//------------------------------// // 7 - Capstone // Story: A Brief History of Canterlot Castle // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// Gabion didn’t know why he’d hauled himself back to Canterlot. He was old. His joints creaked. The slightest bump in the road made his back ache, even if the carriage’s seats were cushioned. He suspected his eyesight was beginning to go. But all he could think was that Celestia needed his help. Somehow. Too resolutely and too quickly for his old body, Gabion pulled himself from the carriage stop to the castle. It was early evening, and he knew he should’ve stopped by an inn first to book a room, but he couldn’t bring himself to delay. Canterlot was unusually quiet and the streets felt barren. It probably had been, ever since the… incident with Luna a week ago. How were you supposed to react to one of your diarchs snapping like that? Especially when Celestia responded by… Well. Nopony knew what, exactly, Celestia had done, but now Luna was gone and there was a silhouette of an alicorn on the moon. Gabion had trouble looking up at night; he felt like it was watching him. He reached the castle, walked in without any resistance. If Canterlot’s quietness was unusual, the castle’s was oppressive. The few other ponies Gabion ran into stayed close together and only talked in whispers, as if being too loud would incur the wrath of some monstrous beast. The walls were draped in blue tapestries and curtains. Whether because of mourning or because they were Luna’s colors, Gabion didn’t know. The guards standing about eyed him and his focused walk suspiciously, but let him be. There were three guards in front of the throne room, one on either side of the door and one in the middle. As Gabion approached them, the two on the side readied their spears but didn’t jump forward. He was old and nearing feeble, how much damage could he do? The guard in the middle held up a hoof. “I’m sorry,” he said in the annoyed, tired voice of somepony who’s said something a thousand times recently, “but court is closed, as the princess is under a great deal of stress at the moment. Please leave.” He waved Gabion away. Gabion felt sorry for the guard, having to stand there, turning away pony after pony after pony, herd after herd after herd, all day long. All the wheedling he had to experience, the threats against his self and his social status, the assertions that it was for a good cause. And now Gabion was doing the exact same thing all over again. He wondered if the guard would appreciate blunt frankness any more. Probably not. “I’d like to speak with Princess Celestia,” Gabion said. The guard’s ears folded back at nearly supersonic speeds. “Sir,” he said furiously, “the princess is in no condition to be speaking to-” “Tell her it’s Gabion,” Gabion said in his Boss Voice. “She’ll know who I am. If she turns me down, or even if she says nothing, I’ll leave, as you ask. Just try, once.” He had to keep himself from adding “please”. “Sir, she won’t-” “I don’t care. Try.” Gabion dropped onto his rump. “I’m not leaving here until you do. If you do, I promise I’ll leave.” The guard bit his lip, then said in an exasperated voice, “Don’t expect much. Even if she agrees to this, I don’t think you’ll get more than a minute.” “A minute is all I ask.” The guard hesitated, but bowed and entered the throne room. The doorstallions relaxed a little. Gabion sat and waited. He was used to waiting. He did that a lot nowadays. He almost walked up to the keyhole and put his ear next to it to hear if the guard was really talking to Celestia and not just hanging around the inside of the door before denying his request to get the loiterer to leave. Well, if he was, Gabion couldn’t do a thing about it except hope. After not much time, the guard came back out, clearly confused. “The… princess will see you. Now,” he said, as if his worldview had just been shattered. The doorstallions each did their own shocked stare. One of them switched his stare to Gabion while the other waved the first guard over. They started bickering, but Gabion could only hear brief snatches of what they were saying. Stupid old-pony hearing. “…really think… …good idea…” “…wanted to talk to him! I…” “…too distraught to…” “…seemed like… …his name, and she…” “…sure?” “Very. I’ll take responsibility…” Finally, the doorstallion nodded and stepped back. The first guard opened the door to the throne room and waved Gabion in. The room was just as large as Gabion remembered it, and very, very empty. A red carpet ran from the doors to the throne; he stayed on that to avoid making any sound. The stained glass windows had all been covered. The place wasn’t clean, it was sterile, dirtiness pushed away without any thought or care. Even the air felt still. At the far, far end of the room, Celestia was sitting on her throne, flanked by two guards, with an aide of some kind talking to her. The emptiness of the hall amplified what was being said. “…upheaval in the west,” the aide was saying. “One of the dukes is calling for a complete description of what happened on… on that night, and he has a lot of support. This report here says we’re risking secession if you’re not, in his words, ‘held accountable’.” Celestia’s eyes were pointed at the aide, but she wasn’t seeing her. She nodded. “I see. I shall consider it.” “And there are ponies on the borders of the Badlands who say that the change in the face of the moon is frightening the animals out there-” Gabion reached the dias and cleared his throat. “Celestia?” he said. Celestia twitched and her head snapped to him. The aide squeaked and quickly backed away. The guards fixed their gaze on him, yet said nothing. Gabion took a deep breath. He knew he was expected to bow, but what he had to say was more important. He did his best to not second-guess himself. “Princess, I… know you’ve… probably heard this more times than you can imagine in the past few days, but, uh…” He swallowed and kept his head up. “I’m sorry for you about… what… happened with Luna. I know it’s… just me, but… but you know me, so I… was hoping that… maybe this would mean something more than when it came from dozens of nobles who never made a bet over what your peytral was made of. I hope you… can… move past this.” When no more words came, he didn’t force them. He remained silent and bowed. Celestia’s face might’ve been carved from the mountain itself. When she nodded, it was jerky. “Thank you,” she said emotionlessly. “I’ll keep that in mind.” “Thank you for your time, Your Highness.” Gabion bowed. He turned to the exit. “W-wait.” Gabion stopped mid-stride. He waited. “Would… Would you walk with me?” After the hard trip up, his legs protested and his knees were weak and he’d have trouble keeping up with Celestia’s strides on the best of days. But Gabion didn’t hesitate for an instant before turning back around. Celestia stepped off the dias and Gabion followed. “Your, Your Highness!” protested the aide. “We still have-” “I need a break,” said Celestia. She was on the edge of snapping the words, but somehow still managed to sound dignified and polite, yet firm. “Gabion and I. Alone.” “Y-yes, Your Highness.” The aide quickly bowed. Celestia led Gabion down a few short hallways before they came out on a balcony. The same balcony, Gabion noticed, where’d talked after the completion of Canterlot all those years ago. Celestia sat down and stared blankly out at the lights of Canterlot. Gabion sat down next to her. “Celestia?” he asked. “It was my fault,” Celestia said bluntly. “I-it’s my fault Luna’s gone.” Gabion wanted to protest, wanted to tell her that it couldn’t have been, but he heard the conviction in her words. It was Celestia’s fault, or at least she believed it was her fault, and he couldn’t convince her otherwise. He swallowed. “What… happened?” he asked quietly. There was no way to ease into it. Celestia took a deep, shuddering breath. If she objected to telling the truth, she made no sign of it. “You’ve- heard- the official story, I presume?” she asked tightly. “Luna, frustrated at the lack of appreciation for her night, went mad and started calling herself Nightmare Moon, determined to make her night last forever. I was forced to battle with her and banish her into the moon with ancient magics.” “That sounds about right.” Gabion left out that a lot of the ponies he’d heard had disbelieved some or all of that story, for one reason or another. “That- That is completely true, I swear. There’s nothing more to it. Luna was given no praise for the duties she performed as diligently as I did, and when it became too much to bear, she lashed out.” The memories of Gabion’s own meeting with Luna came to him in a flash. She’d seemed so cold, so distant, yet she’d been so interested in him and his relation to Celestia. Now that he thought about it, it was obvious that she was upset somehow. And how had he mentioned this to Celestia? Luna needs to work on her people skills. What a friend he was. “But I suppose you’re wondering how- how this is my fault,” continued Celestia. Her wings were flexing, like she wanted to fly away and never return. “Listen to the stories of our rule in just the past few years. ‘Celestia was great, Celestia was lovely, Celestia was wonderful. And Luna was also there.’ I said nothing about them. The imbalance never occurred to me. I let it happen while she remained silent, and this went on and on and on. If I’d only said one thing…” She stopped for a second to wipe her eyes. “Then-” She took a breath like a wheezing bellows and said, “We decided to build Canterlot. I asked her to abandon her post. So I could go and build a pretty castle. And she did, and… Equestria went on fine without her. For six months, she stopped handling her nightly duties and nothing changed. Anypony willing to read between the lines would read ‘you’re worthless’ from that. And to think making the walls white was a sufficient tribute to her!” She angrily brought a hoof down on the balcony railing, pulverising a section of it to dust. “If I hadn’t decided on- this idiotic, grandiose design-” she spat. “Celestia,” Gabion said, putting his hoof on hers, “you couldn’t have known, you were only trying to connect with-” “I should’ve been connecting with my sister,” Celestia said, pulling her hoof away. She sounded angry with herself. “I should’ve known she was upset with me, that she was bitter, that-” Her voice caught and she didn’t continue. Gabion seized the opening. “When I talked with Luna, she was…” Gabion paused, but he couldn’t find the right words. He switched paths. “Looking back, I think there were times when she almost opened up to me and didn’t. If… she’d only said one thing…” He stared at the moon. At Luna. “I was… still less grateful for her than I ought to have been, but… that night, I couldn’t help thinking of her as a princess. And I’m not used to talking to princesses.” Celestia looked at him sideways. “Like now?” “This isn’t princess and subject. This is friend and friend.” But some part of him wondered: if he hadn’t been so stupid as to miss the signs, if he’d been just as blunt with her as he’d been with Celestia, would that have stopped anything? If he’d just said that she could’ve talked to him, would she have? And if she and him had talked, would she have been turned from her path, or would he have just been delaying the inevitable implosion until his death, when she’d be alone again? If, would, if, would, if, would… “So I… I’m sorry I… didn’t say anything,” Gabion said. Celestia snorted. “Don’t apologize,” she mumbled. “You couldn’t have known.” “Still.” Silence. Gabion swallowed. “Do you… know how long she’d felt that way? The past few years?” “No,” said Celestia, rubbing her face. “I doubt that this jealousy came recently. This must have been festering for d-decades. Ever since we became Equestria’s princesses, she was always second fiddle to me, the one to be forgotten and ignored, the one who shepherded the night because nopony else wanted to. She was neglected longer than most ponies have been alive.” “…Oh.” Gabion swallowed again. Celestia, for the most part, skirted around the issue of her immortality, so any blunt reminders of it always came as an abrupt slap in the face. Put like that, it was a wonder Luna had kept it together as long as she had. How long had she dealt with those feelings even before Equestria? How was Celestia keeping it together, now that she was forced to see the last century through a filter of her own guilt? Gabion looked up at Celestia to say something, and then he noticed: Celestia had crow’s feet. Maybe age didn’t touch her, but use did. He got it. The full weight of Celestia’s feelings hit him like one of Canterlot Castle’s own foundation stones. Where he’d once seen the smooth lines of polished marble, he now saw worn-down sheets of old, well-used sandpaper. Where he’d once seen a valiant soldier gallantly trotting off to war, he now saw the same soldier returning home a year later, physically unhurt yet having seen far too much. Where he’d once seen an older sibling cheerfully managing their younger brothers and sisters, he now saw that same pony forcibly promoted to caretaker after the death of their parents and putting on a brave face for the little ones even as they burned out. Keeping your wings spread all the time certainly looked majestic, but it must ache. Suddenly, Celestia’s willingness to spend months monotonously stacking foundation blocks together for some real pony-to-pony interaction made a lot more sense. Celestia was still talking. “A-and now I have… sycophant after sycophant telling me I did the right thing in subduing her.” She laughed bitterly. “I ignored my sister for decades, had to banish her from this world, perhaps forever, and I did the r-right thing?” She hung her head in her hooves. “I-it’s all my fault, I should’ve… I should’ve known what I was-” “Celestia…” said Gabion. “-doing to her, i-ignoring her for so long-” “Celestia!” Gabion clouted Celestia on the shoulder as best he could. She didn’t budge, but she looked down at him with watery eyes. Gabion took a deep breath. “Maybe it’s your fault for taking her for granted. Maybe it’s her fault for not speaking up. Maybe it’s my fault for not treating her the same way I treated you. Maybe it’s everypony else’s fault for never thinking of her. Maybe it’s all those. Personally, I think it’s a confusing mess where deciding on who to blame is missing the point.” He leaned up against her, pushing himself against her shoulder. When he was a foal and his mother had tried to cheer him up, she’d always put pressure on him like that. How it reassured him, he didn’t know, but it worked. “I’m not going to pretend that I know what you should do next. But we all make mistakes. It’s no use blaming yourself over it. Maybe you didn’t do the right thing, but you did everything you could.” “It wasn’t enough.” Gabion slapped Celestia across the face. She didn’t flinch, and the look on her face when she turned to him was one of confusion, not hurt. “No, it wasn’t,” he said firmly. “You still did everything you could. Look, Celestia, you’re not perfect. You’re allowed to make mistakes. Accept that. I- I’m sorry if I’m coming across as cold, but I think you’re buying into that pedestal everypony’s put you on. You’re an alicorn, but you’re just as much a pony as I am, just as capable of failing. Remember how all those years ago, you had trouble putting blocks together correctly?” Celestia looked at Gabion. Gabion looked at Celestia. He breathed freely. He could already see it: she’d dug a hole for herself by having to banish Luna, was digging it deeper with her own guilt, and everypony else was saying that it was okay. Somepony had to point out she needed to climb out of that hole. And if that required throwing rocks at her head to get her to pay attention, so be it. Celestia finally, finally made an expression that somewhat resembled a smile. “It’s easy to forget that when everypony says otherwise. Thank you.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “It doesn’t make it any easier.” “It shouldn’t,” Gabion said, his voice softening. “But just because it isn’t easy doesn’t mean you should make it harder.” “Indeed. And now…” Celestia looked at the moon and sighed. “We never discussed what each other’s celestial bodies felt like,” she said. “Compared to the sun, the moon is so… delicate. Ethereal. Or perhaps my magic is opposed to it. I always feel like I’m about to break it.” “Is that why… the moon’s path has been so…?” “Yes. I am… still working out the kinks in moving it.” Celestia took a deep breath and flexed, from the tip of her nose all the way down to her tail and wings. Her horn started glowing, and the magic that cascaded over Gabion felt different than any he had felt before. In some places it felt prickly and in others unusually still, as if Celestia was trying to stick a square peg in a round hole and breaking the corners off. Celestia took deep, measured breaths, closed her eyes, and pushed. As it had for the past week, the moon twitched across the sky in a strange, stilted manner, as if Celestia was being far too careful with it. Gabion didn’t know what, exactly, was wrong with the moon’s motion; he just knew something was wrong. But he also knew how to fix it. “You’re holding it, Celestia,” he said. “Just let it rest in your magic.” Celestia froze, then laughed bitterly. “Of course that would be the problem.” She stuck out her tongue in concentration. The wave of magic washing over Gabion’s skin changed, becoming far less prickly. The moon twitched again and moved slowly across the sky. It was smoother than before. But it still wasn’t Luna’s moon. Releasing her magic, panting deeply, Celestia whispered, “I can’t even move the moon correctly. It’s… Why didn’t I… She… W-why didn’t I know?” The dam finally burst. Celestia’s legs gave out and she collapsed onto the ground, weeping. Her crown slipped off her head and bounced into a corner. Tears streamed down her face, staining her coat, her peytral. She staggered to her feet and slouched against the railing. She buried her face in her hooves, gasping with each failed attempt to control herself. Gabion sat down next to her and threw a leg over her withers. It didn’t reach all the way around and he had his shoulder raised uncomfortably. It was the best he could do. “I’m sorry,” he said. Celestia flared out a wing, pulled him close, and sobbed. It might’ve been a minute, it might’ve been an hour, but eventually, long after her cries had subsided, Celestia said, “Gabion?” “Hmm?” he asked. “Thank you for- for letting me… be me. Thank you for letting me blubber. Thank you for being a friend.” Not caring the slightest in who he was doing it to, Gabion reached up and patted Celestia’s face reassuringly. “Anytime. And I mean that. I’m retired and spend my days being lazy. If you want to come over to my house to talk, my doors are open.” Celestia put a leg over his shoulders and hugged him. “I doubt I’ll have the time, but your offer means a lot. Thank you.” She retrieved her crown, looked it over for a second, then set it on the railing. Gabion looked up at the moon. Could Luna see them? Was she aware of anything? Was this making it better? Worse? Did it matter? “You’re welcome,” he said. He stood up, flexing his legs one at a time. “I hate to leave you, but I need a place to stay the night before-” “No, wait.” Celestia flared a wing between him and the door. “Would you like me to take you home?” Funny how, what felt like not that long ago, this question had nearly shocked the living daylights out of him, and now Gabion’s only response was a flood of silent relief and, “Yes, please. I can never sleep well in inns these days.” They were squeezed through a tube for an instant, and then they were in front of a log cabin in a sparse forest, a light flickering in one of the windows. Through the trees were more lights from the town. This was a quiet place, and now, in his old age, Gabion wouldn’t have it any other way. He examined the battered but solid door he’d built himself, once again imagined Celestia — regal, dignified Celestia — sitting in the dirt in front of it as she waited for him, and once again chuckled when the image seemed to fit. “Thank you.” Gabion walked up to the door and knocked. “Honey? I’m back!” “Already? I told you not to take the fast carriages, you’ll shake yourself to death!” “Don’t worry, I didn’t. It’s a long story. Hold on.” Gabion turned back to Celestia. “Do you want to stay? Just for a few minutes. You know how much Altostratus loves you, and we just got a few gallons of the most delicious cider, so-” “I’d like to,” said Celestia wistfully, “but I really must be getting back to Canterlot. They might get worried if they can’t find me.” “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time this week a diarch vanished.” And then Gabion realized what he’d said. “Oh, stars, I am so sorry,” he said, mortified, “I didn’t mean-” Celestia’s chuckle was somewhere between genuine and anxiety. “I understand,” she said. “I… I needed some levity in my life.” She giggled guiltily. “Sorry,” Gabion mumbled, staring at the ground. “But I really would like to drop by again, sooner or later,” said Celestia seriously. “Once I get my hooves under me.” “If you ever get the time, feel free to stop by.” Gabion opened the front door. “I’ll be here for you as long as you need me.” Celestia smiled faintly. “I know. Thank you.” She turned on the spot and vanished.