“To move without reason is worse than not moving at all.”
- Ancient Unicorn Proverb
As promised, both Celestia and Luna began their training regimens immediately following that first night’s sleep. Despite knowing that she would probably be up early, Celestia had spent that whole night in restless thought, wondering about what the future held in store for her. When she awoke that first morning, Atlas and Luna had already departed for the open countryside. She could only begin her own studies, and hope for the best when her six months were up.
Aqua was a stern teacher, but not without a gentle side. Celestia’s day generally began with a light breakfast at sunrise, followed by several classes dealing with ancient law and government. After a brief lunch spent in solitary contemplation among the school’s grounds, Celestia would take the rest of the afternoon in private study with her teacher. The subjects of these lessons would vary, from magical spells and practice, to intellectual development. On the whole, Celestia found herself enjoying the strict routine, and clung to the Master’s side whenever she could. True to her reputation, Aqua was a unicorn blessed with great wisdom, and every so often she would grace her student’s ears with a few words of deep meaning. Celestia took care to write down these profound sayings, so that she could study them later.
One day, Celestia was finishing her lunch under a large oak tree near to the centre of the compound. A bright noonday Sun filtered its way down through the spread leaves of the monolithic tree, showering the grassy ground with rays of gold. Celestia loved this spot, and came here often just to think. Sometimes she would practice her magic here as well, whenever a particular spell was giving her difficulty. She was one of the fastest learners at the school, and in only a few short months had already advanced above simple telekinesis and teleportation into transmutation spells.
Celestia enjoyed magic immensely. The amount of control that she felt over her surroundings whenever she was casting a particularly intricate spell made her feel like she was already ruler of her own little patch of Equestria. Today, she held a small stone from the nearby river aloft, twisting it subtly with her mind, coaxing out its hidden treasures. With a satisfying crackle, the cold rock dissolved into steaming liquid, which she carefully poured into a waiting mug. Taking a small sip, she savoured the rich taste: cinnamon tea, with one spoonful of sugar, her favourite.
“Impressive, my student,” came a voice suddenly out of the underbrush, causing Celestia to almost spill her tea. Without mirth, Aqua materialized out of thin air with a torrent of silver sparks.
Hurriedly collecting herself, Celestia stood up in front of her teacher. “I was just practicing, Teacher.” Aqua preferred that their relationship remained formal, so Celestia was careful not to act too familiar around her instructor, although she did feel almost as if Aqua had become something of a surrogate mother to her in these recent months.
“Indeed, practice makes perfect,” Aqua answered, coming forward to examine the tea, which was still hot. “Your control is exemplary.”
Though she did not show it, Celestia beamed with pride underneath her stoic expression. Whenever Aqua complimented her, it only drove her forward to greater accomplishment. She had vowed to be the greatest student the Master ever had the chance to see, and to truly earn her spot at the forefront of the new Equestria.
Stopping in front of her and looking Celestia straight in the eyes, the old white unicorn maintained her stern complexion. “Come now, my student. Today I have something special planned for us.”
With excitement, Celestia followed her mentor through the expansive gardens of the school’s grounds. The branches of the fruit trees were hung low with their produce, and songbirds chirped in the branches while insects flitted about between vibrant flowers that grew in carefully tended beds. The sun cast an inviting aura about the place, causing the whole of the surroundings to burst forth in vibrant colour. After a life spent in grey Eridian, Celestia was still taken aback by her newly verdant environment. The presence of such beauty always lifted her heart, and gave her hope for the future of Equestria. Surely with such potential, peace was only a short effort away.
Today, Aqua was silent as they walked among the orchards and gardens. Celestia became aware that they were entering a private section of the grounds, as the sounds of other students practicing among the flowery groves faded away. But the silence was broken by the cheery ambience of the woods, so the place still seemed comforting. Finally, Aqua led her to a small table set among the trees, in the shade of a spreading sugar maple. The table was a polished stone square, with two seats opposite each other. Once both ponies were seated, Aqua addressed her student.
“You have progressed quickly, Celestia. You are undoubtedly aware that you are probably one of my most promising acolytes. So I think the time has come for a test of sorts, to gauge your true potential, in a way fitting with our standards of mental purity.” With a subtle smile, Aqua reached over her shoulder and gestured with a hoof. Seemingly out of nowhere, an acolyte appeared beside the table. Wordlessly, he laid a glass chessboard upon the smooth surface, the pieces already set up.
Inwardly, Celestia breathed a slight sigh of relief. She had always loved chess, in fact it had been one of her favourite ways to pass the time back in Eridian. Luna hadn’t beaten her once as far back as she could remember. Granted, Aqua would likely be a more formidable opponent, but today Celestia felt as though she was truly within her element. This stood as a perfect chance to impress her teacher even further.
The pieces, so orderly when the game had started, were now shuffled into a forest about the center of the board. Aqua’s Black pieces seemed to have all of the angles covered, but Celestia knew that there had to be a weakness somewhere in her position. Neither side had taken a piece yet, but with a final look over things, Celestia decided that it was time for that to end. Confidently, she nudged one of Black’s centre pawns off of the board.
Aqua watched her as she carried out the move, remaining silent on her side of the board. For several seconds, she made no response, and then a glint caught in her eyes as she addressed her opponent. “You play very well,” she said. “Where were you able to learn the game?”
“The rules I found in a book,” Celestia replied, serious in spite of having received another compliment. “The strategy, however, I worked out for myself. There was little else to do.”
Aqua nodded. “Indeed, you would have had a lot of time to think whilst trapped in the mire of Eridian. Tell me, did you spare any of your thoughts for the greater plight of the nation?”
Celestia’s smile clouded over. The question sounded a lot like the questions that Atlas had asked her when they had first met. She had spent many evenings since then trying to come up with satisfactory answers, and still wasn’t quite sure what to say. “I considered the situation from time to time,” she answered honestly, “but eventually I stopped. There seemed to be nothing I could do to rectify the matter, and there seemed to be more important things to think about.”
Leaning forward, Aqua recaptured her position in the center with another pawn. “And what about now?” she asked again, her voice now low and serious. “Now that you know that there is more than just the darkness of Eridian, what are your thoughts?”
Celestia recognized the look on Aqua’s face now as one of challenge. Aqua always looked at her students this way when she asked them a question that she considered to be important. Since her answer now would probably impact the direction of the rest of their conversation, Celestia pushed the game out of her mind.
Indeed, what she had now seen certainly did impact her perspective on the situation. To know that there were such institutions out here in Equestria, such large groups solely dedicated to the King’s removal, was heartening. Sometimes, when she was in one of the larger classes here at Aqua’s school, and the gathered unicorns succeeded in dislodging a massive boulder from the mountainside or growing a whole tree together, their power seemed almost limitless. And there was Atlas in the air and Terraria in the south to remember as well. There was indeed much hope that she had not been aware of previously. And yet, given all of that, there was one thing that did not make sense.
“Why have you not moved on Discord? Why is the Resistance so cautious with its power?” Celestia spoke confidently, and attempted to fix her teacher with her own look of challenge. For her part, Aqua chose to grace her student with one of her rare smiles.
“Were we to move today… perhaps we would have a chance.” Aqua rubbed her chin thoughtfully with a hoof, and gazed out into the orchard as she thought. “And there are those among us who say that alone is reason enough to move. They say that with Discord out of the way, things will go back to the way that they were before. After all, once the King is destroyed, the game is over, right?” She turned back to Celestia and gestured towards the board that lay between them.
“And yet,” Aqua continued, “I have always found chess to end rather abruptly. For the King himself is merely the head of the system that has built itself around him. Without a plan for what we would do afterwards, the quislings of Upper Eridian would probably just keep on without him, and things wouldn’t really get any better.
“And while a return to the way that things were before is indeed an honourable goal, it would be foolish to assume that it would magically fix all of Equestria’s problems. Don’t let Atlas fool you. Even before Discord, the nation was still threatened, and still required prudent government to remain strong.”
Celestia’s eyes drifted back down toward the pieces. “We must think before we act,” she said, realizing that this was the purpose behind their game today.
Aqua smiled one of her rare genuine smiles, and the Sun caught in her large azure eyes to create a twinkle of reflected light. “Indeed, my student. Impulse would have had us move on the King ages ago, and who knows what would have happened? But we must instead be prudent. We must be sure that when we move, we do so with a purpose, and with a plan for what will happen afterwards.” She sat back once again in her chair, and returned her gaze to the board. “Shall we continue?” she said seriously.
It took a moment for Celestia’s thoughts to return to the game at hoof. She had thought that the only reason they had been playing was to get her into the mindset of thinking ahead, to drive home this lesson into her mind. “Is there still more to this lesson, Teacher?”
Aqua chuckled once. “No, indeed we have covered everything that I wanted to get to today, my student. But I never leave a game unfinished. And I doubt that you would either.” Once again Aqua looked at her with that challenging glare.
Celestia answered by advancing her King’s guard to the left-center of the board.
That evening at supper, Celestia sat eating alone in the complex’s grand hall. While she had made several acquaintances among the other students of the Order, her position as the Headmare’s favoured student did act to isolate her within the school, and she often found herself alone in the evening hours, with nothing to do but think or study.
Celestia had never had a problem with being alone. For much of her foalhood, she had had no one else to rely on, no one else to socialize with or to call her friend. She only had Luna, her charge and her responsibility, and she had their survival to focus on. There was precious little time to even think about other things.
Once Luna had grown up of course, they had had each other. The two had almost never been separated once Luna had been able to walk, and they had weathered the dark times of this age together. Now Luna was gone, off studying with Atlas, and Celestia found herself truly alone for the first time in more than a decade.
She had her studies to focus on, though, and she had the future to think about. Celestia was no stranger to planning for the future, of course, but now, after her game with Aqua, she realized that she wasn’t just planning for herself, but for Equestria. If she was to be the third Triumvir that the Resistance sought, she would need to take her place in the government that was to follow Discord’s rule, and that meant she would need to know what sort of country she wanted to build.
But as she sat and tried to think about social policy and law, the things that she learned about in her morning classes, her thoughts kept coming back to Luna. What was she learning about up in the sky with Atlas? How was she adjusting to this new destiny that had been so suddenly thrust upon them? Most importantly, did she miss being by her sister’s side as much as Celestia missed her?
Her gaze was pulled upwards as she noticed Aqua pulling out the chair across from her. While the Headmare usually ate alone in her office, occasionally she dined with her personal student, whenever there were important things to discuss. Celestia pushed the thoughts of her sister out of her mind and went back to her meal, waiting for the white unicorn to begin the discussion.
Aqua wasted no time. “You are concerned about something, my student. I could see it on your face from across the hall.”
Celestia looked up at her. Instead of the usual ice, Aqua’s tone had been warm, and there was genuine concern in her eyes. For a moment, Celestia wasn’t quite sure how to react. Then, she found her voice, “It’s my sister. I… I wish I knew how she was doing.”
“Don’t worry about her,” Aqua replied. “Atlas is worthy of our trust. He will not let any harm befall her while she is within his care.” She turned back to her meal, but as she began to eat she spoke again. “But that is not really what concerns you, is it, my student?”
Celestia realized that there was nothing she could hide from her teacher. “Atlas told me about my purpose here,” she began, saying the words slowly so that she could organize her thoughts. “About how, in time, you hope that Luna or I might become the expected third Triumvir, and lead the Resistance to retake the country.” She paused, but Aqua only gestured for her to continue, and took another bite of her meal. “If that were to happen, it would mean that one of Luna or I would have to be left behind. Only one of us could fulfill that destiny, only one of us could be that hero. I want it to be me, but I don’t want Luna to be forgotten.” She looked up once again at Aqua, and waited for the unicorn’s counsel.
For her part, Aqua remained silent for several seconds, and then she slid her chair along the floor, so that she was no longer sitting across the table from her student, but instead right beside her. She reached out with a forehoof and clutched Celestia’s own, looking right into her student’s eyes. When she spoke, the tone was tender and caring. “It is an unfortunate truth for those living in such dark times that difficult choices are almost inevitable. I can’t tell you what you should choose, my student, only that all that matters is what you find to be most important.”
Aqua looked away, down at the table. “I too had to make my decision. I had a brother once, you see. He was a keen and passionate young stallion, and when he looked out at the devastation of the country, a fire was lit in his heart that only Discord’s defeat could quench. He didn’t care about what happened after, to him the crimes that the King had committed against us were reason enough to act, whenever and wherever possible. He was strong, skilled, and devoted, and he stood by my side through many a trial.”
Celestia listened to her teacher’s story attentively, and it didn’t require much insight for her to see the parallels that existed between Aqua’s history and her own. Indeed, Aqua’s brother sounded nearly exactly like Luna, devoted to doing whatever he could to alleviate what suffering he could, no matter what the cost would be to himself. “But what choice did you make?” she asked. “What ended up happening to your brother?”
“He went his own way,” Aqua answered calmly. “And for me, the Resistance came first. I missed him for a time, but eventually I realized that it was the only choice I could have made. And it will be the same with you when you are faced with your own difficult choice. What you choose is up to you, but if you are honest you will make the right decision, even if you regret it at first. You must understand what is more important to you.”
Celestia nodded, and there was no further conversation for the remainder of their meal. But Celestia kept on thinking about it, on into the rest of that evening. If it came down to that choice, she knew that letting Equestria miss a chance at freedom just so that she could avoid having to part with Luna made no sense. Her destiny as a Triumvir, if it came to pass, would be more important than anything else. If things worked out in reverse, and Luna was the one making the decision, she felt certain that her sister would spring at the opportunity to save the country. And yet even though she knew all of these things, still she was troubled.