Princess Celestia was in her throne room as a full-grown adult, walking back and forth with a nervous look on her face all the while Twilight and her friends were out there trying to defeat Discord. The princess knew that Discord’s magic was quite strong, but she was hoping that Twilight and her friends were strong enough to resist it as she whispered to herself. “I hope they're doing ok? I’m not sure they were ready for the lord of chaos.”
“Oh princess, they're doing just fine,” The lord of chaos exclaimed as he suddenly appeared before her with an evil smirk on his face.
The princess of the sun glared back at her rival of chaos and shouted, “You! What are you doing here!”
Discord crossed his claws with a triumphant smile. “Oh, I’m already finished dealing with your precious bearers of the elements of harmony. They're tearing each other apart now, and I've won.”
The princess' eyes went wide at this, she shouted, “no, you haven’t!” She flew through the palace towards her room as Discord suddenly poofed next to her and laughed. “Seriously, what can you do now? Without the elements of harmony, there is literally nothing you can do to stop me.”
“Friendship is what’s going to defeat you, Discord!” Princess Celestia snapped back at the lord of chaos with a glare in her eyes; she wasn't going to let him win and send Equestria into a chaotic hell.
Discord scoffed at Celestia’s defiance. “You think friendship is honestly going to defeat me, you must be such a foal to believe that.” With a snap of a claw causing the princess to slowly shrink in age while her body scrunched and bloated up as she felt herself shrink to the ground below her hooves, while her mane and tail shortened and fluffed up with a pink mane and tail. She cried out as her room changed into that for a little filly’s and turned to see the closet now filled with dresses; her vanity table was smaller and designed for a filly, there was now a fluffy pink carpet across the ground. Celestia stared back at the lord of chaos and shouted, “Discord turn me back to normal!”
“Nah, I think you're a perfect age for you understand the world. Now I'm going to have some more fun with your bearers of harmony, then I'm really going to get this eternal chaotic party started!” Discord laughed maniacally and then disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Celestia cried out with tears in her eyes, looked towards her new vanity table, opened a drawer, and sighed in relief, seeing dozens of scrolls fall out. She gulped as she realized these were all of Twilight’s friendship lessons and lit her horn. “Come on, Spike, I’m going to need your help here!”
She used whatever energy she had left in her tiny body and shot a beam of energy, sending the first scroll off; she continued to shoot beams of magic one after another. Her whole body was heaving as she continued to zap the scrolls one by one until every friendship lesson Twilight sent her was gone. Celestia was heaving from exhaustion and collapsed on the ground, her horn fizzling out. “Spike...please get them to Twilight...please…”
The princess’s eyes slowly closed as darkness overtook her, and everything went black.
Celestia woke up from her nap with a start; she was shivering and scared of the dream she had. No, it was a memory of the day before and how Discord regressed her. The whole thing was still fresh, and it made her quiver as she slowly got out of bed and came to the door and knocked. “um...Mrs. Mop Bucket?”
The maid came through the door, smiled down at the filly, and asked, “Hey Celestia, did you have a nice sleep?”
“Yeah, the nap helped...but...I...I want to go down to court.” The little alicorn filly asked, looking downward.
Mop Bucket replied, “um...ok… I guess you can. But you can just observe I don't want you having to actually do anything." The maid then led the alicorn filly through the streets of Canterlot and headed towards the throne room, where a brown coated unicorn mare with gold eyes and streaks of black mane and tail tied in conservative buns. She was on the throne and holding court with nobles coming forth and dealing with their issues.
Celestia became flustered, seeing some other pony doing her job waddling over. “Hey! Quill Feather!”
The mare was surprised to see the little alicorn filly coming over and exclaimed, “oh my, Princess, didn’t your sister tell you that I was holding court and performing your duties?”
“Yeah! But I wana at least be with you and make sure you're not messing things up!” Princess Celestia shouted, running over and throwing herself on the throne and staring down at the rest of her subjects.
The nobles nearby dawwed and whispered amongst each other. “I wana snuggle her,” “so tiny,” “she’s so cute” “aww, is the wittle one mad?”
Celestia got all pouty as tears flooded her eyes as she stomped a hoof on the throne. “Stop it! I am the sun!”
Quill Feather couldn’t help but her hooves to her face and cooed, “oh so precious.”
Mop Bucket quickly came over and scolded the princess. “Princess Celestia! You can stay here but don’t interrupt Quill Feather.”
The princess plopped on her throne, grumbling under her breath as Quill Feather cleared her throat and continued the court session. Celestia did her best to pay attention to what was going on. Still, it seemed her mind constantly wandered off as she seemed unable to pay attention. She kept thinking about Discord and her friendship lessons Twilight sent her or wondering if she should’ve changed her dress. The princess must’ve fallen asleep because she was quite surprised to see Quill Feather standing over her as the unicorn asked, “um..princess? It’s um lunchtime.”
The princess alicorn blinked and asked, “huh? Is it really already noon?”
“It’s actually late in the afternoon; you were asleep for some time.” Quill Feather explained as she led Celestia away. Now the filly was feeling embarrassed, realizing she couldn’t even pay attention to the court sessions. She was placed on one of the chairs and was given a sippy cup full of juice and a daisy sandwich. The filly didn’t even complain about the sippy cup of how her sandwich was cut up in triangles seeing it was pointless to throw another tantrum. The princess simply chomped down on her food and munched through the sandwich, grumbling as she sipped her sippy cup as well. When the princess was finishing her food, she asked, “now, I know I couldn’t pay attention during court...bu...but…”
Celestia’s eyes welled up with tears and slammed her hooves on the table. “I have to be able to do something right!? Or what’s the point of me being here!”
Both Mop Bucket and Quill Feather looked at each other, not really knowing what they should do. When out of nowhere, Twilight came bursting through the front doors of the palace and rushed over. “I did it!”
Everypony there turned completely confused as Twilight looked over at them, looking quite exhausted with bags under her eyes from lack of sleep. But she gave them a smile and replied. “I spent the last two days Celestia, but I finally got the paperwork to temporarily adopt you!”
The princess of the sun was confused at her student's sudden appearance and asked, “What do you mean?”
Twilight took a few deep breaths as she continued to explain. “I'm sorry everypony, but...I...I saw what happened to Celestia yesterday and this morning. I knew the princess would be unable to perform her duties, and I can only imagine what she’s going through. Instead of having her suffer here being unable to do her duties? Why can’t she come with me to Ponyville? I can study the chaos magic used to regress her and have her enrolled in Cheerilee’s school. She can even enjoy herself among my friends.”
Celestia's eyes lit up as she thought back to her dream last night. “Yo...your right, Twilight? I...I actually wouldn’t mind that...b..but are you sure it’s ok? I mean, you're still doing your friendship studies and running a library? I don’t want to be a bur-”
Twilight rushed over and hugged the filly tightly. “It’s ok, you're not going to be a burden, ok? Please stop doing this to yourself. I can’t stand seeing you like this.”
Celestia was stunned by Twilight's embrace and nuzzled into her and whispered. “It’s ironic, you caring for me like this when I'm supposed to be your mentor.”
The other mares blushed not wanting to break up the adorable scene. Mop Bucket then came over and added, “Oh, stop it, Celestia we will do anything for you. Now, do you wish to have Twilight care for you?”
The little filly didn't even really need to think it over as she nodded yes. Quill Feather came over to the paperwork Twilight had and scrawled her name. “Ok! There you go!”
Twilight turned to Celestia as she presented her with the form. “Just need your signature too.”
Celestia blushed as she took up the quill and quivered, dropping blobs of ink on the paper and whispered, “I...I need help. I forgot how to write.”
Twilight came over and assisted in helping Celestia sign her name on the form. “They're all done, now let’s pack up some things, and we're good to go.”
The princess squealed and hugged Twilight. “Ok! Thank you, Twilight!” she then jumped off her chair and scamped to her room to pack. Mop Bucket blushed as she turned to the violet mare. “Thank you, Twilight, you're a lifesaver. I honestly was unsure of what we were going to do with Celestia moping around all the time.”
Twilight blushed, feeling a bit awkward as this whole idea kind of came out of nowhere as she replied, “It's no problem...though...I...I have no idea on how to be a parent? I just thought having Celestia be with me would help her be happier.”
Mop Bucket and Quill Feather both laughed, and the maid replied, “look, Quill Feather, and I are definitely not mother material either...honestly, I don’t have any advice for you. But good luck.”
The violet coated unicorn slammed a hoof to her face hoping she wasn’t making a big mistake.
It took almost all evening, but Celestia had all of the stuff she wanted to bring to Ponyville, all packed into dozens of suitcases. Now Celestia, Twilight, Mop Bucket, and Quill Feather had all of the princess of the sun's stuff loaded onto a trolly all ready to go. The princess herself had Philomena's cage with her, with the phoenix looking confused.
Twilight checked everything over and proclaimed. “Seems we have everything you and your phoenix need? I think we're all good to go!"
Celestia gulped as she paused she needed to do something first before she left and asked, “yeah, I believe so...but I wana wait for my sissy; she should be up soon, and I need to tell her what’s going on.”
“So Twilight got all the paperwork done? Honestly, I'm surprised she got it done so fast.” Luna yawned walking into the empty courtroom flapping out her wings clearly showing she was just getting up to perform her duties.
“You knew about this too!” Celestia cried out and ran over to her sister staring up right at her and snapped, “why did you keep this a secret from me!?”
Luna chuckled as she bent down to Celestia's level and nuzzled her sister. “I wanted to surprise you, I thought the paperwork would’ve taken a lot longer.”
Twilight couldn't see her mentor like this and was determined to help her in any way possible and scoffed, “I wasn’t going to leave Celestia like this for a week! But it was a lot of red tape to get princess Celestia to be adopted by me. But anyways, technically, I'm her guardian now!”
Princess Celestia tears welled up in her eyes seeing all of these ponies doing so much for her and burst out crying. “You guys! You all care so much for me! I don't deserve this!”
Luna rolled her eyes and replied sarcastically. “Oh, sister, you’re overdramatic.” She then brought out a small cake. Celestia's eyes lit up, seeing the small cake had little candied suns and her cutie mark in the middle with pasty white frosting with pink icing surrounding the outside of it.
“Wow, you baked this for me!” Celestia cheered, taking the cake with her mouth-watering, wanting to dig into it. Luna couldn’t help but laugh, “oh, of course!? It’ll be great to eat while on the train ride to Ponyville.”
The princess placed the cake on top of the rest of her luggage. Celestia then got a bit sad, seeing she won’t be around her sister as much, and quivered a bit as she stared back up at Luna and asked, “um, Luna, you will come to visit, right?”
“Of course, sister, I will come by every night to check on you, ok?” The princess of the night whispered as she nuzzled her sister’s mane once more than kissed her on the cheek.
Twilight slowly trotted over to Celestia’s side, seeing that she had said her goodbyes and the fact they had to make the last train to Ponyville she asked her mentor. “Alright, you ready to go?”
“Yeah, mo- I mean, Twilight!” The princess chirped out with sweat pouring down her face making Twilight also blushed, feeling awkward at Celestia’s response. Soon Twilight was leading the princess of the sun to the train station as Celestia thought to herself. “See, Discord, you're wrong; friendship is an amazing thing, and I can’t wait to see what adventures I'll have in Ponyville.