“You’re going to need a bit of knowledge on my family’s history, so I guess I’m going to give you a crash course in our genealogy.” Luna said, standing in the center of her tower suite’s living room. She had a large chalkboard out in front of the couch, with a piece of chalk levitating next to the board’s surface. “Firstly, and for the very last time, I am not Cadence’s mother. I know that Celestia has everypony duped otherwise, but I’ve never even been intimate with anyone. I know, big shocker, but I’ve only been on earth for about two-thousand years as compared to Celestia’s three. I spent that missing thousand years of my life on the moon. And Cadence is only one-hundred and twenty-three, so there is a massive hole in my sister’s whole made-up story. She makes it out that Cadence is my child, when she is in fact hers. I suppose she needed a scapegoat to hide the fact that she had an illegitimate child with a random pony. The most shameful thing is that she didn’t even bear Cadence, she had the pony she was with do all of the hard work.”
Twilight’s head and stomach did a flip at that. What that meant when Luna had said that Celestia hadn’t been the one to bear Cadence, meant that the pony she’d been having an affair with was another mare. While she was still reeling, Luna scribbled a picture of herself and then one of Celestia, with a line leading out of the frame and down to a picture of Cadence. Next to Celestia she drew the outline of a pony and then a question mark over the mystery mare, signaling that not even she knew who her sister’s mistress had been.
“Now, I in fact have a half-sister, which is actually Chrysalis. She was originally the Element of Kindness back when she was unicorn, and I was the one who made the mistake of thinking she was ready for the responsibility of being an alicorn. She… turned into what she is now shortly after she was transformed, conjuring the fallacy that there should be a race that forced the sharing of kindness among the other races. So, she made the Changelings and defected, taking the Southern Swamp as her kingdom.” Luna drew a picture of Chrysalis slightly off to the side, and a dotted line between them so that she knew they were slightly related. “I’ll conclude with the fact that you can’t tell anypony who Cadence’s real mother is. Cadence knows, but not another soul knows yet. It’s part of an unspoken agreement between me and Celestia. She can carry on with her lies as long as nopony ever breathes a word of what I did back when I was… corrupted, so to say.”
Despite the business-like tone of her voice, her tone was filled with spite. She didn’t need to tell Twilight how unfair it was that her sister got to lie about her virginity to the whole country. All because she had fallen prey to the same ailment that had claimed both Twilight and Chrysalis. Instead of bringing it up to her, which she knew would only send her into a fit of rage and possibly cause her to take a swipe at Celestia during their unofficial meeting, she stayed silent so that the mare could continue her lecture.
“Anyways,” The princess concluded, her flawless composure back in place. “I will also have you know that besides those I just listed, there is no other living alicorns in existence. We are all there are. Thank the heavens for that. Imagine if everypony had the same capabilities as us. I shudder to think of it.”
Luna threw the chalk down on the holder and pushed the board back over to the side of the room, clapping her hooves. She seemed pleased with herself that over three-thousand years of family had been condensed into a roughly three minute lesson. She turned to Twilight, expecting some burning question to arise from her. The only thing the princess-to-be did was shuffle her hooves and look around, trying to avoid her lecturer’s gaze. She was uncomfortable with what had just been explained to her, especially the things that were happening and had happened that she’d been lied to about. Finally, she cleared her throat and asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“Does that mean that Celestia is my mother-in-law, since Cadence is her daughter?”
Luna shuddered, feeling slight pity for her. “Yes. Just try not to think about that too much. I sometimes like to pretend that I’m not her sister, so it’s fine if you don’t associate.”
Luna’s ears stood up as a knock sounded from downstairs, causing Twilight to nearly faint. She couldn’t imagine how this would turn out, since she’d blatantly disobeyed Celestia no less than thirty times in the last seventy-two hours. She knew that her former mentor was going to be livid, but to what degree she had no idea. She knew that she wouldn’t be bold enough to try and scold her in front of both Cadence and Luna, but she feared for her safety if she was somehow caught alone with her. So with a heavy heart she walked over to the stairs as Luna hurried down in front of her, much more speed in her hooves. Twilight wished she could share in that sureness. She was downright afraid of how this could turn out.
Luna continued down the steps while Twilight stopped, turning around to go back into the living room. She had agreed with Luna that it was best if she wasn’t in a place where Celestia could easily grab her and teleport away before she could do anything. The tower was safely guarded from disappearance spells of all types, making it the safest place for her. She heard Celestia downstairs complaining to Luna about the hour, Cadence beside her, seeming to be thoroughly excited by the whole experience. In her letter Twilight had told the youngest of the three alicorns that she would be there, but she let Luna write the letter to Celestia so she could make it as vague as possible. With that Twilight closed her eyes and took a deep breathe, counting the steps as the three walked up them. She had a sixth sense telling her that Celestia was in the middle between Luna and Cadence, so that when she saw her she wouldn’t be tempted to do anything rash.
She counted down the last ten steps… five… four… three… two… one…
The whole room went into a dead silence. Twilight dared to open her eyes. Celestia stood, her mane a shocking bubblegum pink and with an equally shocking lack of bodily decoration. She wore no jewelry, but she didn’t need full royal fanfare to make her student feel terrified. She glared down at her, her mane stark still and eyes stabbing into hers, silently screaming her rage at the young alicorn. Twilight could feel tears leaping behind her eyes at how enraged she looked. It was a stare that had been perfected over thousands of years to strike fear into the souls of all her subjects, and the threat of physical violence looming was enough to drive anypony to tears. Twilight, who knew just how cruel her teacher could be, was doubly affected by how close the two had been before the last month’s events had torn their friendship to pieces. A tic was developing in the princesses’ right eye, and her hooves were digging into the carpet as if she was already pushing her perfectly sharpened and lacquered hoof to the former unicorn’s neck.
“Hi Twilight! I’m so happy that you finally managed to become an alicorn!” Cadence said, oblivious to the hostility as thick as molasses and hot as boiling oil filling the room around her. “It’s all you talked about as a filly, so it’s only right that your dream came true.”
The younger alicorn moved to step towards Twilight. Celestia stuck her leg out so quickly it couldn’t be seen, shooting Cadence the same look of pure hate. Even Cadence, with her total lack of social understanding, took the hint. She stepped back and let the eldest alicorn have her time to come to terms with the situation. Luna looked on edge, her horn humming with energy in preparation to act if Celestia tried to maim Twilight, as she likely would. Twilight was ready to lose her composure in front of them; she could feel the hot tears behind her eyes, already welling at the bottom of her eyelids.
“Are you ashamed?” Celestia asked, her voice carrying the same force than if she’d struck her student across the face. “Are you glad now? Glad you’re pithy enough to be called an alicorn, when you were never supposed to be? I hope you know that you don’t deserve those wings. You never earned them. They weren’t bestowed to you. They were handed out the same as a rich mare stops to tip a beggar of the side of the street. Wallowing in his own filth he finds the gift to be valuable, when it is merely a trifle of what the rich mare truly has.”
Twilight blinked and felt two full, hot tears streak down her cheeks. They burned like acid on her skin, and she felt inclined to bow her head to hide her emotion. She couldn’t bear to look at her mentor and idol anymore. It hurt her too much to know that the one mare that had seen her as valuable when nopony else had, now hated her when everypony else loved her. It was her approval that truly counted in all of this, and without it she felt like a piece of her own heart was missing, and the rest of was left to hemorrhage blood until it was complete again.
“Please stop this Sister, you really have no room to talk.” Luna said, stepping in front of her older sibling with preternatural speed. “You were no better, and you know you didn’t deserve your wings. Your power.”
Celestia looked like she was about to kill. The very mention of the years following her birth as an alicorn was a massive blow beneath the belt for her, but that was what it took to even the playing field. Celestia was abusing her emotional lordship over Twilight in a way that could be defined as bordering on sadistic. The leader was using every tool she had to hit her former student wherever it hurt most, right in her scars. Luna couldn’t let that happen. So she was doing the same.
“Tell her, Celestia. If she is so unworthy of her wings, tell her of what you did that was so saintlike in your first years. I’d love to hear it from your mouth. Because I can remember it with perfect detail. Especially the killing. The maiming, the murder. It was a treat to hear that every night coming from the basement. The trophies you kept of your kills. I’m sure she’d love to hear all about the horns you kept after you sawed them from their owner’s heads. Oh, and let’s go ahead and tell her about the eyes. And the ropes that you kept, the skin that was always caught in them and the blood on the floor. Then to top it all off you can tell her all about your medical tools.”
Celestia took a step back like she’d been stabbed. Her eyes were as large as saucers, beyond words at just how detailed the picture Luna had just painted with her words was. It was downright disturbing to hear what she’d done in her psychotic state. The princess blinked at how the images flooded back to her, each more vivid than the last. There was so much pain… the fear that she saw reflected in the eyes of the ponies and other creatures around her scared herself, and shoved a wrench in the gears of everything she was about to say to Twilight. One after the next she remembered bits and pieces of her past life, each on burning into her memory, branding her mind so that she wouldn’t forget.
Luna leaned close to her and whispered. “Now, I’m going to talk to you after this is over about our agreement with whom Cadence’s parents really are, and then we’ll discuss Discord. Until then, consider yourself humbled.”
Celestia turned away from her, unable to keep eye contact. She felt inundated by just how angry Luna sounded, behind all the sarcasm and venom in her words. So… with the same godlike strength with which she had just assaulted Twilight verbally, she pushed down her nearly infinite pride and said, in a voice that sounded to strained, so brittle that it conjured images of a thin pane of glass on the verge of cracking.
“I… apologize for that.” She quipped, so quickly that the statement seemed to have been said through a mouthful of razorblades. “I was… off base with my previous statements.”
Twilight was still distraught, but she felt the weight lift from her shoulders so that she could once again look at her teacher. She’d heard everything about Celestia’s past life, but she didn’t have the will to piece the whole picture together yet, so she put her energy towards drying her tears. She slowly regained her composure, wiping her eyes and sitting up straight on the couch. Celestia conjured a high-backed chair and sat down in it, looking pointedly towards her hooves. Cadence did likewise, except hers was a bright yellow with plush red velvet for the seat. Luna smiled that her audience was acting civil and walked over to the couch, taking a seat directly next to Twilight.
Luna put a wing around Twilight and pulled her close, leaning to whisper in her ear. “I know how cruel she can be, but she won’t try to bother you anymore. You two are on equal ground now, so just pretend like none of that happened… you get used to doing that after you’ve lived as long as I have. Talk to her like you would have as her student. I know it seems odd, and you might still be hurt from her outburst, but things will go so much smoother if you just forgive her. Plus that’s proof to her that you’re worthy of being an alicorn. So… just be yourself like you were a month ago.”
Luna leaned closer still and breathed to her in a voice so light that Twilight had a hard time believing it had really happened. “Anything for you, dear.”
Luna resumed her normal sitting position, but her wing was still placed possessively over the younger alicorn. Twilight felt strange; the way Luna was acting made it seem like she was trying to protect her from them, and at the same time it was like she was sending a different message. Like she was telling Celestia that no matter how hard she tried, Twilight wasn’t hers anymore. It made Twilight feel wanted by her, but in the bigger picture Luna was also attempting to jest towards affection, in her own way. So she took a deep breath and let the princess keep her wing over her, even brave enough to smile despite what had just happened. Luna looked at her and returned the gesture, a slight upturning of her lips, just enough to show that she understood what it was like to be in her shoes.
Spike trudged down the hallway, furious with himself and Twilight. He kicked a piece of garbage up towards the ceiling, where it hit a chandelier, rebounded, and hit a suit of armor. The metal clattered to the floor, but he marched on, still blisteringly angry. It was like all the harsh thoughts that he’d ever had about himself were now screaming, crawling over one another and stepping on the other’s backs to try and get his attention. Twilight’s rejection had hurt. It was more painful than the burns he’d given himself while learning to breathe fire, or the time he tried to impress Twilight by walking down a flight of steps and holding all of her books at one time. He’d needed stitches on every appendage after that incident. But none of it came close to the pain in his chest. Because he knew it wouldn’t pass. Physical pain was temporary, but the scars on his heat would be much slower to heal.
As he stomped down the hall he noticed that he was now an inch taller, mostly due to the sheer emotional turmoil in his head. He didn’t care enough to actually stop and calm down. He was fine with feeling this way for now. It felt right to him, to be angry at himself and the mare that he’d tried desperately to win. He was even prepared to create a potion if it would make her like him. He’d have changed as much as needed if she’d told him to. It felt wrong that, despite all the willingness, all the time he was willing to devote to her, she’d just told him no. Such a simple, show-stopping roadblock to his immensely complex, confused jumble of emotions. Now they had nowhere to go but to fester in his heart, where he’d have to lock them up or let them define him as a person. He wanted to do the latter, if it would show her the pain he felt.
Spike sat down next to a door, one of the thousands down in the castle storage. He leaned against the sturdy iron vault, closing his eyes. He felt trapped. Like all his plans he’d made had been cancelled and now he would be staying at home all day with nothing to do and nowhere to go. It was maddening for a dragon who’d always followed at his mentor’s side to suddenly be faced with the reality that she might not care about him as any more than a quick-deliver mailman. Maybe to her that was all she saw. Maybe in her eyes he was just a child still, and he had no grounds to have such emotions towards a mare as complex and intelligent as her. Maybe it was just because he was a dragon and she was a pony. So many ‘Maybe’s rattling around in his head, enough to make him want to forget about it, as if it’d never happened.
On one hand, he could do just that. A potion like that would be as easy to find in a palace as large as this, filled with so many magically-oriented ponies. On the other, he could hold onto his pent up emotions and endure her disregard what she did to him with every day that passed with her as his muse. Then, far out of his hands, so far away on the horizon he could barely even see the option, was the option to just let it go. It was signaling him, like a gem that had been carelessly dropped on the ground in the middle of a field. He could accept that Twilight wasn’t the mare for him if she didn’t share his feelings. He could, but it seemed like it wasn’t right, letting something like this go. Still, it was an option for him, and he couldn’t just ignore that. So, he examined each.
He loved Twilight in a way that made forgetting her unimaginable, so he threw option one into the back of his head as a last ditch effort only. Then he arrived at tolerating her lack of emotion for him, but cling to the hope that she would someday acknowledge him. He liked that option, it meant that he could at least go back to her and live a relatively normal life with her. He could explore if perhaps Rarity would consider him a nice enough dragon to take him in. He wouldn’t mind living with her, after all. He’d once had a decent enough fascination with her, and she’d seemed happy with his company on more than one occasion. It would sure take his mind off Twilight if he was away from her, but it also felt like he was giving up. He would have to walk away if he took that route.
At last he looked at his final option. The one that looked the hardest to exploit. Spike knew this one wasn’t his style, and might not even be the right one. But it seemed to be the only one that allowed for his continued existence with Twilight. He’d have to let it go. Accept that she wasn’t his, and he wasn’t hers. They were just two people, a dragon and a pony, living together so that one could learn to have a happy life later on. He knew that they were friends, not a couple. He’d known that the moment he’d began to have crush on Twilight. That was how she viewed him, and deep down he didn’t want her to stop treating him like her most trusted assistant. If he didn’t let his resentment go it would eat their friendship away, and he’d be left with no options but the very last. To forget. There was no changing how she felt about him, their relationship was set in stone from years living together. So he’d have to let it go. It wasn’t the first time he’d felt for a pony, and it certainly wouldn’t be his last. In order to remain at Twilight’s side he had to learn that regardless, no matter how hard it was.
‘It’ll be hard.’ He thought to himself. ‘But I’m still her best friend. Even if I don’t feel that way.’
Something slipped its input in at the back of his head, like an agent of chaos leaving a package on his doorstep. ‘She’ll accept it if you make her see. If she knows how much you feel for her, she will have no choice but to know that you love her. You simply have to force her to see your side, to feel what you feel. If she knew this pain she would never subject you to it. She would accept you, and everything will fall into place…’
Spike perked his head to the side. That hadn’t felt like it’d come from his own head. The wording was… wrong. He’d never use the term ‘love’ for what he felt at the moment. It was more the strong the desire to be known as an adult, and that he wanted to be more than just a friend to Twilight. ‘Love’ to him meant kissing and sleeping in the same bed, both things made him feel invasive towards his mentor. He’d only wanted her to let him establish a foundation with her, so that maybe he’d hold her hoof on occasion. Even that was pushing it for him. He’d wanted platonic love. That thought carried all the wrong connotations, and reeked of something more along the lines of lust. The whole basis of the thought was manipulating Twilight, something that he would sooner fall down a thousand flights of steps for, before he would then do something so grossly immoral. And to his one and only mentor and caretaker, the thought was more alien to him than Discord aligning his books in alphabetic order. He shook off the foreign thought and focused on the one that was his.
He would have to accept that he wasn’t Twilight’s first choice. But he could live with that if it meant that he could still live with his best, and maybe his only, true friend. He stood up and set off in the direction of the castle kitchens, eager to make it up to Twilight for making her feel guilty. He shouldn’t have even forced her to choose in the first place, and this was his was way of making it right.