“You really didn’t need to rush, my little pony,” Celestia said with a melancholy smile.
Steelskin laughed nervously. “Well, when a princess ‘invites’ you for a visit, not keeping them waiting is a good habit to be in.”
“Have thy rulers been that foul?” Luna looked at him with genuine concern.
Steelskin realized what he implied and pawed the ground. “Well... most rulers do phrase their demands as polite requests, but...” His eyes brightened as he found the words. “Benevolent rulers like you are a rare treat. It’s even rarer to be invited to something as obviously informal as this. To pass up even a minute would be a horrible waste.” He smiled, looking Luna full in the eyes to show how much he truly meant it, though he couldn’t keep his embarrassment out of it.
“Come, sit.” Celestia smiled and motioned with a wing to the gold and silver embroidered fabric that had been laid out like a picnic blanket.
Celestia noticed his look as Steelskin set himself down on the ‘blanket’.
“Yes, our servants at the castle have certain... ideas as to what constitutes proper materials for a princess to use.” A hint of sadness crept into her eyes.
“I assume you want to talk to me about the tree from my dream?” Steelskin gave a respectful, but pointed look at Luna.
Celestia’s smile dropped for a half second as a look of regret flashed across her face.
“‘Tis a small concern when compared to others that thy-your dreams... have brought to our attention.” Luna’s fumbling with her words caused Steelskin to smile.
Steelskin smiled at Luna, trying to be reassuring. “I’m not bothered by your Old Equish style of speaking. For some reason, you even kept it in the realities where...” He started getting nervous as he realized just how many pitfalls there could be when trying to talk with the diarchs in such a casual way. “Where it was your sister,” He glanced at Celestia awkwardly. “...who was banished.”
Luna’s eyes widened and Celestia’s mouth opened slightly.
Celestia’s face returned to her default benevolent smile. “Yes, the variants of us. That was the second thing that Luna mentioned to me when she told me about what she had seen..”
She got up quietly and, in a way, gently, before sidling graciously over to Steelskin. She lay down next to him, draping a wing over him to pull him into a wing hug.
He tensed up briefly, as he thought about her position of royalty before melting into the soft warmth of her body. The tension, which he had forgotten he had, drained away. After a few seconds, her voice rolled through his body. “She tells me that you feel you must defend all Equestria single-hoofedly and that you fear what you might become.”
Her wing pulled away slightly and the Solar Diarch bent down to nuzzle him. Unseen by both, Luna looked on wistfully as Steelskin nuzzled her back.
Steelskin sat, enjoying the feeling of safety and protection as he tried to decide what to talk about. After a few moments, he made a decision.
“I need to ask... How open and honest are you with Twilight?”
Celestia’s face went completely unreadable. “What do you mean?”
#HT - 01#
@Arrival + 3 Weeks@
I followed Princess Celestia back into Ponyville. She was silent the entire way, seeming to be as concerned as I was. After returning the Elements of Harmony to the tree, Twilight’s expression showed a great deal of hurt and anger before she teleported away without speaking to anypony.
Celestia walked up and knocked at the door of the library.
”Go away!” The voice from inside the library was a decent approximation of The Royal Canterlot Voice, rattling the windows of all the nearby houses.
“Twilight, I’m sorry. Please, can we talk?” Celestia’s ears were pinned back, as were everypony’s in the semicircle surrounding the door to the library.
A purple flash and loud pop heralded the appearance of Twilight Sparkle. Her head was lowered, her feet splayed, and her wings halfway extended. Her mane started etherealizing in a glowing reminder of the sky she was named after as she started to circle her mentor threateningly.
“You’re sorry?” Twilight’s cold, hard voice spoke it as a threat rather than a question. “Sorry for what? Sorry for not telling me about the Tree of Harmony? Sorry for planning your own kidnapping?”
Celestia started to protest.
“Oh, no, don’t give me that, Princess.” Twilight’s tone made the royal title into an insult. “You know how well I can put facts together. It was only my love and appreciation for you that kept me from seeing your scheming, backstabbing ways. Oh? Zecora comes to Ponyville with a potion that can only be activated by alicorn magic right when you two disappear mysteriously? The potion tells me things that I should have been told back when I first got the Elements of Harmony? Information vital for fixing the out of control Everfree Forest?”
Celestia wilted under her student’s gaze, but didn’t try to speak.
“It’s no great leap of logic to realize she’d been given that potion by you and told to bring it to me if the Everfree ever went wild.” Twilight pretended to get over her anger and her voice turned sarcastic. “Or, maybe, you’re apologizing for not returning the Elements to the tree yourself. Maybe you realized that if you had put the elements back, then the tree would’ve been able to keep this from happening in the first place.”
“I couldn’t,” Celestia whispered as tears ran down both their faces. “The Element of Magic shattered when I banished Luna and the rest transformed into dead rock from my betrayal of her.”
Twilight acted like she didn’t hear her mentor.
“Okay, how about sending me Starswirl’s journal with no bucking explanation!” She regained her calm tone as she continued. “Did it ever occur to you to, I don’t know... ask if I wanted to become a princess? Or, maybe, just maybe, tell me what his spell was designed to do, so that I could, you know, have some bucking idea of what I was getting into?”
Twilight thought for a second. “Well, that was actually my fault, since I got overenthusiastic about the mysterious unfinished spell of my foalhood hero. Not that you’d know that would happen.”
Twilight attempted a sickly sweet smile, but it came off as more of a snarl.
“Maybe you’re apologizing for telling me.” Twilight put on a mockingly contrite smile. “Wait, you made it clear you didn’t actually say the words.” Her smile turned acidic in its sweetness. “You just implied quite heavily that The Mare in the Moon was an old ponytale. Oops, almost forgot about Sombra!” Her voice turned singsong. “You’ll fail the test I set for you if you, and you alone, aren’t the one to help your brother and Cadance save an entire city.”
“But-” Celestia tried to protest, but Twilight cut her off.
”Shove it up your plot!”
Most of the ponies watching scattered in fright as windows shattered from the force of her shout.
“You made me believe that two plus two equals five for three bucking weeks! For three weeks, I was desperately trying to prove that you were right and that everything I had ever learned about math was wrong because you wanted to play games with a ‘lesson’ that nopony is always right.” Twilight’s voice went threateningly cold. “I’m just about ready to go back to the Tree of Harmony and buck it into shards! Then I’ll take the Elements and see if I can banish you to the sun.”
“Twilight, please...” Celestia tried one more time to make amends.
Twilight would have none of it and blasted Celestia in the chest with a mage bolt, sending her flying into the street and leaving a scorch mark on her torc before teleporting away.
“Your majesties, the food has arrived.” The guards placed several containers on the blanket.
Celestia gave the guards a nod of thanks before turning back to Steelskin with an almost timid look on her face.
“I did what?”
Steelskin breathed a sigh of relief at what Celestia was appalled by. “I take it that most of that hasn’t happened here?”
“I did prevaricate on Luna’s return, but there was... a reason for it. I have always felt like I lied to her on that and would never have...” A tear rolled down Celestia’s face. “Thank you for telling me of this. I would like to hear of all the different versions of me... I think it will let me know myself better.” Her voice dropped to a whisper as she added “I think I need to apologize to Twilight.”
“Sister, let us enjoy this food that wast so lovingly prepared for us.” Luna’s horn lit as she opened the various containers and set plates and utensils in front of all three of them plus settings to one side for the guards before dividing up the various foodstuffs.
Celestia picked at her food thoughtfully while Steelskin did his earth pony best to imitate the manners of the princesses. The guards seemed to have a rotation allowing each one to sample the foods given to them.
“I presume that what Steelskin means by his tale is that all of us have our own breaking point.” Luna turned to Steelskin. “Dost thou agree?”
Steelskin nodded, thinking back to his dream. “It made me worry about my own breaking point... and a slow slide into insanity.”
“Don’t worry, that is not the way of it. You may make compromise after compromise until you are comfortable with evil deeds, but insanity does not work that way. Nor can anyone go down the path of a tyrant while they are afraid of it,” Celestia reassured him.
“Aye,” Luna agreed. “Both I and my sister have traveled that path, but upon realization, we both made haste to flee it.”
Celestia looked down at her hooves. “I must ask, did Twilight forgive me?”
#HT - 01#
@Arrival + 3 Weeks@
Royal guards rushed over to the library, preparing to break down the door.
“At ease, soldiers,” Celestia ordered as she picked herself up off the ground.
“But Princess, she assaulted your royal person!”
“Really?” Celestia quipped. “I hadn’t noticed. Still, I do not wish her antagonized. I am more at fault than her. Just set a squad at the Tree of Harmony and leave her alone.”
Just then, Twilight opened the door and stepped out. She walked over to the guards with her nose trailing in the dirt. A steady stream of tears flowed down her face.
“I’m ready to be banished, Princess.”
Celestia tackled her and wrapped her wings around her former student and nuzzling her. Twilight struggled for a few seconds before relaxing into the hug.
“I don’t know how you can forgive me,” They said to each other at the same time.
“I really wish a party was appropriate right now,” Pinkie said from next to me.
Both princesses let out a choked laugh.
“That Celestia and Twilight were always a little reserved when they saw each other after that, but they continued to care about each other. I think that Celestia even cared more for Twilight after that.” Steelskin gave a halfhearted smile. “Still, the pain didn’t seem to go away and it made me even more fearful of what I could do to everypony around me... I mean, if Twilight could attack you...”
Celestia smiled at him. “Such profound words coming from somepony so small. I think that you may be as old as I in spirit.”
“Verily, young Steelskin,” Luna said. “But the deepest lesson to be learned from thy tale is that redemption can always be found if one looks for it.”
The diarchs moved in from either side, pressing against him and covering him with their interlocking wings. The auras they projected merged with each other to give him the feeling that with them behind him, he could be a gleaming breastplate to protect the heart of Equestria.