Celestia exchanged few words with her clearly intoxicated sister, though telepathically the equivalent of many more. She gathered that Twilight had indeed spoken to her and it had not gone well. But 'No matter,' she thought, it would be easier when she had read the book stowed securely in a draw. Maybe she'd finally agree to burn it when she'd read it, as Lu(n)a had asked for many times. She must have had a point to push for it so insistently.
Luna eventually raised the moon after she bade her sister farewell, temporarily blocking out all worries in concentration. It was then she realised just how much weight they carried. She was under no illusions as to what Twilight could and would do if she succeeded in lying to herself - fabricating a truth where there was none to be found. Losing influence over the throne would not be devastating in itself, Twilight Sparkle was as benevolent as her sister, but there had been a diarchy for good reason. In a pact formed eons past, the sisters had sworn to reserve means to ‘limit’’ the other should either of them no longer be fit for the throne, which was as ominous as it sounded. But there were no such means to ‘limit’ Twilight, nor guidance in times of need. The relatively young alicorn was progressing to ever greater magical prowess; it wouldn’t be long until it was greater than that of the sisters combined. It was all deeply troubling for Luna, who just wanted everypony to get along.
Twilight Sparkle woke again to face the daily grind. Talk to a mayor here, sign a few documents there, approve minor reforms that would normally accumulate into a collective advantage. Those working close to her dare not comment about her absence yesterday beyond meager questions like ‘How are you feeling today,’ or ‘It’s pleasant to see you again, Your Majesty.’ The Queen held a strange place among many ponies, for it was remembered she did not exist from time immemorial, yet none could seem to challenge her wisdom. In part, this ‘encouraged’ Twilight to aspire to exert a mien of subtle superiority over the gradually waning sisters. This effect was greatly amplified now she believed there may be a just cause to speed up the transition of ruler(s). But Twilight Sparkle wasn’t a bad pony, oh no! She’d have to find a truth she knew existed, even if it were to mean employing less than admirable methods. ‘It was for the greater good,’ she adored the sound of that. It sounded like just this one stallion, in this one book, in this one parable about hubris.
Celestia meanwhile finished the book with a frown. To her, it appeared as though poor Twilight had been corrupted by the literature of a doomsayer. Yet for all the books upon books the young alicorn had read, she hadn’t reacted this way before. Finding a complicated cause to a complicated problem took time, time she and Luna might not have. Twilight would be too shrewd to give them time.
Everypony was paranoid.
Twilight Sparkle found herself scheming when she could; it was quite fun for an act so malicious, but it wasn’t, it was for the greater good. Inconveniently enough it was during this offtime when Celestia had asked they meet in the garden.
It was a pretty garden, with its perfectly trimmed flora surrounding a marble table in the centre so that the shadow it cast remained almost the same at all times of the day. Contrasting many of the other spaces in the palace, in the garden, there wasn’t a guard to be seen.
‘Good afternoon,’ Twilight said, sitting opposite of Celestia.
‘Good afternoon, Twilight,’ Celestia said, looking over the brim of a cup.
‘Would you like some tea?’
‘No, thank you.’ Twilight refused as an excessive precaution - it wouldn’t taste funny if she didn’t drink it. Even she thought of it as excessively precautious at this stage.
‘How are you faring?’
‘I’m alright as always, mentor.’
Celestia shifted uncomfortably at the archaic address, though her ears were unmoving.
‘You... haven’t called me that for years.’
‘It’s good to study the past as a guide for the future sometimes.’
This particular lesson had not been in any of the numerous letters she once wrote to her ‘mentor.’
‘Why am I here, Celestia?’
The princess levitated the book with a blank cover from underneath the table and let it rest on top of it.
‘You should put this back in the black archives,’ Celestia suggested.
‘Never to be read again?’
‘Hopefully not.’
Celestia spoke again, ‘I’d like to know how far you’d go to find this truth that evades even the ponies you seem to think know it all.’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘It’s my business if you’re going to follow through with your threat you made to my sister.’
Twilight took her time mulling over practicalities; it made Celestia uneasy.
‘Oh, Celestia, you must learn to get off my back!’ Twilight said with a giggle, before girlishly bounding away taking the book with her. Celestia didn’t stop her, reminded of the pain, but not out of it. She sighed, suddenly reluctant to face the potential maelstrom this might become.
It was unusual for Twilight to flee from her woes, even if she had been doing more often than she would prefer lately. Or at least it was according to the cumulative sum of actions that made (her) personality. Twilight Sparkle didn’t know what to do exactly. For all her clever mind could muster, she was dwarfed by the hurdle of there being very few ponies if any willing to usurp such popular rulers. So far her scheming had consisted of vague yet grand plots to conveniently make some rather large adjustments, but that wasn’t good enough. She would find no productivity merely basking on impulses. But it wasn’t easy, trying to be her clever old self at the end of a day of exhausting diplomacy. As a result of this ever so slight inconvenience, progress was slower than she would have liked, though progress it was nonetheless. However, her recent “change in priorities” from managing the kingdom to whatever else she could be doing didn’t go unnoticed.
Doubtful talk brewed among the few acolytes who had the privilege of working directly with the great scholar Twilight Sparkle. Not only did she come across as strangely distant when addressed, she was fairly flippant on matters that were otherwise considered not flippant in the slightest. This was particularly vulgar for her advisers when they discussed changes that would sweep the entire kingdom; some of them were disgruntled or otherwise perturbed enough to seek council with Celestia. They all came back with vague promises and acute reassurances, much to their grander loathing. It was too late before they resolved to take a firmer stand...
On the same afternoon, Celestia woke her sister early.
‘Whyyyy are you waking me up so early,’ Luna groaned into her pillow.
‘There are important matters to discuss, Lua.’
‘But there’s hours of daylight to go!’
‘I’ll be in the observatory,’ she said, promptly leaving Luna nopony to complain to, for now.
A mention of ‘the observatory’ brought Luna out of her semi-slumbering state. The place was supposed to be her shelter from the world; Celestia knew it. Eventually, Luna went to greet (and more importantly scold) her sister.
‘Tia, does it have to be here? I say this with respect, but you know how I prefer not to desecrate my observatory with general equine affairs.’
‘It’s important.’
Luna stared at the alicorn who didn’t belong.
‘Hurry up then, what’s so important?’
Celestia lowered her head slightly in an effort to pull Luna out of such a confrontational manner.
‘I fear our little Queen means to take action against you, perhaps us.’
‘I thought the threat was hollow, we can all get a little angry at times.’ Luna said.
‘We can, but there’s something else this time, Lua. I have a great deal to explain - there is a great deal to be explained.’
‘She’s not-’
‘No of course not.’
‘It would be unlike her anyway,’ Luna said as an afterthought.
Celestia proceeded to explain her reasons for, as well as her reading of the book with a blank cover. Luna wasn’t angry.
‘I’m not seeing why this is so important, Tia, we haven’t got any more reason to suspect Twilight then before.’
Twilight Sparkle had made copies of a book belonging to the black archives.
In fact, Twilight was just about the only pony capable of such a feat. All scriptures banished there to effectively never be read again were entrapped in obscure and strong magicks to prevent this very action from ever occurring. Both the royal sisters had contributed their own magical wards, though seemingly to no avail. To great fortune or misfortune however, Celestia had been able to sense and pinpoint one of many careful unweavings. This was when talks with Twilight became as difficult as balancing on a knife’s edge.
The existence of the black archives was a secret among all but royalty and a few dead proteges, so there was very little the princesses could do even if they wanted. As a result of millenias of continuous benevolent rule, no laws apprehended the potential for the abuse of regal power. Granted, after a authoritarian mess, the sisters might be able to put Twilight in jail for a unicorn’s lifetime only for her to (surely) rise against them again, granted rigour anew. The lack of legislation and warping relations left everypony in a bit of a bind. Luna and Celestia dreaded what the public’s reaction would be as Twilight was no Nightmare-Moon, she wasn’t on a “silly” crusade for celestial dominance, she wanted justice.
With Luna’s moon glaring at her, Twilight was busy making sure her tracks were covered. She’d done her best to muffle the noise unbinding such powerful locks produced; she hoped it had been enough. With a copy of the text free of invasive wills, she could easily make more and send them to vassals throughout the land; they would see her point of view. They would rally under Twilight’s banner, anypony who didn’t was just as good as those two. They would fight against the injustice that had befallen Philomena. They’d win.
The world shimmered in an old Ponyville, impalpable. Its sky swirled violently, a deep crimson where there shone neither sun nor moon. Neither of the only two mares that inhabited this place could tell exactly where they stood because they didn’t stand anywhere in particular. Time didn’t pass as it normally did, instead all events were melded into an experience often forgotten. Here was the barren plain Twilight Sparkle never remembered.
Asymmetrical flashes of blue spurted from heaven and earth, joining to form the wavy shape of an alicorn. Her mane appeared to be made of the same fabric as the vague surroundings, while Twilight Sparkle's appeared as it normally did, not that she realised.
‘Where are we,’ Twilight asked the figure she couldn’t quite recognise.
‘In a dream,’ the figure answered.
‘But I don’t have dreams!’
‘That’s what you say every time.’
Twilight took a moment to try, but fail to examine what was around her. Nothing existed when focused upon.
‘I want something of you, Twilight Sparkle.’
The figure was not so much a pony anymore as an omnipresent being, piercing through all senses and senses previously unknown. Its demand echoed with power, shattering illusions while conjuring its own.
‘You’re going to tell me the aim for the forgery you made.’ Twilight sat, overwhelmed and shocked at her bottomless vulnerability in front of God. ‘I won’t ask again nicely,’ the thing said as the dreamscape began to distort into a nightmare, Twilight’s nightmare.
‘Wait, wait! I’ll tell you, just, don’t bring me there, please! Please don’t bring me there.’ As if the voice was the dream itself, the transformation from old Ponyville to a mass grave stopped midway, leaving jutting tombstones.
‘I’m going to get the buffaloes and griffins on my side by sending them copies of the writing and then the mayors and whoever else might be willing to help! That’s all, I promise! I swear that’s all!’
‘Good, you’ve given me all I wished from you, Twilight.’
Quiet suddenly, old Ponyville was back. Twilight was still shivering, suffocating in a feeling of complete desperation. If time was applicable here, it would have been days before she questioned the figure who wasn’t exactly a figure.
‘Are you... Luna?’ Twilight perceived herself as talking to nopony yet everypony at the same time. The figure took a far more earthly shape, turning into a filly with blue eyes.
‘Well done! It’s rare when you guess,’ said the filly, merrily bouncing around the dumbstruck mare. Twilight wept for the end of innocence.
And then she was awake, harbouring memories of a rough sleep. She had a lot of those.