A Frayed Notebook with Pages Missing

by Ezn

Only Immortal (a summary)

Only Immortal

It has been six hundred years since Nightmare Moon's imprisonment. In that time, Celestia has consistently been met with failure when trying to restore her sister. After a miscalculation leads to the insanity and slaughter of a valued subject of the Dragon King, Celestia finds herself at a loss.

Chapter One

Queen Celestia visits the site of a great dragon's attack on one of her villages. Houses are scorched, casualties were had, and the body of the dragon lies dead in the town square.

It is her own fault: in attempting to use the dragon's magic to make contact with Queen Luna/Nightmare Moon, she let the dragon get corrupted and lose itself in a rampage. She knows this will put a strain on relations between her and the dragon nation (and Dragon King Kasdar). Especially since she had to kill the dragon herself.

Kasdar is none-too-pleased, and relations are strained between between the monarchs. Between that and the renewed hatred towards dragons, Celestia's plans for co-operation and integration will have to be put on hold for centuries.

This is, of course, just the latest in a long string of failures.

Chapter Two

Ponykind has long forgotten it ever had two monarchs, largely because of Celestia's emotion-fueled destruction of Luna's property in the early years of her banishment. She now regrets this greatly, as she misses her sister terribly.

When trade negotiations with the emerging nation of Zebrica fall through because of the dragon issue, Celestia is stressed and angry with herself. Without the products of Zebrican mining, her beloved academics – both in the School for Gifted Unicorns and other, general institutions – are unable to bring their exciting innovations into public use, and ponykind cannot advance. Her greatest desire is to see her people learn and grow, and this lack of resources stifles them.

When Celestia is at her lowest, dark thoughts of powerlust and warmongering creep into the corners of her mind. Bitter about her constant failures, tempted by an incessant nagging in her mind, she thinks to turn to the power of the stars.

Chapter Three

Celestia remembers the old days: her upbringing in a modest pegasus household, in the dark days of Discord's reign; her idle fantasies about what her horn and wings meant; her call to action at a young age, by a shadowy resistance movement (heavily reliant on prophecies from the stars); the day she met Luna (of unicorn stock) and Nova (born to earth ponies; the most unusual of alicorns), the only other alicorns in all the world.

She remembers their battles, their wins, their losses, their bonding and Nova's eventual temptation and betrayal. She was the oldest; their leader, but had displayed a rebellious streak from the start – her birth name was Earthsong. Tempted by visions of power, she joined Discord's side and curb stomped her sisters. The stars had said nothing about such treachery – they were quite plain that she would be the one to defeat Discord. And so, when she was about to strike Discord from behind and claim his power for her own, he used his magic to fling her into the heavens in the form of stars, thoroughly gumming up the prophecy and laughing about fatalism all the way.

Celestia and Luna did eventually defeat Discord, but it would not be for many years after that – until they found the Elements of Harmony.

Slipping further into evil thinking, Celestia considers using the Elements to wipe out those nations who would dare oppose her. She travels to the old castle in the depths of the Everfree Forest, but is unable to make them work, which drives her further towards despair.

Then she looks up at the stars.

Chapter Four

Celestia visits her foremost astrologers to ask about prophecy. They don't have anything of use to say, but Celly, feeling suddenly a good deal more powerful, uses a combination of that, Discord's magic (learnt from reversing some his lasting enchantments) and dragon telepathy to contact her other sister, the stars, and make a few destiny-changing requests. "Equestria's enemies shall fall before the might of its Queen."

That night, she dreams about the immediate aftermath of Discord's defeat, when the Elements made her and her sister immortal. Everything goes as it did then, until the Elements suddenly get angry and admonish Celestia for her recent behaviour. They tell her that if Equestria's queen is going to do something like that, Equestria should not have a queen.

For now, they sever Celestia's tie to the Elements, and she snaps. She stands up to the disembodied voice of the Elements and complains of her troubles and the fates of her sisters. They were meant to rule together, and now there is only her.

The Elements are silent to her plight, and the dream ends.

Chapter Five

Celestia knows her time is short. Her mane billows almost limply, and yet she feels a great power inside of her. Frightened by the prospect of death, she returns to the observatory and enlists her sister to further alter destiny. In the thousandth year, the stars will aid in Nightmare Moon's escape.

In the midst of her work with destiny, she is caught up in a conversation with NMM herself, where the latter congratulates her sister on her growing darkness and promises that they shall rule together forever. Noticing her sister's concern about her mortality, NMM encourages Celestia to let the darkness in, for it shall take the place of the Elements and keep her immortal, all for no cost at all. Celestia almost does.

Chapter Six

Nightmare Moon is not Luna. This realisation stops Celestia. She snaps out of it and realises what awful, horrible things she's been doing. She tries to plead with the stars to change destiny back, but they will have nothing of it.

…

Celestia demotes herself to a Princess, citing the evil nature of Queens. And then she waits, disgraced but making amends.

Author's Note:

Three main things I wanted to do here:
1. Set up the destiny thing with the pilot episodes.
2. Delve into some pre-reign Discord fighting with Celly, Luna and their sister, Nova.
3. Show that Celestia, while not burdened by death, is fallible and open to temptation. Not omnipotent, not omniscient, but trying her best.

This story had some interesting potential, but there's something very workmanlike about expanding a summary like this into prose that turned me away from ever writing it.