A Study In Nonsense

by Professor Piggy

Til The Very End

All throughout Equestria, Hearth’s Warming Eve was a time of celebration. A time to remember the ones you loved, the ones you held dear – a time to cast aside your burdens and come together as one beneath the banner of love. There were very, very few ponies in Equestria who didn’t anticipate the day, be it for the company of friends and loved ones, for the respite it offered from day to day life, the history behind it or – in perhaps too many cases – merely the gifts it promised.

Whatever their reasons, and whatever their motives, there were few ponies in Equestria who could truly say that they hated Hearth’s Warming Eve. She herself had received more than a hundred good wishes, and she had responded to as many as she could with a practised smile and a cheerful tone that didn’t quite ring true in her ears.

Celestia allowed a quiet sigh to escape her as she stared down at the stage from high above, and her sister shot her a sympathetic glance. There were few ponies in Equestria who could truly say that they hated Hearth’s Warming Eve – and it would not do to dampen the spirit of the day and the smiles on the faces of her subjects by revealing that she herself could be counted among them.

It was the same every year. She would rise, as she always rose, with the sun that was now forever a part of her. Or perhaps it rose with her. It was difficult to say, any longer – and they had been together for so long that there was no difference, anymore. She would forego breakfast, and instead make the long, solitary trip to the cave, high in the mountains and long since sealed, that only she would ever be able to open.

She would spend as much time there as she could – never long enough – just speaking to them and hoping they could hear her. Telling them how she missed them. How she had always missed them, and always would. Whispering soft words, crying tears long sealed away. And then she would rise, and walk away for another year. Another long, empty year without the ponies she had loved. Without the ponies she was destined to never see again.

And then there was the play. She hated the play most of all. She had hated it since the day she had helped to pen it, huddled with the others around the bed of Clover the Clever in her last days. A legacy, they had called it – a reminder of what they had learned, and what would befall the world should ponies become again as they had once been. A reminder, that selfishness and war had no place in Equestria. A bastardization, twisting the ponies she had loved into the vicious caricatures they would be remembered as for eternity for the sake of teaching a lesson.

An insult to the most amazing ponies she had ever known – the ponies she still dreamed of every night, and still cried for when she was lost. The ponies whose love had saved her from death in the snow, and transformed her into a being with power over the sun itself.

Clover the Clever, smart and quick witted – a mind that had burned brighter than perhaps any before or since, but also so much more. Beautiful. Wise. Giving. Arrogant. Insufferable. Wonderful. Her flaws had been stripped away – all mention of the fact that it had been she who inadvertently caused the conflict between the three nations lost forever, to portray a perfect ideal.

Clover had been her teacher, her guide, the first she had fallen in love with.

Commander Hurricane, who had forged their new nation in a land that sought to annihilate them. Brash, bad tempered, compassionate, loving, merciful and…and invincible, or so they had all thought. She who had faced down a full grown dragon alone and left it slain to defend the ponies she loved best – and to defend their new land.

She who had died soon after, holding Celestia close and whispering reassurances in her ears.

She, who Celestia had helped to reduce to a violent blowhard.

Puddinghead, unsound of mind yet possessed of more heart than anypony she had known. Puddinghead, who had spoken to the warring masses and won their support with soft words and warm laughter. Puddinghead, who had forged an alliance with the Griffon tribes that endured to this day. Puddinghead, who defied description, reason and sense.

Puddinghead, who had predicted Discord’s return and left Celestia prepared. Puddinghead, the slow witted clown who the people saw parade around like a buffoon, inciting wars and insulting the only pony of them who had ever really understood her.

Pansy, their chosen leader, the pony who had met her death leading an ill-advised war against the dragons to avenge the pony the play claimed she hated, reduced to a cowardly fool incapable of anything but love.

Platinum. Smart Cookie. Humble, incredible ponies of completely different stations and one mind. They who had worked together to ensure that the ponies of Equestria would always be fed, and happy. Platinum, the most generous of all ponies, who had taken her own life in one single selfish moment to reunite with her beloved Clover. Smart Cookie, who had spent her remaining days farming rocks at the behest of a madpony.

All reduced to insulting mockeries of who they were. The heroes who had founded a nation, ruled it, seen it prosper, and passed it on to her. The ponies who would never be forgotten, but who not even Luna had ever known.

Slowly, she rose to her hooves and turned away. It was the same every year. She had never seen the play through, until the end.

But this year, she had done all she could to honour them. She had cast the greatest ponies she had known in a dozen generations to play them. It was a small thing. But even if she would never see them again, she knew they were watching. And perhaps, just perhaps, they knew that she would love them until the end of time.

Comments

[BenRG]

A lovely little story. It really touched my heart and thoughts.

Of course, we know that all the characters of the Hearth's Warming Eve tale are deliberately exaggerated and flanderized because the story is more a morality plan than it is true history (although there is certainly the echo of a true history within). Were they the Six of their era? Was that how they defeated the Windigoes all those long millennia ago - with the Elements of Harmony?

Of course, Celestia had known them; maybe they were even her friends and teachers. Of course, they loved them all.

The path of the ruler is never easy and it is never clear. Sometimes, just sometimes, you must do what your heart feels is wrong in order to ensure that the greater good is served. That doesn't make the taste in your mouth any nicer and it doesn't mean that you don't feel like an utter heel for having done it. That's what you get for being a leader and a god.

[Convisku]

Oh.

Celestial as the ageless immortal, untouched by time yet still ravaged by it, alone in a way that even her similarly positioned sister cannot be. It's an easy concept to pull up, but that doesn't mean it's a cheap one. Well done. (again)

(...aww, Pansy...)

[TheAlmightySage]

That was painful to read. Well done.