• Published 16th Apr 2012
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Hooves, Plush, and Magic: The Untold Tales - Harry Leferts



This is the place for side stories, origin tales and plot bunnies for my fic: "The Wizard and the Lonely Princess". So come on in,

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Celestia's Story Part 1

Disclaimer: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is owned by Hasbro and Harry Potter is the property of JK Rowling.

'Dearest Luna...' - Celestia's writing translated from Early Modern Equish
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'It has been done. After six moons of fighting and war, I have finally defeated my sister... no, not my sister, but something that had possessed her for my Luna could have never have done what this, Nightmare Moon did. But, just the same, while I may have won our conflict and saved my little ponies from an era of darkness, I have also suffered my greatest loss.

That of my sister.

I was so sure that if I could entrap her that I could use the Elements of Harmony and through them, free my sister from the grip of the darkness upon her. And then things could have gone back to how they were between us before... before our falling out. We would cry, have a nuzzle and embrace, before we forgave each other like we always have before when we fought. But... it did not work out that way. I forced the Elements to work for me alone and used them on Nightmare Moon. Her Generals, always loyal to Luna, stepped in the way and were hit as well. And then, as the rainbow swirled around her, I saw my sister as the darkness was stripped away and felt joy in my heart.

But my dream was not to come true. It was to become a nightmare.

For in the next moment, I saw a expression of betrayal directed at me come across my beloved sister's face as well as anger and disbelief and then... then...

I am sorry my dear journal, it is most hard to write, but write it I shall.

For then, you see, the Elements' blaze closed in on her and then swirled upward, locking her into her beloved moon. I... I could not believe what had happened. I did not want to believe that I have sentenced my sister to such a fate. Even now, as those who followed me are still yet celebrating, I gaze up from my cot to my sister's moon and see her shadow upon it, mournfully looking down at me... or is it accusing me? I dare not consider it too deeply.

My only hope, though, comes from the Elements of Harmony themselves. Back when I was but a student under Starswirl, I remember one conversation between us and Clover, may her gentle soul rest in the endless plains. He believed that powerful magical objects could, over time, develop an... awareness about them. It would take time, but it would happen. And, when my sister disappeared, the Elements contacted me. They revealed, though not through words as much as... a feeling, I suppose the best word would be, that her punishment would be to stay upon the moon, so far away from those whose love she sought, for a thousand years. Or at the least, that is my personal interpretation.

A thousand years without my beloved little sister. How can I manage... But for her sake, I shall.

But that was not all... There are four stars around the moon guarding it, which, once more, I received the oddest feeling from the Elements which told me were Luna's loyal Generals. Their souls, guarding her prison silently for the next thousand years.

And then they turned to me. I have never felt such feelings of disappointment before coming from something. Once more, I have to state that from what I experienced, the Elements of Harmony do not speak as a being such as you or I, but communication using emotions... sensations. What they say is open to interpretation, though from my studies under Starswirl so long ago, I do not think myself wrong. In this case, I believe that they told me that while they would not send me away, like they had my sister as I was needed to protect and serve Equestria, they would punish me for my part in the loss of Harmony between us. I... I am at a loss my dear journal. Is my interpretation of what I had felt that horrible night correct? That I am at fault? As selfish as it is, I wish that it were not so.

But as to my possible punishment, I am at a loss. What is it? Is it not enough to be without my sister, she who has stood beside me throughout the past centuries, my unchanging anchor, for a thousand years? Is it not enough that I also have to live with the fact that I broke the promise I had made with my parents, to protect my sister? To love her? To always be there for her and to put her above myself?

Perhaps... perhaps it is that as well as the pain I suffered as they tore the connection that I had with them to shreds? A pain that tore at my very soul in that time? An agony beyond any that I have felt in all my thousands of years of life?

I know not...

And I cannot put into words how much that frightens me...'

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'It has been a week since last I wrote.

A week of pain and relief. Of joy and grief. So much has happened that I do not know where to start. So, perhaps... I should start with something that may sound a little vain.

My mane has changed. It was once a soft sparkling pink, the color of the sunrise with the sparkles looking much like dew when the light of the dawn catches it. But now... now more colors, those of Harmony itself, makes up my mane.

I hate it.

Every time I see my reflection, my mind drifts back to when I used the Elements against my sister. When my little Luna was hit with magic the same color as my mane is now. I have tried to stop my mind from doing so, but it still does so despite this. Is this part of my punishment? To always have my mind drift back whenever I see my reflection?

And yet, that is but the tip of the iceberg. For I now have to raise the moon to bring on the night. But, whenever I do so, when my magic connects with it... I am struck by a unimaginable wave of sadness, grief, anger, hatred, and, worst of all, betrayal and loneliness. And I know that these are Luna's emotions and to feel them... It tears a hole in my heart that I fear may never heal though ages yet may pass.

Then there are the stars. I have been asked by those who followed me to change the night sky to commemorate my victory over my 'Evil sister' and my conquest of my new dominion. Such foals if they think that I will change one of the few things that I have of my sister. Why would they even think that I would do as such I wonder? No matter, eventually it shall settle down.

They also asked that I strip the noble titles of those who fought on my sister's side of the war and hand it over to those who fought with me as 'Payment'. I... do not understand this. In fact, they some seemed to be angry when I said that I would not. I wish to reconcile all the differences that caused this war. It may yet be a long and hard road, but I am certain that we can put this behind us.

There was also, unfortunately, a tragedy. As I lay recovering from my wounds, one of my own Generals of the Day Guard spoke of executing those of the Night Guard. Fortunately, I managed to prevent such and told them that while they may be punished, they would not be killed. That was not the last of it though as my Court, acting in my stead without my permission, had them forcibly disbanded. While most went back to their homes with anger in their hearts, my personal spymaster noted that a group of several hundred Pegasi fled before they could have their armor confiscated and the Royal Guard spells placed on them dispelled. Where they have gone, neither I nor anypony knows as they flew into a raging storm and were gone. Also, the locations and exact numbers of the rest of the Night Guard, who were not at that battle, are unknown as of now.

And then there are the dreams. I swear that I can hear me and Luna having conversations in them, but... they are not clear. Perhaps in time, I shall see them fully. And speaking of dreams, without my sister sheparding them as she has for centuries until recently, the realm they occur in has darkened. I fear for what this may mean...

And finally, I have decided against counsel to move the capital from the ruins to Canterlot. Most of my court has argued against it stating stability but... but I can not stay here. What happened with my sister was but the latest in the tragedies that have occurred here over the centuries. My parents and uncle's deaths... Discord's first appearance and the final battle against him... my sister's fall... So much. Too much.

I fear that if I stay here, where I can see ghosts from the edges of my sight of my sister crying, of my parents watching me in disapproval... I fear that what happened to Luna may yet happen to me...

Before I leave though, I shall make the journey to where Luna has hid her own notes and journals and have a look within for clues as to what may have happened with her. Perhaps, once she returns, I can use what may be within them to help her.'

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A year... it has been a full year since my sister's banishment. Oh, looking back on it what a foal I was to think that everything would have gone back to how it was. The Harmony that once was now lays shattered upon the cobblestones of the old capital and old hatreds burn bright once more. Tensions have once again risen in the aftermath of the war and there have been... reprisals, against those who followed my sister. Just the other week, an entire household was killed when their water source was poisoned. There have been no signs as to whom may have been behind a heinous act, but with how some of my court has reacted, I fear that they may yet be involved.

And then there comes that I have begun to discover what happened with my sister's fall. There are her journals in which she speaks of the pressures that the nobility placed upon her as well as... what I had done. I almost do not wish to read more of them then what I already have, for if what I am suspecting is true... then I, myself, may in fact be responsible for what occurred. This is something that I hope is not true. But whether I continue reading them or not, I shall still find out as I have found out the last of my punishment.

My dreams.

For within my dreams I have been seeing various incidents from my younger sister's perspective. Feeling what she's feeling, hearing what she's hearing... And every morn I awake with wet cheeks from having cried over the night as I slept. I know that these are her memories that I am reliving. I have felt the pure loneliness she had when no one came to her Night Court. I have felt the anger she has had at members of the nobility... and myself. More then that, I have recently held a Night Court of my own.

And nopony ever appeared.

When I went back over the minutes from past Night Courts, something that I have never done to my ever lasting shame, I have found them almost empty with only a few visits within a year. I find myself at a loss that it was so bad. I never realized... No, I have no excuse here. And there is yet more. I was asked to disband the Night Court permanently and to either cut back on the amount of night time hours or abolish it entirely. I had to explain why there needed to be a night, and how it was for balance.

And yet they were still angered. Oh, dearest Luna, I am sorry that I never truly understood what you had meant...'

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Three years... three years of loneliness... I have also been most busy dealing with the duties that both me and Luna handled separately. I never had an idea that dealing with the Kingdom's finances was so difficult. The mathematics are highly complicated and hard, so much so that I sometimes wonder if dear Luna had used a spell to do the work for her. And the costs of rebuilding are especially hard to include...

As well, the stress is currently getting to me. I am still sometimes catching sight of her, curled up and weeping from being alone, in the corner of my eye. And when I turn, she is gone as if she was never there. Sometimes I also hear mother's and father's voices when I am alone. Both are angry with me for having broken my promise to them and verbally rip me apart. I know that it's not them, that they would never have said some of the things that I have heard, but there are times now when I am alone within the darkness of the nighttime hours, that I wonder...

And then there how I have been feeling ill for the last week. It is most particular as I have been rarely sick, especially to this extent. But for some mornings now I have felt the need to get up in order to empty my stomach. My head has also been aching to the point where I have trouble thinking at times through the pain. Though my body has also hurt with my joints feeling at times as if they were on fire. It is most particular, though I believe that it is due to the great guilt that I must now live with. For I have heard that those with broken hearts suffer outwardly. And it does indeed feel as if my heart has been torn beating from my chest at times, especially during the night when I catch my reflection and that of the stars or moon.

The nobility has also been acting most strange. There are members of my court who have become more and more concerned as the time has worn on and my current illness has stayed. I am warmed by their worry and concern of course, what... monarch, and I use that term with derision, would not feel the same? But there is something... something that does not quite fit. I do not know what it is, for the feeling that generates such is in the back of my mind like a rodent, slowly chewing on a wall, but something about them does not fit. It is as if they are concerned for me while at the same time, they are not.

They have also been asking for more powers and responsibilities beyond those that they have already been given. This began in the wake of my current illness. The arguments that I have heard for them to be given more powers range from giving me time to rest and recuperate to my current state having an effect upon the nation. I have however not given in and granted them more ranging powers. I am not yet so ill and weak as to need to do such as they're asking. I have however become most angry about the attempts for them to have me to teach the spells to move the sun and the moon across the sky. The sheer nerve of such!

I shall never allow them to handle my sister's moon! No, there is none other then myself who I can trust with this duty. It is my burden and my burden alone to move my sister's most precious object...

To move her prison...

Luna... my dear sister...

By the everlasting sky above do I miss her. I once heard a poem wherein the speaker said that 'One never knows what they truly have until they lose it all'. And with Luna's fall and imprisonment, I cannot but feel that that is true for me, that I have lost all that is of worth. I have now realized, with each passing day and night, what she was to me. She was more then just my sister. She was also my closest companion, my very best friend and confidant. I remember how she would always listen to my worries and sooth them. Much like I used to for her... until I forgot to do so. Until I let her worries stew... And now... now there is no pony to which I can speak to. None except for you, dearest journal for dear Philomena has not yet returned from the millennial phoenix flocking. And if the other times that she has gone one them is anything to base an estimate on, then she shall be gone for at least a decade, possibly two. But even she is not and could never be a replacement for the companionship I had with Luna...

I have never felt so alone in my long centuries and it is but three years into a thousand...

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Poison.

Such a small word to denote such a horrendous act.

I have found out the source of my illness and it is that. I am ashamed that I had never considered the possibility that one would try such on me. Oddly, I can almost hear Luna's voice in my head, chastising me for my lapse.

As to how I found out, it was... something that I am almost too embarrassed to admit to even here, in writing. I was laying upon my bed as I mentally reviewed the day's events with my balcony doors open, hoping for some relief from being cooled by the gentle night breezes. I was feeling most unwell at the time, so I was hoping that the night would strip away the stifling heat of the daytime hours and cool me. As I laid there though, a large biting insect flew in and had alighted upon my leg. So exhausted was I, that I could not be bothered enough to knock it away. It then bit me and drank my blood...

And then it fell over, dead.

Shocked by this, I cast a spell and found that it had died from poison. I then used the same spell on myself and found that I, too, had been poisoned. In fact, to my growing horror, if I had been anything but an alicorn, I would have succumbed long ago. As it was, I was growing progressively weaker over time and might well have become so weak before I had realized that I could not have put up a fight against an assassin. Thankfully, I know a spell to help speed up the filtering of a poison, though it shall take a while for me to recover my original strength.

The question now though, is whom was it that has poisoned me? Though there may be more then one conspirator as there are more then one poison within my blood. It shall be weeks before they are all cleared out I fear.

Was it perhaps renegades that still follow my sister and now seek revenge for her defeat and banishment? I do remember reports from my spy masters as to how members of the Night Guard have vanished into thin air these past few years, though that could be due to attacks upon them.

Or, as much as it may pain me, are there those who stood beside me during those dark days in the fight against my sister that may now be prepared to slide a blade between my ribs? With their movements to obtain more power, I must wonder and cannot dismiss the possibility.

To catch them shall take cunning and the all my ability to act...

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And so I have managed to catch some of those responsible. How? I acted as if I was getting weaker and weaker while in fact I was slowly recovering. Some illusion spells and they thought that I was still eating and drinking the food that I was given, not knowing that at night I would simply bring individual leaves and blades of grass from the palace gardens as well as magically gathering small clouds to drink from. I kept an eye out and was not disappointed as just last night, an assassin entered into my room

I must admit that I took no small amount of pleasure in how surprised he was that I was not quite as weak as they had thought, though I was far from fully recovered. After a short fight, I subdued him and got the information that I needed as to whom he was obeying. It appeared that a group of nobles within my court sought to depose me. I only wish though that I could have had them tried for high treason, but what happened next rendered that wish null and void.

For a spell had been placed upon the assassin that activated at exactly that moment and slew him, though I suppose that it was but a mercy for him. His death then activated yet another spell, one that I recognized as having been used originally by the Royal Gryphons. I was a fool not to have checked for such before hoof. The spell itself was designed to slay dragons by paralyzing them and disrupting their natural magics enough to allow them to be more easily killed. Such a spell is a sickening thing as it uses a sacrifice to work. For a normal unicorn, it would have been a death sentence while for myself, at my normal strength it would have only staggered me.

In my current, weakened state, the effects were much closer to how it would have effected a dragon as it left me paralyzed and weakened. And to my horror, the disruption of my magic was enough to prevent myself from casting any spells. It was then that the door to my chambers opened and two of my own Generals and their personal Guard entered as they escorted four nobles.

The very same ones whose images I tore from the assassin's mind before it broke entirely.

As I laid there, unable to move, their leader, Solanaceae, walked up to where I lay with the most vile expression on his face. Unlike in some of the stories that I have read, there was no great reveal, no bragging about his plan coming to fruition. He simply, and slowly, raised his sword's blade which dripped with some form of poison above his head and told me that the reign of the alicorns had entered and that it was now time for the true nobility to take their place as the ruler of the masses as was their destiny.

A moment later the thud of a blade meeting flesh echoed through the air and the sword fell to the flagstones as the magic that held it vanished. Solanaceae then toppled over dead, the dagger that was buried hilt deep in the back of his head revealing what had killed him. It was then that my shock started to ebb and I heard the sounds of fighting around me, just out of sight, through the sprays of blood and gargles let me know that one side was losing. All of a sudden, everything went silent at once as the fight ended as quickly as it had begun. Yet still unable to move or even speak, I simply laid there as I cursed the world, wondering which enemy may have arrived to take advantage of my current state.

I waited and steeled myself as I heard the soft sound of unshod hooves as they stepped toward me. They slowly circled my body just out of view, and I know that it was a group because I counted no less then four different individual ponies from the sounds of their hooves. Finally, one of my rescuers came into view...

It was, to my surprise, one of my sister's own Guard! I could not tell whom it was thanks to the black fabric that stretched across where their muzzle was while the rest of the head was underneath a helm, though the armor identified them as a member of the Night Guard. I must have had an expression of surprise and shock on my face, even through my paralysis, because he chuckled as he ripped his dagger out of Solanaceae's head.

He then leaned down and quietly explained to me, my sister's last standing orders to them, her troops, if she had happened to fall in battle. If my sister was to have fallen in battle, then they were to continue to serve and protect Equestria and myself from within the shadows and night. He did not tell me much more then that though. which I could understand due to the sometimes tumultuous relationship that my own personal Guard had with them at times. The Guardspony did tell me that I could, if ever needed, get in contact with them via the Moon Clan Diamond Dogs. Something that I suppose should have been expected.

I will admit, that while part of me was touched by this gesture from my sister that showed a part of her still yet cared for me and our subjects, there was also shame and guilt. Shame for the fact that I, myself, had issued no similar orders. Guilt that she not only thought that I would exile her or worse, but that I had actually proven her right without meaning to.

The Night Guard waited and stood there throughout the coming hours, silent and yet comforting in a way for I somehow knew that they would give their lives for me if needed. Not surprising as during the war, they would stand their ground and die in situations when other forces except for my elites would have broken and ran. It was a few hours before the dawn when found myself slowly able to move. They waited until I could once more defend myself and before my startled eyes, they seemed to fade into the darkness and vanish like the mists do upon the dawn.

It was soon after that the next rotation for my Guard arrived to find me barely standing amongst several bodies including that of the assassin. I was most... displeased with them. Due to that, I have called a Grand Assembly, the first since just before the war. For with this, my patience has now worn down to but a thread...

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War...

It is always and always has been such an ugly word. No matter the cause or meaning nor the reasoning behind it's conception. For the past seven years, since that attack so long ago, tensions have mounted between I and a group a nobility. A faction that refers to themselves as the "Loyalists".

I cannot help but sneer at the word being as the only thing that they are loyal to is their power and what they consider to be the old ways. And now, almost a decade after, the festering wounds from the Civil War have once more been brutally torn open. For years I have found myself in a political tug of war with these Loyalists as I have tried to limit and take back the powers that they had taken during the war thanks to Emergency Measures. If it had stayed that way, within the court, I could well have dealt with it.

However, there have been murmurings from my spymasters, those whom I know that I can trust after a fashion. Various small kingdoms have been mobilizing small militias in order to deal with "Bandits". There is also how there has been several cases wherein nobles have been... hard... on their subjects while blaming me for it. Rumors that have been painting me as a tyrant. I know for a fact that I have never ordered such crackdowns, and that most have been performed by the Loyalists, who I know would never do such if I had ordered it as they have told their citizenry.

But even all that has not brought about this newest conflict. No...

Two days ago, they issued an ultimatum for me to step down and prevent bloodshed after which, they would create a a hierarchy of nobles to rule. In reply, I told them that if they were to take up arms against me, I would see them and their descendants broken before me, all power having been taken back by the crown. While some of them were nervous, they told me that any farther bloodshed would be upon my crown.

And then they left.

So now I sit within my castle, my eyes wet as I contemplate the coming months and possible years of bloodshed. Beside me are reports from the scouts, claiming that there are armies already on the move... I feel as if I have failed everything and everypony that I have ever known in my life with what is about to happen.

And I ask for forgiveness that I know shall never be mine...