Time has a funny way of shifting one's priorities.
A thousand years ago I had thought that today could not have come sooner. My plot was still in its infancy, and I had yearned for the day I could see it unfold in all its terrible majesty. The insults from Luna and my disappointment in Celestia had still been fresh.
But it had been a thousand years since I had spoken with either of them, and quite frankly I had better things to do than to imagine hypothetical satisfaction I might feel in a distant future. There wasn't anything too exciting, as the life of an alchemist - even a fiendish one - tends to long periods of boredom with the occasional burst of excitement when something new is discovered. And even among alchemists, many would consider my work to be particularly slow. (On the other hoof, my eyebrows had never once been burned off by a failed experiment.)
I like to think that I helped along the study of medicine in my own small ways, but I did not wish to draw too much attention to myself even to help my mortal neighbors. Instead, I spent centuries quietly in the background, peddling my wares and tinkering away for my own pleasure.
A thousand years can change one's priorities, and I have to admit that after so long without contact from either of them I quite frankly could not give a damn about the culmination of my millennial scheme. I had other things to think about.
Like stopping precocious young ponies from getting into my stock.
“Put that down this instant, young filly!” I snapped at the pony in question. The filly - Bright Solution, the daughter of my bondspony Ebony Horse - froze in place at the sound of my voice. In her mouth she carried a key, one that I knew would unlock my vault and grant her access to some of my more volatile wares.
Solution let the key drop from her mouth and pouted pathetically at me.
“You promised that you would teach me how to bottle rainbows,” she said with a note of accusation.
Bright Solution was a pegasus like her father, but where he was dark brown in both coat and mane she had a vibrant gold coat and a white mane. She was a skinny thing, long of leg with narrow wings, and bright red eyes that almost seemed to glow when she was excited. Which was nearly always. Her cutie mark, an alembic containing a bubbling liquid, had been a factor in retaining her father’s loyalty. There were few alchemists in the city that could compare to my skill, and none of them were willing to take on an apprentice from some no-name pegasus without a bit to his name.
Naturally, I was teaching her far more than just a trade.
“Yes, I did,” I agreed, grinning at the way hope blossomed up inside her. I waited half a moment before crushing it. “However, I recall that you promised to eat all of your spinach in return.”
Bright Solution blanched at the reminder of the terms of our deal.
“B, but I did!” she protested half-heartedly. “There wasn't any left on my plate!”
I smirked knowingly at her.
“That's because you hid it in your napkin,” Solution gasped in alarm at having been caught out. “You didn't really think you could trick me, did you?”
“... yeah, I did,” she admitted, her face the very picture of remorse. “‘m sorry.”
The lie slips out of her mouth as easily as it would a devil upon her throne. Unfortunately for her, a lie is only as convincing as the person speaking it. A chuckle bubbles up in my chest at her feeble effort.
I never tire of the audacity of children. It is a mystery to me why the kind of behaviour that would incite fury and rancor in me from an adult would instead be endearing from a child, but I refuse to think overly much about it. I was afraid that if I ever learned the reason the magic would be lost.
“Don't you try pulling that long face on me, little missy,” I warned her with warm severity. I bent down and ruffled her mane, instantly breaking her mask of repentance as she struggled against my token of affection. “We both know you're only sorry you got caught.”
“Stop it uncle Art!” she complained, straightening her. “I'll tell my dad on you!”
“Oh yes, that does sound like a good idea!” I lowered myself down to her level so I could look her in the eyes. “Let's go tell your father everything, shall we? About you breaking our deal? About trying to sneak into my vault? About lying to me? Or maybe…” my voice lowered ominously and I willed a little fire to appear from the corners of my eyes. Bright Solution squeaked in fear. “... maybe we should tell him about how ticklish you are!”
“What?” Bright Solution gawped in surprise, and in her moment of vulnerability I snapped my wings out and launched an assault on her sides with my wingtips. “No!”
As Bright Solution’s shrieks of laughter rang out through my shop I was wary still, watching for the little filly to betray her true colours. I almost didn’t spot it, the moment when her hoof snaked out in what might have been a thoughtless, flailing attempt to free herself. Her true intent was betrayed as the hoof moved in a grasping fashion around a specific area. The area where she had dropped my key.
I shudder to think of the lives this filly might have destroyed were she being raised in any household but mine. She had a devil’s knack for mischief.
Her laughter tapered off slowly as I relaxed my tickling and her own search proved fruitless. She did well in hiding her confusion and consternation, but I knew what to look for. A master of deception she was not.
“Looking for this?” I asked, and lifted my tail and the key I’d wrapped it around up for her to see.
“Uhm,” Bright Solution had the decency to look embarrassed. “No?”
“Hmm,” I grinned at her. “Let’s make another deal, shall we? I will pretend to believe you, I won’t tell your father about this little lapse in judgement and I’ll even teach you how to bottle rainbows…”
“Really?!” Solution was back on her hooves in a flash, eyes wide in wonder and eagerness.
“... if you eat all of your spinach for three days.”
The horrified expression was one of many that I would treasure for all time. She wailed at the unfairness of it all, at how mean I was being to her, at the vileness of spinach and how cruel it was to force a filly to eat it, and then she tried to snatch my key away when she thought I was sufficiently distracted by her tirade. When all that failed to sway me to the righteousness of her cause she collapsed into a limp pile on the ground, defeated.
I gently prodded her with a hoof.
“Do we have an agreement?”
Bright Solution lolled her head around to glower resentfully at me, and then her eyes narrowed. A grin appeared on her face as she tried a new tactic: haggling.
“Three days straight of spinach days of spinach is a bit much, isn’t it?” she said, fully determined to wheedle as much leeway into our agreement as possible. “Do you think we could space the three dinners out a bit?”
“Well, if you want me to put off the fulfillment of my end of our agreement until later then I see no reason not to oblige you,” I told her,
“So, would you agree with me if I said that the time at which I eat the spinach isn't as important as eating three dinner’s worth of spinach?”
I blinked in surprise at her assertion, as I had not thought she would try her hoof at outright sophistry. I was tempted to refute her argument out of hoof, but I knew where she was headed with her train of logic and I wanted to teach her a valuable lesson about the dangers of reinterpretation.
“I would tentatively agree, yes,” I said slowly, letting her think she had caught me in her web of logic.
Bright Solution cackled victoriously as she proffered a hoof for me to shake.
“Then I agree!” she shouted. “I want to eat three dinners of spinach right now!”
I felt a small flutter of pride at the filly’s antics, even as I chuckled at her mistake.
“Actually, if you would recall the deal I offered you, the word I used was ‘days’. Not dinners.”
Solution huffed and lowered her hoof.
“So? What’s the difference?”
“I don’t pretend to know how things work in the rest of Canterlot, young miss, but in this house we eat three meals a day,” I informed her with a grin. “And wouldn't you know it, I was planning on having spinach with breakfast, lunch and dinner. For three days.”
“What?!” the affronted gasp was quickly followed by a retching sound as Solution realized how she had trapped herself. “But that's not- why are you such a meanie, uncle Art?!”
“Why do you try to trick me?” I shot back at her, and ruffled her mane again. “Perhaps we should honor the spirit of our agreement rather than the letter, yes?”
“What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.
“Three days of spinach, no more than usual, over the course of three days. That sounds fair, doesn’t it?”
Bright Solution looked like she was about to agree, but quickly thought better of it. I had only mentioned her part of the deal, and as we both knew I had no compunctions against tricking a child.
“In return for teaching me how to bottle rainbows and not telling daddy about this, right?” she affirmed seriously.
“Not telling me what?”
We both turned to look to the pony who was intruded upon our negotiations.
Ebony Horse, my bondspony and Bright Solution’s father. Our bargain had been struck long ago, and in exchange for my protection and patronage he was my bonded pony. My slave, to use less kind words.
Our arrangement had changed over time as I came to trust him more fully, but neither of us was under any illusion as to where the two of us stood: Ebony Horse was mine until he and his daughter no longer required my services.
I liked to think I did well by him and his daughter, but I would suffer no misunderstanding between us on this issue.
I shared a conspiratorial wink with Bright Solution and rose to my hooves again.
“About how I won't be opening the shop today, and thus will not be requiring your services,” the way I spoke left little doubt that I was lying, but Ebony knew me well enough not to bother with the truth when I was like this. Even so, he did not let me have my deception without a token resistance.
“Sir, you always close the shop for the Summer Sun Celebration,” he pointed out, dry as a desert. “Everypony closes their shops for the Summer Sun Celebration.”
“Yes, but I'm also giving you the day off,” I elaborated.
“You always give me the day off-”
“That could always change,” I pointed out with a careless wave of a hoof. “Maybe I'll be the one to escort your lovely daughter to the festival, and you can be the one to stay behind to watch the shop.”
“Hah!” Ebony scoffed. “We both know she'd run circles around you, sir. You wouldn’t last an hour.”
“I know no such thing,” I said with a sniff. I turned to Solution and gave her my haughtiest airs. “You won't just be having fun today, little miss. I will expect a paper on the properties of sunlight from you by the end of the week,” I grinned at her knowingly. “You'll need it for the project we discussed earlier.”
Her face lit up like the sun as she caught on to my meaning, and a moment later she became flurry of action. The entire shop was filled with the sound of clattering hooves as she zipped away on her task.
I waited until she was out of earshot before I turned my full attention to Ebony, all levity gone from my demeanour.
“There is an observatory on the outskirts of Manehatten that will provide a good viewing point for the raising of the sun,” I told him brusquely. “The two of you will go there.”
Ebony blinked in surprise at my sudden change in disposition.
“Sir?” his confusion was plain to hear. “But the festival is going to be held in Ponyville this year. I already have the tickets for the tr-”
“I will reimburse you for your loss,” I cut him off, and with a flick of my tail I tossed the key to vault to him. “Take what you deem appropriate from my vaults. You will take my student to Manehatten, and you will remain there until she has considered the importance of the sunlight. Am I understood?”
“Y-yessir,” he said with a gulp. “The train ride will take some time, though. We likely have to take the night train back-”
“I have already made arrangements for the two of you to rest at the Empire Hotel. The two of you may remain in the city for however long you desire, but I would prefer if the two of you would stay until the end of the week,” I let my severe tone drop. “Enjoy yourselves while you're there, Ebony. I'll be fine without you.”
Ebony Horse was not a dull pony. More importantly, he was a good pony. He was smart enough to know something was odd about my sudden insistence and was kind enough to worry about me because of it.
“Is something wrong, sir?” he asked, concern dripping from the question. "This isn't like you."
I shook my head and laid a hoof on his shoulder.
“Nothing is wrong,” I assured him. “But I will be having guests over soon, and I'd rather not have the two of you underhoof while they're here,” I chuckled lightly. “I expect we might even get a bit rowdy, and I wouldn’t want your daughter to be exposed to that.”
Much has been said about the nature of lies, but the truth can be just as misleading. Moreso, even.
Ebony appeared uncertain about the whole situation, and I didn't blame him. In all his years of service, I'd never once entertained guests. I didn’t have friends in the city, I had no peers amongst my profession and as far as he knew I had no family.
If we had been friends, I might have felt bad about treating him like this.
But he wasn't a friend. He was a slave. My slave. And I would treat him exactly as I wanted to.
“Go help your daughter get ready,” I told him neutrally. “The two of you will need to leave soon if you wish to find a good place to watch the raising of the sun.”
Ebony sniffed sharply in annoyance.
“You could have told me about your plans yesterday,” he mumbled rebelliously, but wisely voiced no more dissent. “I’ll just get what I need from the vaults then, and go help Solution get ready.”
I waved him away, but thought better of it a moment later.
“Oh, and stay away from spinach while you’re there,” I advised him casually. “I hear that their local crop is garbage.”
Ebody Horse gave me a funny look over his shoulder, but nodded.
“Uh, I’ll keep that in mind, sir,” He waited for a moment, before he bobbed a short bow. “We’ll leave as soon as we’re ready.”
With the help of her father and the excited goading of his daughter the two easily managed to ready themselves for their trip within the hour.
Time has a funny way of shifting one's priorities.
As I watched the two of them leave from the entrance of shop, I wondered briefly how it would change those of the sisters. I hadn’t spoken with Celestia for a thousand years, and I could only guess at how Luna’s exile had affected her. It would have been the work of a moment to watch them for a hint at what I could expect, but I held back. The notion of watching it all unfold didn’t appeal to me, and I knew what the outcome would be in any case. Luna, in her madness, didn’t have the power to defeat my machinations. Celestia was too terrified of disrupting her precious prophecy to contemplate interfering. Worrying or wondering served no purpose.
A flash of light and a sudden burst of sound caught my attention. I craned my head around to look at what had caused the distraction, expecting to see just another unicorn playing with their magic.
What I saw instead was Celestia in her full regalia, regarding me with a serene smile as she approached from the street. Seeing her there, the only thing I could think for a long moment was that she was much taller than I remembered her being. Much, much taller. I wondered if she was taller than even I was in my natural form. It had been a long time since I’d last gone au naturel, so I couldn’t be sure.
It was only when she stood close enough to touch me that I marshaled my senses and decorum, her smile having taken on a distinctly amused quality.
“Your highness,” I greeted, and made a show of bowing low to her. Appearances had to be maintained, after all. “I wasn't expecting you. What brings you to my shop?”
The princess’ eyes twinkled merrily as she watched my display, and now I knew she was amused.
“I was hoping to speak with you before I left to raise the sun, actually,” she explained, “Perhaps we could speak inside, my little pony?”
I raised an eyebrow at her, thoroughly unimpressed at her presumption. I deigned not to comment on it, though, as I doubted anypony that might happen to be watching us would be pleased to see me dressing down their princess. One of us would have to show some restraint, and I suppose that as an elder of the two it fell to me.
I turned and entered my shop, leaving the door open for her follow.
“I’ll put on a pot of tea,” I told her over my shoulder. “Take a seat where you like, I'll be with you when it's ready.”
One of the perks of being an alchemist is that I have access to all manner of plants, flowers, herbs and spices. Theoretically it should have been very easy for me to experiment with different flavors and methods of brewing tea, but in practice things were very different. There was a reason why the notion of having a bondspony appealed to me, after all.
I could manage a pot of tea, but if Celestia wanted anything else she was out of luck.
I filled a kettle up with water and dumped what I guessed was an appropriate amount of mint leaves inside as well, then applied Hellfire directly to the kettle’s bottom until it whistled in protest. I had little desire to try my hoof at the more complex methods Ebony half-heartedly tried to teach me, and even if I did remember them I had no idea where he saw fit to hide things. If Celestia didn't like it then I had plenty of sugar close by for her to sweeten the brew.
I heard a quiet rush of air, and when I turned around I saw Celestia sitting on the floor at a smallish, circular table I'd never seen before.
“You don't have chairs for a pony of my stature,” she explained. “And your dinner table is too big for two ponies. I brought one down from the palace that was more suitable.”
I glowered at her for the impertinence, beginning to remember why I'd wanted to hurt her, but at the same time there was something about the way she was behaving that worried at me. Nothing nefarious, nor duplicitous, but her smile just a little too knowledgeable for comfort. It was unsettling.
I wondered for a moment if this was how ponies felt when I looked at them, and resolved to ask Ebony about it when he got back.
I put the kettle on the small table and left to gather some appropriate cups. As I rummaged through the cabinets a titter rang out.
“I'd never thought to see you in a domestic setting,” Celestia remarked in amusement. “It's surprising.”
“Even devils know how to make tea, Celestia,” I retorted shortly. Which, while technically true, was far from universally so. Only a select few cared enough about the habits of mortals to learn. “It shouldn't be that hard to believe.”
“I only meant to say that it’s unexpected, nothing else.”
I returned with a pair of cups balanced on a wing. Or rather, a modest-sized teacup and and a large mug. I proffered the larger mug to Celestia. If she was going to flaunt her size at me I wasn't going to pretend she was a genteel lady.
The legend on its side read “World's Best Dad”. Celestia took it, looking as if it was taking every scrap of her restraint to stop herself from asking the obvious question. I decided to take pity on her.
“It's not mine,” I stated. “But it's the biggest cup in the house.”
“You live with other ponies?” she sounded surprised at the revelation, and her face reflected it.
“Other ponies live with me, yes,” I waved a hoof dismissively. “It's nothing untoward. Just a servant and his daughter.”
“Ah, that would be the two ponies you saw off earlier, yes?” I nodded, and reached for the kettle. Celestia’s horn flashed, though, and the kettle and our cups rose into the air accompanied by the glow of her magic. “Please, allow me.”
It was the work of a moment for her to fill our cups with tea, though I was somewhat suspicious of the tiny smirk she wore as she returned my cup. Years of living with Solution had taught me to be wary of helpful ponies.
“... thank you,” I sipped at my tea, then winced at the bitter taste of a failed brew along with a disgusting aftertaste. I wasn’t entirely surprised I’d somehow managed to mess up mint tea, but a tiny bit disappointed. “Urgh.”
“Not what you were expecting, was it?” Celestia asked with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. There was a flash of magic, and a saucer of sugar appeared between us. “Would you like something to sweeten the taste?”
I blinked at her, looked down suspiciously at my tea, then sipped it again. It was only on my second tasting that I recognized the foul taste.
“This is hemlock,” I stated dry, affixing the princess with my driest, most unamused glare. “Did you seriously think a bit of poison was going to do anything to me, Celestia?”
Celestia laughed, and again I felt the subtle wrongness about her. But it was stronger now, almost a physical presence within her, burning brighter than all the flames in Hell. I felt the every hair on my body raise and a chill run up my spine.
“Oh, lighten up Abraxas,” she chided with a radiant smile. “What’s a little poison between friends?”
I blinked in surprise at the word she used, and was shocked to realize that I hadn’t felt her lie. I let my infernal magic surge through me as I searched her for any sign of duplicity.
I saw it then, in that her smile. The loneliness. The sorrow, the pain. It was all there, all the things I'd poisoned her to suffer, but it was buried beneath a layer of… something powerful. It didn’t entirely overwhelm my fiendish senses but it’s alien nature was enough to stop me from knowing her thoughts and inner workings.
Such power wasn’t anything I’d ever dealt with before, and a small part of me wanted to put as much distance between myself and Celestia as possible. Hell, it whispered seductively, was a preferable outcome to being caught up in that power. It took me a moment to recognize that part of me as fear. I’d lived so long amongst mortals that I’d forgotten what it felt like.
But through my terror I could see them, the frayed edges of my machinations upon her. All the little strands of my magic upon her, twisting the world in all the little ways that mortals called ‘coincidence’. Somehow she’d freed herself from my magic, and seen for herself-
She’d seen.
She knew.
“You know,” I blurted out, surprised despite myself. “You know that I tricked you. You know how I tricked you.”
“How could I could not?” Celestia asked wryly. “After all the friends I have lost, the students I’ve had to bury, did you really think I wouldn’t notice?”
I was silent, watching her with narrowed eyes. Waiting. I needed to hear her say it. I wasn't about to admit to anything without being accused first. I was a firm believer that the benefits of confession and catharsis extended only to mortals.
The princess, seeing that I wasn't about to speak, set her mug down and leveled me a reproving look.
“You took my death.”
I looked down into my tea, releasing a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. There was something strangely liberating about my plan having gone awry. And Celestia either hadn't noticed my more overt manipulation or didn't care. I was fine with both of those possibilities.
“You wanted to see your sister again,” I reminded her. “So I made sure you would. No matter what.”
Celestia closed her eyes and sighed deeply. Neither of us spoke for what felt like a long time.
“I suppose I should count myself lucky that I've not had any terrible misfortunes,” she said wryly. “I can only imagine what Luna would think if she returned only to find me horribly maimed.”
“You could just thank me,” I told her bluntly. “Or did you think immortals just stopped aging all by themselves?”
Celestia regarded me with a… a look. I couldn’t recognize the expression, and the power she held was too strong for me to study it any detail other than purely superficial.
“You surprise me, Abraxas,” she said with an earnest, warm laugh. “Thank you. For everything you’ve done for me.”
Gratitude. That’s what it was.
I didn’t respond. I had gone back to looking into my tea, uncertain how I should feel about being thanked for what I’d done. It was… unpleasant.
I’d expected resentment. Hatred. Anguish. Remorse. I could deal with those. They were easy to deal with: you laughed at the person feeling them. Or tried to console them, I suppose, but I’d been out of the business of damning people for centuries.
Gratitude was not something I was often confronted with. It was… an unpleasant experience.
I would have to wait to see how she would feel tomorrow. Luna, no doubt, would inform her of the role I had played in her fall to madness.
Strangely, that thought made me feel better.
“It’s too early to thank me, princess,” I chided her. “You haven’t seen your sister yet.”
We’d see just how thankful she was then.
If anything, Celestia’s smile turned more radiant.
“As you say, Abraxas,” she rose from to her hooves, and signalling the end of our conversation. “You may keep the table. We can use it again the next time we speak.”
She vanished in a flash of magic that I suspected was a bit brighter than it needed to be, because I was left clutching at my eyes at the blindness she’d inflicted on me
"Of course she couldn't have used the door," I complained to the empty room. I finished my cup of tea without thinking, scowled at the taste, and glowered at the kettle. "And what the hell am I supposed to do with a pot of hemlock tea?"
If this was the sort of thing I had to look forward to as her friend then I couldn’t wait to become her enemy. I already had one child in my life, after all.