Neither Twilight nor her companion could keep a gasp of shock and astonishment from escaping them as they beheld the ruined face and body of the Princess of the Sun. It was as if somepony had taken a fiery hammer and had used it to repeatedly bludgeon the entire left side of the Equestrian monarch, marring her once pristine body with marks of vicious violence.

From the top of Celestia’s head, where gouges into her crest had torn away most of her mane, to the stump of a mostly missing rear left leg that sat canted at an odd angle indicating a currently broken or badly set and healed hip, the ruler of Bolthole was a litany of injuries that would have either killed another pony or reduced them to a mad thing, raving in pain.

“Sweet Harmony,” whispered Starlight, horn lighting with what Twilight could feel was a potent healing spell.

“Please, don’t waste your magic on me,” Celestia said, and Twilight realized with a start that the voice didn’t come from Celestia’s mouth, but from the half-melted remains of the peytral the solar monarch habitually wore.

“But you must be in agony,” Starlight replied, sending out a pulse of restorative magic toward the smashed body of the princess, only to see it have no effect whatsoever.

“My body is in a form of stasis,” Celestia explained, without any malice from having unasked for magics cast on her. “I can’t feel a thing. I haven’t felt anything for years now. Except sorrow at my actions.”

“What did you do?” Twilight asked, her voice soft. The chamber they were in demanded gentleness, care and reverence. “What did you do that was so terrible you want me to kill you?”

“I’m a mass murderer a thousand times over,” Celestia stated, her sole remaining eye on the right side glistening with unshed tears. “I killed nearly every pony in Equestria, along with every creature in all the other lands on Equus. I killed all of them.”

“What? How?” Starlight demanded. “Not even an alicorn has that kind of power. Nopony does.”

“Not directly, no,” admitted Celestia, a small shift on her bed revealing the jagged end of a rib poking out from the alicorn’s barrel. “But through my actions I caused the death of nearly all life on this world.”

“This world?” Twilight interjected. “So you know about multiple worlds and alternate timelines.”

“When the body is as close to death as mine has been for so long, the spirit tends to wander,” Celestia explained. “I have been aware of you and your companions' activities for quite some time now. When you first came here I tried to send a signal to you, but I was too slow, and too weak. You and Starlight left before I could get your attention. Even this time it was all I could do to make sure Applejack was in the right area to find you.”

“You sent her?” Starlight queried, taking a moment to study the massive crystal forming the ceiling. “I thought Rarity did that.”

“My foolish ponies are so devoted to me that all it took was a simple suggestion to get Applejack heading to where you were. But enough of that,” Celestia said, turning her attention fully to Twilight. “Princess Twilight Sparkle, as the only other alicorn present on this world I am asking that you act as my judge, jury, and hopefully, executioner.”

“You keep saying that you want us to kill you, princess,” Twilight answered, delaying things as her mind began to work out the hows and whys of what was going on. “You say that you killed everypony, that you killed on a global scale. But not directly. And even if I were to find you guilty of such a crime my world has no capital punishment. We don’t kill ponies, even if they have killed themselves.”

“I take that to mean that you will at least act as my judge,” Celestia stated, her demeanor becoming as grim as her body. “I can accept that, because at the end of it all, you will realize that you have no choice but to end my wretched existence.”

“What did you do?” demanded Starlight, before gesturing up to the ceiling. “Twilight, the amount of power in that thing is incredible! It’s got to be the single biggest reservoir of magic I’ve ever seen.”

“And yet it still isn’t enough to save the world,” Celestia sighed. “All I’ve managed to do with it is stave off the inevitable awhile longer.”

“Why don’t we start at the beginning, Princess Celestia,” suggested Twilight, making a note of the byplay. “All of our timelines diverge at the point where I took the exam to enter your ‘School for Gifted Unicorns’. Do you remember me from then?”

“I’ve had awhile to go through my memories, and yes I do remember hearing about a Twilight Sparkle who took the entrance exam,” Celestia began, “and I also remember being informed of the tragic afterwards.”

“Tragic?” Twilight asked, in spite of herself.

“The test is meant to be failed,” Celestia explained, sighing. “It’s supposed to make a foal push themselves as hard as they can so that we can measure their ability and then show them how much more they can do with us to show them the way. But your counterpart…”

Celestia paused in her retelling, shame shifting her broken left cheekbone abominably as she tried to clench her jaw.

“Our Twilight ran out of the testing room, sobbing,” Celestia continued, “she didn’t stop until she reached the edge of Mount Canter, and throwing herself into the abyss, leaving behind only a note that apologized for her failure to pass and bringing shame to her family. Night Light and Twilight Velvet divorced a year later. Shining Armor eventually joined the Royal Guard, where he died attempting to defend me during the return of Nightmare Moon.”

“I remember thinking that my life was over, just before Rainbow Dash’s sonic rainboom triggered the surge that made me hatch the egg and pass the test,” Twilight commented, looking over to Starlight. “I was going to run and run, and keep running until I ran out of somewhere to run to.”

“I’d spent years supervising that school, trying to find a pony that would be able to use the Elements of Harmony,” Celestia added. “I came close once or twice, but I was never quite able to find the right pony.”

“It’s my fault then, not yours,” Starlight stated. “All these deaths are on me, not you. I prevented Rainbow Dash from doing the sonic rainboom. I am the one who caused this world’s Twilight to kill herself and keep you from having the pony you needed to stop Nightmare Moon’s return.”

“You’re wrong. The multiverse doesn’t work that way Starlight,” Celestia kindly corrected. “All your choice did was open your perceptions up to alternatives that already existed. You can only experience an alternate world if you’ve experienced the choice that defines that timeline.”

“You mean all this,” Starlight replied, gesturing about, “was going to exist no matter what I did?”

“Exactly,” Celestia said, her voice in the approving tones Twilight remembered from her days as the solar diarch’s personal student. “All your actions did was give you the ability to come to our world and change things for the better.”

“So, what happened after I… died?” Twilight asked, moving things forward.

“Though I didn’t know it at the time, I’d lost my best chance to stop Nightmare Moon,” Celestia continued. “As the time of her return neared I threw myself into learning as much battle magic as I could, as well as training up the Guard to be more of a fighting force, instead of the ceremonial unit that they were for so long.”

“So Nightmare Moon returned, and Twilight and her friends weren’t there to stop them,” Starlight added. “What happened?”

“The end of everything,” Celestia bleakly supplied. “Nightmare Moon appeared over Canterlot. And we fought.”

“And you won,” Twilight added, only to be stopped as Celestia corrected her.

“I lost,” Celestia’s whispered admission brought utter silence to the room for long seconds until the broken alicorn added, “she beat me, utterly. She wiped out the Solar Guard in less time than it takes to say the words. It turns out that a thousand years of hatred and planning for revenge tops a bare dozen years of scrambling to get better. Luna… Nightmare Moon, beat me, broke me, and made it look easy while she did it.”

“But… you’re here, and she isn’t,” Starlight said, fearful as to what the explanation would be.

“I was lying there, completely defeated at her hooves,” Celestia explained, her voice as dead as much of her body. “She told me that if I begged for mercy she would spare my life and allow me to live, chained to her throne as a symbol of what it would mean to defy her rule.”

“What did you do?” Twilight asked, eyes wide.

“I was broken, driven beyond desperation. All I could see were the dark shackles she was already dangling in front of me,” Celestia pressed on, every ear utterly focused on her. “In that place of total despair, in a moment of sheer blind terror that I will regret to my dying day and beyond, I called out to my Element. And to my utter and eternal horror, my Element answered the call.”

“By the Light,” Twilight softly swore, eyes wide.

“What? What is it?” Starlight demanded, shaking Twilight. “What does she mean, ‘her Element answered’?”

“The Sun,” Twilight expounded. “Celestia’s Element is the sun itself. Sunfall… it isn’t some poetic phrase. It’s what actually happened. The sun fell to Equestria itself.”

“Sweet Harmony,” Starlight cried out in shocked horror. “How did anypony survive?”

“Nightmare Moon felt the onrush of the sun as it came to me, and in her own moment of fear and desperation moved her moon into place as a shield,” Celestia’s voice kept on, her words horrible yet fascinating. “The moon was shattered, but it blunted the sun’s charge enough to give me a moment of realization of what was about to happen.”

“But it was too late, wasn’t it?” Twilight asked, rhetorically. “Nopony, not even you, could stop it or stand up to that kind of heat, could you?”

“No,” Celestia confirmed. “For one last shining moment, my sister and I stood together again in an attempt to protect Equestria; as we tried to raise a shield to stop what my foolishness had caused. Right up until a lance of pure sun stuff landed on top of us both. We would have perished then and there, but Night— Luna pushed me to one side and put her own shield of coldest night over me. It was just enough to allow me to survive, but it left me as I am now.”

“And the moon spread the rest of the strike out, didn’t it?” Starlight replied. “Didn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Celestia. “Not only that, but bits of the sun kept falling to the ground as well. And as horrific as all that was the worst was yet to come.”

“What could have been worse than you dropping the sun itself onto Equestria?” Starlight demanded. “I mean seriously, what could have been worse?”

“Touch your horns to mine, my little ponies, and I will show you,” said Celestia, lowering her head so that the cracked shaft was extended forward.

Both younger ponies did as they were asked, only to find themselves and their magic caught in an implacable grip of steel.

“Let go,” Twilight grunted out, trying to push aside the magical grasp on her, but it was like an ant trying to shrug off a boulder.

Be at peace, my little ponies came the voice of Celestia, from within their very minds. Relax and allow your minds and magic to ride my aura to places as yet hidden from your view. You will come to no harm.

With that Twilight had a sudden sensation of upward motion and realized with a start that she was floating above her own body. The upward sensation increased and her nonmaterial body flashed upwards through the green gem of the ceiling and up through the solid rock past it. Further upwards she flew, an intact Celestia and an equally immaterial Starlight with them both, while a great pool of magic flowed upwards with them.

Up past the burned and blasted surface of the land they flew. Up high into the sky, until at last the trio came to what appeared to be the flowing arc of a shield spell. Only a shield spell so large that Twilight couldn’t see the edge of it.

How big is this? Twilight asked, awed by the sheer size of the brassy coloured construct.

It covers all of Equus. Celestia informed her, as the great green mass of collected mana flowed up alongside of them. And roughly once a month I have to do this!

As the two mages watched, the ruler of what was left of Equestria drew the massive well of mana into herself, and then pushed it outward again through her horn, where the effect of all that power on the massive magical wall of protection was instant and obvious as its colour shifted from dull and brassy to bright and golden.

That was incredible. Twilight commented, when all but the smallest traces of the vast mana pool had been exhausted and the defensive bulwark had been renewed. That shield is huge![/]

What is it a shield against? Starlight challenged, suspicion on her face. What are you protecting Equestria from that needs so much power?

Use the last bit of mana that I held back, Celestia suggested. Use it to expand your senses beyond the shield and see the destruction that I stave off a little less each time.

Tapping into the residual magic that was left over, Twilight copied her student’s action and sent her awareness past the barrier, where she found nothing but roiling heat and overbearing pressure. A mass of ultimate radiant energy that continually pressed in on the massive defences Celestia maintained at all times.

The two mages shared a look of shock as they realized what they were experiencing only to feel a downward tug on their incorporeal bodies. Downward they flashed, reversing their course, until they found themselves back in their bodies in Celestia’s subterranean quarters.

“Was that what I think it was?” Starlight asked, her voice very, very quiet.

“Yes, it was,” Celestia confirmed, endless sorrow in her voice. “That is what is left of the sun.”

“The star, destabilized. Didn’t it?” Twilight asked, garnering a nod of confirmation from the elder alicorn. “Extended as it was, and without Celestia to shepherd it back into place, the sun essentially fell apart.”

“I was and am too broken to restore my beloved sun,” Celestia supplied. “Without anyone to guide it, the shattered pieces of the star settled around the closest gravity source. Equus. Only the shield keeps what is left of this world from being roasted to ash in an instant.”

“But that’s crazy!” Starlight burst out. “Why not use some of that huge mana pool to heal yourself and then the sun?

“I told you, my body is in a type of magical stasis,” Celestia patiently explained. “For all intents and purposes, I’m already dead. Only what remains of my connection to the sun, and what scraps of power I dare to keep for myself keep me going. I would need a mana pool twice the size of what I have now to have any chance of being able to restore myself, the sun and keep the sun shield up and running while I did so.”

“So why kill you then?” Twilight asked. “Why condemn this world to death?”

“Because every month the shield slips a little more, and the world dies just that much more,” the broken alicorn said. “In spite of all that I and my ponies have done, we have perhaps five or six years before either I finally succumb to my injuries or the shield slips entirely. The only way this world can survive is for a solar aligned alicorn, at the peak of their strength and power, to reconstitute the sun and place it back into its proper place in the heavens.”

“But I’m the Princess of Friendship,” objected Twilight, “and the Element of Magic, not the sun.”

“But I’m here Twilight,” Starlight interjected. “I’m the missing piece of the puzzle, aren’t I, Princess Celestia?”

“Indeed so,” Celestia confirmed, with a gentle nod. “You know how to remove cutie marks. You can remove my mark and give it to Twilight, which will give her my connection to the sun.”

“But that will kill you!” Twilight protested. “You said it yourself that the only thing keeping you going is the link between you and the sun.”

“Now you know why I’ve been telling you that you will be killing me,” Celestia reminded her. “Do not feel guilty for what you have to do. It will save my Equestria and put me out of my misery. You will have nothing but gratitude for ending my life.”

“But, won’t that mean that Twilight has to stay here?” Starlight asked.

“Wait, what?” Twilight demanded.

“Your friend is right, there are no other alicorns, my dear,” Celestia said, kindly. “And no unicorns with anything close to enough skill or power.”

“But… but… “ Twilight stuttered.

“I know what I’m asking for is a lot, but it is to save an entire world,” Celestia continued, as Twilight's eyes widened at the enormity of what she was being asked to do. “Plus, you will have everything I’ve been able to write down about the operation of Bolthole, the managing of a kingdom and how to control the sun. You will be fine.”

“But it means staying here, forever,” Starlight said. “She’ll have to stay here to manage the sun, not to mention that she’ll be their princess. They’ll need her.”

“That might be a sacrifice worth making, Starlight,” the purple alicorn commented, hoof on her chin. “Back home, I’m just one of four princesses. I’m the extra princess. But here, it would be just me. Maybe this is what I was meant to do, what I was meant to find. A way to save an entire world.”

“What about your friends?” Starlight asked.

“You know the spell to travel between worlds as well as I do,” Twilight responded, enthusiasm for the idea growing. “You can bring them here for visits. Some of them might even want to stay for awhile.”

“Well, if you’re sure, Twilight,” Starlight replied, but her eyes took on a far away look as an idea came into her own mind.

“When would you want to make the transfer?” Twilight asked Celestia. “Um, I mean…”

“When would I like to die?” Celestia tossed back, a slight smile on her lips. “As soon as possible. I’m tired, Twilight. So very tired. I want to stop hurting; I want to rest.”

“What about your ponies?” Twilight questioned, gesturing outside the chamber. “Will they accept me as their princess?’

“Of course they will,” Celestia assured her, before bending her head low. “Please Princess Twilight, take my mantle and end my suffering. Don’t make me have to beg you to kill me.

“All right, I’ll do it,” Twilight responded, drawing herself up. “Princess Celestia of Equestria, I find you guilty of doing all that you could to make up for your crimes. As a Princess of Equestria I sentence you to eternal peace. From here on, I shall be the protector of this world and all who dwell on and in it.”

“Thank you,” Celestia answered, lifting her head to look at Starlight Glimmer directly. “If you would be so kind, Starlight Glimmer. Do what must be done.”

“What must be… “ the unicorn echoed, and for a moment the broken alicorn and the reforming unicorn seemed to share a single mind as their eyes locked. Each holding the other's gaze within a tunnel of thought and intention.

“Do it,” whispered Celestia, and a moment later Starlight ignited her horn, power and light flaring with the remembered spell that had once caused so much heartache in Our Town.

When the light dimmed back to normal levels, Twilight was the first to speak. “That’s strange, I don’t feel any different,” she commented, looking around in confusion until she spotted Celestia’s solar cutie mark, on Starlight Glimmer’s flank. “What have you done?”

“I’m sorry Twilight, but you’re too important to our world, and to all the other worlds you haven’t been to yet,” Starlight explained. “You still have a destiny in front of you, but I know that my destiny is here. One way or the other, I wasn’t going back with you, and this way I can find redemption for my own mistakes and make my own peace.”

“Well done, Starlight Glimmer,” Celestia gasped out, blood now oozing from dozens of wounds as the stasis began to wear off with the loss of the mortally wounded alicorn’s link to the sun. “Go ahead, say the words.”

“Words? What wor—” Starlight began to ask, before the power of light and life filled her to overflowing, lifting her in the air.

“Hail, Solar Starlight,” Celestia choked out, blood flowing from her mouth now. “Hail! Ha—”

“Princess Celestia!” cried the other two ponies, leaping to the aid of the dying alicorn as she collapsed on the bed.

“Go,” Celestia said, air rattling in her chest one last time. “Save my po—”

“Hail to thee, Celestia. Sol Invictus,” intoned Starlight, as the spark of life left eyes that had seen a hundred thousand dawns. “Hail to thee, Unconquered Sun. Rest, for now I take up thy mantle and the responsibility that goes with it.”

“She’s gone,” Twilight said softly, tears flowing from her eyes. “Goodbye, my Princess of the Dawn.”

“Watch over her,” Starlight responded. “I’ve got a job to do.”

As Twilight watched, the newly minted Unicorn of the Sun rose up on a pillar of pure magic, boring a physical hole straight up through the rock they had passed through as immaterial beings a few minutes ago. Higher and higher Starlight rose, until she reached the glowing golden shield.

“Hey there,” Starlight offered, reaching out with her new powers to feel the pain of the sun. Even broken as it was, it had felt the loss of its oldest and dearest friend and it responded to Starlight’s touch with a cry of loss and suffering.

“It’s okay. She sent me here to be your friend. Would you like a friend?” Starlight asked, and although she was physically incapable of it, somehow she had a sense of reaching out and gathering a hurt and lonely creature to her breast. “There there, it’ll be okay. I’m here now.”

Starlight felt warmth now, as well as hope that the long pain would be over soon. She could feel the scattered remnants of the sun responding to the touch of her magic, answering her call through the link that Celestia had given to her. Slowly, through that link and with skills that only could have been granted to her as a farewell gift, Starlight gradually pulled the sun back together and set it into its proper place in the heavens.

As the unicorn allowed herself to float back the ground on the remnants of her power, she could see the gathered ponies of Bolthole out on the surface, marvelling at the first blue sky any of them had seen in years. At their head was Twilight Sparkle, with the blind Silk Skies at her side, and the body of Celestia on a funeral bier behind them.

“I’m very miffed with you Starlight,” Twilight stated, when the unicorn landed before her. “You should have asked me before you did that.”

“I… went with my gut,” Starlight replied, pawing the ground for a nervous moment. “I think it was the right call. You still have things to—.” Whatever else Starlight was going to say was cut off as the alicorn pulled her into a fierce hug.

“Darn right it was the right call,” Twilight quietly agreed, and Starlight realized that she had missed her owner and mentor’s smile when she had landed. “I’m so proud of you. You saw what the right thing to do was and you did it. You’ll be a good princess.”

“No wings though,” Starlight countered, glancing at her sides. “I’m pretty sure you have to have wings in order to be a princess.”

“We all decided, you’re our princess,” Silk Skies interjected, guiding herself with a wing sliding along Twilight's side.

“But I killed her,” Starlight objected. “And I’m not an alicorn.”

“You took away her pain,” the blind pegasus replied. “Even though she tried to hide it, we all know how badly she was suffering. Celestia made sure her attendants were all blind or disabled, but she forgot that none of us are heartless. We knew how much she was hurting, how desperate she was to protect us all. Hiding the fact that we knew was one of the few gifts we could give her.”

“Looks like you're stuck with the job, ‘Princess Starlight’,” Twilight laughed, before sobering and turning to face the bier and the body that lay on it. “You were gone for nearly twelve hours. Time enough for me to explain to everypony what had happened, and to make sure Celestia got to feel the sun one last time.”

“Didn’t feel like it took that long,” Starlight commented, before looking around. “What about the radiation, and the air, and all the other problems?”

“I had time to go through a good chunk of Celestia’s notes and journals. She left detailed plans on how you can use that giant mana pool to fully restore about a square mile of territory every month,” Twilight answered, adding, “But right now we probably shouldn’t stay out here for more than a couple of hours.”

“It is time to send Celestia home, Princess Starlight,” said Rarity, stepping up with a leashed and collared Applejack at her heel.

“She were the light of our lives,” the earth pony added, drawing several torches from the saddlebags attached to her slightly too tight harness. “Be right for us to send her home in fire.”

“She would like that,” agreed Twilight, igniting torches with her magic as they were passed around, while Starlight brought down the sun to bring a close to the endless day that had gone on for years.

Soon, the funeral bier was surrounded by a halo of light, and all eyes looked toward Solar Starlight for guidance.

“May she know peace,” Starlight called out, voice echoing across the crowd. “May this fire light her way to the Summerlands.”

One by one, the lit torches were tossed onto what swiftly became a blazing funeral pyre, the flames leaping higher and higher, and as the fire leaped and engulfed the mortal remains of the Equestria’s oldest princess, Twilight spotted something that made her gasp and nudge Starlight.

There, on a dune overlooking the entrance to Bolthole, appeared the ghostly outline of a snow white alicorn, swan-like wings raised in salute. Twilight raised her own wings in answer and heard a fresh gasp from Starlight as the spectral image of Luna appeared at her sister’s side, warmly embracing Celestia.

As the two living ponies watched, the sisters gave one last nod to them before turning and fading away into whatever lay beyond the vale of tears that were, the Blasted Lands of Equestria.

Thus, does the sun set on another arc of this story.

I know some of folks don't like the thought of Starlight Glimmer becoming an alicorn, and that's fair. However I will point out that Starlight is still a unicorn, just a very powerful one at this point and one who will be absolutely dedicated to helping the Sunfall ponies get back on their hooves and to me, it made plot sense to end Starlight's arc here.

Which leaves us with two worlds left to explore. You know, I never thought that this story would go on as long as it has, or what I had first created as a quick fetish romp would elicit such powerful emotions. But here we are...

Every month my patrons get to vote on which story they would like to see me work on following my commissioned story. For May, they chose this story. Who knows what June will bring?

If you want a vote, join my Patreon and for as little as a dollar a month and cast your ballot for whichever story you would like to have me update.