bowed and body trembling before the sun princess upon the throne. "And even if it was, what makes you think you have the authority to tamper with the heavens, with the responsibility Elysium bestowed upon you? Remember that you were never meant to pass through the Gates with me at all."

"No," Celestia whispered. "It wasn't Hamartia. It was me."

She looked up at the wicked mare laughing in front of the silver moon, only to squeeze her eyes shut when another bolt of dark energy struck a nearby village. "Oh dear sister, I am sorry, but you have given me no choice but to use these."

At her summons, the Elements of Harmony rose up from the ground. Their colorful, shiny surfaces glowed innocently, hiding the destructive power held within. All six spun around Celestia, encasing her in a rainbow aura. They lifted her high above the castle and into the night sky, where she hovered face-to-face with Luna.

But it wasn't Luna. Celestia had to remind herself of that. The world saw a tyrant with her sister's face, but she knew she was facing a byproduct of the curse they had brought upon themselves. Luna was the sacrifice, and it was Celestia who would raise the knife.

Tears stung in Celestia's eyes as the Elements hummed to life with the power of Harmony. If this was what it meant to preserve Harmony, then Harmony was a cruel mistress indeed.

Celestia's magic let forth a powerful blast of rainbow magic. The caster winced in pain as Luna's spell collided with hers. For a moment, Celestia wondered what would happen if she cut her spell and allowed Luna to win, if she could be a good sister and protect Luna from harm. But then Luna would only end up hurting herself, wouldn't she? The Luna Celestia knew would be stricken with unbearable heartache if she continued to destroy ponies' lives. Banishment was the right thing to do.

If only the right thing didn't hurt so much.

I'm sorry, Luna. She felt her sister's magic put up a brief struggle against Harmony's, as if trying to fight her own fate, before giving out entirely. Behind those darkened eyes, there could be seen a glimmer of genuine fear, fear that Celestia couldn't bear to witness. So instead she closed her own eyes, not wanting to see the final blow delivered, but that didn't prevent her sister's scream from breaking her heart. That wasn't Nightmare Moon's scream. It was Luna's.

Then it was silent.

One by one, the Elements of Harmony fell out of the air, their power drained. Soon after came Celestia, tumbling from the heavens like a fallen star. She didn't attempt to stop her descent; rather, she tucked her body into a tight little ball to keep her spirit from breaking. A soft white light trailed behind her as she drew closer to the sweet embrace of earth. A weak part (and now, a good portion) of Celestia hoped the impact would be enough to kill her. Which was why, if she had the energy, she would have cried out in frustration when five meters from the ground, her wings automatically snapped open to break her fall. She slowly glided down the rest of the way to land on all four hooves in the middle of the castle gardens where she and Luna had played together an eternity ago.

For a while, Celestia just stood alone in the garden, bogged down with grief and memories. Just the thought of moving felt too daunting to attempt, even if it was to collapse into a sobbing heap. She just stared at her snow-white hooves stained with figurative blood as her mind buzzed with an empty numbness. Grief had gouged out her insides, leaving her hollow. Nothing else remained but the building pressure behind her eyes…

Drip. Drip, drip.

A few drops of blood from a cut stained the ground, but no tears came from her eyes.

Celestia's eyes quivered in their sockets. Why… why can't I cry?

A racing pulse, a pained cry, and streaming tears were all things Celestia lacked as the horrifying realization swept over her. She literally felt Constance emerge from her dormancy and fill her veins with a chilling numbness, leaving her true spirit wordlessly screaming for release.

Constance's slitted pupils took in the silver glow of her fallen sister's moon. Her eyes remained dry.

No! Celestia's spirit screamed as she saw the Mare in the Moon crying tears of starlight. No, let me out! Let me out!

Somewhere in the distance, a clock rang midnight. A new day dawned.