//------------------------------// // If you go through the secret chapter link and put in the password you can see all unpublished chapters, not just that one, which means if you happen to check at the right time you can see new chapters being written before they are released. // Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot // by Equimorto //------------------------------// "I've realised why it keeps changing," Celestia said, looking out the window. The Sun was bright in the sky, the afternoon still in its early hours. She had the curtain slightly moved aside, inwards, to allow her to see clearly, and she was almost but not quite leaning against the glass. She waited for an answer, or really a question. It came soon after. Twilight set her quill down momentarily, looked up from her work, and tilted her head just slightly to the side. She used to do that, back when she was a student under Celestia, when she was particularly interested in the topic being discussed. Celestia felt a pang of longing as she looked at her like that, and she wondered if Twilight was doing it by choice or by instinct. "Why?" The earnestness with which the question was asked stung Celestia just as much and she wished, for a moment, she truly deeply wished things could really be so simple. She wished that game, that celebration of memory could be their reality. But things had never been that simple, not back then either. Yet she couldn't help but dream they could be. "It's like the Moon," she said. "There's a pattern to it. It follows its phases." "Oh." All the weight of everything flashed on Twilight's face for a moment, and it was like a cloud had come over the Sun and the room was dark. Then it was gone, and Twilight was smiling. "There's something beautiful about that," she said, though her tone wasn't the one she'd been using up until then. Still, the topic fit, and it was something Celestia could respect. "There is." She went back to looking out the window. The Sun had moved just a little. There was something liberating about not being the one moving it, even if she was pretending otherwise in that particular occasion. Like being freed from a significant weight. It was a simple freedom regular ponies couldn't understand, they never knew anything different. And yet, didn't that simply mean that it was normal? And wouldn't it be nice if things could be just that? Just normal, her life and Twilight's, nothing else or more. The biggest worry a leak in the walls from a broken water pipe, the more usual ones involving what to buy at the market. She'd almost had it. She'd tried to. "Is something wrong?" Twilight asked her. Celestia realised she'd been frowning. Yes. Yes, something was wrong. Everything was wrong. The world was ending and ponies were suffering and Luna was asleep and wouldn't wake up and all that she'd worked for all her life, all her centuries had come crumbling down on her and she deserved it and there was nothing she could do but keep going and shoulder it all and suffer and there was nowhere to run and it was all too much, too fast, and she'd just wanted peace. "It's nothing." Celestia smiled again. Just like old times, everything.