Ten Years
It was ten years ago. Ten years since Princesses Celestia and Luna had made public their abdication of the throne of Canterlot and became citizens of Equestria. Ten years since Princess Twilight Sparkle had ascended from the Princess of Friendship to the High Princess of Equestria. Ten years since she had followed in the hoofsteps of her mentor and become a teacher of a prospective unicorn student in her own right. Ten years since her circle of friends had helped her to move to Canterlot and began to move on with their own livelihoods independent of her.
It was surreal to consider. She had taken to this position for what was in perspective but a small portion of her time compared to her elder peers. And yet, in so short a time, she had experienced what would have otherwise been decades of progress. Equestria had gone from a primarily pony-populated nation to a cosmopolitan superpower the likes of which the rest of the world scarcely could have imagined years ago. She had seen other worlds, parallel realities, alternate pasts, and futures. She had watched creatures she had taught form their own merry bands of adventuring friends. She had watched her own friends growing older and closer, even as their lives drifted away from each other. She'd even watched her own Luster Dawn learn the same sessions she herself had to learn all those years ago. In her own way, she had become just as her precious teacher.
And yet, in all that time, the same question ached in her mind. What HAD her teacher been up to? She didn't seem to her the type to enjoy a quiet retirement. She had seen her and her sibling happily aiding her fellows in facing terrible monsters and harrowing crises before they had hung up the peytral and slippers. She always seemed happier when she was able to enjoy the pleasures of life, be it theater, gardening, or simply pony-watching. She never liked rote formality--why else would she laugh and smile every time the Grand Galloping Gala was interrupted by a disastrous guest or sudden crisis? Did the idea of the same formal occurrence bore her after a time?
Perhaps--it would bore most normal ponies, Twilight reckoned. Then again, Twilight was never most ponies. Especially now more than ever. Where her early ascension had othered her in some ways, the opportunities it afforded her--and the responsibilities that came with them--were as much a blissful challenge as they were a terrible stressor. She enjoyed each experience she could immerse herself in. Each friendship problem, each spell, and each new person and culture. It was always something new to unpack and untangle, in that special way that she enjoyed so much.
Anything like that would have been preferable to this mountain of tax paperwork.
Twilight pursed her lips and furrowed her brow. "I just rewrote these codes," she cursed under her breath. "How can they still be this difficult to manage now? I thought I made these pretty crystal clear in the last revision."
She looked over the numbers. Had she missed a decimal in one place? A few zeroes in another? She couldn't have. She was a mare who stressed even the most minute detail. She did not suffer mistakes like these.
She pored them over once again. After scanning the pages for a few seconds, she found it. A client-side error. No matter. Just a letter to the claimant and it would be resolved. Her horn flared, a cloud of magic hovering over a teeny rubber stamp and an ink quill. "Claimant name/address misspelled".
With a tiny little smirk, she shuffled this set of forms over into the "for revision" pile, an open manilla envelope ready to receive at the end of the work session. Another tax problem was resolved.
She looked over at the clock. Just past High Noon. Still a few hours out before she would have to set the sun. The stack of papers still left to do was almost taunting her. A consequence of the greatly-increased population density of Equestria. Her coffee was getting cold as she sipped another dreg from her medium-roast coffee. She'd need more if she was going to get through the rest of her workload. With a sigh, she prepared to resume her work for another hour.
Just as she settled into her sitting pillow for a new session of tedium, she was interrupted by rapping at her door.
"Your Royal Highness," called a voice from the other side, deep and slow. "A mare is here to see you."
Twilight's heart hitched several beats. She knew that voice. She hadn't heard it in a long while. It couldn't be her. She'd have sent a letter first. She always sent a letter before she came. She always tried to give her advanced notice. Had she forgotten this time? Never mind that, what was she doing here? She hadn't heard from her after her last missive from the retirement home. This isn't how their meetings went.
Her mind was screaming at her like a claxon. It was her! Her beloved teacher. Her eldest idol. Sol Invictus. The mare who inspired her to be the magus that she is now. The mare who she would drop anything to see for even a scant few minutes. It was Princess Celestia, at this time of day, at this time of year, now standing patiently outside her chambers. And she was ill-prepared.
Twilight held her hoof to her chest, recalling the breathing technique Princess Cadance had taught her back during the Equestria Games in the Crystal Empire. While it had failed to work the initial time she had attempted it, as she had come to practice more mindfulness exercises, she had found it instrumental during her more tense outings on the geopolitical stage. She drew in a deep drag of musty air, steeping it in her chest like leaves in tea, before pushing her dominant hoof forward with a long sigh. Then again. Three times now. As many as it would take to steady her heart and quiet her racing mind. Once she was sure she was ready, she loosened her stance and cleared her throat.
"You may enter now," she declared, in that well-practiced formal way that she had taken for more formal meetings. Her face fell for a moment, before creaking back up into a teensy smile. "P-princess."
The younger princess heard a soft tittering from the other side as the door swung gently open.
"Twilight, my faithful student," she hummed, a warm grin reflecting onto her, "is that any way to greet your former teacher?"
"I, uhm." Twilight fidgeted her hooves, her old habits returning back to the fore. "I...learned from the best?" she answered, her smile widening overwide in an attempt to save face.
Another hearty chuckle from the former Princess Celestia. "So you have." Her gaze shifted to the stack of paperwork that littered her desk in an orderly fashion. "Am I interrupting something, my faithful princess?" she asked with a light flutter of her eyelashes.
Twilight's eyes shot side to side, desperate and failing to avoid eye contact before she eventually relented and gestured to the offending objects. "It's tax season," she admitted, frowning. "I swear, no matter how many revisions and addendums to this darned tax code, ponies STILL find a way to mess it up somehow. It's just so," Twilight shuffled her hooves with a huff. "frustrating."
Celestia nodded, excusing herself inside as she gingerly closed the door behind her. "Mmm. I can relate. It wasn't that much better in my time, either," she admitted, nuzzling her former student. "Though if it makes you feel any better, I think your latest edition of the codes was quite pleasant to fill out."
The breath shot into Twilight's lungs. She inflated, her once wavering smile solidifying from solidarity and accomplishment. "Really?" she begged, trying to keep a note of elation silence. "I thought it still had room to work, but if you found it great, then that's wonderful!"
"Everything is a work in progress from a certain point of view, Twilight," Celestia replied as she settled down. "Whether it's paperwork, city planning, politics, or ponies, everything develops at its own pace." Her gaze turned knowingly to the younger alicorn. "I believe you even sang a song or two about it in the day, no?"
Twilight's cheeks flushed ruby red at the mention. She'd been trying to find a scientific explanation for the spontaneous instinct in ponykind's particular proclivity pursuant to singing in public with no prior preparation. The accusation, in its good nature, brought back halcyon days from just prior to her ascendancy as Princess.
"Um...yeah. I guess I did, huh."
"Don't think of it as a flaw, dear." Celestia limped her pastern. "I happen to think it's quite adorable when you sing." She tapped the space adjacent to her with her other hoof. "Come, dear--I can help you with those later. For now, I think you're well overdue for a break. I know how much you get absorbed in your work."
Without a second thought, Twilight lunged to her side, loafing with her mentor and basking in her warm aura. Even after having relinquished majority control of the sun to her, Celestia still maintained that higher body temperature and magical signature that she had come to know and adore. Being around her was comparable to basking in the very sun itself. When Celestia opened her wing to her, she nestled into its plumage like a cold chick and hummed in elation when the pinions gently curled over her barrel.
"So tell me, Twilight," Celestia said, her smile warmer. "How has the kingdom been going since you've taken its reigns?" Her eyes swept over the horizon just beyond the balcony leading outside. "From what I've seen, you've been quite busy, as have your friends."
Twilight paused, pursing her lips as she sorted through the labyrinthian caverns of neurological filing cabinets that made up her thoughts. "Well, you know. Spike's been hard at work getting the Abyssianians and Diamond Dogs to work together. There have been long-standing racial tensions, but she's found that when the two peoples share a space together, they end up cooperating far more in cohabitation than they do when being part of separate civilizations."
"That does sound a lot like the workings of your number-one friendship ambassador," Celestia nodded. "He's grown quite a bit in a mere ten years. Quite a dragon's dragon now, isn't he?"
"He's grown, I'll give you that," admitted Twilight, tittering. "Wasn't all that long ago he was just a little hatchling still at my knee-height and asking for horseback rides to get anywhere. Then once he got his wings, he just started going off on his own little friendship adventures." She wiped a tear from her face. "My little dragon's growing up so fast, and now I'M keeping up with HIM."
"It's beautiful to watch, isn't it?" Celestia asked, holding a sunflower in her magic, smiling as it angled itself toward her face. "Watching someone you've known your whole life come into their own?"
"Ah, yeah..." sighed Twilight, leaning slightly deeper into Celestia. "Gets me every time. No matter who it is--some bright-eyed filly with a burning mind, a griffon learning the value of a bit, or a dragon learning to amass a hoard of friends and mementos, it just...feels good, y'know?"
Celestia patted Twilight along her barrel. "More than you could ever know, dear," she added with a gentle little squeeze. "What of your friends? Are Applejack and Rainbow Dash still together?"
"And arguing like an old married couple." Twilight let out a giggle-snort at that. "And oftentimes very literally. I'd swear, if they didn't love each other so much, I'd say they almost live to argue. They can never seem to agree on anything other than that they both work really hard. Even if their work is apples to oranges."
Celestia let out her own melody of chuckles. "I see your sense of humor grew along with you, at least."
Twilight shrugged. "Well, when you're dealing with as much politics as I am, you have to learn to have a little sense of humor." She nodded appreciatively to a set of garish "Happy Tax Month" balloons tacked onto the floor nearby. "Pinkie taught me that."
"She seemed to score a real whoopie of a husband, didn't she?" Celestia observed. "Rivals to friends to lovers? Who'd have thought?"
"Well, you'd be surprised how lonely comedians get," answered Twilight, her ears drooping slightly. "A lot of them spend so much time making other ponies smile that they forget to look after their own. If you ask me, I think Pinkie and Cheese coming together is like...confetti and streamers. They just work well with each other."
"Mmm. Well said, Twilight," Celestia hummed, her smile widening ever slightly. "I'm sure she would describe it in much the same way."
"The one that really surprised me, though?" Twilight asked, rhetorically. "Never thought Discord and Fluttershy would end up falling in love at all. They got along well, yeah, but full-on love? Like, who'd have thought that, right?"
Celestia rolled her eyes. "Well, it was my suggestion that Fluttershy try to redeem him. I had anticipated them becoming friends. Perhaps with them spending so much of their time together, it was only natural they'd develop a further kinship besides. Plenty of romances start from an initial friendship."
"Like ours?"
This time, it was Celestia's turn to balk. It was rare for Twilight to be so forward around her, but she also knew her confidence tended to need a period of a brief respite to fully replenish itself. Something about her sharing space with her had that effect on her at times.
"Yes, well." Celestia shuffled her wings and cleared her throat. "You could say we have a similar sort of dynamic, yes."
Twilight beamed back at her elder with a Cheshire grin. "Soooo is that why you came here?" she asked, her voice echoing teeny embers of hope. "Just to spend time with me?"
Celestia didn't answer right away. She looked to the streets of Canterlot. To the stained glass that now decorated many of the windows, echoing the accomplishments of her student and those of her student's students. So much history and time writ large on the walls. Where to even start now? They'd already discussed her friends. What of her students? Too many questions to be answered, and yet more to answer herself.
No. She had to be honest. Easier to eat the larger of two frogs here and be earnest. Twilight liked it better when she was, much as she preferred to surprise her with her lessons. She needed to respect her maturity and her intelligence. With that, she squared her shoulders and looked the younger Alicorn dead in the eyes.
"I have a lot to talk about, Twilight," she admitted, loosening her grip. "But before that, might we go someplace slightly more...private?"
Twilight's face fell as the words filtered through her ears. A phrase like that was usually precedent to either great or terrible news, and the uncertainty thereof was always something that she'd disliked. There was comfort in certainty. In knowing what would come and being able to readily prepare for it. Then again, Celestia had previously thrown her into these uncertain scenarios in the past, as well. Those usually ended up working out well enough. Perhaps she simply needed to trust her as she had done many times before.
Working up the courage, Twilight nodded. "Alright. I'll put on some tea. Should we take this to the study?"
"That would be lovely," Celestia hummed, fanning her wings out a large, informal stretch. "It's been ages since I've had a good tea."
"What kind? Black, green, herbal?"
"Black sounds right about now," Celestia answered with a yawn. "The flight over here was quite tiring, and I feel I'll need my brain as awake as I can get it for this."
"Do you take it with any sugar or anything?"
"Just a few cubes; I've been needing some sugar for a while, as well."
Twilight nodded along as she set the kettle and meticulously measured the leaves of tea and grams of sugar. Whole cube sugar, particularly. She knew Celestia liked it best. She'd spent several years and several attempts to get everything exactly as he loved it the most. The temperature, the taste, the consistency. She put everything together to be scientifically perfect for her paramour. Everything had to be perfect. For her.
How ironic then, that Celestia cared little for how well it was made. She'd tasted about every flavor, every temperature, and every quality of tea that she had been exposed to as a ruler. She knew what she enjoyed, and she was never particularly picky. While she played at being a refined, high-class mare, it was largely a matter of her public image than it was her personal taste. So long as it was made with love--especially the love from those closest to her--she could stomach even the most middling of teas.
A pregnant pause filled the room as the two stole glances at one another. Each of them tried to play it off in their own ways; Twilight busied herself with the arrangement of the most delectable and aromatic herbs she could find, making them into a find blend of well-mortared leaves to extract the best juices to compliment the water. Celestia, meanwhile, simply ponywatched, taking in the scenery around her and marveling at how much her little capital and her little ponies had grown in a mere decade's time. Each time they made contact with each other, the other reflexively turned their head, pretending not to have been looking at the other, but each also hiding a knowing smirk that the other was fully aware of each other's eyes being on them. Each subsequent shared look built a static in the air, a steady raising of their hackles as each of them caught a breath, ready to say something, anything, to break the silence. One of them had to say something, and they had to say it soon, or else they be buried under the weight of the awkwardness each was currently burdened with.
In a way, the blowing of the kettle whistle was a mercy. Or perhaps a toll of the final bell before the dialogue had no choice but to begin.
Each of them let out a muffled sigh of relief as Twilight started pouring the water over each cup of leaves. The steam that billowed from each cup looked like the smoke plumes of volcanoes from the Dragonlands, the boiled water releasing calming, wakening aromas that wafted across the study room. The two then shared a brief final moment of silence as they each took a cautious dreg of their cups before setting them down at their respective saucers and looking each other dead in the eyes.
"So, I suppose you're about to tell me the real reason you came here?" Twilight asked, her expression more sullen. "It's not like you to just show up out of the blue like this.
Celestia tensed for a moment, but nodded, a rosy shade bleeding across her hide. "Yes, well," she started, her throat lurching in recoil from a mix of resignation and risidual warmth from te tea. "while I would have loved to say that my visit was merely to catch up with an old friend, I feel it is more than that." Celestia gulped down a pocket of air and composed herself. "Much more."
Twilight's eyebrow arched up, but she nodded and allowed her to continue.
"You see, when I had initially started your training to become a ruler in my stead, I had this idea in my head that I would benefit from simply living a quiet, idyllic life among those more my age," she began, taking further occasional sips. "That after all the heartache and success, tragedy and triumph that an old mare like me had long been overdue to let go of the reigns and let the next generation go by while I enjoyed my time basking in the sun, rather than raising it."
"I'm guessing there's a 'but' coming," Twilight interjected.
"But, ever since I and my sister crowned you, I've been finding myself...wanting." Celestia paused to look out through the nearest window. "When my sister and I traveled the country for a holiday, I think the two of us had found more joy there than we'd ever found in that retirement home. Cozy as it is...it's just not meant for ponies like us. Ponies whose twilight years are so far beyond us that we cannot even hope to fathom how the world will look if we even reach that age."
Twilight's face darkened a bit at that. She had thought she'd enjoyed her retirement, too. But, hearing it straight from the horse's mouth sewed seeds of doubt in her.
"Truthfully, while I don't think I'll be participating in any derring-do anytime soon," she continued, her voice trailing as she met eyes with her student once more. "I think it's high time I did for you what you did for me, all these years."
Twilight froze. What was she talking about? The galas? The times she saved her life? The letters? Dear gods, could it actually be the letters? Was she going to be on the receiving end of a cascade of correspondence from here on out?
"Twilight," Celestia choked, forcing down the ever-growing lump in her throat. "I'd like to be your companion. Your bosom mare. I want to be for you what you were for me. I want to take you across the breadth of this star and show you all the things I've always wanted to share with you. I want--"
Celestia wrestled away a sob and stamped her hoof.
"I want to be part of your world, Twilight. Your life. I want to be the absolute best of mares to you now because I feel like I should do better for you. For all the good you've done for my sister and me, for this nation and this world. I can think of no better pony that I could hope to share in the beauty of it all than you, my faithful little pony."
Twilight had no words.
However could she? This was her mentor, her inspiration--her idol--confessing to her in the most uncertain of terms that she had missed her, that she now wanted to spend as much time as she possibly could with her, and partake in the fruits of their labor together.
All those years. All those lessons. All those trials and tribulations. Every monster slain and villain deposed. Every friendship made and conflict conquered. All those precious moments of proximity. All of it was leading to this.
All of it led to the single longest uninterrupted chorus of yeses ever uttered by the young princess since having first been accepted by her mentor in foalhood. It was a miracle, unexpected, unprepared for, and yet all welcome.
Twilight threw herself into Celestia's chest, matting her fluff with a torrent of tears streaming from her eyes, all eloquence and composure lost in a sea of incoherent sobs and half-chuckles as she bawled her heart out in front of her, squeezing her like the world's largest rag doll.
"Princess Celestia," she croaked, peeling herself away to look up to her elder with a wavering smile, glistening with yet more unshed tears. "I don't even know what to say. You--you've--!"
Celestia simply placed her hoof gingerly over Twilight's mouth with her own little gentle, radiant smile, nodding slowly. "It's fine, dear. I know how you get when you're like this. But as a start," she pointed to her long-since nude head. "You can call me as I am now. Not what I was to you for so long."
"O-of course," Twilight stammered, her whole body now bleeding crimson from horn to hooves. "I'll, uhm. Try to remember that, Celestia."
Celestia brushed Twilight's bedraggled mane from her eyes. "I know you will, Twilight," she sighed, pulling her into a tender embrace. "It is one of my favorite things about you."
For a while, the two alicorns simply stayed joined in their hug, happy for the simple joy of one another's company and the bond that had formed between them. They basked in the sunshine, neither of them overshadowing the other, but standing as equals. Partners.
Lovers.
It was then, in a moment of clarity following the haze of amourousness that had clouded her, that Twilight remembered what had come before this.
"I should get back to the taxes," she admitted, shuffling her hooves and trying her best to tame her frayed hair and destroyed nerves. "There's still a lot in the pile and I'd hate to let my little ponies down."
Celestia did not break their hold, but instead turned Twilight around from within it and guided her back to her office.
"I am nothing if not a mare of my word, Twilight," she said, pulling out the sitting pillow with that all-too-familiar smile. "How about we work on them now? Together."
"Together," parroted Twilight, still processing these alien feelings now swirling in her braincase before nodding idly. "Y-yeah. Yeah! Together. I'd--I'd like that. I'd like that a lot...Celestia."
It would take Twilight a considerable adjustment period to get used to referring to the elder princess sans honorifics. It just didn't feel right. Like it was disrespectful to someone of such acclaim and honor as her. For someone who wore the mantle she did for so long, to call her in such a way felt in many ways a disservice to her stature. It was accurate, sure, but for such a long time, that was what Celestia was to Twilight; A princess. A teacher. An idol. An aspiration.
But now? She was something less and more than that. She was a confidant. A confessor. A friend. And perhaps even...a lover.
The idea registered queer to her. She had always considered herself a mare of many faults. Often too many to be considered worthy of even friendship, much less love. It would often take the assurance of several friends just to get the truth of herself to register in her own long-addled psyche.
But when it Princess--no, her friend--Celestia saying it? It felt like gospel. As testament and truth. It felt...right. Right in a way that went beyond anything else.
So maybe she could find love in herself. In her. Maybe she could finally consider herself worthy and willing to be her very best friend. And perhaps if she was lucky, she could become something even more in time. And to her? That was a relationship worth anything in the world.