Everything was vast and cold. There was no air running underneath her feathers, but she knew that she felt nothing but cold. It worked its way into her very being so that her joints creaked when she flew onward and her eyes were always heavy.

In the dark, she knew her purple coat would be ruffled by the gnawing, below-freezing air, but she could not see the color. She heard her breathing come in wheezes and coughs, but that was because she had only been out here for centuries.

She had forgotten her name. Sometimes, she liked to to think that it - names were always it to her, being such a distant concept - had to do with the cold weight of the object on her head. She would reach her hoof - the left one, always - up to touch it, and she felt more cold ripple through her as her whole body sank into numbness.

But she kept flying.

She knew that she had worn it for ages, but not really what ages were. It was hard to remember anything but her.

Her.

She loved her.

Celestia.

That was a name for her silent companion, the cold silent flyer who only pressed onward without any wheezing or the dull ache of frost on her coat from some place ages ago. Celestia shone brightly in the dark, mane rippling with all the colors of-

Of something. They were bright and so warm - an old feeling - but not purple. And she knew that Celestia didn't need magic to run where blood and everything should be to leave her cold and hollow but following her anywhere.

That's where they were going. Anywhere.

She didn't know exactly where anywhere was, but it must have many stars.

She remembered stars from a long, long time ago when there was something beneath her hooves forever and where she was buried - she forgets why she was - for a long sleep that only Celestia unearthed her from, replacing this and that with magic and something metallic to keep her going.

'So you can help me; so we can find them', Celestia had said when she still spoke with the voice that was all the warmth in the cold, dry world that they had left. She really didn't remember it. Or much. Or anything but Celestia.

And she knew that she loved Celestia and that there were stars.

All around them, distant lights would glimmer and radiate something that she could never feel, and this something made her - the vital part of her that Celestia kept there for her; she called it a soul - feel more detatched, looser and drifting more than normal, as though a seal were being melted.

But she loved Celestia and she would follow Celestia to anywhere.

Celestia, who flew beside her with something that gleamed like starlight but was oh-so-cold on her head in their sleepless existence and smiled forever - except when she didn't, and that's when she made small sounds. Whimpers would leak from the radiant mare and they'd slow but never stop and she'd wrap her stiff purple forehooves around her, telling the mare who never said any words to go on, repeating words that sounded stiff with her voice when she spoke them, sometimes parroting Celestia's own words to her so they might keep going to anywhere.

And when Celestia woke her from sleeping long ago and fit her with metal and magic, she told her that they were looking for Luna.

Luna and another - she didn't recall the name, but Celestia and her had stood on a broken world rife with cracks and dust, magic everywhere.

And they were looking for Luna and the other.

She didn't know much about this Luna other than a few recollections - her own coat was not purple but some fathomless, deep shade that she thought was a bit terrifying, like all this black space but lighter and with more subtance, neither warm or cold.

She did not love her like she loved Celestia, who was bright and warm. The eyes of Luna were terrifying because they reminded her of something she could not name - stuff on the ground, springing up and stepping on it... but also a sky occupied by something warm and gold that was Celestia, and it hung above the soft stuff on the ground that glowed with a color she couldn't remember as she flew on and her lesser mane whipped through the dark.

Luna scared her, but Celestia loved her, so they followed somewhere to go anywhere.

And then there was the other who Celestia spoke even less of, never once crying out their name in the eternities they flew on together. Did Celestia love or hate them? She didn't know, she just flew wanting neither food or drink, nor rest.

And she knew that it was cold and she loved Celestia... she couldn't not follow her. It was even more unfathomable than Luna, whom Celestia would chase forever.

She never asked anything because Celestia never spoke. She asked why they were flying many times, but then forgot why she asked every time.

So she trusted Celestia, and kept her voice that rang through the emptiness when she spoke to herself because the sound was overwhelming.

Celestia said they were looking for Luna.

Celestia said they would find Luna.

Celestia said they would keep flying.

Celestia said they could do this forever, but never looked her in the eyes for that.

Celestia said that she didn't want to be lonely, but never said what what lonely was.

But that was back when they started flying, and with each passing something she remembered less and less of everything as they ventured into the dark.

But she remembered Celestia.

And she loved Celestia. That was enough, since she would tell Celestia, flying up to her radiant aura and letting the words creak out in a low whisper, so quiet as if this black and endless world didn't want them to be.

These words made Celestia smile a funny tight smile and make that same whimpering in her throat, a sound as tight as her smile as though she were trying to stifle something. Celestia's eyes would leak at the corners in ways that hers could not, if they had ever been able to.

Once, she almost paused. Another time, she remembered almost catching Celestia's shaking lips form the word, the name: Luna.

Or maybe she didn't remember. She wasn't sure, but that was okay because she wasn't sure of a lot of things lately and forever.

But she loved Celestia.

Author's Notes:

I don't know what this is or if it ties into my other works - maybe? - but I like it and this needed to be written and that picture begged for art and something something author's note. ...Maybe it has to do with there being so many end of the world Twilestia fics? I dunno.