Three Words
Three words. That’s all it ever seemed to take.
Three words, spoken so calmly, just as a comment on a early spring rain would be said. Yet those three words, not even taking a second to say, steals the receiver’s breath away for a long minute, as everything about their world falls apart.
Two Alicorns stand face to face, the ruins of their own castle surrounding them. Flames lick high in sulphuric gold and crimson red. The smell of blood and burnt fur is thick, and it smarts the eyes of the elder, who struggles to focus on the proud figure of her younger sister, who’s face is filled with the derision of her cold smirk.
“Why are you doing this?! Luna?!”
Celestia’s voice was powerful, but her tone was weak, pain and confusion mixing together into a begging tone that seemed to plead with her to wake up. For her beloved younger sister to come back to her.
“Why? Isn’t it obvious?” The dark mare sneered.
“L-luna, whatever’s going on, I promise I can make it better! I’ve always made things better right? That’s my job as a big sis-“
“I hate you.”
Those three words, barely audible over the crackling of the flames, stopped the white alicorn’s words as if she had been struck down on the spot. There was no malice in them, no anger, no fear, no pride. There was simply nothing, but them… And the bitter cold echo of truth.
What had followed then, was no mystery to the generations that followed… Even after they had stopped believing it had truly happened, that Celestia had a sister as foolish as that, it was never a mystery. For the Solar Princess had painstakingly inscribed our battle into a story that would become nothing but a fairytale in the centuries that passed the two by. It would become condensed as the tale was retold, but the story itself never truly changed.
Celestia had frozen, looking up at me with horror and pain, the look of a filly who wished for what she had just heard not to be true in her eyes. I’m not sure if what followed could even be classified as a fight. The events before, yes, it would qualify, but not this. Not her begging, her pleading, her fragile reasoning, all which I shot down again with just those three words. Finally, she had summoned up the Elements from the place we had put them after defeating Discord. The ground had cracked, shattering as the jewels that housed the power of Harmony came up at my sister’s beckon. She had wielded them herself, and despite my cruel pride, I have to admit I was amazed at her ability to do so. Honesty and Loyalty had always defied her as their master, but it seems, that after having being forced to face the truth, she could claim leadership now over it.
Loyalty, however, confused me. Was this not all her fault, I thought? It was her blindness, her foolishness that had caused all this. It was her fault, she knew that- So all I could think then, was how this was an even greater betrayal, how that should contradict everything my Loyalty stood for.
I understand now, why it bowed to her, then. A good part of it, was loyalty for her subjects. The destruction I had raged, the pain I was unknowingly seeking to bring, they would have destroyed the little ponies my sister treasured so, whom we both had promised to protect. A promise I betrayed. Above all, however, was the three words I heard her say as the light of the Elements lifted and changed her mane as she created the Rainbow of Harmony which shot towards me.
“Please forgive me.”
She just wanted me to wake up. She didn’t want them to send me away. In her bitterness towards them, they disconnected from us both forever.. I lied to myself, was selfish in my fake generosity, was cruel in my fury, and laughed purely to bring pain… I used my magic for hatred, and broke the most important promise I had ever made. Much as how I had betrayed the Elements, Celestia felt as if they had betrayed her.
So, they fell silent. They encased themselves in stone, and waited for new bearers to arise.
It’s funny, how all these thoughts connect, how I wonder if it was this event that caused my sister to know that they would not help her now. Then again, even though I was the one that had seen them rise again, been the reason for why the new Bearers had awoken… Even I know that they could not help her. Disharmony is all they have domain over, a thing I think my sister forgets sometimes. Pain is not Disharmony. Pain is a fact of life, something that cannot be lost without losing the very things that makes us alive. So as Pain is not Disharmony, neither are the acts taken through it. Over revenge and curses, they have no domain. Even Discord’s roar they cannot sweeten, only silence, and if it was not for the fact that he would cause so much more pain in his freedom- I would protest his imprisonment.
This isn’t how things were supposed to go.
My return home, and to my own mind, should have been the happily ever after to the old Fairytale of the Mare in the Moon. It should have been, so why couldn’t it have been?
Everything was perfect. The world my sister had forged in the past thousand years surpassed anything I, even in my wildest imaginations, could ever have foreseen. The tribes stood no more, in their place a culture where all were seen as equal, the same in our differences. Earth Ponies lived aside, even married, their winged and horned kin, and it was as if everypony had come together in one blissful crazy family. A family even a fool like me was welcomed into with the help of a single filly who was dear to my sister.
So why did it all have to shatter once more on me? Those three words fractured my blissful utopia that my sister had created for all she loved…
I’m dying, Luna.
She said it as calmly as I had said my declaration of hate. The only difference was her smile was sorrowful where mine had been cold. I wanted to protest it as she had mine, but in fear I didn’t. For if she was to counter mine the way I did hers, I would break upon hearing it a second time. I aided her however I could, trying to keep her smile for as long as I was able… Hating myself every second of it, for stealing away the millennia I could have spent by her side from myself. Sister even noticed, tried to tell me it wasn’t my fault- But it was, wasn’t it?
If I had been there, I could have stopped it. I’ve stepped into the darkness before, I could have killed the Changeling Queen where she stood, stopped it all before it even had a chance to begin. Even if I had failed, her rage would have been split between us, and perhaps Sister would have been spared.
I can think of so many “What-ifs,” all the things I should have done, all the things I’d do if I could just do it all over. It is all for naught, however.
What is the use of this blasted hindsight? It allows not one to learn, for the same situation will never arise. It allows not one to act, for every deed has already been done! But most of all, it allows not one to heal, for the pain and guilt renews itself with every glance back.
Every step now, feels as if it is something lost, every second past gone to an eternity out of reach. I have never felt the need to hurry before, but now it is bearing down upon me in a choking vice that hurts like nothing I have ever experienced.
I will not allow you to go out of reach as well.
All my hopes, all my fears, everything I have, everything I will gain- All cast into this single spell I now weave for you.
In the books and tales you and I have loved- Whether hero or villain, in the time of crisis, they have something profound or complex to say, a web of words that takes up a page so often all on its own, so often filled with rage, pride, or justice. Me, however… I have only three. They are filled with nothing for I have given everything now in this single moment.
“Don’t leave me.”
Celestia’s breathing stopped. The runes faded from where they glowed on the walls, the sun’s light dimming from where it had shown through the windows. Silence hung in the air as Luna struggled to catch her breath, hope desperately flailing in the sea of despair that seemed ever-present now.
Then, three words breathed out like a sigh by the beloved sister before her.
“I’m so sorry.”