„Princess Celestia? In know it’s late and you had a busy day, but may I come in for a short moment?” A faint creak resounded when Twilight pushed against the big white door, emblazed with the sigil of the sun princess.
Celestia was sitting in her private chambers next to a crackling fireplace when she looked up from the book she was reading in. „Twilight! How nice of you to drop by. Of course I have always time for my favourite… well, former student. Come in!“
“Your Highness!” Twilight entered and bowed.
“Oh don’t be so formal! We know long enough for you to just call me Celestia. You’re a princess yourself after all. " With a content sigh princess Celestia closed her book and dropped it to the floor next to the fluffy cushion she was lying on. "I passed the royal duties on to my sister hours ago and was preparing for bed. So if you like, just consider me ‘out of duty’ for the time being.”
Twilight looked up from her bow. “Please, P… Celestia. You are never really out off duty. You yourself taught me that princesses may retire for the day but they stay princesses wherever and whenever they are.”
Celestia couldn't hold in a snicker and answered with a wide smile. ”Okay, Twilight, you won. But, still, you are a fellow princess so please feel free to sit down and relax. Do you want some tea? I got this wonderful Cocos-Mango tea from the zebras this morning. It’s very delicious.”
“Thank you. But I just have a short question, which kept me pondering for quite a while now. I don’t want to keep you from resting so I better keep it short. I know just how busy your days are.” Twilight answered stepping forward next to the fire and her mentor.
“Okay then, fire away!”
“Well, P… I mean Celestia, it’s about your sister. It is years now that she is back in the royal business and we did our best to get her to loosen up a bit and to cheer up in our company. It always seems to work at least a bit, butz whenever I see her just moments later the frown is back in her face and her mood cooled to a somber quietness. Even Pinky is getting desperate by now. Her parties usually make ponies exuberant for days or weeks not only mere minutes.”
Celestia's smile vanished and the following sigh did sound less content but sad. “I see. I guess you should rather sit down and take a cup of tea anyway. This might take more than just a few sentences to answer.”
“I-I can come another time if you…” Twilight studdered.
“No Twilight, it’s alright. I very much appreciate your concerns about my sister’s moods. You have been her first true friend since she returned and got… purged by the Elements of Harmony. And even though she’s around our subjects more than she ever was before her fall, she still has less true friends than she has hooves. At least that is, what she thinks.”
Twiliht tilted her head ever so slightly. “But I and my friends accepted her as a friend and the whole town of Ponyville loves her and worked together with her to defeat the Tantabus. She is one of us.”
“Twilight..." Celestia cleared her throat, "Luna is a special kind of character. And she’s got some very… special ways to see the world. While I myself like to make friends and to be close to he ponies around me Luna is different, much more secluded. It takes a long time and a lot of effort to be called a friend by her. She never had more than one or two friends at the same time as far as I remember.”
“One or two?! But, why?”
Celestia took a sip of her tea and pondered about her answer before she set down her cup again. “It is how we are, Twilight. Me and my sister we are opposites.”
“I don’t understand?! What do you mean?” Twilight blinked several times on this.
“My sister and I are the first wielders of the Elements of Harmony. Millennia ago the eternal forces that created Luna and me gave the Elements to us as a gift before they left.
“All that was created by these forces was perfectly balanced with harmony being the very core of their creations."
Celestia took a few breaths to let the words sink in and continued. “Luna and I were the first ponies that inhabited this world. In the beginning this world was perfectly balanced with the right amount of land and the right amount of seas, with the right amount of snow and the right amount of deserts, with the right amount of rain and the right amount of dry blue sky. The forces even made the first night and the first day perfectly even balanced.
“And as this world we were balanced by the forces that were our parents. I was as pinkish white as the sky of the sunny noon while Luna was created with the color of the moonlit sky at midnight. I was the older from the beginning, the wiser and the more prudent, while Luna was the younger, the energetic explorer and the impetuous free spirit. We were born opposites, you understand?”
Twilight frowned and let her eyes drop to the floor. “Well that does make sense in a way. But what does it have to do with Luna being secluded?”
“Luna and I being opposites didn’t end with these few aspects. While I was the quieter and more level headed I also was the one who got the ability to make contact easily. It was I, who got the inner strength to be steady and good-willed with the ponies we met later, while Luna was the one who was unsure, volatile and anxious to do something wrong. It was me who got the ability to see light in the dark, to be a beacon of hope to the ponies that became our subjects centuries later. And it was Luna’s part to be the doubt and the fear of the future.”
Twilight's frown deepened. “That… doesn’t sound fair!”
“It was worse than that, Twilight." Celestia chuckled without real happiness. "While I was the manifestation of hope, of love, friendship, peace and forgiveness Luna had the aspects of hate, rivalry, rage and malice. I always was the kind healer while Luna was the unforgiving warrior. It is not by chance that darkness is correlated with peril and despair." She added another break sipping her tea.
“But while my sister got the aspect of modesty and humility it was mine to be conceited and arrogant. And while Luna was the embodiment of sensitivity it was I who was callous and blind back in those times.”
“B-but Princess Celestia! I can’t imagine you to be unkind!” Twilight gasped incredulously.
“Remember to skip the title, dear Twilight." In an intimate movement Celestia leaned forward and booped Twilights snout. "Do you want another cup of tea? Yes? There you go."
Celestia continued. “I wasn’t like I am today at that time, mind me. Our parents had made a perfect balance between us two, but it seems they never thought about what this would do to our minds, our spirits. You have to know, we never were bound or predetermined in our actions. Our parents gave us our characters, but they left us with a free will and the freedom to think and to feel and act as we thought appropriate.
“Still it was their way of giving us our traits that led to the tragedy of what was called the War of the Night later and is mostly forgotten by ponykind these days.”
“The War of the Night? I never heard anything about that.” Twilight interjected, a spark of interest gleaming in her eyes.
“And please forgive me if I want to keep it that way. Those times were grim and unrelenting. It is enough to know that Nightmare Moon was created back then and hers and Luna’s banishment by my hooves ended it.
“These days were so abominable that they made me change. Well, not directly. But the impressions of these days and the loss of my beloved sister made me reflect, made me change, made me as humble as I am today. The aforementioned war was cruel and incredibly brutal no doubt, but it were the following centuries that nearly made me despair. I learned so much from the mortals around me. I saw them, come into my service, get retired and die just years after. There was no constant, nothing to remain, just loss after loss. I learned to love my little ponies and I learned to appreciate what little life had to give to an immortal and lonely princess.”
Twilights cup trembled lightly in her hoof when she swallowed audibly. “That sounds terrible. Still it made you the wonderful pony you are today. But my question was about Luna, remember? What happened to her?”
“Yes, Twilight, your question was about my sister. I’m sorry if I spoke verbosely. But I need you to see that I had a whole millennium to grow into my role as a kind and humble leader. And still even now my arrogance gets the better of me once in a while. You remember Starlight’s, Luna’s and my little ordeal several months ago."
Twilight nodded. "The cutie mark exchange. Yes, I remember."
Celestia turned to look to the stars in the sky framed by her ornated window. “When Luna came back, she was just like she had been a thousand years earlier. No, that’s not even right. The Elements purged Nightmare Moon and made my little sister incarnate as an even younger alicorn filly, a filly of the age she had been at least several thousand years ago.”
“Yes, I remember." Twilight's eyes shone in a warm remembrance. "She was so cute and shy when she returned. She was quiet and timid as well.”
“The Elements brought her back as what our parents had made her: The spirit of darkness, of sensitivity and humbleness. But while Nightmare Moon was the incarnate of Luna’s wrath, jealousy, hatred and sadism the elements didn't get rid of these traits. They are still in her, part of her until today. She’s got all those dark feelings in her as well as all her doubts and uncertainty. By now she just had a few years to learn to talk and to connect to modern ponies.
Celestia turned towards Twilight and looked right into her eyes. “While I am still the embodiment of sociality, it is her burden to be the epitome of loneliness. It always was.”
Twilight gasped. “You can’t really think that! Luna deserves to be loved, she deserves to have friends just as anypony else. This is not fair!”
“This is how we were made, Twilight." Celestia voice was almost begging. "Luna and I are free to do as we please and we can adjust, we can change. But changing the very essence of your being takes time. It took me almost a thousand years and nothing less than a heartbreaking tragedy just to control my arrogance.
“We have to carry this as our burden to keep harmony in this world. We are part of a bigger picture. Luna and I have to be opposites. But may our love for each other prevent us from ever being adversaries again.”
“I…" Twilight kept quiet for several seconds. "I need to think about this. I-it still isn’t fair.”
“Live isn’t always fair, Twilight. Luna and I are powerful and we are the leaders of ponykind. Still, with great power comes great responsibility and if it is our burden to keep this world in balance then we are obliged to endure it, even if it means a little sisterly strife once in a while, a straining daily routine for me or depressing loneliness for Luna. We have each other to soothe us. And we have you, Twilight, and your friends. You have given Luna her chance to change, her chance to not be lonely in all eternity. It might take a thousand years, but I’m sure she will eventually.
“The future must be a harmonious synergy between darkness and light. You wouldn’t know one without the other. You wouldn’t know happiness unless there is sadness, and you wouldn’t know friendship unless there is strife and rivalry. You wouldn’t know love unless there is hatred."
Little drops of moisture glistened in the corners of the princess's eyes. “I have to retire now. Good night my faithful student! I thank you for your concern." She mastered a warm smile for her favourite student. "You really live up to the title ‘Princess of Friendship’.”
“As you wish. Good night, Princess Celestia! Thank you for letting me know. I'll do my best for Luna.”