//------------------------------// // 26: Decision Points // Story: Empire and Rebellion // by Snake Staff //------------------------------// “Your majesty?” Celestia spoke up again, softly intruding on his musing. “Yes, Governor?” Palpatine continued staring out the window as the Coruscant night came into its full bloom. “What is it?” This part was tricky. It wasn’t as though Celestia wouldn’t trade the secret of immortality for the safety of her sister and her planet. It was that she honestly didn’t have one. She and her sister were simply born the way. And the ascension to alicorn was an extremely rare and special thing, requiring a unique conflux of destiny, magic, force of personality, and the power of harmony itself. She couldn’t trigger such a change at will in a pony. What the effect of a comparable event on a human would be, she honestly did not know. But exactly to make that clear? To offer what she couldn’t give would only lead to disaster, but on the other hoof this might well be the only opportunity she had to get Lulu back. “My abilities in this matter are rather limited.” She chose her words carefully. “It is certainly true that to the best of my knowledge I am immortal. I would be more than happy to share with you all I know of the longevity of my subspecies, but I am afraid I must disclose that I cannot trigger this state in other beings at will.” Palpatine, to her surprise, simply chuckled. “Well, I should think not,” the Emperor said. “If you had such power over life and death, would you not have used it when General Grievous attacked? Would you not have restored your sister from this “crippling” you spoke of? If you could simply bestow immortality at will, could you not in some senses be called a god? I do not that think a god would require my aid to deal with Lord Vader.” Celestia kept her face neutral. “No, Governor,” Palpatine shook his head. “I do not expect that you can simply wave some magic wand and create endless life. The universe is seldom so generous.” “In that case, what did your majesty have in mind when you requested my assistance?” “First, tell me this: what do you know of yourself? Your unprecedented lifespan has surely offered you many opportunities for self-examination.” “Of body, or of soul?” Celestia asked. “The soul’s existence is considered by some to be an open question,” the Emperor mused. “But we will say both.” “Well, as I mentioned previously I am presently thirty-six thousand eight hundred and seventy-four galactic standard years old. I was born as an alicorn those many millennia ago.” “Simply born ageless and undying,” Palpatine muttered. “What would Plagueis think?” “Who, your highness?” “An old acquaintance, since passed. Please, do continue.” “Of course. While I was born with my wings and horn, for the first two decades of my life I aged much as ordinary ponies do. It was in my twenty-second year of life that my aging process diverged sharply. From that year onwards rather than continue the ordinary metabolic processes of young adulthood I simply began to grow infinitesimally taller every years for the next several decades, my magical power growing likewise. When I was one hundred and sixty-six my mane changed from a light pink to the rainbow you see before you, and over the course of the next year it started to flow. During this time I continued to grow taller and taller by miniscule amounts, until I was three hundred and twelve years of age whereupon I fully became the physical pony your majesty sees. From that day forth my body effectively entered stasis. Insofar as any test medical or magical has ever been able to determine, not a single piece of my body has experienced any manner of change in form or efficiency. I was then as I am now.” “What if you are injured?” “On those rare occasions my body simply regenerates to the exact same state it was prior in a short time. No scarring, no blemishes, no drop in productivity. The apparent exception is the loss of the horn, the source and focus for the magic of unicorns and alicorns. I have never experienced it, but my sister lost hers to Grievous years ago and it has yet to regenerate.” “Has she then begun to age once more?” “No,” Celestia shook her head. “There has been no apparent effect on her immortality.” “Then perhaps it shall return to her in due time. But that does answer some questions and raise more." Palpatine paused. "Now, tell me of your soul.” “That… is a rather vague topic, your majesty. What do you wish me to tell?” “For the sake of time, let us be immediately relevant. Do you believe that the state of your soul to be related to your aging process?” “No,” Celestia shook her head. “My sister once fell under darker influences that even warped her body, but her immortality was unaffected. She did not age, though a thousand years passed.” Palpatine raised an eyebrow. “She went mad for a time. Anger and jealousy and my own neglect drove her towards darker sources of magic. She abandoned her station and her own name out of hatred, but she remained as unaged and eternal as she ever was.” “Interesting,” the Emperor said. “Very interesting. I think that will do for now.” “Yes, your majesty.” “Now then, I believe that you wished to know the terms of this… mutual agreement I am proposing?” Celestia nodded. “Very well. I propose the following: I will do everything in my power to see that your sister, Princess Luna of Equestria, is discharged from the Inquisition and Lord Vader’s employ as swiftly as possible and returned to your planet immediately. In return, you will remain here in the company of my personal medical staff and researchers. We will do a comprehensive study of our own, and see whether we might discover the origins of this spark of immortality you possess.” “Many on my world have tried.” “On your world, Governor. Not here. You will stay until such time as we have either found what we seek or else are satisfied that we shall not find it. Do find this arrangement agreeable?” The way he had slipped so easily into this topic made Celestia uneasy. But to get Lulu back safe and sound? “I do.” Meanwhile, on a another part of Coruscant hundreds of miles away and hundreds of levels down the vast cityscape, Twilight stood on a balcony, silently overlooking the speeder traffic zooming by. It really was incredible. Billions upon billions of beings from countless worlds packed into skyscrapers running from the planet’s crust to its upper atmosphere. In just the few minutes she had been watching the comparatively light traffic, the number of beings that had zoomed by in their flyers dwarfed Ponyville’s pre-war population by orders of magnitude. Feeding this world must be a nightmare. Finding a single being who wished to be anonymous here? Even more daunting. But someone, somewhere knew where the precious Sith treasures had gone. Twilight didn’t know much about them, but if the likes of Darth Vader wanted these things that was reason enough to keep them from him. “Hey,” a voice from the balcony’s worn door cut into her thoughts. “We’ve got a fix. You ready to do your job, slicer?” “You know it.” Far away, on a landing pad in a restricted section of the cityscape, a light shop was touching down atop a great skyscraper. Almost the moment the Starry Night’s ramp touched the ground Luna’s hooves were on it, followed closely by the lockstep march of Imperial Stormtroopers. The alicorn looked at blazing cityscape through slit eyes, ruffling her wings irritably. The cold wind whipped past her, sending her mane and tail flying wildly about, but she did not react. Her eyes drifted in the direction of the Imperial Palace. They flared. “Come,” she said to the men filing off behind her. “There is work to be done.”