The first thing that Twilight was aware of was the ticking of a clock.
One. Two. One. Two.
There were moments when one seemed to wake up in the middle of a sentence or halfway through a thought, rousing from some daydream or other. It was the closest thing that Twilight knew to what she felt.
The room around her was simple, stoic, greys and browns and warm light through one window. She knew this decor, wooden desks and blackboard. Canterlot Academy, top floor of the annex. She’d had classes here once or twice. Celestia had lectured in this very room before.
Which was fitting, as there were currently multiple Celestias.
In the light of the sun that streamed through the open window, there was a nice table and at it sat three ponies. In the middle was the Sun Triumphant with a light smile, just a hairsbreadth away from neutral. On his right, a Celestia with a pair of glasses perched atop her nose and an appraising little frown.On his left, a Celestia who smiled with obvious delight.
Twilight blinked at them. The smiling one gave her a little playful wave, which she awkwardly returned before looking around.
Behind her, the lecture room’s seating was arranged in that stereotypical tiered stadium style, and in the middle of the rows sat a very flummoxed Celestia. Without even a slight pause to consider, Twilight knew this was her Celestia, not an aspect but the whole.
One of the Court cleared their throats, and Twilight turned.
“We are waiting, Twilight Sparkle,” the Sun said dispassionately. “You are allotted no more than fifteen minutes for your presentation and the rest of your time is given over to an oral examination and defense. Do you understand?”
She sputtered. “What? Of what? I already did my thesis, I--” She shook her head. “I mean, what?”
The delighted Celestia giggled. “Why, your master’s in friendship, of course. The post-grad course in romance!” She continued to laugh while the more stern Celestia rolled her eyes. “Get it? I mean, not every friendship has to g--”
“We get it,” droned the bespectacled, serious aspect. “It’s a joke, yes. We let you pick this setting to make the joke. Let us move on.”
“Yes, let’s,” the Sun said. “You may begin, Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight took a deep breath.
There wasn’t really time to think, or compose some opening statement. Her actual thesis defense had been exhausting, a little frightening, and overall not an experience she had wanted to repeat--and that was with hours and hours of preparation and research and a full presentation all but memorized.
What did they want? Romance. They wanted what, “prove you know something about romance in fifteen minutes”? It was absurd. More than that, wasn’t it a bit cheap?
She coughed.
“It’s a bit much,” she began, “to ask me to take fifteen minutes to explain something that can alter the course of a life.”
The delighted Celestia cooed softly in, well, delight. Emboldened, Twilight continued.
“I am not sure what’s best here. Do I spend this time convincing you I know enough to be worthy? Or that I am worthy of love at all? Do you want me to expound upon some kind of theoretical underpinnings of romantic love, as if there were ones I could articulate? Do you want The Four Loves or the Ars Amores? Do you want me to declaim some pithy collection of lines about mares and rivers and inconsistency?
“I… I don’t know what to say. Love is… Love isn’t new. Not exactly! I loved my parents. I love them still! I love my brother and my sister in law. I love my friends with all of my heart. When I first had a student, I loved her and wanted the world for her. I love Spike. All of these loves have names and expectations but none of them are absolutely set forever in one place. They wander, and that is okay.”
Twilight swallowed. She knew Celestia, her Celestia, was watching. It felt… it felt like being in school again.
And she didn’t like that. She felt small. Exposed. It was the exact feeling of all of those dreams where she’d forgotten to study for some nebulous final exam and there was no time to cram. She hated it. She hated feeling like she didn’t have an answer. To not have a ready explanation, or even the possibility of acquiring one, was intolerable.
But more than this, more than all of this, she hated the feeling of detachment. She hated even for a moment, with a suddenness and a power that shocked her, that Celestia was above her somehow, removed and superior, unapproachable and serene. Watching, watching like a silent proctor, Good but not good, perfect but not… equine.
Twilight grit her teeth for a moment, and fished for where she had left off. Words didn’t come. She looked at the aspects. She looked at the blackboard behind them and the walls and then at last she turned and saw Celestia.
The image of Celestia the Teacher, the Pedestal-sitter, broke. Mere Celestia sat instead seemingly on the edge of her seat, her face full of concern and something else, something soft but fierce, something that Twilight’s everworking mind gave up trying to dissect and just called love.
“I think,” she began again, her eyes locked with Celestia’s. “I think that I don’t entirely know what love means yet. Not in this new way. But that’s normal, isn’t it? I had to learn a new kind of love when I came to Ponyville. I didn’t know really what it was like to love people who were not family in just this way, this new way where… where you were there for them, even when you had a project, even when you were tired, even when you weren’t sure how much help you could be but you tried because you loved them and they were important and that… that’s just what you did because it was good! And…”
Celestia nodded. She did not say a word, but she mouthed a single plea: Go on.
“And… and I’ll figure this new kind out too,” Twilight said, swallowing. “I’ll figure it out. Or, rather, I guess I should say… we’ll figure it out. You--Celestia, the one I know in the waking world--told me that every love is a little different. I think that’s right. It feels right.”
She pivoted and faced the aspects.
“So I don’t have any definitive answer for you. That is my speech. Celestia and I will find out what it means for us, and that’s all that matters.”
There was a beat of silence.
And then, enthusiastically as can be, the smiling Celestia clapped. She was the only one, and she made up for that with obvious pleasure.
She looked to her companion aspects and grinned broadly. “See? I told you Twilight was wonderful.”
The center, the Sun, remained impassive, but the third rolled her eyes. “Honestly. Really, Dusk?”
Dusk giggled. “Surely you were moved!”
“A bit, but you’re destroying the atmosphere.”
The Sun coughed, and the other two aspects straightened and dropped their interplay. Twilight watched, fascinated, as they he exchanged glances with them and then turned to address her.
“We have heard. We understand. And we will wait. We have only met you at a distance, and now we meet face to face--”
A curious thing occurred: The Sun, the other aspects, their eyes glowed with an intense, painful white light. Twilight winced and tried to cover her eyes, but the light was behind her as well, and she saw her own Celestia rigid and in the same state.
“What, what’s go—”
But their singing began and it overwhelmed her they were all in harmony and she did not hear the words but she felt them carved into her skull and they read:
—NOW I KNOW IN PART, THEN I SHALL KNOW FULLY, EVEN AS I AM FULLY KNOWN—
“Celestia? Sun? Dusk? What—”
The singing, the light, all of it stopped and Twilight reeled for a moment. It had been only a moment, but she found she was a bit shaken and slumped down slowly to the floor.
“What was that?” she asked, breathlessly.
And without her seeing even a bit of movement, Dusk and Dawn were at her side. Dusk pet her mane and cooed, and Dawn explained.
“We are sorry. This is something that happens in the waking world, but you experience it differently there. Celestia, would you like to explain?”
Twilight tried to look up as Celestia spoke from behind her, but Dusk’s fussing and fretting kept her from doing so. “Please continue, Dawn. Is she alright? Twilight, are you alright? That wasn’t exactly planned.”
“I’m okay. Just kinda bewildered,” Twilight said, not sure if Dusk was more annoying or soothing.
Dawn adjusted her glasses and sighed. “Well… in the waking world, you would only notice perhaps a subtle change in Celestia’s voice. A lilt, a bit of a sing-song sometimes. But it would seem like a person remembering an old, old conversation. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so. Celestia—you I guess, all of you?—stares off into space sometimes. She’ll be looking at something else and her voice will grow softer and she’ll say something. Sometimes she will say it’s a quote, or I assume it's a quote.”
Dawn nodded. “Well, perhaps it is. We are not privy to that information. Celestia and ourselves only know that the words come to us and like a channel we carry them along to the world beyond. The wind does not tell what it passes before it comes to you, after all. It only speaks to you in that moment.”
“I… guess,” Twilight said. “I… are we done with the whole examination thing?”
The Sun chuckled. “Yes. Sorry, that was ill-advised. But we worry about Celestia. Even I, the youngest and the oldest, worry. You came here for help, and we would like to assist you if you would still have us.”
Twilight nodded, and Dusk spoke with dulcet tones. “Close your eyes a moment, would you, Twilight?”
Twilight nodded, her composure restored, and closed her eyes. Around her the world had no sudden change. There was no flash of light nor wave of heat nor clutching cold, and then Celestia laid a hoof on her shoulder and she opened them again to discover herself in a very new place.
It was a study. More specifically, it was Princess Celestia’s study in the waking world, reproduced with perfect detail down to the motes of dust in the streams of light that flowed in from the circular window above the bookcase behind her grand oak desk. This was the study that lived forever in Twilight’s pristine foalish memory. She gasped, feeling her whole body going slack as she gazed around. The great bookshelves were massive as they always had been, filled to the brim with ancient volumes and old maps. The desk in perfect order, everything in its proper place. Celestia herself was not in the desk--the Sun sat there with a patient, warm smile. Twilight expected to see herself as a foal sprawled out on the floor with a small pile of books, reading peacefully in the sunlight.
“Stars,” she said softly. “It’s just… did you look at my memory?”
She didn’t notice Celestia or the others until Celestia nuzzled her cheek. “Not at all,” her lover said with hushed tones. “I also enjoyed this. Though they can feel your connection to this place, I’m sure.”
Dusk, who came into view and laid leisurely on the couch in the corner of the room, nodded. “We can.”
Dawn perused the shelves, humming. Celestia was always doing that, but Twilight so rarely heard her sing.
Twilight smiled, but something stirred in her heart. “Is it… I feel a little conflicted,” she said.
“Go on.”
“Is it okay for me to cling to moments like this? Reading as a foal in your study? Being your student? All my young memories of you, are those okay to cling to like I do? Does it make our relationship strange now? Will it keep us from being… equals?”
Dusk chuckled, but not unkindly. “Oh, Twilight… will you take offense if I say that you never cease to be adorable to me? I hope you do not take offense. Are those memories good memories?”
“Of course! I love them!” Twilight said, spreading her hooves. “I… they make me happy. They make me feel safe.”
“Would we take such a thing away from you?” Dawn asked, still looking at books.
“I wouldn’t think so,” the Sun finished.
Celestia, who sat beside her, continued nuzzling Twilight. “For my part, I am happy you think of our time together in such a way.”
The Sun rested her head in his hooves. “Twilight, do you think of Celestia in the same way now as you did then?”
Twilight made to answer, and then paused. “Yes and no,” she said after a moment. “I still feel happy to be in her presence, and I still admire her for a lot of reasons. Of course, Celestia being here makes me feel more confident and I still want to make her proud, just like I did when I was young.” She looked up at Celestia. “I’m not sure I’ll never not want to make you proud.”
Celestia didn’t answer. She merely smiled.
So Twilight leaned into her and continued, looking at the Sun. “But there are things I know now, and things I think now, that are radically different. I used to think Celestia was perfect when I was young and read in this study. I know now that she makes mistakes. She’s imperfect. I loved her when I was young, and I still do! But I love her in a very different way.” She giggled suddenly, feeling her cheeks flame. “Though sometimes I entertain thoughts that my teenage self might have recognized.”
Dusk raised an eyebrow and grinned with obvious delight. “Now that I would love to hear about.”
Dawn finally turned from her books with a mortified gasp. “Honestly!”
The Sun, for his part, kept still. “Life is strange, Twilight. But your intention and your heart are honest, and so are Celestia’s. Do you feel any better?”
“A bit.”
“Good. You came here to better understand what your court will be like, when it settles.”
Twilight nodded.
“Though we aren’t sure yours will be like mine,” Celestia said into her mane.
“In fact,” the Sun continued with a nod, “we know it will not be the same, for you are different and the things you are bound to are different, unless Celestia has been seeing a second sun without informing us.”
“One is enough, thank you,” groused the princess. Twilight chuckled.
“So…” Twilight pursed her lips. “So, I guess it’s just… Well. From what I’ve seen, it’s the three of you, but sometimes that changes. Where you are can change, just like in a dream.”
Dawn, who had gotten over herself, smiled and turned back as she answered. “Yes. For many years, it was a court room where Celestia argued before a panel. Now it is wherever she wishes to be or go, most of the time. We spend a lot of time in the gardens.”
“I do so love the gardens. The terraced walks are romantic, aren’t they Twilight?”
Twilight flushed, knowing exactly which walk she was referencing and why--she remembered the first awkward kisses there. “Yes,” she mumbled.
“But yours might be less stable than ours, or more,” Celestia said and nibbled her ear. Twilight gasped softly and felt warm all over.
It was hard to keep focused on the Sun as he spoke, but she did her best. “And it won’t be confusing and chaotic all the time? I’ve had to ask my court to be quiet during the day because I can’t think. My head hurts and I can’t understand what’s going on.”
Dusk frowned and sat up. “We are sorry to hear that. But it will pass, we promise.”
Dawn turned back around and nodded. “They love you,” she said, pushing her glasses up. “And wish only the best for you. Give them time to adapt to being alive and their new way of living.”
“I guess… I guess it takes a while to be used to it from the other side,” Twilight said. “I know I’m probably not helping.”
“New things are difficult,” Dusk said soothingly.
“What can I do then?”
The Sun leaned back in Celestia’s desk chair.
“Dream,” he said. “In the waking, try to ask one of them to step forward at a time and spend the day with them. Let them all speak through one voice, a new one each time. Get used to the interplay between yourself and your court. Go slowly.”
“Go slowly. I guess it’s like any other relationship, huh?” Twilight began to smile. “I overthink things sometimes--”
The assembled Celestia’s snorted with laughter.
Twilight flushed. “Yeah, I know. All the time. But… I guess I’ve been trying to think of my court as some sort of, I don’t know. Magic thing? As a logic puzzle or a problem to be solved, and not as a relationship.”
“There was a time when Twilight Sparkle thought that relationships were machines to be tinkered with,” Dawn said.
Twilight sighed. “Yes, there was. That Twilight is thankfully pretty far removed from me, I hope.”
“I’d say so,” Dusk opined.
“And for our parts,” the Sun said with an air of finality, “we may try to talk to them, if you wish. Briefly, of course, but we may try to impart some of what we know. Would you mind?”
“I…” Twilight shrugged. “I’m not sure. Celestia?”
“It is your choice,” Celestia said and stopped nibbling on her ear. “I think it could do a bit of good, and is unlikely to do much harm. But of course, that is for you to decide.”
“Then sure,” Twilight said with a smile. “Sure. Go ahead.”
“Close your eyes. This will take only a moment for you, but it will be a bit too much of a strain to keep you conscious. Dreaming while dreaming, strange, no? But think of it is sleeping soundly at last.” The Sun rose and the other aspects followed him to take places around Twilight. As one they touched her horn with the lightest touches and before Twilight could even be embarrassed about such brazen intimate display she was feeling exhausted and her eyes closed.