A Familiar End, and an Unfamiliar Beginning
Celestia blinked.
The throne room filtered into her view and she smiled. Pink banners hung from the cylindrical pillars around her.
She spotted Twilight speaking to a guard at the other end of the hall. The pegasus nodded, before he pointed a hoof in Celestia’s direction and let her pass.
Twilight smiled and ran the length of the throne room, skidding to a stop in front of Celestia.
“Good morning, Twilight.” Celestia began with her smooth voice.
“I’m so sorry for being late, Princess Celestia. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting on me.”
Celestia waved a hoof. “No need to apologize, Twilight, it’s okay.
These moments were so fleeting, so she had to enjoy every nanosecond. Memorize every feature of Twilight; her face, the light in her eyes when she discussed her reports.
“Alright, then I won’t keep you waiting any longer!” Twilight eagerly removed some documents from the saddlebags she was wearing. She brushed several hairs from her straight cut mane out of her face and began reading.
“There’s a lot to cover with these reports, my latest experiment has been going rather well.”
Celestia blinked.
The throne room twisted and rotated and Celestia found herself staring up at the throne where she had previously sat. She recognized the purple alicorn now sitting upon it. The pony stirred, looking up from a paper she was reading.
Twilight’s ethereal mane shimmered and swam, gently reflecting the light that shone through the stain glass windows of the hall. She stood as tall as Celestia, and regarded her teacher with a look of joy.
“Ah, Celestia,” She stepped down from the throne, and flexed her wings. “It’s been quite a while since we last talked… how are things with you?”
Celestia opened her mouth to respond, but Twilight cut her off.
“Although I guess now it’s like a princess to princess talk, more so than teacher to student.” She giggled.
Celestia spotted the gem encrusted tiara resting on Twilight’s head. It seemed vaguely familiar. For a second she just stared, before she found her voice and spoke.
“You’ll always be one of my students, Twilight.”
Twilight looked down at the ground embarrassingly, but Celestia could see the edges of a smile on her lips. She rose back up with a laugh, “You still have to teach me how to raise and lower the sun, you know?”
“A princess does not give away all of her tricks, Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia teased. She turned and looked at the rest of the hall. The banners were different now, purple and emblazoned with a familiar star.
“I do like what you’ve done with the place though, “Celestia stated. The memories swam back into her head, and the momentary confusion subsided.
Twilight bounded up, almost giddy. “Let me show you the rest of the palace then!” The tinge of excitement in her voice was obvious. She grabbed Celestia buy the hoof, almost dragging her down across the throne room.
Celestia was more than happy to oblige.
“I had several architects come in to do some revisions, nothing that you wouldn’t approve of, I assure you.” Twilight quickly corrected herself. “I can’t wait to show you the new royal gardens, you wouldn’t believe what a little bit of mana inducement could do to some of the flowers and plants.”
Celestia blinked.
The world stretched and compacted again.
The throne room disappeared, as did Twilight. When she opened her eyes, she was floating in a void of emptiness. Cold sank into every pore of her fur and flesh, and her lungs crumpled and burst with each attempt to breathe.
She turned her eyes to the brightness before her, watching the edges of her sun lash and scorch as it tore away at the ruptured landscapes of what once was Equestria. The green plains of land and blue seas had boiled away under the heat and pressure of the sun, and with a great hiss that was lost in the emptiness of space, the planet itself fractured and split apart, disappearing into the sun.
She wanted to scream, but her lips floundered soundlessly.
Celestia blinked.
She watched the stars whirl and slip around the corona of two super colliding blackholes. Their light sparkling in and out as they swirled around the edge of nothingness, before winking out of existence as their atoms were ripped apart from the massive gravitational pull. A nearby planet crumbled, its ring being sucked away into the depths of the blackhole, the rest of the planet followed soon, picked apart piece by piece like it was made of dust. Celestia felt the pull of the collapsed stars on her body, as she too fell within the emptiness. Her fur and skin pulled away, elongated, as her bones stretched and broke, and each individual cell inside her ruptured and disintegrated.
Celestia blinked.
Eons and eons and eons and eons crawled by as time flowed forward.
Galaxies collided and exploded, the smaller ones succumbing and being absorbed, planets and systems being thrown into the blackness around her. Stars burned bright and went dark, dead forever in the vast barren universe. Cosmic radiation and hypervelocity stars burned and ripped through her body like nothing, tearing away at the very fabric of her being and soul.
Celestia blinked.
She could see the edges of the universe now, curling it on itself as the voids of space collapsed into each other and boiled away into nothing. There were no stars left now, leaving Celestia in a realm of blackness. She could feel the pressure of gravity hauling her into nanometre that the universe would compact itself upon.
Her very form squeezed itself tighter and tighter. Skin and bone splintered down into cells, those cells broke into atoms, and those atoms ruptured into sub atomic particles. As the very essence of her body was forced into the last Planck unit of being, the universe and all of existence winked out and ended.
In the infinite void of nonexistence, Celestia blinked.
The throne room faded back into view. Pink banners adorned the square pillars that rose towards the ceiling. She spotted the guard in a familiar position, and his horn glowed a bright cyan as he closed the entrance doors.
She was back.
“Princess, are you alright?”
Celestia glanced down.
Twilight was looking up at her, her eyes narrowed, and her face pulled into an expression of concern. Her reports floated idly in her telekinetic grip, bobbing up and down. Her hair was pulled back into a bun and tied together.
“If you’re not feeling well, I can come back later.” She asked. “I know I scheduled this meeting at the last minute, so it’s understandable.
Celestia smiled at her. The cold in her bones faded away.
“No, Twilight, I’m fine.” She replied, stepping down from her throne.
“Are you sure you don’t find these reports boring? I mean, you must have a ton of more interesting things to do?”
“Nonsense, Twilight, spending time with my students is the most important thing in my life.” She put a wing over Twilight’s back. “Come, let us walk through the gardens while you talk.”
Twilight smiled and the worried glint in her eyes faded. She pulled the reports in front of her face and began to read. “Well, just to bring up a bit up to date on the Crystal Empire’s monthly affairs…” She cleared her throat and continued.
Celestia blinked.