Dawn till Dust
It had been over a week since Celestia had fallen ill. At least, I think it was a week. Such small increments of time get a little hard to keep track of once you’ve been watching them tick by for a few millenia. I have a hard enough time remembering the years. So let’s just say it had been a week. Give or take a few days.
As unsure as I was about the time, I was equally uncertain if Celestia was actually ill at all. I hadn’t seen her. All I knew was that she had stopped coming out of her room and she wouldn’t allow anypony inside. Not me. Not the guards. Not even Luna.
In the meantime I had taken over the day shift for her since it was more or less my job to replace the other princesses when they were away. I didn’t have much to do. The sun still rose seemingly on its own accord, so Celestia’s condition, whatever it was, couldn’t have been all that bad.
Thus, I wasn’t so much surprised as I was intrigued the night her guards arrived in my chambers. They told me her highness wanted to see me at my own convenience, so I put my crown back upon head and strolled through the empty corridors to Celestia’s bedroom.
As I passed Luna’s door the guards bowed, and I nodded in return, noticing no sign that Luna was awake or that she had been summoned to see her sister as well. It was interesting, I thought, that Celestia would want to see me before Luna. So my curiosity bloomed, filling my mind like the sound of my echoing hoofsteps filled the halls.
When I arrived at Celestia’s room the guards lowered their heads in respect and one of them rapped on the door with his back hoof. Almost immediately I heard the muffled voice of my childhood mentor and eternal friend cry out from within her chambers. “Oh! Is that Princess Twilight, here to see me?” the voice said, though I couldn’t even begin to understand its tone. It wasn’t what I had been expecting; that’s for sure. Rather than weak and frail it sounded… ecstatic? Overjoyed, maybe? I couldn’t place it.
“Yes, your majesty,” the guard who had knocked replied for me, staring straight ahead.
“Well that does make one, two, three licks o’ sense, seeing as I did summon her after all,” came the strange but unmistakable voice once again. Suddenly a horrible noise somewhere between a cough and a choke rang out through the door, sort of like a cat trying to throw up a hairball. It almost came as a relief. That had been more like what I was expecting. She really was sick.
Only… I cocked my ear and tilted my head. The gruesome sound continued, dying out slowly. It didn’t sound right. It wasn’t coughing. It was… laughter? I had known Celestia for thousands of years, more than long enough to become intimately familiar with her diplomatic, princessy giggles, and this wasn’t one of them. Could this be how she actually laughed when nopony was around to hear? No. That horrible rasping noise couldn’t be her normal laugh. But then what in Equestria was it? My curiosity was quickly spiraling into all-out confusion, and I much prefered the former.
“Hay! What’re you waiting for, a signed order? Send her in!” she screeched, and the wheezing started once more. The guards quickly rushed to obey but I was already forcing my way through the door, determined to get to the bottom of this mystery.
As soon as I saw her sitting in bed across the room her snorting stopped and she fixed me with a calm, welcoming gaze. Though a pale moonbeam streamed in through her window, glinting off the purple jewel in her crown, her face was partially obscured by shadows. Something was off about her eyes, but I couldn’t see them clearly. “Oh, Twilight, how nice of you to come and visit. Now won’t you be a dear and shut the door behind you?” she asked innocently, batting her eyelashes at me.
The room seemed to grow darker for an instant as an old memory shot to the front of my mind. A memory I had long since tried to keep away.That had been a nearly perfect impression of Rarity. Had she done that on purpose, I wondered as I turned slightly to close the door in shocked silence. No. She wouldn’t intentionally bring back those painful memories after so many years.
“What did you want to see me about?” I asked coldly, deciding it would be best to start talking now before she went on impersonating my dead friend.
“I’ve called you here today to discuss something of great importance,” she said, turning her head away from me to gaze at the moonrise, reverting back to her usual self with ease that put me on edge.
“Of course,” I nodded, stepping forward and beginning the short trek across the room. Being personally summoned to her chambers was enough to tell me that this was important. But her erratic behaviour really drove the point home. “What’s the matter?”
“Matter?” she questioned vacantly. I watched the back of her head tilt a little, as if she really didn’t understand what I was talking about. By the time she started talking again I had come to a stop at the side of her bed. Though I still couldn’t see her face, it sounded like she was smiling. “Nothing’s the matter, Twilight. Nothing at all! I just wanted to make sure you knew today was my birthday!”
I flicked my eyes to the open window and quickly determined what month it was from the position of the stars along the horizon. My brow furrowed as I spoke frankly, “I think you might be confused. Have you looked at a calendar recently? Your birthday was four months ago, Celestia.” The thought crossed my mind that she had somehow grown senile over the past week, but I dismissed it, knowing that no such thing could happen to alicorns. The only thing that happened to us in old age was--
I would have gasped from the shock of my own epiphany had I not practiced concealing my emotions for the past few thousand years. If this was what I thought it was, I’d need to be ready. I tried to appear nonchalant as I frantically leafed through all the books in my memory for the most powerful disabling and protection spells I could find. Still, she seemed to notice some change in my demeanor. Her ear twitched and I watched her body shake in what I hoped was an effect of illness but I feared was something much, much worse.
“No, precious Twilight. I’m quite certain of my own birthday. It seems to me that you’re the one who’s confused,” she cooed, turning her head just barely away from the window. Just enough for me to see the end of her muzzle, and for me to see a sly grin dancing on her lips. As she continued to speak her voice gradually rose in pitch, and I could hear that horrible, snarling laughter bubbling up underneath of it. “Because I do believe that you just called me Celestia.”
She hadn’t even turned far enough for me to see her glowing horn before I was blasting a magical containment field around her. That particular spell had taken me, the Princess of Magic, four centuries to master. I developed it myself, starting at the most fundamental roots of innate magic and working my way up from there. It would cover any form of magic whatsoever. It stopped unicorns from casting spells, it rendered pegasi’s wings useless, and it even sapped earth ponies of their strength. It was only temporary, of course, but for about ten minutes whoever the spell hit would be little more use than a newborn colt. It was the culmination of a thousand lifetimes studying magic, augmented by the god-like magical ability of an alicorn. Suffice it to say, the spell should have worked.
And who knows? Maybe it would have… if I’d had enough time to finish casting it.
The same instant the magic was raging out of me, the alicorn in Celestia’s bed was on her hooves, moving so fast it was more like a flicker than a fluid movement. In the light of her glowing horn and my own magic I could see her face clearly. Sharp fangs sprouted from her malicious smile, and while her eyes glowed with hate, her pupils were reduced to thin, feline slivers. And that was all I saw before she threw her head back and solid light exploded from her horn, shooting out and ramming into my own spell. The whole room shook with the power of our forces colliding, but in a moment her magic overpowered my own, carrying it back around me and sealing me within a spell of my own creation. Then the magic closed in on me, soaking into my body.
It was like a fire had gone out in my soul. A fire that I hadn’t even known was there, but needed nonetheless. The light faded from my horn, my wings hung limply at my sides, and my knees shook, barely able to keep me on my hooves. When I tried to take a breath it felt as if I’d just tried to suck down a lungful of water. My ribs throbbed outwards, but I couldn’t get any air into my lungs. I cried out, my voice little more than a faint gurgle, and collapsed to the ground. I writhed weakly, my movements growing slower with every passing second as the edges of my vision faded into darkness. The burning in my lungs grew distant and a sort of calm washed over me.
I thought I saw a light. It was warm and welcoming, beckoning me closer. And though I couldn’t move my body, I still felt like I could simply float away and lose myself in its invigorating glow.
Of course, I can’t know for sure; I might have been hallucinating. Whether or not it was just in my mind, the light soon fled.
“Oops, silly me! I think I went a teensy bit too far. Let me help you with that.” I hardly registered the voice, but I felt the tingling of magic flow down my throat and spread out inside my chest. Suddenly I gulped down a huge breath of air without even thinking about it. I kept breathing and after a few seconds I felt a little bit of clarity return to my senses. Just enough for me to know that I was still weak and helpless, sprawled out on Celestia’s rug. From my position I could just barely tilt my head far enough to look at the alicorn who now hovered above me, grinning maliciously.
“S-So Celestia finally g-gave into the curse,” I glowered, voice shaking. “How long did she last? It was almost t-ten thousand years, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, almost,” the demented reincarnation of Celestia purred, slowly trotting in a circular path around me. “But all alicorns turn in time. You know that, and so did she.”
I held my silence. I had always known this day would come. I had only hoped I would be prepared.
“She really was quite stubborn. I’ve been trying to talk her into it for centuries, but she would never listen. As much as I’d like to take the credit, it wasn’t me who convinced her in the end.” She continued to smile, like an old grandmare reflecting on the long-gone days of her youth. Then she stopped, eyes shining with silent laughter. “Do you want to know what finally did her in?”
I only glared daggers at her as she chuckled.
“The boredom.”
Behind her the two guards from outside burst in, the one who had spoken earlier leading the way. “Your majesty, is everything alright?” he asked, forgetting to bow in his haste. “We heard an explo--”
The demented Celestia’s back was turned to the guards so they didn’t recognize her for what she truly was, and they never did. In a crackle of magic she vaporized both of them mid-stride. “Oh, now wasn’t that exciting?” she cried cheerfully, clopping her front hooves together and licking her lips.
The room quickly filled with a terrible stench. The odor of burned fur and meat. I gagged from the smell and the shock before shouting meekly, “You can’t do that! You can’t just kill innocent ponies like that!”
She shot me a pouting glance as if to scold me for taking the fun out of it, but her mouth soon curled up into a cruel sneer. “But I can. And I most certainly will. You see, while other Cursed Alicorns try to bring about ‘Nighttime Eternal’ or a ‘Land Without Love’, I have a much greater goal. Did Celestia ever tell you about how she created life?”
She hadn’t. In all the years I’d known Celestia, she would never talk about the creation of the universe, but just recently I had discovered a spell book buried deep in the Canterlot Archives, written in her own hoof, that led me to suspect she played a much greater role than she ever let on. For the past few months I’d been studying the spells, unraveling their secrets. The deepest secrets of the universe.
“No, I suppose she wouldn’t, would she?” the creature waved her hoof dismissively. “Well, just to bring you up to speed, she was the creator of all life as you know it. And I,” she grinned proudly, “am just the opposite.”
“It actually worked out very well for her,” she cackled, pacing in circles around me once more. “ You see, we struck a deal: She would grant me her body in exchange for three things. One, I prepare and execute a spell to end all life in Equestria, a way to sort of ‘wipe the slate clean,’ you might say, and finally get rid of you tedious ponies who’ve been boring her for all these millennia. And I was all for that, of course! That’s really the only reason I exist. The second part was that the only pony who wouldn’t be affected by the spell is the one wearing this crown,” she pointed to the crown atop her own head, beaming smugly. “And the third? Well, that one’s a surprise.”
Another round of baleful laughter echoed through the room. It seemed to last for a short eternity before the Cursed Alicorn finally got ahold of herself and slowly faded into silence. The whole while I just glared at her with contempt.
She returned my stare casually. I noticed her attention flickering across my face, as if expecting some sort of reaction, but I gave none. “What, manticore got your tongue?” she spat, trying to hide behind a quickly fading smile. After another few seconds I noticed the corner of her eye twitching. “No, ‘Pleeeease! You can’t kill us,’ or ‘I won’t let you get away with this’?” she pressed, imitating my voice with eerie accuracy.
All I did was stare, watching her face turn red with rage. "Aren't you going to try to stop me?" she seethed. "Do something!"
And I thought about it. I really did. I thought about using the very last of my strength to stand against her. I didn't have any idea how I'd do it, but that wasn't really a problem. When there's a will, there's a way, right?
But that was the problem, in the end. A lack of will. I'm not proud to admit this, but I thought about fighting for my life, and the life of everypony in Equestria, and I decided it just wouldn't be worth it. Why bother? I'd lived more than my fair share of lifetimes, and maybe it was time to find out what comes next.
"No," I smiled serenely, still envisioning that beautiful light. "I'm not."
My words echoed against the walls, then faded, bringing a tangible silence into the room. The cursed alicorn stood silently, her face blank.
"Well then," she finally spoke, though she was much less enthusiastic than before. I could almost picture her mane deflating, just like Pinkie's used to do whenever she was sad. Somehow, the thought of my dead friends brought me comfort rather than sorrow. Maybe I'd get to see them again wherever I was going next. "You just had to take the fun out of it, didn't you."
"Yeah," I sighed happily. "Sorry." I closed my eyes and a peace I never could have imagined settled over me. I was going to die. Finally.
"That's really too bad," she muttered, crestfallen. She sounded crushed. I actually felt a little sorry for her. After all, she'd be here all by herself once everypony else was gone. That would be terribly lonely. She grunted, "but a deal's a deal."
Then I felt her magic growing steadily stronger, and a familiar otherworldly hum filled the air as she prepared her apocalyptic spell. I let the sound envelope me and carry my thoughts away to a land where my friends had waited for me all these years.
I was inattentive to the slowly-building roar of her magic. Though her gathering energy illuminated the insides of my eyelids, my mind was focused on the thought of a much different light. I could imagine myself stepping into it, wrapping myself up in it like one of Applejack’s hoof-stitched blankets.
"Oh, goodness, I forgot to tell you the third part," the alicorn shouted over the now-deafening hum, bringing an end to my daydream. I cracked my eyes open, which was about all I could do with her magic burning so brightly. Squinting, I could make out her face, upon which a mischievous grin had blossomed. I could feel that her spell was almost complete, but why was she smiling like that?
"How forgetful of me!" she cackled, eyes gleaming with a wild light. "The third part of out deal... was this!"
In one swift movement she bowed her head, letting Celestia's crown slide off and fall towards the ground. As it fell she grabbed it with one hoof and knocked my own crown off my head, replacing it with hers.
"What!?!" I cried, heart rate skyrocketing, my peace of mind shattered like a pane of glass. "No!"
Using what little strength I had, I moved my hoof to try to pull the crown off my head, but the alicorn stepped on the accessory, pinning it down. "Why me?" I screamed desperately. "Why are you sparing me?"
She only grinned down at me and laughed, "Celestia's orders, I'm afraid. Toodles!" And the room exploded with the force of a supernova. White flames erupted out of the alicorn's body, tearing her to pieces while the fire flowed past me, sliding over me like water. For a second I could see nothing but white, and the roaring inferno filled my ears, blocking out my own miserable cries. Then the sound began to fade and the flames grew sparse. I could see them flowing out the window and taking off into the night sky, filling it with their own glow. I watched listlessly as they descended upon Canterlot, flowing through the streets and out the city gates to seek out the other cities scattered throughout Equestria.
The next minute they were gone entirely, disappearing far over the horizon. Everything was silent and still. One by one the stars blinked out, and the moon slowly fell out of the sky.
I felt the magical presence of the celestial bodies sputter out into nothingness. For all I knew, the whole world had disappeared along with it, for it was pitch black, and I didn't have the strength to produce my own light.
I still don't know how long I lied there, pathetically whimpering on the rug, the one fragment of reality I was sure still existed. All I know is that eventually my cries faded and I calmed myself down so I could think. Soon after, the strength returned to my body and I was able to stumble to my hooves. Using all the energy I could muster, I managed to produce a small light at the tip of my horn and cast my gaze around the room. If I hadn't known better, I would have thought nothing had happened. Everything was exactly the way it had been before, only there was no trace of any other ponies. I trotted to the window and cast a light upon the city below, noticing a distinct lack of pedestrians. I was the only one left.
At least my magic was recovering quickly, I thought, putting the window behind me and retreating back into Celestia's room. But what now? Everypony I'd ever loved was dead. I had failed them. Had my entire life had been for nothing? What was my purpose now?
Amidst my internal questioning I noticed a familiar book upon Celestia's nightstand. It was the spellbook I'd found in the Archives, which I'd been keeping in my room. Celestia must have known I'd found it, but she never said anything.
With my curiosity returning once more I levitated the book towards myself. The book that held the instructions for the universe, and, given enough time, the powers an alicorn might use to re-write them. A strange excitement washed over me as I held the book and realized just what it meant. The universe was in my hooves now. I no longer needed to wait and hope that the next life would be better than this one. I could make my own world, and I could make it perfect. In a sudden surge of excitement I launched a spell into the inky blackness of the sky, filling the endless expanse with a warm purple glow, spreading light upon the canvas that would be my new reality.
With the light came joy, and I smiled. A small slip of paper floated out of the spellbook and floated to the floor. Stooping down towards the familiar, impeccable hoofwriting of my lifelong teacher, I read,
“My Faithful Friend,
With this you can begin again.”
And so I did.