Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot

by Equimorto

Coming Home

"Do you ever think about the future?"

Celestia looked up at Twilight, and tilted her head to the side. "The tomorrow kind of future, or the five years from now kind of future? The answer is yes to both, of course, each at its own time and in its own ways."

"The really far ahead future," Twilight replied. "The really far ahead even for us future. The even we will be gone and eons of wind and rain and movements of the earth will have flattened mountains and dried seas and split continents apart kind of future."

"Oh." Celestia got up, and walked until she was next to Twilight, then lay down again. "At times, I do. I've lived long enough to see hints of these changes by myself, so I probably do it more often than the average pony. The mountain was at least a few centimetres taller when Canterlot was built. So yes, I do on occasion think about it. Why do you ask?"

"Do you think it will have mattered?" Twilight, who'd been staring at the night sky while laying on her back, finally turned to look Celestia in the eyes. "When that much time will have passed, will everything we're working for and doing now have mattered, even when it will all be gone?"

Celestia tilted her head to the side again, taking a moment to think about things. "No," she finally replied. "In the same way a flower will eventually die when it goes out of season, or a plant will eventually die when it's old, whether you water it every day or whether you leave it dry. In a hundred years, it won't have mattered if that flower lasted a week or two months, the result is the same." She scooted a little closer to Twilight. "But then is not now, and now is not then. It won't matter in a hundred years if you watered your plants or not, but it will matter tomorrow. It doesn't matter that what we do won't have mattered one day, because it matters when we do it."

"Doesn't it bother you?" asked Twilight. "Knowing that everything you've worked for will fall apart, eventually?"

"Yes," Celestia said. "A great deal. Knowing that there will be a day when I'm no longer looking over my ponies, knowing that one day they might be in danger again. That one day the Equestria I've helped build and defend will not exist anymore, and that the peace we have might not last forever. It hurts. That's why we continue to do what we do. Not to stop that day from coming, but to make sure it's staved off for as long as possible."

"That sounds somewhat pitiful, when you say it like that." Twilight went back to looking at the sky.

"We all are pitiful in the face of eternity," Celestia replied. "I've lived a life too long for a regular pony to comprehend it all. To them it's just a big number. But I've lived through it all, as you will, if everything goes well and you'll wish to. Yet I'm not much different from them, when I look at the age of our world, or when I look at the future." She leaned to the side, and wrapped a wing around Twilight. "But this isn't then. There's a long way to go until then, longer than you can probably comprehend yet. Certainly too long for most creatures to see it through. It won't matter to them that what we do won't have mattered, one day. That's why it matters, now."

Comments

[Venerable Ro]

Wisdom from sun pony. Good to see their relationship isn't entirely sniping...

[FanOfMostEverything]

A beautiful meditation on the transience of all things. Especially pertinent with Sunny Starscout and company looming on the horizon. Lovely stuff, this.