She met her at one of the Grand Galloping Galas—those grand parties filled with soft music and court banter, because she had learned that even at her first ten efforts to introduce different activities that both noble and common pony alike would not deter from their subjects of politics, sports, gossip, and other everyday topics.

It wasn't that she minded keeping things as they were, just that even during grand parties—excuses to stay within the castle at night and forget the moon that loomed above with the silent you did this that she wanted to forget—ponies would still be nice and predictable.

Okay, maybe too predictable.

But she wasn't like that, three hundred years into her reign alone it was meant to be just another Gala where she could socialize casually with one and all and compliment each mare and stallion's attire with a smile any mortal hostess would quietly envy.

She was Silent Flight—or as she preferred, Sy—a pegasus mare from the growing merchant caste. She had no trade she was passionate about, as Celestia would soon learn, but her friend was kind enough to get her a dress and tickets.

A simple accident at one of the wine tasting stands and a mess of massacred grapes spilled across the palest gold satin of the princess' gown was enough for them to get a 'hello' out of one another, and awkward condolences as Sy rushed to find anything to get the liquid out of the fabric before it dried.

It was a pointless endeavor, not that Celestia minded her ruined one-of-a-kind gown in a hall filled with half-tipsy ponies that wouldn't admit in any polite conversation that perhaps this event had gotten a bit carried away.

The princess was more interested in the pony whose face she had never seen before and whose family she had never met an ancestor of. The mare who cut her sky-blue mane short instead of adopting the tresses of the age had caught Celestia's attention.

Pleasantries were exchanged, and the royal Alicorn with so much experience in the art of composure under her wing caught each trace of surprise in her guest's voice.

For hours on end she spoke to a mare who told grand tales of the aerial cities of Equestria as she had seen it through her own eyes, and bothered to speak her mind and confide to Celestia that she found the nobles stuffy as well.

One mistake had made these mares friends, and after that year's Gala, Celestia learned that Sy had moved to Canterlot. She began to visit the castle often. Celestia made sure to visit her newest friend as often as she could. She made it one of her priorities to learn as much as possible about the pegasus mare.

She discovered that Sy had great skill with wingblades and wingblade combat, and offered to pay her friend's way through formal guard training with money from the crown; for what could be better than protecting ponies who could not protect themselves?

Sy agreed, and soon earned the prized rank of captain, solving numerous cases of break-ins around the city, and garnering enough reward bits to purchase a nicer home for herself, one with—in her words—'nifty molding'.

The princess learned that Sy didn't wish to go out with Celestia and her noble friends, preferring to help the ponies she vowed to protect.
Eventually, Celestia had discovered Sy's secret to finding so many stolen ornaments and heirlooms: the pegasus had been the one to steal such things in the first place. It was how she got the money to move to Canterlot, and how she had gotten to the Grand Galloping Gala in the first place, as well as how she acquired from the dress.

Her new friend; a criminal? Celestia did not wait to confront the lying pegasus about her law-breaking spree.

She asked Sy if they were really friends.

Sy lied and told her that they were.

Celestia begged her friend not to continue her secret 'work,' and to honor the pledge she had made when she had joined the Royal Guard.

Sy lied again and told her that she would.

And Celestia, in her finite mercy, forgave her.

The princess thought that she had changed a pony and made them a good, righteous, and ideal subject and friend. She believed a wound had been healed when Lady Silent Flight acted noble in both action and word. She socialized and attended parties and went to other events and meetings that were under the eyes of her fellow gaurdsponies.

Celestia thought she had grown closer to a friend that she trusted her image with.

She thought she was looking through a clear window, where all was revealed to the content-seeming princess.

It was like she blinked. How had she been staring at a window? There was no clean, cool glass in front of her, not now. She would find no garden or pleasant city below the view framed between such pristine panes.

Even though glass may distort, it can still be dirtied. Yet the princess was not given the mercy of looking at any window—be it broken, dirtied, or in any other condition.

Before her was a door of silvery white, in a dim part of the castle that was kept frighteningly clean at all times. As a result, there was no dust to indicate disuse, and only a stagnant chill offered any hint to how lonely and rarely occupied this part of the castle was. Where each hoofstep, however quiet, left an almost unbearable echo.

Celestia's bright, golden magic, so cheerful and vibrant, held the enchanted padlock of a door so thick that not even the most muscle-bound of ponies would have been able to push it open. She used her divine magic to weave a key that only her power could make and duly noted the clean and resounding click that was made as the device dissolved upon the spell's completion.

A faint humming sound filled her ears before she rapped the solid-sounding thing with her hoof to see if the barrier around the door's exterior had dispelled.

Her hoof quivered once, but she pretended otherwise. It had.

One brusque shove, with not even a fraction of her godly strength spent, and there was a silent rush of air and a compliment, slow swing inward.
Celestia brushed her wither off, as if to clean dirt that wasn't there, and stepped inside. Her eyes trained on the left wall of a room too bright to have been naturally whitewashed and humming faintly with enchantments powerful enough to restrain an ascended pony.

A faint rattle of metal links, not armor.

"Celestia?"

"It is I, Princess Celestia," was Celestia's level and toneless response to the nervous and frantic questioner.

"Gods. Oh gods, is it really going to be you?" It was a worried plea, from a pony who—like all the other subjects of Equestria—could only remember one god.

The left wall was bare, except for three hooks. The first, placed high and centered, held a helm of gold, which Celestia ignored. The two lower hooks were placed accordingly so they might perfectly balance the object whose weight they support.

The princess dispelled another barrier spell and lifted the magnificent gold battle-ax from its perch. The blades were carved with patterns of flame that glittered white in the light of the werelights that huddled near the ceiling of the inescapable room and the handle—almost thrice the length of three average ponies standing end to end—bore similar etchings that ended only at the handle's end where a ruby carved and preserved with enchantment shone with an almost otherworldly wrath, the light captured by each facet carved to mimic angry flame was violently reflected onto the barren walls, where they danced chaotically.

It was only then that she turned around to face the pony behind her.

A pegasus mare stood in front of a tapestry on the right wall, which depicted a rather erroneous version of the defeat of Discord by a lone Sun Goddess, unlike the window she commissioned for Canterlot Castle when it was built a few centuries earlier, this tapestry was very recent.
It wasn't any mare either, Celestia could see the color of her coat through the bindings that stilled her wings and the blindfold that couldn't tame the pale blue mane she never grew out. The cutie mark was a final glaring confirmation.

"We," she began, as impersonal as ever to a pony that was once her friend, "would not have another soul take your own. Always has this been Our sacred duty, and an unseen one as well. Who do you think it was that dealt with the likes of thou? We would not let a single gentle, mortal soul take on such a task."

"Celestia, please—" begged the shackled mare, only to be poked with the ruby on Celestia's axe and made to kneel.

"We gave thou Our trust and Our forgiveness, and what hath thou done despite this?"

"I—"

"Thou kept taking from others what was not rightly thine.

"Celestia—"

"We are the Princess to thou," Celestia said, voice stern but not cold; despite the circumstance, her monarch's mask wasn't given up.

"Princess Celestia-"

"Thou, who used to be a friend, broke into the homes of thy fellow Equestrians and continued to steal from them, which was a pardonable offense. But did thou stop there?"

"It was not-"

"Thou, Silent Flight, former Lady of Our court and a Captain of the Royal Guard, took thine wingblades—uniquely carved with thine own mark—with thou on each journey."

Silent Flight did not make a sound as the princess recounted her deeds.

"Thou, Silent Flight, trespassed in the home of a duke when thou had received word that he and his family had left for a country manor."

"I know..."

"The house was not empty, Silent Flight. A filly was there."

Silent Flight began to sob through her blindfold. "I know!"

The ears of the offender pricked up when they detected the movement of the axe cautioning them into silence once more. The guilty mare rested her head on the block of clean-scrubbed cold marble in front of her.

"She caught thou stealing her mother the noble duchess' jewelry. And what did thou do? It would have been a pardonable offense if thou hath run."
Silent's tears were short-lived, as she choked briefly before retreating into the quiet, which was her last shield.

"One of thine wingblades was there."

The pegasus trembled before the goddess.

"It was covered in her blood."

No empathy showed in Celestia's face.

"We tolerate a great many things in Equestria, petty thievery is one of them and is dealt with easily. The theft of a life is not."

The princess did not receive any reply.

"We did so much for you and you will not even tell Us where you buried her body, not that everypony does not know of your guilt."

From the block came one cry of:

"Mercy, Celestia."

It was the supposed cry of each of her foes: Tirek, King Sombra, Discord, and the villain they knew only as Nightmare Moon. Each was said to utter this as their last words in each and every legend that was told all across Equestria, although it was mostly attributed to the last, it was held that she uttered this with malice and dishonesty as the 'monster' was then sealed within the moon.

Celestia did not hesitate to swing.