//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 
// Story: Taking Pictures in the Woods 
// by SilverEyedWolf 
//------------------------------//

Unfortunately for Crystal, her roommate was awake when she stumbled through the door a second time.

Instead of saying anything, the thestral raised an eyebrow at the dirty, sweaty, leaves-and-sticks-in-her-mane mare from their dining table.

"Ugh, I know," Crystal groaned, placing her saddlebags on one of the hooks by the door, "I'm a total mess right now. But I did it! I got the sets of pictures I wanted!"

Digging through the bags, she pulled out her camera kit and carefully placed it aside before withdrawing her very broken phone.

Taking both items over to the table, she pulled out a chair and sat beside the thestral and her bowl of fruity cereal flakes doused in almond milk.

"Hey, can you take my sim card out? I need to replace my phone tomorrow," she asked her roommate.

Rolling her eyes, the thestral got up and trotted into her room before returning with a long thin piece of metal with a loop on one end. Fiddling with her wings, she quickly popped out a tray that held Crsytal's Simulated Inter-Magical networking card. Carefully placing it into a plastic sleeve, the thestral pushed it over to Crystal before putting the phone itself into a much thicker plastic envelope.

"Thanks, roomie," Crystal murmured before glancing up at the thestral. "You know, after living together for, what, six months? You could at least tell me your name," she said, gently smacking the thestral's shoulder with the back of a hoof.

As she always did, her roomie merely smiled at her, a cryptic closed-mouth grin that gently curved at the very corners of her lips.

"I'll bet you talk all the time when I'm not around," Crystal muttered, clicking away at the interface of her camera as her roomie chuckled beside her before returning to her cereal bowl.

She found the first pictures of the mysterious mare she'd found in the woods before clicking to a more picturesque pose of Celestia. Turning the camera around, she shoved it towards the thestral. "Bam! Professional portfolio material!"

The thestral snorted, shoving a spoon in her mouth before she turned to look at the camera.

After a brief pause, there was a metal clink as the spoon hit the tabletop, quickly followed by a splat as the cereal and milk followed.

"Gross!" Crystal squealed, but the thestral wasn't listening, instead lunging out and grabbing the camera to pull it to her eyes, mouth still wide, jaw hanging at tuft level.

She glanced up at Crystal, motioning to the picture of Celestia with a hoof.

"Yeah, she's awesome and all, but mare! You chewed all of that!" she said with a grimace.

The thestral stared at her, eyes wide and almost uncomprehending before she shoved back from the table and galloped into her room. Crystal only had time to pull a napkin and place it over the almost-eaten food before she was back, shoving a hefty tome into Crsytal's hooves.

The cover didn't have a title, and Crystal glanced at her roomie before flipping over the top of the hardcover's case.

Looking at the page, she saw a bit of cursive and giggled before glancing at the thestral. "Your name is Moonlight Blossom?"

The thestral rolled her eyes and nodded before pointing her hoof at the title.

"Rise and Fall of the Equestrian Monarchy: The Golden Princesses," she dutifully read. "Okay?"

Grabbing the book, Moonlight Blossom, aka roomie, tore through the pages, stopping near the end and slamming it on the table in front of Crystal.

Glancing over at Moonlight, Crystal leaned forward and read out the title of the chapter.

"The Falls of the Princesses: Death, Abandonment, and Removal," she read. Skimming through the initial paragraphs, she flipped the page over to see one side covered in text while the other had a picture print from what seemed to be a carefully carved woodblock.

In the middle of the picture was a pony with a long spiraling horn and a three-tipped tiara with an eight-pointed star on it, her bangs parted to the right of the print.

To her left was another pony with a similarly spiraling horn, facing to the left. Her curled mane nearly covered her tri-tipped tiara, but Crystal could make out an elliptical stone instead of the star.

And then, facing right, with her own tiara, was another pony. Her eyes were half-open, and her smile was wide enough to easily see while not becoming a full-on grin. Her tiara was the largest, with a diamond embedded into the middle.

Crystal looked up at Moonlight, all thoughts of her newly named flatmate forgotten.

"Holy buck," she said.

Moonlight nodded before waving a hoof at the text.

Glancing down, Crystal skimmed the paragraphs until she found the last mentions of her new friend's name.

Clearing her throat, she went up a paragraph and read, "After several failed attempts, and the loss of many lives, the lunar princess herself went up on a ship of her own making. She lasted the longest of all the failed missions, repairing her ship after the first of the solar storms.

"She could not repair her systems a second time, however, and was lost to us after eighty-nine hours in orbit. All efforts to reach her through technology or magic went unanswered. After days of lobbying and, in one notable case, active begging, the remaining princesses are denied funds to send another living being beyond the thermosphere.

"Princess Luna Noctis is pronounced Missing in Action. Funeral services are held, and her sister disappears from society. Years later, Twilight Sparkle is removed from power peacefully through legal actions, and our current societal platforms begin taking shape..."

Crystal looked up from the book. She let it rest on the table as she stared at her ceiling, simple math and numbers floating through her head.

"That was over five hundred years ago," she finally said. Looking at Moonlight, she bit her lip. "Has she been out there all this time? Just... mourning?"

Moonlight gave her a tight look, her eyes creased and lips slightly downturned.

Crystal shook her head. "We've got to help her! Maybe if we went to this princess Twilight, we could help her build another one of these ships, we could—"

Moonlight shook her head hard. Moving beside Crystal, she scanned the pages until she found what she was looking for and placed her hoof on the page.

Leaning over, Crystal frowned as she read, "Due to these many failures and loss of life, all attempted travel beyond Equus has been outlawed in Equestria, as well as many other nations..."

Flipping through a couple of pages, Moonlight again poked at a section.

Reading through that selection, Crystal's ears flicked down. "Aaand Twilight hasn't been seen in... a few centuries as well. Great."

Crystal slumped in her chair, closing the book and sliding it back to Moonlight.

As she picked it up, Crystal asked, "What are you, like, a history major?"

Moonlight glanced at her, chewing her lip, before glancing around the apartment. Rushing to the only window in the living room and closing the curtains over it, she sighed.

"Me and my family," she rasped, with a strange accent Crystal had never heard before, "are part of a large group of thestrals that have taken a vow of silence until our lunar princess returns to us. Most of my generation have forsaken this vow, but..."

She shook her head. "I don't know. I don't feel as her return is out of the question."

Crystal stared at Moonlight, wide-eyed until the thestral rolled her eyes and turned back to her room.

"And yes," she said throatily, "I am a history major."

Crystal sat there, her mind racing as she tried to memorize everything she could about the past day. From running for her life away from terrible dogs made of wood to standing on an extremely powerful unicorn with wings to taking pictures that could create a whole career for her, to learning of what was probably Celestia's worst memories, to hearing her roommate talk for the first time...

"I'm going to bed," she said to herself.

And she did.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Crystal slid back into the chair at the little dining room table, scraping dust out of her eyes as she arranged everything on top of it.

First was the mug of coffee, white from cream and sweet with sugar, placed carefully away from all of her magitech equipment. Then was her miniprinter, stocked with specially treated paper for the photographs she needed physical copies of. Then her camera, with the silver cord that linked it to the printer.

Taking a large swill of the coffee, she shuddered as the warmth flowed into her chest before placing it carefully away again and picking up the camera. Cycling through the shots, she found the first clear picture she'd taken yesterday, Celestia's curious face staring down the lens.

Smiling gently, Crystal went ahead and printed out that picture, before going through and picking out the ones she liked best.

In the end, she had enough pictures for twenty pages. Not a professional portfolio, to be sure, but it was more than what her teacher had assigned her. Grabbing another few prints she'd taken before reaching Celestia, she padded the beginning with shots of scenic meadows and a couple of waterfalls she'd found before the wolves found her, leading into the photos of the ex-princess.

Placing the loose pages on the table, she grabbed another drink of her coffee as she looked over the plain black binder she'd been given for the assignment.

Staring at it, she scratched an ear before pushing it away. Standing, she grabbed the sim card from her broken phone and slipped it into her coin purse before heading out into town.

The first stop was easy enough. Her phone was still under warranty, and she didn't have any reason to want an update. Regardless of what the salesdragon had tried to sell her.

The second one took her some time. Getting the perfect cover for her portfolio would boost her grade, as well as tie the pictures together. In the end, she settled for a white-dyed mycelium hardcover with green accents. Grabbing a bottle of gold paint from the same store, she used it at home to color along some of the accents to add a more noble air to the whole thing.

Glancing at her clock, a cartoony diamond dog with a pendulum tail, she screwed up her face as she started a train of thoughts.

In the end, she nodded, smiling as she gathered up her camera, phone, and portfolio into her saddlebags. Grabbing a couple of lunches from a nearby cart on the way, she headed back into that small part of the woods where she'd been dropped off yesterday.

Clearing her throat, she gently called out, "Celestia? Hello?"

After a few moments, she started to call out again, "Celestia! Hel—"

She shrieked as something behind her pinched her cutie mark, and she jumped before spinning on the spot, sure that she was about to be eaten by one of those timber dogs...

Only to see a giggling white pony sitting there, holding a hoof over her mouth demurely even though it didn't come close to covering her grin.

"Oh! Oh, mare," Crystal puffed out, holding a hoof to her thundering chest. "Ough! You got me," she panted, chuckling finally as Celestia gave her a Cheshire grin, her feathers slightly puffed out.

"Hel-lo, little pony," the larger mare said, her laughter still winding through the syllables. "I did not ex-pect you again all-ready."

Taking a deeper breath, Crystal smiled up at her. "Well, I got my portfolio ready, and I wanted you to see it before I turned it in to my teacher. It's all you, after all. I wanted to make sure you were happy.

"With the portfolio," she quickly tacked on.

Celestia hummed, raising an eyebrow along with a corner of her lips.

Crystal's smile turned awkward before she pulled the book out of her bags and offered it up. "Here! I found the main book at the bottom of a pile of older binders, and I spruced it up with a little gold paint. Thought it would make it, y'know, pop."

Celestia paused, her lips falling into a straight line as her eyebrows rose towards each other over her muzzle. Reaching out, she took the binder gently and looked over the cover.

"You did some re-search last night," she said softly, gently raising a hoof to the gold crown Crystal had painted in the middle of the cover. Her eyes glazed slightly as she stared down at the triple-tipped triangle with a diamond left in negative space under those tips.

"Uhm, I discovered that my roommate is a history major," Crystal admitted. "I don't know about everything that happened, but her book... Well, it mentioned your sister."

Crystal watched as Celestia's eyes, already glazed, grew even more distant. Her stare intensified, her gaze lost in the diamond that was only present in its absence.

To her absolute horror, she saw moisture welling at the corners of those deep magenta eyes.

Without a thought, she found herself moving up to Celestia, and, standing on her hind hooves, she wrapped her forelegs carefully around Celestia's withers. She felt the mare's spine straighten and gently squeezed her legs, pushing their chests together.

She felt more than soft fur in that embrace. She felt a deep warmth, an everlasting summer afternoon that never quite got too hot to be uncomfortable. She felt a steady, rhythmic thumping of a heart not just physically but metaphorically larger than hers, a heart that had cared for and nourished a nation until it was no longer needed.

She felt a slight trembling—the near shuddering of a pony on the edge of infinitely deep emotion.

She lowered her head over Celestia's shoulder, pulled her closer, and felt a large leg come up and gently pull her even closer, a muzzle gently burry itself between her shoulder blades, a heart thump just that little bit harder.

After a long few minutes, Celestia sniffed, pulling away softly. Crystal gave one last squeeze and let go, remaining on her hind legs as she used a foreleg on Celestia's shoulder for balance.

Celestia didn't bring her face back into view right away. Crystal heard the gentlest chiming of magical energy, followed by the sound of a muzzle being blown, before she came back into view, wiping her nose on a leaf.

"Thank you," Celestia murmured, looking at Crystal and giving her a small smile. "It has been a while since I had a hug. I almost forgot how warm my lit-tel ponies could be."

"You're very nicely warm, too," Crystal said before she face-hoofed. "Sorry, that was weirder coming from me."

Celestia chuckled, nuzzling Crsytral's shoulder before raising the portfolio in a hoof. "You wanted me to look at these?"

"Yes!" Crystal chirped, sitting down next to Celestia and craning her neck. "More than three-fourths of it's you, after all. I wanted to make sure you were happy with the shots."

Celestia laid the book carefully in the grass. Moving to open it, she hesitated and ran a hoof over the cover. "Is this lea-thur?" she asked, looking over the pebbly white surface. "It was not legal in Ee-ques-tree-uh when I left, but I know the griffons used it..."

"Oh, no, it's not real leather," Crystal said, shaking her head. "It's mycelium."

After a moment, Celestia asked, "Mushrooms?"

"Uh, I think so?" Crystal said, scratching her ear. "I, uh, don't know much about it. It's supposed to be tough and looked better than the fabric-covered ones. Kinda just picked it for the colors, honestly."

Celestia chuckled under her breath, nodding. "Very well. Let us see these pictures."

As they hoofed through the stiff pages, making small comments on her composition technique, Celestia asked, "And who will see these?"

"Well," Crystal breathed, "my roommate, Moonlight Blossom, has already seen them. She's the history major I told you about."

Celestia hummed, nodding.

"And if you're okay with it, I'd like to turn this over to my professor. He's a teacher at the University for Self Betterment in Poncity, my main professor for studying photography and the process of setting up pictures. He's mildly famous, and many of his students become artistic photographers. He'd grade the project and, if he found it of quality enough, might send it to some magazines and art contests in my name."

Celestia flipped the page, staring for a moment at a picture of her laying on her side, back to the camera and head lifted to shimmer in a shaft of sunlight. Her pink mane flowed between glittering filaments of dust and sunshine, almost multicolored in the warm glow.

"I don't have to, though," Crystal said, looking down. "I know you're lying low out here, and I can do some actual nature shots instead pretty easily. I don't want to bother—"

She stopped when Celestia gently laid a wing on her shoulder.

"No," she murmured, shaking her head and smiling. "Go ahead. It has been long enough, I think. I do not need to stay hidden."

"Are you sure? I don't want you to suddenly have everycreature out here in the woods, looking for you," Crystal said with a frown.

Celestia snorted. "I sat through one thousand years of day court, Monday through Friday. And besides, they only know that I am in a woods. We'll play secret for my location for a little longer anyhow."

Crystal scratched at her ear again before smiling and nodding. "Alright, I can do that.

"Deal," she said, holding out a hoof that was quickly shaken.