If somepony she loved -- no, more than that: if somepony she utterly trusted had asked Celestia what she truly thought about Hearth's Warming Eve -- she might have started by talking about the play.
There was a certain theatrical production. The only play which was performed on the holiday, by tradition. (Celestia had to call it a play because that was a word which suggested fiction. Hearing anypony describe it as a faithful reproduction of historical events was one of the surest paths to the most soundproofed part of the palace, because she would need somewhere to scream.) It took dozens of stages hostage every year, and a Princess Box would be reserved for her at the Canterlot production. She was expected to occupy it, because that was one of the ways her nation knew that the holiday was truly under way.
The play was eight hundred and forty-three years old, because it had taken a few centuries for ponies to lie up the original script. If all of the actors were hitting their cues exactly (something which hardly ever happened), then it took ninety-five minutes to perform.
Ninety-five minutes.
Every year.
For eight hundred and forty-three years.
Add a few minutes here and there. Fumbled lines, ponies desperately trying not to be caught looking at the prompt box. Background paintings which had their hauling lines snag. Wardrobe malfunctions: the existence of the Princess Platinum character just about guaranteed one or more per decade.
Round off and, just for safety, round up.
Fifty-eight days.
She had spent just over two moons in watching the exact same play.
About an hour after one particular group of nervous amateurs had taken their foreknee bends and departed the stage, Celestia had finally realized that she'd asked the Bearers to perform for the same reason she'd requested that Spike serve as narrator: because given the natural proclivities of the full group added to the presence of a young dragon, there had seemed to be a good chance of seeing the entire thing set on fire.
"They're ready," Sunspot announced as the speckled head poked through the small gap between the partially-opened doors of the Sunrise Gate. "The line's as organized as it's going to be."
He sounded enthusiastic. He was allowed to be, because it was his first year. Having Sunspot there was as good a way as any for Celestia to eventually distinguish the current year from all of the others.
Admittedly, there had been more changes of late than simply having a rather young Guard keeping an eye on the line. But she'd almost always spent this part of the season alone, and for this day -- a hard-kicked square on the calendar six spaces before the actual holiday, because so many ponies spent Hearth's Warming Eve with their families and she never wanted to interfere with that -- that state had maintained.
She nodded, from her place at the high end of the ramp leading up to the Solar throne. A nod sufficed, and lined up nicely with the centuries of nods which had come before.
"We've inspected all of it for magic," he added. "There's a few spells here and there." The Guard snorted. "Which I'm being told are home-cast, because anything else would break the rules. Even when the pony who's carrying it is the wrong species for --"
"-- mixed families. Friends who were willing to help," she said, because there were times when it was true, and others where the slick coating which built up on foul words over the years helped to grease the lie. "But you've verified there's nothing dangerous."
"Fully," the young Guard told her -- then, with a little more speed and joy, "Princess, nearly all of them are excited! Some of them can barely hold still!" With a small frown. "And some of them aren't moving. Just looking at their boxes, over and over. But I guess it's natural to be worried, when it's the first time."
"It's just about everypony's first time," she gently told him. "You're not allowed to put your name in more than once every ten years, and given the odds..."
There might still be returning ponies. A parent can't submit twice in that period, but their child could. They'd just come along.
A few manage to win twice. The honest record was five. She announced herself from the second time on, because she was so proud of her fortune. On the last visit, her great-grandfoal had to help her in. Then he had to speak for her. Then when he won twenty-three years later, he asked if I remembered her. I told him I did. It was the truth. Three hours later, it was the truth.
Somepony will subvert the whole process, because that happens every year.
And I'll see somepony I know. Somepony I love. I'll start to get up from the throne, because it's been so long and I need to reach them. And then I'll see that they're a little too small, or the snout is slightly long with the fur off by two tiny shades.
"And can you smell what it's like outside?" the young stallion enthusiastically asked. "It's incredible! -- well, most of it is, but still...!"
She could. Her position was just about completely still on the throne, which just went to show how little movement was created by a stomach which was trying to freeroll.
"Did everypony make it?" Because there was always the chance for somepony to have missed a train. Found the need to work extra hours. On the far end of the non-disasters she preferred to imagine for absences, there was theoretically a chance for somepony to have transformed into the next Solar Princess and then they could go through the torment.
"Two hundred winning postcards," the Guard smiled. "All accounted for."
Her small intestine (which also knew what was coming) attempted to execute a Rainboom, and very nearly made it.
"Then let's get started," Celestia offered, and the speckled head withdrew. About to tell the first lucky recipient that she was ready, because it was a day for lies. Even the ones ponies didn't know they were telling. And every falsehood would be one she'd heard before.
Words echoed.
On the worst days, so did faces.
This was the first pony and for the way she'd chosen to show her love, also somewhere around the nine thousandth.
It was a fairly young light green pegasus mare. Perhaps two years removed from secondary school, with a carefully-wrapped box precisely balanced in the small of her back. There was also a ribbon. There was almost more ribbon than box, because there was a limit placed upon the contents, but Celestia had never gotten around to writing up anything about ribbons.
"I... I just..." was a fairly common opening stammer.
Celestia smiled. Inhaled, identified the scent rising from the box, and her saliva glands took their annual opportunity to not respond.
"It's all right," she gently said. "You're here. You won. And I'm glad to see you."
"I'm..." The mare needed a moment to remember. "...Gracenote."
Which went nicely with the composer's icon on her flanks, and also explained so much about the smell. "You have a Cameo Cumulus accent," Celestia noted. "It's a long way to travel." The west coast, which had given the smell some time to work on things...
"I won," the mare eventually managed to breathe. "I couldn't not come. I can get home in time. And I thought about it -- about what you might like, and I..."
She knew. And because she loved so many of them, she waited anyway.
"...I heard you liked..." Her head awkwardly tilted back, and blue eyes failed to find a good angle on the little burden. "...you can just take it, if you want... please, oh please try one, I just want to -- I need to know if I..."
Celestia's corona ignited. Sunlight flowed forward, took custody and carefully untied the ribbon.
She could have played something for me. An original creation. I would have welcomed that.
"...they have chocolate," Gracenote said as the lid came off. "Do you like chocolate?"
She liked chocolate when it had been put into a cookie by somepony who hadn't been carrying it on a train for at least four days. The creator having tried to bake something for the second time in her life also might have provided some small assistance to the smell.
"Yes."
She levitated the cookie towards her mouth. Most of her digestive system made a break for it and found there was nowhere to go.
Eventually, swallowing happened.
"So tell me about yourself?" she said, once there was enough moisture in her throat (and in the world, as the cookie was dry enough to negate most of it) to allow speech again. "If you want to."
"But there's ponies behind me..."
The sleek head twitched back towards a saddlebag.
"I wrote it on the card," Gracenote eventually tried to say, luckily doing so to somepony who had extensive experience in translating from the Mouthful Of Envelope. "I brought a card."
If she'd had somepony to speak with about all of it (and there was somepony, but she hadn't brought this up because she'd suspected the other party would just see it as a warped form of encouragement towards trying it out), she would have probably started by talking about carols. The first time you heard them was just that: the first time. You would eventually come to pick your favorites, and there would probably be a few which the listener would rather avoid. But as the pre-holiday season wore on, you might start to realize that just about nopony was singing anything else. Every store was playing identical records on their gramophones. The same old standards, over and over, and if a year came along where something new managed to work its way into the catalog -- well, then you had, in Celestia's experience, about thirty renditions before New became Same Old. By the day before the holiday itself, ears would be flattening at the first hint of a note, and the morning after was generally reserved for playing Anything Else because you finally could.
And about twelve moons later, the whole thing would start all over again.
Take that emotion: the inner illness which arose in the face of unstoppable, seemingly endless repetition. View it through a lens fine-ground by the lathe of something more than a millennium.
Magnify it.
Celestia could, if pressed, come up with a reason to loathe every major holiday. Lambvent? The spring festival was about the renewal of the world, the beginnings of new life, and when it came to the continent's most adorable inspirational bundles of newborn heartbeats and sweet breath, she had the option of going to them, looking down upon soft faces, and telling them that they would live forever. They would believe it, because they were lambs. Their parents would also believe it, because she would be saying it with authority and sheep preferred the most recent sincere-sounding voice to the effort required for personal thought. And in time, the universe would prove the lie. Again and again.
Homecoming? Some ponies crossed the whole of Equestria just before the holiday meant for reunions. Others had to move over multiple borders. They did whatever it took, because it was about family. For centuries, Celestia had quietly arranged an hour for herself, then teleported to a lonely piece of ground which meant nothing to anypony else in the world and... stood there for a while. Her own tradition. Something which had recently... well, the experience wasn't much better with company, but what came after had definitely improved.
Nightmare Night? By the time she'd fully understood how the holiday was evolving, it was too late to stop it. She'd spent so much time dreading the reaction which was sure to come (if only it did come, if only somepony was there to react at all) when its unwilling subject recognized what had happened, but...
...actually, she didn't hate Nightmare Night quite as much now.
If she wanted hate, she just needed the holiday meant for love. In Celestia's experience, pony sexuality had several well-defined stages: Nascent, Experimental, and I Could Totally Get A Princess If I Just Tried. Hearts And Hooves Day was when ponies of a certain age would send her letters. This usually happened during the years when the writers had overheard some of the vocabulary, but weren't entirely sure what the bulk of it meant, where the commas were supposed to go, or whether there was a point at which certain words transmuted from erotic to comedic: for 'thrust', the line had been established at two. A number of such one-way correspondents had approached her after time, a few relationships, and a potential need to clear their ledger had set in. All of them had asked what had become of their letters (at least once the blaze of blush had heated the words enough to let them emerge as terrified steam), and just about everypony had been happy to hear that the Official Record had been burned.
But for Hearth's Warming Eve...
She would meet with the few true friends she found in any generation after the holiday, because she didn't want to take them away from the real celebrations. It would be a fairly private exchange, and she always tried to put true thought into whatever she gave. Enough that, at the minimum, she wasn't repeating herself more than twice per century. Employees of the palace eventually learned that the little holiday bonuses required nothing in the way of a return gesture, although some had to learn it eight times. However, with the population...
Celestia had gone through a few policies. The first had seen the palace announce 'She doesn't want anything.' It had worked perfectly. If the goal had been to have most of a nation collectively decide that their Princess was lonely, deserving of endless pity, and just needed that one ideal item to make her feel better, then there was no way to describe the results other than 'perfect'. Unless, of course, you preferred terms like 'entire palace rooms filling up with boxes, flooded postal system, some of this already went stale, and I think I just invented regifting,' if only in the name of accuracy.
The next official, very short-lived policy had been to ask ponies to just make a donation to her favorite charity. Which of course had required her to pick a favorite charity. That charity had done very well for itself in the policy's single year, largely because the majority of the population didn't bother donating to anything else.
After the Great Budget Donation Shortage Make-Up Scramble Of 395 had finally collapsed into both history and advanced calculus, she'd worked out what had eventually become the current system. Every year, there would be two hundred ponies bringing their gifts. They had to win the honor, and the only way to do that was to send the palace a postcard which had been stamped in the first moon after the last Hearth's Warming Eve. The winners were pulled by random draw, notified in the spring with stationery which was watermarked for this alone, and so had several moons to sweat out exactly what they were bringing.
The choice of gift wasn't a simple one. Ponies lost sleep in trying to make the decision, especially when there was a limit of five bits for any purchase. But there were a few loopholes in that, and one was almost official: they were allowed to create something, because hoofmade (mouthmade, corona-arranged) could be best.
That was the most frequent violation. With some of the others...
Celestia looked down at the elaborate brocade. Noted the fine lines of gold and silver wire which had been sewn into the rich fabric, then admired the design. It was possible to spend hours in following the elaborate curves of the design, and the presence of the other ponies in the line outside the Solar throne room meant she had about three minutes.
In terms of time, she didn't have much available for brocade appreciation. The question took priority.
"Five bits?"
It was a gentle sort of inquiry. Long hours of practice had made it so, and the mauve earth pony still managed to break into the sort of instant full-body sweat which was about two seconds away from froth.
"...four and twenty smidgens," he badly lied.
She looked at the wire again. He managed to blink enough salt away from his eyes to notice.
"I'm a miner," declared the pony, thus successfully ignoring the mark which declared a life spent in high-end home sales. The resulting migraine generally waited until the liar cleared the doors.
She went back to openly admiring the fabric's design.
"I also sew on the side."
You had to admire the design, especially once you'd recognized the style which identified the world-renowned artist who'd been involved and remembered what the commission rates looked like. The last part could take a while, as the pony brain tended to balk in the presence of that many digits.
"But... um..."
He had previously been sporting the kind of sweat which was two seconds away from froth. He now had the kind of froth in his coat which was five minutes away from death.
"...I did ask an old friend for a little help with the pattern...?"
Eventually, she called in the Guards, because the emergency hydration station was just outside the Sunset Gate and there were still three open bunks.
The next stallion brought cake. He claimed it was homemade, and there was a tiny chance that he was telling the truth because it wasn't necessarily his home. It was a wonderful cake. It was moist, rich, and had the sort of texture where you almost felt completely full after two bites.
It was also the sixth one.
Good intentions. She had spent the bulk of her life in trying to lead a nation where so many of the citizens were working with good intentions.
Imagine the wild tangle of designated air paths which lace the atmosphere over and around Cloudsdale. There's a speed limit for flight which takes place in such paths, because there's so many pegasi using them and the rule is present to try and prevent accidents. And here we have a stallion who's trying to reach the hospital, because he just got word that his spouse is giving birth and he needs to get there in time to greet his foal. Well, that's excusable, isn't it? His intentions are certainly good. And you could almost say the same for the youth who thinks that this is a good place to see if he can manage that quick position shift, the one he's never pulled off before. (You could almost say it, but you don't need to because he's already said that to himself.) And here we have the courier trying to make a fast delivery and earn a good tip, the mare who's afraid that she'll be a little late to work, they all have good intentions and they're about to have the chance to discuss them with each other because when you're waiting for somepony to get all of you out of the post-crash pile, you might as well talk about something.
They wanted to make her happy with their gifts. Most of them would only get one opportunity to give her anything, and they wanted to express their gratitude for a world which continued to exist because there was a Sun which arrived on schedule. They wanted to show appreciation, to grant her a token of something very much like love.
On a very real level, some of them wanted to pay her back. (None of them ever seemed to view their taxes in that regard.)
There were rules. They recognized that. But their intentions were good, weren't they? All they wanted to do was make her happy...
This? Yes, it was five bits. It was being sold on deep discount. The store was going out of business. The mare got it at a stable sale and the last owner didn't know what they had, the mare didn't know either until she started thinking about what she could give a Princess and then she went to an appraiser, but since she originally paid a mere five bits for it...
Oh, this? It was made by hoof, so there was no labor cost involved. You can't charge for a labor of love. And the materials were gathered by mouth, and the seeds were combed out one by one, and then the threads were drawn fine and the dyes are just natural materials, so really, when you consider that everything was available in the wild, the fact that the pony had to venture deep into the wilderness just to find the place where that one flower grows is incidental. Because that was the perfect purple, and the fact that the flower is usually found near that one monster who needs to eat the blooms once a month? Don't worry, because the gift's creator timed it perfectly! -- oh, the bandages? Stumbled getting off the train.
Er. This? Well, there's a fashion in gifts this year. Certainly a Princess has heard about it... right? Please -- oh, good. So you know. About scented candles? Um. Anyway, they're really personal, if you make them properly. I wanted this one to help you think of me when you burn it. And since I operate a really large area for hosting tenant species -- oh? Pigs, mostly. I think I got that into the candle. Err... has anypony else brought in candles?
And they did it all because they loved her.
...mostly.
"Princess!" Wordia Spinner smiled as she cleared the doors, corona-held box bobbing along behind her . Wordia often smiled in Celestia's presence, generally because the lead reporter for the most dedicated anti-Diarchy newspaper in the capital had just thought of a way to twist a sentence which could be safely placed under the protective umbrella of Opinion, which was certainly nowhere near the acid-splattering downpour of Propaganda. "Isn't this just lucky?"
There was something special about Wordia's smile. It went a little further around her head than that of the average pony, it had a unique way of thinning her lips, and it took most observers about three minutes before they stopped hunting for the points on her teeth.
For a given type of luck. "Ms. Spinner," Celestia greeted her opponent, and momentarily focused on the pony coming in behind her. "And company, I see." Company which was carrying a camera and present for professional reasons only, because Wordia didn't always work alone and in Celestia's somewhat biased opinion, had very low odds on ever going to 'Mrs.'
Two Guards followed the pair in. Most ponies got to meet Celestia in privacy after their gifts were designated as safe, but this was Wordia.
"Oh, we just wanted to put this on the record," Wordia smiled. "Because who could imagine that the Canterlot Tattler would be giving Princess Celestia something for the holiday? It's a front-page story for sure! Just beating the odds..."
Your publisher has every pony in his employ submit a postcard every year. Also, everypony in their families who's willing to go along with it, their children if they're old enough, I think he may be having a few entries sent from the higher class of cemetery and should anything in that little flood somehow emerge because he knows I have to keep the draw honest, he gives instructions to claim that pony is sick and, as per the rules, is sending a designated representative. He finally got the win this year, and told you that it was your jackpot.
You know what all the rules are. You know the gift was inspected. Checked for magic, and so much else. But you always have a plan, and you're going to make this work for you.
There's just one problem.
"Long odds indeed," Celestia pleasantly agreed. "So, Wordia -- a moment of honesty. Is this from you alone, or did the Tattler staff help you decide on something appropriate?"
"The Tattler." The mare tossed white mane and tail with delight, and Celestia watched as the long falls came to rest on the only side they ever fell on. "Because the idea from a group can be so much better than a concept from just one pony! Or two. Especially when it's always the same pony and the same idea, year after year after -- anyway, I needed the help! You're just so hard to shop for! Because everypony does baked goods, don't they? You're famous for baked goods, and I guess being the biggest pony anywhere just helps you consume more of them. Which accounts for most of --"
Wordia paused, then casually shrugged.
"-- anyway, it's always baked goods! Except this year, when it's always candles." She sniffed the air. "You're definitely getting candles."
"Twenty-eight so far," Celestia admitted.
"They don't mix well, do they? One by themselves is fine, but..."
Celestia said nothing to that one, largely because not speaking was a very good way to continue holding her breath.
"But don't worry! It's not a candle! Or baked goods." The rather large box was now floating towards Celestia. "We wanted to give you something more personal. Because you are the largest pony in the world!"
One section of red corona retreated from a corner. Celestia used it as a point from which to take custody, being very careful not to make contact with any portion of Wordia's energies. You couldn't wash your own corona. She'd tried.
"And so little fits you! Benches! Doorways! Quite a few houses! Well, it's natural that nopony makes much of anything for your size, when it's a singular size. For a singular pony. Some might say frea -- but not us! And we wanted to help!"
Sunlight reluctantly prodded, and the box opened. One more flicker of yellow delved within, and something failed to come out.
Celestia repressed both blink and frown. Tried again, failed, realized what was going on, and simply tilted the box so that the contents slid out to coat the throne's upper base.
Nearly thirteen centuries of existence sized up what had emerged. Turned it, examined the results from multiple angles, compared it to all which had come before and, after some thought regarding an appropriate description, decided to keep going with 'something.'
There was part of her which would have normally welcomed something new into the world. There was also a rather larger portion planning to send an inspection team up to the Rainbow Factory to check for any potential toxic runoff, because that felt like the most likely explanation for the existence of anti-colors. The fabric could probably be explained by any previously-unknown monster species with a tendency to shed or, given the way the texture was prickling against her corona, an equal tendency to rip out its own fur as a final means of escape. All patterns in the fabric could then be accounted for through having them created by whoever had gathered that fur, as the monster was clearly hideous enough to drive any observer insane.
There were a few gaps in the result, or possibly in reality. It was possible to see marble through one of the largest, and so it was also possible to see stone trying to itch.
"It's a Hearth's Warming sweater!" Wordia beamed. "In your size! You wouldn't believe how much trouble we went to, getting your actual measurements. You'd think the numbers were a national secret. Which they aren't, so publishing them tomorrow is just a matter of helping you get more clothing next year! Anyway, a sweater, Princess! For a pony who's strangely never cold, and so just doesn't know the joy of wearing one!"
The smile somehow got wider.
"As you would try any cake," the reporter said, "or sniff any candle, the Tattler asks that you try it on. So we can make sure it fits. And of course, to get a picture. For the record."
The death penalty has been abolished.
The death penalty has been abolished.
The death penalty has been abolished.
"You'll need to give me a minute," Celestia declared as she carefully stood up. "As my corona doesn't seem to be lifting this. You used a securing enchantment?"
"Of course! Making sure nopony could move it by telekinesis except a member of the Tattler's staff! We didn't want it stolen -- oh, no... we forgot to take the spell off before we packaged it, didn't we? Well, I'm sure somepony in the palace will be able to break the effect! Eventually."
Which meant she had to put it on by...
...it had a taste, oh dear Sun there was a taste and it was coating her tongue...
...there was a certain problem with a unicorn who was trying to put on a sweater. Even when compared to her overall size, hers was longer than the usual expectation and kept getting snagged. But at least a unicorn trying to put a sweater without benefit of corona didn't have to worry about getting the wings lined up. She did.
Her fur made contact with the fabric and tried to retreat inside her skin. This allowed for skin contact, which was probably why that level of fully-ineffective biological armor decided it was actually part of a dragon and tried to shed itself. Then again, there seemed to be a good chance that some unknown chemical reaction was currently turning her skin into scales, so it was possible that her body had the right of it. Also the redness, and the itching.
There's itching.
...no. This is beyond itching.
I have just identified individual cells. And they are trying to get away from each other.
The photographer took the picture. It required six attempts. Three of them were obvious attempts to keep Celestia in the garment all the longer, but two saw smoke emerging from the camera and created the question as to whether the film was trying to commit suicide.
"And thank you, Princess!" Wordia gushed. "From the Tattler and all of its loyal readers! Loyal to us, I mean. I promise you the front page tomorrow! Possibly in color!"
"You can render ink in that color?" felt like a legitimate question.
"We'll find out! Anyway --"
"-- Wordia?"
Celestia smiled.
The problem is that I knew you were coming.
The unicorn mare, who'd just been starting to turn, spotted that smile. It was a warm smile. It was sincere, gentle, and probably wouldn't have made any other pony in the world freeze in place.
"...Princess?"
"I do get a list of the winner's names. Or in your case, the name of the mare who's coming in on their behalf, since they happened to fall ill. As the palace has to run a minor background check on everypony involved."
"...well, yes," the reporter managed. "But obviously you came to the sensible conclusion that the Tattler is no threat --"
"-- and because I knew you were coming," Celestia smiled, "and we just never see each other like this, on this of all days... I got you something."
The red eyes eventually managed the blink.
"Me," emerged without company.
"Yes."
Sunlight flowed backwards. Delved behind the throne for a moment, and brought forth a beautiful crystal vial.
"It's perfume," Celestia gently explained. "Gathered from one of the rarest blooms in the world. And when I thought about that plant, and all it represents..."
Oddly-flickering red shakily shifted forward. Celestia carefully transferred custody to the new, reluctant grip.
"...I thought of you."
The reporter brought the airtight vial to within a few hoofwidths of her snout.
"One of the rarest blooms," she repeated.
"Most ponies never manage to approach it once in their lives." She casually inclined her horn towards the vial. "So as I would try any gifted cake, candle, or sweater..."
The unicorn didn't swallow. It was very easy to see her not swallowing, in exactly the same manner in which she wasn't looking at the Guards.
"Go ahead," Celestia gently encouraged. "Put some on."
The red corona flickered again. Twisted the cap.
Both Guards took a step back. The photographer made an outright break for it, and the camera knocked into the left door twice before he got it clear. And Wordia slowly, shakily, with eyes blazing eternal loathing, brought the open vial closer to her own vibrating fur.
"You're very lucky, you know," Celestia told her. "Most ponies never get to experience corpse flower."
The sweater would need a new means of disposal, as Celestia wasn't sure what would happen if anything involved came into contact with flame. But for what had happened, for the overall tone and feel...
There had always been those who had tried to use the gifting ceremony to reach her. To show displeasure. She'd had to limit it to Equestrian citizens after one event, the background checks had come in after another, it had been her fifth vial of gifted perfume, and...
...time echoed.
This stood in opposition to the pastries. The pastries mostly went thud. Once each.
She had to have a source of pleasure: she needed one thing she could indulge in, an outlet through which to channel so many appetites, or she was convinced she would have gone mad centuries ago. Baked goods were it. Everypony knew how much she loved them, and so many tried to use them as their gifts. Some were less than expert. Others proved that love might add its own flavor to any recipe, but love mostly tasted like an excess of baking soda. And even when the pony knew what they were doing...
Marzipan was a treat. It met the tongue as fluff, descended into the throat as air, and then sat in the stomach with the approximate density of steel. Metal which had company coming over, and hadn't planned sleeping space for the entire party.
She had once spent a day in the company of a rather surprised competitive eater, asking them for all of their secrets. Unfortunately, quite a bit of it turned out to be in training the body, and an alicorn's form was like nothing else in the world. Hers just wouldn't take to the methodology. And she'd tried so many tricks, but teleporting food away could only be done before it entered her mouth and everypony spotted the flash. Rendering everything into ash on her tongue was easier, but it left her swallowing ash.
There were baked goods, and she had to sample all of them. After a while, it felt like her stomach was becoming visibly distended, just before it seemed as if green had to be rising within the undercoat of the white. And there were times when she wanted to burn off the calories with a burn, but any heat had nowhere to go and at any rate, her body could only digest food so quickly. Nowhere near as quickly as she was taking it in.
She smiled, and she thanked her citizens, and she kept waiting for the next swallowed bite to hit a logjam about halfway down. Every so often, she considered the design concept of the vomitorium, which in true definition just gave her a fast route to the nearest restroom and in reality, suggested what was probably going to be happening in a few hours. The followup option was the restroom's continual-flow trench. She had an annual meeting with that trench and it usually led to the next double-definition, which had been cruelly placed on 'continual flow.'
They were all things which had happened before. It felt as if they would all happen again, without end.
And that wasn't even the worst of it.
Sunlight rotated the little world.
On the outside, it was an egg with a silver spire sticking out on each side, so that it could be carefully balanced across raised hooves. Crystalline without being crystal, with little jewels here and there. Fragile. It looked as if it would break under the force of too much attention, and it also seemed as if that process had already begun because there was a little hole. But when you used that gap to look inside...
Celestia stared at the tiny mountain. The snow perpetually drifting down upon the miniature castle. It was just barely possible to make out the flags.
Her corona set the egg down on a cushion. Carefully. And then she looked at the faintly-vibrating little blue unicorn mare who was just barely holding her ground at the base of the ramp.
"There's no lie you could tell," Celestia gently said. "Nopony sells these without knowing what they have. Nopony can make them, not in this generation. The last caster for this spell died a hundred and ninety-three years ago, and I know what that mark looks like. You don't have it, Miss Saga. And you know I can't accept this."
"...it..." The vibration was getting faster. "...it didn't cost me anything. I swear..."
"How?"
"...I inherited it. My mother... last year, she... the disease, it..."
Celestia stood up. Slowly came down the ramp, and the little blue mare backed up to create room.
The largest pony on the world slowly sunk to the floor. Inclined her head towards the now much more level mare, and offered a curling wing.
Eventually, the little unicorn sniffled one last time, and looked up from the shield of welcoming feathers.
"...I'm sorry."
"It's worth thousands," Celestia softly told her. "More, to the right buyer."
"It isn't worth anything. It just... it just reminds me of her constantly, and I don't want to look at it, and she never would have wanted me to sell it, and... it's so fragile, I'm afraid I'm going to break it all the time, if it's gone that's the last of her and..."
The wet eyes blinked a few times.
"...if I give it to you... it's safe. It's -- forever..."
She let the mare take all the time which was required, because the world outside needed to wait. She made sure Saga left with company, and that the Guard would bring her all the way home, with careful instructions to sneak the voucher for the egg's full value into a place where the little unicorn wouldn't see it for a few days. And then she left the throne room just long enough for a special trip.
The egg shone in the lights over the newest, highest shelf. Reflected its beauty onto ancient pieces of artisanal clockwork, singular sculptures, masterwork paintings, multicolored blankets woven from the deepest of devotion, well-polished cookware which hadn't hosted recipes in generations, and a number of jars which held the last preserved lengths of mane from the lost. Along with all the myriad occupants of the two hundred and ninety-eight other shelves.
Forever.
The two hundredth pony left, and it was only then that Celestia allowed herself to burp. She hadn't been able to master the tricks of competitive eating: she suspected it had something to do with the banding of muscle around an alicorn's barrel. But at least she'd figured out how to delay burps.
(That had taken a while. At one point, she'd even tried to figure out a spell for it, even knowing the risk which came when applying magic directly to biology. She still thought she'd been doing famously, right up until the moment the effect wore off. Or rather, ten minutes after, while trying to sell her lie to the Guards as to how all of those windows had really been blown out.)
There was a certain scent of pastry in the air. All kinds of pastry, which really wasn't going well with the assortment of candles. She was no longer certain what most of the candle scents were supposed to be, unless the intent had been 'swamp'. Also, there might still be some corpse flower in the air. Or her stomach. One of those, except that when compared to all the pastry, corpse flower might be an improvement.
She didn't want to get up just yet, or too quickly when she did make the attempt. Experience told her she wouldn't actually explode, but the sudden sensation of a potential outgoing high-pressure jet was a possibility. If so, she would be teleporting, and that was enough of a jolt on the body that she would get about half a second to aim.
Every year.
It was as if she could actually hear her digestive system creaking under the strain -- no, that was coming from outside the doors, she was almost sure of that even with pastry clogging her ears --
-- the doors opened.
The second thing she saw was the tow ropes, and following them backwards brought her to the box. It was nearly her own height in every direction, mostly plain metal, hinged to fall open at the front and that was why the ropes were so long: to keep that future opening panel from accidentally hitting those who were hauling the box along on a wheeled wooden pallet.
The second thing was the ropes. The third was the box. The first was the ponies towing it.
Two of them weren't built for heavy labor. Another pair was trying to compensate for their sweating companions, one was pushing herself along with surprising strength, the sixth was only on the floor part of the time and so kept messing up the group's pull angles, and the little dragon was sitting on top of the box.
She just looked at them for a long moment. Her student couldn't quite manage to look back.
"I kept count," she told them. "I also have a list of names. There's been two hundred ponies. Even if I somehow missed one, there's a limit of one companion per presenter, unless those accompanying are parents. And for some reason, I doubt you honestly came by this many winning postcards. Plus anything which fits in that box clearly costs more than five bits."
They were mostly looking at the floor now. Twilight seemed to be staring through it.
Celestia sighed. "I'm not trying to dismiss you," she told the group. "But this... it isn't a good time. I need a few minutes to myself, possibly very soon, and maybe after that, we can talk about --"
"...um," Fluttershy said, and that was enough to fully acquire Celestia's attention because Fluttershy had been the first to speak. "Um..."
The caretaker vanished behind her own mane. The apprentice baker took over.
"We got you something! I mean, we got it a while back. Did you ever get something and not realize it was meant for somepony for a really really long time? You just have it on the floor, or in a closet, and maybe you look at it once in a while and think that you need to do something with it, but you don't because you're not sure where it goes. Or maybe you know exactly where it goes, but it went there already. You just didn't know it was a gift..."
She winced.
"I should probably stop now," Pinkie decided. "Or fifty words ago. One of those."
Twilight managed to raise her head.
"It's a gift," she said. "That's the heart of it. From us to you."
"All of us," Spike firmly declared. "Even if I didn't get to help pick it out --"
"Everypony," Celestia wearily cut in. She knew she sounded weary. She was also fairly sure she sounded patient: she just didn't know how much of that she had left. "Please --"
"No." And then all of her attention was focused on Rainbow. "We have to do this. We have to do it now."
"It is," Rarity stated, "our gift. As Pinkie said, we didn't know that at the time. But we are formally presenting it to you now. And you cannot return it."
"Or exchange," Applejack added. "Can't do that neither. Gotta take it as-is."
Designer and farmer exchanged a glance.
"Regardless of how tempting the thought might be," Rarity reluctantly added.
"Oh, yeah," Applejack softly groaned. "Had that one a few times. A day. An hour..."
Both mares sighed. Celestia simply stared.
"We each have one," Rarity announced through her own wince. "I recall inquiring about sending mine back at least once."
"But we were talking," came from the librarian as the smallest pony met Celestia's eyes. "And... it's the same every year, isn't it? You in this room. The gifts. Probably the same gifts, only from different ponies. And we got you something, but we didn't know we were getting it. I've never had one."
"You," Spike firmly said, "got a pretty good gift. You opened it yourself."
The little mare smiled.
"...yeah. Anyway, we didn't spend anything. Just a little time, and..."
All of them looked at the box.
"...it's for you," Fluttershy whispered. "It's just what you always wanted..."
They shifted their bodies out of the harnesses, stepped away. The front panel dropped.
And then Celestia was standing. Without pain, without nausea, as if there was no weight within her at all. Wings flaring, all the better to close in as that which had been within the box came out, she had to get there as quickly as possible because sometimes things did change and the old became the new.
She nuzzled what had emerged, uncaring about witnesses who were only beaming with pride and reflected joy. Because they were right. No cost in bits at all. Simply time, endless time, added to what had been a dwindling supply of hope.
"They thought," the gift whispered to her, "that they should grant you a sister."
White fur continued to nuzzle against dark blue, and the same could be said going the other way.
There were words unsaid at that moment, and the elder heard them perfectly.
"I must be exhausted," Celestia half-whispered back. "I should have realized what they meant. Where did you even hide the box? I had no idea you were setting this up..."
"Yes." It was just possible for a sibling with centuries of experience to spot the faint signs of Luna's blush. "Well, some plans need to be launched well in advance of the actual event. Is the gift acceptable?"
Somepony she knew. Somepony she loved.
"Forever."
Eventually, they separated, if only physically. Looked around.
"All right," Celestia decided. "I do need a moment to myself. After that, we can all go to the kitchens and get a snack." Which was when most of the weight came back. "...actually, I may just have a little water. We'll talk about this there, and I promise to show proper gratitude for such a thoughtful gift. But before I get back?" A half-tangible tail twitched in the approximate direction of several scent-leaking boxes. "Feel free to sort through the pastries. And as extremely partial payment for services rendered, feel even more free to take some of the better ones with you. Please."
"Some plans need to be launched well in advance of the actual event."
She didn't really perceive her sister's statement as wisdom, because it was something Celestia had known about for centuries. One of the few ongoing true advantages of her lifespan was that it occasionally allowed her to engage in truly long-term planning. Luna's return was perhaps the single most successful demonstration of that -- if all the more painful for Celestia's inability to make it happen sooner.
But for this occasion... she'd had nearly a year in which to put it all together. Considering every move required for commissioning the customized item, smuggling the whole thing into the palace, scouting a route through the palace's maze of secret passages which would deliver the whole thing to an arrival point just outside the Lunar throne room while never being spotted at any point, and -- this was crucial -- choosing a few trusted members of the Solar staff to manage the actual delivery. And it all had to be done under Luna's snout, because the preparation process was the only aspect which could be considered a surprise.
Oh, her sibling would know exactly what was going on at the moment the Moonrise Gate opened: there was no way around that, because all Celestia had ideally managed to arrange -- all she had ever intended -- was the creation of a copy. It was just something she saw as necessary.
Just under a year had passed: one during which she'd had multiple opportunities to reflect on the core nature of Luna's gift. Something which arrived as a simple, unspoken statement: a phrase which required no decibels to echo in Celestia's mind, and it was an echo she welcomed all the more because of all the time in which she had been unable to hear it.
I am there for you.
That was the goal of her plan. She would duplicate her sibling's actions. Luna would immediately realize what was going on, there would be no surprise at all -- but that didn't matter. All she wanted was to see her sister's face at the moment that phrase began to echo back.
There had been just under a year in which to put it all together, because she'd known that Luna would want to try a Moon-lit version of the gift receiving. Celestia had even gently encouraged her sister to set the date a little earlier than the Solar event, just so the younger could go first. Still plenty of time, especially when measured against the scale on which some of the elder's other plans needed to reach completion. And now...
It was oddly dim in the chosen secret passage: one of the hidden corridors which Luna never had any modern reason to use, and might have even forgotten about entirely. There was enough illumination for Celestia to make her way through the space cut into arcing stone without stumbling, but... not much more, and she didn't want to risk igniting her corona lest the extra lumens shine through the edges of any hidden doorway she happened to pass. (She made an internal note to have somepony recharge the overhead enchantments.) But she knew where she was going.
Well... mostly knew. Luna's event had already been going on for hours, Celestia had wanted to appear at the very end of it, and it had put her deep under Moon. She wasn't anywhere near her best when she had to be awake at this hour, any more than her sibling was during any appearance which needed to be made at noon. She found herself having to deliberately focus her concentration, carefully managing every hoofstep as she concentrated on an internal map which seemed a little fuzzy around the edges. Still, a little more trotting, being careful to keep her hoofsteps as light as possible, and...
...there it was. The box.
...or rather, there it was: the metal floor panel resting on a wheeled pallet base, with the other panels very nearly flat around it. An unfolded cube: two thin panels going forward, one on each side and nearly touching the walls of the wide passage, and the last one was facing her, dipping down towards the stone. Almost a ramp, although she didn't trust it to take her weight.
Celestia frowned. Her instructions to the artificer had been exacting, and it had been hard enough to make contact without Luna finding out about that. She'd told the mare what she'd wanted, and while this would certainly assume the desired shape with a little work, she'd been expecting something a little more... assembled.
Actually -- how does it go together? The edges didn't look like they were designed to interlock. She couldn't make out any ropes dangling from the center of the panels and in any case, that would leave her standing motionless in the cube while holding the whole thing together with her teeth. She'd asked for a fallaway design to speed up the reveal, and this had already fallen away...
She carefully poked at the edge of the false ramp with her left forehoof. Lowered her head a little, tested the air with unlit horn --
-- ah. Yes, there was a lingering residue of magic around the open cube, along with a touch of emotional resonance: pride, most likely in hard work. Enchanted to close, then. Which would have been a fine touch, if she'd just commissioned so much as a single enchantment. And since nopony had told her how to operate them...
...no, there it was. She could just barely make it out on what would eventually be the front-facing panel. A pair of words. Griffonant, likely to cut down on the chances of somepony saying them by accident. The artificer had simply gone above and beyond, likely because Celestia had been the one doing the asking and good intentions served as an excuse for breaking the rules.
She smiled to herself. Jumped as lightly as she could, flaring her wings just enough to slow the landing because she had a few concerns about dropping all of her weight onto the floor panel and wheeled pallet at once. Made sure she was centered over the point of greatest support, and whispered "Prope."
The panels rose up around her, and did so with only the faintest hint of glow: a dark shade of corona, which made it impossible to determine the exact color in the dim light. A dual level of illumination which vanished as the roof folded over her, and the walls came together in almost total silence while she was still trying to remember what the artificer's natural hue had been. She was almost certain it had been a more colorful corona than this.
Extra help, mostly likely. Hopefully an assistant who hadn't been told what the construct was for --
-- which was when Celestia realized that she was standing in the middle of an enchanted construct. In the dark.
She didn't panic. There had been no sense of hostility to the enchantments: she never would have ventured inside otherwise. She had any number of ways out, along with staff members who knew where she'd been going and, due to the exacting schedule, would be arriving shortly. It was just a good time (and reason) to test the other half of the spell.
"Aperta."
Nothing happened. She was inside a locked cube. Still in the dark.
She still wasn't panicking: she had lived too long for that. The elder alicorn simply ignited her horn, and used the light to look around.
It was a large cube: it had to be, just to accommodate her. The panels were metal, because she'd wanted the whole thing to be solid, and none of her light seemed to be leaking through any seams. It meant she had no means of looking outside, but she also wasn't at any immediate risk of suffocation, or any risk at all: there was a new, faint breeze in the closed cube, air circling her as the oxygen renewed itself.
Pegasus techniques had been added to the construct, then. Definitely an additional hire by the commissioned artificer, because all Celestia had asked for was a few tiny holes in the roof panel. And to have the opening effect be faulty (and hadn't somepony tested it before sending the construct to the palace?) was a disappointment, but... there was no point to waiting inside a cube which wasn't going to work.
She pictured the corridor just outside the cube, locked the image into the center of her mind's eye. Her corona flared --
-- as did the metal walls.
They flared with something dark, impossible to identify exactly in the burst of light she'd just generated. And then there was a faint scent of rust, followed by her remaining exactly where she was.
Lockdown.
There was at least one extra unicorn working on the cube, and it was an effect which prevented unauthorized casters from teleporting out. It was also something which nopony would have ever managed by accident.
Fine. She still didn't panic. She simply kicked, powerful hind legs directing something more than earth pony strength at thin metal walls --
-- the CLANG! echoed for a while, and still didn't manage to outlast the vibrations which insisted on taking up residence in her hooves.
Reinforced. So now there were potentially three kinds of magic at work --
-- oh.
...a corona hue she could barely make out in the dark...
...oh no you don't. I don't care what kind of effects you put on this. There's a limit. If I'd done this to you, then you would drop the temperature in here to the point where the walls would just shatter at the lightest touch, and there's just about no magic known which could defend against that. I can just melt my way out. It'll damage the stone, but the repairs will give you something to do while we talk about your sense of humor --
"I think I see it!"
It was a familiar voice: Glimmerglow. The pegasus who was generally agreed to be the prettiest of the Solar Guards, loyal and devoted and sounding a little fuzzy herself because the mare was up way past her bedtime.
"She's already inside?" Acrolith: another Guard, present mostly because there was a certain need for hauling capacity and the four earth ponies she'd asked to accompany Glimmerglow were there to provide it. "Or are we waiting?"
"I'm in here!" Celestia quickly called out. "But it's --" and immediately swapped out a number of words "-- faulty! Evacuate the passage, quickly! I need to --"
Which was when she found out about two of the other enchantments.
The first had effectively given the cube a sort of one-way soundproofing: words would go in, but not out. The other rather chirpily said "So there you are! Shall we get under way?"
"Just hitching ourselves up to the tow ropes now, Princess!" Cliffside told the aural illusion. "We'll have you there in a few minutes!"
And that was it. She didn't need to test her corona against the cube: at this point, she knew it had been secured just as thoroughly as any hideous sweater. If it was possible to exert enough physical strength to break the metal, then she would be risking sending high-speed pieces at a Guard. Creating enough heat to melt the whole thing down was worse. And there was no point to any of it, because her weary mind listened to wheels squeaking beneath their heavy burden as she finally recognized that some plans needed to be launched well in advance of the actual event, with the pallet being unstoppably towed towards the one who had set the first part in motion more than a year ago.
It didn't change what had happened when the first box had opened. She knew the emotions of that day had been sincere, just as surely as her own rising frustration was fully pure. They loved each other. They would always love each other, and trying to make sure that each continued to love the other during the full sail across the ocean of time required the regular burning-off (or chipping away) of anything which might block that love. There were little fights, and they took place in the name of not having big ones. On occasion, a simple, brief period of raised volume would take the edge off.
She heard the last passage access panel close behind them. The weight of the Moonrise Gate made its own unique sound as those heavy ornate doors swung, and the sound which reached her after that was a familiar one. The rising babble of a very few anticipatory voices, because her temporary prison was being pulled past no line at all. The central event had ended somewhat earlier than she'd been told, and now it was down to the hostess and a few dear friends, all of whom had been in the Solar throne room roughly a year before. The chosen witnesses.
"And what could this be?" penetrated the carefully-arranged darkness.
They fought now and again, and tried to keep those battles small. There was also yelling, because they knew each other too well not to shout.
"I confess to having no concept regarding any possible contents!" lied the merriest voice in the room. "But perhaps if I begin to make open guesses, I might chance upon the answer? Let me see... is it a book? Yes, I recognize that this would represent a rather hefty specimen, but I am still trying to catch up on my reading!"
And when those venting measures failed, there were always pranks.
"Something exceptionally thick and dense would be especially suitable! One of those ongoing series where the author continues to put their old -- did I say old? Their ancient character through trials which they really should have known to avoid by now! But that still creates a series of events to follow, does it not? And when you connect enough of those events, what do they form? Everypony here knows the answer, and perhaps that is the gift!"
Years ago, she'd been granted a present. (She was doing her best to remember that, as she waited within the soon-to-be-broken dark.) Something she'd longed for across the vast majority of her life, the only thing she'd truly ever wanted, the best gift. And she cherished it, every day and, for that matter, every night. A gift which could never be exchanged. And all things considered, given everything which had needed to happen in order to receive that gift in the first place, there was no way she would ever do anything to return it.
But she was the older sister.
"Because I distinctly recall telling ponies that I was hoping to finally glimpse the world's most expansive plot!"
At the absolute minimum, she was allowed to think about it.