//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12: Vantage Point 
// Story: Friendship Day 
// by Crescent Pulsar 
//------------------------------//

The expression on Celestia's face shifted almost imperceptibly to Twilight Sparkle, to something she couldn't read, yet she couldn't help getting the impression that she looked older somehow. A few seconds later the princess began to walk around her, toward the balcony doors, and she stood by and watched her in silence, waiting and trying to prepare herself for whatever she would learn.

Celestia stared out of a window for a time, and continued to face away from Twilight Sparkle when she said, "As you've learned, someone is manipulating events. Toward what end? I have nothing but their assurance that it will benefit Equestria."

"I don't know how long they've been at it," she continued, "or if they have been involved the whole time, but I'm aware that this plan has been in motion for at least a thousand years." She turned her head aside and pointedly looked at Twilight Sparkle. "And you were a part of that plan back then."

Confused, Twilight Sparkle asked, "What do you mean?"

Once she was facing the window again, Celestia replied, "A thousand years ago, my sister and I found a tree made of crystal. This tree not only bore the Elements of Harmony, but three cutie marks: my sister's, my own, and most prominently... yours."

"But that would mean..." Twilight Sparkle began, who couldn't finish because she was overwhelmed by what was being suggested.

"Either our cutie marks are endowed with an awareness beyond our own," Celestia picked up where her student had left off, "or the Elements of Harmony only exist with the assurance that we will — one day — appear and use them."

Twilight Sparkle didn't reply. She didn't like the sound of either possibility, since they both meant the same thing: that destiny or fate could be out of one's own hooves. It would be one thing to be destined for a special talent, but it would be quite another if your life was planned out by your cutie mark, and that kind of distinction disturbed her.

Celestia didn't need to look to know that Twilight Sparkle was troubled by her words, so she tried to ease her mind. "Either way, I wouldn't worry too much about that. Even if they weren't restricted to being predictions, they're really no worse than the everyday restrictions and manipulations that influence your actions."

"...Are you sure?" Twilight Sparkle questioned, sounding doubtful.

"Not completely, no," Celestia admitted, who turned her head aside to show that she was at ease with that, not worried or embarrassed. Before explaining herself, she opened the balcony doors and gestured for her student to follow her.

Curious as to what more could be said on the matter, which involved relocating to the balcony, Twilight Sparkle heeded the silent instruction and joined the princess at the railing. From there she got a very good view of Canterlot, if not the best, and she was quick to notice the amount of activity that was devoted toward tomorrow's Summer Sun Celebration.

"'All the world's a stage," Celestia eventually said, as she looked down upon the city, "and all the stallions and mares merely players.' To most, those words don't mean anything special. For me, it transformed how I perceived the world, and everyone's role in it. It allowed me to reconcile a few things that had been troubling me for a long time."

"Like what?" Twilight Sparkle couldn't help asking.

"Making compromises and sacrifices, at the expense of my freedom and identity, for one," Celestia replied, who glanced over at her student. "Just because I felt confident enough to accept my role, that didn't mean I was perfectly suited for it — far from it, in fact. By now I've grown into it, for the most part, yet there are still some aspects that I have to fake, in order to be the most effective in my role."

She looked back down at the ponies far below them. "More relevant to your concern, is that every play has a separate set of actors that you typically don't see on the stage, because they work behind the scenes. In terms of the reality we exist in, most of those are forces of nature, which — among other things — makes the world possible in the first place. One of them, however, is the playwright."

"Tell me," she went on, adopting a serious expression as she turned her whole body to face her student, "how do you feel about the possibility of all events being written in stone since the very inception of the universe?"

Twilight Sparkle shrank into herself upon suddenly being put on the spot, with one ear drooping and the other twitching sporadically as she nervously replied, "T-that would be, uh, bad, but... I mean... If that's just how it is... What can you do, right?"

"Do you think we have free will?" Celestia pressed. "When, after we're born, everything we are exposed to is out of our control, and that's what our first conscious choice is based on?"

Turning her head and gaze away, Twilight Sparkle weakly said, "I... I don't know..."

Celestia's expression softened. "Let's assume that either is true. Would you trade this life for one of your own design?"

"No way!" Came Twilight Sparkle's immediate and lively response, her nervousness, and fear of being wrong, cast aside. "It's not perfect, but that's not a good enough reason to discard it." She frowned. "And, besides, wouldn't I be doing something similar to those two hypotheticals if I did?"

With a satisfied smile, Celestia answered, "Indeed," before assuming a neutral expression. "In many ways, both big and small, our answer to life's imperfections is to control what we can: in order to correct them, or to impose our own vision of reality."

She raised a foreleg and swept it across the city. "My influence reaches further than most. But, it wasn't because I met an obstacle that I couldn't overcome. Rather, it was because others were willing to place their trust in me, expecting that I would be looking out for their best interests whether I acted or not." She turned to face the railing once more. "In turn, I would also yield some of my own freedom to them."

Catching on to what the princess was getting at, Twilight Sparkle's brow furrowed. "Hold on. Are you going to say that we should trust this... seer?"

Celestia closed her eyes. "No. I was going to say that we might not have a choice in the matter."

"Why?" Twilight Sparkle asked, voice tinged with worry and indignance.

"Two reasons," Celestia patiently began, as she turned to regard her student, "and the second is no more than a strong suspicion. The first is that the seer is beyond my power. Not just my magic, but my extensive experience and all of the resources available to me as a princess. The second is based on my personal investigations into fate, which has led me to believe that the unknown nature of our evolution may have been engineered."

Twilight Sparkle's ears perked up, her interest piqued by the subject despite what it would mean if the princess' suspicion was well-founded. "You mean how proto-ponies evolved to have three tribes and diverged from horses?"

Celestia nodded her head. "As I'm sure you know, we haven't found evidence of a compatible species mingling with our ancestors, regardless of whether they would have passed on the traits that we now possess. Furthermore, the archaeological record isn't clear on how the proto-ponies went extinct, or how long that took, while modern ponies rose into prominence."

Nodding her head in agreement, Twilight Sparkle said, "There are only theories."

Seizing on her comment, Celestia replied, "One theory in particular, which I suspect is close to being the truth, says that the proto-ponies encountered the three magicks that we are endowed with separately. Personally, I believe that it was all three from the same source. I wish I could confirm it, but... something is preventing me from seeing that far back in the past."

"Wait, wait, wait," Twilight Sparkle cut in, doubt and skepticism rising in response to what was being suggested. "There's a way to see back that far? And I thought it was impossible for Earth, Heaven and Aether magic to exist together in nature?"

Celestia was unable to stop herself from showing some amusement because of the predictable reaction she got, despite the situation. "Yes, it's possible to see back that far, although the only method I was able to conceive requires the one who is peering into the past to be an alicorn."

"And while it is true that Earth, Heaven and Aether magic aren't attracted to one another on their own," she continued, "that doesn't mean that there isn't a process that could facilitate their interaction. Alicorns exist, after all."

Twilight Sparkle could only nod her head in acknowledgement.

Glad that her explanation was acceptable enough to avoid having to reveal the fact that she had discovered a way to create alicorns herself, Celestia returned her attention back to the fore, her gaze drifting toward the sky. "There are two more things I think you should know about the forces shaping our destiny."

"...What are they?" Twilight Sparkle asked, some of her concern creeping into her voice.

"There was a reason for why I told you to make friends while you oversaw the preparations," Celestia began, her voice even.

"The seer?" Twilight Sparkle surmised.

Celestia hummed affirmatively. "They offered no more details than that, so I conducted a very thorough investigation — some of which I handled myself. And what I discovered is that there are five ponies in Ponyville who share a very surprising, and unique, connection with you." She turned her head slightly away from her student, so she could look directly at the town in question before explaining, "In one form or another, a sonic rainboom was involved in the events that led to them getting their cutie marks."

"What's a sonic rainboom?" Twilight Sparkle queried, even as the name made her think about a phenomenon that she had recently seen.

"When a pegasus flies fast enough to break the sound barrier," Celestia began to explain, her gaze returning to her student, "both a sonic boom and rainbow are produced simultaneously."

With her head bowed in thought, Twilight Sparkle concluded, "So, my magic surge wasn't spontaneous..."

It hadn't been difficult for her to figure out, because the thunder that she remembered hearing during her entrance exam helped to put all of the other pieces of information together. Then her head snapped up, when she realized what that meant. "Wait, was Rainbow Dash the pony who caused the sonic rainboom?"

Looking mildly surprised, Celestia nodded her head before asking, "How did you guess it was her? Not many ponies know who caused the sonic rainboom."

Looking downcast, Twilight Sparkle looked down and away before trying to say, "Well, I..." Her voice, partly strained with emotion, lowered to just above a whisper when she tried again. "It was because of a recent experience."

Celestia studied her student for a moment before deciding that it would be best to move on. "Now, in addition to that, only one of you lived in Ponyville at the time, although Applejack was born and raised there."

Wanting to take her mind off of what had happened with Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle opted to share her deduction instead of being led to the answer. "And now that there's five, if you add me then there would be the same amount of us as there are Elements of Harmony."

"Exactly," Celestia confirmed. "Not that there needs to be to wield them, but there are too many coincidences for all of this to not be by design. Even Pinkie Pie, who you won't meet as an overseer, will probably — if I'm judging her right — be unavoidable."

"You can say that again," Twilight Sparkle muttered under her breath.

"The last thing that you should know," Celestia continued, becoming solemn, "is that the Elements of Harmony either have a will of their own, or they have a master who can control what others can do with them."

"They do?" Twilight Sparkle inquired.

Celestia schooled her expression before turning in the direction of the balcony doors and walking toward them in silence. Once she was halfway there, she paused and kept her face hidden before measuredly replying, "When we used the Elements of Harmony against Discord, he was encased in stone. When I had to use them against my own sister... Among the last things that I would have desired was for her to be banished, beyond my power to retrieve, and be reminded of that failing twice a day because I'm duty-bound to move the moon in her absence."

Twilight Sparkle stared in horror as the princess walked away, even as her legs gave out from underneath her.