//------------------------------// // Chapter 8: The Gala- All Is Revealed // Story: Together Again and Forever // by Wahtiff //------------------------------// They stepped through the glass doors, and into the courtyard. Leading the way, Celestia spread her wings and flew upwards. Twilight, confused, followed suit and flew behind her as they headed for the rooftop garden on the opposite side of the castle. Without a word spoken between them, Celestia led the way along the paths and through the mass of sweet-scented flowers and towering hedges until they reached the other side of the gardens, where there sat on the pavement a trellised pavilion with roses and creeper vines growing all over it. Behind that, there was the edge of the roof that looked out towards the far northern mountains. Above them, the stars, faint as they were with all of the light pollution, still managed to twinkle while the full moon shone down upon them both. Celestia walked over to the carved stone railing, and looked upwards at the sky for a long moment, sitting down on her haunches. After a moment of awkward silence, her horn was enveloped in a golden aura.            POOF!            Twilight’s eyes widened as their dresses vanished, “Huh? Why did you-?”            “You’ll see.” With another flare of her horn, Twilight watched, mouth agape, as an unfamiliar wooden box appeared to hover in the air next to Celestia. The white alicorn set the box down gently on the railing, before beginning to speak.            “Twilight, do you really view me as your friend?” She asked.            “Of course I do.” Twilight answered, confused, “After all, Princess Friends Forever, am I right?”            Celestia chuckled lightly, “Yes, that’s right, you also said that you wished to spend yesterday with me as a friend, yet I also remember you saying that I was also like a second mother to you.”            Twilight took a step forward, “Yes, I did. I meant it, too. You really have been like a surrogate mother for me, in many ways, Celestia. Both you and Twilight Velvet.”            “I see…”            “Celestia,” Twilight was starting to feel uncomfortable, “what’s going on? Is something wrong?”            “Actually, Twilight, yes, there is.” Celestia finally turned around to face her, her magenta eyes saddened and melancholic, “And it concerns you. No, not just you, but me as well.”            “What do you mean?” Twilight was starting to get worried.            “You came to me the other day, and I said I would help you find out who your real parents are or were. In the very least, I promised that I would help you find your mother. But I didn’t help at all, not in the least.”            “Huh? Of course you did!” Twilight was really confused, now, “You were with me in the library, and you said that if you had a mother and father, then I did, too.”            “But I wasn’t helping you like I should have.” Celestia looked away, again, “Twilight, I’m sorry- I lied to you.”            “What?” Twilight was shocked.            “I knew the truth, Twilight,” Celestia said, “about your true origins, about who you really were, and I didn’t say a thing.”            “Why did you lie?” Twilight wondered if she should be angry, but she was more confused than mad at the moment, “If you knew, then why didn’t you tell me?”            “Because,” Celestia still wouldn’t meet her gaze, but Twilight could see tears running down her cheeks, “I thought it would ruin our friendship, and after all the fun we had afterwards, and after you said you wouldn’t worry about it anymore for the time being…”            Twilight nodded, thinking she understood, “That’s okay, I guess, though I have no idea why it’d ruin our friendship, but I’d still like to know, sometime.”            “No.” Celestia said, “You’ve been kept in the dark for long enough, and you deserve to know the truth now.”            The white alicorn levitated the mysterious wooden box from the railing, and set it down in front of Twilight before she turned away again. Twilight looked at the box in confusion, and then back at Celestia.            “Go ahead,” The older princess urged, “open it.”            Twilight reached out towards the box.            “Wait!”            Twilight brought her hoof back at Celestia’s sudden cry. She looked up, meeting the alicorn’s eyes peering at her over her shoulder.            “Twilight, there’s one last thing I need to tell you before you open that box,” She sighed, “I don’t want to be your surrogate mother.”            Twilight practically felt her heart shatter into pieces at the words. A few tears ran down her face, wondering what exactly was happening and why Celestia would reject her feelings that the alabaster alicorn was like a third mother to her. However, when Celestia gestured to the box again, Twilight knew that she had to open it. She had to know what exactly was going on. She was sad, she was confused, but most of all, she felt rejected with the Sun Princess’s words.            When she opened the box, however, what she saw made all of those emotions vanish.            Inside were several noticeable objects, mainly pictures of her and her friends- mainly her- in Ponyville, Canterlot, and abroad. Twilight recognized some as copies of photos her adoptive father had taken on certain holidays and special occasions: Twilight’s first magic trick; when her parents had been the NEXT two ponies, after Celestia, to see her Cutie Mark; and a copy of the family photo from the previous year’s Hearthswarming Eve. Alongside those, there were pictures that looked like they had been taken without her knowing: a get-together with her friends at the Sugercube Corner, her reading a book in front of the fire when she was still a unicorn librarian, and many others, including one of her singing at Shining and Cadence’s wedding- and one of her as a young filly! Twilight’s hoof trembled as she looked at it.            “You took some of these?” She asked, stunned. She had never even known that Celestia had owned a camera or had been in Ponyville on some of those days.            Celestia nodded.            “Why?”            “Keep looking.” Celestia answered.            Turning her attention back down, the next thing Twilight noticed a vial which contained a lock of pink hair, and labeled ‘Twilight Sparkle’. It didn’t take long- looking between her former mentor and vial- for Twilight to realize that, apart from the differing labels, the lock of hair was colored exactly like Celestia’s own natural mane!            Twilight gulped, reaching up to her mane to feel where her pink strip of hair ran through the main dark-blue color. Why would Celestia show her something like this?            Then, her gaze fell to a folded piece of stationary in the box. Placing the vials down, she reached out with a still-trembling hoof and picked the piece of paper up. Taking a breath, not sure what she would find, she unfolded it and looked at what was written on it.            Her eyes widened.            It was her birth certificate!             Certificate of Birth Name: Twilight Sparkle Born: 20th of [EXPUNGED] Gender: Female Race: Unicorn Parents: Night Light Armor (father)            Princess Celestia (mother)            Shaking, Twilight read over the certificate again, not quite believing what she was currently seeing. That was when she noticed something odd with the information about her race. It actually seemed to have been whited out. With her magic, Twilight removed it and revealed the original print: Race: Alicorn (Wing-Dormant)           And then the information about her parents: Night Light Armor, and…            Her heart seemed to stop. It had just barely been pieced back together, and then it stopped.            “Twilight?” Celestia’s soft voice spoke, prompting her to look up.            She did, trembling, and saw that Celestia had turned to face her. With a defeated look, the princess levitated the tiara from her head, and her rainbow-colored mane immediately turned to its natural pink color, falling down her back as the last of her regalia’s enchantment was removed. A pink color, like the pink strip in Twilight’s mane, and her eyes, those eyes, so much like her own.            “I don’t want to be your surrogate mother, because Twilight…” Celestia looked into her eyes with a solemn look,            “Twilight, I AM your mother.”