The Night is Passing

by Cynewulf

XLII. Celestia I: Author

CELESTIA

Dearest Twilight,

This is a long letter. Do not worry! (I know you’re worrying because you always worry about correspondence, so don’t worry about that either.) I hope for this to be a good letter. I also hope that I finish it before I leave for my journey.

You have been my student, my protege, my faithful one thing or another for an awfully long time, haven’t you? I remember when you were just a foal, when we first met. How dismayed you were! I remember thinking, even among the chaos, that it was so rare that my presence brought upon a child of any sort that look. I had felt such power. In that moment, when I invited you to be the one recipient of the Dean’s scholarship, I had no idea what sort of pony you were. You were only a child, upset and then ecstatic, excitable and in a strange situation.

Of course, you learned later that you were never meant to hatch the egg. It was only the first test, the one to see what you were like underneath the polish and bluster. And underneath you were very normal, Twilight. You were nervous, afraid, ashamed. Disappointed and very sorry.

You grew up. You struggled. Sometimes you were friendly and warm but mostly you were withdrawn, focused. Alone. I worried about you often, even as I was filled with pride at your accomplishments.

When I sent you to Ponyville, it was no trick. I knew you would need to make friends naturally, yes, and I hoped you would. But I had other plans just in case. I did not set you up for a failure nearly as great as you thought. You know I have limited foresight. I knew you could find others who you could come to love and cling to, and perhaps that is what forced my hoof. That hope.

Perhaps!

I was in my study a few weeks ago, thinking about the trip I am about to take. I’ll only be gone a few months, but I know you’ll be yourself--and please, know I am smiling as I write this!--excitable and perhaps lonely. Just a bit. I will ask you to write my sister in my absence, and this time I will reveal my plans within plans to you: I hope that you and my sister get along. She needs a friend, Twilight. And she needs to rule and feel the weight of her old responsibility or she shall never get out from under my shadow. To let her waste away, afraid of herself or what others might think would be wrong of me, and I shall not do it.

And maybe you could use another pen pal who isn’t me! I may be a Princess, my good and faithful student, but I am only one mare.

I am rambling. I know my letters to you are usually much more focused, but this is not a usual letter. You see, as I was thinking about my trip, I also thought about you and how I had worried about you when you were younger. I tried to encourage you, but every time you nodded emptily to my words and then refused to adapt them. Idly, almost as a joke, I wondered if I might not have had better luck writing it all down! Then you’d have listened. Or read.

And you know, that was a good idea.

I have lived a very long time, but that does not mean I will be eternal. I don’t plan on dying anytime soon, so please don’t worry! But there will be times when you cannot ask me for advice, or when you are far away from home. Or if I am to leave you, and you wished to speak to me…

I have decided I shall write all that I have to say to you down. A letter bigger than any other letter, a whole book, even--and perhaps this is a bit silly of me, Twilight, but I am very excited to write it. When I return, I will have the whole thing bound together and present it to you. When I’m done, of course.

In the meantime, I hope you and Luna exchange letters and grow closer. I think you would be wonderful friends, and if I’m honest with you, my sister could use somepony to talk to while I am gone West.

TWILIGHT

She felt alive. More than alive--she felt whole in a way that she could not describe.

Twilight opened her eyes and found herself in a strange new world, already on her hooves. This one was not as strange as the Well. But it was strange in its own way. She had never seen it before, and yet she recognized it.

The first thing, after opening her eyes, was to feel her neck. A scar was there, right beneath her coat, nasty and long. She winced, out of memory more than actual discomfort. She didn’t remember the pain of the knife at all, really. Just the fear. But that was over now, and she felt like it no longer mattered. She was free of it. In fact, her curiosity over her own coat’s thickness pushed out the horror of D’Jalin--as if something carried it away from her even as she thought of it. How strange. She usually kept her coat short and neat, but it was sort of wild and long now. Applejack could help her get in order. Maybe.

Hills rolled on before her, covered in a strange mossy grass. Here and there, Twilight saw trees, and found she recognized them: magnolia and poplar. In a dreamlike, soft wonder, she walked towards the closest magnolia tree, only a few strides away, and touched its hard, strong bark. It was real. This was no endless city.

She looked up, and found flowers there, white and in full bloom. Twilight smiled at them faintly. Wherever she was, it was a beautiful place. She laid out on her back in the grass and smiled up through the leaves at a blue sky. She watched the great fluffy mountains of cloud laze by, each in its perfect place.

And then she saw it--there, high up in the branches, was a hat. Specifically, a brown, wide brimmed hat she would know anywhere. She brought it down to her with magic. “Hello, Applejack,” Twilight said softly.

Twilight wasn’t tired, and yet she wanted to drift off to sleep under this tree. How long had it been, honestly, since she had relaxed? Ages, at least. Her mind searched, curious now for the last time she had felt this calm and peaceful. Something about… tea. Tea in sunlit rooms, a gentle smile, talk of books and a friend’s success.

Whether she would have surrendered to slumber then or not became irrelevant, as she heard something move behind her. She felt no alarm at this. She doubted she could feel alarm at something so small as movement. Twilight rolled on her stomach, stretched, and then saw the source of the sound.

Pinkie lay curled up, sleeping peacefully in the grass. Twilight watched her for a moment, noting the way her chest and stomach went up and down as she breathed, curiously wondering at her twitching ears and legs that kicked sometimes. If you blinked too slowly, you missed it. Had Pinkie always been beautiful as she was now? Her coat was immaculate. Even asleep, there was laughter in her face! Twilight smiled in response, feeling drunk on her own contentment.

She rose and left Pinkie to sleep, deciding that they could all use a little sleep. Applejack’s hat she rested beside her softly snoring friend. Her other companions would be here somewhere. She did not know how she knew this, only that she did in fact know it, and that she was rather sure.

Twilight walked in the sun, going from treet to tree in search of slumbering ponies. But she found none, and soon she turned back to see if Pinkie would help her search. As she crested one of the hills and looked down towards the first tree, she saw a familiar orange pony nuzzling her friend awake.

Grinning, Twilight galloped down the hill, calling out as she did. Applejack jumped, startled, but then waved back. The two met beside the magnolia, next to a groggy Pinkie, in a tight hug.

“Lands’ sakes. Twilight, we all thought…”

“What happened after--”

“You look so different--”

They both stopped, and then laughed. “You first, sugar,” Applejack said, releasing her.

Twilight sat on her haunches as Pinkie yawned and shook out her bedmane. “I’m fine. Now, I look different?”

Applejack nodded. “Didn’t recognize you for a second.”

Celestia. Twilight didn’t feel ill at ease so much as she felt… puzzled. Celestia left behind the shadow, and now the shadow was hers. Was she part Celestia now? Is that how it worked? Would it change her cutie mark?

That caused a minor panic. Twilight chased her flank desperate to see the familiar mark. It was unchanged. “Oh, thank Celestia,” she said and sat back down, ignoring Pinkie’s giggles.

“Ain’t that big a deal, Twilight. Your mane’s longer… a little wilder. Alright, alright, stop yer sniggerin’, Pinkie. It’s a lot longer. Are you taller?”

“She’s a little taller!” Pinkie affirmed, bouncing up to Twilight and measuring her relative to Pinkie herself.

“Your eyes… huh.” Applejack squinted. “Regardless, it’s minor. Guess that well’s magic, then, like we figured.”

“Magic,” Twilight replied with a smile, “does not even begin to explain.”

The three friends from Ponyville sat in the shadow of a magnolia tree under a gentle sunlight, somewhere only they knew, and Twilight told everything. She related how she had seen and heard and felt something like the beginning of everything. She told them what it felt like to sing in harmony with the heartbeat of creation. She struggled to explain what it was like to watch the roiling color and light of the well. About Eon and her multiplicity of life and time. Of the shadow of Celestia on the well.

Applejack took her hat back and examined it. “Now that’s a tale, Twi. I’ll be damned.”

“Explains the floofy coat and your hair and your weeeirrrd eyes and your horn’s a little longer and--”

Twilight chuckled. “I figured that out, Pinkie,” she said. “I’m surprised neither of you mentioned the scar.”

Applejack looked sheepish. “Didn’t know how to, hon. Seemed a bit rude. I’m jus’ glad you’re alive.”

“We were really, really worried!” Pinkie said, hugging Twilight, who hugged back, smiling. Wherever this place was, she liked it. The air felt lighter. Laughter danced right at the corners of her lips. “We were all freaking out because like what if you were gone and then Tradey went craaazy and Applejack had to keep me from swimming in that weird well thing.”

“Didn’t know if it were dangerous or not,” Applejack explained, placing the hat back on her head.

“Wise choice,” Twilight responded. “I would have done the same.” She blinked. “Wait. How did you end up here? What happened after D’Jalin threw me in?”

“Oh, oh well--” Pinkie began to explain, only to find Applejack’s hoof in her mouth. She made some muffled sounds that sounded like pouting.

Applejack cracked a grin. “Think it’s best if I get this one, Pinkie. After you vanished, Tradewinds lost her cool, just like Pinkie said. Hell, we all did. She’s faster. Got to him first, and I ain’t seen anything like it. That fella was huge, and she just caught him, lifted up, kept going...never stopped. She flew both of them out over the city and then dived down. Was tryin’ to divebomb him into a building, I think, just to be sure.”

Twilight shuddered. “That’s an unpleasant mental image.”

“T’ put it mildly, sure. After she went off an’ vanished too, Pinkie and I hurried for the gazebo thing with the well. Pinkie wanted to go in, I wanted to be careful, but I was about to dive in myself when the whole place started to shake.”

“It was kinda super scary,” Pinkie said, her mouth free.

“I was about to get me and Pinks here the heck outta Dodge when the well started glowin’. Couldn’t see a thing. I felt all… slow like. Like something or somepony was tryin’ to weigh me down, and then I heard something like the wind.”

“And then you were here?” Twilight asked.

Applejack nodded. “Caught up into the clouds, like. Strange, but somehow I ain’t as worried as I should be.”

“It’s this place, I think,” Twilight said. “It seems to exert a calming influence. I’m not sure why yet, honestly.”

“Well, it doesn’t seem dangerous. Ain’t harmed us while we slept, for one. Even brought my hat.” Applejack laid a reverent hoof on the hat in question.

“Yeah! And the grass is soft and springy and the trees are shady. It’s great.” Pinkie smiled, and then suddenly paused. She put a hoof to her chin. “Where are the others? Well. The one other,” she said with a frown. “Where’s Tradey?”

Twilight shrugged. “I’m not sure. I think that Eon brought us here, and if I’m right, then she brought Tradewinds… and wherever we are, I think it’s probably why I don’t feel as urgent about finding her as I should.”

They all absorbed that for a moment.

“So it’s like some kinda sedative, the air here,” Applejack said.

Twilight nodded. “I suppose so.”

“Well.” Applejack stood and dusted herself off. “Well, I can’t really feel too worried about that, but I do feel like we should find Tradewinds. You girls up for it?”

They nodded. Twilight hoped this place was simply good. Because if it were some kind of trap she was going to have way too hard a time feeling alarmed.

CELESTIA

Dearest Twilight,

I boarded the fine ship Sunflower yesterday, and now I write on the deck. I am, of course, in disguise. After you live as long as I do, sometimes you want to wear a new face for awhile, if only to get a different reaction than the last nineteen thousand times you entered the room.

So today I’m Sunny Skies the curious pegasus scholar, off to update Equestria’s maps of the Western shore and maybe learn something while I’m there. Which isn’t entirely untrue--on both counts. I do intend to pick up some maps and charts for my study while I’m there, and I do intend to share them with the cartographer’s guild in Canterlot. Frankly, I feel rather silly about Equestria’s relative ignorance of the West. You would think that the nation I rule and guide would know a bit more about my birthplace, but it is rather far away, and I have not exactly encouraged them much to cross the sea.

The West is full of all kinds of terrible memories, as well as a flood of wonderful and joyous ones.

Twilight, I think, here in my letters to you, I should be honest. I try to be as honest with you as I can be without hurting your feelings, wounding your heart, scarring your confidence. I worry even about writing that, for fear you will see fault in yourself where I see nothing but a good heart. Sometimes, honest hearts lead to less than honest actions. I tell you the truth, but not all at once. You know now in part, but later you will know in full.

Why do I do that? Well, partially, it’s because it's pretty bad form to tell a little filly that her handwriting is terrible, and it was better to just help you than to explain why you needed help. Some of it I blame on my own worry. My many years have given me much experience, Twilight, but only a fool thinks that thousands of years give one true and surefire answers. I have seen so many different kinds of ponies and seen almost exact circumstances turn out a dozen different ways. If anything, I grow less sure as time goes on.

And sometimes, not because I’m shielding you or afraid of what it might do to you, but because… I really, really simply don’t want to talk about things sometimes. Like now. I know my own purposes. Why should I write them down? I will write them down, of course, but not here. I don’t want to write about such things here on the deck of this fine ship in the light of my own sun.

But I will “tell” you this, even if this is a letter you may never read. When I left you in Ponyville, I was not lying--it was a sabbatical I sought. Not a long one, but simply a short time away from duties and stress, a time to catch my breath. Equestria has changed by leaps and bounds since my sister returned. She brought back with her some of the old technological knowledge of the previous age, and combined with advances in magic beyond her ken. Things in Equestria have changed and will continue to change. That is a good thing, Twilight. A very good thing! But it may be a hard thing, too. Change often is, and I foresee a lot of change. And I wanted a moment to catch my breath here at the start of it, go back to the homeland of my past, ground myself.

But because I am honest, I will tell you that I had other reasons--reasons that made an idle wish for vacation into a real plan to go West. I hope to be disappointed in what I find beyond Valon and the coast. That would be the greatest vacation of all, to be assured that all is well and perhaps see a pony I should not have left behind for so long.

I think I will ask her to come back with me, if my worries are unfoundedl. Luna will be delighted to see her alive and well.

LUNA

It was perhaps fitting that she sat now in a deep and abiding darkness. Very fitting. It fit her mood. It fit the mood of the city. It was fitting for their fates, collectively.

Luna had not moved in an hour at least. The palace was dressed for mourning, per her wishes, relayed not by her own words but by the words of her aide. The staff had left the halls empty. No guards walked either. Past the public parts of the palace there was only herself and perhaps Page Turner. If he was still working. She wasn’t sure. Honestly, she didn’t care. Had it been her, abandoned by her mistress to deal with the details of evacuation and lodging, she might have simply surrendered.

She had felt him die. No matter where her thoughts wandered, they always returned to that central point. She had felt him die. Spike was dead. Gone. Vanished. His body was mangled and his spirit caught up into the air.

She had no more tears--she had shed them all already. Hours of sobs. Her eyes burned slightly. Her throat was raw. Her body felt stiff. These things did not move her.

What did move her, at least in spirit, was the realization that she was going to have to tell Twilight.

Luna Songbourne, sole remaining regent, Hammer of West, Defender of Equestria, the Wrathful, the Vigilant, the Indomitable, the Revenant. Fear was not something she felt often. Not true fear. Anxiety? Worry? Often.

She had to tell Twilight Sparkle that Spike, her number one assistant, her dear Spike, was dead. He was dead and gone and no magic could retrieve him.

Luna shuddered.

When would she tell her? Soon. It had to be soon. That was the right way to do things--the world had not changed in that respect while she had been gone. How? Dreams. Of course. She would come to her in a dream.

Luna moved for the first time in hours. She stood and stretched. Her limbs still felt stiff, but it was nice.

Cautious despite the safety and the isolation, Luna wandered the room. It was Spike’s room in the castle. Of course it was. Where else could she have gone at this hour? Had she the energy, Luna might have felt bitter about her own presumption, but she was mostly just… nothing. She stared at the mostly spartan apartments. Blinked.

Luna returned to her corner and looked at it for awhile. No, it would not serve. She would lie upon Spike’s bed. She was weary. Regardless, she would need her strength whatever came next. And she did not wish to be here anymore--here being anywhere but the Aether.

How many loved ones had Luna lost? How many friends, acquaintances, enemies? They were like the stars in her sky or the sand on the beach that Luna walked in her own shifting, amorphous dream. The transition from wakefulness to Dreamwalking was seamless. Her body in that world no doubt slumped awkwardly against Spike’s old bed. No one would notice or see.

The sand crunched beneath her hooves. She liked the sound. Luna had always enjoyed beaches, in general. Celestia had been the sailor. Leave Luna at the shore, and she would be glad enough, as exciting as exploring the islands of the West had been in her youth. A breeze caressed her face and ran its cool fingers through her mane, devoid of its starry night or magic glory. It was short now. She rarely left it this way.

She pushed windswept strands of hair from her face, only for them to turn. Snorting, she turned her head towards the source of the wind and commanded it to cease.

It did not cease immediately, but it died down. Beyond, the dream was not fully formed. Luna pushed her mind into the chaos, and in a moment she was walking on the shores of the Midway island. Why there? Why not? Why anywhere, was the real question.

This is foolish. I am drifting in self-pity. I should be working to make Spike’s… She couldn’t even think it. Then how will you tell your beloved? she sneered at herself. For you surely know she will no longer be that. She is going to blame you, Luna.

She was probably right to. Or would be right to, when Luna told her. You could wait, she thought, but she knew she could not wait.

Spike was my companion. Twilight entrusted me with his person and his safety, to be his guide and protector as he was to be my confidant. His life and safety were my responsibility. I have failed her in the worst imaginable way. I have failed myself.

Crunch. Crunch. More sand beneath her hooves.

What could she have done? Much of her silent mourning had been spent trying to undo the day’s events in her mind. She could have shifted her Nightshades from the evacuation to finding Spike and bringing him back. She could have gone herself. She could have brought him back at the very beginning, assigning the levies from House Belle to search on their own.

But Spike would have suffered the weight of the potential dead, if he had even come back at all--and she had a duty to the innocent and he too had taken on that duty. Going herself was a bad option, though she could not help but regret her caution. Alicorns were durable beyond normal ponies, yes. Long lived, certainly. But not indestructible, not unkillable. Where disease found no purchase and magic struggled, brute force had more success. Shields struggled with bullets and lances, and her shields were no different. Dozens of times more powerful than even the veteran unicorns of her own guard? Absolutely.

But whilst fortune favored the bold, disaster delighted in recklessness. It waited for ponies to leave the safety of wisdom and then it lept. Luna knew that a mortar would leave her helpless if it hit her while her shield was down or weakened, and even with all of her power behind her defense, the shock… She would have needed a whole company.

Luna felt unclean thinking of her own safety. But she was practical, sometimes. A dead monarch was never a good thing, but for a city as fragile as this? For a situation as dire?

They would all die in the chaos.

So there was nothing. Nothing nothing nothing. Lost another one, Luna. They all leave, don’t they? You remain behind, and ponies pass you like a roadside shrine. They touch you with a hoof, briefly, functionally, and then they are gone down the road. Spike is gone. Twilight will be gone. Celestia is gone. Page Turner has vanished off somewhere. Just ghosts, or ships you see through a fog.

Luna stopped along the dream beach and gazed out at the waters.

She saw the port of Maldon to her right, further down the beach, hazy and indistinct. A ship sailed towards it, and Luna knew it. She almost smiled. “Hello, Sunny Skies,” she said softly. Celestia had wanted something cheerful to name her ship. Luna had meant the name as a joke. Her sister both laughed at the joke and stole the name.

Luna sat down and thought about wandering into the water. Instead, she laid her head down.

“I am going to lose her, Tia,” she told the wind, looking out at the Sunny Skies. Would a dream Celestia be there? If Luna wanted her to be, she would. “I have to tell her. And she will hate me, and she’ll be right. I hate me, I think. Sometimes. Often. I hate me right now. Only Twilight’s loathing could match that which I pour upon myself--I talked of loving her, and I could not save Spike? Or keep him away from danger? She expressed her worry to me and I simply… I simply kept going. I could have retired him from my service, or given him something boring and safe that would have kept him inside and safe.

“But I can’t… there is no way to hide this. Where are you, sister? Why have you gone away? Why have you stayed there? If only you... “ she stopped. Her breath hitched and she squeezed her eyes shut.

“Why am I always the one they leave behind?”

CELESTIA

Twilight,

I have always wanted to protect you and to help you grow and mature into a wonderful mare. I have had mixed success! You have been in much danger, and yet you suffered through adversity and are all the stronger for your trials. Some of these things were great and terrible--Discord, Nightmare Moon, Dragons, Changelings… and some of them were smaller evils. Quarrels and misunderstandings, loneliness, frustration, anxiety. You have not always triumphed. You have had fights with friends that could have been avoided. You hurt others intentionally and unintentionally. I was disappointed with you along the way. At least once, you failed despite your best efforts--my cheeks burn with shame at the memory of the wedding of your brother. I would apologize again for doubting your good heart, if I had not already worn out the words through repetition on the subject.

But all along the way, I have hoped to protect you from the worst of things when I could. When you faced my sister in the Everfree, I had guards waiting in the wings, ready to distract Luna if things went horribly, horribly wrong.

Are you shocked? Perhaps you are surprised only because they were caught and incapacitated by my sisters long before you arrived at the castle, and her trap had already ensnared me in Canterlot.

Afterwards…

I regretted not trusting you, even as I did not regret trying to keep you safe. I only wanted you to be safe. You are my dear, faithful student, the one I watched grow up all of these years.

I am sorry for the tone of this entry, Twilight. I am a bit weepy today. When you live as long as I do, you carry with you a lot of memory. I have forgotten more tragedy than some of my little ponies have experienced in their whole lives.

And I’m glad. I want them to be happy. I only ever wanted that.

TWILIGHT

On a hill overlooking a vast and strange tableau, Twilight thought about Celestia.

Specifically, she thought about how long it had been. She wondered if Celestia would look different now, or sound different--did memory shift things like voices? Smell? Mannerisms? She had always wondered if it did. She supposed she would simply have to pay attention when at last her teacher was found.

And she would find Celestia. For the first time in a long time, Twilight believed that with a whole heart. Celestia was alive, if not well, and she was waiting. For Twilight herself? Perhaps. But anypony. Help or rescue. No matter what, Twilight would find her. Twilight would be there, no matter what the end of the road was like.

She felt no rancor or bitterness about what might be waiting at the end of the road. A younger Twilight would have wanted to go back to her little cabin on the Alicorn and hide. An even younger Twilight would have worried about failure, about making it all the way to the end and ruining it all. But this Twilight was a very different one.

Mostly, she pushed anxiety away and smiled. The hills and little groves were lovely, and the air was cool. A breeze kept the sun from being too unpleasant, and she was with her friends. Somewhere in her mind, she was aware still that this place was strange and perhaps unnatural, but mostly she was willing to let it calm her.

She also thought of Luna.

She remembered the words that had bubbled out of her mouth as she slid into the Well in Jannah. Yes. She thought about how they had sat in the fallen tower under a great and awe-filled sky together. She smiled, and remembered the warm feeling of touching Luna, of remembered embraces. She wondered to herself, still smiling, what Luna would say when Twilight delivered her answer. She wondered about many things.

“Think Tradewinds made it?” Applejack asked. She also looked out over the hills. Pinkie was rolling in the grass while they stopped. She’d already looked, she said.

“I’m sure she did,” Twilight replied easily. Pinkie rose and shook herself.

“Yup. Eon wouldn’t leave her behind! If she brought us here, then she brought Tradey here too. She probably just dropped her somewhere else,” Pinkie said. She flashed Twilight a smile. “I guess teleporting this far is kinda hard, huh?”

Twilight nodded. “Oh, very. I could never do this, not in a million years. The farthest I could teleport just me would be…” Twilight hummed, looking at a tree standing atop on a far off hilltop. “You know, I’m not sure. I really should figure out. Celestia wanted me to be cautious before, when I was testing the limits. The longest I ever got was a mile.”

“Well I’ll be… that’s a long way to just pop up out of thin air,” Applejack said after a low whistle.

Twilight smiled even brighter. “Mhm! It’s pretty far! But… it’s sort of unpleasant.”

“Like running really far really fast sort of unpleasant?” Pinkie asked.

“More like, ‘Everything feels numb and counting is hard for a few hours’ unpleasant. Almost straight up burned out. Had to walk home and didn’t use magic the rest of the day.”

“I don’t remember that at all. Why didn’t you ever mention it?” Applejack asked, still searching the horizon.

“Heh. I was a bit out of sorts. It kind of just slipped my mind.”

“Well, if you were that bad off…” Applejack stopped and leaned forward. “Think we got our mare,” she mumbled slowly. “The tree on the top of that hill, the one all by itself like a little watchtower.”

Twilight squinted and nodded. There, in the shade, she saw a shape that was suspiciously pony-shaped. Twilight chuckled. “Looks like it. Shall we go?”

And they did, heading off to another hill.

Twilight thought about the hill country itself. What felt like years ago, Luna had tried to warn her of the dangers of the west. Wild tribes, pirates on the coast. Great featureless plains. Treacherous cities and cursed ruins. Jannah. But of Jannah she had been too perturbed to be of help, and Twilight reflected that no amount of preparation steeled one for that place. What lay beyond Jannah she mentioned only in passing.

Luna sighed and shook her head. “There are things beyond, but nothing that would be helpful to you. I do not think you will have to go that far regardless. And what lies west of that cursed and evil city is… well. It would take more explanation than a brief counsel such as ours would allow, and you need to sleep for the road tomorrow.”

Had Luna been here? Twilight wished Luna was with her now, walking these rolling verdant stretches.

Twilight had always been a dreamer, in her own way. Not in the way ponies expected when they thought of those with vivid imaginations--aimless, drifting, caught with their heads high in the clouds. Twilight was none of these things. She was studious, focused (a little too focused), hard-working. Inquisitive.

She was also a daydreamer. She just didn’t let her imagination get in the way of research. But she indulged it often. Sometimes it was unpleasant--sometimes one didn’t want to imagine every single way Celestia could say “I’m disappointed in you” complete with perfectly reasonable scenarios and good impressions of the principal parties. Other times, it was inconvienent to find oneself staring off into space, daydreaming about what it might be like bury her muzzle in Celestia’s mane, have her beloved monarch kissing her shoulder. She had wondered what sunlight smelled like a few times. Those thoughts always left her feeling either shaken or uneasy.

She didn’t feel either of those things now, and she didn’t think about Celestia at all. She was thinking about Luna.

If she were honest, she wasn’t thinking about Luna so much as she was thinking of herself in relation to Luna. She had never been in a relationship. She didn’t really know how they worked. She was anxious.

Imagining what it might be like was, therefore, ridiculous. But it was enjoyable, and harmless, so she indulged herelf.

As they drew closer, it became readily apparent that the little dot that was now definitely a pony was in fact the mare of Petrahoof. It also became readily apparent that she was not alone. It was Pinkie who took the lead, bounding up the hill with a great smile, and so she was the first to come upon the stranger.

Twilight was second. She blinked down at the form that stirred in the grass.

“Eon?” she asked, hesitant, confused.

The alicorn in the grass was shorter than Celestia but taller than Luna, thinner and frailer than both. As her eyes opened, Twilight saw they were light gray, as if they would fade to white if she gazed long enough. It was strange, to say the least.

The alicorn nodded and stood on uncertain legs. “Hello, Twilight Sparkle.” She turned to the others, and smiled at them each in turn. “Applejack. Pinkie Pie.” She glanced down at the still sleeping Tradewinds. “She was the hardest to retrieve. It was all the moving. I’m sure you can sympathise, Twilight.”

“I can,” Twilight murmured, still confused. “If you’re here… are we in the Well?”

“No.” Eon seemed to consider Tradewinds further, and then she carefully, almost timidly, nudged nuzzled her into wakefulness. Tradewinds groaned and then stretched as Eon retreated.

Tradewinds smacked her lips, opened her eyes, and sat up. She saw Twilight and her eyes went wide and this was the only warning Twilight had before she was bowled over by an overexcited mare shouting in a language completely foreign to her. But it sounded happy.

Tradewinds kissed her face, hugged her, probably cried. Twilight was a bit too disoriented to understand what was happening before she was freed and laid dizzily in the grass, laughing.

“It’s good to see you too,” she said weakly.

“Twilight Sparkle, I thought you died!” Tradewinds said. “I was so, so angry! I was doing something very foolish and then… Poof!” she pantomimed her own flight down into the city, carrying D’Jalin. She paused, and a troubled look briefly clouded her face. “Is he here too? Where is he?”

Eon was shaking her head. “I did not bring him. He died in the street.”

Tradewinds huffed. “Good.”

Twilight spoke. “Eon… you left the Well? Finally?”

“Finally,” Eon said, and she smiled. It was a weak thing, that smile. Pretty, but frail. “I used quite a bit of power to move us beyond the Wetlands. After the trial of my city, I could give you no less. Welcome to Canna.”

“What? Where is that?” Twilight asked.

“Avoidin’ any place called the ‘Wetlands’ sounds mighty fine to me,” Applejack said. “Much prefer to be dry, really.”

“Oh, it still rains. Just not here,” Eon said. She looked to Twilight. “Canna is a special place. A haven. It is the last homely place before the End, you could say. It is always peaceful here, always tranquil. It is hard to even feel sad. Difficult, but still quite possible, I assure you.” She sighed. “I remember them all now, and in vivid detail. Even in Canna, I find only an adulterated relief.”

“I’m a bit lost,” Applejack said. “Who now?”

Twilight sighed as well. “It’s… a long story. Eon can tell if you, if she wants to.”

“I will. With time.” The alicorn tried to smile again. “In Canna, time stands almost still. In the old days, my brothers and sisters came here to rest or seek wisdom. Some came here when they birthed the races of this world. Your tribes.” She gestured. “All ponies began on these hills.”

Pinkie looked around. “This seems like a great place to begin.”

“It was,” Eon agreed. “They began outside of the world, and came into it when they had lived awhile.”

“Hold up. Outside?” Twilight blinked. She cocked her head slightly. “Run that by me again.”

Eon smiled at her, a little stronger than before. “Canna is a… the word you or Celestia might have used is a ‘zone’. I would say is that Canna is its own Dominion. If Creation is a tree, than this place is a fruit on its branches.”

Twilight nodded slowly. “Okay… a sort of pocket dimension? Reality? I’m not sure how to put that into words, but the picture works for me. Fascinating.” She laughed. “Regardless, I enjoy this place a lot. I’m glad you brought us here.”

“Same goes for all of us, I suspect,” Applejack chimed in.

“Yup!” Pinkie said. Tradewinds added her own thanks, and Eon seemed to be a bit bashful even as she smiled. Twilight was reminded of Fluttershy, but wasn’t so much sad at missing her as she was excited to return and see all of her friends--new and old--together again. Pinkie was going to have to throw some sort of party.

CELESTIA

Dear Twilight,

I left Valon this morning, and I am writing as I rest beside a river on the Veldt. I really should bring you to the West at least once. I think you would love the safer sorts of ruins that dot the landscape. Maldon especially--I forgot to write about it when we were in port, but we did stop halfway! Ha, because it’s Midway Island. Yes, that’s terrible. But I doubt you will actually be reading this, so it’s just myself, and I can tell myself silly jokes if I wish. I have lived long enough to enjoy frivolity.

Why then, do I address these entries to you? An excellent question! One with several answers. One of the answers is simple: you might read them after all, and wouldn’t it be nice for you to read letters as opposed to my own dusty travel log? I have always loved letters. Thousands of years, and I still feel excited about them. Even if the world were to change utterly, and we could talk at ease without magic across vast landscapes, I would still be sending letters. Partially because, once again, I am rather long-lived, and have earned my frivolity; partially because I am long-lived, and know that sometimes a written missive is more than the sum of its words.

Another reason is that it helps to motivate me to write at all. Another is that I intend to have a very important series of conversations with you and my sister and your new sister-in-law rather soon, and this is good practice.

If you were to actually read that I am sure you would be worrying. This time, a little bit of trepidation is perhaps prudent.

The truth is that I have been thinking long and hard about the changes in the world around me, and how I must respond. Thousands of years teaches me that I cannot simply refuse to respond. To not choose is to choose--beyond that, it is a kind of moral suicide to just dig a hole and hide in it, refusing to change. Despite what some of my subjects think (much to my discomfort) I am not a God, and am not changeless. I change rather more than most ponies know! For instance, I discovered in Valon two days ago that I have rather lost my taste for the local cuisine. I did, however, respond more favorably to that strange dish, the one which I cannot remember the name of… made from chickpeas, I believe. Wonderful stuff. Works very well with the flattish bread they still make after so long. I will certainly be bringing recipes back from this journey.

It also helps to chase away some of the gloom that my present surroundings inspire in me. This is my home, Twilight, after a fashion. Or it once was. Equestria is my true home now, not because of how long I have inhabited it, but because I have chosen it to be so. My heart is in Canterlot. But my history is here. Walking through Valon as Sunny Skies, I could not help but feel melancholy at times, remembering things. Once, Valon was a bustling but much smaller port of a vast empire, the busiest backwater in the known world--out of the way, and yet still thriving. A marvel, surely, but also a testament to the rather aggressively friendly shrewdness of its ponies. They were all earth ponies then. That has not changed as much. The streets are completely different. Fires and a few sieges will do that. So will civil unrest. War. Famine. Pestilence. Victory. There were greater ports, but none quite so picturesque, with those cliff dwellings.

I’m rambling. But I would be even more unfocused without the pretense of a “letter”. So much changes. My sister and I share this one thing most of all, that we are all but drowned in constant change. Sometimes it is maddening. Mostly it just makes one feel old and useless and sad. Yes, even I feel useless sometimes. Often, these days.

Things must change. Equestria must change. But not all at once, and not without guidance and prudence and patience. My role must change. My sister’s role must change. These things must happen, but they must happen carefully and rightly. I have seen every way that a civilization, a city, an empire can fall. I have not found any perfect solutions, but I have seen what roads not to go down.

That is why, whether I give you these to read some day or not, I will write this down now for myself: I must diminish. Luna must diminish. I do not say go away. Even if I were not a princess I would still be there, poking my nose into things like a mother hen, always trying to help. I could not leave short of death. But I must begin to push these chicks out of the nest.

This world is so dark and wide and great and terrifying and beautiful, Twilight. I want my ponies to explore it! I want them to come here, to the West. I want them to see the jagged peaks of the Griffons in the East, to go beyond that to lands I have seen and see again in dreams. To sail the nine oceans and to climb the ruins of the great peoples before them, to preserve and connect to the past even as they create a beautiful future. I have so much hope, Twilight. So much hope. I am bursting with it.

But I know that like any love, my love may yet be tragic. It may yet fail. Any true love carries with it the risk of tragedy, Twilight. You might be rejected. Worse, you may never be noticed. Worse still, you may be noticed after all, and poorly used. I know this very, very well.

Let me tell you a story. It’s about where I was born. Fitting, as I am going back for a visit.

I was the second to last Alicorn born. We are born in adult bodies, and my mother and father were not as I but were in fact One: the Song itself spun me out. In those days, we all lived on the great tableland of Jannah, though we had not named it so yet. There was a pool of the clearest and most holy water there, and we sang about it in turns.

Before I was born, when there were fewer Alicorns, they sang all of the time. But as more were born, others began to take turns. They sang in small choruses and in twos and threes. Sometimes, one of our brothers or sisters would sing along and we all listened. Always, the song continued around that cool water.

When not singing, we wandered the tableland, talked, flew down to the grass below. In those days, there was no cycle of night and day, but only an endless morning. It was this, the sun hiding at the edge of the horizon, barely peeking over to watch us play among the rocks, that I saw first as I emerged from the pool. I knew how to speak our primordial tongue even then, and as was our custom, I sang as I was born at the sight. But my song was different--all of our singing was different, but mine was a flavor and style not yet encountered. My sister Iridia, called Iris in those days, told me that I sang a march. I would not know. It was all a bit overwhelming.

But I knew, from the first moment I opened my eyes, that I was to wait for another’s coming. The first words I spoke were that my sister would be there soon, and that she would need me. They asked me what my name was, and I told them, and then I asked if I could sit by the pool until my sister arrived.

Bemused, but still happy for a new sister, they were very kind to me. I learned their names while I waited for Luna to emerge, and loved them all. Aurora, who loved to fly, and sang arias in the dawn. Thaumus, who created the first letters and you as well, Twilight, in a way. Gaia, the twin of Thaumus, who loved the lilies of the field below. Saros. Arravos. Chloe. Iridia. Lueconoe. Samara. Kyrie.

And one day, the last Alicorn arrived. Luna burst from the waters of the Well, for a Well it became--no longer alive in the same way, for the song began its final finale as my sister was born. And there was a great cacophony--a great discordant noise had come, and we did not comprehend it. But I believe the Song did, and there was a short clash. We knew fear for the first time, and we learned dread. What was this? Where had it come from? How did it spread across our sky as a crawling darkness?

But as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone. My sister Luna was born weeping, and I held her and kissed her mane and whispered her name as she was born.

My sisters forgot or tried to forget the darkness and the Noise. I never could. I was born knowing certain things: That Luna was my Sister, in a way different from Aurora and Kyrie. That we had a destiny that would be revealed to me in time. That one day she would need me to do a heard thing for her, and that one night I would need her to let the unspeakable happen for me.

Millenia passed. I loved my sister and she loved me. We bickered sometimes, and quarreled as sister do, but never did we doubt for a moment our abiding sororal love.But my sister was changing, all the while. When you are immortal, it is easy to be caught up in the illusion that you will never change, that anything that walks the earth could be unchanging. I ignored the signs--I attributed to moodiness what I should have seen as an abiding unrest in Luna’s heart.

I cannot afford to ignore change again. The last time was catastrophic, and now there are more ponies than there were then, and the Empire is returned to us. If the earlier error was two dimensions, this shall play out in three. I shudder when I try to imagine what horrors could be born out of this brave new age.

But I still love this world. I still love Equestria. The world is not a cold dead place, whatever it feels like in the extremeties where few dare to tread. I don’t want to lose any of it. I know you will understand one day what I am feeling, this furious need to protect and preserve, or at least to guide, or at last and most painfully to save. One day, Twilight, you will know what it is like to lose something or somepony very, very dear to you, and I think that then you will begin to understand the smallest bit of what I am saying when I tell you that we must save this world before it is in danger and not before.

And that is what I am doing. I dearly hope this will be simply a vacation, a visit to a pony I should not have left alone, but I know it will be more than that. I know that the feeling that assaulted me a fortnight ago was not wrong. I am not mistaken.

My love to you and Luna and all my little ponies. Be with my sister in her loneliness. She has lost so much, Twilight. More than I--I guarded my heart and kept it much closer than Luna ever could.

TWILIGHT

They had made good progress after leaving Canna behind. The ethereal happiness did not follow, but her high spirits did. She was in good company, out of danger… it was hard not to feel alright with the world.

Outside of the eternally sunny and gentle Canna, the world was very, very different. Now they walked a strange, paved road. In the distance loomed a vast collection of ruins. They were eerie even from this distance, like the metallic bones of ancient monsters resting now in the sparsely green dirtlands.

But the sun slowly retreated, and the party made camp along the strange road. Twilight was pleasantly surprised at how much of their kit had come through with them. Eon--Kyrie, she reminded herself--was truly powerful, whatever her current state.

They lit no fire--there were no trees nearby, and none of them would have dared to deface any inch of Canna, especially not for something as vulgar as mere comfort. As the sun sank, Twilight found herself and friends grow quiet. Applejack gnawed softly on her pipe--unlit, as she’d smoked the last of her tobacco in Jannah. Twilight wondered why she brought the thing out at all. Perhaps the action itself was comforting, like how a difficult question or conundrum had sent her to sit in the reading room corner in the old beanbag. And now she missed that stupid misshapen lump. It was an incredibly stupid thing to miss, but she did miss it.

Eon and Tradewinds chatted quietly together. Pinkie chatted a bit more loudly, but even she seemed more even-keel than usual. Kyrie! Kyrie! Argh. Gotta remember.

She didn’t want to squeeze awkwardly into their conversation, so she sat beside Applejack and looked at the ruins beyond with her.

“You know, when we get back, I could enchant that for you,” Twilight said softly.

“Cry your pardon?”

“Your pipe. Or I could enchant another one, if it’s special.”

Applejack made a little grunt of affirmation. “And what would that do?”

Twilight hummed. “Well… I could enchant it to tamp itself. I know you have trouble with that. Or self light, so you only have to inhale.”

“Sounds convienent,” Applejack replied. Twilight glanced over and saw her smile. “But then, what would I do to slow me down so I get to bein’ contemplative?”

“Ah, you’re right. Ritual.” Twilight shrugged. “I could do it on voice command, so that you have to ask. That way you could have it for when you’re tired or it’s dark, and when you’re in normal, brighter conditions, you could simply operate normally. That way, you preserve the soothing of the ritualistic behavior and still manage an increase in effeciency.” She grinned at this last.

“Sounds nice, actually. S’pose it might be nice to not have to fool with a light and tampin’ when it’s windy, too. I’ll hold you to it, when we’re home. What got you interested, anyhow?”

Twilight laughed easily. “I’m not, really. I’m interested in that I’m interested in you, but I couldn’t care a bit less about your pipe smoking. Just a passing thought.”

“See, your passin’ thoughts are useful.” Applejack grumbled something further which Twilight didn’t catch, and then she yawned. The pipe was dropped into a waiting hoof. “I can’t help starin’ at those… things. Buildings. Structures. Bones,” she finished, with a grimace. “Just look at ‘em.”

Twilight did. They were… unpleasant. As far from organic, as far from natural as could be possible. There were none of the normal curves and imperfections she had accepted as consistent with the world, and with the homes of those who lived in it. “When it wasn’t so… ruined, those towers were probably ramrod straight. It would take me awhile to guess how much magic must have been used to construct everything so perfectly. The tallest we can make buildings… Canterlot’s main spire isn’t completely dwarfed, but it was made by Celestia herself. We’re just starting to build with steel frames. We’re still working out the kinks.”

“Lost a lot of things after Luna wigged out,” Applejack observed. “Maybe ponies used to know more.”

But Twilight shook her head. “I doubt it… though I suppose it’s not impossible. They knew more, scientifically, then we do in certain areas, but not in others. We surpassed them in a lot of ways a century ago.” She paused, and then sighed, laying her head down in the grass. “Well, except for weaponry. Until recently.”

She felt a hoof ruffling her mane. “True. But don’t let it bite ya, hon. We’re almost there.”

“Yeah,” Twilight said, breathlessly, as much to herself as in reply to her friend. They weren’t, weren’t they? It was sort of unreal. No, it was completely unreal.

Twilight was in many ways an anxious mare. She worried. She fretted. She did both of these things often. Small things upset her balance with alarming effectiveness. A botched itinerary--even by a few minutes, with no harm done--set her eye to twitching. Tardiness in her correspondence with Celestia… well. She tried not to think about that. She tried very hard not to think about that.

It wasn’t that she was a coward. The opposite was true, really. Twilight Sparkle could be all but fearless when the situation called for decisive action, or when life and limb were on the line. It was the seemingly less perilous things she feared. The mare who faced down monsters and changelings hordes quailed at the idea of failing a mentor or friend. She absorbed blows but a frown tore her apart. The problem, then, was not cowardice but thought. Too much thought. Twilight’s mind raced ahead of itself and of reality. Every question--what will happen? What will they think?--was answered three dozen times over in a moment, and each scenario was worse than the one that preceded it.

So it would be reasonable, really, to expect the enormity of seeing Celestia again after so long would have her shaking. Of being so close to both ecstatic success and the most devastating failure of her life, with Luna and her friends, all of Equestria itself looking on.

And yet Twilight felt peaceful. She felt calm and collected. Worried, yes, but not overwhelmingly.

Was it Celestia, riding her spirit? Had she changed? Or did the song still echo in her heart? These things were questions, yes, even mysteries, but not the sort of mystery one searched out and discovered so much as they were simple opaque fact. At least, they felt that way.

Twilight yawned and rolled onto her back. It was highly undignified, but she rolled in the grass and laughed. “So close,” she said, her voice warbling a bit. A bit drunk.

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Same as ever, Twilight through an’ through. Long as you don’t do that dance.”

“Oh you mean like thi--” but as she rose, Applejack grabbed her, and they fell back to the sparse grass and dry dirt, laughing.

The next day brought them closer to the city.

They had found a sign of metal, but reading it had proved impossible. Twilight had decided to ask Kyrie if she knew what it might say.

Kyrie sighed. “Time is strange here,” was all she said, until at great length, and in the shadow of the leviathans of steel and concrete, she finally answered at length.

“You must understand this: time in the hinterlands of our world is, ah, soft. That is the best word. Have you ever wondered… No, I’m sure you did wonder. As a foal, did you not ask: ‘Why this way? Why not another way?’”

Twilight nodded. “Sure. Why three pony tribes in Equestria? Why not just one? Or just two? If the weather can work on its own just fine in the Everfree and in other ‘wild zones’, why not all over?”

“Well, suffice it to say that the Song is boundless, and infinite. Do you remember how I told you in the Well, of how I live severally?”

“Sure. Do you… um, do you still do that?”

Kyrie shook her head. “No. I am one, now. Forever, I suspect and hope. It is a very strange feeling. Alien, but not altogether unwholesome. But I only lived within one small village of existence. All of my severalness was confined to variations upon the theme the Song spun at Jannah’s height. We could not see what else it spun, but it spun more than Equestria and the West, more than your Ponyville and Canterlot. There are more things than ponies, more things than are in your philosophy, Twilight Sparkle.” She smiled wanly. “On the Hinterlands, you find castaways. No living things, or at least seldom do you find things alive. They go and stay and die and vanish as the fabric of our world moves. This city will be here and one day it shall not be, not because it has withered but because the tide came in and it was carried away.”

“I’m assuming you don’t mean an actual ocean,” Twilight said softly, watching as Applejack and Tradewinds discussed how best to navigate the strange city. They were all a bit understandably nervous about strange monolithic cities, but Kyrie had reassured them that this place was no Jannah. It was no more frightening than any other pile of stone and metal would be, and the only ghosts it housed were the harmless sorts of memories. Privately, Twilight thought that no memories were really harmless.

“Oh, but don’t I?” Kyrie asked, and Twilight swore her eyes sparkled.

They camped roughly halfway through. Tradewinds confirmed that the city was not nearly as large as Jannah and was not endless, which all but Kyrie reacted to with obvious and open relief.

The city was in fact completely different, just as Kyrie had said it would be: where Jannah had been unnaturally preserved and still, the Dead City was obviously damaged and in ruin. Twilight recognized the concrete beneath her hooves, but the pavement was still a bit foreign. She had seen roads paved with bitumen--asphalt, sometimes called--before, in Las Pegasus. They were more common in the South, where the terrain was rougher, but even there they were a novelty only useful for large vehicles. Ponies had little use for large vehicles before more recent times. She preferred normal roads herself, the kind with flat stone. It was a bit nicer on the hoof. Also, it didn’t absorb so much heat.

The buildings were falling apart. Broken windows, ruined signs--some of which she thought might have been lit once by electricity or magic of some sort. Strange glass screens which reminded her of the nickleodeons the Canterlot fair had sported when she had been a filly. Like a window, but one that goes nowhere. Could you project upon such a surface? I suppose it would go through the glass, and would keep the canvas beneath dry and safe outside, so you didn’t have any awkward folds in the projected image.

Pinkie and Tradewinds collected paper from the streets to burn in a barrel. It was a bit crude, but not so bad. With a few added holes, Twilight’s magic made it into quite the lamp. They talked long into the night. They talked about Celestia, but mostly they talked about home. Pinkie told Kyrie about her parties. Twilight told her about the library, and about the Elements and her home in Canterlot. About Spike. Tradewinds boasted of Petrograd in the ice and snow. Applejack talked about her orchards and the tightknit family that tended the best apple trees in Equestria, at least in her view. And Kyrie, in return, taught Pinkie a song of old Jannah and talked a little about her little gardens on the high terrace, but mostly she listened. Twilight thought she seemed happy, if tired and a little shy.

And soon, Twilight drifted into sleep, and slipped unawares into the Dreaming.

CELESTIA

Dear Twilight,

Tonight I rest in Isdrimir, on the great Imperial Way of Jannah.

It is raining as if it might never rain again, and the wind howls around my tent. I’ve enchanted it to resist the rain and wind, but have not blocked out the sound. I find that life is better without sterilizing experience too much. And I like the sound of rain.

I am not on vacation.

I felt it today, on the road. The sun was out, the breeze was cool, and the Veldt was breathtaking. In a moment, I was no longer in that world. I felt a chill that became freezing cold all over my body, seeping into my mind and heart. I felt the earth move beneath me, and ot as a gentle rolling, for I feel this often, but as a terrible writhing. A storm beneath the earth. At first it was like Luna’s hammers in her forge, but then it was nothing like that, for Luna is methodical and practiced and this was wild and without purpose or pattern. The ground beneath me warped and cracked and bubbled--yes, bubbled! The dirt bubbled like water boiled for tea. The grass caught fire, or wilted, or became… something else. The sky began to twist in a way I have trouble describing. I have trouble even remembering because I don’t want to remember. It hurts to remember. But it was like watching water swirling down a drain. The wandering, itinerant clouds, the free blue sky, all of it simply sucked away, torn from us.

Or, perhaps, just me, for in a moment I was back on the Veldt that was. The sky and the clouds and the grass and the road were all whole again. It had been only a moment, but I was shaking.

Twilight, I hear the whispers of the Song in everything. I am never without it. But for that brief time, it was taken from me. In its place there was only a sort of screaming white noise. Forever. I have never been more afraid of anything in my entire life. The screaming frightened me more than the warping of Creation around me. Because I have seen what magic can do to material existence, but the Song… it cannot be touched. But can we be torn from it, or blocked from it? I don’t think so. But what if we could? What if the very principle which kept our composite elements bound was simply stolen away in an instant?

Twilight, have you ever lost anyone? Yes, that’s rhetorical. I was there when your grandmother died. I remember you crying. You tried to be a brave little filly. I remember it all. But I think that soon, all too soon, you may know what it really is to lose somepony who was yours. You loved your grandmother, but she was a bit removed, already old. Your father? Your mother? She visits for tea still. In between tea and chat of you and a new season I thought how you might survive your mother’s passing. Morbid. I know it is. It is hard not to be, when you are old. Your brother, Shining? Spike? Applejack? Rarity? Rainbow Dash, stolen in a blink by a bad angle and a gust of wind. Fluttershy and a beast too mad with rage to be calmed by kindness’ gentle touch. Moondancer, recently reunited with you. Or maybe even simply passive acquiantances, the ones you mention only once or twice. Mr. Corner, from the bookstore, the one who writes poetry. The lyre player in the square.

I have learned to move on, to not forget but not to be crushed beneath the weight for very long. I cannot afford to be, no matter how bright my love. But here, in Isdrimir, knowing that the Shadow is very much awake… I can feel that hideous strength pulsing in the far West before me. Twilight, I can feel its coils around my heart, it’s fetid breath on my coat, its poisons in my mind. My intuition was correct. My dreams were correct, the ones I hid from Luna at great difficulty. She may suspect, but I hope she does not come. Coming here myself, now, might have been a very grave mistake. It is tormenting me with the faces of those I have lost. It is parading before me the forms of those I will lose presently, yourself included to my horror.

Luna, who always loved so fiercely, so closely and passionately…

Luna has lost so much. I do not know what it would do to her.

TWILIGHT

Twilight found herself in the Dreaming and knew it immediately. She smiled, and walked.

There was no real surrounding yet. She walked alone on a silvery sea of indistinct and murky water. With a thought, she could make that water transparent, clear, and see all the way to whatever bottom she could imagine. Canterlot could be there. Anything could. But she did not change a thing. She had not meant to Dreamwalk tonight. Luna must have called her.

So, eager, Twilight awaited her advent. Strange time passed, neither slowly nor quickly in the manner of the Aether, and Luna did not arrive.

Twilight wandered from the silver sea into a new place. She walked in her memories of the ruined castle Luna had lived in long ago. She walked through Sugarcube Corner and the Crystal Palace. She walked and walked.

Until at last she came to the strange fire in the barrel, burning in the intersection of the Dead City, the Unreal City. She sat by the fire and watched it flicker and burn.

And Luna arrived. She stepped out of thin air, and Twilight stood with a smile to greet her. She trotted over and wrapped Luna up in an aggressive and joyous embrace. “Luna!”

And the princess stiffened as if struck. She seemed to struggle to speak. “Twilight.”

“I’ve missed you. I have much to tell you, and lots of things have happened. We’ve left Jannah behind. We’re very close now.”

“West of Jannah,” Luna echoed, still stiff, still gruff.

Puzzled, Twilight let her go and took a step back. “Are… are you alright?” She gasped. “Wait. Is the city okay? What’s happened?”

Luna stared down at her and then slowly, like an old mare in fullness of years, sat back on her haunches. She hunched over and began to breathe heavily. And then she began to sob.

“I can’t! Oh, stars, I can’t!” Luna seemed caught in a trance, gaze moving from the fire to the ground, to her hoof, to Twilight and then quickly away as if stung. Twilight moved closer, eyes wide, frightened but mostly concerned. She reached out and tried to catch Luna, to still her.

“Luna! Please, what’s wrong?”

“He’s dead! He’s dead and there wasn’t anything I could do!”

“Who is dead? Stars, Luna, calm down! Please… please.”

Luna stilled, but it was not calm so much as it was resignation, like one with her head in a noose.

“He is dead. Spike is dead.”

Twilight blinked at her. The words did not hit. She did not scream or cry or faint away. She simply let Luna go and Luna retreated on her own. Twilight simply sat with the utmost reserve, the pinnacle of calm.

“What?”

“Twilight, Spike is dead.”

“No. He isn’t. I know he’s not.”

“He… he is. We recovered his… his body,” Luna said, eyes like a hunted animal’s. They shone in the night. Had they always done that?

Twilight shook her head. Somehow she wanted to smile. “No, that’s impossible. I would know.”

“You… but Twilight, you’re past Jannah. There is no way that you could have known. Even if you had some sort of scrying spell or talisman, Jannah would have destroyed any connection… I… Twilight, he is dead.”

“Stop saying that!” Twilight said. She meant to say it firmly. She, instead, screamed it. “Stop saying he’s dead when he isn’t. This isn’t funny. It’s not funny, please stop. Please please stop it.”

“I can’t. You have to know. He…”

“Don’t.”

“I have seen the body. He fell.”

Twilight, as was her nature, began to hyperventilate. “No. No no no no no. You can appear dead and cling to life. What happened? He could be alive. You’ve got to make sure they don’t… You have to make sure they help him. He’ll make it. Spike’s a dragon. He’s strong. There’s no way…”

Luna took a steadying breath and seemed to lose some of her fear in urgency. “The enemy has breached the outer wall. Spike fell before the gate to the second tier, as they closed the gates. He kept away sappers that would have kept the gates open permanently and most probably saved the city. An explosion destroyed the arches. He was… under them,” she faltered. Twilight stared at her hooves, her breathing quickening. Faster. Faster.

No. No no no no no. Please no. Not Spike. No.

Twilight shook, but she wasn’t aware of it. She began to lose her balance. Her breathing was shallower and shallower. Each breath seemed a little more futile than the last.

“No,” she said.

“We fought to keep them away from the rubble and I carried him from the rocks myself. I made sure, Twilight. I tried to save him. I did everything I knew and tried things I wasn’t even sure about. I did… I tried…”

“No, no, this isn’t happening. This isn’t Dreamwalking. It’s a nightmare.”

“Twilight, you are dreamwalking. I’m sorry. This is real.”

“You would say that if it were a nightmare,” Twilight said distractedly. Her sight was dimming. She felt lightheaded. Could you hyperventilate yourself into unconsciousness here?

If you thought you could. If you wanted to, maybe.

“Twilight!”

She was on the ground. When had she fallen? Luna was holding her, panicked, trying to get her to respond. Twilight was to shocked to say anything.

“No… Oh Twilight… Please, please don’t leave me. Not you too. Not after Spike,” Luna said, rocking them both.

Twilight shook and tried to speak, but her words came out like a sob, and at last she cried. She cried hard. She had no idea how long she cried. She didn’t so much as disbelieve as she refused death. She refused it. She would let it have nothing.

Death doesn’t ask for permission, usually.

When she was spent, Twilight lay whimpering in Luna’s protective iron grip.

Luna was supposed to guard him. Shock had given away to fury. She was supposed to watch him! She was supposed to keep him safe.

No one is safe, Twilight. Not forever.

She shouldn’t have just… sacrificed him! How else do you think he ended up out there? Twilight ground her teeth, but could not leave Luna behind. Don’t give me that crap. You let him die! YOU LET HIM DIE LET ME GO LEAVE ME ALONE YOU LET HIM DIE YOU TOOK HIM DIDNT YOU--

And like that, she was alone. Luna was gone. Twilight stumbled against empty air and landed on her face.

“Luna?” Twilight called to the darkness, but the darkness did not answer. The fire behind her flickered. Nothing else changed. “Luna? Luna, where are you?”

She sat and… well, she didn’t know what to call what she did. Any moment, she thought she might weep again or have an attack. Or start screaming at Luna, even if she was vanished. She wavered. She fell. She crawled a bit in the dust, and just… she wasn’t sure.

It occurred to her at some point that Luna had not returned, and even in her agony Twilight somehow realized that Twilight had done it herself. Luna had not run--Twilight had thrown her out. And yet Twilight blamed her for leaving. For her abandonment. It was unfair. It was not simply unkind but cruel beyond words. But Twilight did it. Because she was lost.

She lost track of herself in denial. She just kept returning over and over to the feeling of a little baby dragon’s arms hugging her and the sound of his voice echoing in the library and the exuberent joy whenever she took him down to get donuts after an all nighter and he would never ever whine about not having an extra donut. He wouldn’t ever joke about anything ever again. She wouldn’t get to see him learn how to fly or help him with his firebreathing or tell him she loved him or wait for him to come home or tease him about Rarity or… or...

LUNA

Luna lay astonished, sprawled out in Spike’s bed. Her head ached and her skin burned, but these things faded.

She pushed me out. It was too ridiculous to be true. “She did. She pushed me out of the Dreaming.”

Under normal circumstances, Luna would have been filled with pride. Few could have dared to do that, even when she was so distraught. It wasn’t impossible, just difficult and highly unlikely. But Twilight had done it by sheer… force of will. And all at once, what would have at any other time pleased her to no end filled her with a shame that pinned her to the abandoned matress.

Twilight had been so distraught, so wounded by Luna’s own stupidity, her miserable failure, that she had done the impossible simply to remove the odious presence from her by any means neccessary.

I am again banished, she realized. There was no moon, this time. No strange aetherial existence or fretful stasis. Only… only the emptiness of rejection.

Luna realized she was all alone now. Really and truly alone. She was out of places to hide, with nowhere to run and no single pony on earth to confide in. Twilight would never speak to her again. Spike was… Oh, Spike… Spike. I’m so sorry. Please… I tried! I can’t…

And she had tried, she was quick to remember. Three messengers. The first hadn’t found him. The second had been shot down. The third had delivered her fateful message.

You chose miserable crawling peasants over your last friend in Equestria. She had chosen to send her agents to evacuate civilians. You could have had him hauled back to the Palace. He would be alive. Angry? For a time. You feared his temporary frustration and you were paid with his death. Twilight could kill you and be in the right. She should, even. Worthless. Worthless. Celestia should have killed you at Ghastly Gorge. The Belles should have ended you there. Rarity. Oh, I’ll have to… I’ll have to tell her. No. I can’t. Not again. I can’t do that. I have to.

She tossed and turned.

She had seen and felt so much death. Once, she had felt that with the passing of time she had grown slowly immune to its sting. “O Grave, where is thy victory? O Death, where is thy sting?” she had once declared with the arrogance of youth and the folly of inexperience. But that numbness--it was not immunity but simple despair--faded and with it she felt everything as before, but simply worse than before.

It was the right choice. She wasn’t sure if she believed this because it was the right choice or if she believed it because not believing it would destroy her. What was the difference? What did it matter?

If the world stopped its turning and the fox faced the hounds… then she would meet it. Was this not the most fitting thing, really, for the end of days? She had doubted that Twilight’s quest would be fruitful somewhere in the darkest parts of her heart. Rarity’s army was made of volunteers and held together by spit and hope and a desperate need not to go gentle into an everlasting darkness and none of these things were enough.

Nothing ever was, was it?

Twilight was gone. Twilight was never coming back--even if she did, Luna had lost her. Luna deserved to lose her, didn’t she? She did. She absolutely did. What worse betrayal was there than this?

Luna was almost glad, as she stared at the dark cieling, for the raiders and the rebels and every wolf at ever door. Ready to devour and tear and break. Good. Let them come. She welcomed them--she would meet them with open arms and a kiss, she would prepare for her enemies and table, she would pour them her finest wine. She would drink no delight of battle with peers for she had none. She would sell nothing dearly.

She simply wanted to die and she wanted it to be ugly and without the dignity a warrior deserved.

Would she ask for what Spike had not received?

Twilight

She was still Dreamwalking. She was afraid to do anything. She was afraid of what was before and what was behind.

Her grief continued. Her crying was intermittent, and then infrequent, and finally it ceased. For now, at least, it ceased. She no longer shook. She no longer did much of anything. She watched the fire and she thought.

More accurately, she wrestled with herself and the living and the dead. Spike was dead. It hurt even to think. She must… she must accept this. It was the truth. Luna would never lie to her about that. Her…

Something like hilarity came over her, though she did not laugh. What was Spike to her? Wasn’t it so strange, they had never really decided. Was she his sister? His mother? His friend? Yes. Probably all three. It had never seemed important to her at any point in her life until that moment. What was he? Her brother? Her son? Her friend? Her assistant?

And with that train of thought, another: she would never get to talk about it with him. She would never be able to really explore that idea with him at all. She would never ask Spike which he felt was closer to the truth--never know his answer.

Luna had not returned. Twilight thought that whatever she had done had kept Luna out for good, and this brought a bit of fear. Could she return? Was this Luna’s dream, and if so, had she… well, for lack of a better word, broken it somehow? But this was pointless. She could return. She felt that she could, and in the Dreaming a feeling meant many things and all of them were true. When she wondered if Luna could return on her own, Twilight felt only a cold emptiness.

Twilight wasn’t sure what to feel about anything except sorrow, but few minds can manage a single emotion for long. She needed somepony. Any pony at all would do. She didn’t want to be alone. She already felt abandoned.

She wanted to call Luna back. She wanted to beg Luna to come back and hold her again and stroke her mane and say that it would be alright, that Spike was… no, that Twilight would be okay. That anything in the whole world would ever, ever be okay.

Twilight was intelligent. She was logical. Even in this great dark pain, she did not lose these things. Luna would never have neglected Spike. She wouldn’t have risked him flagrantly. She wouldn’t have thrown his life away for the world. Twilight wanted an explanation. She wanted to hear the story. She wanted one last story or memory or anything at all of Spike.

And even now, when her heart was in turmoil, she wanted Luna. She was angry. No, she was furious. Disconsolate and heartbroken and all but murderous but she wanted Luna. She needed her more than she perhaps needed any other pony in the world.

“Come back,” she asked the air. The air did not respond. “Please. Come back. I won’t… I’m not going to…” Her words died so easily.

Come back. Luna, please. Please come back. LUNA COME BACK.

She made herself into a great beacon, broadcasting a singleminded message as far into the aether as she could. Twilight could not explain in words how she did so. But she felt it, she felt the how and the what, and in this moment she did not give a damn about explanations.

If you love me, come back. If you really, really love me, you’ll come back and you will be with me. Please. I don’t want to be alone. I’m so… I’m so, so angry. I feel like I’m dying. But I need you here. Please come back. Please, please, please. Don’t make me beg. I will. Don’t make me. Just come back to me. Tell me you love me. Remind me there’s someone left who does.

And Luna stepped out of the air again. “Rough” did not begin to describe her. She seemed at wit’s end. Her eyes seemed sunken, hollow. Empty. Everything about her reeked of death. Her form in this place was a reflection of her inward self, and Twilight felt every ounce of it and she understood it immediately.

“I want to die. I should die. The world would be better if I died and never had to do this ever again.”

And something in Twilight snapped. Or changed--words are difficult and imprecise and foolish and altogether inadequete to describe anything worth saying and in that moment language was effectively dead. Luna seemed about to stumble, and Twilight caught her, and the whole world was just the two of them, and Luna was weeping, and Twilight found herself weeping again, and she lost track of--

“Tell me everything.”

“There was a bomb. I sent Spike to make calls with Soarin’ at the garrisons to investigate, but there was nothing. It was under the city. Catacombs.”

“The gate, then, I’m guessing.”

“Yes.”

“Where was he?”

“Further up in the lower tier. It was make-work. I had hoped he would find a few straggler whitecloaks and maybe one of them would let something slip, or that nothing at all would happen and he would be away from anything important. I hoped this would be enough.”

“It wasn’t.”

“I know.”

“What happened?”

“He headed for the gate. There was heavy fighting. I sent two messengers. The first couldn’t find him, even after two trips. The second was shot and killed. He led the survivors back into the city. They harassed the main body of the rebel army and slowed them considerably. It was the only thing keeping them from burning most of the lower city with the residents still inside. My third messenger found him long after, on his second try. Most of the dangerous area had been cleared. A scout had found a small group holding out. I sent him to get them moving towards the gate. I ordered him to come back to me. He brought them.”

“The gate?”

“It was slow and old. There was fighting at the front. He… He saw a vision of Ponyville. He visited it of his own accord to scout and saw such… such horrid things. I saw what he saw in our link and it was severed. I could not return. I almost lost consciousness midflight. After that, while they closed the gate he fought outside. He terrified the guards at the gate. I have never heard a pony say the things they said.”

“And a shell hit an arch.”

“He fell before the gate.”

“He fell before the gate.”

And the earth trembled under the weight of his passing. It mourned his going. The very air carried the dirge of his undoing. Or, to Twilight, these things were true.

They sat apart, but not far apart.

“I felt what you were thinking when you entered.”

Luna smirked softly. “When you pulled me here, you mean.”

“So I did? And I, uh, you know.” Twilight gestured without energy. “Kicked you out.”

“Yes.”

They went back to not looking at each other.

What was she feeling? It seemed almost vulgar to describe herself as merely angry at Luna--it worked, but it felt so meagre. She wanted to hate her, and yet at the same time, Luna had lost Spike. She had not taken him. Twilight had felt the weight of that in the Aether.

“I do not think he would have come back if I had asked him.” Luna shifted position, lying flat now beside the fire. “I want to believe that is true.”

“When I tried to get him to do things he didn’t want to do, he used to drag his claws,” Twilight said flatly. She was exhausted. She knew already that she would take up this way as well.

“He… I can’t... “ Luna stopped. She didn’t sigh. She just simply stopped.

“I’m sorry I kicked you out. I don’t know how I did it.”

“Not many could have.”

“Why didn’t you come back? I know I called you, but… why didn’t you come back earlier?” Twilight asked. There was no heat in her voice. More and more, she was becoming like one on the verge of dropping from exhaustion, all but in a trance.

“I could have wrested this structure from you,” Luna admitted, “but only at great cost to you. I could have done it easily, actually. But… the pain it would have caused you was not worth forcing my presence on you. I did not think you would want me there. I am confused why you want me here now.”

“I think I love you,” Twilight said, as flatly and emotionlessly as she had said anything in her entire life.

Luna didn’t answer at first. Twilight almost looked up from the asphalt to see what was wrong with her, but she spoke before the fatigued mare could raise her heavy head. “I do not understand.”

“I don’t either.” Twilight’s laugh was more like a bark. “I don’t get it at all.” She finally did look up. “I just… I’m so tired. Spike is really gone, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Luna… I’m not okay. But you’re not okay either. I don’t know what I’m doing right now. I didn’t want to be alone, and I just wanted you here and then you came back and I felt that and heard what you were thinking and…” She covered her eyes. “I don’t think there’s anything you or I could have done,” She admitted. Saying that was like twisting a knife in her own guts. It was the greatest admission. How weak.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know about being a warrior, or any of that. I don’t know about being a hero. But Spike, my Spike and yours… he’s a good person, dragon or pony--doesn’t make a difference. I think Spike would have been there helping whether he was with you or not. He would have come with me and I think he would have died in Vanhoover. Bigger…. Bigger target,” she finished. “You didn’t kill Spike, Luna. Even if you did, I don’t think I could bear to be alone.” Twilight offered her something that was an offense to smiles. “May I ask a favor?”

“Yes. Anything, by the Song, it will be given to you.”

“Will you just… I don’t know. I think I need somepony to hold me because elsewise I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose my mind.”

Luna crossed the gap, and Twilight Sparkle slumped to the earth in surrender. Luna curled around her.

They shared no intimacies beyond this, and neither thought much of words like love. Twilight’s giddiness had died, hadn’t it? She thought a lot of things had, and she would only find their bodies later. Luna quietly fussed over Twilight’s mane, and Twilight let her. She didn’t care one way or the other at all. It was just a mane. Manes weren’t important.

“You are different,” Luna said. “I keep feeling as if Celestia is right beside me, but…”

Riding my soul like a foal at a fair. “I met a little shard of her in the Well,” Twilight replied. “In Jannah.”

“Ah. So that is how… I see.” Luna went silent for a long time. “I would like to speculate, but am afraid.”

“Why?”

“Whyever not? I am in a very tenuous position, am I not? I am rather alone in this world.”

“You’re saying that,” Twilight noted, “while you’re brushing my mane with magic. I’m right here.”

Luna didn’t comment on it. “I believe that something similar may have happened to Spike. You know of my forge, perhaps.It contains a shard much like the one you encountered. My self and yet not of myself. Celestia built the forge and I supplied its heart. The shard within contains an image of me that once was filled with the venom of despair. It has been changing into something else, something I am not sure I recognize. I believe that when Spike’s vision of the shadow came and I fell out of the sky midflight… I think she went to him. Because I could not go, my own shadow went.”

Twilight was silent about this. She was not sure what it meant to her at all. Once again, some things are not meant to be discovered right away, or cannot be at all uncovered before time has eroded their shells.

“He wouldn’t have hidden,” Luna said.

“He wouldn’t have.”

Luna didn’t have to say sorry. Twilight felt her penitence in the very air. She could taste it in the Aether. It hurt her--because at once she wanted to say, “Oh Luna, I love you--it isn’t your fault. You loved him as well as I. You are forgiven if only you will stay with me.” while at the same time she wanted a bit to banish Luna again. She knew that Luna would go, if she did, and Twilight would never be held again. Luna would run from her in one way or another in any world that came after this revelation, and Twilight thought she might be right to.

“Luna?”

“Yes? Whatever you need, Twilight, I--”

“When you see ponies in dreams, is any part of them preserved from life? What happens to those who leave? Do you know? I’ve never really thought about it. I’m a young mare. I think very little of death.”

“Who really does, until it comes for them? I do not know for certain. They pass through the Aether for a time and then I do not know where else they go, but I know they are not annihilated there.”

“What do you think happens?” Twilight asked, snuggling closer, sullen, worn, aching.

Luna sighed. Twilight could not decide if she was calculating or simply worried. Luna’s concern, her presence, kept Twilight feeling as whole as she could. Which was not much.

“Perhaps they are caught up. The song itself takes them in, like a mother scoops up a crying child. I have dreamt sometimes, when I did not patrol or watch, that they are taken in. I think that they pass through the roiling serpentine aether and go beyond it, past entropy, past all darkness ‘till they find themselves in the Song itself, beneath the very world. Beneath all worlds, that inarticulate sunlight which you yourself have tasted, for I feel its light in you. Even I have not tasted it. Perhaps when I die, then I shall. Or sooner, if the Song can love one such as I--but they shall at last get in. There will be no crying there, I would think. Every tear wiped from their eyes, for there is no death past death itself, for even she can only claim you once for herself.” Luna paused, and Twilight realized that she was losing her composure. “Only once, and then forever sunlight and sleeping. Oh, Twilight, I do not know. How can I say such things, even think such words, now? How can you stand me to be here? Why have you called me back? Is it mercy or some awful kindness? Is it only coldest pity?

“It is all a trick, at the very end? A long awaited day that finally comes and then we are nothing? Was I fooled all along? Did I never think… but I never thought. Who looks at a pony or a dragon or a griffon or anything else at all and says--you will die--but I do! I do. I always have, and I did not, and now he is gone and I am vile in your sight and still I am here. I don’t understand. I don’t understand. What comes after death? I do not know!” Her voice was hoarse. Were her cheeks wet? No. They weren’t. Tears can only be shed for so long, that part is true of the cliche. “Stillness. Quiet. Maybe an endless plain, where they feast with the gods along quiet rivers under a swift sunrise. Maybe death is just a void and you are nothing. Perhaps all is suffering and rememberance of follies. I don’t know. Celestia would answer with warm faith and Star Swirl would have given you philosophy and Kyrie or Iridia would have comforted you but I have nothing! I am nothing! Why do you permit me to even touch you? Twilight, do you hate me? I am awful. Even in my grief I still… I still…”

Twilight did a thing which she did not want to do in the slightest, because sometimes the thing most out of place is the thing most neccessary. Twilight kissed Luna midword, and when Luna tried to flee from her, Twilight pulled her back in. It was not the greatest kiss. It wasn’t even a particularly good one. But it lasted, and it silenced the long speech and that was enough. Twilight felt insanely as if they were connected physically, that if she were to pull away, would it not be cold?

“I’ll hate you if you run,” Twilight said solemnly. “I’ll hate you forever if you run. You haven’t yet--I kicked you out, so it doesn’t count. I’m losing people I can say I love, Luna. Please don’t make me lose another. Maybe it’s selfish. It is selfish. It’s assine and awful but I can’t lose anypony else or I won’t make it. I won’t want to make it, and I’ll just go back to Canna and never leave. Stay with me.”

Luna stayed.

Author's Note:

I think perhaps that there is no way to write somethings correctly
that any attempt made is doomed to failure and that any excuse is just that, an excuse to cover up ones own smallness in the face of great and awful things.

I'm sorry. Law School will be demanding more of my time, and the Celestia interlude may be out within the next two weeks, but Celestia II will not be here until December 6th at the ABSOLUTE earliest. I have finals, y'all. I'm sorry. I'll do what I can. We have left, definite:

Celestia I: Author
Celestia Interlude: ?
Celestia II: Perfector
Chapter 45
Maybe Chapter 46 probably not
Epilogue

Goodnight.

Comments

[mimimi]

oh?
it ends?
so early?

[Cynewulf]

6632224 It's not over yet. My tentative and often too conservative estimates place the interlude at probably 8-11K, Celestia II at least at 16 if not 20... Overall, at least 50-60K of story left.

[Iron Nebula]

Hey, if you make it on the 7th, that would be a great birthday present! I kinda want to know what Luna will say when Twilight tells her what happened in Jannah.

[mimimi]

6632233
thinkgeek.com/images/products/additional/large/e58f_sarcasm.jpg

[Swarthy Skies]

Another great chapter. Also wow, didn't realize we were that close to end, that's a weird feeling.

[Carbon]

Nice chapter. Tradewinds still in team and thats wonderful.

[JMP]

I swear each chapter of this story keeps bringing me to tears. Such an emotional story, and it's fantastic. I don't care that it takes me half an hour to read a single chapter, it's worth it. This is easily one of my favorite stories on the site. I'm really curious now what happened with Celestia's trip that a supposed few months ended up like this, with the entirety of Equestria falling to chaos and Luna just barely holding Canterlot together.

[Aatxe360]

Finals are more important than this story. We can wait.

[RoboRed]

Glad to see that Tradewinds is still alive and well.

Eon has joined the party in physical form. I wonder what situations this will lead to. Moreover, I'm curious about the story behind the Dead City.

I'm happy they managed to get some temporary respite in Canna. Nice place.

Twilight took to the news about Spike about as well as I thought she would. Still, I was getting worried about her and Luna, though. Especially after reading Luna's thoughts right after she got booted out of Twilight's dreamscape. She was going to dark places.
Those two need each other. It is vital that they stay together if the other is to not fall in some form.

and I think that then you will begin to understand the smallest bit of what I am saying when I tell you that we must save this world before it is in danger and not before.

...Well, I hope Twilight understood it, because I sure didn't. (before -> before?)

Are you shocked? Perhaps you are surprised only because they were caught and incapacitated by my sisters long before you arrived at the castle, and her trap had already ensnared me in Canterlot.

"sister"

Luna was almost glad, as she stared at the dark cieling,

"ceiling"

Twilight

She was still Dreamwalking. She was afraid to do anything. She was afraid of what was before and what was behind.

You forgot to allcaps this header like the others.

[FoolRegnant]

For a while there I had a hard time reading the last ten chapters or so, but when I finally sat down and got back into them, I remembered why I first started following this story. I don't love everything about your headcanon, but I do love your command of characterization and emotion in prose. This chapter, perhaps more than any other, has helped to balance things out. After all the darkness, the constant spiraling, the constant tragic moments which have only been lightened on occasion, it seems as if the light begins to shine again. Obviously, the night is passing, and so I wait with bated breath for the denouement of this piece, for the final resolution to a truly epic work.

[Cynewulf]

6634834 I also considered:

The Earth is Not A Cold Dead Place
If You Tarry 'Till You're Better
What Was Meant To Be Organic We Refined Into An Engine (With the Celestia II title being "...Called it Progress"

[NikitaKitten]

I just feel the need to state (possibly not for the first time), that I love this story. I love the rich universe that you have created. I love getting lost in the deep lore of this world. And I love the ponies that you've animated to inhabit it. So thank you.

[Biker_Dash]

Hard to believe this story is approachingthe conclusion. It nearly killed me when Spike passed on. Yes, Spike died a true warrior's death, and that I do understand... but maybe it is the fact that I am an old warrior myself (USMC, 91-95) that makes the loss hit home all the more.

[Habanc]

I started on the 14th, and now two days later, I seem to have caught up. How 263,289 words seem to pass by!

I liked it. The words have an ethereal quality to them, and it's nice to have them bleed in like smoke as opposed to being fed porridge. It helps. The story's theme(s) confronts a few months of unchecked introversion, which I am discovering is not a great thing. Introversion is fine, but without its floodgates it goes gushing and seeping into things it should not.

Thanks for the wonderful prose and a few extra hours of sleep.

Also, that little ending here broke my little heart, in more places than one. Rock on.

[Cynewulf]

6648358 The White Death. Aw man. I lol so hard at people who think Chris Kyle was a badass. The White Death did more than twice as much, in below freezing, with bolt action and a crappy smg at a fraction of the range, outgunned and outnumbered and often cut off from help.

The only thing keeping Finland from conquering the world is vodka

[Backlash91]

You....you uh, made me cry. That is rather hard to do.....thank you.

[ponygrad]

After seeing the corruption of equestria, reading celestia's letters is a very harrowing experience. They are in character and completely in tone with the show, but they reveal a ruler who is less of a chessmaster than a stagehand. She is wise because she knows more but her uncertainty then weighs more heavily. Seeing her forge twilight's current path is heartbreaking and echoes twilight's realization of the depth of equestria's fall.

If Celestia is part twilight does that make it incest? Could you not choose between twilestia and twiluna?

[Kobalt]

Ugh, I just can't take anymore Twiluna after what happened to Spike. I mean, yeah, it wasn't 100% her fault, but I still couldn't even consider a relationship with Luna after that.

I'm so disappointed in you Twilight...

[livinthelife]

Hmmm, I'm glad Twi's party got a chance to rest in Fiddler's Green. My word, did they need it.

[Ice Star]

Do you just want me to mail you all my feelings if this is what your writing is going to keep doing?