//------------------------------// // One - Celestia: Supercriticality // Story: Crucible // by Luminary //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle stared at Celestia with undisguised hatred. There was a long, horrible, drawn-out silence as the Goddess of the Day endured that baleful look. When at last the silence broke, it carried a voice so full of helpless fury and pain that a thousand years of control was no defense, not when it came from those lavender lips. “You want me to talk. To tell you everything. But you killed them. They were everything to me, and you killed them all.” “After what was done, thou expects us to spare thee sympathy? After all that thee and thine have rent to ruin and ash in thy wake?” Luna’s cold outrage broke the spell. Celestia could always count on her sister to face things head-on. It was uncanny how their roles had become so reversed when compared to a thousand years previous. The sun goddess turned her head away from the sight of her faithful student bound in iron and magelight, and toward the image of her dark sibling, which was infinitely easier to bear. “Thou purchased thy fate with the blood of our subjects.” Celestia inhaled slowly, until she felt as if her chest would burst from the strain. She focused on that feeling alone, letting it become her whole reality. The slow release of that breath didn’t carry away as much of the deity's heartsickness as she had hoped, but some of her usual control returned. Not for the first time, she wished Cadance was at her side, but it would have been a terrible cruelty to make her face... this. “It wasn’t all of them.” The sun princess looked back toward her student. Her voice wasn’t so steady as it should have been, hardly like her usual facade of perfect, benevolent calm, but it was an improvement. She’d take what small gains that she could. “We saved some. They’re recovering now.” “They’re recovering for now,” Luna corrected, her voice filled with dark promise. “Luna!” The named alicorn rolled her eyes at her sister’s scolding, before giving her an impatient look in return. Celestia weathered that look with far more calm than she did the hateful glare from Twilight. She knew, or at least hoped, that her sister’s threat was a bluff, but it wasn’t the sort of bluff that a princess of Equestria should be attempting. However, speaking against Luna in front of the prisoner was a mistake that she wouldn’t normally have made. Twilight sat a little straighter on her haunches, given some renewed confidence by the sight of the alicorns’ division. Celestia met the familiar unicorn’s defiant purple eyes. Twilight’s eyes were usually so full of adoration and simple love. They would always light up with joy for the princess as reward for the simple act of walking into the room. Now those same eyes held only disgust and contempt for her. Celestia wanted to look away again, to leave this to Luna. How wonderful it would be, to be able to tearfully flee, like a normal pony could. There was, however, a reserve of bitter resentment that the goddess could call upon in the face of the failure of her usually implacable calm. “Two hundred and six.” Twilight blinked in confusion. “Two hundred and six ponies. That’s how many we know that you, and those like you, have killed. How many you’ve murdered.” Some of that old fire flared to life in the sun goddess. It wasn’t an emotion that she allowed herself often. Righteous fury was in her nature, but it rarely served her well. Hard-won wisdom and discipline controlled it, but it was still there, at the core of her being, as fiery and tempestuous as her sun. “And how many more do we not know about? How many families have you really destroyed and broken? That is what I want to know. Keep the rest of your secrets.” “You act like you’re so innocent! Like your hooves are so clean!” Twilight rose up on all four hooves, rattling the chains connecting them to the walls. The looped strands of the binding spells that wound around her crackled in warning. “With how many of my family you’ve murdered, you’re going to lecture me!?” The unicorn’s voice cracked as it reached the highest registers of an outraged shriek. “We have murdered none,” Luna cut in with an even, dismissive tone before Celestia could brandish a more passionate retort. Twilight snorted and turned her muzzle away. “No. Instead you sent your little assassin out into the night. We must keep the blood off those royal hooves, mustn’t we?” “Ahh, doth Hoofington’s sorceress frighten thee? Our heart breaks for thee, truly. Her actions are no order of ours. Thou hast inspired that bit of heroism thyself. We think we shall see her rewarded, in fact.” The unicorn seemed to be ready to throw herself to the limit of her chains once more, but the Princess of the Night blithely continued on. “But ‘twas not what we spoke of, in any case. We—” “We didn’t start this war,” Celestia wearily finished the thought for her sister. “Our little ponies are simply defending themselves. That isn’t murder.” A cruel sneer crept into Twilight’s features. “Yeah. Defending themselves. Because you couldn’t defend them, could you, Princess?” The white alicorn flinched at the all-too-keenly placed barb. Luna looked over in concern at her reaction, a shod hoof rising to reach out to comfort her. Celestia knew well the reason why her sister was so worried. This wasn’t like her. She had nearly fifteen hundred years of experience to draw from. She had spent those years shepherding a nation, facing dark gods eye-to-eye, and of course, wrestling with the power within her that ever sought to rage explosively out of control. Everypony knew that Celestia of Equestria didn’t flinch. Her voice didn’t waver. She didn’t so much as blink when things went straight down to Tartarus in a saddlebag. Yet, she was still a pony, for all those years, and all that power. A pony who had to sit across a room, under the malevolent gaze of her most beloved student, who gleefully reminded her that every pony life lost in the last three weeks could be laid squarely at her hooves. Two hundred and six ponies. Twenty-eight of them foals. All because Celestia the Ever-Wise hadn’t believed that an overgrown insect, intent on ruining a wedding, could prove to be a real threat in the face of the glorious power of the sun. “Enough with this absurd game.” The stones of the dungeon floor trembled as Luna let power creep into her voice. “Wear a different face, creature.” “Or what?” Twilight’s voice was full of arrogant challenge. There was a downside to Celestia’s reputation for passivity: many assumed that her sister was equally gentle. They were wrong. “Or we shall tear thy very soul from thy monstrous form and leave thine empty husk as an example of what we do to those who dare to hurt our Sister,” the lunar mare snarled. The room was overcome with an oppressive gloom, as if the sudden darkness had a weight and mass all its own. Twilight sagged beneath the press of it, legs trembling with strain. Fear replaced the defiance on her face. “And we shall revel in the justice of it, creature. The justice of leaving thee as you leave your victims.” Celestia reached out a hoof in turn, lightly placing it against her sister’s side. Her coat was glowing with an inner radiance in counterpoint to the surrounding night, pushing it back as it sought to crowd in. The dark lingered stubbornly for a moment, before its mistress allowed it to retreat to the natural shadows that had birthed it. Celestia knew she should be scolding her again for resorting to the fire and brimstone attitude that was so necessary a thousand years ago, when ponies were simpler and more primitive. A small, grateful smile crept onto her lips instead. “Victims?” Twilight’s voice was little more than a strained, broken sob. Celestia’s attention instinctively snapped back to her upon hearing it. “We’re trying to survive! Trying to stay alive! We didn’t start the war! You ponies did! You forced us out. Guarded the borders.” Twilight lifted her face to Celestia. Tears were flowing freely down her lavender cheeks. “We are starving,” she pleaded. “Dying. Aren’t you a goddess? Don’t you care?" “Yes,” Celestia found that her voice was steadier now. Maybe the charade was starting to lose its potency. Maybe grief and heartache had a limit beyond which lay only fatigue. “I care. Once compassion and harmony become watchwords for your people again, instead of power and ease, I’ll be happy to talk about reintegration. Until then, we’ll do what must be done to protect our lives.” The unicorn’s tears stopped flowing with unnatural suddenness, revealing the lie of them. Twilight’s expression of pained sorrow was replaced once more by sullen, brooding hate. “Yes, that was always the fate you wanted for the changelings. To skulk around in the shadows. Servile. Never satisfied. Always keeping our numbers few. To be just another cog in the machine of your plans for ponykind.” The filly’s purple eyes narrowed. “What fate is that for one of the great races of this world? Queen Aurelia freed us from servitude. She gave us a chance at making our own destiny.” “She turned you from a folk concerned with making the lives of your fellow ponies better into a throng of monsters and killers!” Celestia stomped a hoof upon the floor. Flame leapt out from the point of impact, dying quickly as it found no fuel upon cold stone. “She condemned your race to the realm of stories meant to terrify foals into good behavior, where you were once an example of all that was good in the pony soul.” “We are what you made us.” Twilight looked toward Luna once more, then coyly back at Celestia. “But then, you have a habit of ignoring the anguish of those in your care, don’t you, Celestia? Not to worry though, you’re always happy to just banish the problem away until somepony else deals with it, when things go wrong.” The goddess of the sun let the verbal thrust break over her. As true as it might have been, those false tears earlier had broken the horror of the image of Twilight suffering. The alicorn’s composure crystallized into the steel that was its usual quality. The cool dispassion that came with it was a sweet relief. “I regret that you find mercy to be such a mistake. Others have been happier to accept it. They’ve taken a first step toward repatriation. Within this very room, no less. Not every changeling wants to live a life off of the suffering and death of others, I’m happy to say. If you should change your mind, we’ll be waiting.” Celestia serenely rose and turned to walk toward the door, making a small motion of her head to her sister, asking her to follow. Though Celestia didn’t turn and watch, she was sure that Luna shot the changeling a withering glare before she left. The thought cut through some of the lingering gloom in the solar regent’s spirit. She wouldn’t change Luna for the world, for all her rough edges. * * * The sun goddess sighed into the wispy ether of her sister’s mane. The smaller alicorn responded with a nuzzle to the side of her neck. It was a quiet and unashamed embrace, something to provide shared comfort. The fact that they hadn’t gotten more than a few pony lengths from the door of the changeling’s cell was a testament to the necessity of the gesture. “That one was the worst yet. You’d think I’d be used to their little games by now.” “Thou wouldst not be my sister without thy empathy and compassion, ‘Tia,” Luna replied, in a gentle tone. A warmth suffused the elder sister, a kind of happy delirium that had been repeated over and over since Luna’s return. It was the euphoric knowledge that she wasn’t alone anymore. Celestia hoped that the novelty would never fade. “The Celestia you knew a thousand years ago would have bludgeoned the wretched thing until it begged for a chance to serve her.” “That Celestia was a vain, self-righteous nag.” A laugh burst from Celestia’s mouth, reflexively. She reached a foreleg up to more firmly embrace the smaller mare. “Yes. Yes, she was.” A brief silence fell over her. “Lulu, what the changeling said in there, about me ignoring things. She was right. I’m—” Luna pushed herself away from her sister, if only far enough so that she could raise a hoof to lightly place it over Celestia’s mouth. “Thou hast apologized many times. As have I. We made mistakes, both of us. In the end, however, I was the only one to blame for my madness.” A small smile returned to Luna’s lips. “Besides, as we have just agreed, that mare was different from the one before me now. I can only hope to one day share the qualities that thou hast gained.” Celestia allowed herself to enjoy only a few moments of the contented silence between Equestria’s diarchs before she turned her head to look further down the hallway. “Well, I suppose I had best go reassure the guards that the prisoner didn’t eat us. And I think you were right about rewarding Hoofington’s caped superheroine. I’ll send something off with the next round of missives to General Sunshine.” Luna wrinkled her nose with a subtle look of distaste. “‘Tis not how it should be. I have no objection to bravery and heroism. They are the very best and most wondrous of qualities. But vigilantism should not be necessary. That one wizard hast done more to keep that city in good order than the thousand mares we have stationed to deter the changelings from leaving their redoubt in the Everfree.” “You’re just mad that your little crush isn’t getting a chance to show off, since the changelings are still staying clear of Ponyville and Canterlot,” Celestia innocently replied. Well, perhaps her voice carried a mild bit of fillyish, sing-songy teasing. If she couldn’t let her mane down around Luna, who could she do it with? Luna gave a proper scowl. “Doesn’t thou have a kingdom to go and run, ‘Tia?” * * * The affairs of state went on and on. The rhythm of it was as familiar to Celestia as the beat of her own heart: breakfast, dealing with the latest crisis, morning court, patting the aristocracy on the head, lunch. She didn’t begrudge the monotony; familiar patterns were a comfort, really. Nonetheless, she did appreciate the fact that Luna’s return was gradually easing more and more of the burden of rule, as her sister settled in. It meant that Celestia could spare more time to indulge herself by visiting with her student... the real one, this time. Said visit wasn’t exactly going as she’d planned. Celestia stood unnoticed in the doorway of Twilight’s workshop, at the lowest floor of her ivory tower. She’d intended to simply breeze in, but she’d been struck by an irritating spike of unknown emotion at the threshold, and didn’t plan to move until she’d properly deciphered the unfamiliar feeling. “There’s no point in thinking about the transmographic function from the Head Light spell, Luna. What’s there to transform?” Twilight reached up and tapped on the complex, swirling drawing that had been affixed, with obvious haste, to the wall in front of her. “You’ve got to think outside the horn! This isn’t unicorn magic we’re dealing with.” “We bring the air to heel with the power in our wings. Our muscle and bone draws strength from the rich earth of Equestria itself. We embody a small orbiting planet, and can call upon it in time of need.” Luna reached over to the smaller unicorn and gave her horn a gentle tap with a hoofshoe. “We are not in need of a lecture about limiting ourselves to one viewpoint on magic. Love is power. We accept that premise. Changelings feed upon it, and Cadance used it to banish all of them. ‘Tis clearly used in some manner by the Elements of Harmony. Even Discord’s influence was dispersed by thy memory of dear friends. But how doth one use the very fires of friendship to accomplish a task? As thy modern carols say, it burns in our heart. It cannot be seen, nor touched. We simply meant that we clearly need to find a way to change the nature of this power to make it useful, just as a unicorn’s raw magic is turned directly to light with the Head Light spell.” “Oh.” A sheepish look crossed Twilight’s face. She lightly scraped her hoof against the stone floor. “Yeah, that makes sense. Sorry, Luna.” Twilight turned her attention back to the diagram, squinting a little, as if that would make the idea clearer. “Spike? Take a—” The lavender filly cut herself off, lifting hoof to face as her embarrassment deepened. “Um, I’ll just write that down. Myself.” She levitated over a scroll and quill and set to work. Celestia left her pondering behind in order to smile, stifling a small laugh. That sort of thing had been happening all week. Spike had been sent back to Ponyville to take care of Twilight’s library. One consequence was that Twilight’s workshop was, naturally, a wreck. Once-neat shelves and tables were cluttered, haphazardly arranged, and covered with scrawled-upon paper. Twilight didn’t trust any of the scribes or assistants Celestia wanted to assign, yet she was used to having one on-hoof at all times. For a unicorn who was obsessed with all the little details, Twilight Sparkle could be terribly forgetful when given a task that consumed her attention. I think I’ll send one or two clerks to Ponyville instead, to watch the library and get Spike back here, Celestia thought. That was assuming, of course, that the dragon would ever forgive her for interrupting his Twilight-free vacation of minimal chores and checklists, with every meal no doubt being comprised of gems and ice cream. Twilight’s research was simply too important to the future of ponykind to allow minor inconveniences to slow its progress. The Magic of Friendship, as they had been calling it, had suddenly become a very tangible reality during the tumultuous wedding three weeks ago. Twilight had been deep in study, churning out theories on the power that could be drawn from that most noble connection between pony souls. “So, we’re right back to the old symbol. It works, and maybe we can figure out a way to apply a transformative function to it.” The unicorn led the way to a well-worn sheet of paper stuck to the wall. After barely a moment of looking at it, however, she threw up a foreleg in frustration. “We just don’t know why it works. Or how. Or where the additional energy comes from when you cast through it. And I’m the one who designed it!” Luna moved to join her at that far wall, standing at her side. “Give thyself the proper credit, Twilight Sparkle.” The lunar mare extended a wing, lightly gracing Twilight’s back with its midnight feathers. “Thou could not have made the discovery without great insight.” “And you give me way too much credit.” Twilight didn’t quite snap that rebuttal out, but she came close. It was clearly a conversation they’d had many times. “Sure, I had a hunch. And took some cues from Inner Eye’s theories on emotional magic, and from Cadance. But there weren’t any brilliant moments of understanding. I found something that worked, and I tweaked and tweaked. That’s all there was to it, Luna.” ‘Luna’. Celestia couldn’t get her student to say her name without the ‘Princess’ for more than five minutes at a time. Nor could they disagree on a point without Twilight caving in like a poorly constructed house of cards. It was all terribly... frustrating. Ahh, Celestia thought, jealousy. That’s the emotion. It had been a long time since that one had plagued her awareness. As a rule, a God-Princess didn’t want for much that others possessed. There was, perhaps, the intangible closeness of intimate companions and family, the latter of which she had back, after a thousand years. The former problem could be taken into one’s own hooves, so to speak, a solution that had the benefit of avoiding the scandal, endless politicking, and sensationalism of taking an actual lover. No, Celestia hadn’t missed jealousy. Rationally, Celestia knew that it was a foolish thing to feel. Luna and Twilight were friends. Her faithful student had been the first to really reach out a hoof to Luna on a personal level, since her return. Besides, even if that hadn’t been the case, if wasn’t as if Twilight was Celestia’s to claim. The bookish unicorn had enough trouble with normal friendships, nevermind bitterly political relationships with lonely old sun goddesses. Luna drew back her wing as if stung by Celestia’s thoughts. She looked toward the doorway her sister stood in. Twilight, in the middle of arguing some new point, didn’t even notice. Luna studied her sister, confused. She looked to Twilight, and then back to Celestia. There was a certain level of subconscious awareness between the two royals, a sympathy between inseparable, paired opposites. That link had once let them communicate across Equestria with no more effort than it would take to speak face-to-face. After a thousand years of atrophy, Celestia lamented, she can barely feel me from across the room, even while jealousy is tearing me up inside. And she was always the one with the far greater sensitivity. We’ve lost so much... changed so much. Given what Luna had known of Celestia a thousand years ago, it wasn’t at all surprising that she was confused by what she felt now. Eventually, she seemed to settle on a private explanation, and her expression became somewhat irritated instead. “One moment, Twilight Sparkle. Our Sister has arrived to abduct thee to lunch, but we wish to speak with Her first.” Luna still hadn't quite kicked the habit of using Middle Equestrian speech and the royal ‘we’. She could correct it with conscious effort, but truthfully, Celestia hadn’t exactly encouraged her to adapt in that way. The archaic speech gave her sister a certain charming, unique character, even though it sometimes embarrassed the lunar princess herself. Twilight turned and gave her mentor a dazzling smile. “Hello, Princess!” Twilight cheerfully waved a hoof. Celestia could tell that only a measure of decorum in front of the far less familiar Luna kept her student from dashing in for a nuzzle or embrace. Some of the goddess’s misplaced envy quieted. After Celestia exchanged a few pleasantries with the unicorn, Luna led her out to one of the small balconies that clung to the side of Twilight’s slender tower. Almost immediately, the dark alicorn snapped at her. “How foalish thou hast become, ‘Tia!” Formality had never really existed between the two of them. “It’s not as if I could replace thee as a mentor in Twilight’s eyes. Thou art her hero. I’m simply her friend.” Relief flooded through Celestia at Luna’s mistaken conclusion. It didn’t show on her face—little emotion could, without express permission—but it was apparently clear enough to Luna. “Thou aren’t upset over that? It’s not the magic, is it? I may have the instinct for it, but I don’t have the thousand years of experience that thou hath acquired. Nor do I know all the advancements that have come to light, as thou does.” Celestia hastily closed her mind off behind barriers of will, to prevent further embarrassing insights. The pair had used the technique ages ago, when they needed privacy. It had always made the sisters rather uncomfortable to, say, feel it when the other was with a lover. That was especially true, given that they were once opposites on that front, as well. Celestia hadn’t fallen out of practice with the skill. It paid to make sure that the other magical races were playing fair when negotiating, and the technique had certainly been invaluable when dealing with Discord. Learning that had been an ancient and painful lesson. Luna reacted to the sudden absence with a start, as if she’d been struck. The hurt was evident in her eyes. “Lulu, can we talk about this later, please? This is one of those matters to be dealt with over tea, somewhere quiet, not in a hurry on some balcony,” Celestia assured. “It’s silly, honestly. Nothing important, just embarrassing.” Her younger sister’s expression became less injured and more sly, as Celestia knew it would, once the word ‘embarrassing’ was uttered. “Really, now? I’ll forgive thee, but promise me we’ll speak tonight, when I wake? Thou hast been in a foul mood since the wedding. Thou aren’t about to confess strange urges to make the day last forever, art thou?” “Yes. You got me. The world is doomed,” Celestia deadpanned. “And yes, I promise. I really do have to hurry now. Lunch is waiting, and I’ve got our newlywed Captain waiting in the Soldier’s Yard to answer Twilight’s inevitable protests. You’ll probably want to sleep with a barrier against sound enspelled on your bed. It’ll get loud.” * * * "You need rest, Twilight. I don't want you falling asleep on your hooves again, with your nose quite literally buried in some musty old book." Even if it was entirely endearing, the monarch thought to herself. “What’s more, you’ll be having lunch with me before that. Wherein you will eat without making it look like an activity akin to feeding coal into a train’s boiler. This will be happening under threat of a repeat of all those tiresome etiquette lessons. The ones with the three different spoons, and four forks.” Even though her ‘threat’ was delivered in a playful tone, a hint of panic appeared in widening, purple eyes. It was all Celestia could do not to frown or let her wings droop; Twilight would have just laughed it off if Luna had delivered that line. “I’m sorry, Princess! I—” Twilight rushed right into the profuse apologies that Celestia had expected. “It was a joke, my faithful student.” She craned her neck down to give the filly a bump on the side with her muzzle. “I’ve been known to flounder my way into them from time to time, as you might have noticed. I’m just worried about you. Just because you swap alicorn study partners doesn’t mean we don’t notice that you’re not taking the time to care for yourself properly. We do talk, you know, and you’re a topic near and dear to both of our hearts.” A subtle blush appeared on the unicorn’s cheek, complementing a silly, sunny smile that came at the mention of the shared appreciation. Twilight was not a pony who made light of affection. It was probably one of the reasons she was the center of the group of Elements. “I’ll be a bit more careful about it, Princess, I promise. It’s just...” The unicorn looked around her workshop. One purple ear flicked as she took note of the hurricane-struck image of it. “There’s so much. I thought just defining the phenomenon would be half of the job. And I did that for the articles in the Journal of Arcane Energistics, The Canterlot University Quarterly, and The Horn, but that was just the start. There’s no aura to grab, no flow to direct. Cadance has no idea how she does what she does. It’s just like breathing to her. That’s literally how she describes it: breathing in the bad, breathing out the good. So, how do you take hold of a concept when you aren’t an alicorn?” “It isn’t something completely intangible. It’s not so out of your reach as, say, pegasus magic. It can be felt. Here, I’ll show you.” Celestia moved closer before unfolding her wings. They stretched out to delicately wrap the smaller purple mare in a concealing shroud of white plumage. The alicorn lay her chin just behind Twilight’s horn, atop her dark mane. The mage stiffened in surprise, at first, but she melted into the embrace in short order, burying her muzzle against her teacher’s throat. “So,” Celestia whispered, “what do you feel?” “Warmth,” the filly murmured in reply. That was surely true, as the alicorn could feel a fiery heat where Twilight’s muzzle pressed against her. For a master magician, she was certainly shy. “Softness.” Celestia laughed, squeezing Twilight more tightly with her wings. The alicorn had dearly missed this sort of closeness. Luna wasn’t as much of a cuddler anymore, and more was the pity. She endured a millennium’s worth of Celestia’s pent-up nostalgia for their youth with quiet tolerance, at best. “I meant inside, my oh-so-literal student.” There was a sigh so soft it was barely perceptible, even to one gifted with a pegasus’s uncanny hearing. “Yeah, me too.” “Mmm.” The solar mare subtly nodded her head against the top of her captive filly’s. “Well, there you have it. Isn’t that a sort of perception? Isn’t it the same with all your friends, when you share a moment of nearness?” “Yeah... the same.” There was a long pause as the young magus considered her mentor’s words. That was part of the familiar pattern of her education. Celestia wanted considered responses, not quick ones. Then again, perhaps the ‘Want it, Need it’ incident showed that Twilight was falling out of practice with the technique, and was simply enjoying the embrace as much as the princess. “Clover’s First Law of Magic. You can’t direct a flow you can’t perceive. Is an emotional reaction a kind of perception? Maybe.” With a hint of regret, the unicorn nuzzled and squirmed her way out of the cocoon of snowy feathers, which playfully resisted her escape, until she could look around the room once more. The clutter seemed to cause her a greater degree of exasperation than before. Her ears splayed back. “Where my quill? I should write that down.” The unicorn’s horn ignited with magenta light. The glow progressively spread across the room, in preparation for lifting all the small items in search of her favored writing implement. Celestia casually reached over, even as she folded her wings at her sides, and tapped the unicorn’s horn with a gold-shod hoof. The magically nonreactive metal interrupted the flow of the forming spell, throwing off a loud, crackling, but harmless spark. “Ahh!” Startled, Twilight raised her own hoof to her horn. She promptly threw her teacher an unamused glare. The solar mare put on her best expression of angelic innocence. “Lunch first, then sleep. And before you give me the usual excuse about being too worked up to go to bed, I’ve arranged an educational activity to tire you out. The thought will keep.” Twilight perked up where she sat. “Educational activity?” * * * It hadn’t gotten loud yet, as Celestia had promised Luna. Nor was there any activity, as she had promised Twilight. Instead there was perfect silence. Celestia so rarely experienced it. Her subjects were always too eager and on-edge. Her guards were silent only out of stoic duty. Luna had been scarce for the six months before the wedding, having discovered the wonders of Manehatten nightlife, and thus each meeting between the sisters was a rush of updates and new developments. It was much the same with her faithful student. However, since Celestia had been lucky enough to have both of the most important ponies in her life in Canterlot since the wedding, that manic, eager energy had been allowed to fade. As a result, the princess had once again acquired that most precious of commodities: the quiet enjoyment of another’s company. Twilight trotted companionably at her side through the bright marble halls of the palace, and Celestia couldn’t have been happier. Of course, the best part was that the immortal alicorn had no doubts that Twilight shared her mood. She didn’t even have to look to know it. But she did anyway, just to see the perky bounce in her student’s steps, and the cute tilt to her brow that she always acquired when deep in thought. She knew the filly—the mare, Celestia corrected herself—was biting the tip of her tongue, even if it wasn’t apparent. The alicorn fought down the urge to do something to startle her again. She would always accidentally bite down on her tongue, and follow it up with another painfully endearing ‘Ahh!’. It never seemed to occur to Twilight to curb the habit. But no, it would probably embarrass the unicorn and ruin the moment when she tried to cover it. In any case, it would have been a crime against Equestria to interrupt Twilight’s train of thought these last few weeks. Any abandoned thread of reasoning might lead, one day, to a source of free magical energy, or a bridge between the disparate magics of the three pony tribes. Celestia would have happily settled for a reliable way to recreate the mass-banishment of Equestria’s changeling infestation. That one had at least given them the illusion of peace for a few days, and a few days without hearing about the murder of more of her little ponies would be a lovely reprieve indeed. Still, there had been one immediate benefit to Twilight’s fits of wearying inspiration. The only way Celestia had been able to calm Twilight’s restless mind enough for the young mage to sleep at night was to tuck her under one of her expansive wings, as she had done when the unicorn was just a foal. That’s nice, Celestia found herself musing, if only for the nostalgia. She found she was having trouble convincing herself that was entirely true. The quiet. She was supposed to be enjoying the quiet. After all, the alicorn reminded herself, it’s bound to be a noisy afternoon. Twilight needs to blow off a little steam and get away from her work for a while, and I could certainly use some time off from this changeling business. As odd a choice for recreation as it would seem, Twilight will positively leap at the chance to learn a bit of flashy new magic from her teacher. * * * “What!? No! No way! Are you crazy!?” Twilight stomped her hoof down resolutely. The sound of that hoof striking the tile of the walled Soldier’s Yard drew the more direct attention of some of the guards who were pretending, up until now, not to watch from afar. The unicorn’s eyes were hard with anger and indignation. At least, they were until an edge of mortified embarrassment crept in instead. Her ears folded back, and her head ducked down. “I-I mean, I can’t do that...” Her voiced trailed off into almost a squeak. “... Your Highness.” Centuries of iron control, honed through thousands of tense diplomatic meetings and life-or-death decisions buckled just a little, threatening to crack. It wasn’t under the weight of suffering, as it had been with the changeling. The towering, immortal pony lifted her muzzle into a slight, imperious tilt, one that just so happened to hide the shadow of a smile from lower vantages. Sweet heavens, no pony should be allowed to be so utterly adorable! Celestia reined in that momentary, foalish bit of glee and crafted the proper tone, something coloured with just the tiniest bit of admonishment. “Twilight Sparkle.” All too predictably, the unicorn visibly cringed at her name being spoken. The alicorn knew her very well indeed. If the goddess was being unkind, she would say that the premier magus of the age was a soaring tower of magical might balanced upon very precarious emotional foundations. As few would describe Celestia as being unkind, she preferred to think of the filly as simply being a young, sensitive unicorn who longed for the approval of her loved ones. With that comforting thought, she could let her scolding demeanor melt away. She dipped her head downward to give the deflated purple pony a brief, but warm nuzzle on the cheek. “My faithful student,” she began, her tone just as warm as that touch. “I would never harm any of my little ponies. And that’s doubly true for you, as well as your target. That’s what this lesson is about. You learn it not to harm ponies, but to defend them, and yourself, from harm.” Part of Celestia took inordinate notice of the glimmer in Twilight’s eye at that implied bit of favoritism. That part of her had become particularly loud and irritating in recent times. Rein it in, Celestia, she scolded herself, far more harshly than she had her pupil. You’re a fifteen hundred-year-old mare, not a lovestruck schoolfilly. It was almost a relief when the unicorn started to look unsure again. “But Princess, you’re asking me to hurt my brother! I can’t do that!” No cute hoofstomp this time, the goddess noted with guilty disappointment. But no cowering either, so it’s not a total loss. “I have complete confidence in Shining Armor. So should you.” Trying to lighten Twilight’s mood, she dipped her head down once more, this time to whisper conspiratorially, “I’ve heard rumors in Court that his family has produced a few quite excellent magicians.” The unicorn gave her mentor a flat look, though the edges of her lips were threatening to rise. However, even that bit of light-hearted flattery wasn’t enough to convince the filly. She peered across the courtyard to where her brother was curiously looking on, confused at the delay, and obviously close to trotting over to investigate his sister’s distress. “Still. What if things go wrong? What if he gets distracted and his spell fails? What if he hasn’t totally recovered? What if it turns out that I’m really, really good at battle magic? Remember what happened the first time I tried the candle-lighting spell? I could—” “Twilight,” the goddess invoked the girl’s name again. Just like magic, that runaway panic tripped over itself and stopped dead. The pony blinked up at her teacher, a rosy blush starting to appear on the bridge of her muzzle. “Sit down.” The alicorn allowed herself to apply a portion of the command that she voiced when the Court was being particularly troublesome. With more than a thousand years of practice, it had a way of cutting right through a pony’s consciousness. Twilight was sitting on her haunches before she could even think about it. Celestia felt a little guilty about it. Still, extreme measures clearly needed to be taken. The sun goddess rose to her full, regal height. She allowed her head to rise proudly, and turned to face Shining Armor, body tilted slightly forward, poised for action. A pose worthy of a new statue, she would guess, judging by the adoring, awestruck look she saw Twilight giving her. The misbehaving parts of her psyche took further delight in that. She pushed such thoughts aside for the moment; vanity was another vice that had never served her well. In some ways, Celestia’s inner workings were not so different from a mortal pony’s. Taking such a stance of resolute challenge, not unlike the one Twilight had taken earlier, had her body instinctively preparing itself. Strength flooded into lean muscle. Her mind focused upon the task at hand. The captive aurora of her mane billowed as if caught in a sudden gust of wind, flaring out at length behind and around her. “Shining Armor.” Celestia’s voice was a clear clarion call across the open courtyard. The Canterlot Voice still had its uses in the modern day. Just, perhaps, fewer than she’d allowed her sister to believe when she’d first returned. The stone walls and floor of the courtyard she had chosen for Twilight’s lesson amplified the effect with a returning echo. “Shield yourself!” To her Captain’s credit, it seemed as if his honeymoon hadn’t dulled his reflexes. The stray thought almost broke her concentration as she whimsically, if briefly, pondered the stamina needed to keep up with the budding Goddess of Love and yet be still able to do one’s duty afterward. A barrier like a simple bubble of magenta glass flowed into being around the unicorn soldier. It was pretty enough, in the way that severe, almost martial simplicity could be, and to a mortal pony’s eyes, it would have appeared to be little else. To the truth of Celestia’s divine sight, it was a breathtakingly beautiful, shimmering field of complex, exotic energies. Pulsing planes of transparent force to resist and diffuse physical attack. Clouds of glowing, fractal, geometric shapes to deflect and scatter energy. Whirling razorblades of will to sever incoming tendrils of malign enchantment. All of them ever-shifting and placed with false disorder, one gleaming layer upon the other. One could get no more distant from the simple, static web of hardened magic taught to most of the army’s battle-mages. It was a thing of such infinite complexity that not even Celestia herself, with all her years and power, could summon it into being. Celestia had admittedly worried that Twilight might have been right about Shining Armor’s recovery from the changeling queen’s sorcerous attentions. However, what she saw more than put her fears to rest. If anything, it was by far the best work she had seen her Captain craft. Thank you, Cadance. Obviously the attentions of her ‘niece’ had done well by the stallion. Perhaps the reverse was true, as well. Celestia felt an amused, sleepy awareness tickling the back of her mind, as if in answer to her own thoughts. It was something familiar, a nebulous sensation that couldn’t be put into words, but was, somehow, unmistakably Cadance. Despite numerous attempts, and Cadance’s own affinity, the elder alicorns had never been able to share their psychic connection with the youngest alicorn. They had come to conclude that it wasn’t an alicorn trait at all, but one that stemmed from the linked dichotomy of day and night. Perhaps they’d been wrong. Celestia relished the idea of having some good news to share, for once. The weeks following the changeling attack on Canterlot had been difficult, in ways far more personal to Celestia than the cold, analytical tallies of damage and the military search for the scattered changeling survivors. Intellectually, her defeat at the hooves of Chrysalis had been understandable. The vile creature had been the misaimed target of Shining Armor’s love for weeks. She had fed on Cadance in more direct and, Celestia suspected, more horrible ways before that. The youngest princess wouldn’t talk about it, despite many attempts by the sisters to get her to open up. Without that stolen power, the queen of the changelings would have been a challenging, if certainly not equal, opponent. The solar princess hadn’t anticipated just how adept the parasite would be with it. She had held back too much, in her fear of harming her nearby friends and subjects, and by the time she had realized her error, there was no stopping the momentum the changeling had gained. If Chrysalis hadn’t made her own mistake in judging how far she had broken and drained the young couple, Celestia’s error might have led to the rape and slavery of all of her beautiful little ponies. As it was, she got off lightly with just the public humiliation of her defeat and a few days with a burned horn. That more than two hundred pony lives now burdened her conscience was harder to brush aside. Add one shattered sense of self-confidence too, the alicorn admitted. One which this harmless bit of showing off will help to salve, at least. She allowed her alicorn magic to extend outward. The feeling was not unlike spreading her wings out to absorb the warmth of her sunlight. It started as just a comfortable, creeping heat. The more she gathered to her, however, the further she could stretch out her power. It was a carefully balanced runaway process, no different from the heart of her star. That gentle energy quickly became a gushing torrent, then a veritable flood. It danced and burned inside of her, just shy of painful, and wholly exhilarating. Reality bent and strained around her, yielding to her whims and strength with all the eager submission of a blushing filly having her first tryst. Golden light gathered at the tip of her horn in a beacon of visible magic like a tiny, second sun. White light seeped out of her coat in a pearlescent radiance. A few of the soldiers who had been a bit tardy in making room around the Captain certainly did so in a hurry, at that point. “Princess?” Twilight’s voice was concerned, even scared, but manipulating the fundamental forces of the universe left little room to speak. The alicorn would more than happily spare the time to comfort the filly afterward. Celestia allowed the pressure of that gathering energy to swell for a few moments longer. She wasn’t near the limits of what she could contain, not by any means. At worst, she held the magic with mild strain. Even so, one of her little ponies was her target, not her sister, or some deserving foe. It was best to restrain her powers to a level where she could keep them on a tight leash. The sun’s aspect was wild power, fury, and boundless energy, after all. She could never keep things quite as well-controlled as Luna could. The release of the spell was cathartic, even so. Power poured out her in a rush. The air buzzed with a droning hum as a beam of blinding, golden, almost coherent light shot out of her horn and slammed into Shining Armor’s masterful shield. Her aim left something to be desired, however; she caught the bubble off to one side, near the top, at an oblique enough angle that the shield was able to push aside a large fraction of the energy rather than absorb it. The citizens of Canterlot were thus given the dubious privilege of seeing a beam of eye-searing radiance carve into the edge of their mountain, with no apparent resistance, before making its way off into the sky. A tiny correction brought the spell closer to center. Celestia would have sighed, if she could spare the concentration. Luna isn’t going to let me live down that little ‘redecoration’. That was a worry for later. For the moment, she allowed herself to enjoy the experience. Celestia so rarely got a chance to simply cut loose, to be a conduit for the limitless energy of her sun. It was intoxicating to feel the ecstasy of something greater than she was pouring through her, and to allow herself to be submerged into her most basic nature as a goddess. Thanks to Shining Armor, she could let her ponies see their deity! Let them see the strength of what armored their beautiful, fragile lives against the darkness! She could see guardsmen at the fringes of the courtyard, hunkered down, clinging to the ground against the force of the heated wind that blew out from the continuous fountain of burning sunfire linking her and that unyielding bubble. She noticed them trying to shout to each other, grinning, half-terrified, like foals clinging to the neck of a diving pegasus. The alicorn doubted they could hear the ponies right next to them. The buzz had become a thrumming roar. The vibration of the sound raised a cloud of dust a few inches high across the entire courtyard, one that quickly caught on the wind and blew about in swirling vortices. The waters of the fountains didn’t so much ripple as roil, thousands of little droplets leaping up individually into the heated air, only to steam away and add to the growing fog in the enclosed yard. As for her Captain of the Guard, he stood in a circle of perfect, serene calm. She was likely the only one who could see through the glare at the epicenter of those two clashing forces. The ground nearby glowed cherry red and actually bubbled and spat where it met the barrier, but just within, not a mote of dust was out of place. The stallion himself, eyes closed and clearly focused, was equally unmoved. Why shouldn’t he be? Despite the power unleashed against him, barely the first few layers of his defenses had been abraded away. He had once kept an entire city safe from an invading army; now all of that magical protection was focused upon a tiny sphere barely larger than a single pony. Celestia figured she would allow herself just a few more moments of that liberating release. Long enough to get the stone near the barrier up to a proper yellow glow, perhaps, to make for a more striking scene when her ponies could see her target again. Twilight would see just how ably her brother could protect himself, and that he was indeed safe from her first proper delvings into war magic. A few balls of fire or bolts of lightning couldn’t harm a stallion who could shrug off a goddess’s focused will. Seeing, after all, is— Celestia’s body spasmed with a sharp, sudden pain. It was all she could do to keep her spell centered safely on Shining Armor’s barrier as her head arched back. Something burned within her. It was as if some eddy of fire from that surging channel of solar energy inside her had suddenly flared out and caught on her mortal flesh. The pain was intense, even visceral. Had her horn not fully healed? Confused, the goddess began the process of clamping down on the sun’s power within her, to let the energy bleed off into the spell pouring through her horn. It would take only a second to peter out into unsustainability. At least, that was what was supposed to have happened. Instead, that blazing conduit simply shuddered every bit the way her body did. It flexed and bent outside of her control, seeping from the metaphysical realm to burn and scour into vulnerable material flesh. Her spell frayed, her agonized scream lost in its roar as its energies broke apart barely halfway toward Shining Armor’s shield. The beam appeared to bloom into a dozen loops of tenuously held solar plasma, which spread out as deadly tendrils to slice through stone tile like paper. The fountains to either side of the courtyard’s center exploded in detonations of steam at the mere brush of the filaments. Only the earlier winds pushing the guards toward the walls had saved their lives. The cohesion of the spell continued to loosen, that once beautiful beam of focused radiance unzipping itself into those manifestations of unbound energy, working their way closer and closer to the alicorn as her control continued to slip. Celestia had no illusions about her dominion over the spell. The pain was too intense to focus and her powers weren’t working as they should have. However, once that instability reached her horn, the spell would undoubtedly end. Until then, she just had to survive. Twilight! The thought was a hammerblow, even through the torment of the fire consuming her from the inside. The mare was behind her, somewhere. Some part of her could sense the comforting familiarity of her student’s magic at work. Even divine sight couldn’t let her make sense of the riotous energies creeping closer to her along the path of her own spell, but her beloved Twilight’s powers were at work there too, giving the aura a vague magenta tint she hadn’t noticed before in her rapture of pain. The unicorn was doubtlessly trying to help her, trying to hold off the encroaching doom. She would just as doubtlessly fail. Celestia knew to the very core of her soul that the filly was too selfless and brave to worry about shielding herself when she could be saving a foolish old alicorn. Somehow, Celestia forced muscle locked by agony into motion. She widened her stance toward her right, where she could feel the presence of the youthful magus. Spasming wings were forced to unfurl to their full span. It was a flimsy shield, but one that might mean life or death for the fragile, mortal unicorn behind her. She lowered her head, thrusting her horntip as far away from Twilight as she could. The long seconds of waiting for her fraying spell’s approach were almost worse than the charring of her insides by her own out-of-control alicorn magic. The superheated plasma of the misfiring spell found her immortal body to be made of sterner stuff than the mere stone of the courtyard. Those loops broke against her chest, forelegs, and wings, burning skin and feathers away from her in great streaks. For the first second or two, there was no pain, a fact that surprised her until it finally struck. The alicorn grit her teeth hard enough that her jaw creaked. It's just pain. You’ve known pain, she thought, as a mantra. It helped to keep the shriek trapped in her throat instead of bursting from her lips. If these are my last moments, I’ll not have Twilight remember her goddess screaming in terror and agony. Endure, you old bitch. Silence came abruptly to the courtyard, save for the crackle of fires and the gust of slowing winds. Though the afternoon sun shone overhead, the yard seemed dark when compared to the previous, blinding glare of the goddess’s magic. The peace was short-lived. A crack echoed through the yard, like the bough of a great tree suddenly breaking under a huge weight. Celestia shrieked despite herself as her horn cracked. Flame spilled out of it in an enormous plume that rose toward the heavens, a simple expression of the dispersing energy of the failed war spell. The blackened goddess toppled, smoke pouring from her scorched body. Her mind longed for the bliss of numb darkness. Reality seemed to fizz and warp in a way that had nothing to do with her powers this time. She clung to that last thread of consciousness with a millennium of discipline and will, lifting her head off of the ruined, burning ground. She struggled to look back over her burnt shoulder. Her relief was instantaneous. All her suffering was inconsequential in the light of one small fact: threads of magenta magic danced along her barrel and back. Twilight’s magic. The thought was pure euphoria. She’s still alive, and unharmed enough to work a spell. That knowledge alone gave her the drive to cling to consciousness. She opened her cracked lips to choke out a few words for her doubtlessly panicking student. Something reassuring, if she could manage it. And perhaps... perhaps I’ll even indulge in a bit of selfishness and ask her to stop trying to heal me. Twilight had yet to learn that most complex magical science. It did more harm than good if done without practiced skill. Except the spell didn’t look at all like a healing spell, not even a poorly planned one. Forming words died upon Celestia’s heat-swollen tongue. It was a metaphysical spell of some unfamiliar kind. Its delicate little tendrils had pierced her in a way deeper than the material. No wonder mundane senses hadn’t noticed; it took a far more vast sight to perceive it. Only with the magical roar of her own spellwork silenced could she sense the effect the magic had within her. Some deviously deft enchantment was adding just the tiniest, almost unnoticeable ripple of turbulence to the river of power that was her link to the sun. The sheer energy that had poured down that path to call her sunfire ensured catastrophe when even a tiny fraction of it was deviated from proper control. Her mind wheeled in confusion. Who? Why? The tenuous thread of consciousness began to unravel as her iron control faltered. The world spun. She caught a glimpse of her lovely, timid Twilight. The unicorn hovered upright, nearly a hooflength above the ground. Latent magic ground out as slivers of white lightning that arced between her rear hooves and the buckled stone below her. Her mane billowed upward upon arcane currents. Her eyes shone brightly, each one a single field of pure, pearl light. The air squealed as those tiny magical discharges at her hooves became a raging storm of magical force. Lightning arced up around the filly in all directions, roaring outward as a tidal wave of wild magic, focused in bolts as thick as her legs. Twilight? The Glorious and Everbright Goddess of the Sun, Celestia of Equestria, fell into darkness and silence.