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// Interlude 1: Celestia 
// Story: Enemy of Mine 
// by Ice Star 
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It's so hard not to smile like the royal I have conditioned myself to behave like, so the mutterings in the back of my skull do not appear to trouble me at all, so they don't hurt anypony and make themselves known. Your smile is so free, and ever so uneven. It kills the hollowness I can feel when it creeps up on me. Just for a while I can forget myself more and more, and have the strength to put Destiny and Harmony where they must be: before all other things. There is no greater good without such things. 

Ever since I was a filly, I was frightened and as I grew, I became like a pot that can no longer contain the flower within: a small speck amidst a sea of gnawing emptiness, with the perfectly tailored mask to hide it all. I was afraid, when times grow dark, that the light of Destiny will not be there. I know now that Destiny is above any Harmony, but if all is shadows and hinged on hope, meaning is lost. One of the greatest lessons that any ruler must learn is to cast off hope, for hope removes the thethers that keep us where we must be by duty and destiny. Hope is for uncertainty, and there is nothing fouler than the thought of a world without such kind things. We only hope for the best if we do not think the best will come, and that must be dealt away with, because hope cannot exist in a kind world. 

I am a creature of order, and once, of the Harmony that I still preach to all my little ponies. Yet your chaos is a welcome distraction from everything that must be, and there is a draw to it that I will never be able to deny. I love you, and how no matter all the things you refute, you have always managed to fit into my life. I love the light I bring forth each day, because with every ray I know that Destiny can be made clearer. I love my little ponies, my niece, Twilight Sparkle, and my poor, gloomy daughter. Despite all this love, without ponies or any other soul beside me, I feel empty. A faint pulse that highlights a space in myself that should — or might — have been filled by something I can't bear to acknowledge. It's like part of me is — was — mortal, and has left so long ago, though no part of me has ever been able to exist that can fit those constraints.

The mortal constraints, as Luna is so quick to describe what she sees as limits within them. 

This part of me I cannot ever say is real, and I am destined to fight it the way light overcomes darkness: a bright and beautiful distraction to strangle out all that is impure. The strange corner of an otherwise perfect mind feels almost like a contradiction, something soft and whispery that tells me little things I can't feel I understand, mostly because I do not want to.

You know that Luna was the Element of Honesty and how when we were all so young and innocent together I would tell Luna little white lies. I loved watching her smile when I told her something to make her feel better. One by one, I would layer such things upon each other because I knew they had all the sweetness of cake. To bring pleasure, control, and kindness is higher than anything that dares insinuate it is true, because nothing bitter can be good.

It is here that I need to say that our love has always been sweet, it just took ages to ripen. 

It could last, this sugary-sweet and ever-so-kind white lie — a word only said to be cruel by those who do not know its power. So much can last on lies, and that is a power greater than myself I will never cease to be humbled by. Twilight Sparkle has written so much of the supposed virtue of honesty to me, though I have given the virtues of Equestria and the Elements of Harmony many names in the past. I find that I can do so blindfolded now, these new names will slide of my tongue like silver. Goodness knows that I have even come up with better things than what they are, things that my little ponies find much more fitting in their lives and tales than Laughter, Magic, and other things. Every time I read those letters I can't fathom why somepony would want to have honesty so much. 

Honesty hurts. 

It hurts more than most things in this world.

I don't feel like myself when I think these things, so I say that the voices think them.

They do, and accept these sweet indulgences I gorge them on.

I don't want to hurt ponies as a tyrant does, so even though many consider honesty a virtue, I do not correct them. My little ponies of Equestria know better than to clutch onto it as tightly, and I can say with relief that it is one of the weaker Elements present in my society for very, very good reasons. I need everypony to be happy in Equestria, happier than all the fillies of bedtime stories and sugar plum breezies, and I need them to be kinder than the mother who cradles her foal and knows to keep the world from them. There is no happiness that can be gained with honesty, and one day I wish that this encouragement of honesty in all ways will fade for good — in both senses of goodness. Honesty must be small if it is to exist at all.

I remember that after Luna and I lost the Elements, I lied more than ever. To pull that divide from right and wrong and the world's kind shades of ebony and ivory was worse than death, so I let my mind fill up like runoff flowing into a well after winter. I drowned all the gray, blurry thoughts of a life without heroes and villains once again, and flew north where I knew every ache would be frozen over and evil could be buried at last. I am not an evil mare, nor will I ever be — staring at the wretched spire in that cold land gave me the chance to change.

I have done nothing but change, change, and change again in all these years. I started to look at myself, briefly before that trip, and I looked too deeply within and almost found darkness. We're all like drawings with different lines, features, and outlines of black and white. Some lines are bold, some thin.

Drawings can be erased, painted over, altered, and even destroyed. This does not mean they will never be the good or the bad, the most precious white or the cruelest of dark hues. I gained such a fascination with lies after that, or at least it was changed so that they envigorated me more than ever. It feels so good to make other ponies happy, to see them believe things.

How can those things be lies? Lies were supposed to be 'bad' and that sense of bad never stopped being in quotes. Or rather, how can lie be wrong if they do not bring anything unkind? I hear two buried Alicorns from a world that has changed say these things to their children, and many parts of me don't understand what this is supposed to mean. It's not kind, to tell the truth. As a former Element of Kindness, I would know what is cruel to ponies and honesty is one of the cruelest things I know. Honesty is one of the worst constants. What in the heavens' name can most constants be if they aren't plagues? Honesty hurts everypony, and who would want to hurt ponies except somepony who was cruel?

Sometimes, I don't quite know what goes on in this mind of mine. It's quite funny, actually. Nopony would ever know because I'm very good at being a princess.

Life is so surreal, even without you, my dear. There are times when I don't feel like I'm in it, but my mask keeps smiling because I don't want anypony to worry or see what I'm really like, including you and everypony else. I just can't have everypony acting like there are layers of faces to peel off of me, like there are so many fossils of previous Celestias that still exist and could be unearthed. That is what change is for, after all. 

Change is for the kindness of erasure. 

Every time I wake up, I feel as if I'm a different me, like I've changed and changed all over again. What else is change but for the better? 

I'm not refreshed or rested. I'm not sure who I am at times, just that I have to be Princess Celestia, who is a princess beloved by everypony. There is something so humbling and nesscary in that experience. That means that when I go to sleep it's like dying, except there's only a foggy, and everyday oblivion for that particular day's Celestia.

Is it so strange that I feel nothing at all towards my own life, but vow to protect the lives of others? Or is that just the nobility of self-sacrifice flooding me? 

It's like all the voices: each and every one of them is me, or Celestia, or the ever-needed princess my little ponies have never been able to live without. At times it can be hard to tell who is who. I don't know myself, but I know everypony else. Luna, you, Twilight, Cadance, and others. You are the ones who tell me who I am supposed to be, and I love that.

But I don't need to fear the voices anymore.

I don't need to feel anything unless somepony tells me to. Some of the Celestias know what they're doing and that helps.

But they all love the same ponies, and believe the same things. With company like you, I know who I am no matter what I go through because, with the company I keep, I'll never have to remember myself. Only Celestia and all the things I know about her.

Discord, I love you and your chaos with all of Celestia's heart because no matter who I am or where my mind is, you've always been an anchor in all this even though nopony — not you, not Luna — absolutely nopony will know about anything beyond Celestia's mask. She loves you and everypony else too much to tell the truth.

Maybe tomorrow's princess will feel more like Celestia.

But she'll still love you.