• Published 30th Jan 2013
  • 18,131 Views, 331 Comments

Second at Best - Wages of Sin



At her father's funeral Twilight snaps, finally showing how she feels about her so-called family and friends.

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Revelations X

~~To Twilight~~

I am so sorry.

I wished to leave you on better terms, but this is apparently the way it was meant to be.

Yes, I princess Celestia, at the ripe old age of I-can't-even-remember-how-old (ask Luna, she might know) have finally passed on from the mortal realm.

I wish it could have been under better circumstances, I truly do, but my passing had to be this way. My life has been long and arduous, but fulfilling. I have done much for my ponies over the millennia, but they have done so much more for me.

I write this now, to you, the single pony that gifted to me the happiest years of my life. Not only were you powerful enough to save my sister, you the kind of mare who would boldly and selflessly try to befriend her. Despite having knowledge and power that surpasses any mortal, you didn't let it corrupt you. You are a shining example of harmony.

It was this that brilliant perfection that led to my complacency when having you clean up my messes. You were the mare for the job, regardless of the situation you were an eager and perfect cure-all. Seeing you so proud of what you had done and so quick to jump to the next adventure made me blind to how I was treating you. You continued to do so well in everything I set before you that I became desensitized to any danger you may have actually found yourself in. In my mind you were always my trump card.

I shouldn't say that. It makes it sound like I thought of you as a tool. It was nothing like that That is a lie, sometimes I did... You were my faithful student, the Element of Magic, a brilliant young mare, and by the stars one of the most powerful spell-casters in history. I tasked you with what I could not trust myself to contend with, to my undoing apparently.

I never meant to treat you like I did. Your eager little smile and your expectant eyes, how you were always so eager to take on my next "assignment". I eventually began to see the whole thing as a game. I couldn't present challenges to you fast enough.

I trained you for years. Nearly a decade of the most demanding and advanced studies of magical theory and practice, training in the arts and sciences, politics, sociology, ethics... I trained you for a lifetime....

And I am both proud and saddened to say that this is because I expected you to defeat Nightmare Moon over the course of a lifetime.

I expected you to devote your life to leading the discovery of the Elements of Harmony and slowly embracing your elements and each other over the course of your lives and experiences fighting Nightmare Moon as Luna and I did against Discord. It took Luna and myself half a century to build affinities to our elements. You led your friends to do it in less than twelve hours.

My greatest challenge, the endgame I had been grooming you to triumph over, had been beaten in less than a day. I didn't know what to do. Of course I intended to continue your studies, but at that point it was no longer a matter of time or necessity, you were free from the selfish shepherding I had directed your life with. You were free of the duty I had placed on you, and you were free to have friends and study more relaxedly in Ponyville. I fully expected it to last like that forever.

Then Discord returned.

I knew that there was no hope of defeating him. I was not strong enough to fight him, and even the Elements of Harmony were not immune to his magic, but I had to wager upon you or give up. I contemplated forfeiting the kingdom to him, to simply bow down to his rule. Truthfully, it was not the worst of fates that could befall the world, but then when you showed up in the castle eager to fight I knew that this was what fate had prepared you for. Not the Nightmare of a thousand years, but the god Chaos of all Eternity himself! Your culmination would be triumphing over the most powerful being ever.

And then you defeated him in twenty-four hours.

Life continued until Chrysalis attacked, in which case you not only handled the situation without any help on my part, but managed to show me how perceptive and resourceful you were.

And then there was the Crystal Empire... I suppose you had your doubts since the beginning, but here is where I truly failed.

Two major triumphs that would have secured your place in eternity and you were at the point that a full-scale invasion was an afternoon annoyance. My pride blinded me.

You say I purposely made your trials in the Crystal Empire more difficult than they had to be?

I did.

And it is likely the greatest mistake of my life.

I laid it out like pieces of a puzzle, a game! With only the vaguest of information and only the briefest exposure to dark magic I sent you off on an adventure. Sombra was meant to be a joke.

You were the slayer of Nightmares! Vanquisher of Chaos itself! "Banisher of Darkness" was meant to be a footnote.

I had fully expected you to engage him in single combat and crush him, and once that was through possibly leading the expedition for the Crystal Heart. Little did I know that you would learn of its existence and fixate on it.

I had meant for it to be "you and only you" when the plan was for you to simply defeat him as you were the only unicorn who was more powerful than him. It was your mission and I didn't want a weaker unicorn trying.

I am sorry.

It doesn't excuse my actions but I truly no longer felt there was reason to do any more for you when you could handle it yourself. You were just so powerful, so brilliant. I didn't stop to consider that you were still just a young mare underneath it all.

...and now I am sorry but now I have placed an even greater burden upon you.

As I said, I had expected your battle with Nightmare moon to be a lifetime event, maybe even one you passed on to the next generation, but before you came, my outlook had been even darker.

Right after the banishment of Luna Nightmare Moon, I had been left with a dying world. I had the Sun, but a moon that I could not move. As you may have suspected, no pony was meant to wield solar and lunar magics both at once. They are fundamentally opposite, like magnets that repel.

Left in the wake of the loss of my sister, with no hope, and with a dying society looking to me for relief, I forced myself onward and took within me Lunar magic at great expense to the world and myself. The relief I offered was meant to be temporary. The magic I had taken within me had truly been taken with dual purpose, first to grant relief to my ponies, but also selfishly to end my life. I had no hope of seeing my sister again, and knew that the force of the magics within me would one day tear me apart. I was content with this until the prophecy of Nightmare's return surfaced. I do not know when or from where the prophesy arose, but when it did I then swore to at least see the world on till then.

I did, you came into my life, and I managed to spend a few glorious years with my long lost sister.

From the bottom of my heart- Words cannot express-

Thank you.

Now I now must offer what will likely only sully further my image in your eyes...

I must beg of you one last thing.

This is my final plea.

Twilight, in my wrongdoing towards you I have now seen the error of my ways. I grew complacent in the way of the world and lost sight of everything.

I was blinded to just how ready you were to fulfill your destiny the task I had selfishly foisted onto your shoulders.

Just as I had intended for you to triumph over Nightmare Moon, so too did I expect you to fulfill the duties that came after, namely taking charge of the sun and leading my little the ponies in my stead.

You have had the potential to be a great leader all along, only my selfishness kept it from you.

Now I see the error of this old mare's ways, and I shall not hold you back any longer.

In my rage, the spell I mistakenly hit you with should have been powerful enough to incapacitate even the most powerful of spell casters, but now that you are infused with my magic you should not need much more than the night to recover. Upon your awakening this morning you have likely recognized my power within you. It is yours now.

However you may feel about me and what I have done, I must ask that you not let it affect the plea I make of you now:

Faithfully rule the sun. Bear it upon your back. Raise it every morning and lower it every night. Feed every plant and warm the brow of every hard working Plowright. Bathe Equestria in the life-giving glory of the Solar Sphere and never let it die.

It is the greatest regret of my life, what I have done to you, but I can only beg that you allow life to carry on, as only you can now do.

I am so sorry.

Forgive me.

Celestia