Administrative Angel

by horizon


4. Angel

Celestia takes the day off from work after Twilight (through Sunset) fills in the tiny missing details of goddess-her's big fight.

Luna — her Luna — calls to ask what's wrong. She lets it go to voicemail. (Luna doesn't call again — just texts "I'll be here when you need me" — which she takes to mean that Luna asked Sunset Shimmer for context.)

Celestia spends hours and hours wanting to vomit. Finally, she calls on her old dusty party skills and induces dry-heaving. It doesn't help.

How could she?

A thousand years.

How could she?





Her emotions finally boil over in the middle of the night, and she drives to Sunset Shimmer's and knocks on the door.

"Are you okay?" a pajama-clad Sunset says, after one look at her face.

"I need to send a letter," Celestia says. "To Princess Luna."

Sunset swallows and hesitates. "If this is about what you asked me about this morning," she says carefully, "that really doesn't reflect on you. And I know I promised to help you write — but we should find a less awkward way to introduce you than by making an apology."

"It's a question." Celestia chuckles humorlessly. "And it's a little late for introductions."

"Oh," Sunset says, and invites her in.

Questions — Celestia is reminded as she writes — are a little awkward too. The journal's more tin-can-on-string than cell phone. Single target only. She'll have to tell Twilight to pass the message on.

Celestia skips back up a few lines to add that request. She understands. But in a way, it's easier. Her question is far too big to ask directly:

How could you forgive her?

Then they kill time for half an hour (which involves a belated apology for waking Sunset up, a call to a 24-hour pizza place, and a lot of pencil-chewing over a half-filled crossword puzzle) as Celestia's correspondence winds its way between dimensions, through dragonfire, across a palace, and vice versa.

Sunset's journal finally vibrates.

There was never any question that I would, the response says (when stripped of its Twilight padding, and a frantic apology for the intrusion of privacy necessitated by being a middlemare for what appears to be deeply personal business).

I was the one who erred.

If I were to ask you the same question about your own sister, your answer would be identical. (But she never did anything wrong, Celestia mentally protests. ... And she finally understands.) So instead I shall return to the question weighing upon both our withers. What do we say to our better selves?

I have not yet ascertained what we should say — but I know what we will, without great restraint. It is the same apology for our own failings that we have already given to our sisters, for exactly the same reason, and with exactly the same response:

Their heart breaks at our clinging to guilt.

They love us.

I hope you can believe that more readily than I.

The room is silent for a long moment as Celestia lowers the book they're both reading. Then Sunset Shimmer lunges in to hug her.

Celestia numbly accepts — then feels tears dampen her shoulder as Sunset's body starts to shake, and remembers she's not the only one here who needs some permission to forgive herself.

They cling to each other as Sunset sobs. Flawed and bent and warm and caring.

Celestia doesn't have wings to wrap around her fellow angel, and it doesn't matter one bit.





Dear Princess Celestia,

Principal Celestia lets her pen tip hang. She's already started the letter over six times. That salutation sounds so unconscionably twee. And yet there's some sense of greater order to it.

I put you on a pedestal, she writes. That was my mistake. And frankly kind of a humiliating one. My entire life has taught me that that's how you break angels. But then, I'm the version of us that keeps getting things wrong

She stops mid-sentence. Crosses it out. Crumples the paper and starts fresh, again.

Dear Princess Celestia,

Luna walks in while she's staring down at the blank page. "Are you still writing that letter to the other you?"

"I have to," Celestia says. "I talked to her sister. It would look weird if I didn't. Like I was avoiding her."

Luna rests a hand on Celestia's shoulder and slides a piece of paper onto the desk. It's a photocopy of a journal page, containing calligraphic script in a deep, rich ink.

Dear Luna, it says.

I have so many things I want to say, but this is the most important:

Thank you for being an inspiration.

Sincerely,

Luna.

"I don't really know how to feel about that," Vice-Principal Luna says.

"I can tell you," Principal Celestia says, "from direct personal experience, neither does she."

Without even looking, Celestia knows her sister is smiling. Luna gives her shoulder a squeeze.

"I meant, that I'm an inspiration to an immortal moon goddess," Luna says. "That's a lot to take in."

"I don't think Princess Me will have that problem," Celestia says drily, and for a moment is tempted to simply copy the correct answer off her fellow student's homework. But that would feel even worse than getting it wrong on her own.

Luna tousles the fading aurora of Celestia's hair. "Well, when you figure it out, I just pulled your lasagna out of the oven." She takes a step toward the door. "It smells delicious."

"Hang on," Celestia says, and Luna pauses.

Celestia stands and throws her arms around her younger sister. "Other you is right. You're awesome and I love you."

Luna's laugh lights up the room, and she returns the hug warmly. "What brought this on?"

Celestia leans into the embrace with a grin. "I'm learning."