Discord scoffed from his position leaning against the wall, earning the Dragon Lord’s eyes. “Unless you want a world drowning in more chaos than there already is, I think sitting this one out was the best course for all of us involved. Little less traumatic for the bigger world out there,” Discord tried to tell her, but she would have none of it.
“And now look where we are!” Ember shouted, breaking her distance from Discord by stomping away from the center table. The atmosphere in the bridge suddenly rose from the piercing cold of the night to the rising heat spewing from Ember’s nostrils. Shining Armor and Cadance halted Ember before she could have reached Discord. Before she could have done anything she would have regretted.
Ember grappled and tried to shove Shining out of the way, ignoring Cadance’s pleads for her to ease herself. To try breathing. To cut off all rising qualms with her allies. Discord watched it all with an amused grin and crossed arms.
The tension was growing so hot that Celestia finally stepped in to intervene, reaching Ember and telling her, “Ember, please, calm down—”
“Calm?” the Dragon Lord repeated, releasing her grasp on Shining Armor with a forceful shove. She eyed Celestia and the darker Alicorn behind her, her glare only brightening in fury. “Calm?! How can I stay calm after what happened to the Dragon Lands?! How can I stay calm when the beasts that caused it all are no sooner to being stopped?! How can I possibly stay calm when that hydra is still out there, Sombra is still alive, and our best hope for stopping them both is dead!”
Her ferocious discourse was met with little resistance, none really having the same fire to match her in strength. Yet Celestia was resolved, meeting Ember’s fire with her cooled attitude, choosing instead to retort in a way that did not dissuade their alliance.
But to help it remain in balance. So, Celestia told her, “There is no guarantee on Godzilla’s fate. He could still very well…”
Her voice, instead, betrayed her and trailed away. Found no solace or victory on the path she intended for it to travel. It was that alone that terrified Celestia more so than the horrors of the prior battle she had paid witness to. For it terrified her in the way that she did not even trust her own language, her own resolve, or her own mindset. All it took was a little seed of doubt, planted softly into her heart to sprout into a budding, black flower.
Where each petal spelled out the name of fear.
“Sister…”
And it was that fear that silenced Celestia for the time being, made her lose even her voice, and instead left her for her younger sister to press the reality further into her. Turning to the rising voice, Celestia, Ember, and the bridge all faced the young former Princess of the Moon. Luna, facing down the crowds of what could have been a million lost faces, inhaled gently and breathed out to her heart’s content.
Luna faced only her sister when she told her, “I know it is painful, for we have all seen the same truth unfold before us. Every nation has seen it. Whether he is alive or dead means nothing to the beasts that still stand and breathe before us. We cannot deny it any further, sister.”
The look in her eyes, the loss in her voice, all of it told Celestia more than she ever needed to know. Led her away from the lost path her mindset was trailing and focused on the darker, more realistic journey ahead. A dark, lonesome path where the King of the Monsters no longer reigned over the beasts of the earth. The minimal years of steady peace, of that fragile balance, had finally ended.
And Celestia nodded dejectedly. “The king has fallen.”