The sun had once again passed its zenith, and was well on its way to setting. The ponies in the Canterlot castle did not seem to notice, or to care that one more day was being rapidly exhausted. Their laughter filled the air, and the younger among them ran at the feet of the older, playing amongst themselves.

Celestia watched from the corner of the hall, and for once the smile on her face was not forced. She was, for the first time in a what seemed like so long, truly happy. Even with three months of time spent resting and recovering, she was still weak and far more sore than she ever had been since the death of Solar Spectra, but she hardly noticed.

For three months, every pony in Equestria had joined together to rebuild Equestria. Assistance had come from the numerous far-flung states, those that were remnants of the Second Era- -from the tall horses of Saddle Arabia, the donkeys of Assyria, the yaks of YakYakistan, and from countless other states outside of Equestria proper. That alone would have been impressive, but even such an outpouring of help paled in comparison to the comradery of the ponies within Equestria itself. In one day, they had suddenly seemed to forget their grievances and warfare. They had laid down their weapons and armor and turned their attention to helping those in need- -tending to the wounded and refugees, and mobilizing resources for the recovery effort.

The large party before Equestria had been spawned from that comradery. It had started as a reception party for Nightwatcher and Cavern Melody’s wedding, which had been officiated in the darkest caves of the chiropterans by Luna- -although there were whispered rumors that Blackest Night had appeared to give her blessing as well. The newlyweds were completely baffled by the concept of a reception, and in the process of trying to explain it to them, the party had expanded exponentially. Under Pinkie Pie, the party morphed into something far more, a chance for the ponies not just to celebrate the new union, but the survival of Equestria.

Nightwatcher and Cavern Melody had taken the changes in stride. Celestia caught a glimpse of them across the room, sitting with Luna and laughing. The picture seemed idyllic, or nearly so: Nightwatcher, standing strong and proud over his family and his princess, beside his wife who, despite her scars and blindness in one eye, seemed to have become increasingly placid in her new motherhood.

Standing at their feet, however, was a shy filly, not afraid to play with the other children but watching them with apprehension. She was the anomaly in the family. Although she was only three months old, she already had the body of a ten-year filly and the mind of a pony in her mid-teens. For the most part, though, she resembled her parents- -her coat was a dull gray color, as were her bat-like wings- -save for two features. Her mane was deep blue, as were her eyes- -eyes that looked like neither that of her mother, nor her father, but like those of Luna. Her cutie mark- -which had developed almost three weeks after her birth- -was that of a blue tetrahedral crystal.

Her name, Celestia knew, was Anhelios. Celestia had come to know her well, and had ensured that she was the first ever non-unicorn accepted into Celstia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. Although she was not a unicorn, her hair concealed a set of small lumps or crests that ran along the top of her head and spine, just as they had on another pony who had been able to use magic with no horn.

Darkseer approached them. He looked incredibly tired, but laughed with his brother and sister-in-law. It was generally understood that he was expected to announce his own engagement any day- -to a marron-coated female demon that he had met on his trip to Tartarus, who was across the room looming over Rainbow Dash as they guzzled cider- -something difficult for a “pony” with immense fangs and tusks.

Twilight’s friends had joined the party as well, each laughing and talking and dancing with the numerous other ponies that filled the room. Many had come to speak to Celestia, to ask how she was doing with her recovery- -all except Twilight. Celestia had seen the data cube, and when she had grown strong enough, she had accessed it herself. It had confirmed what she had already known. Twilight, it seemed, still cared for her deeply- -but could not even look her in the eye.

In a way, that was better. Celestia and Twilight’s relationship had changed, but Celestia had carried the burden of the past alone for so long that it felt like an immense relief to know that some other pony, one clean of such sins, was aware of what had been done to form Equestria, and the sacrifices that had been made by so many.

“My…Princess,” whispered a voice from behind her. Celestia turned to see a pair of creatures that seemed oddly out of place, standing awkwardly away from the other ponies who looked at them apprehensively.

“Chocolatl, Tlilxochitl!” said Celestia, surprised that they had responded to her invitation. They bowed deeply to her. “I am glad you could attend.”

“Thank you…Princess,” said Tlilxochitl, her one remaining eye looking toward Celestia’s hooves. “This is…the first time we have stood in the light…”

“Then stand,” laughed Celestia, motioning for them to rise. After careful consideration, she had decided not to dissolve the Order of Light. They still remained in their darkened, secret homes and locations, ready for deployment at a moment’s notice. Chocolatl and Tlilxochitl, however, had suffered severe injuries in the course of their duties- -injuries that precluded them from any combat situations. At Celestia’s behest, they had retired from their positions. Celestia’s smile grew as she realized that she would need to inform them soon that a third ahuizotl- -the youngest of their children- -was on the way.

“Go,” said Celestia. “You don’t need to hide anymore.”

They stared up at her, confused, and then looked at each other. They smiled, and then bowed once again and moved slowly into the crowd of ponies, their tail-hands linked together.

Celestia sighed, and turned her attention toward the dessert table, the location she had selected with exacting precision. Regrowing an entire set of alicorn organs was no simple task, and it required thorough nutrition. Celestia levitated another slice of cake with her horn and promptly devoured it, and then turned to the carefully decorated cupcakes nearby. As soon as she saw them, the contents of her barely regenerated stomach seemed to rebel, and she nearly vomited. She cursed D27 for having ruined one of her favorite confections. Still, there were always some extra- -so through sheer force of will, she proceeded to eat five.

Of all the ponies who had participated in the Second Choggoth War, D27 was curiously absent from the party. That was not in itself unusual. Numerous ponies had been unable to attend: Shining Armor and Cadence were busy reconstructing the Crystal Palace in Crystal Empire, and Spike was far away in the mountains, training with Crimsonflame. The latter had seemed to fill Twilight with a mixture of pride and loneliness that Celestia knew all too well.

D27, however, had not been seen in months. Almost as soon the Order-Choggoth Nil had been defeated, D27’s numerous bodies- -at least those that had not destroyed themselves carrying Harmony to the world- -had all disintegrated. It was assumed that he had returned to the Gloame, but all the gates had been once again sealed. No pony had seen him or anything resembling him since.

Celestia looked out at the room again, and saw Twilight’s friends laughing as Pinkie Pie seemed to tell another one of her endless jokes while she bounced around the room. It had been their efforts that had once again saved Equestria, and Celestia was terribly proud, but others had been involved too. Her eyes shifted toward Luna, moving from her smiling face to the dormant black stain on her rump- -toward the sleeping, waiting remnant of the queen who had ruled in Celestia’s absence, and then abdicated without hesitation when Celestia asked her to step down. Likewise, her contemporary, the blue Choggoth, had stood beside her, and beside Twilight- -only to seemingly vanish from all pony memory.

As she thought and contemplated, she suddenly caught a glimpse of something across the room. A dim reflection, a glint of a geometric shape. Something small and insect-like dashed unseen around a corner down the hall, unseen by those around it. Something blue.

Celestia set down her plate and crossed the room. She paused to whisper to a guard- -a unicorn, one of the many who had been afflicted by the release of enhancement armor and one of the few to regain his sobriety- -and informed him that she was stepping out for a moment. After her defeat at the hands of D27, the guards had been swarming around her as though they would actually be able to assist her with any real threat. She appreciated them- -especially the way their firm but comparatively tiny bodies moved near her with military precision- -but they were growing increasingly tiresome.

As she made her way toward the door, she passed Discord and his strange green friend. Both were oddly quiet, sitting near a window and watching the party with blank gazes and wide smiles on their face, eating numerous cheese cubes from a large bowl that they shared.

“Told you,” said Buttery Snake, giggling as he nudged Discord.

Celestia ignored them and walked out into the mostly empty hall, just in time to see the shadow of a demon several times larger than her carrying a somewhat reluctant bat pony around a distant corner toward where the coat room was located.

The light glinted again, and Celestia followed it further down the hall. As she walked, she passed the new stained glass windows that showed the new and most recent events of Equestrian history- -of Nightmare Moon, now known as Blackest Night, leading her army of griffons, demons, chiropterans, and ponies into battle to save Equestria, or of Twilight and her friends standing on a high cliff, pulling in the power from the ponies of all Equestria to slay a great and terrible amorphic crystal beast. On that particular image, down in the lowest left corner, was a tiny, barely noticeable fragment of blue glass consisting of two triangles.

Celestia found herself being led into an empty part of the castle, and the sound of the party grew distant. She stopped and looked around the hall, admiring the way her sun’s light poured through the colored windows, illuminating the tile floor below.

A motion caught her eye. She turned toward a bust that stood against the wall. Like many of the artifacts in her castle, it was something recovered from the Castle of Ruin, something that had somehow survived constant warfare for endless millennia. The name of unicorn that its gray stone represented had long since been lost to history, but Celestia felt an odd familiarity with her- -if only because that bust had followed her through three castles in three Eras, watching over her kingdom since the beginning.

Standing next to the bust was a tiny, mouse-sized globule of blue tissue. Celestia leaned close, and saw that it was marked with two triangles- -and a circle between them. The innocuous piece of blue tissue rapidly shifted, forming itself into a miniature version of the pony analogue that it had once resembled.

“Hello, D27,” said Celestia. It only looked up at her, its tiny triangular pupils oddly devoid of life. Celestia looked back toward the door. “They are waiting for you in there. Won’t you join us?”

“No,” said D27, his voice oddly clear despite his tiny size.

“Why?” asked Celestia.

The tiny Choggoth turned its pony-like head toward the party, and then looked up at Celestia. “I am not meant to.”

“D27, they are your friends.”

D27 shook his tiny head. “No. And they never can be.”

“What are you saying?”

The miniature pony sighed. “Celstia…you know it better than even I. I am nothing more than a weapon. I was created to destroy, and nothing more.”

“Do you really believe that? Are you really going to let that define you?”

“I have no choice. This is not what I want…I wish more than anything that I could stay. But this world was not meant for creatures like me. The part of my mind that could ever be their friend is nothing more than a defect in my core functions. I cannot escape the fact that I am a remnant of a system that cannot coexist with life.”

“Celestia?” called a voice from down the hall. Hoofsteps echoed down the hall- -hoofsteps characteristic of a pony wearing silver shoes.

Luna entered the room and looked at her sister. She wore a semi-serious expression, but had glitter and strands of confetti in her hair. “Sister, Pinkie Pie had brought us something called a ‘pin-yata’ that seems to be most amusing. From the description, I hear that it is hit with a stick until candy bursts forth from- -sister, are you unwell?”

Luna looked down at the bust near Celestia, and gasped at the tiny pony she saw standing there.

“Methinks the punch was spiked,” she said.

“Hello, Luna,” said D27. Luna seemed surpised, but leaned in closer.

“You,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I have come to apologize to both of you,” he said, “and to bid you, the last two ponies I shall perhaps ever see, farewell.”

“Are you leaving us?” said Luna, her face showing conflicted emotions- -the same emotions that everypony who had ever met D27 felt. She, like Celestia, did not know whether to thank him or hate him- -and usually ended up doing both.

“I am returning to the Gloame,” explained D27. “There, I will deactivate my central processor. I will continue to exist, but without thought or feeling, in a dormant state.”

“You’re going to die,” said Luna, her jaw tightening.

“No,” said D27. “I am not alive. I never was…except perhaps for just a brief flash in my infinite life. I cannot bear to face the world you are forced to dwell in- -to love, and then watch them all leave you. But I will not die. I will wait.”

“Until what?” asked Celestia.

“Until I am called upon again,” said D27. “I have closed the doors to your world, and contracted Satin Veil to protect those in her domain- -but I have left some remaining. Those of greatest skill or greatest need will find me, if they wish.”

“Please reconsider,” said Celestia. “Some of them…some of us…would miss you.”

“No, you would not,” said D27. “And I cannot. The Choggoth model is obsolete. I am suited to be wielded by Order, but not by Harmony. I shall leave the seventh world in the care of the alicorns- -a new model for a new paradigm.”

“But you will be alone,” said Luna. “We cannot let you do that…”

“Perhaps, for some time,” mused D27. “But time is meaningless for me. Perhaps, one day, the proto-golems or the shadows will evolve to sentience. Perhaps, when that day comes, I will be ready for friendship.”

“D27,” said Luna, clearing her throat. “Before you go- -I must thank you. For protecting Cavern Melody, and little Anhelios. Please accept my most sincere gratitude.”

“I will,” said D27, “if you can accept my apology for trying to kill you.”

“I can,” said Luna. “But I hardly knew you. I think…I believe that she would like to speak with you.”

Before Celestia could stop her, Luna’s blue color was rapidly and painlessly consumed with black. Her face was replaced with a new one, and her eyes shifted in color and shape.

“Greetings, D27,” said Blackest Night, her darkness casting shadows against Celestia’s inherent light. “Or, more appropriately, farewell.”

“Blackest,” said D27, looking up at her with odd compassion in his eyes. Celestia supposed that Blackest Night was the closest thing he had ever had to a true friend. “What paths have we wrought?”

“The longest of them,” she said. “But different ones. Mine of choice, yours of birth, but the same in that neither of us have a destination. We persist eternal.”

“Can I leave this world in your care?”

Blackest Night sighed. “Yes. I shall continue on this side. I will remain with Luna, to protect her in her times of need, and to stand beside her sister when she cannot.” She looked at Celestia, and smiled weakly. “If she will have me, that is?”

“You know how I feel about reform,” said Celestia, herself smiling. “Of course I will.”

“Then I leave Equestria in good care,” said D27. He turned to Celestia. “And to you. I nearly killed you. You can never forgive me- -not completely. Not just for that, even, but for what I did to Twilight. Apologizing to you is the last thing I must do in this world.”

“We both made mistakes,” said Celestia. “Our misunderstanding grew from disharmony and fear, on both parts, I think. I tried to kill you as well. I think we are equal, D27, at least in that respect. So I can forgive you, or will someday- -as long as you promise never to touch my desserts again.”

D27 smiled. “Thank you, Celestia. And thank you, Blackest, for standing beside me. Farewell to both of you, and if they bother to ask, tell the others that I said goodbye.”

With that, D27’s tiny body began to break apart, fading into dust or smoke that rose up around the bust of the unnamed unicorn. The remainder of its tiny form liquefied and then evaporated, and in seconds not even a residual stain remained.

Celestia and Blackest Night looked at each other. Blackest Night pulled her head back and retracted back into Luna’s mind, once again releasing it from her dominance. Luna looked at Celestia through her wide blue eyes, and the two sisters wrapped their wings around each other. They understood D27’s decision more than anypony could know- -for if either of them were left alone without the other, they would have gladly chosen the same fate.

“Come on,” said Celestia, leading Luna back down the hall. “We really should get back to the party.

The two of them walked together, back to the room where their friends were awaiting their return.