The fire burned low in the fireplace, bathing the room in flickering red-orange light. From where she lay, Celestia considered heaping another log on the fire--but then again, Hearth’s Warming Day was very nearly over. Perhaps it was time to just go to bed and leave the fire to go out on its own.
Except…
Celestia looked down at her daughter, and smiled. The two of them lay on the rug before the fireplace, Luster snuggled up to her mother’s side, sound asleep. Her little face, so often creased with annoyance and dismay, was smooth and peaceful now.
Celestia sighed to herself. What she wouldn’t give to keep her that way forever…
The two of them lay amongst the wreckage of what had been their Hearth’s Warming. Luster’s presents to Celestia had been modest, at best: a box of fudge from Sugarcube Corner, a postcard featuring the School of Friendship, a snowglobe of Canterlot, and the messy wreck of a knit hat that Professor Belle had encouraged her class to attempt. Celestia’s presents to Luster were modest as well--she was perfectly happy with her life as it was, thank you very much, and gifts would only be extra weight to carry back to Ponyville. Nevertheless, though they were few in number, each one was a rare and precious thing: a first-edition copy of Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Stone, signed by the author; a set of earmuffs made from winterchilla fur and enchanted with a spell of silence; and a sphere of milky quartz that would glow with dim light and hover in place on command, perfect for late-night reading. There were more, besides--fresh cookies from Hazel and Filbert, a fuzzy pink scarf from Kodiak at the ski shop, and a bag of hard candies from Lollipop, among others.
Celestia took a slow, deep breath, then let it out. She looked down at Luster again, and a little smile danced its way across her lips. It was good to see that Bobsled loved Luster almost as much as she herself did… even if it was still up in the air whether Luster would ever be able to return the favor. Celestia bent down and kissed her daughter on the forehead, then laid her head down besides hers. As they lay there, Celestia felt her heart swell within her, swell so large it almost burst. She closed her eyes, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
It was remarkable, really. She had loved thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of ponies in her time. She’d had to, to be a good Princess. She wouldn’t have been able to do all she’d had to do for her thousand-plus years if she didn’t love them. But her love had always been in the abstract: she fought and bled for her ponies, not because she knew and cared for them individually, but because they were ponies. Who else was there to care for them, if not she?
She still had that same capacity to love, of course--but now, as ex-Princess, she had only a single pony to care for. So all the love, the compassion, the worry, and the fear that she had felt for millions of ponies had condensed, had collapsed, had coalesced into a single filly--a filly that was rapidly becoming her own mare.
But that was part of the problem, wasn’t it? With her only charge growing up and heading off to school, there were precious few demands on her time. Which meant that there was little to keep her from pondering the question that had plagued her for the past fifteen years—
What in the name of Tartarus was she so afraid of?
Celestia had never considered herself a coward. A reluctant general, to be sure--especially when the creatures at the other end of the field were more ponies, the only difference between she and they was a different-colored uniform, and the only stakes for the battle were squiggles on a map. She had never seen the value in trading thousands of equine lives for the single stroke of a quill, and never would. But that didn’t make her a coward, did it? And if it didn’t, then why had fear come to define so much of her life lately?
Some anxiety was to be expected. That was what had initially driven her into hiding, when she first found she was pregnant. Celestia had built her reputation as Princess on being eternal and unchanging as the sun itself. What would happen to Equestria if they learned that Celestia herself--the one, immutable point of reference in a constantly shifting world--was with foal? And there was shame in it, too, shame that she of all ponies, supposedly the wisest being in Equestria, was carrying a bastard--and a sailor’s bastard, at that. What would that do to her incorruptible image?
But, even after Luster had been born, she still found excuses to keep herself hidden. Now that the immediate dangers had passed, she still felt no reason to return to life as a public figure, no matter how small her role. The presence of Luster could be explained, if she was forced to do so. And there was something to be said for giving her daughter as normal of a life as she could manage, given the circumstances. But Celestia had learned to value her privacy during her pregnancy--and she continued to enjoy their little measure of peace all through Luster’s foalhood. But did that really mean she needed to insulate herself so thoroughly as she did from the wider world? Very nearly become nothing but a memory, save to those few shopkeepers to whom she trusted her business?
Celestia had taken every reasonable precaution--and a few unreasonable ones--to keep the world from discovering her and her daughter. But something must have slipped out. Some paparazzo, over their years, must have snapped a photograph of the two of them--must have noticed that Celestia and Luster had the same tall, leggy build, the same wavy mane, even, in some way, the same shape to their muzzles--and put the pieces together. But the multitude she had feared would come had never yet beat its path to her door.
She had never fully understood why. Perhaps her strategizing had worked, and her fame had faded until she had become just another townie in just another ski village somewhere out west. Perhaps the press had chosen to respect her privacy, out of gratitude for what she had once been. Perhaps Destiny, Fate, The Universe, or even Harmony itself had taken a stand for the one who had stood so long at their reins. Perhaps the current Princess had put a moratorium on any such attention (and, if she had, it was a kindness Celestia did not deserve). Or maybe, just maybe, she had somehow been incredibly lucky.
But in any case, Celestia had paid a heavy price for her caution.
The outside world held no appeal for her any longer. Since she had laid down her crown, she no longer had a need to keep tabs on the goings-on, but even so: the only pony in the world that mattered to her anymore was her daughter. To Tartarus with the newspapers, then. All they could do was remind her of everything she was missing.
Of everyone she was missing. At Canterlot, she had a few friends: Raven, of course, was one. And she knew Fancy Pants well enough. Blueblood was endearing in his own way, once you learned how to tune out his bluster. And Luna and Cadance--how her heart ached for them. She loved Luster with all her heart--and yet, it pained her, more than a little, to see the faces of her erstwhile friends in the paper, to hear of their successes and their failures, their journeys and their adventures, to remember a time when she sat at the center of their collective universe, instead of merely watching their stars through a telescope.
And, speaking of stars--poor Princess Twilight. Celestia grimaced to herself at the thought of what she had put her through.
Once, they had loved each other almost as mother and daughter. Once, they had very nearly been the best of friends. But, just as Twilight was settling into her new duties as Sole Princess of Equestria--just when she needed the help of her teacher and mentor most--Celestia had fallen pregnant.
Twilight, of course, had no idea how profoundly everything had changed for her mentor. She couldn’t have known. So, she kept on sending her letters, same as always, regular as clockwork. But Celestia stopped replying. Cut her off cold. Hadn’t even sent her a postcard in fifteen years.
Celestia still had Twilight’s letters, of course, in a cardboard box in the attic. She’d opened one or two early on, but they only made the pain worse. She had thought about burning them, just to be rid of the guilt, but then, what would happen if the old magic still lingered? What would Twilight think if she suddenly received a deluge of decade-old letters, dusty and unopened?
Celestia had convinced herself that it was better this way. After all, Twilight was smart--smarter than Celestia had ever been. By now, she must have realized the full costs of becoming Princess. Would she believe that Celestia had not known that taking the crown meant giving up her chance to have children? Would she think it a betrayal that Celestia had condemned her to a millennium of lonely nights and empty mornings? Would she assume that Celestia had known, and, like so many times before, had simply decided to keep her silence? And worst of all--what if she hadn’t figured it out? What if Celestia had to be the one to tell her about her own body’s betrayal?
Eventually, the letters had stopped. Part of Celestia was grateful for that: it meant Twilight had given up hope. And that was alright, wasn’t it? After all, that meant she was no longer waiting for a response. Meant that Celestia was no longer disappointing her. And wouldn’t contacting her, after all this time, just open old wounds better left alone?
It was a lie, yes, but a convenient one. And there was just enough truth in it for Celestia to convince herself she believed it.
But the guilt felt for Twilight was nothing compared to what she felt for Luster.
Yes, Celestia loved her with all her heart--but ponies were not meant to live isolated lives, little ponies most of all. Celestia had done her best to raise her according to the principles of friendship, but with no one to be friends with, Luster had grown up alone. And, as much as the two of them loved Bobsled, Celestia knew it was no town for children. She had spent more nights than she could count weeping for all the painful little partings her daughter suffered. And many more, knowing that greater pain was still to come…
The thought made Celestia open her eyes. Almost without conscious thought, she raised her head and looked down the hall, through the darkened house, and towards her study. She did not need to rise, for she could see it in her mind’s eye: there, on the bookshelf in the corner, on the highest shelf, pressed against the wall, her greatest, most shameful, most terrifying secret.
She had already decided that she would not lie to Luster when she asked what it was. But that determination did not mean she had to flaunt it. She had meant what she said: she had sensitive political documents hidden in her office, documents that might even spark war if word got out that she had them. But that was not why she kept Luster out of her study: it was to keep her from asking what was in the jar she kept on the top shelf.
And, almost like a reflex, she felt her mind drift back to that first, terrible morning. It had been winter. Luster had been seven. Celestia had gotten into the habit of waking early, making a fresh breakfast for the two of them, then bundling her daughter up and walking her to school. And that had been the plan that day. She had woken, as always, just before her alarm, rolled out of bed, and walked to the bathroom. She washed her face, then dried it off, and decided to save her full morning routine for after she returned from school. She could get away with putting her mane in a ponytail today, surely? After all, you could barely tell who was who in those parkas, let alone how well they were dressed—
And then, in the mirror, she saw it.
She stared, open-mouthed, at her mirror. She stared, eyes wide and unseeing. She stared until Luster, her coat buttoned crookedly, had ventured in to ask why they hadn’t gone to school yet. And Celestia had leapt into panicked action. She lit her horn and tore the thing free, letting it fall from her grasp. Then, she had picked Luster up in her magic, and dashed into the kitchen, her daughter squealing in fright. She had shoved a Toaster Tart in Luster’s pocket, tore open the front door, and practically hurled her out into the snow, slamming the door shut behind her before she even landed.
Celestia had stood there, back pressed to the front door, until her breathing finally slowed. Luster would be okay, wouldn’t she? She would find her way--she knew where the school was, of course, and there were enough lingering students that she couldn’t get lost. Right?
Hesitantly, she stepped away, not entirely trusting the floor to be there when she set down her hooves. Carefully, she made her way back to her bedroom, then from there to her bathroom. It lay where it had fallen, in a long, silver curlique on the counter:
A single, silver mane-hair.
She had done nothing else that day--nothing except comb every inch of her body, allowing herself to breathe only after she had assured herself that it was a fluke. A mistake. A meaningless trick of biology.
And yet, she knew not what to do with the hair. To throw it away felt like a surrender, an acknowledgement of whatever hold age might have on her. So, she had kept it, buried in her chest of drawers under a pile of old t-shirts.
And there it lay--until it was joined, six weeks later, by a second hair. And a third a month after that. Soon, there were too many hairs to keep in the drawer, and so she purchased the jar. The jar she filled with silvery wisps, coiled like wires. The jar that, by now, was nearly half full, and was filling ever faster.
And soon, she could no longer deny it. She could no longer dismiss the unevenness around the edges of her mouth as laugh lines, nor the roughness at the corner of her eyes as crow’s feet. And she could no longer convince herself that the blooming pain in her joints was merely the result of a bump she hadn’t noticed or a scrape she had missed.
Celestia, for the first time in her long, long life, was growing old.
She did not consider herself a coward. She never had. But that thought alone shook her to her very core. She was dying--slowly, one day at a time, just like all the other ponies--but dying all the same. And the coming day where there would be no more tomorrows filled her with a very personal, very selfish fear--the fear of what lay Beyond.
But her fear was not so great that it drove her daughter from her mind. Someday--someday sooner than either of them could hope--the one constant in Luster’s life would be torn away from her. And her daughter would be left alone in the world, truly alone, for the first time in her life.
Luster’s future was provided for. It had been for some time. Celestia could lavish any luxury she desired upon her daughter, and she would still become one of the most eligible mares in Equestria the moment her mother died. But there was more to life than money. And it was all that Celestia could hope that her student--the one who, in the end, she had failed so utterly--would not fail her in this one, final task she would ask of her.
And that fear was enough to keep her awake until the sun that had once been hers bathed the room in rosy gold, and the tiny life beside her began to stir.
It had been a foregone conclusion, almost from the beginning: Luster Dawn would attend the School of Friendship. At first, it had been a matter of preference. Luster deserved the best, after all, and Celestia would do all she could to ensure she got it. But, all too soon, it became clear that she, whose mother had been so insistent her own pupil learned the arts of friendship, needed those same lessons even more.
The problems started when she was young. In the summer, Celestia would take Luster to the playground, and in the winter, she would take her to go sledding--places where there were always other little ones around. At first, Celestia thought Luster’s desire to hide behind her mother’s legs was simple shyness, and had urged her to go play. And she always went, eventually, trundling off to find some new colts and fillies to spend the afternoon with, as her mother carefully watched her from the sidelines.
But something had gone wrong. Celestia had never entirely been sure what, but she had her guesses. Chief among them was that Luster had inherited some small fragment of her mother’s capacity for love. And so, as Luster stumbled through the snow and blew on dandelion puffs with the other little ones, she opened her heart to them. Formed connections. Formed friendships. Formed bonds.
But that was the trouble with living in a ski town: no one stayed for long. So, the next time Celestia took her to the playground or to the sledding hill, Luster would look around eagerly for her new best friends--only to discover that they, too, had left. And that was the thing about love: the bigger your heart, the more it hurt when it broke.
To her everlasting shame, it took Celestia far too long to notice what was happening. Despite Luster’s growing reluctance, Celestia still took her out, still urged her to make friends and play. And Luster would, of course. She was a good little filly like that. But each time, it took more and more urging on Celestia’s part to drag her daughter out from her shell.
And, before Celestia even realized it, Luster had withdrawn into herself. She had learned that other ponies could not be counted on, and so, she had resolved to never do so again. Instead, she built a wall around her heart, one that she would allow only her mother and a choice few adults to pass. And there, safe from pain and disappointment, she became a contented little hermit, happy to live her life alone, insulated from anyone else who would abandon her.
Celestia had tried to fix things. Had finally found a pegasus family with two small children, just a few minutes up the road. But when Celestia introduced Luster to Robin and Cardinal, she held herself back. When Robin invited her to play hide-and-seek, and when Cardinal had offered her a cookie, she stayed silent, examining their faces carefully. And Celestia saw the question in her eyes, the question that had haunted her days and plagued her nightmares ever since:
How long until you, too, leave me behind?
It would have almost been impressive, were it not so worrisome. Most ponies still had the old herd instincts, and craved the society of others. Even Twilight, one of the most socially backward ponies Celestia had ever met, had known enough to be embarrassed when she committed a faux pas. But Luster, it seemed, lacked even that awareness. It was said that no mare could be an island--but Luster was determined to give the old wisdom a run for its money.
It was one of the many worries that kept Celestia up at night--if she, in trying to protect her daughter, had broken her instead. Was Luster simply born a recluse? Or had Celestia forced her into it, by trapping her in a town so small that it barely deserved the name?
She reminded herself--bitterly--that there were a few benefits to their situation. For one, Luster’s grades were the top of her class in every subject, every time. She would have been able to attend any university she pleased, even if she weren’t the only heiress of an ex-Princess. But that was cold comfort to her mother, who knew that, one day soon, the only pony who had been there for her entire life--the one pony she had allowed herself to trust, wholly and completely--would abandon her, too.
And so, as soon as she was old enough, Celestia submitted an application for Luster to attend the School of Friendship. Luster readily agreed, of course--the prospect of learning at the hooves of ponies who appeared in so many of her books was a dream come true for her. She wrinkled her nose at the name--what charms could the School of Friendship hold for her, after all?--but Celestia did her best to emphasize the other benefits.
However, on the forms, she made it clear that her daughter, as much as it hurt to admit it, was in desperate need of remedial friendship instruction. That she needed someone to teach her, to show her that there was value in forming bonds with other beings, even if those bonds were as brief and fragile as spider-silk. She needed to know that there were others to whom she could go for comfort and support, before her mother left her truly alone.
Celestia knew that Luster needed that sort of help. She needed it so badly that she very nearly signed the paperwork using her own name. To deny the ex-Princess something she desired so badly would have practically been a crime--had been a crime, in fact, once upon a time. But she resisted the temptation, in the end. After all, if Luster could only succeed by relying on her mother’s reputation, what would she do when her mother was no longer there for her?
And so, she deployed another one of her pseudonyms, and signed the papers as Heliotrope. She had chosen the name with the utmost care. Most would read the name, recognize it as a type of flower, and assume that she was an earth pony with an especially-striking purple coat. But the name was actually an old one, taken from ancient Ponish. Sun-Turner, it meant. Celestia had promised herself she would not buy a spot for her daughter with the power of her own name, and had resisted the temptation to do so. But even so, the name was a cry for help: a cipher that, she hoped against hope, her student would see and understand.
Eight agonizing weeks passed before Celestia received a reply--and, when it came, she very nearly wept aloud. Luster had been accepted to the School of Friendship. Moreover, it seemed, Princess Twilight had taken a special interest in the filly. It was not necessarily unusual for the Princess to take a personal pupil, but, when she did, she usually insisted they live with her in the Palace at Canterlot. But this time, she had made an exception: Luster would attend the School of Friendship as planned, but she and the Princess would meet whenever the Royal schedule allowed to review her progress. A place at the School of Friendship and the personal attention of the Princess herself? That was an honor that even Luster could not fail to recognize.
Celestia had searched the papers three times over, and even pulled the envelope apart at the seams. Finally, she was forced to admit that, despite her dearest hopes and her deepest fears, there were no personal remarks, no hidden messages, no counter-ciphers to indicate that someone had read and understood her puzzle. She was forced to ponder, then, whether Luster had drawn the attention of the Princess by her own merits, or whether Twilight had known. Whether she had been waiting for fourteen years for the name of Luster Dawn to cross her desk. Yet another worry for Celestia’s late-night wonderings.
Perhaps that had been part of her plan, after all. The one tiny little thorn of revenge that a pupil had allowed herself to inflict on her teacher.