//------------------------------//
// Pony POV Series Episode 30: "Butterflies Celestia" 
// Story: Pony POV Series Season Three: Butterflies 
// by Alex Warlorn 
//------------------------------//

Pony POV Side Story Celestia Optional Canon 
Butterflies Section 2 Love Of Never Upon A Time
By Alex Warlorn

It feels good to be able to truly sleep again. After a thousand years of cat naps, Luna ruling the night again is a gift from Mother. Biologically I don't need to sleep, technically speaking, mentally is another matter. While there were many things that separated my kind from mortal ponies, I still need time for my subconscious to sort out my thoughts from the day to keep myself from going stark raving mad.

The only pony's dreams Lulu could not command are her own, and it felt cowardly to ask Luna for peaceful dreams, sealing away my own demons. Especially when it is not a luxury I can return to her.

I wish one of my mothers was here. My Mother and Father of course are everywhere and yes that does comfort me some. Mothers? Don't get the wrong idea.

I've existed in one form or another in every major Age. I am not entirely unique in that regard, there are other ponies who are much the same. We've been with them in one guise or another since Ponies first evolved.

I'll tell you now about my mother who no one remembers now. As an Alicorn, I shall never forget her, which is both a blessing and a curse.

In a history that has now been recorded over, I was born in an Age where Ponies' magic had grown to the point where there was nothing left for them to do with themselves other than plan the next big celebration or outing. They even needed an enchanted book to remind them when their own birthdays were.

Of course no one grew old. And of course since it was believed fillies and mares were nicer, there were no more colts or stallions. They knew what boys were from the living things around them, but the idea of male ponies had become alien to them.

Yes, Father Christmas was one of the few beings still able to visit this world from the outside during that recorded over era.

It was a perfect world with no more natural predators and the dangerous magical beasts long since extinct or tamed, but accidents did happen, once every few lifetimes or so, like a pony falling into a lake in the dead of winter through a crack in the ice and freezing to death. But otherwise, all was good.

Princess Rarity was the last 'generation' of several young fillies born using unicorn magic to fulfill the duties of Rainbow Princess; the unicorns having one of the few jobs that didn't magically take care of itself now. The unicorn Cheerilee, being about the closest thing the young pink Unicorn ever had to a mother, played it by ear like most mothers do.

Little Honolu-Loo on Butterfly Island was born much the same way.

Did I mention, by the way, that the tribes lived in completely separate, self-sustaining communities? They had forgotten the others even existed until happenstance accidentally made them aware of each other's existence again. But these ponies would accept each other as equals rather than oppressive overlords or interchangeable serfs. The hippocampus even made a habit of rescuing the other tribes in distress whenever they found them in such, though they remained a myth until the end. First contact played out much more than kindly that first time around. Ironically, the isolationist flutter ponies (nicknamed Breezies) remained friends of the Earth Ponies from the beginning.

On Butterfly Island, the home of the pegasi, a pony somehow found out what it truly meant to be a 'mother' and where babies had originally come from before the ponies learned how to use magic to do nearly everything for them and set it to automatic.

Her name was Star-Maker. And unlike most ponies in that painted over age, she always was asking questions, she wanted to -know- rather than just accept the world handed to her on a sliver patter.

Then she found a way. She never told anyone how. Maybe she found some hidden or long forgotten spell, maybe she used alchemy, maybe she pleaded and begged with My Parents until they reluctantly granted her petition, all I know is this.

I watched my mother on Butterfly Island slowly gain wrinkles and a graying mane as I grew bigger and stronger, with marks no other pony had on my hooves sides and forehead. And I watched as every other pegasus on the island stayed the same.

By giving birth, she had become a part of the cycle of birth and death again, the immortality spell on her was broken. No one even remembered how the spell worked, let alone how to re-cast it.

It was some horrible disease to them, some terrible sickness they had no idea how to cure or help her, the idea she was infectious never crossed their minds or they didn't care. That was the kind of ponies these mares of the forgotten age were like.

I still remember every day as clear as crystal, when she caught me after I fainted flying so high trying to catch the sun, when she took me out star gazing to help me get over my fear of the dark, explaining to me my extra large wings were nothing to be ashamed of, the way she could make all the world seem a wonder with just a few words. E-excuse me please for just one moment, the lamp light is stinging my eyes a bit.

Once I was a mare pegasus, I simply ceased aging, like any pony in that age. We all watched as my mother grew more frail. I ended up taking her flying myself on occasion once she was too weak to do so herself.

None of the others blamed me, even if I was the 'cause' of Star-Maker's 'sickness.' They never said it of course, they didn't dare. But I knew if I didn't exist, my mother wouldn't be dying.

By then I already knew I was different from the other pegasi, not just the size of my wings and the marks on my body. I knew things that I shouldn't have been able to know, and I was able to sense things I had no way to, and I could do things no other Pegasus could do.

Ultimately, she couldn't leave the bed we made for her. It was a blink of an eye to us, of course, for whom each day was just more playing and searching for something new to explore. For whom life had no end, so time seemed to not have as much meaning.

"I don't regret having you, you were the first thing, the only thing, to give my life meaning. Thank you, Star Catcher."

Those were the last words my mother said to me before she went to sleep and never woke up.

I wanted to see her again. I wanted to see her again so badly! What was this strange disease called 'old age' that had stolen her from me? The others said she was still somewhere, we just couldn't see her. 

At the center of our island was a rainbow colored waterfall, more beautiful than any in Cloudsdale. All any pegasus remembered was that there was some -thing- on the other side. They had all forgotten what. Some thought there was some black void beyond. Or monsters. Some even joked there was a frightening land where pegasi didn't have wings, and if you stayed too long, your wings would fall off. 

There could have been anything behind that waterfall, including my mother, so one always-summer afternoon I dive through, the first pegasus to do so anyone could remember, some loyal butterflies coming with me. 

I didn't find monsters, or my mother, or a starry nothing, but I did find Earth-bound friends. I bridged the gap. And for that I thanked three of my parents. 

My Mother and My Father who were eternal.
And my mother the pegasus Star-Maker, who rests in peace.

She was why pegasi stepped into the world again. 

And I feel her presence, as I prepare to face the monsters that lurk in my closet every night. 

I slowly slip off my royal armor, my horseshoes, my crown, my harness. I wish I was like one of the Celestias I saw once in the pool of truth, whose size and beauty were connected to the enchantments on her armor. Would have made my life much easier. While I am capable of shape shifting, maintaining an altered form distracts from the experience of living in it.

I had also seen during my cautiously brief glimpses into Truth one of the Celestias who could use an enchanted mirror to speak with her counterpart in a world effectively identical to ours, save that all genders were flipped and different names to match. While I was certain such a counterpart to my world existed, or so I hoped, I had never been able to create such a mirror for myself. I even dared take one drop from Truth to try to make such a mirror.

One of my former students accidentally looked into my newly created still unruly mirror when I left it unattended for forty three-seconds . . .

I returned the drop of matter to the Truth and completely abandoned that route.

I stand inside my large fold out mirror, magically closing it behind me, leaving me with only my reflections.

"Who is that mare I see? Staring back? Straight at me?" I sang softly to myself.

 "You're an old, old pony whose been carrying the sun on her back for far too long. They build statues to you. They have several national holidays in your honor. But when was the last time any of these stupid horses tried to be your friend? When was the last time they saw you as a living being with feelings instead of as a deity with none?"  I feel a wave of disgust wash through me at the gray reflection to my left.

I shuddered at the uncompromising all consuming solar heat behind me.  "You are one who lets her ponies be terrified by creatures of the night and forcing them to waste half their day because you selfishly want your little sister to feel special." 

 "You're a nasty, awful, mean old nag who bullies little yellow ponies who are already sorry!"  Snarled a filly Alicorn wearing royal jewelry a few sizes too big for her with magenta eyes and pink mane to my right. I don't want to cry. I don't think I'd be able to stop.

"You're a fair queen who ponies turn to as the constant for law and fairness. You are the goddess who must never be fair and favors kindness over cruelty, love over rage. You're a mother who does things that hurts her ponies but helps them grow. You are eternal. You are a concept. . . and at the same time you're a pony who can bleed and feel pain like they can." The reflection of Sunny Day spoke kindly to me. "You are many things Celly, like any pony, and they are all equally you. A goddess must not show regret, must not show weakness, every decision must be without flaw. A queen must be fair, just, and understanding. And a pony must have friends."

I make a soft gentle laugh.

"And they don't fear you Celly. They fear your disapproval, your disappointment, the same we fear those things from anyone we love. Same as you feared the disappointment of Your Parents. What are our ponies more afraid of? Do you think they fear your power and existence more than the possibility that if they lose you they would have no wise and kind ruler to turn to for guidance and protection?""

"Thank you, heh, Lulu."

I folded my wings around me in my sleep, for the first time in so long, my dreams were beautiful. An island that never was, friends who never were, of days that never happened. But I also dream of the here and now, of those who are here now, and those who love me now, and I know I'll never forget them no matter how long I live.