Background Pony

XIX - Diminuendo

Celestia's eyes moistened as she looked helplessly at her mother.

The Matriarch cradled the limp foal she had just given birth to, curling up into her own mane to hide the moisture in her face. The stars in her coat dimmed and a great shadow fell over the poisoned glade.

"And so it was that I was born, and with me came death. All things that began would also have to end. As she had her purpose, and my sister had hers, this was mine: to be lost. Even before I had a consciousness to think, I knew and understood the chords of my song. I was to become the governess of the universe's forsaken things. The only audience I could afford was an audience without the ability to feel, without the ability to regret, and consequently, without the ability to remember."

The blackness spread before me again. I saw the Matriarch standing on a cliff overlooking a primordial landscape bathed in moonless night. Celestia stood several paces away, hanging her head in mourning. The Matriarch was heaving. Her pained eyes gazed down at the infant pony lying beneath her. The unmoving foal lay cradled in a bed of flowers, its tiny mane braided, its fragile wings folded like violet petals.

A sharp jolt ran through the Matriarch's body. Collapsing on all four limbs, she leaned over and nuzzled her foal's body dearly. As convulsing sobs overtook her, hot streaks of light pulsed overhead. The sky was warping, tearing at the celestial fabric, and the very constellations above were exploding with distant flashes of phenomenally hot fury.

Celestia saw this and gasped. Panicked, she galloped towards her mother. But as soon as she reached the Matriarch's side, the omnipotent entity's wings were already spread. Her mouth opened, wailing, and the landscape fell to pieces below them from the outburst of one, unfiltered chord.

"But my mother could remember. And, what was more, she could suffer. Her feelings were the brushstrokes upon this universe. She only built what she cherished. She never made a part of creation unless it was a part of her. The song had empowered her since infancy, but it had never equipped her for loss.

"Such is the consequence for seeking answers without knowing them; in the act of discovery, the destruction of things is the baptism through which truth manifests itself. For my mother, though, that destruction was all encompassing. To give up a piece of herself to death was incomprehensible. There was no scale to her sorrow, no definition for the pain and anguish she was just beginning to experience.

"The agony of losing a foal was unbearable, and so long as she remembered what she had lost, she would not have the power to continue breaking the song down, much less maintaining the Creation that she had already imparted. The song was doomed to buckle, and all of reality would collapse in on itself, giving way to eternal chaos."

Before me, the shards of the world hung in haphazard disarray. Chunks of landscape floated in a swirling nether. The song of Creation was fractured, and its unstable energy manifested itself in cyclonic torrents of liquid and bright flashes of lightning. Through sheer will, Celestia and her mother held the sundered pieces of reality together. Evidently, though, this was not enough.

The Matriarch hung in a perpetual slump. Her face was frozen in a grimace, and her tears were unceasing. Before her, the foalhovered in her immaculate cradle, frozen in the same deathly stillness that brought her to the corporeal realm.

Floating over, Celestia nuzzled her mother, sharing in her tears. She whispered several dear words to the Matriarch as the shattered world spun faster and faster around them. Soon, the Matriarch's eyes were glowing with bright power and determination. She spread her wings, frowning as she summoned the strength for what would come next.