//------------------------------//
// VIII. Eternal, pt. 1 
// Story: Eternal 
// by device heretic 
//------------------------------//


VIII. ETERNAL

Together Again, Somewhere + The Secret of the Eternal Sun + Masks + Princess, Penitent, Pony + Twilight’s Judgment + The Dream + What One Pony Can Achieve in a Day + The Last Cup of Tea + Watch for Sunrise + Hubris + Princess Luna, Ascendant + The Pegasus on the Balcony

~(E)~



Twilight didn’t dare move or speak; she kept her eyes locked on the scene before her, dumbfounded.

“Well?” asked the Celestia in white. “Aren’t you going to say hello?”

The reclining Celestia looked up at her counterpart in irritation, eliciting a wide, mocking smile.

“What…what is this?” Twilight managed. It was almost so bizarre that she was tempted to believe it had to be true just for being so outlandish. “Is this another vision..?”

“No, Twilight. You’re no longer in my mind,” the black-clad Celestia said, trying to sound soothing. “This is a true place.”

Twilight frowned. “Yeah, uh…I imagine you can see where I might be a little suspicious of you just saying that, at this point.”

The Celestia in white snickered. Twilight found this Celestia very strange; her stance was all wrong, aggressive and restless, her face animated and blazing with emotion, most of which seemed to be at least a little mocking. The unfamiliarity rubbed Twilight the wrong way and she found herself taking an immediate dislike to her.

The sensation of resenting something with Celestia’s face was becoming distressingly familiar.

The alicorn reclining on the pillow was much, much more like the Celestia Twilight knew, but weariness and sorrow obviously weighed heavily on her mind—and her body, it seemed. Even while sleeping, Celestia had always managed to seem upright and proud, in Twilight’s experience; this sad creature was slumped and seemed to be almost permanently cringing. Resignation dulled her big, mournful eyes.

“So…” Twilight sighed. “Let me guess. This is like that logic puzzle, right?  Uh…one of you always tells the truth and the other one always lies, and I have to figure out which is which? I know the answer for that one. It’s rather simple—”

The Celestia in white barked out laughter, eyes bulging madly in deep amusement. “Ha! You hear that, Celestia? Your student’s pretty clever—“

“Enough,” the reclining Celestia interrupted, irritably. The standing Celestia gave her a sharp look; she seemed to be in charge, and didn't appreciate backtalk. “Twilight, listen carefully to me when I say this: you are in a true place…my Faithful Student.”

It was as if something just clicked in Twilight’s mind. In the same way that she had known it was the real Celestia speaking to her in the, um, exciting vision earlier, she knew this was really Celestia now.

Further, the sound of her true name seemed to heighten her senses, making her aware of this place, of its reality; not even the waking world was this real. Colors were bright and pure in the golden-red light of sunset, smells were sharp and rich, and every sound seemed to ring clear and proud in the air, almost independently of one another. It was more than a little overwhelming.

She had a strange sense of everything being exactly as it was, which was a weird thing to sense, and an even weirder thing to contemplate. The nonsensical obviousness inherent to the statement nagged at her as being an extremely poor way to express what she was feeling, even if it felt like the right way to say it.

Twilight’s mind automatically rephrased it into something more sensible, if not as pat. She seemed to be in a place where things appeared the way they actually were, to themselves, without the soupy haze of individual perspective influencing them. Twilight, in being here, was experiencing the actual objects and events around her, not just her perception of them. The heightened sense of awareness was actually a little unsettling, giving her the nervous buzz in her gut that she associated with the aftermath of someone touching her suddenly while she was concentrating, once the immediate shock had faded.

But above all, she knew she was not in Celestia’s mind anymore, and that this wasn’t a trick. Her quest had reached its ultimate destination, even if she hadn’t known this was where it would be at the outset.

She frowned. “Where are we?”

“Somewhere,” the reclining Celestia said. There was the briefest shimmer of a mischievous laugh in her eyes as she said this, as there always was when she said something she knew Twilight was going to find vague and annoying.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Very mystic. A magical place, then?”

“Quite the opposite, in fact. Almost literally the opposite. It’s—“

“Yes, yes. A real place, you said,” Twilight huffed. She looked around, letting her discomfort show on her face. “It feels more real than real.”

The black-clad Celestia smiled in the little, pleased way she did when Twilight demonstrated a quick grasp of a lesson, though it seemed a little more hesitant than usual. “Indeed.”

Twilight’s frown deepened. “I’m getting a little tired of mystic and symbolic, after all this…”

Both of the alicorns seemed to find this amusing, although the reclining Celestia’s quiet little smile was no scratch on the mirth of her counterpart, who once again barked out a harsh, derisive little laugh. Who it was directed at was unclear; it might have been Twilight, or the reclining Celestia, or both of them, or the situation in general.

“And you…” Twilight continued, peering at the pair suspiciously. “One of you, or both of you, are the real Celestia.”

“Oh, don’t lump me in with her, please,” the white-clad Celestia said, bitterly.

The reclining Celestia nodded, once, with grave solemnity. “If you are looking for the pony who is Celestia, Princess of the Sun, sister of the Princess of the Moon and your mentor…I am here, my Faithful Student.” Once again, the sound of her true name gave Twilight an instant, unshakable surety that this was the Celestia for whom she had endured so much fear and pain.

Twilight raised her head to indicate the standing Celestia. “So who’s miss sunshine over here, then?”

This got a little chuckle from both Celestias, although the standing one spoke first. “Ah…Twilight, I love how you just seem to stumble across the truth of things without realizing it.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked, warily.

“Twilight…this is the Sun,” Celestia said, simply.

The Sun gave Twilight a little bow which was only slightly soured by her mocking little smile.

The unicorn looked from the Sun to Celestia a few times. “The Sun.”

“Yes, Twilight,” Celestia replied.

“As in—“

“As in, bright shiny ball that floats in the sky the Sun. Big, fiery yellow light, the Sun,” snapped the Sun. “Or at least, an aspect of it. The part which is attached to this old nag, anyways.” She gently kicked the pillow Celestia was resting on, to Celestia’s momentary discomfiture. The princess frowned and glared up at the Sun sullenly.

“Hey!” Twilight protested. Her protective tone made Celestia smile, a little.

The Sun tsked. “Oh, don’t worry about her too much, Twilight; you’ll understand soon enough that I’d be justified to do worse. By the end of this all, you might want to give her a little kick yourself, hmmm?” Though she spoke to Twilight, this little statement was directed more at Celestia, the Sun leaning down into Celestia’s glare with a gloating smile, the princess’ face growing more and more uncomfortable.

“I don’t know about that,” Twilight said, carefully.

“Oh, don’t be that way…I saw what you did to Mommy Celestia,” the Sun snickered. “Touched a nerve, did it?”

“So you’ve been watching this whole time, as well?” Twilight said, blushing despite her even tone.

The Sun leered. “Especially that part. It was Celestia who couldn’t bring herself to watch. Isn’t that right?” The Sun gave Celestia a smug look as the princess looked away from both of them, out across the sea, face guilty. “You’re very cute when you’re trying to be seductive, you know.”

“So you’re the Sun,” Twilight said, ignoring this and forcing herself to stay clipped and professional.

“Yes.”

“No,” Celestia interrupted, not turning around. “She is the part of me that is the Sun. And I’m the part of her that is Celestia.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Mystic again, huh?”

“You’re going to get a lot of that, here,” the Sun said, with an amused smile. “I suggest you get used to it.”

Twilight gave her a sour look, but continued nevertheless. “So what do you have to do with this ‘Eternal Sun’ stuff?”

The Sun’s eyes widened with malicious glee. “Oh, my, Celestia…have you been giving yourself nicknames..? How silly of you.”

“Would you give us a moment alone, please?” Celestia said irritably, still looking out over the shore.

“I wish I could, Celestia,” the Sun said, sweetly. “But for some reason I feel the need to stay here and make sure you’re being honest.”

Celestia turned, her sad gaze falling on Twilight. It seemed very heavy, and Twilight felt a strange urge to shy from it. The weight of Celestia’s guilty conscience seemed to strike her like a hammer blow. “I have no desire to lie to Twilight anymore. Not now…at the end.”

There was a very long, solemn pause at this point, as Twilight and Celestia held one another’s gaze, Twilight barely breathing.

“So…” Twilight said, nervously. “This really is…”

“Yes,” Celestia said, her face falling further, if that were at all possible. “I’m sorry, my Faithful Student, but it really is.”

Twilight had expected a huge, painful sorrow to just crush her when she heard this, as it had threatened to so many times over the last few days, and was thus momentarily disturbed when one didn’t. Instead she felt…how best to put it? Ah. Something like: a pervasive melancholy fell over her, a gentle but insistent sadness that put everything behind a tinted glass, not consuming everything but certainly casting it in a different light.

And yet, perversely, she felt free, knowing that this was the end; everything and anything could be said and discussed with no need to consider how they would affect things down the road. The feeling of liberation made her shiver.

There was a pause as Twilight considered what to do next. Celestia watched her with resigned patience.

“How much time do we have?” Twilight whispered.

The Sun grimaced. “Time enough to talk.”

Twilight stood before the pair, unmoving. Celestia’s eyes suggested she was biting back a plea, while the Sun looked surly and annoyed.

“Twilight,” Celestia said, eventually. “Please come sit down. I have a great deal to tell you, and I want you...” She trailed off, suddenly looking somewhat frightened for a moment, as if she feared finishing this statement would cause Twilight to get angry or leave. She quickly mastered herself, though. “I want you to rest. You’ve been through so much.”

“Ah, ah, ah,” the Sun said, smiling sarcastically. “See? This is what I mean. You’re too good at this for me to leave you be. Tell her the real truth, not just a truth.”

Celestia’s face screwed up as the Sun chastised her, embarrassment and irritation alive in her grimace of displeasure. “Twilight…” she began.

The unicorn cocked her head quizzically. “Yes?”

“Twilight, I want…” Celestia said, tentatively. “I want you to sit with me, now, and listen to the things I have to say, as you said you would. I want this. But it is your decision. You have suffered a great deal and I respect your wishes if you’d rather keep your distance.” She looked utterly miserable as she said this, clearly worried that Twilight would refuse. Her eyes, usually lit with quiet confidence, begged Twilight to be near her.

Twilight’s heart automatically demanded that she leap forward and comfort the princess, but her mind came down on that instinct immediately, remembering not only why she was here but what it had gone through to make it here at all. Even if it was a bit cruel, Twilight couldn’t help but feel good at the ease of her self-control.

That said, what Celestia asked was something Twilight wanted, herself—in this moment, they should be close together. “Of course I’ll sit with you,” Twilight said, trying to give Celestia a comforting smile, which was met with a grateful sigh of relief. “But no tea.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow, frowning a bit cautiously. “No tea?”

“I think, once we get into things, you will understand why I’m a bit touchy about tea at the moment,” Twilight said, stepping forward and gratefully collapsing onto the pillow.


~(E)~



Celestia pumped her wings once, lifting herself into the air, the sun rising behind her.

In the crowd, a little unicorn filly looked up in wonder…


~(E)~



Celestia and Twilight regarded each other calmly across the table, as they had done many times before in far less trying circumstances. Their expressions said a great deal to each other, despite being relatively still and peaceful, if sad.

Twilight was uncomfortable—deeply so—with how much power she felt like she had over Celestia right now. The alicorn winced anytime Twilight’s facial features moved, no matter how, as if expecting a rebuke, and it disturbed Twilight to see how pained and haunted her mentor’s features were. She had only seen this sort of distress in Celestia a very few times before, and never for this long or, if it came to it, this intensely.

Like there had been in that long wait with the incarnation of Guilt, there was a tense sort of peace in the air, but rather than being the anxious peace of imminent departure, which it perhaps ought to have been, it was an expectant silence, awaiting the first voice, the first move, the beginning of the long conference between ascendant student and humiliated mentor.

The Sun seemed annoyed by this extended pause, but kept her sour tongue behind her lips, occasionally sneering down at Celestia.

Celestia finally shook her head. “No tea? Really?”

“Not yet,” Twilight said, firmly.

This seemed to distress Celestia deeply. “I like taking tea with you, Twilight…”

The unicorn sighed. “I think we have a lot to discuss, first.”

“Can’t we just...talk, for a moment? This will be hard enough without—”

“Stop avoiding things, Celestia,” the Sun growled. “This isn’t a diplomatic meeting, it’s a confession. Don’t try to butter her up.”

Celestia frowned. Once again Twilight was struck by how strange petulance and guilt looked on her face; it spoke to how much she had put herself through that she couldn’t, or didn’t care to, control herself. Her composure and poise were completely gone.

“May I ask you something, just to get us started, Princess?” Twilight said, quietly.

“Just Celestia will do, I think. Here and now.”

Twilight smiled at the courtesy, even though it reminded her for a moment of that seductive vision’s Celestia inviting her to do so. “Celestia, then,” she said, kindly. “This is something I really need to ask you. I’m not sure I could get a meaningful answer from anypony else.”

Celestia hesitated for a second, then smiled gently. “Please, by all means.”

“Um,” Twilight said, grinning slightly. “So, apparently I swore an oath to be one of Luna’s knights…am I going to have to do whatever she says, now?”

Celestia stared at Twilight for a second, a smile of disbelief growing on her face. She burst into bright laughter, bringing a hoof to her face to wipe away tears of relieved mirth.

The Sun frowned at Twilight. “Are you taking this seriously?”

“About as seriously as I’ve ever taken anything,” Twilight said, smiling innocently, enjoying the sound of Celestia’s relieved laughter, tension flowing away like melting ice.

“Twilight…” Celestia said, trying to stop herself from laughing. It was hard; the stress in her had been so tightly wound that the sudden snap in tension made it almost uncontrollable. Tears flowed from her eyes, and she began coughing, such was the intensity of her laughter. “Twilight…did you really?”

“Apparently.”

Celestia’s mirth died away, slowly, but she seemed much less crushed and hopeless now, just as Twilight had hoped. The princess smiled down at her approvingly. “Well, I suspect you would have been willing to do as she asked anyways, but…” Celestia gave Twilight a little grin. “If she ever starts getting too insistent about the oath, just ask her if she was this pushy with Starlight Chaser. I suspect she’ll back off if you do.”

“Luna mentioned that name—was she their leader?”

“She was, yes. And she never listened to Luna when she thought she had a better idea than her princess. I think that’s why Luna liked her so much—bold, you see…” Celestia sighed deeply, and looked off into the middle distance. “That’s ancient history now. You should be more careful what you say to Luna from the old days, even if you’re just trying to flatter or tease her. She’ll take it seriously, or at least make a show of doing so, if it suits her at the time.”

Twilight almost said, “I’ll run everything past you first,” but caught herself in time. Instead she nodded and said, awkwardly, “I’ll…bear that in mind.”

“But…” Celestia said, returning her gaze to Twilight. “The idea of you as a knight has some romantic appeal to it, I have to say…”

Twilight blushed and said nothing.

“Yes, yes, this is all very interesting,” the Sun said, irritably. “Get on with it, will you?”

Celestia’s rising spirits had lit a flame of defiance in her—just enough that she wasn’t about to mewl at the Sun’s bad mood. “I’m getting there. Be patient.”

The Sun rolled her eyes and huffed, wings fluffing in annoyance. “Don’t think I won’t haul her out of here and drag you off to sleep, Celestia. This wasn’t meant to be time for some idle chit-chat.”

Twilight bristled. “Please, just let us have this, okay? This is going to be hard enough as it is.”

For the first time, the Sun’s anger seemed to be directed at Twilight in earnest. “You get kept awake for a millennium and tell me you’re not in a hurry to get some rest. You’re only here on my sufferance—key word, suffer—so excuse me if I’m a little cranky.”

Twilight made a point of holding the Sun’s furious gaze for a time, then looked to Celestia, who was beginning to look nervous again. “Celestia—“ her heart fluttered again, using the name so readily, but she had earned it— “What is she talking about?”

Celestia closed her eyes tight. “She’s talking about the Eternal Sun, Twilight.”

“Even I don’t call myself that, and never would,” the Sun snapped, turning a vicious glare on Celestia. “Arrogance!”

“Yes,” Celestia said, calmly, although her voice trembled slightly. The Sun sneered, but cooled its wrath, looking away with a stormy expression.

Twilight frowned. “What do you mean? I…I guess I understood there was more to the Eternal Sun than just…a title. I was beginning to have an idea that it was the name you had created for the mask—“

“Oh, no,” the Sun said darkly, shaking her head. “No, no, no. It’s much worse than that.”

Twilight frowned. “Well obviously it’s to do with refusing to set—“

“To say the very least!” the Sun interrupted, again. She tapped Celestia roughly. “So are you going to tell her, or what?” Her impatience was painted on every word.

Celestia looked up at the Sun irritably, then turned to Twilight and sighed. “Twilight, I want you to promise me that you’ll sit through everything. Hear me out.”

“Of course I will,” Twilight answered, reflexively.

Celestia looked pained. “Twilight…”

Twilight took a deep breath through her nose, matching Celestia’s gaze. “Why are you so frightened that I won’t? Is it really that terrible?”

“Yes,” said both Celestias at once. Twilight chuckled despite the seriousness of the situation as they glared at each other.

“No, what I mean is…Celestia…” Twilight trailed off, letting her mind turn over phrasing in her head for a while. Celestia watched her with nervous patience, while the Sun gave her a "get on with it"’ motion with one hoof. “Look, I understand that you might…worry about telling me things, thinking that I’ll…that it will hurt me, alright? Like they would have, not even three days ago. But I wouldn’t be here now if I weren’t willing to endure the knowledge of your mistakes.”

She gave the princess a brave little smile.

Celestia sighed. “Twilight, I…I’ve seen that you’ve grown. You’ve become so strong, so quickly—well, no, that’s not quite right; you just chosen to be as strong as you really are, despite your fear. And I’m so proud of you. Granted, I’d have preferred you were called to test it in different circumstances...”

“Ah, well, it wasn’t all bad, was it...” the Sun added, giving Twilight a suggestive wink.

The princess gave her counterpart a dirty look. “You need to understand that what is happening is…very big. The culmination of many, many mistakes, over a long life. And between us...they ultimately end with me actively making a choice which I knew, deep down, would hurt you.”

Twilight’s smile faded. “What…what do you—“

“You know exactly what I mean, Twilight. You chastised me for it in the library.” Celestia’s voice was firm, now; she had apparently decided to throw herself on Twilight’s mercy, and would do so with as much poise as she could manage.

“That…the letters…all of it? You…chose..?” Twilight said, trying to ignore how much this hurt. Something in her had suspected it was an active decision, though…what else would drive Celestia so mad with guilt and terror with regard to Twilight, if not being at the root of so much pain in her Faithful Student? It made far too much sense.

Celestia frowned, guiltily. “Yes, Twilight. I chose to do something knowing it would hurt and alienate you from me—not that this was the direct intention, mind you, but I did know the consequences of my choice in my heart, even if I chose to ignore them. I made a bad choice about something because I thought I had to, and because I was selfish and thoughtless, I only thought of how I was suffering for it. I told myself that my pain was something like nobility. Self-sacrifice, giving of myself.”

From the depths of her memory, Twilight heard Luna say: You’re just like her! You’ve both turned self-sacrifice into a vanity.

“There is no neat little lie for what my choice did to you, though. The pain you were in, the desperation; how you were living your life. I, and the foolish choices I made, were at the heart of all of that.” Celestia’s face fell into discomfort. “And on top of that, the things you have so bravely endured to arrive here, trying to save me despite all of it…” She looked away, pained.

Twilight stared at her. The Sun grinned.

“And it’s all wrapped up in this,” Celestia said, waving a hoof as she met Twilight’s gaze again. “This is all a part of it. The lie of the Eternal Sun. But ultimately…this is about us, Twilight Sparkle, and how I hurt you; because that brought it all to an end.”

Silence reigned for a series of lifetimes. Celestia’s gaze never wavered, staring at Twilight with sullen pride like a felon before the arbiter, saying: I did it with the best intentions, judge me as you will. Twilight tried to meet it, but her gaze kept straying to the Sun, who was watching Celestia suspiciously.

It hurt—it really did—to hear Celestia, the real Celestia, admit to intentionally hurting her. But in this real place, Twilight found it easy to be the Faithful Student, seeking answers and information to her satisfaction about this problem, trying to make the best judgments and above all, understand. It was beginning to occur to her that thinking magic was her special talent was a very limited outlook indeed.

And there was strength in her to accept Celestia’s faults, or at least, hear them. It was the same strength that had compelled her to hug a creature that had tried to kill her, because she had come to understand its agonizing pseudo-existence and felt, unquestioningly, that everything in the universe deserves a little sympathy for its pain.

Whether that strength would give out when it came to actually forgiving the princess remained to be seen.

Celestia broke the silence first. “You were right, in your…letter,” she said, grimly. “I need to confess to you. And I will accept your judgment…no matter what it is.”

Twilight sighed, rubbing her temples with her hooves. “Start from the beginning.”


~(E)~



A little filly and her parents looked up at the princess, who descended from the throne, smiling broadly.

“Have you enjoyed the first week of classes at the Academy, Twilight?” the princess asked, beaming down at the filly.

“Um…yes,” Twilight said, having yet to learn that it tooks quite a good liar to get past the princess. She just didn’t want to sound ungrateful; she’s come home with a splitting headache every day from all the testing.

“Well, let’s hope your private lesson with me is a little more entertaining, hmm?” Celestia said, smiling knowingly and nodding gratefully to Twilight’s parents, who bowed and left the two alone together for the very first time. “How do you take your tea?”


~(E)~



“It begins,” Celestia said, as evenly as she could, “with the first sleep.”

Around them, the scenery shifted, just a little; the sun was much higher on the horizon, not just barely hanging above the distant sea. Celestia nodded towards where Twilight had appeared so recently, and Twilight turned to see a much younger Celestia—both in terms of chronological age, and…in a sort of ethereal, indescribable way that this place and its realness empowered.

It wasn’t innocence, certainly—not if what Luna had shown Twilight was any indication—but there was an absence in this memory of Celestia of a certain gravitas which had always hung on the Celestia Twilight knew like a cloak. The weight, she supposed, of history…and the quiet burden of distance.

“Is this like the mountain? Does this place…remember?” Twilight asked, watching the young Celestia look around herself with cautious curiosity.

“Something like that, yes. It’s…mystic.” Celestia smiled weakly at Twilight’s groan. She cleared her throat and continued. “As my time for that first rest approached, I knew that I would be fine, and would return someday, even if Luna was privately worried that I was dying. I was a little more than one hundred and fifty old at that point, and we knew precious little about ourselves…but I felt drawn to the caverns beneath the Temple of Two Sisters, and there I slept, and arrived here.”

Twilight frowned. “That’s been bothering me. This place seems very…familiar, but I’ll swear I’ve never been here, or anywhere like it before…”

“Didn’t Luna show you..?” Celestia replied, momentarily puzzled. “This is where she emerged from the sea, in the south.” She smiled at Twilight’s sudden expression of realization. “Well, it takes the shape of that place, anyways; I have always found it pleasant here, and was even then in the habit of coming here often.”

The young Celestia gave a little yelp of surprise as she was approached by a shining double of herself—the Sun, smiling gently and speaking softly, welcoming Celestia to this place. Acting on a sudden instinct, Twilight’s eyes flickered up at the Sun, who had closed her eyes and was shaking her head, face pained, as if to chastise the memory for being so friendly.

“I met the Sun for the first time,” Celestia continued, not noticing. “And I learned about my…arrangement. That I am the part of the Sun that is a pony, and she is the part of me that is the Sun. Please don’t ask me to explain it, Twilight,” she added quickly as Twilight opened her mouth to ask something. “You won’t like the answer. It’s just a thing that is the case.”

“I was actually going to ask if Luna has a similar arrangement with the moon. I’d assume she does,” Twilight said, a little hurt.

“I wouldn’t know; I’ve never asked,” Celestia replied. “But I wouldn’t assume anything about it.”

Twilight frowned. “Why not? You’re sisters, aren’t you?”

“The Sun and Moon are very different things, after all. Luna and I are attached to one another as part of cosmic cycles. I’m no more or less her sister than you are—after all, it’s not as if we have parents. You just demonstrated your connection with her beyond any doubt, when you were able to correctly address her that way and wake her from the Nightmare once again. You are her sister, just as you are m—the Faithful Student.”

The immensity of this statement, delivered as if it were no matter of great importance, was not lost on Twilight Sparkle. That little moment of comfort on the stone stairwell at the heart of the mountain had been much more momentous even than it had seemed at the time. She, little Twilight Sparkle, shared a special bond of sorority with Luna that extended beyond pleasantries and gestures of affection…and into fundamental truth. It was more than a little intimidating.

“You are a very special pony, Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia said, forcing calm, demonstrating the same talent as her sister for reading Twilight’s thoughts on her face. “And Luna loves you dearly for what you’ve done for her. I am…very happy that you two have bonded in this way. You’ll need to be able to rely on each other, looking ahead.”

Twilight shivered to hear the words of Guilt in Celestia’s mouth—but then, Guilt was about the closest thing to the real Celestia as Twilight had encountered in the empty halls of Celestia’s mind. Celestia was beginning to look miserable again, her mind clearly ruminating on the upcoming departure and her prolonged absence.

Twilight smiled gently. “Please, princess…continue.”

“Celestia, Twilight, please,” Celestia said. “No more masks between you and I. Especially the mask of an authority I scarcely deserve.”

The Sun stirred. “Knock off the self-pity, would you? At least, until you’ve actually told her the things you should be ashamed of.”

With a little look of wary irritation at the Sun, Celestia continued. “Where was I…ah. So, yes, I met the Sun many times, and we spent our time together just…talking. Resting.” In the field before them, the two alicorns laughed merrily, chatting animatedly.

“We were friends,” the Sun said. There was a great pain in her voice as she said this, and Twilight looked up at her with concern. The Sun scowled down at her, but addressed Celestia. “Wouldn’t you say, Celestia? I certainly thought of you that way.”

“Yes,” Celestia said quietly. “We were.” She blinked slowly and bit her lower lip in anxiety.

Twilight felt an urge to reach out and touch Celestia, to comfort her, but as she stirred, the Sun’s glare intensified, and Twilight settled back down.

Celestia didn’t continue for some time, but when she did, her voice was wretched with hatred. It frightened Twilight to hear, such was its intense bitterness. “It was Discord who changed everything. That cursed creature…in the war, the first time he was active, he hurt me, nearly unto death, and I was forced into dormancy before my time.”

Twilight stirred. “Yes, Luna showed us. You returned with the Elements of Harmony—“

“Which I happily helped her acquire,” the Sun growled. “At no small risk to myself.”

In the field, a battered-looking pair of Celestias looked with triumph at their gleaming treasure, one assuring the other that everything they’d suffered would be worth it, now.

Celestia winced at the reminder. “Yes. And when I returned to the waking world, bearing this powerful magic, eventually Luna and I managed to catch Discord in a situation where we could use them—“

“Eventually?” Twilight asked, startled. “It seemed like you dealt with him right after you came back—“

“Twilight…there were almost thirty years between my return and our victory over Discord.” Celestia said this dully, whispers of ill-favored memories echoing in the hollow sound of her voice. “Everything seemed to go wrong. We were triumphant by the slimmest of chances, at great cost to Equestria and the sacrifice of far, far too many good ponies. And Luna and I…well…”

“Not a high point in your relationship?” Twilight offered, grinning weakly.

“That’s putting it lightly. Especially when my mane started changing…it terrified her. And the fatigue of setting came heavily on me—as the Sun had warned me that it would. I should have slept, then, and trusted her. But I didn’t; I was frightened, Twilight, I was out of my mind with fear and humiliation. I had been so happy before the war, so hopeful, even in the hard times; Discord turned my pleasant, if troubled, little country into a shattered ruin. So many places I had watched grow, gone. So many ponies dead, slaughtered before their time. Entire generations having been raised for war...” Celestia shook her head, tears falling gently from her eyes. “That there was so much angry tension between Luna and myself on top of that was…unbearable. I do love her, after all, even when we fight. That it was reflected in politics just made it worse. So I clung to pride to comfort myself, and it poisoned my judgment. And in the end…”

Twilight sighed, sadly. “The moon refused to give way to the sun.”

Celestia gave a single, weak huff of dark amusement. “Luna does love putting it that way, for some reason.”

“So you banished Nightmare Moon…” Twilight’s tone was thoughtful, as she fit pieces into her mind.

“You need to understand, Twilight, that Nightmare Moon was so much different than Discord. You met it for real, in my mind—that was Nightmare Moon. She is an incarnation of Luna’s fears, given form and purpose by wild dream magic, as you realized.” Celestia managed a little smile of pride in Twilight at this. “Discord was a long, drawn-out conflict. Nightmare Moon was a storm of…just…”

“I can imagine,” Twilight said, remembering the mad smile and furious, icy hatred that creature had seemed to project.

“Try not to; it’s not worth troubling your mind with,” Celestia said. “And I was so tired, Twilight; not just in terms of the cycle of rising and setting, which was all out of sync now, but physically tired, emotionally drained…totally humiliated. I had believed myself powerful enough to protect Equestria, and that belief had been shattered by Discord; now something had taken hold of my beloved Luna and was terrorizing what remained of it. I was so weak, then, but still powerful. And so I took up the Elements and banished Nightmare Moon.”

“That must have been…hard on you,” Twilight said.

Celestia shook her head. “I couldn’t do anything else, Twilight. You’ve felt the Elements many times; you know how overwhelming it is…and I was tired, and didn’t have anypony helping me—certainly not five friends as courageous and great-hearted as yours are. So while I regretted it, I also knew I had no choice; I couldn’t do anything else. When I put my faith in you and your friends to become the new bearers of the Elements, I must say that while I assumed you would merely renew her containment, I hoped you would be able to save Luna.” Celestia’s moist eyes beamed at Twilight proudly. “And of course, you did, my beloved student. You did what I could not have, because of your greatness of heart and your fledgling mastery of the Magic of Friendship.”

“So why are you telling me all of this?” Twilight asked, frowning. “I guess all this history made me assume you were kind of screwed up over what happened to Luna.”

Celestia gave Twilight a pained look. “Well I was. Just not over banishing Nightmare Moon, not exactly...I was humiliated yet again, you see; once again, I felt weak and impotent, unable to protect or care for the things I loved. I was so tired. And when I get "screwed up," Twilight, as you have personally experienced…things devolve quickly.”

“To say the very least,” the Sun snarled. “Pay close attention now, Twilight Sparkle…I want you to remember this part.”

The field changed around them, again. The light of the sun was strange and unsettling, and it actually moved in the sky, wavering and fading in and out.

“Celestia!” cried the memory of the Sun, galloping forward. Celestia, her mane and tail beginning to fade into a very familiar pattern—the pink of dawn almost completely gone now—lay slumped on the ground, covered in weird burns and irregular, jagged wounds. The Sun knelt over her, face desperate. “Celestia, what happened?”

“I…I…” the memory of Celestia rasped. “She’s gone. Luna is gone…” Her voice had a plaintive edge, and would have been a howl of terrified rage if she could have managed it. “The Elements banished her! I couldn’t control them…”

The Sun’s face fell. “I’m…Celestia, I’m so sorry…”

Celestia said nothing, just lay there panting, eyes wild.

Her counterpart tried to smile, affecting the frantic, bright tone of voice ponies use to address the dying so that they don’t go into shock. “Just…relax, okay? We can set, and you’ll recover—“

Celestia’s eyes grew even wider. “Set…”

“Yes. You’ve put it off too long as it is. We didn’t rest properly last time—we couldn’t, we had to get rid of Discord. And now this…” The Sun wandered over to the shoreline for some reason—perhaps something to do with the process of setting. “I mean, look at this…”

Twilight realized the mistake the Sun was going to make a second before she made it—her tone was too thoughtful, her mind clearly given over to thinking about the problem of setting and not paying attention to the terrible light of rage kindled in Celestia’s eyes. Twilight’s stomach churned to see Celestia so out of control, so angry. Even the Nightmare hadn’t been like this.

“No,” Celestia said, awkwardly trying to get to her hooves. “There’s no time.”

The memory of the Sun chuckled in a slightly condescending way that Twilight associated with ponies who are way out of their depth but don’t realize it. “There had better be time, Celestia, I mean…it’s going to be a couple years at least,” she said, spreading her wings.

A little choking sound next to her attracted Twilight’s attention. To her shock, it was coming not from Celestia, but from the current Sun, who was actually crying. The unicorn’s eyes turned on her mentor, who looked away from the light of furious understanding blooming in her student’s face.

“A couple years!?” the memory Celestia bellowed, despite obvious pain. “Do you have any idea what could happen? Equestria is in ruins! Half the country is turning against the other over whether or not I can be trusted anymore, how long it’ll be until I become some sort of monster!”

The Sun turned, frightened by her friend’s angry tone. “It’s only a couple years, Celestia—“

“Oh, heavens, no,” Twilight whispered. The Sun really had been very, very innocent…

“This is your fault,” the memory of Celestia snarled. “This…all of this...how necessary is it? Is it necessary at all?”

The Sun’s eyes were filled with fear and confusion. “My fault..? What…of…of course it’s necessary..!” But Twilight understood that to a mind so consumed with rage and humiliation, this sounded like she was covering for something.

“You…betrayed me…” Celestia snarled, prowling up to the Sun. “You should have supported me. If I hadn’t been so tired this whole time, if you didn’t insist on me following some schedule and just cooperated, I would have been strong enough to deal with all of this!”

“Celestia, I—“

“Enough!” Celestia howled. It had probably terrified the Sun, but Twilight recognized a desperate mind looking for any excuse when she saw one. “Believe it or not, I have other important things to deal with besides sitting around this place with you! Now raise the sun and send me back so I can fix everything!”

“Celestia, you’re scaring me!” the Sun moaned. “I can’t just do that!”

Celestia’s towering rage banked quickly, condensed to a terrible, terrible light in the depths of her eyes as she grinned horribly. “Oh, no…?”

“What are you—“ the Sun began, as Celestia’s wings spread wide and she dove forward. Desperately, the Sun sent a shield of magical force at Celestia, who dodged it with war-tested grace. “Please, Celestia, stop!”

“No,” Celestia responded, snarling. “Stop resisting and do as I ask.”

“I can’t, Celestia—“

“You mean you won’t,” the princess replied, eyes blazing. “Don’t make me do it.”

The Sun’s eyes went wide with terror. “Do…what?”

Celestia’s face went dark as a thunderhead. “This.”

Chains of magical energy leapt around the trembling Sun, constricting her. She cried out in terror as she was lifted, bodily, into the sky, thrashing against the restraints as best she could. As she rose, the sun followed her into the sky, rising up from the horizon, ever higher, towards its apex at noontime; the higher the captured sun got, the more hale and vital Celestia appeared—though her mane retained its familiar multihued appearance.

“No more weakness,” the memory of Celestia said harshly—determination, anger, and reluctance warring in her voice.

Twilight stirred, realizing she’d heard it from two places at once; her eyes leapt to the current Celestia, who was staring at her past self in fascination, eyes leaking humiliated tears.

“No more failure,” they said, one snarling, one whispering.

“Celestia…” Twilight murmured, timidly.

“No more imperfection!”

Twilight’s eyes went wide.


~(E)~


Teacher and student sat together in the library, selecting scrolls. Twilight occasionally looked up at Celestia, nervously.

“Is something wrong?” Celestia asked.

Twilight shook her head. “No, it’s…just…nice, having you here with me while I do this.”

“I’m glad.”


~(E)~


The unnatural noontime faded. Again the shoreline was lit by a dying sun, almost faded from gold to red, the sound of the breeze through the trees and the waves beating on the shore the only sounds breaking the uncomfortable silence. The Sun turned away from Celestia and Twilight, staring out into the horizon.

Twilight stared at Celestia, whose gaze lingered on the place where the memory of herself had just been standing.

“What…did you do..?” Twilight managed.

Celestia didn’t look up at her, but seemed to shake a couple of times as she suppressed sobs. “I became the Eternal Sun.”

“That’s the Eternal Sun? You—“

“I chained the Sun to the sky,” Celestia said, bitterly. “Here, where such things have meaning. And as I returned to the waking world, my wounds closed and I felt fresh and vital as I hadn’t in decades. I even thought to myself,” and here her mouth pulled into a disgusted grimace, “I thought to myself, ‘I finally figured out what was going wrong.’”

Twilight couldn’t find words. Her jaw worked lamely, a little hiss of breath passing her lips, but no words formed. She just held Celestia in a gaze that was half-disgust, half-shock.

Celestia, the princess, had betrayed that beautiful, innocent creature in the most vile way imaginable. Twilight was completely taken aback.

“It took me two hundred years to return Equestria to something resembling stability,” Celestia said wretchedly.. “And I put on the mask, Twilight, in those days, wore it for so long that I became the mask, the Eternal Sun of Equestria: a shining beacon of stability among the ruins, around which recovery could be formed.”

“And thanks to her little…magic trick,” the Sun spat, “She didn’t ever have to worry about her powers fading or anything. She could be,” and here her tone became—if possible—even more bitter, “Perfect.”

“Twilight, you understand,” Celestia said, quickly—no, desperately. “It was politics. Everypony needed me to be fine. To be better than fine, to be transcendent, above the issues, just…there. A symbol. To be something to rally around, and always rely upon—“

“Something which would never hurt them…” Twilight murmured, sadly, staring at nothing in particular. “Would never be absent, or frightening…”

“Yes, exactly,” Celestia said, her eyes begging Twilight to understand.

“I understand quite well,” Twilight said in a quiet voice, eyes turning to meet the alicorn’s. Celestia visibly flinched from the pain Twilight held there.

Celestia swallowed, nervously, making the Sun’s face spread into a cruel little smile. “Twilight, I never meant to—“

“Don’t skip ahead,” the Sun snapped. “Keep going. Full disclosure.”

Twilight took a deep breath and turned to face Celestia properly. “All the way to the end. I’ll listen to everything. Then we’ll talk about where we are, alright?”

Celestia closed her eyes and turned away, looking pained. “Yes, you’re right, of course…”

“So you reunited Equestria,” Twilight prompted.

“…Yes. And I admit that I took pleasure in it, even knowing I was doing it on stolen time.” Celestia cleared her throat and forced herself to look back at Twilight, shifting nervously in the pillow. “So two hundred years, or so, had passed since I banished Nightmare Moon, and I began to feel the fatigue growing in me again…the Sun was trying to break free of her bonds.”

“With some success,” the Sun said, irritably.

Celestia actually smiled at this. “Yes…and Equestria was enjoying relative peace, so I felt like it was a good time to try to…deal with this. I descended into a chamber under Canterlot, under the Ivory Tower—your tower, in fact,” she added, with a little smile, clearly hoping Twilight would take this as a compliment.

“Yes, I know,” Twilight said evenly. “We’re there now.”

“Are we? Oh, good…I’m glad Luna remembered.” Celestia sighed. “Obviously, I knew I had done a great evil, but I convinced myself it had all been necessary. Certainly I believed that my success vindicated my actions, at least in part…” The Sun scoffed. “So I came here, to this place, to speak with the Sun. I hoped that she would understand, and perhaps—”

“No, you came here to tell me you had been justified in imprisoning me against my will,” the Sun sneered. “You didn’t even apologize.”


~(E)~



“It is with great pride that I formally introduce Twilight Sparkle to the court as my student and protégé. I have rarely known, in all my years, a unicorn with her talents and skills; with that in mind, I have invited her to take residence here at the palace to continue her magical training with me now that she has graduated from the Academy. I am pleased beyond words to say that she has agreed, and will thus be joining us from time to time…”

The roar of hoofs on the tiles of the Great Hall was thunderous. Twilight smiled awkwardly and looked up at the princess, feeling completely out of place here amongst the pageantry of the court, even in her best gown, which she felt were like rags compared even to the least among the nobleponies.

“Don’t worry, my faithful student,” Celestia said, sotto voce. “I’ll only make you come when something fun’s going to happen.”

They smiled at each other, in the small, private way they did when they were sharing a joke between themselves.


~(E)~



Twilight blinked, and somewhere was once again lit by noon. A memory of Celestia stood in the meadow where Twilight had arrived once again, looking proud, but wary.

“So you still refuse, then?” she asked. “Even after I have shown you what I’ve been able to accomplish?”

“If you have achieved so much, then rest, Celestia. This isn’t natural. You’re hurting both of us, doing this,” came the Sun’s voice—which is to say, Celestia’s—from the open air.

The memory of Celestia bristled. “How are we being hurt?”

“I’m not sure yet,” the voice replied. “But I’m not particularly eager to find out.”

“Perhaps if you were more willing to cooperate, we could observe the situation in a more…controlled way…” Celestia offered. “Personally, I am interested in finding out what we can accomplish together, if we’re willing to push ourselves…”

“This isn’t an experiment, Celestia. And I’m not going to let it be one—this is dangerous. Please, let me go!” the voice cried.

Celestia frowned. “And risk you setting? No.”

The voice was pleading now. “Celestia, please!”

“I can’t take that chance—you know that. There’s still so much to do. The gryphons are still restless, the forest is still wild…and with Luna gone, I must handle her responsibilities as well…”

“Celestia…”

Thinking of Luna seemed to have pained the princess, but it was channeled into anger in the manic, thoughtless way of desperate ponies. “Equestria needs us! Needs me awake, and not rising and setting constantly, throwing things into question! If Luna were still here, if I had been able to save her, I might consider your demands…” This statement was heavily laden with accusation with regard to which of the two of them had been most responsible for this failure.

“There was nothing I could have—“

“You must come to understand that I have no choice but to be there for the ponies who are depending on me. Self-sacrifice is always difficult, but it is necessary—you need to learn this, yet, it seems.”

The memory of Celestia turned, ignoring the Sun’s frantic calls for her, and vanished. The noon light faded, once again, down into crimson.

“I was…still so sure of myself, then.” Celestia said, voice heavy with guilt. “I returned again, ten years later, and we had basically the same conversation; and once again, fifteen years or so after that. Each time I would ask her to cooperate, and she would refuse. I demanded she explain how she knew we were being harmed; I certainly noticed no ill effects at that point…”

The Sun’s expression of contempt could have scored glass. “You can’t imagine what a relief it was for me to hear that.”

Celestia coughed, a couple times, in the fashion of somepony trying to clear the thickness of their throat. “By the time—excuse me—by the time I finally got around to apologizing…”

“I was in no mood to hear it,” said the Sun, bitterly. “It was several centuries too late, after all.”

This time, there was no change of scenery; just snatches of voices, ringing out harshly against the quiet sound of the wind and surf.

“I’ve come to try to—“

“If you wanted to apologize, a couple centuries ago would have been better.”

“I have tried to explain to you many times that with Luna gone, I have—“

“Stop using your sister as an excuse! You’re just—“

“Just what?! Power-hungry? A tyrant?”

“Well, you are keeping me here like a slave!”

“How dare you!”

“How dare I what? Say the truth?”

Celestia shook her head irritably. “Enough. She gets the point.”

Despite this, the voices continued unabated, descending into a shouting match rather quickly; Celestia’s voice asserting that the Sun was being childish and selfish, not thinking of its responsibility to others; the Sun calling Celestia arrogant and thoughtless.

“Enough!” Celestia shouted. The sound of her desperate cry thundered over the voices, which seemed to fade with the echo of her demand.

The princess sat in silence for awhile, taking deep, long breaths, eyes smoldering with self-loathing. Twilight again had to suppress an automatic instinct to comfort her, forcing herself to remain seated as Celestia calmed herself.

“I’ve only seen her twice since then,” the Sun said, eventually. Her tone of voice was strange; there was a sort of smugness in it, reveling in revealing Celestia’s misdeeds to Twilight, but there was also a deep and lingering sadness, and bitter resentment. “The first time, about a century ago…I don’t know what was on her mind; she just stood there, staring at me, and then left. Guilty conscience, perhaps. The second time, well…” the Sun looked around. “I’m not sure how it’s all going to turn out, really. Not well, for the Eternal Sun, I suspect.” The strange tone fell away for this last sentence, which was as acid as it was possible for spoken words to be without burning in the air.

Twilight stared at Celestia, who occasionally shot her a guilty glance, but otherwise occupied herself mostly with staring off at nothing in particular, waging some internal battle.

Part of her was sick with rage and horror at what Celestia had done. The Sun in the past had been…cute. She had been much like an overgrown foal, guileless and completely open; and she had loved Celestia unreservedly, happily listening to the princess' tales of adventure in the world. Twilight had felt a kinship with her—they had both enjoyed, in "youth," basking in Celestia’s light, even if that metaphor didn’t translate particularly well applied to the Sun. So the betrayal of that relationship bit deep.

Furthermore, now it was all too easy to see where this spiteful, biting creature had come from—betrayal would fester in the heart of a creature like the Sun had been, corrupting all that innocence into resentment and vengeful rage. Twilight hated herself a little for the instant dislike she had felt for the Sun, but…that’s how such ponies were. Externalizing their fear and pain, making everything worse, spreading the bad news around in great, flaring rages, trying to get it all out because it just hurt so badly.

And yet, at the same time, Twilight couldn’t see Celestia’s anguish and be unmoved, even in the full knowledge of the immensity of her crime. Remorse might as well have been spilling out of her in great black torrents every time she spoke, but whether or not there was enough regret in the entire universe to make up for this was something of a mystery.

Twilight’s eyes fell on the Sun, and the unicorn wondered if she was in any position to offer any comment about this, in any case.

Celestia coughed. The sound was awkward, half-stifled, as if she didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself. “So that’s…what that was about.”

“I see,” Twilight said, carefully.

The princess looked up at her, face firm, eyes sad and guilty. “Which brings us to you, Twilight.”


~(E)~



Spike answered the door of the tower, his stubby limbs flailing in shock as the Princess smiled down at him. “P-princess..!”

“Hello, Spike. Is Twilight in?”

Her answer was already trying to come to a screeching halt so that it could descend the stairs with some decorum. Spike and Celestia shared a little grin.

“Princess,” Twilight Sparkle said, only a little breathless, as she came around the corner of the stairs. “What can I do for you? Our next meeting was on Thursday, I thought…I haven’t forgotten anything, have I?” She began to look a little panicky.

“No, Twilight, no!” Celestia laughed. “It’s just a nice day.”

Twilight looked out the window. “Is it? I…suppose so.”

“Ah, well, now this is an assignment!” Celestia gave Twilight a serious look. “We’re going to the gardens. Bring your chess set, will you? I’ll beat you yet…”


~(E)~



“The mask,” Celestia said. “It’s all about the mask.”

“Yes, I…I realized that,” Twilight replied, smiling weakly.

“The mask of the Eternal Sun, and the evil that empowered it, allowed me to be the princess Equestria needed in the wake of Discord and Nightmare Moon. It is the same mask you have begun to wear—the mask of dignity, I think I called it. I have gathered that you even began to wear it for your friends—because, I suspect, I was not the only pony you were beginning to feel alienated from.”

Twilight nodded, and swallowed down some thickness in her throat.

Celestia looked down on her with sympathy, and for a moment they were once again mentor and protégé, the princess sympathizing with the burdens of her student’s life. But the moment passed as Celestia’s eyes grew guilty and weary again and she slumped back down, somehow managing to actually be smaller than Twilight despite being almost twice her size.

“Since that’s the case, Twilight, I suspect you have now realized that the mask feeds itself justification for its existence. Leaders need to be just slightly remote, a little larger than life, in order to lead effectively, to inspire, to not disappoint or fail in a meaningful way. Being too much of a pony introduces uncertainty, which nopony wants in a leader. They want purpose and surety.” The princess raised a hoof in an explanatory gesture—this was just the case, it seemed to say. “All too easily, that slips into everything. It was almost instant for me, of course, because I had nopony truly close to me anymore; for you, I think, it was only starting.”

Twilight chuckled, weakly. “I was even wearing it for Spike, now and again. I could see it in his eyes; he didn’t know me.”

Hearing this obviously pained Celestia, but she didn’t comment on it. “So in your case, you hid your insecurities with the mask. Forgive me for being blunt, Twilight,” Celestia said, as Twilight gave her a sharp look. “But it’s a natural extension of your courteous nature. You have always been good at putting on a brave face even though your mind constantly frets about not being good enough. A tendency which you have had to confront so many times in your life, and have managed time and again to overcome, both with your friends’ help and without.”

“A tendency your guilt tried to use against me, in fact,” Twilight said, a little more sharply than she intended.

“Yes,” Celestia replied, her eyes haunted for a moment. “Yes, it did. The point is that the mask of the Eternal Sun was doing this for me, too. Like you, I needed to create an image around myself—forgive me for saying so, but I was pressed to make a rather more impressive one than you had to. I had to be the Princess, the central thing around which Equestria could revolve. And at the same time, Twilight, I was hiding so much. Like you, I needed to conceal fears and weaknesses from everypony, but unlike you, I—“

“You needed the mask to protect you from the guilt of what you’d done to the Sun,” Twilight interrupted, the insight leaping to her tongue. “I worry about failing...but you...”

Celestia nodded. “Yes. In retrospect, my motivations are very transparent and incredibly selfish. But at the time, it was easy for me to believe that it was something like dedication and self-sacrifice. I did an evil thing, and now, I took this duty on as my purgatory for it.”

Twilight stirred, sighing. “But in fact you were using your responsibilities make you feel justified for what you did to the Sun, on top of how the needs of Equestria were already pressuring you to become more and more removed. More…perfect.”

“Yes.” Celestia said, miserably.

“But you still felt guilty.”

“Oh, yes, Twilight. Terribly so, although I suppose that’s not much comfort to you,” Celestia said, not indicating clearly in her tone or manner whom she was addressing. The Sun gave her a vicious sneer, and Twilight realized that she was herself giving Celestia something like an angry glare. “The point is that in order to feel anything except constant guilt, I threw myself into the mask. I became the mask. The perfect princess, always there, never frightening. I learned the habits you so correctly described; I moved through the world, just touching things, guiding them, rarely acting openly, letting things be as they were going to be.”

“Which, it has been said, is wise policy for somepony in your position.”

“If I acted more, I would be a tyrant. Less, and I’d be removed and alienated. Celebrations and festivals have been my salvation—I can be present and participate, but not have to do much except smile and say a few lines. It was important for me to be there, and to be friendly and gentle and loving. It was very easy for me, to tell you the truth, because…well, I think I’d be that way regardless.”

The Sun sniffed. “But we know that’s not the case, don’t we, Twilight..?”

“Not necessarily,” Twilight said, surprising herself. The Sun and Celestia looked to her, curiously, as the thought that had made her say this hurried to catch up with the impulse to interject. “No, I think…I think it’s more like: she did this one really evil thing, and spent the rest of her life terrified that that’s how bad she really is…” Twilight looked to Celestia, sympathy in her eyes. “You must drag yourself over the coals every day.”

“Not often enough,” Celestia said. “I’m too good at deceiving myself, Twilight, as this whole situation demonstrates. But yes, I…have always strived against my worst nature. In a way, this is my Nightmare Moon; in desperation, I used my magic to do something truly evil. That I have spent my life trying to make up for it—especially since I’ve been doing so by exploiting that act—does not justify it in the least.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Twilight agreed, but her tone wasn’t terribly accusatory.

Celestia seemed heartened, a little, by Twilight’s meager display of empathy, and continued. “The point is that I was totally removed from the world, from the Equestria I professed to love. After that last great fight with the Sun, I threw myself into being the princess, totally and wholly, obsessively being the princess, acting out the part. The next couple centuries are just…a blur, to me, Twilight. It was like I was sitting still as the world moved around me, changing, growing, moving…I looked on with mild interest and fondness, but it was all just…” She shook her head.

“A lonely life,” Twilight said, sadly.

“Very much so.” Celestia sighed heavily. “But I suppose guilt was working in me even then; I have always believed that the price of my stolen power is solitude. Which brings me to you in earnest.”

Twilight sat up, ears alert. Her chest felt very strange; a mix of eagerness and reluctance made it feel strangely empty and light. She was sitting on the precipice of the answers she had wanted to get from Celestia now; her desire for them, and her fear of what they might be, had never been more intense.

Celestia seemed to notice this; Twilight imagined it was written on her face as plain as day to the princess, who had known her for so long. “This will be hard to hear, Twilight.”

“I know,” Twilight said, swallowing. “But I want to hear it, even so.”

“Brave, brave Twilight,” Celestia said, smiling sadly. They met each other’s eyes, both smiling very slightly, and then Celestia looked away, a guilty but pensive expression forming on her face as she took a deep breath and began.


~(E)~



Twilight watched the chariot fly off into the night, bearing one more Princess than Twilight was used to seeing. The thought made her…sad, for some reason.

So, Ponyville! It was kind of the mayor to let her take up permanent residence in the Library…and being the librarian would be a good way to keep herself busy and earn wages while she did her research on the Magic of Friendship with her five new friends.

She was finally living pretty much on her own, like a real grown-up mare, too! Exciting!

And yet, her eyes followed the chariot off into the distance until it was totally gone from sight; even then, she kept staring.


~(E)~



Celestia smiled. “Why Twilight? That’s the question.”

“I must say, I…have always kind of wondered,” Twilight replied.

“Luna asked me that on the morning after the wedding, you know. In dreams. The beginning of the end, I think, really; it started the train of thought that really derailed me.” Celestia sighed. “Would it upset you if I said that I honestly have no idea?”

Twilight’s eyes grew wide with shock. “What?”

“Looks like a yes, to me,” the Sun quipped, tapping Celestia a little roughly.

“And it’s not like I wasn’t spoiled for choice of reasons. You are, after all, spectacularly powerful, but…not uniquely so. I used to think it had something to do with the Elements of Harmony, but…that implies there’s such a thing as destiny, and I don’t think there is, just consequences. There’s even the explanation—a rather unflattering one for you, I think—that you were a sort of replacement for Luna.”

“She seems to think so,” Twilight said, nervously. “Or if not a replacement, at least a successor.”

Celestia shook her head. “Forgive me for saying so, but you couldn’t replace or succeed Luna. Nopony could, for me. Nor would I want you to.”

“That’s…actually, that’s kind of a relief, to be honest.”

“I should hope so, Twilight.” Celestia gave her a loving smile, shining through the grey misery. “I really do love you, you know. You, not how much you match some standard or how well you emulate somepony else. You do remind me of her, sometimes, but just as often, she reminds me of you. And I love you both more for it.”

Twilight was a bit disturbed to find herself uncomfortable hearing this from Celestia, but she supposed that made sense, given what was going on. “Thank you, for that,” she said, trying to smile.

Celestia’s smile faded. “I’m sorry, I…”

“No, just…” Twilight said, quickly, petering out awkwardly, sensing that anything she tried to say in response to this would make her break into tears. “Continue. You don’t know why you chose me as your student,” she prompted.

The princess hesitated for a moment, giving Twilight a wary look, then continued. “I remember that day very clearly. I was actually in a fairly good mood; it would have been much easier to explain things if I had been feeling particularly miserable or lonely at the time, wouldn’t it, but things are never that neat in real life. I remember feeling the surge of that first Rainboom, and then your magic going wild in the south tower; and I leapt into action.”

“And there I was, my parents turned into cacti…” Twilight couldn’t suppress her grin.

Celestia met it. “And there you were. Terrified, screaming, horrible wild magic flaring around you. I’d dealt with this before; it happens in foals, sometimes. But as I cradled you there, in my wing, putting on my best calming smile…” she shook her head. “I’ve turned away hundreds of ponies presented to me with the hope that I’d take them as my student over the last thousand years, proud nobleponies and talented foundlings alike. But in that moment I just couldn’t stand to think I’d be parted from this terrified little filly, who looked up at me in wonder, amazed that I was real.”

“A…whim?” Twilight murmured, unsettled by the congruence with her fears.

Celestia frowned a little. “I don’t know that I’d say it like that, but…there’s not really a word for it otherwise, is there.”

“Language is failing us quite often today, it seems,” the Sun growled, remembering Twilight’s inability to classify Celestia’s wrongdoing.

“The point is that I was interested in you, Twilight, from the beginning. And you stole my heart immediately. You were so smart, so eager, so dedicated—what am I saying? You still are all of those things. And you’ve accomplished so much in your life, both with my guidance and without. I couldn’t be more proud of you…” Celestia trailed off, miserably. “Although perhaps I don’t really have a right to be.”

Twilight looked at her, seriously. “Whatever else you may have done, you did train me, and raised me—in a way,” she added quickly, conscientious of the maternal vision. “So you have a right to be proud of the things I have accomplished; you made them possible.”

“That’s very kind of you to say, Twilight.”

“No, just true,” the unicorn said, flatly.

Celestia smiled weakly and looked away at nothing in particular. “I suppose you’re right.”

“This is one of the pieces I’m missing, Celestia, in all of this,” Twilight said, waving a hoof. “In fact, not knowing this helped me see through the Nightmare, but…I know what lead me to become alienated from you, and how I made it worse. But what was it on your end?”

The princess looked up at her, miserable tears bubbling in her eyes. “Isn’t it obvious? I loved you too much.”


~(E)~



“The Best Night Ever, huh?” Celestia asked, looking down at Twilight with an amused little grin.

The unicorn grinned sheepishly. “I suppose there’s a friendship letter in this. Something like…don’t let your friends sit around getting their expectations get out of hoof?”

“Ah, well…expectations,” the princess replied, smiling broadly. “The thing about expectations is that sometimes you don’t get what you want…and sometimes, you get something even better.”

Twilight looked up at her, smiling gently, and they shared a little moment of peace.


~(E)~



“Er,” Twilight said, blushing furiously. “Is this, like—um, about that vision?”

The Sun burst out laughing. “Ha! I bet you wish!”

“No, Twilight,” Celestia said, laughing weakly despite herself. “No, it’s not…quite that simple. Romantic as that would be.”

Twilight cleared her throat awkwardly. “Sorry.”

“It’s still about the mask, Twilight. The mask that I was so dependent on, now, to prevent me from just being strangled by my own misdeeds, my failures and weakness.” Celestia waved a hoof in front of her face, as if putting on such a thing, and held herself up haughtily. “Voilà. The princess, beautiful and wise and perfect,” she said, bitterly.

Twilight frowned. “And distant.”

Celestia’s mock-proud expression faded into sorrow. “Yes.” She turned and regarded Twilight seriously. “But you got little peeks under the mask, from time to time. Little moments between us, times when it felt less like we were mentor and student, princess and protégé, and more like…ponies.”

“I did, yes,” Twilight replied, trying not to tear up.

“You, and you alone. Because you were—are—special, Twilight. Everything else—Equestria, the Elements, all of it—that was all for the mask, everything I did. But you? You were mine. Secretly, in my heart of hearts, you were for Celestia, the broken, terrified little pony who was oh, so alone in the world, but could never show it to anyone as anything except the burden of immortality—a convenient lie, as you saw through earlier.”

Twilight nodded. “That was my own fear of death and loss, not yours.”

“I long ago came to grips with the inevitability of outliving many, many ponies I was fond of; I don’t let them go unremembered, as you have seen. In some ways, I suppose, it is like how foals must inevitably learn to cope with the death of their parents.” Celestia sighed. “Although I must confess that when I contemplate your death, that surety is shaken, more than a little.”

Morbid though it may have been, Twilight was a little flattered by this. “So what went wrong?”

“Well, the mask of the Eternal Sun was a hungry one, Twilight. It demanded an explanation for my deviation from complete self-sacrifice. Everything I did had to be for Equestria; otherwise, what right did I have to be princess? And what justification for the imprisonment of my dearest friend besides Luna?” Celestia shook her head morosely. “For so long, I convinced myself that as much as I enjoyed teaching you, it was ultimately for both our benefit, and for the greater benefit of Equestria. That seemed to sate it, for a time.”

“Freeing Luna…I…” Twilight said, speaking the speculation on her mind.

“Luna’s return made it harder and harder to justify my sacrifices for Equestria—after all, there would still be a Princess, now, if I were gone. And…” she looked away. “It was a moment’s thought, one day, a stray reinterpretation of events, as I half-listened to Lord Flashhooves and Fancypants argue about…something. I thought, well, now I really have somepony whose life I am interested in—I suppose I was bored to tears about those two…”

Twilight watched Celestia for awhile. She just sat there, shaking her head; Twilight wondered, idly, if she was chastising herself, or indulging in some private regret.

The Sun gave Twilight a sarcastic little smile. “All for the love of a mare, goeth Equestria.”

“Not quite all, I think,” Celestia said, an awkward look on her face. “But even Discord realized that you were more than just a student to me—he's quite insightful, in his way, you know; he wouldn't be half as dangerous if he weren't. He saw that I was fading, and that something about your relationship with me was making it worse...” She shook her head.

“You lost sight of your focus,” Twilight said. “Binding the Sun must have required a great deal of concentration.”

Celestia hesitated, carefully considering how to respond. “Not…so much as you might think. Things work a little differently here.”

“I was held here, Twilight, by her will to be the Princess. Her will to be the ‘Eternal Sun’ you two have been pretending was a thing that ever could have been,” the Sun growled.

“And that was very easy, while I was punishing myself with solitude,” Celestia said, quickly cutting off the Sun. “As I’ve described to you, the lie of the Eternal Sun fed that for centuries. The mask, as I told you before, is a prison, Twilight, one you lock yourself in; and for a long time I accepted that I deserved to be there—alone.”

“Correctly,” the Sun added. “Though the sentence was somewhat light, in my opinion.”

Celestia frowned at her, but didn’t dignify this with a response.

“This is about dreams, isn’t it,” Twilight said. “Real ones. Luna was going on about dreams being the way our heart tells us things.”

“That sounds like something she’d say, yes,” Celestia sighed. “So, for a thousand years, I was all but removed from the Equestria I told myself I was sacrificing so much for. It was external to me, all of it. That’s what being the unmoving center of things really means. Take Ponyville—your beloved home, your true home. I never thought it would be anything but a distant dot on the map when I sent Applejack’s ancestors there. Another little village. And now look at it—look at what you and your friends have helped it become.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed curiously. “But look at that—you were involved from the beginning. You sent the Apples there, you sent me there—“

“Touched. Guided. I didn’t build things, or create them, or raise a family in them. I remember when your Library was a sapling, but I didn’t make it into your home—you did. I’ve told you before, somepony’s living space ultimately reflects them; your study, for example, is as ‘Twilight Sparkle’ as a room can be. So a princess’ realm should reflect them, even a little, don’t you think? But it doesn’t. I look out on Equestria and see…other ponies’ labor; nothing I have done or brought about...”

“I…I see,” Twilight said, unsure what she could do or say about this.

Celestia looked up at Twilight, and there was a measure of her familiar dignity in it. “So  imagine, for a moment, what your letters did to me.”

Twilight was taken aback. “My—my letters?”

“You’re a very persuasive author, Twilight,” Celestia said, the ghost of a smile on her face.

“But they were just…” Twilight trailed off, betrayed by her own memory. They were more than homework, you know…

“For both of us,” Celestia said, seeming to read Twilight’s mind. “Through your eyes, Twilight, I was living in Equestria again. As a normal pony, experiencing it for the first time…living, loving, learning…” She smiled, sadly, a tear trailing from her eye. “And before too long, just reading about it stopped being enough. I started to want to share these experiences with you, more than...anything.”

The bit dropped for Twilight. “Which would mean…giving up being the perfect, unchanging princess, the Eternal Sun.”

Celestia nodded. “Indeed.”

“So sending me to Ponyville—“

“I never intended for that to hurt you.” Celestia shifted uncomfortably. “I really, legitimately wanted you to make friends, and study the Magic of Friendship. As you are currently demonstrating, it is immensely rewarding, and powerful…and as I have said before, I doubt you would be who you are now if you hadn’t gone.”

Twilight peered at Celestia suspiciously. “So there was nothing in it about distancing yourself from me..?”

“There probably was,” the princess replied. “But nothing like what would come later.”

“When did it really start, then..?”

Celestia licked her lips. “I couldn’t say a date, if that’s what you’re looking for. Or a specific event. But you had been in Ponyville for some time—this was a long time ago, mind you. Sometime between that first Gala and Discord's return. Anyways, you…were settling in well, and had long established your friendships with the other Elements and the ponyfolk of Ponyville. I was sitting up, reading one of your letters, and I thought…my, I…miss Twilight. Very, very badly.”

The Sun coughed. “I think it was then that I started rattling in my chains, this last time.” She actually sounded a bit bashful about this, but only just—and for Twilight’s benefit alone.

“It terrified me,” Celestia said. “Because now I was torn three ways. There was my sin with the Sun, and the inevitable setting that I desperately wanted to believe that I could keep away…my responsibility to Equestria, which I was once again reluctant to leave to Luna, newly arrived as she was then…and my burning desire to leave all of that behind and find some way to be free of it, so that I could live in Equestria.” Celestia looked up at Twilight, face deadly serious. “With you, and Spike, and the Elements—everypony in Ponyville, all of whom you had taught me to love.”

Twilight didn’t even try to hold back the sympathetic tears anymore; she just forced her mouth to form words despite them. “I’m so—“

“Don’t even think of apologizing, Twilight,” Celestia said, swallowing down a thickness in her throat and coughing, huskily. “I brought this on myself. Indeed, I made it infinitely worse in that moment.”

“I think I see how this is going to go,” Twilight managed.

“It was…it seemed so obvious,” Celestia sobbed. “I told myself, I’ve grown far too attached to her; I’ll smother her, step on the beautiful blossom growing out there, free of my shadow. I shouldn’t be so selfish. It’ll be good for her to grow, on her own, and for my part, I will…always be shining down on her…her princess, the Eternal Sun.”

The tears came in earnest now, flowing down Celestia’s face in a more or less constant stream. Her mouth trembled, and she shook her head as if doing so would do anything to deny or prevent the absolute end of misery.

“And the worst thing,” Celestia said, miserably, “the worst thing, for both of us...I stopped calling you my Faithful Student. Every time I did so...it was so special to me, Twilight, so precious. More meaningful to me than telling you I love you. And now I've come to see that in doing so, I was not just denying our relationship, I was denying your fundamental being, which I had myself nurtured...”

Twilight sniffled. “Celestia—“

“No, please, let me finish…” Celestia said, wretchedly, trying to wrangle herself into place.

“I’m a little insulted that I didn’t get a similar display,” the Sun said, idly. Celestia managed a bitter glare for her, but said nothing into the Sun’s acid little smile.

“So you stopped coming as often…” Twilight found herself saying. Celestia nodded. “And your letters…I remember the first time you didn’t respond to one, I almost died of terror…”

Celestia’s eyes snapped shut from the pain of recollection. “And I wrote back…oh, how could I have been so cruel…I remember, you asked about it, and I replied, ‘You don’t need me looking over your shoulder all the time anymore’…”

Twilight shook her head. “That’s what made it so bad…you were treated it like it was for my own good…”

“That was how I chose to hurt you, Twilight,” Celestia said, choked and strangled. “I chose to be the Princess—to be the Eternal Sun. It was all the easier because I let myself believe that it was a natural part of the student and mentor parting ways…” She chuckled, darkly. “Perhaps that proves, if nothing else does, that you are the only student I’ve ever had.”

“No, Celestia…” Twilight said, swallowing a sob. “It’s how you chose to hurt us.”

Celestia managed a little chuckle at this. “I know you’re right, in a way, but…Twilight, I deserve to be put through pain. Of all ponies, you didn’t deserve this.”

Twilight waved a hoof dismissively, suppressing herself as best she could. It took a moment, but eventually she managed, “Tell me about coming to Ponyville, this last time.”

“This will tell you how deluded I was, here at the end. How strong my powers of self-deception really are. I was so convinced that I had done you a favor, ‘setting you free,’ that I couldn’t see what was in front of my face." Celestia coughed, eyes still streaming tears freely. “Your letters…I…they just got so businesslike. They weren’t you, or a pale reflection of you, anymore…not enough that I could continue pretending things were fine.”

Twilight said nothing.

“And I should have known, Twilight, but no, I was so deluded, so obsessed with myself, that I went to Luna, honestly believing that I had just been ignoring you a bit more than I ought, and that we just needed to talk things out, establish a new understanding. But what I really missed was—“

“Not being alone,” Twilight said, in a tired voice. “Not having somepony who you could let peek behind the mask.”

Celestia stammered for a while before whispering, “Yes.”

“And you had been trying to break free, this whole time?” Twilight asked, turning her eyes to Celestia’s counterpart.

The Sun nodded. “I should thank you, I think…”

“Don’t,” Twilight said, firmly, making the Sun’s little smile grow wider, eyes lit with a cruel light.

“And…Twilight, what I saw…I saw you destroying yourself for me, trying to be perfect. Wearing the same mask that was now, more than ever, making me feel like a prisoner. I saw in you such desperate pain being caused by my absence…I…to my shame, Twilight, even that wasn’t enough to make me face what was really happening.”

Twilight let this go, for now. “What happened on the day we spoke in the Library? That’s what nopony understands.”

Celestia took a deep breath in. “Well, I was already distressed after talking to Luna, and from discovering that I had collapsed into sleep on your floor from the fatigue of setting. Her little needles about your attitude, well-intentioned as they may have been, just made it worse. And then…I ran into Rainbow Dash arguing with Scootaloo.”

“Yes…” Twilight said, calmer now that she was once again putting the puzzle together in her head. “Dash thinks Scootaloo said something that made you upset, but couldn’t remember what it was.”

“No, no…it was Rainbow Dash, Twilight.” Celestia smiled gently, through tears. “She was your first mask, Twilight, although it’s not dignity she wears, by any stretch of the imagination. No, she wears a mask of her own face, permanently brave, even though she is herself deeply troubled. I assume you’re familiar with her arguments with Scootaloo…”

“Nopony in Ponyville isn’t, since they have them while they’re flying around,” Twilight replied, a familiar wry edge in her voice.

Celestia sniffed, herself recovering. “So you’re aware that Rainbow Dash is deeply jealous of Scootaloo?”

“I—wait,” Twilight began. Now that Celestia mentioned it…

“It seems strange, I know,” the princess said. “But she’s jealous of how Scootaloo is free to be whoever she wants to be, how Scootaloo can be open about how unfulfilling being captain is for her, how upset she is when things aren’t going right.” Celestia leaned forward. “You see where this is heading, I take it.”

“You—you were confronted by somepony else whose mask was chafing. You couldn’t avoid thinking about it anymore,” Twilight said.

“I couldn’t avoid thinking I had some right to wonder if it was worth the trouble it was causing, certainly. To make it worse, the fatigue of setting was beginning to fall heavily on me. I was confused, and frightened, desperate for some sort of understanding—except the real one, of course, which was that I had intentionally done this to you. I was desperate to believe I hadn’t hurt you, that you were just…that you needed guidance.” Celestia’s face fell into guilty misery. “That I was in control, and could…fix this.”

Twilight sighed. “That you were still…perfect.”

“I wasn’t even conscious of that drive, Twilight, that’s how lost I was at that point.” Celestia shook her head, ruefully. “So I went to Rarity, hoping that she would be able to say something about her own students which I could latch onto. But she…there was nothing she could have said, at that point. My guilt was getting out of control; I couldn’t stop remembering how happy you were to have me grade you at the wedding, how frightening your desperation to please me suddenly was. And I was getting more and more tired…” She paused, eyes widening. “Rarity...“

“Is fine,” Twilight said, quickly, in as soothing a voice as she could. “Some intense vertigo, that was all.”

Celestia slumped, eyes wide and tired, tears seeming to have run dry. “I finally admitted to myself that I had abandoned you, Twilight. That I had hurt you deeply. So I appeared to you in…the way I did…knowing it was deeply dangerous for you. But I was out of my mind, Twilight—I didn’t come hoping for your understanding…I wanted you to hurt me. I wanted you to tell me the truth of what I’d done to you, to hear it from your mouth.”

Twilight tried to think of something to say, but there were no words. She didn’t even know how to feel.

“And you did, Twilight, you drove the last nail into me. So I came back to Canterlot, and…passed into somewhere. And since then I’ve been here, desperately trying to keep the Sun risen, trying to keep believing that I was capable of doing so, trying to maintain the lie that I could still be the Eternal Sun and come back, strong as ever, to fix everything.”

“Not even a chance,” the Sun said—and to her shock, Twilight heard the tiniest bit of sympathy in her voice.

Celestia nodded, and when she spoke, her voice was wretched with self-loathing. “I was only able to maintain the Eternal Sun by focusing myself on being that mask. Having seen, and heard, what my decision to be the Princess had done to you, the pony I love the most in all of Equestria…how could I even think to want it, anymore..?”


~(E)~



Twilight stared at the letter.

What had she done? Had she insulted the princess, somehow? Why was Celestia being so…

Distant?


~(E)~


“And so here we are,” said the Sun.

“Not quite,” Celestia said. “I haven’t endured the extent of my confession quite yet.”

The Sun frowned. “We were all here for Twilight wandering around in your mind. Don’t tell me you want to run through all of that.”

Twilight met Celestia’s eye. “There are…some things I need to tell you, I think.”

“You said, in my mind, that I nearly killed you,” Celestia said, tentatively. “When…I appeared to you in the library.”

“Yes,” Twilight said, in a hollow voice. “But that’s not all of what I need to say.”

Suddenly possessed by a strange calm, she began to tell her side of the story. Tonelessly, she spoke of the long months of agony she had endured, driving herself mad with terror as Celestia seemed more and more remote from her, just as her friend’s successes were making them more and more absent as well. Voice devoid of emotion, she described the sudden, mad hope she had felt when Celestia had praised her for being involved in Fluttershy’s wedding, and how, in her madness, it had become a show for Celestia, how she had been frantic for praise, desperate to be perfect so that Celestia would love her again.

Finally she described the nightmarish vision that she and Luna had endured to free Twilight from her own mind. As she went on, Celestia fell into deeper and deeper into a humiliated slump, raising a hoof to her face in horror as Twilight described the pain of the golden chains, and how battered Luna had become, beaten bloody by Twilight’s mental defenses.

“So you see why I said no tea,” Twilight concluded, with some relief filling the emptiness of her tone. Recalling the vision had been deeply unpleasant.

The Sun had stood silently through the recollection, watching Celestia, apparently unmoved by her deepening grief, but now she turned to Twilight, shaking her head incredulously. “Even after that, you came for Celestia?”

“I did that to myself,” Twilight replied, a little harshly. The Sun looked like it was going to press the point, but Twilight’s glare seemed to dissuade her.

Celestia’s voice was barely audible, a whisper almost drowned out by the gentle wind that even now blew through the trees of this place. “Luna, too…” She threw her head back, staring off into the distant sky. “And then you endured my guilt, the terrible pain of my mind trying turn your own insecurities against you…only to find me here, in disgrace, and willingly listened to the great evils I’ve committed…” She turned to Twilight, terror and shame wild in her expression. “I don’t deserve you, Twilight.”

“Not even a little,” the Sun agreed.

Twilight closed her eyes. The Sun…the Sun was the problem. That was such a huge thing, so monstrous that Twilight couldn’t conceive of how to deal with it. She opened her eyes again, red-rimmed and pained, letting her gaze fall on the white-clad doppelganger of Celestia, who was watching the unicorn carefully, and came to a decision, about that.

She’d known what to do about Celestia for some time now.

Twilight got to her hooves and stepped out of the pillow. Her limbs still ached, and she’d been sitting there through a terribly emotional moment. She felt…burned out, almost literally—as if a small explosion had gone off inside her, leaving only smoking, charred ruins.

“Celestia.”

Celestia looked up, her face resigned to the inevitable declaration of loathing. “Yes?” Her voice was wretched and weak, her overwhelming fear and shame crushing it.

“I cannot speak about the events between yourself and the Sun,” Twilight declared. “It’s too big for me. And it seems the Sun has absolute control over the situation.”

“Too right,” the Sun said, smugly. “But please, feel free to make a judgment. I don’t mind. I feel like you and I have a lot in common, which is in part why I wanted to bring you here. We both trusted her implicitly…and look what she’s done to us, Twilight.”

Twilight frowned at her. “In that case, you deal punishment as you see fit for what she’s done to you, and I will hold her accountable for the things she’s done to me.”

The sun shrugged. “If you insist. I’m glad you acknowledge my rights.”

“Then acknowledge mine,” Twilight turned back to her mentor. “Celestia…”

Celestia swallowed. “Yes, Twilight?”

“I think I understand why you have acted as you did quite well, now,” Twilight said, stepping towards Celestia. “And as I say, I cannot speak to what you did to the Sun. But as for what you did to me...”

She stepped forwards suddenly, and before Celestia could react, Twilight threw her forehooves around Celestia’s neck—in a gentle, loving hug. “I forgive you.”

“Tw…Twilight…” Celestia sobbed, shocked.

“No,” Twilight whispered, tearing up. “Your Faithful Student. All the way to the end.”

Celestia burst into open tears, unrestrained, one hoof clutching Twilight to her fiercely as she draped her head limply over Twilight’s shoulders. Twilight’s back ran wet with the alicorn’s sorrow in seconds, and she returned the favor onto Celestia’s neck, both of them sobbing and weeping uncontrollably.

The Sun stared at them in wonder, finally turning away, face deeply conflicted.

After a long while, Twilight managed to get ahold of herself, although only just. Her voice was still choked, thick with tears and misery, but she managed to speak. “Listen to me,” she said, swallowing. “Listen to me, Celestia.”

Celestia just nodded, communicating into Twilight’s back.

“No, I want you to look at me,” Twilight said, thickly. They broke their embrace, with extreme reluctance, and Twilight looked up into those big eyes, from which gratitude and relief poured like a waterfall, feeling like she had the first time she and Celestia had been alone together, so long ago. She raised a hoof and placed it gently on the alicorn’s chest, feeling her huge heartbeat, and smiled as Celestia clutched it to herself.

“How can you not hate me, now, Twilight, after all of this?” Celestia asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

“I won’t lie…there’s a part of me that really wants to,” Twilight said, surprising herself with how even her voice was becoming. A little ghost of fear leapt across Celestia’s features, and Twilight shushed her, rubbing her chest soothingly. “There are parts of us that thinks many things…I mean, we know that beyond a doubt, now.” She smiled up at the alicorn, fondly.

“I suppose so,” Celestia said, thickly.

“We’ve been a little stupid, haven’t we? For ponies who have studied the Magic of Friendship in others, we certainly didn’t do a very good job of using it ourselves.”

“No, we haven’t.”

Twilight didn’t speak for a time, just gently rubbing Celestia, holding her gaze fondly. “I was a little frightened that I wouldn’t be strong enough to do this. I hurt, Celestia, I really do.”

Celestia panted a few times, heavily, and Twilight let her smile light up, trying to comfort her. “I’m so sorry, Twilight.”

“It’s okay,” Twilight replied. “I’m finding it…very easy to forgive you, you know? Especially now. You didn’t mean to—“

“Yes I did,” Celestia interrupted, huskily. “I did, Twilight, I did—“

“No, you didn’t,” Twilight said, firmly. “That’s guilt talking for you. You said it yourself, that you never set out with the intention of hurting me. You have never once thought, ‘oh, Twilight Sparkle, I want her to suffer.' But you have many times set out to hurt yourself—and Celestia, the thing I am most angry at you for is that you used me to do it. Because you love me, and you didn’t think you deserved to.”

Celestia’s jaw trembled. “But…I knew you’d be…”

“Just stop, Celestia.” Twilight said. “From one silly mare to another…just stop. This has all been so painful, for both of us…but I’m using the Magic of Friendship now.” She looked up into her mentor’s stunned gaze with a serious expression. “This is the real magic. The magic that lets me feel your pain, and lets me understand why you did the things you did, and the magic that protects me from my own fear, and yours, so that I can come to you, now, when you need me.”

“Twilight…”

“Let me share it with you,” Twilight said, sternly. “Trust your Faithful Student. Let’s end this, now. It’s over. You’re…” Twilight choked up, hardly able to bring herself to think this, much less say it. She leaned forward, pressing herself against Celestia’s broad, warm chest, and nuzzled into it, feeling tears drip down onto her head. “You’re going to be gone from my life soon, and I won’t let you go thinking I ever hated you. I don’t. I love you.”

Celestia lost her internal struggle, and once again began to weep in earnest. “I love you so much,” she gasped, between huge sobs.

“You’re so alone, aren’t you,” Twilight said, soothingly, though she too could not restrain tears.

“Yes,” Celestia whispered.

“And you love everything. You really do. It hurts you so much, being distant from everypony and everything…”

“Yes!”

Twilight just laid there, against Celestia, as the alicorn’s huge chest was wracked with sobs, relief and sorrow mingling in both of them into an overwhelming flood. The Sun looked on, uneasily.

“Let me tell you the true desire of my heart, Celestia,” Twilight murmured. “The one that gave me the understanding and strength to endure everything, and come to you now.”