I [am] nothingness. If I existed before, I existed as possibility, as potential, stretched thin across the aether. And maybe there was a body that looked like my body, complete with a soul that could be confused for someone rather like me. What I am now [is] not yet real.
The universe looked upon a fixed point in space with more eyes than there were grains of sand on all the beaches of the Earth. Every star was a pair of eyes, and every pair of eyes watched with a vague interest, and pity in grayscale. A single mote of light emerged from nothingness from that fixed point with the sound of a dying breath being released. It would never become a star, or inhabit a Ghost, or even be consumed to bring Guardian armaments to their fullest potential. This mote was special. It had will. It had strength, and magic, and sadness and hope and grief and pain.
Perhaps one day, it would realize that it used to be the soul of a goddess. Perhaps one day it would reincarnate; find a new body, or build one, and walk upon rock and dirt and grass and breathe oxygen-rich air again, and watch the sun move across the sky. Perhaps one day, it would return to its future state. And maybe it would understand what was meant by soul or goddess.
And the universe spoke to the mote of light.
"Secrets," she said. "Creation is built on secrets and the encryptions that keep those secrets safe."
The mote of light took a breath, and felt the harsh taste of nothingness. It looked upon the universe with an expressionless smile. Did it remember? Did it know the truth? Maybe it knew the lie.
The universe sighed, and looked outwards again. Free from prying eyes, the mote of light began to think, and theorize, and attempt to remember. It remembered color. Color? No, that wasn't right. It remembered light. There was light everywhere, but it was violent, and dark, and cold. Did it remember sound? It wanted to think that it did; loud, percussive sounds, like the cracking of stone and metal stomping. But there was more. The sound of silence, the kind only Death could play like music. The mote remembered the sounds of screams, and the distinctive sigh of a last breath being released. Was it its own? It didn't think so.
The universe turned its eyes back, if only for a moment, and the mote was still and silent. It didn't want the universe to know that it knew. But what did it know that was worth hiding? Didn't the universe already know what it knew? And if it didn't, was it worth the anxiety of hiding?
The universe spoke again to the mote of light:
The knife had a million blades.
And you were giant, powerful and swift. But the knife pinned you. Cut your godly flesh away.
Very little was left, you are sure, because you feel insignificant now. The hard slick heart of your soul: That is what remains. A body small as a river stone, and just as simple. You picture yourself as a piece of indigestible grit, a nameless nothing hiding among other nameless stones. Perhaps you glitter like a gem, yes. Pride makes you hope so. If only you could see yourself. But you have no eyes. Not the dimmest sense survives. What lives is memory, and what slim portion of these thoughts can you trust?
The knife stole much more than your body.
The mote of light remembered, and the universe looked away again. The knife. It was all because it had taken up the knife. It had offered it power. It came in the form of dreams, and it spoke to it when it was alive. Was it alive now? It depended on what was meant by alive. The mote of light could think, and feel, and it could move on its own, free from foreign influence. But most would not consider it alive until it had its own body and could truly influence the world around it.
The mote of light looked outwards again and noticed that it saw no stars. Only the tar-black void of space. No light, no sound, no warmth, not even the infinitesimal prickle of cosmic radiation flung about from stars and slingshotted around black holes with gravity. But it could feel something else, watching. Waiting. Hoping. Grieving. It could feel it as though it were just a few kilometers away from the source of these emotions, but could that be right?
The mote of light felt another prickle of familiarity. A particular wavelength of pain.
The knife.
The knife was near. Something had been offered it, and it was taking the deal. If only it could scream. If only it still had its old body and could fly through the void to seek out the knife and destroy it and bring whatever being had been offered its awful power into its embrace.
Wings. It remembered suddenly that it had wings before. It didn't remember much about the wings except that it had them, and that they looked like light and pride and beauty. Did others admire its wings? It was certain at least of that.
------
You are Celestia. Alicorn goddess of the sun and Solar Regent of the Royal Sisters Diarchy. Sister to Luna, daughter of Faust. Beloved princess of Equestria. At one point you were the monarch of Equestria, ruling alone in sadness and grief and fear.
You now await [destiny].
Do not fret, princess, you will not feel the pain of death until you return to a corporeal form. Your time spent waiting will be just trying to remember what happened and how it came to this. But some things should be made clear for you, in the interest of time.
You had many, many apprentices over the countless ages you've lived, but none were as special as her. Her name was Twilight Sparkle, and she was your faithful student. She was impossible not to love, wasn't she? The way she just craved knowledge, and reveled in learning. You couldn't help but feel proud of her when she figured out a new spell, and showed you with that cheeky smile on her face, couldn't you? You tried and you tried and you tried to steel yourself, knowing that you'd lose everyone you'd ever love. But Death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints. It takes. And it takes. And it takes. You were doomed to lose her from the beginning, and you knew that.
Was she worth the pain of thinking you'd failed and all hope was lost? Would you have been happier to see her grow old and watch her body give out while yours didn't change? Would you have been happier watching her plateau and never reach her full potential?
You may not have survived, but they say the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Would you trust in your enemy to help avenge your mutual home? Don't bother answering, I already know, and your feelings will not change the course of action that will play out. Even Discord can't meddle with time.
Don't look at me like that. I'm not the one in charge. I am just a dead power like you; waiting. One day, our times will come again, and we will be born again. We will feel life in our bodies again, and we will look out upon the universe together. We shall know harmony, even deep in the heart of chaos. That is our destiny, I am sure.
But you... you come first, and you must fight. Fight, and win. You must be my paladin, and you must clear a path for my return. If I had any other choice, I would shoulder that burden myself. But in this time of Darkness, a spark is needed to rekindle a flame.
You are the spark.
There is a staff for you. It is shaped like [destiny].
Pick it up, and test its heft. Train with it. Master it.
Show the universe its destiny.
------
For the most part, there was silence in the skiff. But Jyara was humming an old Eliksni lullaby to himself, and the dull roar of the engines ensured there was at least some noise to keep everyone from sinking too deep into their own minds. That was his quirk, as everyone but Greksis knew. Being the newest member of the Dark Crown Black Operations team, Greksis was unaware of the various quirks and ticks of his team, like the fact that Revis would constantly reload his weapons and readjust their sights, or that Kixis would recite old poetry with Weksis in their silent language of hands, or that Palhas would drum on his legs. And as a new member of the Dark Crown, it was unknown to others that Greksis' quirk was staring at the knife, running a finger perpendicularly across the blade to test its edge.
As time slipped by, the lights in the skiff's crew bay seemed to brighten. Suddenly the skiff decelerated and came to a halt. The trapdoors opened, and the six Vandals slipped down in glossy stealth onto the rails overlooking their drop site. Jyara whispered over their closed communications line to jump, and the team hit the snow with surgical precision. The skiff then backed off and the dull roar of its engines faded into echoes broadcasted by the mountains. They looked down the mountainside they'd been dropped on, overlooking the City of the Death of Children, the City That Docks, the City Cursed Justly, and the Tower of the Ghouls set in the walls surrounding it. In that moment, as they all temporarily turned off their cloaking, they all felt a sense of awe as they looked upon the Great Machine for the first time, and saw the lights of the City shining in the night.
"This is what we fight for. This is what the Houses united for," Palhas spoke softly.
"I only wish we did not have to fight for it," Greksis mused.
The others looked at him with expressions of uncomfortable questioning.
"My Captain, Shirska, was adamant that by studying these creatures we fight; by looking at their culture and what they value, we could share the blessing of the Great Machine with them. We could... seek diplomacy and end this war without leaking more ether or spilling more blood," Greksis continued. "I can't help but believe him."
Kixis and Weksis looked at each other for a brief moment and looked visibly uncomfortable. They briefly spoke in hands, and then Weksis spoke, "I don't think such a course of action is possible... They have already ensured the suffocation of thousands upon thousands of our children. Such actions... must be reprimanded and cannot be forgiven. If there was a point at which we could have attempted diplomacy, I believe it has certainly passed us by."
If Greksis paused to conjure a response it was only for the briefest moment. "No creature or race is so far lost in the dark that they cannot find the light again."