Princess Celestia sat by herself under the pavilion in Lemon Thyme Park, listening to the honeybees as they bobbed on the azaleas. She was facing southwest, and had seen the train depart Ponyville half an hour ago, or so she judged. The puffs of white steam and the merry whistle she could hear on the wind had given it away. Twilight had asked to see her today, outside of court, so there had been no time to waste delegating her audiences for the next two hours. She’d sent her reply to Spike as soon as she could think of words warm enough.
Her horn flared gold, and a lavender-hued blossom broke from the bushes, still heavy with a scrambling fuzzy occupant. It drifted toward her against the wind. When it was close enough, she peered down inside.
“Excuse me, ma’am, would you mind looking for food someplace else?” she whispered.
The pollen-bound bee twitched its antennae twice, and rolled away on the breeze.
“Thank you,” Celestia giggled. She brought the flower to her nose and breathed in its tart perfume before setting it down on the pitted marble table in front of her. Today would be a good day.
“Princess Celestia!”
Twilight bounded up the hill onto the blazing hot, white stone squares of the pavilion. The midday sun hit her full in the face as she crested the rise, slowing her pace as if she’d stepped into a fierce wind. The two royal guards trotting next to her eyed the bulging saddlebags flopping on her back, waiting for a spill that never came. Spike was struggling a few paces behind them, himself burdened by a heavy backpack, a short ladder, and a tangle of grass blades between his toes.
Celestia stood and walked out into the sunshine to greet them. “Twilight! It’s wonderful to see you! You couldn’t have chosen a nicer day. And you brought Spike along too! How long has it been, my dear?”
Twilight set her bags down and ran to Celestia's side, giving her neck a fierce nuzzle. “Two months, I think. Way too long. I’m so glad you were able to meet me on such short notice. This is really important!”
Celestia brought her face low and pressed her cheek against Twilight’s. “It must be, with all of this luggage you brought with you!” she said. “Are you planning on staying the night? I can have a guest suite prepared for you if your business will require longer than the afternoon, and I’m sure we can find somepony to assist with your bags.”
Twilight sat back and wiped her face, angling herself away from the sunlight. Spike staggered to a halt behind her. The ladder fell with a clatter as he dropped his sack from his shoulders, letting it pull him down to the grass. A nest of heavy rope and buckles poked free from the hole at the top.
“Yeah … Princess …” he wheezed, the forks of his droopy tongue almost flapping against his chest, “some pony … not … some dragon.”
After taking a moment to consult her checklist, Twilight nodded to herself and began to rummage through her equipment. Hurrying, she yanked a narrow, telescoped rod out from a snarl of wires.
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. Spike and I will need just a few minutes of your time, then I’m afraid we’ll—” she flourished a hoof “—we shall be forced to depart to keep another appointment.”
“’Depart for another appointment’? My, Twilight, so formal!” said Celestia. She adjusted her posture and checked the position of her crown. “My apologies; I see now that your request to meet with me was more of a desire for an audience. What, may I ask, is the nature of your inquiry?”
“Only the summation of my life’s work,” Twilight declared, pointing her hooftip skyward. “An experiment of far-reaching consequences that will change all of Equestria for ages to … I’m sorry … did you say audience?” She cringed, hugging the rod to her chest. “I didn’t mean for it to—”
“Experiment, you say?” Celestia asked. She looked over the array of supplies. “Are you taking a break from your friendship duties?”
Twilight jogged to the ladder and lifted it between her forelegs. “Pardon me, Your Highness,” she laughed, nearly cracking Spike in the head as she swung it upward. “I’ve just gotta calibrate my ruler.” Her smile widened as if to outcompete the lengthening silence. She looked to Spike, who shrugged and went back to picking the grass from his toes.
“Get it? Calibrate … my ruler?”
Celestia shook her head. The guards muttered to themselves.
Twilight pretended to chuckle. “Never mind. Bad joke. If you would, please return to the pavilion; the pavement there is more level than the lawn. I need a flat surface because I intend to duplicate the length of your horn, and use the result to measure distances as accurately as possible.” She nodded to the rod she had clutched between her hoof and the ladder. “You may recall representatives of the Equestrian Standards Institute doing something similar?”
The three of them moved up the hill, shadowed by the guards, and Celestia’s mute, ivory-clad attendants. The droning of the bees grew louder as they approached the pavilion’s shade, as did the mingled, distant roar of the city and its countless waterfalls.
Celestia canted her head in thought. “Hmm. Yes, I do remember something along those lines. Every few centuries they schedule a special meeting outside of court and fix some silly new contraption to my head. It’s been a decade or two.” She finished backpedaling onto the sunbaked slabs, her thick golden shoes ringing as she came up off of the greensward.
“I’m curious; you mentioned that you’re performing an experiment, that it’s to be the completion of your life’s work. I’m afraid I don’t understand. Friendship is not a problem that can ever be solved. What is the purpose of your experiment, if I might ask?”
Twilight stopped and sat herself down on the burning stone. Up she looked at the soaring towers of Canterlot and the ageless sun behind them, blinking the sweat from her eyes.
“Minimizing uncertainty.”
Celestia threw her head back and laughed, and all the walls and towers, echoing, laughed with her. “Well, one thing is certain! You seem to be in exceptionally good spirits! The last time I remember you being this cheerful was when you got your cutie mark.”
“My cutie mark? I don’t …”
“Oh Twilight, I’m speaking about when we first met! At your exam?”
“Yes!” Twilight cried, slamming the feet of the ladder down. “Yes, I was so happy. Did I ever tell you that when I went to bed that night I stayed up for hours, counting the points on all the stars? Forty-two. I even wrote a note to myself about how I felt, because I knew I’d be different in the future and might not remember.”
Celestia smiled and brushed Twilight’s feathers with a hooftip. “I’d say there are some differences.”
“Ha ha, yes. Very different,” Twilight coughed. She hurried back to her saddlebags. Lingering only a moment to scan her list, she returned with a stick of charcoal. With care not to smudge Celestia’s shoes or spotless coat, she drew two semicircles in front of her.
“Please step into these markings, and hold out your horn. The most important thing for this procedure is that you stay as still as possible. If you move accidentally, I’ll be able to tell by the charcoal dust, and we can start over.”
Celestia nodded. Placing her front hooves into the semicircles, she straightened her neck. “Is this OK?”
“Yes, Your Highness, just like that!” Twilight replied. She repositioned the ladder beside Celestia’s neck. “Say, I was wondering: how did the other fillies and colts score on the test that morning?”
Celestia searched Twilight’s face, trying to find some hint of where she was leading.
When she didn’t respond, Twilight asked, “What happened to the ones who didn’t hatch their egg?”
“Well, I—” Celestia tapped her chin “—I can’t say that I recall. I would have to think that they continued on in their standard programs, or were transferred to different schools. Ones where the bar wasn’t set quite so high.”
Twilight stepped onto the ladder while holding the telescoped ruler aloft with her magic. “It’s quite the responsibility, helping ponies find their destinies. Good thing we have numbers to help!”
She ascended to the second-to-last rung. As she leaned over Celestia’s head, she gripped the rod between her hooves and placed it against the slender, white horn. “You can put a number on anything. And when you do, the sky’s the limit. Addition, multiplication, subtraction, and …” She caught a glint from Celestia’s crown and looked down. “Oh, wait just a … your mane is obscuring the base of your horn. Do you mind if I …?”
Without waiting for an answer, she swept the sparkling strands away from Celestia’s forehead, coaxing them back with gentle strokes to hook them behind her velvet ear. It glowed, all but translucent in the brilliant noontime light. Twilight noticed, then, that it was turned toward her, attuned to her intent, and to the tremor in her breath. Listening.
“Wow!” she blurted, “I didn’t think this was going to be so hard! Now please, try not to move. The position of the terminating molecule of your horn must be fixed in space when I take the measurement.”
“If you say so, Twilight,” Celestia said. “You’re the expert.”
Twilight slid the ruler downward so that one end rested against the horn’s roots. “That’s great,” she murmured, checking the hair-thin divisions inscribed on her instrument. “You’re doing just great, Princess. I hope that’s not too much pressure. Oh, and I’m sorry for the inconvenience, and for any imposition on your dignity. Please be assured that this will greatly advance the science of fluid dynamics, with implications for cardiovascular health care, emergency transfusions, not to mention … sorry … this procedure is tricky.”
She leaned over further, tottering on the ladder to get a better view. “You may be wondering why I’m not using the wings you gave me. It’s because I wouldn’t be able to hold myself steady.”
Celestia smiled, remembering not to turn her face. “Well Twilight, if it’s that important, you’re welcome to, ah—” she stretched out her wing, inviting “—position yourself here. I can manage.”
Twilight considered the broad, white shoulders. There had been a time when she would have leapt to that safe place and wondered, her chubby forelegs locked around the marble neck, how like the antique scent of books and libraries, and summer storms and sundrenched days of last year the scent of her teacher’s mane had been. “Like … like when I was a filly and you’d fly me around and show me the beauty of …”
A breeze blew through the sweet, sparkling cloud, and she remembered. She looked up again at the backlit Canterlot skyline, and beyond at the green horizon. “Fly me around Canterlot?”
Celestia might have given the slightest nod. “Yes. Do you remember the lesson, the very last time we flew together?”
“You carried me next to the high falls above the city,” answered Twilight, her head bowed. “We circled around and around, back and forth, up and down all day until I got bored. I remember … I remember asking what the point of flying around that spot so long was. All I could see was mist and seagulls and rock walls. Then you showed me that when we approached at just the right angle, that the light was divided into a rain—” she shook her head “—that it’s all a matter of perspective.”
“Yes, that was it. And how if you’re not looking for something, chances are you aren’t going to find it?”
In reply, Twilight turned her attention back to her ruler. Her face twisted in concentration, she pointed her horn at Celestia’s heavenly brow and ignited her magic.
There was no spark, or flash. Instead, the ruler slowly extended, clicking each time another of its segments reached the full measure of its length. When its needle-like tip drew near to the end of Celestia’s horn, it oscillated for a time, then locked in place with a loud snap.
Twilight squealed, rolling it into the crook of her foreleg. As she descended the ladder, she came level with Celestia’s watchful eye and stopped. She found she had no choice.
A great rose, it seemed, was in full bloom before her, its countless petals ever open to the daylight, and all it revealed.
“Twilight?”
There was no response.
“Luna and I would love to hear your thoughts on harmony, and about your experience with how it spreads from pony to pony, once it’s freely given from its source. Come and visit with us. We can even meet tomorrow morning, if that works with your schedule. I know that Luna has been wanting to thank you for all the personal help you’ve given her, and tell you how it’s much easier for her to help other ponies in turn—to ease their unacknowledged fears through their dreams. Won’t you spend some time with us?”
Twilight hurried down the ladder and away, retreating to her saddlebags. “Yeah, sure. Let me check my calendar. If there isn’t anything too pressing, I’ll be sure to make the trip.” She finished lashing the ruler to the side of the overstuffed sack.
“Twilight, I’m right here,” said Celestia, stepping forward again onto the grass, one foreleg outstretched. “I’m always here for you, if you need me.”
Spike grabbed the ladder and joined them, taking time to enjoy the heat of the burning pavilion stones on his feet. “Ready to go?”
“Yup, all set!” Twilight chimed. She motioned to him, and they both turned to head back down the hill. They had only gone a few paces before she turned and called back, “Oh, almost forgot. You’ll be happy to know that your horn is precisely and identically—” she suppressed a giggle with her hoof “—one horn long!” With that, she descended out of sight.
Celestia stood as still as a statue, her hoof still raised in what had become a farewell.