In the darkness of a dungeon hall deep under Canterlot Castle the royal pony sisters walked in silence only broken by the clopping of their hooves against the damp stones. A small ball of light floated before them, illuminating the way and their faces as the two immortal princesses made their way towards a room neither of them had entered in half a century.
“Sister…” Luna began softly, “I really think I should insist that we summon-“
“I have already decided that Twilight will not be joining us, sister.” Celestia answered in a stern tone. She didn’t even bother to look over at her darker sibling the way Luna continued to glance over at her.
“You plan on an execution then?” Luna tempted her sister’s wrath once again.
The sun princess sighed in an annoyed tone before she responded, “I am a pony of my word. She will get her chance to prove that she is truly sorry, as promised.”
The two of them slipped back into silence and soon enough the end of the hall came into view of the floating ball of light. The heavy wooden cell door was the only thing breaking the pattern of stone, and a shimmering blue light softly escaped from under the heavy mass and extended a few scant inches into the hall.
Both sisters stopped in front of the imposing barrier. There was no knob or handle, there was no keyhole, there was not even a window; just a massive thick wall of wood that fit snugly into the frame. For a few quiet moments they just stared at it; until Luna cleared her throat, spurring Celestia’s horn to glow with an aura that surrounded the door for a brief moment. When the aura faded the mass of wood swung open silently as if it had been freshly installed that day, rather than stubbornly shut for the past fifty years that it had been.
The royal sisters stepped into the windowless cell and looked upon the object that was the purpose of this trek into the bowels of the castle. In the center of the cell was a pool of glowing blue water, only an inch or two deep, from which the shimmering glow was coming from. Its light cascaded over every surface inside the cell due in large part to what stood in the center of the pool.
It was like a statue, the pony made of diamond, standing in the shallow, glowing water. The diamond-mare was frozen with one leg bent up and her head back with mouth wide; pleading to avoid some horrific fate. It reminded both princesses of that day fifty years before, the last pleading cry of the convicted mare. Luna shuddered while Celestia glared at the statue.
The mare’s diamond body turned the glow from the still water into a shifting shimmer and it almost seemed as if some of the glow came from within the statue’s body itself, rather than the water. The room remained so still and cold, even with the royal sisters, that Luna’s unease began to grow. She wished that the statue would just move, the curly mane shift, or the similarly curled diamond tail wave, but the grotesque statue did neither.
“We will wait.” Celestia answered her sister’s unspoken question, “Fifty years I promised, and fifty years she will get, to the moment the transformation was complete.” The night princess shifted uneasily to the decree, but she did not challenge her sister’s resolve.
The two of them watched the floating orb of light as it slowly drifted away from them and towards the statue over several long minutes. They watched as it passed through the shimmering diamond surface and into the frozen mare; its light refracting and spilling tiny slivers of rainbow across the small cell.
When the ball of light reached the center its intensity exploded, and for a moment the royal sisters saw nothing but bright colors flood their vision.
The light faded and the statue was gone. In its place a mare, white coat, purple curled mane and tail, blue eyes, the sight of her flooded Luna with memories and Celestia with anger. The former element of generosity stood silent in the pool of water, blinking as if she did not believe she was once again flesh and blood with the ability to move.
“Rarity.” Celestia spoke loudly, and with no small attempt to hide the animosity in her tone to remain formal, “The time has come, your fifty year imprisonment is complete and your final fate is to be decided.”
Luna was shocked and confused when the unicorn turned her blue eyes on the two of them. Those eyes that had once been so lovely were changed. She looked as she had the day she had been turned to diamond, but her eyes no longer carried any luster; they looked dull, she was not sure if they showed a broken mare or a bored and uncaring one.
Celestia continued, “As promised you are being given the chance to prove to me that you are truly sorry for the crimes you committed and earn a banishment in lieu of execution. Now is your chance to speak, are you sorry for what you did?”
Rarity’s dull eyes locked on the royal sisters unblinking and silent for long moments. Her lips parted and shut again and again, with no sound issuing from between them, and for a few moments Luna thought that perhaps the ability was gone from the mare, and she looked up at her sister worried, but Celestia was only watching Rarity sternly.
“My family is dead.” Rarity finally uttered. Her tone was not sad, it was just a statement of fact, as if she was just asked the most trivial of knowledge, “They died not knowing that I watched them grow old; not knowing that I existed at all.”
Luna’s face fell and her heart ached. She had knew this day was coming, she had thought she had prepared herself to see through a dramatic show of sorrow and regret, she expected the Rarity that they had encased a half century ago, not this mare, not this pony that sounded already dead inside.
Celestia, it seemed, did not share her sister’s reaction. Her stern look did not waver as she scolded the unicorn, “That is not what I asked. Are you sorry for your actions?”
Rarity’s eyes shifted to look directly into Celestia’s own, and that’s when Luna realized that the unicorn had not been looking at the two of them, she had been looking through them, seeing something in her mind beyond the little cell and her still to be decided fate. “No.” Rarity answered in the same flat, dead tone.
Both of the royal sisters were taken back visibly by the response. Luna’s ears fell and she had to look away from the pitiful pony as her heart wept for the mare she once knew; Celestia looked confused caught off guard, and for a moment her façade of stern business faltered as she looked upon Rarity with pity. Celestia quickly reminded herself of why Rarity was here and hardened her resolve to shoot back, “No?”
“I was sorry at first.” Rarity admitted, “Once I got over feeling sorry for myself. I regret what I did, but I do not feel sorry. I am not sorry. I have suffered enough to not need to be sorry.”
Celestia was enraged, while Luna was in pure shock. Neither of them had expected this in any of their mind’s simulations of this moment and were finding it hard to make sense of it.
Rarity continued as she turned to face the two princesses, “I have had fifty long years of watching those I love live and laugh and be happy without any knowledge that I exist, without any memory of any good or bad time they had with me. Every night I watched what Flitter suffered because of me in every last, little detail. I watched her suffer at my hooves by night, and by day I saw her live and love with the dragon that I coveted. Neither of them remembered me either.” The unicorn sat in the glowing pool as if the ice cold water wasn’t there at all. The curls of her tail, preserved in diamond all these years, died quickly once submerged.
“I watched each of my life long best friends get married, have families, grow old and most of them die happily and peacefully without me beside them to see them through, not even knowing that I watched over them and wished them all the best.”
“I watched the horrors I had committed, but the horrors of what you did to me in return made them pale in comparison. I had her raped, I sold her into slavery, and I took Flitter’s pride, her virginity, her dignity. You took absolutely everything from me, and everything I gave, from everyone I gave to.” As Rarity spoke Luna began to take step after slow step backwards. The speech was bad enough without the dead monotone that the unicorn spoke in.
“I want to say I would switch fates with Flitter, but the truth is, there is no pony that I would ever wish this fate upon. Even if she had stolen Spike as I had convinced myself before; even if I hated her to my core, I would not wish this upon her. If either of you had any mercy, any pity at all in those cold hearts of yours, you would have killed me. The fate you have handed me is one worse than death. In death my sister could have grieved for me, for my bad choices and for my loss. In death my friends could have enjoyed the good memories, and lamented the sad ones. You erased me, you made it as if I had never been born, and then made me watch as the world kept spinning, unaffected. A constant reminder that I was nothing; that I am nothing; and that now, I am less than nothing. I am not sorry, any debt I owed has been paid for far beyond ten-fold. Execute me. It will the only mercy you have shown me. Let this torture be finished.”
Celestia’s lips parted in a pained grimace as she found it horribly difficult to keep her composure. She was torn between grief, regret, and fury. “We spared you at your friend’s final request.” She hissed through tightly grinding teeth, “It seems you don’t appreciate the mercy you were shown. This is meant to be a punishment, and if you desire the easy way out you will not get it.”
Luna broke her silence as she softly murmured “Sister…” and reached out to place her hoof on Celestia’s shoulder, which the sun princess promptly pushed off with a wing.
“Bring her to the court, sister, if she is to be executed it will be very public and very slow. She will learn her lesson before the end.” Celestia almost growled as anger won out within her. She turned and stormed out of the cell into the dark hallway and back up to the castle proper.
Luna was almost in shock. Her sister’s wrath was something she had hoped to never see again. The princess of the night turned her eyes to the poor, pathetic husk of a pony that looked like the Rarity she had once known fondly.
The unicorn just sat in the dimly glowing water, her dull eyes unfocused, her mind somewhere, anywhere but the small, dark, damp cell. Luna felt horrible, she felt hollow and sick. She had not given Rarity much thought these past fifty years, thinking the unicorn’s fate had been similar to her own on the moon. Now she realized how wrong she was. She had to look away from Rarity, even though the former element obviously did not see the alicorn.
We tortured this poor pony… For fifty years we tortured her and never gave it a second thought! Luna thought to herself with disgust.