Celestia waited patiently on the library’s second floor. Patience was a skill she had perfected over eons, and she needed to put it to good use now. But her heart stung whenever she happened to look at the innocent yet determined faces of the Elements of Harmony as they watched over their prisoner, Captain Gumball. Celestia solved that particular problem by gazing out of the window. It did not seem like the others felt the change in the sky, but she did. The sun and the moon were moving on their own, something that had not happened since before the days of the ancient Unicorn tribe. And, since the sky was not also currently full of pink clouds or other such nonsense, that must mean that Luna had won the battle against Discord.

While she was full of despair and fear that her last, desperate effort had failed, Celestia could not help but be a little in awe of her sister, who had accomplished what not even both of them together, using the Elements of Harmony, could.

As she felt a yawning chasm open in her gut, Celestia recalled how much she used to hate rulers who made painful decisions “for the greater good.” How easy it was to fall into that line of thinking, she thought, especially when one was the sole, uncontested ruler of a country. She had struggled against it for centuries, but in the end, the weight of lives had simply become too great. With each passing generation, Celestia saw that it was not only living ponies whose lives depended on her, but all ponies after them too. What did anything, especially the mere feelings of one Princess, matter compared to that?

Doubt crept up on her, as it always did during these rare moments of silence. She squeezed her eyes shut and held a hoof to her forehead to try to forestall the coming tide, but the questions came anyway. Had there been another way she hadn’t seen? Even if her plan succeeded, would doom come to Equestria anyway? Who was she to toy with the lives of her loved ones like this? Could she ever get back what her decisions had cost her?

No matter how hard she wished them to, no tears would come. That was a privilege Celestia had decided she did not deserve.

Celestia heard the soldiers coming well before the door was kicked in, but she made no move to escape. All the windows were quickly blocked by pegasus ponies with spears. Earth ponies and unicorns filed through the entrance with dizzying speed, ready to fight after all the commotion they had heard. But Celestia still did not move, and Twilight Sparkle and her friends took their cues from her, tensing up but not fighting.

Applejack slowly stepped off of Captain Gumball’s back, once she saw that they were surrounded. Gumball got to her feet and spoke to her soldiers.

“Stand by for a moment,” she said. “I must speak to Princess Celestia.” Gumball walked slowly up the creaking wooden stairs, to where Celestia stood. The Princess was ignoring the spears bristling around her and looking into the eyes of the ponies wielding them. They wavered much less than she expected.

“What’s on your mind, Gumball?” Celestia asked quietly. There was a deep sadness to her tone, buried under the gentleness like ancient treasure.

“Just… why?” Gumball asked, taking a second to form each word. “Why did you do that? Why did you release Discord?”

Celestia sighed. It was a good question. “I thought it was the best choice available to me, that’s all. Anything else I could say is just an excuse. I have… many excuses, but none of them are truly reasons.”

“But you didn’t even try to work things out!” Gumball stomped one of her hooves, and Celestia saw the tears she was unable to cry formed in the Captain’s eyes instead. “Don’t you care what effect this might have on the rest of us!? How can you be so selfish!?”

“Pardon me?” Celestia frowned, her wings twitching as if to spread. She forced them to stay folded, but only barely. She drew her body up, making it clear how much larger she was than any pony around her, and her voice deepened to match. “Did you just call me selfish? Me?”

A Gumball that hadn’t been reforged with the discipline of a soldier of the night would almost certainly have quaked at the hint of Celestia’s former glory she displayed. As it was, she hesitated for a moment, but continued speaking confidently afterwards.

“Yes, I did! You’re so in love with your own image as a just ruler that it never even crosses your mind that you could be wrong.”

Celestia’s tail swished violently, and she snorted through her nostrils. “It crosses my mind constantly, little pony,” she said through grit teeth.

Gumball waved off the Princess’s glare. “That doesn’t mean anything. If you actually seriously considered your actions, you wouldn’t play these stupid games with our lives. Your angst is just an indulgence for you, one of the only things you can still feel in your endless, meaningless existence!”

Celestia’s face darkened. “I never thought Luna could brainwash others enough that they would start regurgitating her talking points,” she said. “No matter. Capture me or kill me… Either way, I will not be judged by the likes of you. I am done with this conversation!” She slammed a hoof into the floor, smashing the board to splinters.

Gumball glared back at Celestia with all the emotional weight she had absorbed during her dream-training with Luna. But the emotions weren’t entirely her own, and they were up against the countless ages behind Celestia’s emotions, so in the end, it was Gumball who looked away.

“Tie them up,” Gumball said to her troops. “I want every available unicorn with them around the clock to counter the first sign of any magic. Nopony here so much as casts a light spell without my permission.”

“Princess Celestia?” Twilight Sparkle asked, her voice shaking as soldiers holding ropes closed around her and her friends. “What should we do?”

“Please, don’t resist,” Celestia said, eyes closed. “I don’t want anypony else to suffer today.”

The Elements of Harmony gaped and stared, numbly going along with the motions of the soldiers tying them up.

The captives were quickly moved to the Mayor’s house, where the army had set up a bustling command post. Celestia was left with Twilight and her friends, under the watchful gazes of dozens of guards, as well as the occasional glance from Gumball as she sat at Mayor Mare’s desk, reviewing maps, reading lists, and signing orders.

The same despair Celestia felt was clearly visible on the faces of the Elements, as they could do little but stare at the floor. But she had to be strong for them, so she mustered every last bit of regality she had left to hold herself upright and speak to them calmly. No small feat without a crown and with a dirty and ragged body, but the former Princess of the Day managed it.

“It’s going to be alright, everypony,” she said. “The responsibility for the decision is mine alone. They aren’t going to hurt you.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t help!” Rainbow Dash yelled. “What’s going to happen to you?”

“That’s up to Luna,” Celestia said, staring at the wall. “My fate is in her hooves now.”

“This is all so messed up,” Pinkie Pie, whose hair had long since ‘deflated’, muttered. “How did this happen?”

“I, for one, don’t think we did anything wrong,” Rarity said as she tried to hold her head as high as Celestia held hers. “Celestia’s arguments were sound and convincing. These ponies have no right to hold us here.”

“No,” Fluttershy whispered. Tears were flowing out of her eyes, causing everyone else present to get at least a little choked up. “We did do something wrong, Rarity. We can say it was for a right reason, but that doesn’t make it not wrong.”

“You are being held for your own safety,” Captain Gumball interjected as she fired off a batch of letters to waiting courier ponies. “We are well aware of the hold Celestia has over you, and how easily she can manipulate ponies into doing her bidding. I blame her for what happened, not any of you.”

“‘Our own safety’?” Applejack said the words as if they were rotten food she was spitting out. “What in the hay does that mean?”

“I don’t have to tell you that,” Gumball spat back. Then she closed her eyes and sighed. “But I will, because I respect the Elements of Harmony, and it may have some bearing on what is to come. Aside from the obvious reason of keeping you from releasing more ancient evils to fight a petty war of succession, we’ve received reports that a massive griffon army has crossed the eastern frontier. A couple months’ march away, much less if they fly the whole way here. The guard and local nobleponies are fighting as hard as they can, but they are going to lose without reinforcements. I’ve sent word to the rest of the army, but who knows if they’re even alive anymore…”

Gumball’s face darkened. “So Celestia’s actions may have critically weakened our fighting force exactly when they’re needed most.”

“She didn’t do it on purpose!” Twilight protested. “She only wants what’s best for Equestria!”

“That may be, but the fact is that we are more vulnerable now than we have ever been. Because of this, it is our duty to protect what is most precious to us. And that’s you six.”

“Hold on,” Celestia said, her eyes narrowed, the wheels in her head turning. “How did they cross so quickly? The dragon Oracle would never have allowed it.”

“I don’t know,” the Captain replied with a shrug. “The reports are sketchy. Maybe he’s in league with them. He can obviously be bought, since Celestia sends him our gold regularly.”

“He would never…” Celestia bit her lip, and her own gaze finally dropped to the floor along with her fellow prisoners’.

“Is that true?” Twilight quietly asked Celestia. “Do you send gold to this dragon?”

“Yes, as payment for protecting us from Griffrance. And it has worked for hundreds of years. I can’t imagine why he would suddenly change his mind now.” Celestia frowned.

“Payment to a dragon who fleeces animals from all over the world for food and sacrifices, profiting both ways.” Gumball shook her head. “A fine ally indeed.”

Celestia’s frown turned into a hateful scowl, but she kept silent.

“I suppose your excuse for letting the diamond dogs enslave us is the same,” the Captain continued distractedly as she drew some figures on one of her maps. “That it was the only way to keep Equestria together?”

Celestia silently seethed for several moments, to the point where Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy reflexively edged away from her slightly. She had declared the conversation over, but the pain and anger caused by Gumball’s words was too much to bear. When Celestia finally spoke again, her voice was distant and clipped.

“Did you know, my little pony, that Equestria used to be twice its current size? A thousand years ago, I had my sister to protect our borders. When I lost her, I tried, at first. I fought so hard against so many enemies who suddenly sensed weakness. And I succeeded… where I could be. I couldn’t be everywhere.” Her eyes rose, meeting Gumball’s with quiet fury. “If you had seen the ruined cities, the burned farms, and the mutilated corpses, I think you might have decided to consolidate the realm too. Even then, I had to compromise. Yes, I ignored a low level of diamond dog raids, because I couldn’t put a stop to it and simultaneously keep the Everfree Forest in check, ward off aggressive dragons, root out changelings, and defend against griffons.

“I wish I were strong enough to do all of that, but I’m not. I can’t just turn farmponies into elite warriors in a month, and I’m simply not as… aggressive as my sister. And more importantly, I can’t watch this whole country suffer because of my decisions, or my indecision. The choices I have to deal with every day would break ponies like you.”

Gumball regarded her former Princess quietly for a long time. The entire room was still, the only sound papers the march of hooves from patrols outside. “First of all, stop calling us your ‘little ponies’. It’s creepy and demeaning.” Her voice was low, but seemed to boom in the silence. “Secondly, are you going to give that same speech to the families of the ponies we rescued from servitude?”

“I have been practicing doing so for a long time,” Celestia replied. “Though I may never have the chance now. I held out hope for so long that Luna and I could work together, just like we used to. But our time apart has changed both of us too much. It is time for Luna to make those decisions… if she can.” She sighed deeply, bowing her head. “I give up. If she wishes to be Queen, then the throne is hers.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, either,” Twilight Sparkle said, in a somewhat timid voice at first. “She’s hurting just as much as you are, Princess, maybe more, and I don’t think that’s a good condition to run a country in. Especially not now that we’ve probably made her even more hurt and angry.”

“What are you saying, Twilight?” Celestia asked, one eyebrow raised.

“I’ve been reading a lot about how other countries do things lately,” said Twilight. “And I think this whole incident proves that what we need most is more than just a change in ruler. We need a new way to rule, before both of you destroy Equestria!” The volume of Twilight’s voice surprised her as much as anyone else in the room.

“I’m not sure our citizens are ready for that,” Celestia said. “And the middle of an invasion doesn’t seem like the best time to do it, either.”

“Luna has earned the right to rule,” Gumball said. She stamped one of the letters she was sending out with force, startling Fluttershy, who yelped. “She is a strong, brave, and just leader, and she’s just the hero we need to put these monstrous griffons in their place.”

“Even if she is all those things, she’s also emotional, proud, and irrational!” Twilight said. “For her sake too, she needs to step back! We ponies can work together, just like we always have. We were strong enough to survive before the Princesses came. I believe we’re strong enough to survive without them for a little while.”

“I’m sorry,” Gumball said as she rose from her seat and stomped over to where Twilight was tied up. “Were you under the impression you had a say in the matter? You’re a prisoner and possibly a traitor who tried to assassinate the Queen.”

Twilight’s ears flattened as she leaned away from Gumball. “Please, it’s just an idea! All I ask is that you let us talk to Luna about it. I know she’ll listen to me!”

Gumball scoffed and marched back to her desk. “It isn’t up to me,” she muttered. “Just stay quiet, and don’t try anything funny.”

The prisoners all looked at Pinkie Pie, but she was hiding behind her un-curly mane.

Author's Notes:

I know this might seem short for six months of work, but don't worry, this isn't all I have! I'm just dividing it up into sections and posting one while I tweak the others. The next one will probably be in a week or so.