One of Luster Dawn's first lessons in Ponyville was that the town defied explanation, and that was okay. The settlement flew in the face of her understanding of magic, socioeconomics, interspecies dynamics, and numerous other disciplines. After the third meltdown, she had to admit that between one shut-in academic and a town with centuries of history, the odds that the town was the one in the wrong weren't very high.
Whether it was Quills & Sofas celebrating its fortieth anniversary (with the proprietor doing everything in his power to keep his daughter Ballpoint from modernizing half the stock,) the historic Namepending Castle doubling as the town library, or literally anything happening in or around Sugarcube Corner, everywhere Luster looked, Ponyville told her she still had much to learn.
As such, she appreciated those parts of the town that offered a sense of comforting familiarity amid such world-shaking revelations. The antique shop was chief among them, bigger on the inside and migrating to a different address at least twice a week. It was like a store had wandered out of the Canterlot commercial district, known to shift to different sides of the mountain with the seasons, and settled down in the capital's principal suburb.
That grounding bit of uncanniness had steadied Luster's nerves more than once against Ponyville's idyllic surreality. Friends were nice, but like any young mare her age, Luster sometimes needed to recharge by surrounding herself with suspiciously sourced wonders and horrors of a forgotten age.
(One of her other lessons since moving to Ponyville was how unusual her life had already been from an outside perspective, but that was another matter.)
During one of those self-centering antiquing trips, Luster spotted a familiar shade of purple in a bookshelf full of variably enchanted tomes. She doubted anycreature had put a spell on the worn paperback that had caught her interest, though. The cover was careworn along the edges, one corner creased like it had folded in half completely before getting forced back. The illustration emphasized its age, showing Princess Twilight before her crown or wings... and even with a different cutie mark, which Luster knew wasn't how alicorn ascension worked.
Other details filtered in the longer she looked at it. Like how the princess's face was traced, but the rest of her body was mouth-drawn. At an angle from behind. With certain... traits emphasized. And the choice of outfit—
Luster would later insist that the only reason she got the book was because of another familiar shopping experience for a Canterlotter: Screaming in horror and thus running afoul of the "It breaks you, you bought it" policy.
The trip to Canterlot passed in a blur of indignation and embarrassment. Luster thought some of her friends had tried to stop her; she certainly remembered several point-to-point teleports on her way to the train station. Aside from those and Counselor Lulamoon's distinctive laughter, she spent the trip back home in a fugue state.
When the glow at the edges of her vision and the ringing in her ears faded, Luster found herself in the throne room, with several advisors edging away from her and several guards groaning on the floor.
For her part, Princess Twilight bore her usual dignified expresion, with the equally usual traces of amusement and curiosity that many ponies didn't know her well enough to recognize. "Welcome back, Luster," she said evenly. "I see Commander Gallus and I will have much to discuss during our next meeting."
"Princess!" Luster bowed, practically ramming her horn into the carpet in her haste. "Forgive me, I don't know what..." She grimaced. "Well, I kind of know what came over me, but—"
"It's okay. I've been on the other side of this exchange more than once." After a beat, Twilight added, "You may rise."
Luster did so, slowly, trembling with nerves. The princess's smile hadn't shifted one bit. At least, not until she turned to her seneschal with the look of utmost focus she usually wore during national crises. "Writing Desk, I'm afraid we'll have to continue this later."
The green-coated unicorn, who unlike his underlings hadn't budged from Princess Twilight's side, gave a much less panicked bow. "Of course, Your Highness."
The princess's gaze swept the area. "All forces, please vacate the throne room. Make sure your comrades are looked after."
"Yes, Your Highness," came the response from every corner of the chamber, including various winged creatures in the rafters, a few unicorns who dropped invisibility spells, and one Diamond Dog who emerged from a trapdoor beneath the carpet leading up to the throne itself. That last one was among those who carried the guards Luster had incapacitated. She couldn't look in any of their eyes.
That didn't stop the Diamond Dog from patting her on the head in a surreal role reversal. "Fifi will enjoy teasing her sergeant about getting his tail handed to him by a tiny pink unicorn."
That gave Luster plenty to think about until Princess Twilight next spoke. "You know, they say the first time is the hardest, but as far as my faithful student charging into my throne room goes, this isn't nearly as bad as I'd feared."
"I didn't mean to—" Luster almost heard her mind jump tracks once she processed that. "Wait, you expected this?"
The princess shrugged her wings. "To a degree. Celestia had a terrible track record with personal students over the centuries, and you're only my third. After how well Starlight and Dinky went, I figured I was overdue. Or maybe I just learned more from my predecessor's mistakes than I realized." She shook her head. "But this isn't about me. What brings you to Canterlot?"
"I... Well, it..." Luster checked to see if she was still wearing the saddlebags she'd had on in the antique store. To her horror, she was. "If I say I'm here to overthrow your rule, could you just petrify me so we can stop talking about this?"
Princess Twilight shook her head. "If I couldn't get out of awkward conversations with the princess like that, neither can you."
Luster saw her chance. "Isn't that perpetuating the cycle of generational trauma?"
That got a raised eyebrow that made any further counterarguments die on Luster's tongue. "Not if it means we can talk about the actual problem."
Luster sighed, bowed her head, and lit her horn. Her saddlebags opened, and a plain brown paper bag floated out of them and into the princess's waiting magical grip. "Here," said Luster, bracing for royal vengeance. The rustle of paper might as well have been an executioner's axe against a spinning grindstone.
“Oh my. Stars and Garters. This is a collector’s item.”
"Huh?" Luster blinked. Out of all the expressions she expected to see on Princess Twilight's face, a nostalgic smile certainly one of them.
The princess looked at the back cover and gave a most unregal snort. "Look at that! It was back when they were still calling me 'Twibright Twinkle.'"
"Huh?"
Princess Twilight's instructive tone was familiar, and in no way comforting because of that. "After my ascension and coronation, my name and likeness entered the public domain, per Princess Celestia's Give Myself a Sense of Humor Act of 726. The authors didn't have to play coy anymore." She hummed to herself. "Which was actually a common alias for Fluttershy—"
"You knew about this?" It took a moment for Luster to work through the second, slightly less shocking revelation. "It wasn't just you!?"
The princess blinked at that. "Oh. Right." The amusement drained out of her, replaced by a slim fraction of the awkwardness Luster felt. "Sorry, I didn't mean to belittle how shocking this must be for you. But for me..." The princess looked at the book and shrugged again. "Well, this was published before you were born. For me, it's old hat. Enough that I can look back and laugh, especially since the market dried up after I took the throne." She shuddered. "And after what Luna did to the author of Secrets of the Night."
The question popped into Luster's mind, and morbid curiosity sent it to her tongue without consulting any other part of her. "What did she do?"
"Everything in the book."
Luster paused for a moment as her imagination needed a moment to reset. With a shake of her head, she moved to a different tack. "This... this smut is—"
"Oh, this is erotica." To Luster's mounting horror, Princess Twilight actually opened the book, flipping to a random spot in the middle. "Fairly tasteful erotica at that. The smut is mostly pictures."
Luster felt an eyelid start to twitch. The princess being accustomed to the idea was one thing; her defending it was quite another. "It's pornography starring an Element Bearer!"
"It is, yes. And far from the only example."
"I was trying not to think about that." Luster gave a full-body shudder. "How could ponies do that kind of thing?"
"It didn't happen overnight," Princess Twilight said, earlier casual air gone from her tone. "When we cleansed Luna, most of Equestria had no idea who we were. News traveled slow back then; the rail network was only half-finished and radio was a novelty. It took weeks before the outlying regions of Equestria even found out why the sunrise was late, much less that there were ponies involved beyond the new alicorn." She shook her head. "Which was its own kettle of chips, believe me.
"But after Discord, well, a medal ceremony in the capital is a much higher-profile event than an impromptu party in a farming village. And once the nation learned that its heroes were six attractive, single mares, certain ponies saw..." The princess trailed off in thought for a moment. "Let's call it an opportunity."
"For smut," Luster said flatly.
"And erotica. We really did run the gamut of different tastes, from Rarity's elegance to Rainbow Dash's athleticism to... Well, I didn't think of myself as attractive at the time, but I've been told I had a certain 'librarian next door' charm before the alicorn growth spurts."
Luster shook her head. "So... that's the reward for saving the world countless times? That's what creatures' gratitude looks like? Treating you like a piece of meat?"
The princess sucked a breath through her teeth. "Not exactly."
"Then what do you call that?" said Luster, jabbing a hoof at the paperback.
"Oh, it's objectifying, yes, but not in the way you're thinking."
"How do you mean?" Luster knew she'd regret the answer. She also knew she'd never be able to get to sleep tonight without knowing it. She wouldn't be sleeping anyway, but she could at least lower the number of reasons why.
"Well, when ponies found out how powerful my magic was..." Self-consciousness flashed across the princess's face for the first time since Luster had entered the throne room. "We're definitely getting into discussions you should have with your parents, but you'll find some creatures like the idea of a mare who can break them in half just by thinking about it."
"Glrk," Luster responded.
"A common theme in stories involving me." Princess Twilight nodded towards the book. "Stars and Garters is one of the more prominent examples."
"Glrgh," Luster elaborated.
"Besides," the princess added, "saving the world is its own reward. After all, you have to live in that world, whether or not you save it. The stained-glass windows and medals and yes, even the vanity press pornography, those are all secondary."
Luster's mind happily grabbed onto a potential topic change. "Vanity press?"
"It's not like major publishing houses would touch stories about national heroes in lingerie." Princess Twilight rolled her eyes. "I can barely get them to print history textbooks that don't portray Diamond Dogs as mindless savages and slavers, and we've been allied with Canina for decades. But some places will print whatever you give them with enough bits."
"How can you allow that?"
"As Celestia likes to say, there's no wrong way to fantasize. And even if there were, I can't outlaw ponies' dreams." A wry smirk flashed across the princess's face. "Luna would never let me hear the end of it if I tried. Besides, this doesn't do any harm. Just the opposite."
Luster sneered. "Really?"
The princess looked at the cover illustration, expression plaintive. "At first I pitied ponies who chose the comfort of imaginary, idealized mares over going out and making friends."
That got a raised eyebrow. "That was your first reaction when you found out about this?"
That got a laugh. "True, true. At first I locked myself in the library for a week and couldn't look a stallion in the eyes for even longer. But after I adjusted to the idea, I felt bad for those ponies. Then I learned that a community had formed around the subgenre. Ponies were making friends with the books, bonding over them, carrying those bonds to more polite topics and building relationships. Some go on to this day." She shook the book in her magic. "There are foals today whose parents only met because of books like this."
Luster gave a hesitant nod. The friendship dynamic equations did pan out, much as she wished they didn't. "How do you know that?"
"One of my pen pals didn't appreciate my notes and corrections on his work." The princess furrowed her brow. "Imagine a biographer not wanting the subject of the piece to take an interest in his work."
Luster had once stumbled into the forbidden section of the Canterlot Archives, trotting among ancient tomes that did unspeakable things to anycreature foolish enough to read them. That had been less horrifying than the last five minutes. "I can't believe this."
The princess nodded. "It's a lot, I know. Harmony works in strange and sometimes disturbing ways. I can imagine how upset you are, even if I can't quite relate. By the time I was Celestia's student, she had become the kind of untouchable figure where physical attraction to her was... well, not unthinkable, but certainly not the kind of thing anypony would talk about in polite company."
"You had a crush on her, didn't you?" Luster all but sighed.
"As did half of Canterlot," Princess Twilight said without shame. "But nopony talked about it, much less wrote about it. The worst surviving products of that desire were centuries-old portraits that used a lot of diaphanous cloth. Meanwhile, you have to deal with the horrifying reality that your teacher was, at one point, the most pornographized creature in the world."
At that point, Luster's imagination well and truly gave up, and her consciousness followed suit. The last thing she heard before everything went black was, "Oh dear, you hadn't known that part."
Luster awoke in her dorm room at the School of Friendship, finding a letter on her nightstand with a familiar double-star seal.
Luster,
I cannot apologize enough. It was irresponsible of me to unload that on you when you were clearly struggling with the idea to begin with. I haven't explained the details to anycreature who didn't already know them. I see Counselor Lulamoon has all of her old
inscharm. You are free to inform any of your friends who you feel comfortable sharing it with; this is a matter of public record for those who care to look, after all.Suffice to say, while I do appreciate your desire to protect my virtue, rest assured that it will take more than an old Puerto Caballo friendship journal to horrify this old mare.
Your faithful teacher,
Twilight SparkleP.S.
"Luster?" She looked up from the postscript to see a corvid-panther griffin poking her beak into the room. "You okay?" said Georgia. "I heard paper rustle, and with you that's usually a good sign."
After a moment of thought, she nodded to her friend and roommate. "Fine. Ish. It's just... Look, can we get the group together? I don't want to have to explain this more than once."
"Sure thing. I'd certainly like an explanation, considering 'this' includes the big purple pony herself dropping you off."
Luster sighed. "Right." The princess never did seem to grasp how much impact her more casual appearances had on the populace. Or maybe she just hoped if she ignored that impact, it wouldn't happen. It was certainly a familiar wish, even if it didn't seem to work any better for alicorns.
After getting the group together and as much of a summary as Luster could bear to give, contemplative silence dominated the dorm.
Well, it did for all of five seconds before River Song spoke up. "Do you still have the book?" asked the kirin.
“Firstly, ew. Secondly, ew." Once she could stop shuddering at the thought, Luster held up the letter from the princess, still in her magic. "Thirdly, she kept it. She said she's going to read it whenever she needs a laugh and Pinkie Pie is unavailable.”