Originally published several months after the war’s end, Fancy Pants’ autobiography ‘I Was There’ became the first new book published in Equestria when the moon was finally lowered. In the book, Fancy Pants goes into details about his operations as part of a heretofore unknown resistance group who called themselves “The League of Un-Gentlepony Warfare,” Canterlot nobles who used their wealth and social status to weaken Luna’s powerbase and wage underground war on the New Lunar Army. Any doubts about the book’s authenticity were dashed when Fancy Pants was able to lead investigators to the site of the League’s pitched battle with Colonel Firebrand’s forces in the Canterlot sewers… where the bodies of the New Lunar soldiers were still sealed in suspended animation spells.

Fancy Pants’ book helped to clear the Canterlot nobility’s names, as they were previously known as collaborators.

Early in the book, Fancy Pants details the events of the so-called Execution of Harmony.

With the moon full and shining overhead, we made our way to the Wonderbolt’s stadium. The crowd was abuzz with chatter. There had been public executions previously, of course. I had been in the back row of Spitfire’s and I can still remember the sound of her death rattles. But these executions were not to take place in the city square where the gallows had been erected in the first days of Luna’s reign.

Luna wanted as large an audience as possible for this one.

My beloved Fleur and myself found our seats in the upper rows and observed the scene around us. There were hundreds of ponies here, possibly thousands. Easily the entire population of Canterlot were filling up the stadium’s many seats. The center field was now dominated by a huge and new set of gallows. Three nooses hung from the beam above three separate trapdoors and three separate levers. Each of the condemned would die alone.

Sitting in her private box directly across from us was Princess Luna. On her left was her secretary, the dark maned Raven. On her right was the newly promoted General Rainbow Dash of the New Lunar Army. Months later, I would personally engage General Dash in combat. I still consider her to be the finest warrior I have ever had the pleasure of doing battle with. Her resolve was nothing short of extraordinary.

On this day, she looked like she wanted to die.

A gong was sounded and General Dash made to don a black hood so as to hide her identity to the crowd. Princess Luna stopped her and gestured enthusiastically at the gallows.

With her shame covered face visible to all, General Dash glided from the box to the gallows.

The gong sounded once again and the condemned were led out, their hooves chained and dragging. The chatter faded into silence as we watched the three little ponies, heads held high, escorted to the gallows by several enormous members of the New Lunar Special Forces. Twilight Sparkle and Rarity had silver rings affixed to their horns; magic nullifiers. Applejack’s head was crowned by her beaten old Stetson, a gift from somepony special I’m sure. The three, all on steady hooves, climbed the steps of the gallows and took their places below each noose.

As attendants set about affixing the nooses about the three necks, General Dash reread the charges against the condemned. Applejack was forced to remove her hat so the rope could be lowered. She kissed it and tossed it into the crowd where it vanished into a crowd of ponies. It was not seen again until it was donated by an anonymous donor to the Museum of Harmony years later.

When the charges were finally finished, General Dash made her way over to the condemned. She checked the rope’s stability and looked Applejack in the eyes. In a monotonous voice, she asked if her former best friend had any last words.

Applejack spat in her face.

General Dash didn’t even bother wiping it off. She just made her way to the lever, hesitated for a moment, and pulled.

The trapdoor gave and Applejack plummeted. The rope went taut and the farmer’s neck snapped. She didn’t suffer.

Fleur’s anguished gasp drew my attention to our dear friend Rarity. It seemed the sound of her friend’s death had shaken her resolve somewhat. Her knees were now trembling uncontrollably and she appeared to be hyperventilating. General Dash stood before her and asked if she had any last words.

Rarity’s final words in this world were a choked and pained gurgle, her streaming eyes focused on the dangling corpse that had once been one of her closest friends.

General Dash found the lever and pulled.

Rarity did not have Applejack’s luck.

She dangled there as the rope tightened about her lovely pale throat. Her eyes bulged as she gasped for air that would not come. Her hooves kicked wildly, desperately seeking some form of purchase.

I had seen enough. I subtly lit my horn and reached out with my magic, intending to grasp my friend’s legs and put her out of her misery with a single hard yank.

But there was somepony else’s magic there already doing exactly what I had intended to do.

When Rarity’s death throes had ceased, I looked around in desperation. Who had my fellow caring soul been?

My attention was returned to the gallows for the proverbial main event. Twilight Sparkle didn’t even look in General Dash’s direction. Her gaze was focused entirely on Princess Luna. She ignored General Dash’s request for any last words and just stared at Luna.

General Dash pulled the lever… and the mechanism jammed.

That’s when it happened.

Twilight’s horn lit. The magic nullifier melted to nothing before her immense power. I understood then that it had been Twilight who had aided her suffering friend. Her eyes never left Luna’s, even as the princess started to order her guards to descend and attack. Her horn’s light grew brighter and brighter, almost blinding us all, before the light broke into a thousand smaller beams that lanced into the horns of every unicorn in attendance. In that instant, I found I had learned a new spell. My beloved Fleur’s confused gaze confirmed that she had had the same experience. In the days that followed, we would learn more about Twilight’s final gift, this False Sun Spell.

I looked around the stadium, scanning the faces for my friends and contemporaries. The same ones who the next week would join Fleur and myself in a blood oath, dedicating ourselves to Luna’s downfall. Jet Set, Upper Crust, even that dandy Blueblood, he who knew of my dislike for him and still took a lance in the heart for me during the Siege of Canterlot.

Twilight, visibly strained by the effort, inhaled deeply. Then she spoke her last words.

No. She roared them. Directly at Luna.

“CELESTIA LIVES!”

Then she took a running leap off the scaffold. The rope held. Twilight’s neck did not.

And as she who had once been Equestria’s savior swung from rope’s end, a look of peace and satisfaction on her dead face, chaos descended upon the stadium.