Four hours Later
The time the moon had fully claimed the sky pale and distant, casting its quiet silver across the empire.
Celestia walked alone through the long corridors that led toward the imperial chambers, her steps measured, controlled, each one placed with the discipline of someone who had been raised never to falter in posture or presence, yet beneath that control there was something unmistakably strained, something that showed not in how she carried her head still straight, still proud, as though an iron rod ran through her spine refusing any bend but in the slight heaviness of her movement, in the way her shoulders seemed just a fraction lower than they should have been, in the faint drag of exhaustion that even she could not completely hide.
