LEGEND OF THE GODDESSES
Lake Valley, 989 years ago
The moon, marked with the crater pattern that had become known as the Mare in the Moon, shone off the metallic stretch of flat nothingness in the depths of Lake Valley.
Celestia was the first to arrive, flying over the trees. There was a pale green streak in her pink mane, and she was thinner and paler than she had been years ago. Something drew her to the exact center of the smooth surface, where she gently set down, nervous and squinting, unable to see anything in the moon's light except for the moon itself.
"Ahhhh, here we go…" said a snide voice. "Another Gathering, is it…?"
Celestia winced, seeing nothing but round red eyes and glowing white teeth approaching. "He… hello, Annihilara," she stammered.
"Hello," she replied flatly.
"It's… good to see you again?" Celestia said nervously.
"I disagree."
Celestia flinched and hesitated, silently running through possible things to say and coming up with nothing. "W-where is Kolassa?" she said in a high-pitched squeak.
"Late, I guess," said Annihilara.
Celestia jumped in surprise, realizing that Annihilara had come much nearer now, her head atop a smoking, spring-shaped body.
"Don't you usually travel with an entourage of handsome stallions in golden armor?" Annihilara said softly. "Equestria's finest and all that?"
"Didn't feel like it," Celestia said, her voice cracking. "Didn't seem like the time. Wanted to come here alone."
There was more awkward silence, as Annihilara stared hard at Celestia, and Celestia determinedly not looking back.
"What… what is this place, exactly?" Celestia mumbled desperately.
"Matrix," Annihilara said dispassionately. "One of two pieces of it you can find around the globe. Perhaps you've heard of Sørmur dï Mitgaeard?"
Celestia scowled. "I've heard altogether too much about Sørmur dï Mitgaeard."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It's… nothing. It's nothing." Celestia glanced up at the moon, then realized Annihilara was following her gaze and swiftly turned her eyes down to the ground. "Kolassa should be here!" she said frantically.
Annihilara circled her in silence, resembling a ray with great gray wings. "If she doesn't come, you will have to talk to me, I hope you realize."
"Me?" Celestia demanded. "You're the one who's not saying anything."
"I'm waiting for you to say something. But you won't speak because you know what you did. There's nothing to say."
Celestia slouched. "I think we've established that I know what I did. There's no need to point it out."
There was more long silence. Eventually, Kolassa teleported in at the edge of the Matrix and slowly began approaching.
"Oh, thank goodness," Celestia sighed, able to discern the hill-sized goddess silhouetted against the stars. She stepped forward and glared up at Kolassa's face angrily. "What in the name of Faust took you so long?" she snapped.
"I hardly think there's a need for that kind of language," Kolassa said in bewilderment. "I was late. It happens, I'm sorry. Why is it so important that I be on time?"
Annihilara formed herself into a huge black ring that encircled Celestia. "Oh, she doesn't want to be left alone with me," she said deviously. A pair of tendrils emerged from the ring and hovered over Celestia's shoulders. "Though I don't know why she thought having you around would save her. If I was planning on doing something, it's not as if witnesses would change that." Each of the two tendrils sprouted a needle-fanged mouth.
"Stand aside, Annihilara," Kolassa said gently. "She's been through enough."
Annihilara growled and backed away, transforming into a puddle. "Been through enough…" she scoffed. "Please…"
"She's, um… that's not what it is, Lady Kolassa," Celestia muttered. "I was merely anxious to see you. Ah, anxious in a positive way."
"Ah," Kolassa said, embarrassed. "Me too, yes." She bowed down. "Please forgive me."
"Forgive you?" Celestia said in alarm. "Oh, you have nothing to apologize for! I was going to thank you. You showed me myself. When I wasn't prepared to see it, you made me look anyway. I could not survive if I continued to be myself. Only when facing death could I see who I truly was… when I think of how many times I failed to see it, I weep, and that's not a figure of speech, I actually weep."
"Celestia, I think you'd seen the error of your ways centuries ago," said Kolassa. "I've always known you had a heavy heart. I think you'd been in denial before now; I didn't do anything but shake you out of it. And I'm sure there were many other factors besides me. Regardless of what I said then, you have my admiration. There's no creature, mortal or immortal, who has an accurate perception of herself. We all think either too much or too little of ourselves, and those of us to who don't like ourselves tend to be the noblest and purest of us all, as anyone viewing that individual from the outside can tell. And there's nothing purer than someone who did everything they possibly could to right their wrong… and feels terrible because they think it wasn't enough."
"What about somepony who never committed a wrong in the first place?" Celestia said bitterly.
"No such pony, Celestia," Kolassa laughed. "None of us are flawless. I'll say it again, you have my admiration."
She bowed again, even lower than before, and Celestia bowed back.
"I think your sister would be proud of you," Kolassa went on.
"She was," said Celestia. "I could feel that in the magic when we connected. It just made me loathe myself even more. How could she be proud of me for leaving her like this?" She stared up at the moon in anguish.
Kolassa smiled sympathetically. "Mourn her. Honor her. It's all you can do, and you've done it well. I understand you started a midsummer festival in her honor?"
"No, that wasn't me," Celestia said hastily. "The ponies of Equestria celebrate the longest day of the year because they worship me and the sun that I bring, so they mark the day that the sun is in the sky the longest, to celebrate me. I objected, strenuously, but there was little I could do to stop it. I can't make war against the wishes of my entire country."
There was another long pause, which was broken when Annihilara's head popped out of the puddle. "So, if we're just going to be sitting around in awkward silence, what purpose does this Gathering serve?"
"Two purposes, as the Old Gods told us," Kolassa said smoothly. "One large and one small. I think one of the purposes is as simple as allowing the three of us to gain closure over what has happened. The Gathering that once expanded from three to five is now back down to three; we must mourn and accept what has happened."
"All my fault," Celestia sighed. "I'm the reason we have to mourn at all. What happened to Soledad, that was my fault too. She told me she was going to kill herself… and I was just insane with rage, and I told her to go ahead and do it! I was such an awful creature. Sometimes I'm scared of myself… sometimes it's impossible to believe that I'm somepony else already, impossible to believe that I could have changed. I hardly blame those who don't believe it's true, because I scarcely believe it myself."
"…I believe it," Kolassa said softly. "Is that not enough?"
Celestia bowed her head.
"The second purpose…" Kolassa mused, looking up at the sky. "It's hard to say which is the large purpose and which is the small, but I have my suspicions. In the process of losing two of our peers, bonds have been strained between us and need to be reconstructed. You and I, Celestia, have had a wonderful talk. I am at peace with how things are between us. I hope that, though there is turmoil within you about many other things, you are at least at peace with me. But there is one other here who hasn't said much, and I think there remains much that needs to be said. On that note, I believe my part in the Gathering is done." She turned around and started leaving.
"Kolassa!" Celestia exclaimed. "Kolassa, wait!"
"If I was wrong, I'd be compelled not to leave, I should think," Kolassa called over her shoulder. As soon as she reached the edge of the Matrix, she vanished.
Celestia heard a small exclamation of pain and nervously glanced off to the side, where Annihilara had switched to her ordinary shape. They stared at each other, Celestia quivering in fear and still having to crane her neck up to meet Annihilara's eye. After a few seconds of considering each other, Annihilara turned and started to walk away.
"Lara—" Celestia called.
"Don't call me that," she retorted, not stopping.
"Princess—"
"Don't call me that either."
Celestia bit her lip in frustration. "Annihi—"
"Just don't talk to me ever again no matter what, all right?" Annihilara snapped.
"COUSIN, PLEASE!" Celestia shrieked.
Annihilara froze, but didn't turn around. All of a sudden, Celestia was positively bawling, torrents of tears gushing down her face, gasping and heaving and speaking in a breathy, choked-up wheeze. "I… I… I am so alone," she said. "All my life I've been forcing myself to the top of the social pyramid, and there, I've been… so alone. And now, in Clovenshire, I'm surrounded by relatives, who I can already see growing older. Soon enough they'll die, and I'll be surrounded by their descendants instead, and through it all I—will be—alone! It… it didn't have to be that way. I h-had a sister, and a cousin. B-but because of the way I acted, my family had no choice but to hate me, and I… I didn't even care! When I think of everything I did to my sister… I turned her heart dark! And… and what I had to do after that…"
Slowly, Annihilara turned around.
"I'm broken, Annihilara," Celestia sobbed. "I need you. I need you. I'm lost and alone without you. You're the only one left who understands me, the only being in existence who knows what I am. And I realize that knowing me only means you hate me as much as I hate myself, but… I don't care. I don't care that you hate me. I need you to keep me company."
Celestia sniffled, realizing that snot was running down her face. "Damn," she muttered under her breath. She wiped her face with her leg, then cried out in frustration at the streak of snot smeared all over her leg.
"Every day," she sighed, gazing at Annihilara, "I sit down, and look at the empty throne by my side, and… and it makes me want to die. I can't stand the loneliness anymore."
"And what exactly am I supposed to do about that?" Annihilara said coldly.
"Nothing," said Celestia, trying and failing to blink her eyefuls of tears away. "Just be there. Come live in my castle with me… please? I've been destroyed right down to my core, and only you can heal me. That's all I know."
Celestia shivered with emotion, staring with big pleading eyes at Annihilara's inscrutable, expressionless face. After a long moment, she approached without moving her hooves, skimming across the silvery surface of the Matrix.
"The deeds of your lifetime aren't so easily forgotten just because you've suddenly decided to turn yourself around," she said menacingly. "You made my childhood a living hell, and you did the same to Lulu, my Lulu. And you kept on doing it to her again and again and again. For over four hundred years, you've been nothing but a petty villain, a bitchy waste of space who didn't deserve to call herself a pony, much less a goddess."
A three-fingered claw emerged from her chest and made a fist which menaced Celestia.
"But things change," Annihilara whispered.
Celestia shrieked as dozens of tendrils emerged from Annihilara's body and wrapped around her, pulling her close. She squirmed and panicked until she suddenly realized she was being held in a warm, comforting embrace.
"My cousin," Annihilara whispered tenderly. "What once was is no longer… were."
Celestia blinked. "I'm sorry, what?"
"I dunno, I was trying to say something 'goddess-of-death'-y and it came out weird."
They laughed and parted, looking deeply into each other's eyes.
"All I have to do is be there for you?" Annihilara said. "Nopony else has to even know that I'm there?"
"If that's what you prefer," said Celestia, puzzled.
"It is."
"All right. Though there is one specific thing you might be able to do for me, Lara."
"Yeah?"
"Will you become princess of the night?" Celestia pleaded. "Bring forth the moon each evening?"
Annihilara quivered. "Hmmmm… I never did care for that idea. Would it surprise you to learn this isn't the first time I've had to consider that possibility?"
"Huh?" Celestia exclaimed.
"At the first Gathering," Annihilara whispered, "forty years or so ago, when you were still mortal, Stellaris named me heir to the sun and the moon in the event that you and Luna were to ever die, which she hoped you wouldn't, but… seemed like a possibility. Since you're not dead, I don't want to take that job, not even just Luna's half, unless it's absolutely necessary. How has the cycle been continuing for the past fourteen years?"
"I've been shepherding the day and the night," Celestia peeped.
"That's what I thought. Do you think you could just… keep doing that?"
"Yes, I can," Celestia said reluctantly.
"Good," Annihilara said apologetically. "I never was very good at… bearing the burden of responsibility."
"I understand completely," Celestia said gently.
Annihilara lowered her head menacingly. "You and I are not yet friends."
"I understand that as well."
"But…" Annihilara said sweetly, "we are closer now than we've ever been in all the centuries we've been cousins, so…" One of her legs coiled, snakelike, around Celestia's. "I consider us fortunate."
Celestia nodded. "Let us say a prayer for the future of our relationship, then."
"A prayer?" Annihilara mused. "To whom? Who do goddesses pray to?"
"…I don't know," Celestia admitted. "Such are the challenges we face. I'm just glad I no longer have to face them alone. Thank you."
"Well… as long as you're 'broken', as you say, you can count on me."
"Hmm… it's good to know I shall always be able to count on you, then."
"So… to Clovenshire?" Annihilara inquired.
"To Clovenshire," Celestia agreed.
They stared at each other for a moment, each wondering what amazing power the other would use to bring them away from that empty place. Somehow, they came to a mutual silent agreement, and simply walked out, side by side.