The End
"WHY?! JUST BRING THEM BACK!"
Celestia's tears flowed freely over the pedestal atop the mountain. This opaque, ethereal, glowing liquid had begun to fill the crater which was once a mountain's peak. This crater, which overlooked Canterlot, had been carved out to place a memorial to five that had gone, long ago, and one other who wanted nothing more than to be with them.
Every day after the grave marker she requested had been constructed, this pillar of pure crystal had been the center of her attention. While the rudimentary construction of the pillar was left to the Crystal Ponies, she demanded that the final details were hers and hers alone to oversee, as the embellishments that she lay on this grave marked her most terrible loss in her thousands of years of existence. She took days at a time, sobbing openly as she carved symbols into different colors of stone, making the shapes that symbolized the harmony that she had come to adore over the past century of her life. She had seen cycles come and go, ponies live and die, but nothing had prepared her for this. As time passed, her tears softened, and she cried less and less as she began to heal.
"Twilight, I'm sorry. You know I cannot. As painful as it is, death is not something that can be reversed. Your friends have passed on, this is true. You learned of your royal blood years ago. You of all ponies should have known that you would live to see this day, as you will live to see many more. You are destined to live many lifetimes over the rest of my little ponies, and you now know that it can be as much of a burden as a blessing. You witnessed the decay of your friends, but I did not see the bitterness that would rise, at the fragmenting of harmony."
"How could you not?! Do you see now? I am ALONE. I have nothing! My friendships became my life, my reason to be! They are gone, and now you are the only one left. I may live for many years, but I will still be gone before the time that Spike awakens. You HAVE to bring them back... Please..."
The rain spattered over Twilight Sparkle's coat, leaving a sheen as the color slowly changed, from a lavender hue, to a darkened purple, and eventually, to a shade of black that could only be described as empty. Her mane and tail became rough, coarse, and blackened as her coat had done.Her horn distended, and elongated, becoming jagged and sharp. Her cutie mark, the symbol of her meaning in life, faded from her flank. Her eyes, once a shade of purple, became blue, and images of saddened fire danced across her irises. Discordance turned her grey before, but this was much worse. Celestia's mouth gaped as she stared at her faithful student.
"Twilight, you didn't... You couldn't. Surely you knew the dangers..."
Twilight nodded slowly, emptiness now encompassing her entire being.
"I did, Princess. I knew the dangers, but you told me NEVER to give up on friendship. I attempted everything to keep them alive, I even began studying the forbidden realms of magic that you hid from the world. I studied black magic in the hopes of saving my friends. But even the deepest of corners held only harsh reality. I broke into the forbidden archives, and found a book on the darkest of black magic. It said only this. 'Death cannot be taken back. Not by any form of magic, nor any form of friendship or love. Even the tears of a god cannot save you now, for the pages of this book hold a curse. Knowing the impossibility of your task, a shadow will take hold of your heart. Your mind remains intact, but you feel more pain every second of every day, seeing the lack of possible action. When your losses are confirmed, your body will succumb to the darkness, leaving you only pain and misery. The final release from black magic is death.' I read this, and I wept for hours upon end. I simply came to you with all of my remnants of false hope. True to the words, every second of life has increased my torment. Now... you know the finality of this meeting."
Simultaneously, the goddess and her student began to cry.
Celestia looked up at the pedestal once more. Her sun shone through, magnifying through the rounded surface of the pillar, bringing the light to a single point in this pool of tears. As she placed another piece of stone into the pedestal, she came to a stark realization. The tears began to well up again, and the dam of her emotions was held up by a several days of careful focus, nothing more. The shaking construction of emotional strength collapsed, and once more, she began to cry.
The five symbols she had placed represented Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty, and Loyalty. These formed a pentagon around a slot that was left for a final symbol. Her subconscious ordering of the elements was almost too imperfect. As Celestia gathered her materials, she attempted to stem the flow of tears that continued to run steadily down her face. Had she known how distraught Twilight would become, she never would have allowed her to remain on her own. She would have taken her under her wing and helped her to live happily with her extended mortality, and she and Luna, blessed Luna, who had been by her side through this loss, could have been as sisters to Twilight. She might have even lived to see her assistant awaken from his many centuries of sleep. She might have grown equal to her mentor, in such a short span of centuries.
Those chances were gone now, never to return.
Celestia began carving a six pointed star, out of magenta obsidian.
Stopping to look up at the sky, she thought to herself. Was this really the end? Would her faithful student never send another letter? She closed her eyes.
My faithful student. I can only hope that you are truly happy again, with all of your friends. May you bring harmony to the lands above.