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The castle ceased crumbling around them, and the blackened crater materialized as the air cleared out the shattered stain-glass windows. The roofless throne room lay exposed to the smoke-filled skies, the fires from the burning cityscape accenting a bright eruption of light directly overhead. Distant sprinkles of shrieks, shouts, and the whine of weaponsfire echoed, though the pounding bombardment had finally ceased. Amid the piles of rubble and scattered, limp frames of human and pony alike, the two sisters finally caught their breath, letting sense return to their ringing, battered eardrums. Luna was the first to speak, her head turning up towards the distant, bright explosion miles overhead.

_ "It...it is over, sister...the fleet must have vanquished them."_

_ Celestia, her flowing, iridescent mane dirtied by soot and sweat, heaved a great, shuddering sigh, her eyes still fixed upon the massive crater that had nearly swallowed them up, "I sense nothing...the blast must have killed him..."_

_ The Princess of the Night followed her older sister's gaze, shivering with her, "If you had not pulled us away..."_

_ The Sun Princess nodded, "We'd have been caught in the blast, too." She winced as she rose from her crouch, only now noticing the shielding projection from her horn had vanished from their frames. It had taken the last of her reserves, and now her entire body ached and cried out for rest. But there would be no time for rest. Not until her capitol was secured, not until every last surviving pony was provided for, and not until this utter failure on her part had been taken care of. She could still feel the thousands of minds outside, drowning in terror, despair, hopeless against what had ravaged a once-prosperous city in a single night. So much death...the air itself reeked of the blood spilled, the blood of those she had been charged with protecting._

_ Her expression fell from relief to a grim resignation, and Celestia looked back to her sister, raising an ear as another noise outside fell away, "The firing has stopped. We must find the Captain and start attending to our people. After that, I want them gone. All of them."_

_ Luna's eyes widened, and she shook her head, beginning to protest, "Sister, you cannot mean that! I-"_

_ As if on cue, footsteps sounded from the hallway beyond, and Captain Keru and a trio of Republic soldiers burst through the archway, a pair of humans and a reptilian alien at his side, blaster rifles at the ready. Upon glimpsing the Royal Pony Sisters he raised his hand, halting and gasping his relief, "Masters Luna, Celestia! Thank the stars you survived...we saw turbolaser fire hit the throne room, and we feared the worst!"_

_ Celestia closed the gap between her and the human, looming head and shoulders above him as she raised herself back to her full height. Her gaze grew stern as it turned down upon the soldier. The devastation of her people at the hands of soldiers and killers had turned her distaste for warfare to a violent, seething disgust, and the fact that Keru was of the Republic did little to quench the blazing fires barely contained by the Princess of the Sun. This had been their war, a war she and her sister had vowed to take as little part in as possible. And now that world-ending conflict had been brought to their doorstep, sacking their capitol and ending so many lives._

_ "Have you defeated the Sith landing parties?"_

_ The burly human flinched at the venom in the alicorn's voice, nearly stammering as he nodded, "Yes ma'am! It's all over, we got every last one of th-"_

_ "Then round up your troops, and get me in contact with your ship. Your Commander will in turn contact the Republic. I want every last one of your men and women off my world. I want your ships to leave this star cluster and never return. Our veil of secrecy is over; I have seen your Republic, the Jedi Order, and your war," Her voice descended into a tone that threatened to strike the Captain and his men dead on the spot, her glare engulfing their attention, "And I want no part in any of it. Our people will be erased from what archives I have allowed. My sister and I will be removed from any combat records. You will make no attempt to reenter or map this region of space. Our hospitality towards you is over. Is that understood?"_

_ Luna's eyes widened, shaking her head in disbelief as she approached her sister. She couldn't be serious...she just_ couldn't. "Celestia please, stop! We do not have to-"

_ "Wh-what?" The Captain balked at the order, his three men slack-jawed and suddenly immensely wary of the supernatural ruler they stood before. "M-Master, surely you don't-"_

_ "Is that_ understood?" Celestia repeated at a volume that sent their blasters rising back to the ready, her voice booming off the crumbling walls, the underlying current of rage threatening to burst free as her horn began to shine bright-

_ "Y-yes ma'am! Right away, ma'am!" The soldier managed to stammer, backing away with his men after a trembling bow of respect, "I-I'll contact the cruiser right away!"_

_ Celestia stared down the human until he and his men were out of her sight again, only loosing the weary, sullen sigh in her lungs when he had gone. Slowly she turned to one of the shattered windows, staring out upon the burning cityscape that ringed the castle, streets filled with rubble. Luna, still in shock, belatedly rushed to her sister's side, the dark-coated alicorn pleading as tears began to well in her eyes._

_ "Celestia, you cannot do this! We cannot just leave our lives behind! Everything we saw, everything we did! Please! We can still help the Republic! And they can still help us! If we join with them-"_

_ The Princess of the Sun did not look at her sister at first, her attempts to keep her voice level and civil faltering, trickles of anger leaking into every other word. "Then this would become a regular event, a cycle of destruction that we would let swallow our people." Her eyes turned to Luna, her stare as firm as her affirmation, "I will not allow that. I refuse to be part of a congregation of worlds who eviscerate each other every century."_

_ Luna sputtered and faltered, "But...but the Jedi-"_

_ "The Jedi?" A sad, derisive snort escaped her sister, "The Jedi are a_ part of it all, Luna. They perpetuate it! Did you not feel it? All throughout our studies with them, during their battles? They speak of balance in the universe, to the Force and life, and then they place themselves as the spearhead in every last war, always the first to answer the call of the blade!"

_ The Moon Princess shook her head vehemently, her brow furrowing in protest, "Can they help it if their world demands them to fight? Not everywhere is like Equestria! And we joined them in their battles, sister! You agreed to fight with them, just as I did!"_

_ Celestia halted for a moment, shaking her head and raising her eyes back to Luna, a sad tinge softening her momentarily, "Perhaps they cannot, my sister. But I also cannot stand by and let Equestria become a part of that world. Our people are too young, too fragile...the galaxy would misuse our kind and this world, or destroy it as they attempted tonight. We must leave it all behind."_

_ Luna's pleas swelled with the stream of tears falling down her face, her voice rising to a shout that echoed through the shattered throne room, "Celestia, no! You cannot just have us leave, please! I won't leave him-!"_

_ "ENOUGH!" The alicorn princess roared with enough force to rattle the rubble at their hooves, her deafening voice forcing her sister to cower as she stabbed a hood towards the fires ravaging Canterlot's shattered shell, "Is THIS what you want? Our cities SMASHED? Our people DEAD?" She slammed the hoof to the floor, shattering what little untouched stone remained. "THIS is what we found out there, Luna! And I allowed EVERYTHING to lead us here! I should never have let us join the Jedi, travel the stars!" Her snarl reached a crescendo that echoed across the dying city, "If I had known this would be our repayment, I would have let that ship fend for itself in the blackness! It ends HERE!"_

_ Luna could only weep while her sister shouted, waves of her rage smashing her to pieces against the crumbling stone surrounding her. She cried to the flashes of places she'd come to adore and people she had grown to love flashed before her eyes, lingering on a single, special face she knew she'd never see. But most of all, as Canterlot smoldered around her and her populace wailed in the distance, she wept because she knew it hadn't been Celestia's fault at all. It was hers._

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