//------------------------------// // Epilogue: Redeem Us // Story: Redeem Us In Our Solemn Hour // by Cynewulf //------------------------------// Luna would find their bodies one by one. Poisoned, crushed, cut. She would find the trigger and after a few hours have pieced the whole desperate plan together. She would cry when Twilight was not with her, after they had been collected and laid out together below the steps, dusters over them like funeral shrouds. She collected their emblems and kissed each one. She found every Ranger and she gathered them under her wing like children, for weren’t they, in a way? Did she not know their names, each and every one? Twilight and Luna sat amidst the dead. The changelings had been moved outside and burnt. Luna had wanted to dump them in a hole, but Twilight had insisted. Flames were traditional. It was a small mercy. They said nothing for some time. Twilight felt sick and unhappy. Luna’s feelings were not describable. “I wish I understood,” Twilight said at last. “Understand what, Twilight?” “Any of this… I mean... “ Twilight sighed. “Why are we fighting? Why would anyone hurt changelings and make them into these things? Why would they be okay with it? Why would ponies choose to die? Why would they kill? And even when the why makes sense, the how boggles the mind. I can’t imagine…” Luna watched as she trailed off, her eyes unreadable. “Twilight, you do not understand many things, and I know that. It is… it’s alright not to know,” she managed. “There are many things I wish you did not have to know. I have killed so many ponies in my long, weary life that I have lost track of them. The same can be said for the friends I have lost to age alone, not to mention accident, disease, famine, and war. I do not think it will ever make sense.” “I thought we would be in time.” Luna barked a laugh. “I never am, no matter how hard I try. I can only ever seem to save in part.” “But…” “And now there will be silence in this accursed city. After death comes a lingering silence for those who are left. You will think, at first, that it is a question, but it is not a question at all. The silence after death is as final and decided as it is unnerving. Like a corpse. What do you do after? You try not to think too much. You try to run on past death and not to think, because if you think then she will find you a few days early, perhaps. That is the feeling.” Twilight shivered. “I’ve seen enough for a lifetime.” “And this is only the beginning. A never ending cycle. The centuries of peace my sister has given you are not the real world, Twilight, or rather they are only a part of the realness. They are a sliver of creation. “War is always with us in one way or another. I have seen the records--peace in Equestria, except. Except is always the operative word at the borders of history. The Pax Equus--Except. Pirates and brigands, monsters and invaders. Civil conflicts overseas and divisions at home. War and the rumor of war. Even when all is peace it is not well, and you will remember this and you’ll know that I am right.” “So everything is ruined forever,” Twilight said sourly. “No. Not at all. Not even I can say that.” They looked at the fallen Rangers. “They should make some sort of monument here,” Twilight said. “With their names. Somepony should remember them.” Luna, repressing a growl: “Because you do not know, I will forgive you this thought. No monuments. No statues and no great memorial walls. Do you think that they do anything? They cannot honor the dead, for they are beyond our ability to help. They commemorate for a time and then they are either little more than a pretty rock or worse, a tool in the hands of calculation. You cannot do anything for these, Twilight Sparkle. Nopony can. They have done the thing that did not need doing, that the world would have gone on without, for no other reason than that it should be done. Let them speak often of the martyred station, but I spit upon the hubris of those who knew nothing of what this was. There are no survivors worthy to build the cairn.” And then she looked down at Midnight, her eyes shut. Luna stroked her soiled mane, wet from the snow and drenched in blood. Luna parted the mess to see her eyes. The hat she had laid upon the young mare’s stomach, her hooves resting on it. She looked asleep. “I touched her mind, Twilight. Do you know… in a different world, what if I had found her first? I believe she could have been for me what you were for Celestia. I would have taught her the art of dreamwalking, and what her innate magics could do. In another world… but I live in this one. She thought about those ragged few we flew over, the ones I sent my nightshades to. She begged me to save them, and I have. Perhaps that is the meaning of this. Do you know what the meaning is?” Twilight thought. She thought for a long time. “No, I don’t,” she said quietly. “I want to say that it was to get the refugees to safety, but they couldn’t have known. I want that to be the answer, but now that I’ve actually seen them… It just…” “It sounds hollow, even though you do not think it is.” “I suppose, Luna. Why did you not go after the last few?” Luna stroked Midnight’s mane again. “Only mercy makes injustice just again,” she said woodenly. “Perhaps. Celestia said that once. Still seems foolish to me, but my heart reacts to it, so… Her meaning was that she wished to love her neighbor--the ponies she was with, the ponies she might yet meet. I want her meaning to be mine, because it is a thing I think even princesses could live or die for.” She looked up at Twilight, who bit her lip. Twilight said, “Will she make it?” “Yes. But I do not know… I do not know how well she will recover. I have done what I can, but Celestia was the one who healed. I had too harsh a touch for it. I too wished to love my fellow pony. But how? I do not know, Twilight Sparkle. I hope that young Midnight knows, but I do not think so. Maybe we do not know and we try regardless. When I touched her mind during a moment of exhaustion I felt… I…” Luna took a shuddering breath and was silent. Everything was silent. It lingered, like a crowd watching, waiting. Holding its breath for an answer but finding none presented. Only another question. Or rather, everything was silent but for the slow and steady breathing of a scarred mare wrapped in the duster of her office, laid in state yet still alive, clutching two beautiful Lunar emblems beneath a furred cap.