It was morning at breakfast. The sun had been raised just a while ago, and Sunset shared one of the many dining rooms with Celestia at her side. Soft, fuzzy sunlight scattered by the swaying trees outside dappled itself across their coats. Hot pancakes sat in front of them, fresh and still steaming from the stovetop. Celestia smiled at her as she set the plate down in front of her beloved student, and Sunset knew today was going to be perfect- just like every day with Celestia.
“How are things going at school, Sunset?” Celestia asked a few minutes after Sunset had dug into her meal.
She was in the middle of taking a too big bite, “Great!” she said through mouthfuls of pancake, though it didn’t sound like that at all. She swallowed quickly and continued excitedly, “It’s been so much more fun now that I’m not stuck studying foal stuff. Things are actually hard, and the professors don’t freak out at me as much anymore!”
The princess let out a quiet, gentle laugh. Though it sounded so much like all her other laughs, Sunset could see by the way her eyes lit up and creased that it was real. Only she was able to see that, and no one else.
“Well, I’m glad you’re finally enjoying yourself. I was getting worried I’d run out of classes for you!” the princess held on to her smile with a playful tone in her voice.
Gears clanked dutifully inside Sunset’s mind, “Sooo, if I keep being good at magic, and better and better, I’d only get lessons from you again?”
Celestia’s face tightened ever so slightly. “Now, Sunset, you know that won’t work. If things fell through at my school, I would have… well, I’m not sure. Perhaps brought in some private tutors? Regardless, I would have brought in someone else to teach you.” She put on a more lighthearted tone, “So I do not want to hear that you are overextending yourself for this, alright?”
Sunset snorted, “Fiiine… I still don’t get why I need to learn from anyone else, though. You already know everything!”
There was that laugh again, and Celestia spoke through it. “That certainly isn’t true.” She cleared her throat and continued, “But even if it was, my choice would be the same. My view is… limited. I’ve been blessed to be able to learn much, to be sure, but at the end of the day, I am still one pony. One among millions. I want you to learn as much as you can, and to that end you need to learn from all different perspectives, not just mine.”
Sunset looked up at the princess. What she was saying made sense but, there was still a part of her (a very foalish part, she knew) that still didn’t like this whole affair. It seemed Celestia sensed this, because she craned her neck down a bit just so she could be more at eye-level with her and said softly, “I know we haven’t been spending much time together as before, but trust in me, Sunset. This is for your own good. You will still have me as your teacher, and I will help you in whatever you need every step of the way.”
She stared at the princess for a few seconds. She was still uneasy, but Celestia knew best. She nodded, “Okay, I understand.” Still don’t like it, she thought very grumpily and privately.
They went back to their breakfast. Time passed in comfortable silence. Celestia’s pancakes were as delicious as always- topped in strawberries, butter, and a generous helping of maple syrup. It might not have been the healthiest breakfast, but what did that matter when the princess herself had made them?
Sunset took a gulp of orange juice as she looked up at the princess in question. What she wanted to do was ask for a second helping of pancakes, but then something caught her eye. Something shifting almost imperceptibly in her mane. She cocked her head at it and squinted, trying to catch it as it ebbed in and out of view.
Celestia, having somehow wiped her plate clean already, noticed Sunset’s look almost immediately. She raised her brow, not even attempting to hide her smile. “I don’t have flour on my snout again, do I?”
“Noooo,” Sunset’s voice trailed off as she heaved her front hooves onto the table to prop herself up closer to the princess. With a whip of her magic, she grabbed hold on to what appeared to be a paper thin discolored streak. Or tried to.
Celestia’s mane was famed across all of Equestria, and many a pony despaired over not having a luscious, long flowing mane with the consistency of watery soup. But her magic mane was still mane. Sunset’s magic separated a lock of hair from the rest- still flowing but distinct in its many strands. Now Sunset could see clearly, as obvious as the sun above.
“Princess, you have a-!”
“Gray hair.”
Sunset turned her eyes to Celestia's face, which she was just inches away. To say that she looked amused would be an understatement. If Sunset didn’t know any better, she’d say the princess was holding in laughter!
“B-Buh-But-” she stammered, “You’re a princess!”
Celestia gently set Sunset aside at her seat once more with a flicker of her horn. Almost at the same time, she grabbed hold of the lock of hair from Sunset’s magic with her own. “That I am,” she said as she casually began to set the strands apart, letting them fall until only the gray hair lay fully extended in front of her face, wrapped in her golden glow.
“I haven’t gotten one of these in years. I suppose I was due for it…” she said in a faraway voice.
Sunset’s brain was still short-circuiting. Her mouth contorted into all sorts of shapes, and it took a good few seconds for her to form a coherent sentence. “You’re a princess!” She repeated herself with a blurt, “You’re not supposed to get those at all. You’re-”
“Very old,” Celestia cut in again, as lightly as she could. With a quick flick, her magic pulled the hair out of her mane. It hung loosely in front of her for a moment before she let it fall. “The oldest pony in Equestria, in fact,” she winked at Sunset, “I’ve checked.”
Even as young as she was, Sunset was already very, very self-assured. She knew for a fact that she was right on almost everything in the world- and sometimes she even knew better than Celestia (or at least until the princess taught her otherwise, in that case she tried to forget she was ever wrong in the first place.) At that very moment, a lot of what Sunset thought was true about her beloved teacher was turning completely on its head. She didn’t like that. Not one bit.
“How long.” Sunset phrased that as a statement rather than a question. She was getting answers now!
“Hm? Being the oldest pony in Equestria? Well, a couple of centuries ago-” Celestia started very unseriously. She never got to finish because Sunset angrily jabbed a hoof at her.
“No.” she not-yelled not-angrily, she was just being passionate, “The hair thing!”
The princess lowered her gaze at Sunset, which took out a lot of the steam in Sunset’s drive. But it wasn’t unkind, and she was still smiling indulgently at her student. “Ah, that. Well, a few centuries ago…”
Sunset just barely contained a groan, and thankfully it didn’t deter the princess.
“I woke up one morning, looked at myself in the mirror, and saw that I’d gotten a gray hair. I think I said ‘Oh!’ or “Oh my!’, and then I plucked it out.”
Sunset had been leaning in close, and when Celestia finished abruptly she summoned up the biggest frown she could muster in the face of Celestia’s infuriating little smile.
“That’s it?” she asked incredulously.
The princess nodded solemnly, “I got ice cream afterwards.”
“That can’t be it. You’re an alicorn! Alicorns don’t age!” Sunset exploded, though she didn’t mean it. It was just the way she was. “You just stay the same forever and ever. Getting old is- is- is-”
Not possible, doesn’t make sense, completely illogical, and- Celestia doesn’t get old because she’s not a normal pony, because if she gets old then-
Celestia put a hoof to Sunset’s chest, over her heart, derailing her train of thought completely. “Completely in the realm of possibility.”
She looked up at her in confusion, and she saw Celestia visibly shift gears as she pulled a wing over the unicorn and held her close.
“I’m going to tell you something that only a very few ponies know about- and that’s only because the majority of them have to know everything about my health. It’s not a secret, but it’s not something you should repeat in public. Do you understand, Sunset?”
Celestia’s voice was soft but strong, and the amount of trust dripping from her words enraptured her completely. She quickly nodded.
Celestia seemed to choose her next words carefully. When she started, it was as if she was forcing herself to choose the right words.
“I didn’t have anyone to teach me what it meant to be an alicorn. It took a lot of trial and error over the years to learn what I was, and I even thought I had learned everything there was to know. But when that little gray strand appeared on my mane, it called all of that into question.
“I have aged over the years. It is not obvious to others, but I can see it very clearly. And if a pony can age, then…” she trailed off. Before Sunset could say anything, Celestia continued.
“It’s not much, really. A few spring up every year or so, and I can just pluck them out as they come. I don’t have to dye my mane just yet,” she let out a chuckle at that. “There have been other things. But even with that, I’m in as well shape as a mare well over a thousand can be. So there’s no need to worry about me, I won’t be shriveling into a pile of dust anytime soon.”
Sunset’s face suddenly felt very tight. “...are you sure?”
Celestia laughed. “Very sure. That’s more of Philomena’s style,” she grinned.
Sunset couldn’t unsee how old Celestia looked.
She liked to shadow the princess whenever she could. (She liked using ‘shadow’ that way. It made her trailing after the princess feel so much more official than it was.) Sunset would watch the princess completely in her element, keeping the affairs of state running as tightly as they had for the last thousand years. But now she wasn’t just seeing that.
She saw the way lines creased at the edges of her eyes. How her neck rested slightly downwards, not because she was always looking down at her little ponies but because that’s just how it was. She was graceful with every step, but were those slow, deliberate strides only that? Did she seem tired? Did her hooves press onto the marble floors with the spring she always perceived? Did her coat look healthy? Did her ears sag? Did her tail droop? Was her body truly the ideal for an alicorn, or had it gained the weight that seemed to beset every middle-aged mare?
Sunset compared her with the other ministers Celestia spent her working days with. Those ponies who had spent decades of their lives dedicated to the service of Equestria, much like the princess herself. And she did not like what she saw.
And in the back of her mind through all she saw, that little voice asked her: is this a test?
The princess loved her weird little tests (an older, more bitter Sunset would even say that she gave them out whether she knew it or not.) There was no grading, and no real acknowledgement, but sometimes the princess asked her to do something or think about something, and Sunset knew for a fact that her answer mattered.
She still wondered about the last one. Though she was fairly sure she’d done the right thing by staying in to study instead of hanging out with those stupid foals.
But she wanted to be right above all else. To make the princess proud. She had shared so much with her earlier… did it all mean something? Was she supposed to do something about it? Was the princess trying to tell her something? Ponies didn’t admit stuff like that lightly. Not the princess.
It was now evening. The sky swirled in shades of red, pink, and purple, and soon the moon would need to be raised. They were now in a dining room, and though the curtains were drawn Sunset could still see the cityscape of Canterlot through the sheer fabric.
Cleared plates and bowls sat in front of them- dinner was carrot soup with a side of salad, plus that weird ‘tofu’ stuff the princess loved- and dessert was well underway.
Sunset had just gotten a perfect grade on a test and Celestia wanted to reward her (though she was pretty sure the princess had just been looking for an excuse to partake.)
Sunset took a mouthful of her good-grade-angel-cake. Ever since the ‘incident’, another unpleasant thought had been bothering her. Maybe this could be her chance to learn more about what the princess wanted from her.
“Um, Princess?” Sunset asked timidly.
“Yes?” Celestia always had a way of looking down at ponies without making it feel demeaning.
“I was just wondering. If you… um, what would happen if you were gone?”
She immediately regretted asking and her mouth clamped itself shut. She couldn’t even bring herself to say the dreaded ‘D-word’, and even then the rest of that sentence sounded so wrong. She saw Celestia’s brows knit together a minuscule amount, but she didn’t seem angered or disturbed by the question.
The princess spoke slowly, “Is this about what happened earlier?”
Sunset nodded. She tried saying something, but suddenly her thoughts jumbled together until the words stuck to her throat. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, before settling. “You’re really important,” she said simply.
Celestia smiled. She took her gaze off Sunset and outside the window. It wasn’t night, but the million pinpricks of dazzling lights already illuminated all of the city. From here they could see the sun dipping low below the skylines, static until Celestia took her charge, and it all shone so brilliantly as they contrasted against the darkened buildings.
“I am not as important as you think,” the princess started. Sunset blinked up at her in shock, but the princess continued. “There was a time before alicorns. When the sun and moon were raised by the many. It was a hardship ponies endured for life to continue, and though I truly hope it does not come to that again, it will be one that they will take up again if need be.”
“Well… sure, but you don’t just raise the sun and moon.” Sunset blurted out, “You could’ve spent your whole life holed up in a cave somewhere if that’s all you did. But if you were gone, what… what would happen to Equestria? You talk like… like it won’t happen anytime soon. But what if someday we all wake up someday and you’re just…!”
What if you leave me? That thought ran through her mind. Was that what was worrying her all this time? She hadn’t even realized it until now, but now that it was coming out the thought of it weighed her down like a ton of bricks. It made her heart tighten, and her face suddenly felt very hot.
“Life will go on.”
Princess Celestia’s voice was low and soft, but it seemed to ring across the entirety of the room. She raised a wing and brushed the tip of her primaries to brush away the tears pricking her eyes (when did she start crying?).
“Whatever happens, I have faith that all of my little ponies will have taken to heart the lessons of harmony I have built Equestria around. My absence would only be the beginning of a new era, perhaps one that shines brighter than the last. Change is hard, and ponies will suffer, but it will all be alright in the end. I believe that.”
Celestia’s expression shifted. Something that spoke to Sunset as something much more vulnerable, “But most of all, you will be okay. I’ve taught you so much, and hopefully I’ll teach you so much more. You are your own light, Sunset, you do not need me or anyone else to shine. Remember that.”
And she would.
Sunset pressed herself against Celestia, hugging her. And just like before, the princess swept a warm wing over her.
It felt like they sat in that moment for a long time, though it couldn’t have been more than a minute or two.
Celestia looked down at her, and then looked at the city again. “Besides,” she said, her voice full of levity, “Equestria wouldn’t completely collapse without me.”
Sunset looked up at her, “Completely?”
“I’m just a rather large cog in the machine,” Celestia shrugged, “Equestria would be falling apart right now if it wasn’t for my ministers and their attendants. In fact,” she sighed, “It isn’t a job for any one pony”
“Why not?” Sunset asked with a tilt of her head.
Celestia blinked and looked at Sunset. “True harmony cannot come from a single voice,” she said measuredly. “Equestria was founded on that principle, and…” she looked away and shook her head, “But never mind that. There's no need for you to worry about that.”
The princess stood up. “The moon is waiting, and it’s time for you to head to bed.”
Sunset nodded, but already the thoughts in her head were swirling faster and faster. By the time she tucked herself in, it was a full on whirlwind.
She had been looking for a test, and for the answers to it. What did Celestia want from her? What did she mean? What did it all mean?
“I want you to learn as much as you can, and to that end you need to learn from all different perspectives, not just mine.”
“I have aged over the years. It is not obvious to others, but I can see it very clearly. And if a pony can age, then…”
“Equestria was always meant to be ruled with someone by my side.”
Princess Celestia was so important. And Sunset… she was nothing but a poor orphan filly who got lucky. But was it really just luck that she was the princess’s personal student?
Her magic rivaled that of unicorns decades her seniors. She was powerful, skilled, and most of all smart. Her cutie mark represented her passion and ambition, and it was a shimmering sun emblazoned on her flank that told the whole world who Sunset was. She was meant for important things, she just knew.
And Celestia? She was Equestria’s great leader for over a thousand years, but that was a long time. Celestia was getting old. One day she would be spent, and then who would step up to the plate to help her? To replace her?
…who better than the student she had taken under her wing for years- the powerful protege, the unicorn with a passion that could push her through anything and everything?
That night Sunset Shimmer slept knowing she had just started Celestia’s most important test- one that would remain unspoken but that was still undoubtedly there. And she promised herself that she would not fail the princess. She already knew the answers.