//------------------------------//
// 235. The Year of the Bleeding Sun: Memento Mori by Knight of Cerebus 
// Story: The Sun and the Stars: A Twilestia Prompt Collab 
// by Fuzzyfurvert 
//------------------------------//


by Knight of Cerebus


***




Appropriate accompaniment



Phase Two: Anger

"It was on the second day of the Year of Bleeding Sun that the diamond dogs of The Crystal Spires were driven from their homes in the hundreds, displaced by a series of earthquakes and magma flows coming from above them. It is not known what means her majesty used to create the marvel of geology and architecture known today as Widow's Peak, but some testimonies of its creation do still exist. "It was a blinding light, coming in flashes back and forth like lightning. I was just a little filly at the time. None of us knew what was happening. Some ponies said the world was ending. Heh, they weren't entirely wrong. The sun turned red, and started to look smaller in the sky, and a big cloud of smoke drifted over the city. The world didn't end that day, but I'd be damned if the day it does end doesn't look just like that."

Celestia landed at last, having flown without stopping from the palace. A line had been crossed. She could not return, could not repair the damage she had wrought. Could not take back what she had done to a trusted colleague, or the bitter proclamation she had made. So she did the only thing she could do. She kept going. Canterlot was now a distant speck, far South of where she had taken refuge.

She could--did not want to-- take refuge with her niece in the Crystal Empire. There was no home for her there, nor anywhere. Celestia's face darkened, scanning the mountain side for life. Plants, but few animals, and none near her. "If I cannot find a place that will hold my Twilight's memory, I will make one."



	

---／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼---





Luna had been woken many hours earlier, but was reclining on a balcony as a moment's respite from the search for her sister and the aftermath of her...tantrum. It had been nothing but. A foalish moment of weakness, a moment of grief. But they would move past it. Her sister would return to her senses with a little prompting, as she always did. She was the stronger one, after all, and her famous patience would win over in the end.

And then Luna saw the column of ash and light.



	

---／人◕ ‿‿ ◕人＼---





Fire.  The land surrounding Celestia dissipated and shrunk in a sea of burning reds, greys and blacks. Pure, white energy surrounded her, burning into the mountain side with tidal waves of heat and force. Anything that might have been living in the surrounding area was instantly vaporized, and the mountain rock began to turn to magma soup. The light became more focused, taking on the same volcanic red as the magic of the horn that guided it, pulsing in surges of force stolen directly from the source of all life in Equestria. Celestia casually walked across the lake of fire that burned around her and within her, carving a perfectly square hole into the mountainside with the full force of the everlasting sun.

The top of the mountain, no longer supported enough by the rock beneath it, gave way and caved into the hollow. A wall of rock fell from the ceiling. It was magma and ash by the time it was halfway to the pony below. Lashes of fire dug into the rock, making openings into chambers, and then burning hollows around the chambers into rooms. The twin peaks of the broken mountainside began to mold and shape under the unending heat, and still tongues of flames dug deeper into the heart of the mountain.

Though no rock touched her coat, and no gases constricted her lungs, Celestia let the pyroclastic smoke from the devastation seep into her skin and coat, staining her shadowy grey. She breathed deep of the heated rock, letting the coals and embers lash at her throat with every breath she took. Her eyes burned with energy, and her mane flew around her like a hurricane, the rock darkening it too.

With a final push, she released the energy she had commandeered, and let the now grey and lifeless mountainside stay unaltered. Twin peaks had been carved into the shape of two ponies, each one's face twisted in desperation and each one reaching across the gap for the other. Sterile square passages led deeper into the mountain, each one ready to be carved anew in more detail as she needed. She ran over her basic needs. This one would be a kitchen. That would be a bedroom. Another still would be a washroom.

One last summon, and the new home was complete. An ornate, delicately carved and perfectly untouched stone sarcophagus appeared directly opposite her new bedroom, a solemn engraving on the lid. "Here lies Twilight Sparkle. The most magical of friends." Celestia gave a desolate smile. Her new home was ready.