//------------------------------//
// Unity 3: Relationships 
// Story: Those Forty Years 
// by Spell Writer 
//------------------------------//

The days after the festival passed with little fanfare. Much of Twilight's time was occupied by preparing the castle's construction, but Celestia and Luna understood. The two sisters instead spent most of their time going out into Ponyville, happily meeting and chatting with everypony around. By the end of the three days Twilight spent on Centarus Mountain, now renamed Canterlot Mountain, Celestia, and Luna were friends with most of the town! Twilight didn't take long to notice how Celestia was often surrounded by several ponies, each listening to the Ivory Alicorn with extreme attention.

Meanwhile, Luna spent much of her time helping out the community, whether it be helping out at the orphanage, local school, or even at the shelter (Where she spent much of her time). However, today, the trio were meeting for a particular reason. Twilight lands in the center of Ponyville, sighing a little in nostalgia as she sits in front of a small cafe. The larger-than-life Alicorn draws much attention from the local ponies, who are curious about where she's been. Braver ponies wave to her and say, "Good morning, Queen Twilight!" Which always got a smile and a wave back from her.

"Morning Gumdrops! Don't be late to work again! Hi, Hard Melody! I hope you have a great performance tomorrow! Say hi to Record Keeper for me. It's been a while!" Twilight says with a bright smile. When it came to Ponyville, she made sure to know everypony there. Truth be told, if she wanted to mess with the timeline, she could have easily turned Ponyville into the capital city of Equestria. However, she did not wish to exacerbate the feud that recently started between the Apples and the Pears. It was silly that a feud started just because of a simple contest that the Pears lost by one point. "I should really fix that at some point. Although, I didn't even know the Pears lived in Ponyville before."

Twilight hums happily to herself, sipping some coffee she ordered. She wasn't due to meet with Celestia and Luna for around an hour and a half. Even though she can see Celestia from here, Celestia is currently in the center of around twenty ponies her 'age.' Trotting from shop to shop to buy whatever they can while a sale is going on to commemorate the start of the construction of Canterlot Castle. Twilight lightly giggles to herself. "We do make way too many festivals for tiny things." She says aloud to herself. She was not expecting anypony to respond.

"Well, it is a pretty big event! After all, it's not every day your royals must rebuild an entire castle from the ground up." Says a pony from behind Twilight. While the voice is familiar, it's not Unity levels of familiar. Twilight curiously turns and looks.

"Moondancer!" Twilight smiles as she sees her one and only friend in this generation, "Or, well, Moondancer the Tenth would be more accurate. What are you doing here? I thought you were on a spiritual journey to find yourself." Twilight smiles as she stands and changes tables to sit with her friend. The unicorn giggles a little as she sips some coffee, Twilight smiling broadly at having someone to talk with.

"I was! But then I heard and saw what happened. The uh. Train? Thingy disappeared right from under me, and I went flying forward. I nearly broke my arm, but your magic lessons paid off. I came running back, but I guess the action is over." Moondancer says as she looks at the Everfree Forest. "Course, considering that my house was in Canterlot, I feel like I'm gonna be homeless after a while." She says with a defeated sigh. "So, where's the tag along?" Moondancer says as she looks around a little.

Twilight twitches a little. "Hopefully, miles away from here. However, I wouldn't count on it. Unity is the one that caused all that stuff to happen, although part of it was also my fault." She says with a little sigh. "Unity and I came to a truce, though. She'll hold off on her attack and live like an average pony in Equestria until we finish building Canterlot. After that, she'll render her judgment if she so sees fit. Upon which time, I'm going to punch her."

Moondancer nods a little. "Uhuh, uhuh, so we're just going to trust the megalomaniac not to do anything evil then? Seems really far-fetched and kinda crazy." The unicorn says bluntly to Twilight, who giggles a little in response. "Remind me to do something illegal so I can get away with it for free." She says teasingly, Twilight sighing to herself.

"You try saying no to the double attack of Celestia and Luna. They somehow made friends with Unity's foals, so we're both stuck!" Twilight grumbles a little. "Not to mention, it's almost school season. I hope Star Swirl got my letter. I haven't had a free minute to go and find him myself yet." Twilight rubs her forehead a little and sips her tea to calm her nerves as well as she can.

Moondancer tilts her head, tapping her chin a little. "Hmmmmmm. What does a Queen do when she can't do everything herself? Oh, that's right, exhaust herself trying to do everything when she can just as a friend or two to handle stuff while she does other things." Moondancer says with a very obvious smirk, which fades when she notices Twilight's facial expression.

Twilight looks sad, quietly staring down at her teacup. "Sorry, Moondancer. It's just been a rough couple of months when it comes to that. I did trust Unity, so her betrayal really hit hard. I know you and the others always encouraged me to trust everypony to help, but." Twilight sips her tea carefully, calming her nerves down as she mumbles. "The last time I trusted somepony that much, they mind-controlled me and nearly destroyed Equestria. It's just tough to trust somepony after something like that." Twilight says with a little mumble. "Not to mention, now one of her kids will be attending my school, and he's brilliant! His magic potential is greater than anything I've seen in this era!" Twilight says with a bright face.

"Buttt, you're worried that if you teach him too much, he'll become an enemy later. Righttt?" Moondancer says as she leans forward. Twilight nodded in response to the statement after a moment passed. "Well, I guess I see where you're coming from. I mean, I'm TOTALLY a scary pony with centuries of experience and the magical experience of twenty thousand different archmagi of history!" Moondancer says in a grandiose manner, giving a little wink to Twilight. "Although the Twilight I remember, wasn't this worried about such simple stuff, I mean, come on. Look at me, Twilight." The pale yellow unicorn with a red mane says, her mane braided down neatly. "I'm basically a hippy. I couldn't be a danger to you or your weird magic even if I tried."

Twilight giggles a little and smiles. "Thanks, Moondancer. I really appreciate the cheering up." She says with a happy tilt of her head.

Moondancer looks at Twilight with a tilted head. "I wasn't exactly trying to cheer you up yet, but I WILL gladly take the credit!" She says with a smile. "Now. What do you need to say to Star Swirl, eh? I'm happy to chat with him, punch him, and drag him here by his beard if necessary." Moondancer clacks her hooves together with an excited smile on her face.

Twilight's eyes go wide. "No, no, no hurting or punching him! Ugh. I forgot your family comprises most of the royal guard's elites. Your grandma would be so disappointed to see one of the mares in her family being so headstrong." Twilight says with a little giggle to herself.

Moondancer huffs, "Oi! Just because I got the family curse." Twilight mumbles something before letting Moondancer continue. "Doesn't mean I can't TRY to be worthy of the royal guard! I may not have my brother's skill with a spear or my other brother's barrier magic abilities. BUT! My general magic cutie mark means I could be an epic court mage! Ooh, maybe even lead my own battalion! Pleaseeeee, don't make me go back to studying normal magic!" She whines out as she thuds her face on the table. Twilight sighs a little.

'Was she always like this?' Twilight said to Eternal with an awkward smile on her face.

'Yep, she hates having a magic researcher cutie mark. Moondancer has been trying to get into the guard most of her adult life. She just can't pass the entrance exam.' Eternal responds with a mumble.

'Why? Does she not know her stuff?' Twilight asks curiously, Moondancer continuing to whine and complain in the background.

Eternal laughs 'Eh?! No! That's not it at all! She'd be a great guard! She gets hyper-intimidated in the self-defense section of the test and freezes up! She gets so excited that she zones out! She and I have sparred at least eight times and offered her a skip on it each time! She always turns it down!'

Twilight tilts her head. "Moondancer, if you want to be part of the guard that badly, then why haven't you accepted the pass I've offered you before?" She says with a curious expression, Moondancer perking up in response and tilting her head.

"Well, duh! It's because I want to do it right! Look, as much as it's SO incredibly frustrating. A good guard can't freeze up like that! I want to be your personal guard, ya know! I can't have any excuse. I will do it right! That way, when Unity comes back, we can fight her together!" Moondancer smiles, "Er, well, at least I can try to help. It's hard to account for a creature that is genuinely that much stronger than me. I'll give a real good shot, though!" The unicorn stands up with a hup, saluting Twilight. "Your Majesty. Your future guard will go and handle this mission you gave her! I will make sure to get Star Swirl here before school starts!"

Twilight giggles. "Moondancer, you don't need to salute! You aren't a guard yet!" She says with a smile. "But when you're ready, I'll always have open tryouts for you." Twilight nods happily and gives a little fake salute back, which Moondancer accepts. The unicorn trotting away excitedly.

'Wow. You are GREAT at getting ponies to do what you want.' Eternal says with a blink.

'Quit it. It's called friendship. Moondancer is just trying to help. It's not like I'm sending her on a death mission.' Twilight says back to Eternal as she notices Celestia and Luna approaching.

'Call it whatever you like. It's still impressive. Commanding a country requires either fear or trust and love. I did it through fear. So forgive me if I draw some comparisons.' Eternal says casually.

'Quiet.' Twilight says to Eternal. 'Just... Quiet.'

Celestia and Luna sit down, smiling at Twilight, who takes a deep breath. "Alright, let's talk about where Unity is gonna stay."





The school was complete! A large, three-story building stood on the side of the mountain, the framework of the castle overlooking and casting a slight shadow over it. Twilight takes a deep breath and smiles, the large building built to her specifications. Bunks for the students, plenty of classrooms, and a large lunch hall are just some of the amenities at the School of Magic! Since the construction of Canterlot City would bloom out from the castle, Twilight made efforts to ensure that the first building built was the School of Magic since that was one of the many buildings she knew the exact coordinates for. The castle was finally liveable, with the bedrooms being complete. Meaning the Royals could move in whenever they wished. They agreed to do so once the builders completed the main throne room in a week. Officially, this marked the re-opening of the Equestrian Government!

This event resulted in a literal mountain of paperwork suddenly being dropped on Twilight's head at 1 AM. "AAAAAAAHHHH HELP! THE PAPER APOCALYPSE IS HERE!" Twilight screams out as the papers suddenly appear over her newly made bed. Celestia and Luna busted into the room with horns glowing before suddenly being caught by the tidal wave of documents! By the time they gathered all the documents and itineraries, it was already 3 AM, the papers giving each royal their fair share of paper cuts. Twilight grunts as she puts the final stack of papers on the floor, looking up at the massive piles of work.

"So this is what it looks like when the government doesn't exist for four months." Twilight mumbles to herself, in awe at the number of tax documents, building permits, and, worse, foreign advisory documents that sat before her.

'Normally, I'd suggest abusing time magic to do this, but you still can't hold the spell for longer than a few minutes.' Eternal says with a mumble.

'Well, we can always sw-' Twilight begins to say before Eternal interrupts her.

'Ah ah! You aren't piling all this work on me. Besides, you're the original anyway. You're the one that will absorb me in the end.' Eternal responds before mumbling. 'If you can ever accept that we are the same pony, that is.'

'NEVER.' Twilight shouts at Eternal, snapping at her. 'I don't care what you say. You're nothing but a blight on everypony's life around you. You may have been me at one point, but not anymore. Once I figure out how to get you out of my head, I will.' Twilight says with a snort.

"Luna, get some coffee ready. It's going to take a few days to get through this all." Twilight says as she stares up at the documents. "I'll need you two to help me out if you get free time, but focus on school first!"

Luna nods as she rushes off to get some coffee from the kitchen. They hadn't hired any kitchen staff, but the royals had long learned to make the basics of food. While Luna had no real skill with proper cooking, she could make coffee without being supervised about half the time without blowing up the kitchen. Celestia trots to a stack, pulling papers down and working on them individually. "Luna is gonna explode the kitchen again, you know," Celestia mumbles as she separates the paperwork into two neat piles. One pile is for stuff that matters, and the other is labeled 'Noble Trash.' Celestia sighs as she watches the Noble Trash pile increase in height at an alarming rate. "You're still going to talk with these nobles, right?"

Twilight struggles and grunts with her horn. Eternal was in no mood to help her, so she worked her wildly unfamiliar magic. After a moment of trying, she takes a deep breath. "Come on. You can do it. You're the Element of Magic. Relax." She says as she feels everything around her, gently letting her magical aura seep out and slowly levitating tens of papers. She sorts them with her eyes closed while she responds to Celestia. "It's on the calendar. No promises that it'll continue after I leave, though. Only five or six nobles are worth their salt even in the future." Twilight says with a little grunt, finally losing concentration as all the papers she had levitated flutter to the ground. She doesn't stop, though, clearing her mind and trying again, thinking back to her conversation with Star Swirl not but two days ago.





Star Swirl sighs as he watches Celestia put Luna into a magical bubble. Luna was floating around the newly walled Canterlot gardens as Celestia watched. Celestia smiles and says, "Okay! Now try running!" Luna saluted and began to run in the magical bubble, causing it to land on the ground from the sudden weight and skid around like a wheel! Luna runs at top speed before she slips, causing her to start rolling with the bubble right at Star Swirl. The old unicorn blankly stares at Celestia before glowing his horn and popping the golden bubble with a loud -POP!- Luna lying on the ground as her teacher catches her in his silvery magic aura.

"AGAIN! I think I almost got it this time!" Luna says as she hops up and runs towards Celestia. The pair chatted quickly about ways to modify the spell and change it to be more controllable!

"They're a hoofful, aren't they?" Twilight says from behind Star Swirl, who turns and sighs.

"They are. Different from what I expected. I expected more haughty or difficult students. Instead, they take what I say and twist it into something. Uh." Star Swirl trails off as he tries to think of what to say.

"New? Different?" Twilight says curiously, trying to hold in her inner fangirl.

"I was going to say incredibly stupid and dangerous, but that works too." Star Swirl responds with a deadpan expression. "The aerial barrier spell is meant for subduing flying opponents in the heat of the moment, not for." He motions to the two, trying their little barrier rush maneuver again, which is working! "That."

Twilight giggles a little. "Sorry about that. Celestia and Luna tend to hyper-focus on an idea when they share it. Especially if they both like the concept, while they're doing their thing, have you, perchance, figured out anything about what we spoke of before?" Twilight says with a mumble.

Star Swirl perks up. "Ah, yes! Your inability to use your highly refined magic. Well, you're in luck. I have indeed figured out what the issue is. Currently, your pool of magic, erm, mana, in this case, is split in two. Half of your psyche has control of one portion, and the other controls a much smaller, less helpful amount. Now, with the purity of your magic that hardly matters, one drop of your mana is enough to power tens of thousands of unicorns for a week. But the rules of magic became more stringent because of the purity of it."

Twilight nods a little. "The rules of magic..." Twilight blinks for a moment before closing her eyes. "Erm. I forgot what those were. That's like foal hood basic level stuff." She giggles a little as Star Swirl stumbles as if he's been hit with large bricks.

Star Swirl sighs as he readjusts his cloak and hat. "The rules of magic are simple: One, magic grows with regard to how it is being used. Two, magic grows in relation to what kind of magic is being used."

Twilight nods. "Right, that's why if you use combat magic a lot, you get better at combat magic. I knew that, but those rules don't concern me here."

Star Swirl sighs. "There are three more laws of magic that used to be passed before the time of even the alicorn ruling days. In Princess Platinum's reign, there were three more rules of magic: Three, magic is in all things. Four, magic is willed rather than controlled. And most importantly to you: Five, magic reacts to the turmoil within oneself. Your magic is weak, not because of your abilities or lack thereof, but because of something bothering you deeply. Until you solve that issue, you won't be able to use any powerful magic you might have in you."

Twilight groans a little as she rubs her head, about to say something before she's suddenly crashed into by an out-of-control Luna.

Star Swirl chuckles. "I think it's lunchtime now." He says as he trots inside.





Twilight sighs as she takes a deep breath. 'Focus.'

A gentle glow of magic pulses out of her body as all the papers, Celestia and even Luna, who is currently putting salt into the coffee instead of sugar, suddenly freeze. Twilight opens her eyes as she feels the intense drain of her small mana pool, but the feeling of success is too much to bear. Twilight stands up, smiling widely as she says, "I DID IT!" The spell dropped shortly after. Celestia looked at Twilight with a confused expression.

"Mom? Were you always standing up? Wait, did you?!" Celestia says happily as she stands up, Twilight nodding and getting a big hug from her daughter. "YAY! I'm so happy for you! You figured out the issue?"

Twilight smiles. "Mostly. There are a few more than I have to deal with first." She sighs as she nuzzles Celestia. "But I'm not ready to handle those just yet." The Queen says in response, closing her eyes as she levitates entire stacks of the pages at once. "Butttt, that doesn't mean I can't steal a page from Eternal's book and do this! Sorting spell! Sorting spell!" Little twinks of Twilight's magic fire off as the papers sort themselves rapidly. In the end, three large stacks of documents needed reading, while ten large stacks of noble drek and one stack of good ideas from some nobles who would absolutely be finding themselves promoted soon. With the pot of coffee in hoof and the mugs of salty coffee thrown out the nearby window, the trio began to chip away at their duties. Throughout the day, even with construction going on, guards, servants, and even Moondancer ran in and out of the castle, delivering paperwork, notes, and even beginning foreign relationships once again, one page at a time.

Equestria was back! Hitting the world scene once again!