//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 - Stained Glass Stories // Story: Happy Endings // by Taranth //------------------------------// Celestia smiled. Celestia had a lot of different smiles. Cheerful smiles when she spoke with the little ponies around her; Indulgent smiles for her subjects when they were a little more enthusiastic than the matter called for; Wide and proud smiles when they became better ponies than they had to be; Calm and thoughtful smiles when matters were quiet and contemplation was the order of the day. Indeed, Celestia was almost never seen without a smile on her face, and sometimes even the hint of a frown could be enough to cause panic amongst the palace staff. The image of the peacefully smiling visage was almost as much a symbol of the Princess as the ethereal mane or the stylised sun on her flank. Today, Celestia stood within the Hall of Windows, below a brand-new stained-glass masterpiece displaying a baby dragon, a crystal heart, and joyful crystal ponies. She examined every last frame of the beautiful image, her thoughts going to her most faithful student, who had bounced her way out of the room moments before, singing her childlike joy at passing her test and banishing the horror of King Sombra from the Crystal Empire. Celestia couldn't stop smiling. The hall was closed to most traffic, and between Celestia's preternatural awareness and the enormous (and somewhat creaky) doors at every entrance to the mystic Hall, she would know long before anypony came within sight of her. This place was a sanctuary, a bastion, one of the few places she could come to be alone without servant or guard. Her mane shimmered between her face and the nearer door, and from the position she stood it would be long before anypony could come up on her from the further portal. She couldn't stop smiling. Completely alone in the room, with nobody there to judge her, to worry, to think that the world was cracking at the seams, or even to ask her what was wrong... And she couldn't stop smiling. When all she wanted to do was scream loud enough to shatter the very tiles she stood upon, buck the window in front of her to slivers, and bring the full power of the sun to bear on this whole accursed hall, melt the whole thing to slag, and... and... And it seemed a thousand years of compressing her frustration and anger down behind gentle smiles to keep from incinerating anypony who tested her patience had left her unable to turn down the corners of her lips even in complete and total privacy. So she stood before the window, as she had almost constantly since the image had formed itself in the frame in a flash of magic, sketching out the wonderful happy ending to a grand and treacherous tale, half her mind spinning over plans and consequences to what had happened - and not happened - in the Crystal empire, and the other half roiling in a fiery vortex of twisting frustration and anger that would have put the sun to shame. And she kept smiling. Compared to the issues before her, her out-of-control self-control should have been a vanishingly low priority, but it remained there, eating away at her concentration. She pushed it down, trying to focus on the task at hand, but it wouldn't go away. Her mind spun around, constantly coming back to that irritating feeling of the smile on her face, just making her feel worse, and in turn just making her smile that much more calm and collected. She couldn't say how long she had been standing there smiling when the door to her right opened. There were few ponies who would dare enter this hall without knocking, and only one whose presence was magically accompanied by a cool, fresh night breeze even in the middle of these stuffy halls. Her stomach clenched and her frustration mounted - this was a conversation she had not been looking forward to one bit. Celestia turned her warmest smile onto her visitor. "Good morning, little sister. Aren't you up a little late?" The Princess of the Night smiled not at all. Just seeing that made Celestia's smile that much brighter. "I heard Twilight and her friends singing on the way out of the palace." Luna said flatly, her eyes narrows. "After all this, you couldn't even tell her she failed, could you?" "Now, now, Luna." Celestia chided, smiling, her voice light and cheerful. "Twilight has saved the Crystal Empire--" "She failed the test you set her." "The Crystal Empire is safe and spreading love and joy throughout Equestria." Celestia smiled tranquilly. "And it's not her picture on that window. She wasn't ready. Everything you've been putting together for her fell apart. And you're sitting here grinning at me as if everything's going perfectly." "The matter was resolved quickly with no great time of darkness." Celestia's smile grew wider. "Cadance is going to be safe and secure, and can continue her story. I don't see that we need to worry about it furth--" "Art thou listening to thyself, sister?" Luna flared her wings as she slipped back into her traditional Royal Canterlot Grammar, her voice booming across the hall, only the ancient wards of privacy preventing it from being heard through half the castle. "Thou knowest as well as I that this regards not Cadance. The empire's safe return is truly a wonder! But that is not why thou sent Twilight Sparkle." She gestured towards the window with a wing, her waves of indignation breaking against the alabaster fortress of Celestia's serenity. "I think it best we look at the positive results of this adventure." Celestia gave ground with her words, unable to face Luna's accusations, but her expression did not falter. "And we do so later. I don't see that sullying her achievements with what she failed to do achieves anything right--" "Really? I would think that would be the most important thing to discuss right now." Luna stalked up to her older sister, the difference in height leaving her horn uncomfortably close to the flawless white throat. Celestia hadn't seen Luna this angry since she had returned, and took a half-step back before she caught herself, smiling all the way. "I don't think now is the best time to--" "Because if you don't have a plan ready before this all falls apart--" "I don't want to talk about it right now, Luna." She said, with a smile and a tone like a mother indulgently chiding a daughter for having too many sweets. "--then all the work that you've put into your faithful student--" "Stop talking, Luna." Her smile grew ever wider, her tone ever more calm. "--will be for nothing at best, and--" "Shut up, Luna." As blissful and peaceful as clear skies on a summer day. "--at worst, the next--" "SHUT UP!" There was no warning, for either sister, in truth. One second Celestia had been nearly as still as a statue, and then her mask had not so much cracked as exploded. The Royal Canterlot Voice echoed through the chamber, and the aurora borealis effect of Celestia's mane sparked up from the most peaceful expression of the sun into violent flame and flare. Her wings spread wide as Luna scrambled backwards, faced with a visage she had last seen moments before an enforced millenial sabbatical. "Do you think I don't know what this could mean? Do you think I haven't been spending every second here trying to figure out what more I could have done to prevent it, and what I'm going to do now?" The smile was nowhere to be seen now. If a servant burst in now, they would probably not recognise Celestia at all, or at least assume the nightmare had conquered the older sister this time. Luna cringed, her own anger seared away before her sister's wrath like a shadow in the sunlight. "Everything she... I did... I... I... thought she could do it, Luna." The flames gutted and died out as suddenly as they had roared forth, extinguished but for the blue-green afterimages floating in her sister's vision, and leaving in their place a waving mane and tail of smoke, which in turn slowly began to grow tinted into the various colours the royal mane normally displayed. She hung her head, suddenly looking much smaller, and certainly no longer smiling. "But what am I supposed to tell her? I did everything, everything short of direct magical compulsion to make sure she took the final steps alone. I had it all set up. Her friends had their own tasks. It all came together just as I saw it. She was at the final battle, and..." "And you forgot about the dragon." Luna slowly relaxed, still a little wary of her sister's sudden outburst, but slowly moving up beside her as they both sat on the carpet, staring up at the image of the Empire's salvation. "I forgot about Spike." Celestia echoed with a sigh, her feelings pouring out from the suddenly unmasked muzzle. "I didn't even think it was possible - a dragon on these windows? These are for pony tales!" She cried out, as if the power that marked the windows might hear her and correct its error. "When I first saw it, I thought it was some remnant of Discord playing tricks." She gave a dark chuckle. "I didn't think I could ever be so scared as I was when he was manipulating the windows. If he gained power over them... but that was just illusion. No, I was wrong on both counts. This is quite real... and I could be more terrified than that." She stared up morosely at the image of Spike above. "I showed her the dark magic, and she used it to make her way past Sombra's hidden passages. And then I showed her how to dispel and counter it, and when the time came to banish the darkness... she relied on her friends. Just like I taught her." She turned to Luna again. "She fought off every suggestion I gave her, as well as her own ridiculously well-honed fear of failure, to save the Empire at the cost of her own success on a test she doesn't even know the significance of." She gave a slight chuckle, although no smile accompanied it. "It sounds so ridiculous when I say it out loud. But I'm so used to that by now it just comes as second nature. But yes... Twilight failed her test. And now... now she has the dark magic sitting in the back of her horn, and not the light magic to balance it out. And someday, she's probably going to start wanting to know more..." They sat there in depressing silence for a long, long moment, thinking about the past and the future. "It... it doesn't have to happen that way..." Luna whispered. "It might not be that bad." "I've been doing this job a thousand years, Luna, and I've been thinking about it since the window appeared. And you're right. It might not be that bad. If we manage things perfectly, and we have enough time, maybe we can stop it before it gets too far." She stood up suddenly, walking down the hall. Luna pulled herself quickly to her hooves, feeling very much like the younger sister again while she caught up to Celestia. "But this feels like one of the big stories. Let me tell you how I see it. Sooner or later, Twilight will start playing with the darkness." She came to a blank window, her horn lighting up, projecting images onto the glass of Twilight, her horn and eyes ablaze with the sickly black-green light. "She'll do well at first. It'll bend to her will. She'll know it's dangerous, but she'll keep it under control. She'll use its power for good, to help those around her. Until one day, something goes wrong..." The edges of the window started being encroached with dark crystals, and the light seemed to turn sickly where it touched the window. "Maybe she needs to use it to save one of her friends. Maybe she's just not had enough sleep. Maybe she's trying to turn the darkness in on itself and destroy it! But it goes too far. Her friends might try to stop her, or they might try to defend her - when has Twilight Sparkle ever failed at anything, after all? They would defend her to the last, perhaps even against the only chance anyone had to prevent the fall. "The corruption passes on. All of them fall under its sway. And once it has all six of them, Sombra's dark power has nothing to stop it from the Elements themselves." In a flash of light, the image expands, showing the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, all with eyes of green and smoking black, all wearing their Elements - but where the centrepoint gems of the elements were once cleanly cut and brilliantly colourful they were now twisted and overgrown black crystal set in tarnished and stained metal, only superficially resembling their original shapes. "Their shadow covers Equestria, washing over and enslaving city by city. Canterlot would likely be amongst the first to fall, the capital being a staging point from which to spread the dark malaise. I would likely be imprisoned, my power twisted to turn the power of the sun to shine with shadow instead of light. Maybe the same with you and the moon. Not exactly eternal night, but close enough." She half-smirked at Luna, the image in the window changing again to show Equestria beneath a black sun, cities and wilderness alike twisted crystalline wrecks. "So. Do you think that would make an interesting enough story for the window so far?" Luna was speechless, staring at the wasteland projected on the glass. Even her own decent into the Nightmare had not been such a horrific tale. "You... this isn't how it... there has to be a happy ending! You told me that's how it works!" "Oh, of course! There's always a happy ending. The Crystal empire stands strong against the darkness - they've fought it before, and with Cadance and Shining Armour to protect the city at its full potential they can hold it off indefinately." In the image, a single spire in the north suddenly shone with iridescent light, a beacon in the endless darkness. "Spike will be there too, if that's anything to go by." She flicked a wing at the window they had stood in front of earlier. "Together, the three of them will fight against the shadow, and the mare who used to be their sister, their mother, and their favourite foal. If they're lucky, they'll find a way to cleanse her. If not, they'll seal the elements away for another story, a thousand years down the track. The darkness is cleansed by the power of love, and the crystals which make it up will become the foundations of an expanded Crystal Empire." The circle expanded and flashed outwards, showing the whole of Equestria shining in glorious crystal hues under a bright sun, more brilliant and beautiful than ever. In comparison, Celestia's words grew ever more bitter. "Cadance will fulfill her destiny, becoming the new Empress of Crystal Equestria, and a new age of prosperity reigns. And maybe she'll take control of the windows, too, and good riddance. Happy endings for everyone!" The image vanished with a snap along with the glow from Celestia's horn. She stood there, legs locked and breathing heavily, still staring at the frame, now displaying nothing but blue sky and a couple of errant pegasi in the distance. Luna stared wild-eyed, back and forth between her sister and where the image had stood. She realised she was shaking. Celestia had just flippantly described her student destroying the nation she had ruled for over a millenium, with all the finality of prophecy. Before she could find words, Celestia sighed again. "...Admittedly, that's probably the worst case scenario. We might be able to bring it down. But I don't know how far. Hopefully we have time." "But... can't you just... teach her the light..." Luna muttered, already knowing the answer before she said it. "Break the story..." Celestia muttered to herself. "Break the windows. I've been thinking about it, Luna." The younger sister stared. "You have? I mean... you..." "I know. I know." Celestia looked down the Hall one more time, a very thoughtful look on her face as she repeated what she had been taught when she first took over this role. "This world is a world of stories. Stories of magic, of wonder, of heroes - and of hardship, corruption and villians. Without a time of struggle there can be no happy ending." Luna mouthed along with her sister, knowing these words all too well, passed down from keeper to keeper. "This hall shows the great stories that shape our ponies. We are given our power as guides, to help them in their stories and minimise their suffering. We get glimpses of the script, and even the power to guide it in places, but we play the parts required for us and let the story run its course... and in return, we get the guarantee of a happy ending for every tale." The hall was, in truth, much larger than it looked, and far larger than the space between the entrances should allow. In fact, not a living soul bar Celestia and Luna could truly walk the length of the hall - for unless it was brought to their attention, those without knowledge of the tales would walk past only the windows for the history they knew. The hall was as long as it needed to be for anyone who walked it. Magic of this calibre cared nothing for simple rules of consistency. This was the sort of magic that built the foundations of worlds. There were corridors off the sides that the casual visitor would simply never notice, and they held smaller windows, progressions of smaller destinies that slipped between the cracks of the larger world-shaking events of the main hall. And every one, no matter how large or small, no matter how dark it grew, would result in success and happiness in the end. Thousands, tens of thousands of years of tales, great and small, and every one with a happy ending. "And with this responsibility and gift, we are given one right - if we so choose, we can break character. We can break the story. We can bring our full might to bear on the problem. With our experience, and our power, we can likely defeat any villian, resolve any problem." Celestia sniffed slightly as she remembered her own mentor giving her this speech, before her tone hardened. "But once done, this cannot be undone. There is no guarantee of a happy ending for that tale or any other thereafter. Destiny will be set loose. Anything that happens thereafter is the result of nothing more than our own actions." She paused a long time, then, and Luna finished the warning for her. "And remember that it is all Equestria which faces the consequences of this change. We have a responsibility for all the ponies, and all the tales. We do have the right to make that choice, but it must never be made lightly." "I won't make it lightly." Luna wasn't sure whether Celestia spoke to her, herself, or the memory of her mentor. "But I'm considering it. I... I don't want to lose her like that, Luna. And I don't want to put those three through... through the same thing I had to go through. I don't want to have a fight between siblings again... not even second-hand." It wasn't until Luna heard the drop hit the floor that she realised that her sister was crying. Her stance was still strong, her face still seemed carved out of marble, but the tears welled at her eyes slowly and unstoppably. She moved in close, sitting beside Celestia again and awkwardly wrapping a large blue-black wing up and over her back. "You know I'll support you. No matter what decision you make. I'm back now, and I'll stand by you. If you want to break the stories... I'll stand by that." Celestia slowly turned to face her sister, the tears welling faster now. She opened her mouth to speak twice before she found her voice, then turned away slowly. "I can't do it, Luna. I can't break it. How can I? When I... when you fell. I knew it was coming. I could have stepped out. I could have stopped you! But I stood by and watched you become the Nightmare. "A thousand years! A thousand years of suffering to wait for a happy ending. And I let it happen. I left you there a thousand years and kept the stories going, filled the windows. After that... after doing that to my own sister... how can I justify throwing it all away for a few ponies I've known less than two decades? What kind of sister am I to even consider that?" The dam was broken now, and Celestia was crying openly, moving from sitting to lying sprawled flat on the floor. It still hurt Luna, a little, to hear that fact. Celestia had told her about it shortly after she had returned, along with the purpose of the hall and its wardens, allowing her to join their number now that her part in the stories was done. Celestia had apologised for weeks, and even now it was still somewhat disconcerting, but Luna had long since forgiven her once she understood the rules. But now to hear it being used so... "Celestia. Sister. Listen to me." She lay beside the sun monarch, pressing their sides together and nuzzling gently into her neck. "You must not use me as an excuse for anything. What is past is past. I said I will support you, regardless of your choice, and I meant every word. You have a thousand more years of experience since you made that choice. Use that to make your decision - not any obligation you feel from your actions when you were still new to the role. Please." Celestia said nothing, weeping softly, but shortly afterwards spread her own wing out, hugging her little sister close while she cried herself out. Neither knew how long they had been lying there before the older sister stopped sobbing and shaking. Luna moved forward slowly, trying to determine if she had fallen asleep, but a sudden shift proved that was not the case, as the white wing was gently disentangled from her own. Celestia pulled herself back up slowly, stretching out all her limbs and composing herself, a quick flash of magic clearing the tear-tracks from her fur and leaving her once again the pristine monarch, for all she avoided looking at her sister as she did so. Luna emulated her shortly afterwards, standing and working the cricks out of her legs. Lying on the tile floor was not the most comfortable way to spend time, for all that she would do it again for her sister without hesitation. "Thank you, little sister. I... I will take your words into account. I have a lot of decisions ahead of me, it seems." "We have a lot of decisions ahead of us." Luna corrected. "You're not in this alone anymore." "I...Thank you." Celestia repeated. The words were few, but the emotion behind them said more than any speech could have. Together they walked out of the hall, leaving the room of magic, tales and destinies behind for the comparatively mundane halls of gilt and marble of their palace. Once again servants, nobles and guards alike bowed to them as they passed. Celestia's smile was back, now, and not even Luna could say whether it was more or less genuine than the one she wore when they had started their conversation. Together they walked to a balcony to look over Equestria, their eyes moving over rolling hills and vibrant forests, blue skies and cloud cities, and a train winding its way down the cliffside towards the little town of Ponyville below. Luna looked up at her sister, wondering what was reflected in her sister's rose-coloured eyes - whether she actually saw the beauty of the landscape, or the nightmare future of dark crystals she had described - or a gigantic game-board of intertwining threads of destiny to be played and tweaked, the natural beauty stripped away behind her duty to it. And in truth, she wasn't sure which would be worse. As the train vanished into the tunnel, carrying home her sister's most loyal student - and possibly unwittingly the centrepoint of the greatest calamity Equestria had faced in millenia, she focused her magic briefly, summoning the latest heavily warded tome the royal sisters had used to plot out possibilities and destinies. "Come on, sister. We have work to do." And Celestia smiled.