> Celestia Is Dead, We are what's left.
>  by SnakeEye
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> Celestia Is Dead
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Celestia is dead. At least that's what everypony has assumed for the past two weeks. The sun hasn't set since the Canterlot wedding, no news has come from the capital since then. All radio has stopped working for some reason. It’s not like we ever got news early anyway.

There were rumours at first, something about changelings taking over, of course no one believed them at the time. Even our little village knew about the saviours of Equestria and the elements of harmony, and even if they had failed there still were 3 alicorns.

I tried to keep the peace as long as possible, telling everypony to keep to their homes, not go out and stock up on fresh water and food. I've already asked the local weather team to make some rain to freshen us up a bit. They just told me to get in line…”





“Faith dies last. Ah can't remember who said that, surely sam' great adventurer or somethin'. It was only spring but the heat already seemed to bother some of the cattle. We small folks didn't notice anything wrong at first, just another long day at work, ya know? We ain’t never expected it to last this long, is all.
News arrived quickly ‘bout the great swarm on that mighty shield. Those horn heads put some mighty trust in their magic. Ah always said, nothing’s better than yer own hooves. Too bad they ain’t saw it that way, pretty sure that egghead Star Seeds tried to lower the sun himself after only two days.
T'was impossible to think about it, they were always here for us, raisin' and settin' the Sun and Moon. So we held on our faith for as long as we could. But when they came, even faith was lost.”









“Class was cancelled again today. It was a sunny day again today. I wonder why we can't go to school anymore, even though all the snow melted. Mom and Dad told me it's dangerous outside but it's so hot inside too. At least we could go to the pool or something, but all they do is scream at each other. Adults are weird.”

“So much for our vacations. Fortunately, my dear husband and I were on our luxury yacht when it all started. Being at sea when the sun never sets is a blessing in a way. I just wished our servant knew their place a little better; those fools wanted to go back on the mainland.
We weren’t invited to the wedding so we went on vacation a little early. We departed the day the shield was put in place, this and the sun not setting made things clear. Canterlot probably had fallen, along with our dear Princess Celestia. Let's hope an alicorn survived to take care of the sun quickly. At least now we can finally put Blueblood in charge.”









“The factory is running at full capacity today again. Since the crisis began there has been so much demand for rain clouds that even the bigger cloud factory like the one in cloudsdale couldn't follow. And it's not like we didn't try anyway. We had a team working twenty-four-seven for the longest time. Well, it's not like it matters anymore anyway, there are no longer any nights.
The "night" shift never came, the cowards. Those sarosians argued that since night don’t come anymore, their shift never starts. We don't know how long we're gonna keep it up. I even heard there were some uprising in a factory in Stormshire already. If they wanted to unionize they could have done so before the Princess disappeared, for fuck’s sake. What kind of priorities do they have‽”









“So many deaths. The streets of Canterlot were filled with rotten corpses, both pony and changeling. They rotted in the sun all day leaving a stench that could mark a pony for life. What life could we get now that the sun won't settle?
This damn wedding destroyed pretty much all normality we had left. After Discord, I moved away from ponyville so I could stop seeing those atrocities. And yet it happened again. I knew I should have chosen Las Pegasus. Now we just stay inside, go out only to find food in what once was the lesser district of the capital of Equestria. Some scavenger banded together, fearing the others as anyone could be a changeling.
With no news from the palace, anarchy reigns on the city. Each day new corpses were added. Each day the sun rotted them away a bit more.”









Chrysalis stood where the wedding ceremony had happened a few days ago. Her leftover drones had already removed the Princesses' bodies along with the bearers of the elements'.
She had won, all the love in Equestria was waiting for her out there. Out there… in the sunlight.
With Celestia gone, the sun refused to move anymore, its light shining forever on the land. From the castle, the changeling queen could see the Everfree forest burning already, it wouldn't be the last forest to burn in the sun.
It turned out that Shining Armor's love was stronger than the Princesses’ powers, she had taken care of them without thinking it through, though. Changelings didn't do well in the sun for too long. Neither did ponies, unfortunately.
She regretted it a bit. All the power in the world but the world would burn away in a few months. What was the point of it all? She didn't know. She couldn’t tell anymore, not with this heat clouding her thoughts.









Survivors were regrouped under the Canterlot Castle. For a month now, the sun burned the land. The underground caves were, however, well lit and fresh, providing much needed relief to the few dozens of ponies gathered here.
One of them, a maid from the castle, had brought a mirror with her, saying it is a powerful artefact, something the Princess wanted to keep hidden. She thought that if they had to die, they weren't about to give the bugs any more magic.
Without warning, the mirror glowed and a young unicorn mare came out of it, looking visibly surprised. The ponies gathered all in awe at the view of her sun-like cutie mark, already looking at her as if she was the promised saviour.
Sunset Shimmer shrugged: "Talk about a welcome committee."
> Sub Ardentī Sole
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I sometimes wonder how they lived before, when the sun would set at the end of each day. For as long as I’ve been alive, the sun has been endlessly shining on the horizon of The Eastern City. My father, however, has lived through the fall of the Equestria of old. I watched him numerous times while I was keeping the store, his head always stuck on the moon, reminiscing about old Equestria.
I don’t like it. He’s always talking about the past, as if ignoring the present would make it go away. During the few rare times when the pegasi let the sun shine onto The Eastern City, my father is always looking westward, even sometimes praying to the old goddesses. Praying doesn’t bring bits, though.







“The storm is gone,” reported one of the scouts we had sent to the opening of the cave earlier. Our leader got up and asked us to pack our things. We had been traveling the frozen wastes for the better part of three months now. Time is hard to keep when there is no cycle of day and night.
We all packed our things. This was a strange expedition. Instead of a warm change of clothes or lots of food, we brought candles, knives and masks. I knew that zebras were strange, and I should have expected it when taking this contract, but I didn’t expect them to be this strange.
It wasn’t my bucks’ first expedition into the Frozen, or “Kokytos” as the stripes called it, but we always prefered to stay on the sunny side; at least we knew the land. Hell, some of us unicorns even lived in Canterlot during the fall. Here however were old zebra lands and frozen seas. If the lunatics on the Western bastion are right, maybe even the lands of the wendigos and the original continent of the three tribes can be found around here. Not that any of it matters to us. As long as they pay us, we’ll take them pretty much anywhere.

A few days later, we arrived at our destination. It was an old church or something like that. Clearly not pony made, but didn’t look like any modern Zebra building either. Its walls were still up but the roof clearly collapsed from the snow buildup a long time ago. We took a day to remove the rubbles, as instructed by the zebras. During all that time, we had the moon right over us, looking down on the deadly frozen peace that was this side of Equus.
The zebras wanted to stay another week there, but food was running out, so we started rationing and kept pressing them to start our return trip if we didn’t want to die here. They didn’t listen. The real surprise came a day later, when my five unicorn companions and I woke up tied together, with magic suppressors on each of our horns, in the middle of the room we had cleared up.
That’s when we learned why they had masks and candles. The striped bastards started chanting about the moon and stars and whatever the fuck. Whatever ritual they were doing, we were clearly its centerpoint, probably even the equine sacrifice. That… explained the knives.
“May the Nightmare return to claim Her Moon and repay Her debt to the stars! O them who returned our Goddess to us, may they do so once more!” chanted their leader, taking one of the knives to cut our throats, one by one. What a fucking awful night to die.







Fucking fuck fuckery, what in the moist h e l l is this place. It’s been fucking months since Canterlot burned the hell down when the earth stopped. It wasn’t brutal or whatever, nothing like those youtube videos said it would be. Fucking bullshit, this whole scenario is so fucked. As if 2020 wasn’t bad fucking enough already, the earth just had to go ahead stop spinning? Because why the fuck not I guess. And just in time for the US elections too—each candidate tried to use it as a point to discredit the other, by the way. Damn, it was such a wild thing that nobody believed at first, but here we are, and with the US right sunny side up.
Then there were the rumors on 4chan at least—well, before the internet went out—about a portal to another world where civilization existed. Seeing that our world was pretty much in full apocalypse mode, I decided to follow those rumors. I also wanted to get out of danger as soon as possible, ‘cause it seemed like nuclear war could start at any moment. Fun.
I arrived in Canterlot city, in front of its eponymous high school to be exact—or at least what's left of it. Like lots of towns, the capital burned from a wildfire, but some stone buildings were still up. I checked my handwritten notes and saw that the portal was—according to the internet—at the base of the horse statue that stood proudly in front of the remains of the school.
I tried touching the—extremely hot—stone but couldn’t find a portal on the first two faces of the cubic base. Third’s time's the charm thankfully, and I slipped into the whirlpool of whatever the hell that was made of before landing in a crystal cave surrounded; not by any alien or foreign civilization one would normally imagine, but by fucking colorful ponies.
Damnit 2020.







Sunset Shimmer threw yet another book across her lab, right at the tree of harmony. Twenty years. It’s been twenty very long years since she came back to Equestria and was suddenly acclaimed as a saviour. She was the last of Celestia’s students after all. She was the first to organise ponies after the fall. She created The Eastern City on the horizon of the Frozen and the Burned. She was the first to go back into Equestria to find a way to correct the world. She was the one that was supposed to fix it. Yet, twenty years and she still couldn’t figure out how to move the sun. It was locked in place, and no amount of magic or number of unicorns trying together could change that.
To Sunset, it was Celestia’s final “fuck you”. As if she was directly telling her: “You’ll never be as great as me.” She hated that. The only bit of hope she had was when somepony discovered the tree of harmony—by accident, while roaming the Everfree Desert. Sunset had immediately decided to make the strange magical cave her own. Over time, it even became the command center for the various expeditions in old Equestria.
When found, the tree was clear as crystal, its cave without a single grain of sand. Now, however, the tree had blackened, the enchantment keeping it alive having withered out. The cave had to be protected by spells to repel the sand and keep the entrance accessible.
Sunset looked desperately at the dying tree of harmony. “We found your damn elements, we fought off Discord’s chaos seeds, we studied the shit out of you, why don’t you have the answer…” she pleaded. “Why can’t you help me fix everything…” Her voice broke mid-sentence as she let out a long, desperate wail.







I feel the cold air of the night district on my fur. The street of the poorer side of the bastion would clearly be the best way to escape the guards tailing me. Or maybe I should dump the jewelry… but at the same time, it’s only a small moon crescent, why are they making such a fuss about it?
Who am I kidding, of course they’d chase me to the end of Equus for it. Those damn Lunar Cultists. Who puts magical locks on bathroom windows except those crazies anyway? No time to think about it, time to focus.
Left. A hundred meters, then right. Another right. I can still hear them following me. I should have been more careful. I should have just stayed low and kept stealing their love, but nooo, my dumbass decided to steal gold too. They love the thing so much I couldn’t stop myself. 
Fuck, they’ll be on the lookout now… I… can’t stay here… I’m better off trying my luck in the Eastern City now. Just gotta cross the Frozen or the Burned on my own...







There’s one rule in this world. You don’t take another pony’s life. Since the fall, so few of us are left that we have to save everyone, or be forced to breed with your cousin or some shite. Only exception to that is obviously if somepony tries to kill you first. Other than that, open conflit pretty much went out the window with the Princesses. Hell, even The Eastern City and the Western Bastion respect that, and they hate each other’s gut.
Now how in Celestia’s holy sun did we end up in a Mexicolt standoff with real guns in some ruins under the burning sun.
I look at the one winged pegasus on my left. He had a simple bolt action rifle that was probably useless at this range. He could still probably take one of us but he would never manage to reload in time to get the other. Speaking of, she was a unicorn just like me. We both had a single six shooter in our ‘kinesis but she was wearing kevlar. She was more prepared than me.
I considered her the biggest threat out of the two, mostly ‘cause she could get us both in less in a heartbeat. I could miss and hit her vest, which wouldn’t stop her from shooting me. I had to aim for the head, and I had to be fast. But the other probably noticed her kevlar vest as well, but his high caliber would just go through it. I can only hope he thinks that she’s the priority, like I do.
Time passed agonisingly slowly. We all looked at each other in silence, sometimes glancing at the pile of manacrystals in front of us. The thing was worth several years worth of salaries in any of the two cities. Whoever got it, would never again have to work a day in their life. It was going to be mine.
With a final look at the pegasus, seeing as he was looking in the other mare’s direction, I started shooting. The mare hit me in the front hoof, making me miss my shot at the pegasus. With a BANG, the pegasus downed the unicorn. As expected, a rifle rough had enough power to penetrate her barding, leaving a sizable hole just below her neck. He needed to reload, and I to get my gun back. Magic was quicker and I had my weapon back, and started to pull the trigger. He, however, turned his weapon in my direction and pressed the trigger again. My vision turned red, I got to take a final look at his gun. How did I get fooled by this? The bolt handle is clearly fake. Turns out, he was the most prepared.






Cadavers. Corpses. Everywhere. Bodies or bones were common in the Equestrian desert and I of all ponies was very used to seeing them. I like exploring you see, ever since I was a foal I liked to go out of my way to explore caves and ruins at the edge of the Bastion, my cutie mark is a damn dotted trail like those on maps you know? So yeah, you could say I was perfect for Miss Shimmer’s expedition, being able to see in the dark was also a great plus on my resume.
And yet, I’m not used to seeing those types of skeletons. In fact, the only ones like it I saw were in Canterlot, when we buried the Princesses.
You know how rare alicorns are? Pretty much no one knows where they come from really. So when Miss Shimmer told me to explore those ruins in what used to be the forbidden jungle, I thought I’d see Daring Do’s remains or something, not a room full of dead alicorns.
Once my initial shock was gone, my inner adventurer woke up again and I decided to explore the room a bit more. That idea went out the window pretty fast, though. The walls of the room were empty. No markings, no paintings, no nothing. I made maybe one of the biggest discoveries since the tree of harmony and there isn’t a single piece of writing or anything to help me understand why they are here or who they were or anything at all.
Biggest discovery, did I say? Try biggest disappointment, I think, while walking to the center of the room. The roof was some kind of dome with a single small opening at the top that let the sun rays light the center of the room.
I noticed two things at this moment: first, the skeletons covering the floor also obscured some sort of sigil that was carved into it. Second, there was a very small but noticeable altar just where the sun shone, and on it was the remains of a foal’s wooden crib, but with no foal inside of it.
What was the meaning of this place? Who were the alicorns that made this place and what happened to them? I guess I’m going to be able to ask them myself as suddenly I felt myself trip on a bone I didn’t see and I crashed into a horn, ending my life and my train of thought in an instant.







For Luna’s sake. Why can’t we have at least one peaceful day? I remember the time when we pegasi controlled the weather all across Equestria, and now a hundred of us struggle with a single storm. Pretty sure the council's gonna cut our paycheck again too.
Sometimes I wonder if they want us to fail to control the storms and let it destroy part of the city. It would fix the food problem, that’s for sure.







It was a strange day today. When I got into the city this morning, after sleeping on the sunny side, I saw this very nice pegasus who gave me more money than I ever saw! I managed to buy myself food for an entire week! I saw the strange looking bug again too, this time it was playing catch with the guards.
The strange striped ponies came back from their trip as well. They looked so disappointed but still gave me some money when I talked to them. I talked to an old pegasus too, he told me about the old world and how pegasi did more than keep the big mean storms out of the city. How everypony had food and we had goddesses to move the Sun and the Moon. I find it a bit dumb ‘cause the Sun and the Moon obviously can’t move. I think the pegasus doesn't have all his clouds in the same sky like mom used to say. I miss mom, she said she would be gone only a month but it’s been at least double that.
I decided to go to the upper city today. I hid in the back alleys and watched the other foals playing. I was too afraid to ask them to play with me though…
I spied some grown ups too, they talked about Miss Shimmer’s expedition. Everypony knows Miss Shimmer, she’s gonna save the world, they all say! She’s gonna move the sun all by herself. I heard from the grown ups that the council wanted to send ponies without a home to Miss Shimmer’s exploration to help her or whatever. I don’t have a home for now and I don’t want to go anyway, I have to wait for my mommy. I went back to the edge of town and sat in my little tent. I looked at the sky and saw a shooting star! Mom said I had to make wishes when I saw those!
I closed my eyes and took my teddy bear in my forehooves. “Goddesses, I don’t know if you exist or not, if you do, could you tell my mom to hurry up? They want to send me to where the sun doesn't set and I don’t like heat. Maybe make my mom get home faster or please make it so I don’t have to go into the sun. I want my mommy and she told me to wait for her here,” I said, in a low voice.
And the next day, the Sun set. Then, the Moon rose. Everypony was so nice to me after that! Everypony was nice to everypony… Except the council, they were poopyheads.