//------------------------------// // Part 25: Breaking the Day // Story: Once a Time Lord... Well, actually still that, but now a Pony as well... // by The Bricklayer //------------------------------// Canterlot: Present Day Celestia sighed to herself as she lowered the sun letting the stars began to paint the night sky in a vivid display of painted tranquility. Pulling on a nightgown and discarding her royal regalia, she took a step outside her door and began walking through the halls. Already, the guards were beginning to change shifts and her guard was beginning to be slowly replaced by Luna’s own. Still, despite the presence of the guard roaming the hallways Celestia admitted if only to herself the hallways not to mention most of the castle itself felt lonely… lifeless even. She wasn’t entirely sure why really, it just did. “Maybe it’s because of the absence of a certain pony?” a little voice, sneering and dripping with a sort of venom Celestia had never hoped to hear again asked her. “I mean, face it, you were a sucker for his little charms. You were in loooooovvvveee with him!” Celestia silenced the voice, or tried to anyways. But still, Daybreaker’s comments and jokes persisted. She knew that’s who it was speaking, after all, who else could it be? “Celestia and the Doctor, sitting in a tree,” Daybreaker singsonged. K-i-s-s-i-n-g! First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes little ponies in the baby carriages!” she sung, before breaking off into cackles. “Shut up!” Celestia snapped. “Just shut up!” But it was no use, really. Daybreaker still had a few comments left in store. “Face it Celly, you can’t get rid of me, no matter how hard you try, I’ll always be a part of you. Try and force me back down, I’ll just climb back up again. Credit where it’s due, I’ll probably never come out in such an explosive way such as I did back with Queen Carapace, but it doesn’t mean I can’t offer advice from time to time no?” “Any advice from you, it’s advice not worth listening to.” Celestia sniffed. “Is it? The Doctor, he’d started to make you happy, make you smile again, even helped you reconcile with your sister and then… well, you threw him out of your life!” Daybreaker’s voice cackled in amusement. “Talk about one Tartarus of a display of gratitude!” Celestia flinched, and flashbacked… “So yes, I admit I may have used what you may call Legitimacy in your terms to get you to trust me, at least at first, but for everything afterwards, I just let things happened as they should have.” “And what of the Master?” Celestia asked, her voice slowly growing in anger. She noted the Doctor began to tug at his tie, as the room’s temperature slowly got ever so warmer. She wasn’t angry, at least not at being used and having her mind peeked and prodded at, or even her student’s at that, but by the Doctor just keeping that little secret for so long. If he admitted it outright, she may not have been so mad, but right now…? Granted, she could detect the notes of shame in his voice, so that was the only reason she was still listening to him at this very moment. “The Master though, he gets you to trust him but it's to manipulate not to help. It's not for your benefit but for his,” the Doctor continued, not bearing to even look at Celestia right now. “So, heed my words Celestia Solaris, if you know what’s good for you, and want what’s best for your country, I would lock the Master up where nopony could find, or get to him. You understand me?” “Yes, I understand,” Celestia replied. “But we’re not done with this, not by a long shot. Are we clear on that?” “Yes, we’re quite clear.” the Doctor sighed, and turned to walk away knowing Celestia was quite furious with him, as she had every right to be. Celestia fought back a sniffle, and Daybreaker smirked. “Oh, that was quite a delight to see!” she laughed. “You, throwing the only stallion out of your life whom you ever might have had a chance of loving, and not losing. And yet, you still somehow managed to pull that off anyways! You’re growing more like me by the day, dear Celly-Belly!” “No… No!” Celestia whispered. “I’ll never be you again, not ever, you understand?” “Oh, but who’s to say you won’t be someday? Stress, it’s a funny little thing isn’t it?” “What are you getting at?” Celestia thought, her eyes narrowed. “Admit it, if only to yourself in a way. You do sometimes feel like this… puppet on a string really. Dancing to the whims of the nobles, and appeasing them. There’d be no strings on me.” Celestia’s breath caught in her throat, as much as she hated to admit it, her darker half did have a frightening point. At some point or the other and this was usually when Luna wasn’t around for those 1,000 years she did entertain this thought of absolute power. Once again, she could rise to her full strength, not hold herself back any longer She could, in theory, have more power than even her sister as Nightmare Moon or any of Equestria’s defenders. She could command absolute respect from everybody. Yes, not just everypony, but everybody. The yaks, the dragons, the Changelings, any sentient creature she could think of. She could decide when she wanted to make public appearances if she even felt like doing such a thing. Townhall and court meetings, they would be a breeze if she could just demand everypony’s silence with a simple wave or stamp of her hoof and carry out her will without question. “Oh good, I’m so glad you said this all now, got it all out in the open. How effective though, do you think bottling me up will be in the long run? Ponies, or a lot of other creatures for that matter, they don’t have the greatest grasp on this funny little aspect of a thing called control. Let me propose a theory, if I may?” “Go ahead…” Celestia growled out, knowing there was really no way of stopping her darker side from yammering on if she wanted to. Somehow, in some inexplicable way, Daybreaker’s face found itself in a mirror, sneering at her. She was just as Celestia remembered, a mane made of pure flames and black slitted eyes gleaming with malice, sharp fangs jutting out from her mouth. “Hypothetically, let’s say you’re having a normal day. Nothing’s gone wrong. things are going swimmingly, really. But, oops! Maybe when you’re being pulled around in your chariot, one of the wheels comes loose and they have to spend several minutes fixing it, putting you behind schedule. That’d be liable to annoy anyone, right? That’s the thing about stress, it has this tendency to build up over time, does it not?” Daybreaker asked. Celestia said nothing, and Daybreaker smirked. “Mhmm, yes. I thought so. Now, this town meeting, it involves mountains of paperwork and we both know how much you loooooovvvvvveeee that! Add to that, entertaining some snobby aristocrats who can never be pleased and well… you probably get the picture. It’s only a matter of time before pop! Out I come again!” “No, that’d never happen. I’ve been handling this for hundreds of years, and not once have you came out.” “Oh, is it in one ear and out the other with you?” Daybreaker asked, with a roll of her eyes. “Like I said, with stress, it tends to build up over time. Just little things. Take your sister for example. She became Nightmare Moon -And yes, I get it, so much black, she’s so sad and so emo!- because of countless ponies not appreciating the hard work she put into making her rather elegant tapestries of the night sky you see nowadays. Not like she became, ‘whoomp!’ Nightmare Moon the day someone fixed her pancakes wrong or anything like that.” Celestia huffed indignantly, something far from becoming of somepony of her stature. “See? That right there, that was something of frustration! Admit it, I’m getting to you am I not?” Daybreaker smirked before she burst out laughing. “Oh, this is so pathetic it’s not even funny. The Solar Regent, needing a stallion calling himself the Doctor simply to come and save her from herself! My Sun, how the mighty have fallen!” she continued to laugh, throwing her head back. Celestia, barely able to contain a scream of rage blasted the mirror with her horn’s magical aura -much to her horror- turning a brief blood-red as she did so. The mirror shattered, glass tinkling to the floor but Daybreaker was only able to reappear in the reflection of a window. “Oh, see. See! That proves it, that little moment of uncontainable rage, that proves you have the capability of going all flame on all over again and making Equestria bow to your every tyrannical and might I say lovely whim!” With that, she vanished in a flash of flame. Luna and two Night Guards would later find Celestia in about an hour or so, sobbing to herself quietly completely and utterly broken by her dark half’s speech. If it’s any consolation dear readers, one Prince Blueblood’s day wasn’t exactly going much better if I’m to be honest with you. The Master, he’d been set up inside a house with a twenty-four-hour guard and a binding ring around his horn to keep him from performing any little magical tricks like say… escaping. The Master, Celestia figured, if he really was the Doctor’s equal in every way he would learn fast, and that meant if given the chance would know exactly how to perform a good degree of spells even in the short amount of time he’d been in Equestria. And unfortunately for Prince Blueblood, he was put in charge of this task force. Okay, maybe put in charge was the wrong term. He’d actually elected himself -something he was beginning to rapidly regret- as the lead guard for the Master considering he himself had helped to expose him. “Well, this is rather uncomfortable innit?” the Master commented lightly. “I mean, sure you’ve given me the best of amenities one could ask for and I thank you for that,” he said, gesturing all around him to the luxurious townhome he’d been offered. A while back, it’d been put up for sale after foreclosure, and nobody had bought it. So, Celestia and Blueblood both thought to keep the Master out of mischief it was best to cater to at least some of his whims and keep him appeased, and one of the ways of doing so was appealing to his ego. Therefore, that meant placing him somewhere nice. “But honestly, the bracelet keeping track of my movements, the magical binding ring as you called it, and the twenty-four-hour guard? Not fun! I mean, I’m not Neal Caffrey for crying out loud, I’m bloody dangerous! I’m flattered, but not really having fun.” “Imprisonment, it’s not really about fun,” Blueblood stated in return. “It’s about keeping you under control. We’ve given you this nice house, and a two-mile radius to walk around Canterlot in just so you won’t pull anything,” he stated, poking the Master in the chest with a hoof. “Besides, you really honestly should make the most of what you’ve been given, and thank the Gods that I managed to get Celestia under control and not have her send you to the Sun.” “What’d you do? Guilt-trip her into thinking the Doctor wouldn’t approve?” the Master asked, with a small smirk. Blueblood refusing to meet his eyes said it all really. “Ah yes, I thought about as much,” the Master remarked. “Love does strange things to a person… or a pony as the case may be. Clouds their judgment. If you had any sense, you’d have let your dear auntie send me to the Sun to burn up, use all up my regenerations and all that and let the Doctor be rid of me forever. One less problem for him, well that’s all good in my books. I hate to see my dear old friend stressed out!” “Friends don’t try to kill each other,” Blueblood remarked, his eyes boring into the Master’s own, and his horn crackling with arctic blue magic. “...Or am I mistaken in believing you’ve tried to do that to the Doctor multiple times on the trot?”’ “Eh, call them little relationship bumps,” the Master replied with a dismissive wave of his hoof. “You’ll understand when you find a best mate to shoot the shit with, or even better a wife. Or husband, goodness knows with how much value you seem to place in your appearance I would not be surprised if you’re gay! Is that perfume I smell?” he asked with a small laugh. “It’s cologne,” the Prince corrected in an annoyed tone, his eyebrow twitching slightly. “This, along with the mane gel? Well, I sorta have to use it do I not? I’m a Prince, I must look the part!” “Fair, fair I suppose…” the Master admitted. “But really, one has to wonder, for a Prince just how oblivious you really are…” he trailed off, only barely able to hold back his amusement. He placed a hoof on Blueblood’s horn, canceling out the Prince’s aura. “What do you mean?” Blueblood asked, his eyes narrowed. The Master sighed, and got up off the couch and then walked over to a window and threw open the red velvet curtains. He observed the various members of Canterlot nobility and otherwise trotting about on their daily regimes. “Oh, you must wonder. Think about it, to the populace at large I’m the Doctor’s friend. Now eventually, they’ll begin to wonder if I’m a friend of one of Equestria’s saviors why would I be locked up like this?” he asked, before clapping his hooves gleefully in anticipation. “Oooh, you might have an entire uprising on your hooves if they get bold enough and start wondering if their fair Princess Celestia is as nice as she seems to be!” He began to laugh before Blueblood with a flash of magic removed the Master’s mouth. “There, that should silence you for a while.” Blueblood turned and then sighed. Like it or not, the Master’s words had gotten to him much as he hated to admit it. The ponies of Canterlot, they were a fickle folk. They changed moods and minds as often as a traffic light in Manehatten changed colors. Who’s to say what they could think of this form of imprisonment next? He sighed in relief as he heard a knock on the door and went to it, opening it to reveal a griffon with a black mustache wearing a chef’s uniform. “The cake you ordered, monsieur Prince Blueblood?” Gustave le grand asked. Sighing, the Prince forked over a bag of bits to the griffon. He shared his Aunt’s taste for sweets, loathe as he was to admit it. Hopefully, the cake he’d ordered would put the Master and the troubles he was starting to bring to him out of Blueblood’s mind for the time being.