Duskfall

by Celestial Swordsman

Despair

Chapter 38

Celestia lay crumpled like a wet cloth on the hard stone of the ritual hall, with patches of her fur coat melted to her skin. While the battle began on the other side of the mountain, here Luna and Twilight contended with the puzzling failure of the ancient magic.

Luna had sensed a great ethereal pressure, as if some tremendous power had ground to a halt as it pressed against an obstacle. She peered into the largest crystal, which still illuminated the chamber. Clearly there was real magic here, so what was wrong with it?

Twilight calculated, “Was this made for regular ponies? Maybe Rarity isn’t enough to restore an alicorn. If it is like my magic, resistance from any of the minds involved could be an issue.”

“Whatever it did, I did not resist,” Rarity avowed.

The frustrated Princess probed the energy in the crystal by intruding some of her own magic into the translucent stone. The ether of her spell was knocked back to her instantly. It was familiar and pleasurable; she huffed at the irrelevant sensation. There was something about this energy that reminded her of the Elements of Harmony, but it was somehow different. There was none of the harshness that had cast her to the moon or broken her vengeful spirit. “This magic is not like yours,” she stated to Twilight.

Luna slowly and thoughtfully walked around the glowing spike and probed it from different angles. Then she investigated the crystals of the other platform. She returned to the center and urgently contemplated all she knew, but could find no answers.

Celestia’s investigations were of a different character. She shivered from the chill of the breeze on her naked, wet skin and of the despair that was seizing her. The events of the dusk times flashed before her. Through the pain, she desperately bent her mind to understanding her end.

“When you live a life and make a journey, you’re supposed to end up with some meaning or shit like that, right? It seems like there isn’t any point to all this, but it’s all a part of a plan. A plan means a purpose. Obviously the idea isn’t for us to unite and forgive and attain our survival. There must be some point to letting us come this far, when I could have just died in the palace, some reason for prolonging our doom. We are still supposed to die, but I’m supposed to understand something first. If it was Celestia’s gig, it would be a cruel joke, but there’s been an awful lot of lead-up to let the punch line be a whisper in my head. That’s not how you tell a joke, you shout the punch line with maniacal laughter. It’s more like something else. It’s like letting someone down softly, finally confessing something you couldn’t bear to tell them up front.”

She stopped; as Celestia considered the vast events and shadowy players, a sensation came over her like she was being watched, and not by ponies. She closed her eyes tightly and looked deeply into her own darkness. She consciously traveled deeper and deeper, through herself, and beyond, to something else, the something else.

In that abyss she spoke, “Hey you. Yeah, you. The absolutely ancient, deathless, powerful presence I can’t find and can’t get away from. Are you going to say something?” The voice inside her was recklessly bold; her anger bubbled up through the reality of her total defeat. Now that she truly had nothing left to lose, there was no reason to contain her defiance. “You did this and it means something, but you haven’t even told me what it is! You made all this happen, you made all this, didn’t you? You won’t kill all that’s alive and thinking without an explanation—that’s why I’m here, isn’t it? Now I understand, and you’re going to listen to me. I’M going to TELL you what you mean.”

“Fluttershy was wrong about her pet. She said it should still live, even though its existence depends on devouring other animals—and she claims to care for them, too! ‘The jungle does what it wills.’ That isn’t what she should think, it’s what she needs to think. I say it’s cruel not to kill the Ripper.

“You’re right, fuck it. Luna, Twilight, Rarity… They were wrong about me, they shouldn’t have brought me here. I do what I will, but they shouldn’t try to save me. I tried to take Rarity’s life to save my own—and they aren’t any different. They tried to bring me back—the biggest predator—to save themselves, and it was the noblest thing they could do. I tried to get away with murder, and they tried to get away with helping me. So you were right about them, too. And they are the best ones.

“But there is something else besides normal life, something besides normal ponies. The something else is in Twilight and her friends, in Luna, and a little less in some ponies, like Derpy, and even Trixie somehow under her thick shell. It DOES have a name. So, yeah, Harmony. I get that you’re not gems or a feeling in ponies; you’re alive, surprise.

“So yeah, I was a little wrong. There is something beautiful in all this that will go on when everyone’s dead. You are a beautiful thing, fuck you. The beauty that’s left doesn’t need to be observed to be fulfilled—maybe that was the idea, but it doesn’t work. What it needs is to be preserved. It has to be protected or it will be corrupted by beings like us. Boil down the life forms, mix them up, then make it walk and talk, and what is it? Wouldn’t it look something like a draconequus? Discord must be the purest sample. So this time you’re right, Harmony. Why would you let all this discord go on?

“I get it. This is you admitting to me that you fucked up. Equestria, life, was a nice idea, but this is how it turns out. Your little experiment failed. You made me, so you obviously fucked up. You really care, that’s what you are, but you have to end us. You couldn’t even kill us straight up, so now you’ve unplugged us and walked away. I’m sorry, but you are too, aren’t you? But you’re right, damn it.”

Spent on words, Celestia brought herself back to reality, whatever that is. She raised her head to use her magic for the last time. Though she was wet and cold on the outside, she knew there was still that fire that had been given to her as her personal executioner. Fire spells were simple to her; it would be easy to finish the task. As she prepared herself, she ranted in frustration, “I agree, so why do I still feel so wrong? I agree, so let me feel right, damn it.” Light began to well up from her puny horn, and then…

“Ahem.”

It wasn’t just any “ahem,” more like “aaAA-humm,” with equine vanity dripping from the ah and a sultry grind on the m. Celestia blinked at the ridiculously inappropriate tone, and looked up to see—of course—Trixie Trotter.