Falling
Falling.
She couldn't stand it anymore.
Falling.
She wanted it to stop.
Falling.
She wanted to end it all.
But she couldn't.
So she continued to fall.
Celestia woke up with a start, gasping for air. She had the same dream as always. Every night, every time she fell asleep. She had even tried to take naps during the day to see if it would help. But it didn't.
Thinking about it didn't help. Nothing helped. She couldn't control it. She couldn't avoid it. It was a figment of her own imagination, and yet she couldn't do anything about it. She was useless against it. She was a useless alicorn, with the biggest magical archive filled to the brim with thousands of books - and yet, she couldn't make it stop.
Deep down, Celestia knew why. She wanted to be perfect, but she wasn't, and she didn't want to admit it. If she was strong enough, she would have asked Luna for help, to make the dreams stop. But she didn't want to seem weak. She kept telling herself that she would be able to figure it out herself. Because if she didn't, then other ponies would think that she was useless. And she didn't want other ponies to think that she was useless. She didn't want to burden anyone else with her problems. Individuals had enough problems themselves.
An excuse. That was all it was, and she knew. Yet, she kept telling herself that. That it was because she didn't want to burden others. But she knew, deep down, that it was because she was scared. Terrified. Terrified of what they would think. That they would call her weak, and look down on her. That they would think of her as their lower. That they would laugh at her, and say that she was pathetic. That Luna would do exactly was she did, ignore her, and then she would just be her younger sister's shadow. A memory. An old tale. No, she had to be strong. She couldn't let them down.
But she wanted to stop. To just hit the ground, and stop falling. To give up, to let go, to do something else. To stop falling.
And she should have known how to.
But she didn't. She didn't know what to do anymore, and it wasn't right. As the ruler of Equestria, she should have always known what to do. And she didn't want to admit that she didn't know. She didn't want to be wrong. She couldn't be wrong. She had to be right.
But she knew you couldn't always be right.
Celestia always thought of herself as perfect. The sun of everypony's day, the pony everypony looked up to and admired. But that was until Nightmare Moon. But then Nightmare Moon showed her how much she had neglected everypony else. How selfish and self-centred she had been. And yet, after all of that, she still thought of herself as perfect. She tried to ignore everything she had learnt, and go back to the past, back to when everything was easy and she didn't have to try, when it just came naturally. But recently, she hadn't been capable of staying perfect. She would mess up small things, from dropping things, to bigger things such as messing up words in speeches. She was getting old and tired, and she wasn't paying as much attention to things anymore. She knew a few ponies that had noticed, but she could do nothing other than hope that they didn't tell anypony else, and to keep on going, to keep trying. There was nothing she could do but to keep trying.
But she couldn't end the pain. It wasn't possible. She couldn't leave her responsibilities behind, leave the world behind. She couldn't, no matter how hard she tried. So at some point, she stopped trying. She just got on. She would continue on like this. It didn't matter if she left her soul behind, and just became skin and bones, she would have to. It didn't matter if she just lived for the sake of living. It didn't matter how many ponies noticed, how many of their friends and family they told. It didn't matter what everypony thought of her anymore.
Once again, the same question popped up. The same question she had thought of everyday, after the nightmares.
Who is asking you to be perfect?
But Celestia knew it was ridiculous. She had to be perfect. Everypony wanted - no, expected her to be perfect. It was a given! Of course the princess of Equestria had to be perfect. How couldn't she be?
She knew it was only herself, but she didn't want to admit it. She would ask someone, but she didn't dare to. So she could never be sure. It was just another one of those questions she would have to store away and pretend that it didn't exist. To ignore it. But none of it mattered. Because no matter what, she had to keep going.
She had to.
She had to keep falling.