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// Chapter 2 
// Story: Midday in the Heart of Equestria 
// by Wheller 
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Chapter 2


‘Emerald Sparkle is like family Tia! The least you could have done is shown some interest in her accomplishments!’ Princess Luna exclaimed.

The two royal unicorn sisters were lying in Celestia’s bedroom, as they often did at the end of the day, speaking about their day’s events. A side effect of being royalty, and heirs to the throne that would eventually become theirs, it led them to become bored very easily. As heirs to the throne, they had little in the way of responsibility or duties to the state. There were a few things, most of them trivial.

Celestia let out a small sigh as rolled onto her back and began staring up at her ceiling. ‘I don’t know Luna... I mean, I’m happy for Emerald, of course, I just don’t know how I feel about what she’s working on’.

‘You don’t know how you feel about anything!’ Luna said. ‘For the sake of everything that’s good, one of these days, mum and father are going to hand over the country to us, am I going to have to push you into running it the way you should?’

Celestia let out a chuckle. ‘Probably, you were always the one with the interest in it’.

‘Yeah well, unfortunately for you, you’re going to have to learn to get along without me’, Luna said quietly.

Celestia perked her head up and looked at her sister. ‘What?’ she asked.

There came a knock at the door before Celestia got an answer. The door opened and the majestic figure of their father, the tall Alicorn with a flowing red mane entered the room and smiled at them. ‘Good evening, Celestia, Luna’, he said in that grand voice of his. King Aether came into the room and sat down next to them.

‘Hello father’, Celestia said politely.

‘I heard that Emerald Sparkle was in with your mother today’, he said simply, ‘she wishes for us to attend the demonstration of the sunburst project. She was very excited about it’.

‘Well, you know Emerald, once she gets on the subject of science it’s hard to get her attention to anything else’, Celestia said.

‘Sounds like a daughter of mine and magic’, the king said with a smirk.

‘Magic is worth it...’ Celestia said quietly.

‘Oh come now Celestia! Try not to be so closed minded, you’re young... relatively speaking, don’t become so set in your ways!’ Aether pleaded.

‘We will be attending the demonstration, won’t we father?’ Luna asked, piping up from where she lay.

‘Of course! Emerald Sparkle is like family, we wouldn’t miss it for the world’, Aether said. ‘Isn’t that right Celestia?’

‘Yes father...’ Celestia said quietly.

‘Good! You should both get some rest, tomorrow will be here before you know it after all’, Aether said as he got up from his seat and left the two mares alone.

‘Tia, father’s right, you need to be a little more enthusiastic about progress! The world can’t stay the same all the time!’ Luna pleaded with her sister, causing Celestia to sigh.

‘Well why not? Everything is nice the way it is now! Why do we have to change for the sake of change!? Not all change is good’, Celestia said adamantly.

‘Not all change is bad, either’, Luna said. ‘You’re terrible, you know that?!’

Celestia gave her sister a sore look of annoyance, her eyes becoming small and beady. ‘Well at least I don’t moan in my sleep!’ she said, a sly grin beginning to form on her face. ‘”No! Vinyl Scratch! Don’t touch that!” Who is Vinyl Scratch!? Is she your marefriend!?’ Celestia called out teasingly.

A look of horror began to form on Luna’s face. ‘What! Nopony! I’ve never heard that name before in my life’.

‘Then why do you call out to her in your sleep!?’ Celestia said grinning madly; she hopped on top of her sister, tickling her playfully. ‘“Oh Luna I love you, my name is Vinyl Scratch! Kiss me Luna! Kiss me!”’ Celestia pursed her lips together into an obnoxious kissy face to tease her sister.

‘Tia! Stop that!’ Luna called out, playfully pushing her sister off her and landing softly on the floor.

The two mares couldn’t help but giggle to each other.

...

Princess Celestia opened her eyes again after being lost in her thoughts. The Alicorn princess’ mind lost in events a thousand years old. She found herself getting nostalgic. She missed mother, she missed father, and she even missed Emerald Sparkle. Celestia never knew what became of her almost sister, she just up and disappeared without a trace one day.

Celestia figured she was dead by now; she had to have been, but still, despite the mare’s dangerous obsession with her nuclear power and her robots. She really had cared for her almost sister, and she missed her something terrible.

‘Penny for your thoughts? Tia?’ asked the voice of Princess Luna from behind her.

Celestia turned around and looked to find her sister had trotted out onto the balcony overlooking Canterlot, the majestic capital city of Equestria with its ten thousand inhabitants. There was no space for any more, if they wanted to make more room for ponies to live here, they would have to start digging into the mountain side, and the result would be disastrous. Dig any more, and the entirety of Canterlot would tumble down into the valley below. 

‘I have just been thinking...’ Celestia said. ‘About mother, father, you, that fateful day, Emerald Sparkle even’.

‘Emerald Sparkle?’ Luna asked. ‘Now that is a name I haven’t heard in a long, long time!’

Celestia nodded as her sister joined her in looking out over the city. 

‘You know? When I first took Twilight Sparkle on as my student, I saw Emerald in her instantly; she gets that same look in her eye when she gets going about magic’, Celestia said with a smile.

‘I did not even know that Emerald Sparkle had had any foals of her own until after I had returned from my exile’, Luna said. ‘I did not even know she had been seeing anypony’.

‘Neither did I’, Celestia said. ‘She didn’t even know she was pregnant until the day of the Sunburst project’s demonstration’.

‘Who was the father?’ Luna asked curiously.

‘I couldn’t tell you’, Celestia said. ‘She didn’t want to talk about it... It was... very strange, to say the least’.

Luna raised an eyebrow at Celestia’s statement. ‘You... you do not think that she was... assaulted? Do you?’

‘I don’t know Luna... I don’t know, though as much as I wish it to not be true, everything points to Emerald Sparkle’s pregnancy to be... not her choice’, Celestia said sadly. ‘I never did find out’.

‘How terrible’, Luna said glumly.

Celestia could only nod her head in agreement.

...

The grey Pegasus pony lie sleeping in the middle of an empty field, though the body was asleep, the mind was hardly idle. The many voices of Legion echoed back and forth as the Pegasus slept. The collective consciousness of the creature, was not to say unaware of their surroundings. Some of the personalities slept, others were arguing back and forth with each other while the one that held them all together rested.

Others sat quietly, listening, watching the surroundings for any sign of trouble.

There was a sound, a faint fluttering of wings. Legion’s blood red eyes shot open and he leapt up from his slumber and took up a defensive stance. The consciousness inside him all began to focus, working together and building a consensus on what to do with this situation.

There was nothing around him.

‘We demand that you show yourself’, Legion called out in his distinctive voice. It echoed several different inflections at the same time as if it were made up of several different speakers saying the same thing at the same time.

Three small metal orbs, each with big, bright eyes materialised into view around him.

‘Don’t be alarmed, I am not here to harm you’, barked a voice from one of the orbs.

‘We cannot be harmed’, Legion said simply. ‘We cannot be hurt’.

‘All living things can be hurt, you just have to know how to do it, but I am not interested in fighting. Not with you, not today’.

Legion studied the metal orbs before them. ‘Speak your desire, then’.

‘I want what you want, and I know how to get it for you’.

‘And what is it that you think we want?’ Legion asked, sceptically. ‘We are hesitant to trust one who hides their face behind a machine’.

‘Unity’.

‘What?’ Legion asked.

‘Unity, that is what you want, is it not? Well, it’s what I want too’.

Legion studied the metal orbs for a moment, looking carefully upon them, making sure that they were legitimate and that the voice behind them was not luring him down a path that he did not want to be on.

Legion looked at the metal orbs and made up his minds. ‘You have our attention’.