Twilight was roused by Luna, who seemed to have woken up much earlier than her. It was nearly midnight, the lunar equivalent of sleeping until noon. The younger alicorn grumbled something unintelligible and rolled over to see Luna on the edge of her bed, her eyes sparkling like gems in the dim candlelight. She looked more excited than she had in days. The princess was practically humming with energy, and her wings were twitching with such exuberance that it ruffled papers on Twilight’s bedside table. It was a new look for the usually very restrained mare.
“Luna… what’s going on? Are we going somewhere?” The princess’ student asked, blinking the sleep from her eyes. “Did something happen while I was out? Did Rainbow Dash crash somewhere?”
“No! It’s much more legendary an occasion that!” Luna spouted ecstatically, resorting to her older, more archaic manner of speaking in her blind excitement. “I want you to get up out of bed and get dressed! We’re going to see my sister!”
Twilight blinked dumbly. She couldn’t recall any reason why she would ever want to visit her sister, especially at this hour. She was groggy, and in her mind there wasn’t a single reason to bother the temperamental elder alicorn. Then, piece by piece, she picked the disparate memories of the night before out of her half-conscious mind and fit them together. All of the sudden she was very awake, and Twilight was brimming with energy just as Luna was. She got out of bed as fast as she could, deciding that getting dressed would be a waste of time. She began to brush her mane quickly while Luna rushed about, picking up seemingly random things from around her room. When she returned the younger mare realized that it was in fact different materials that could be used for art.
“I don’t know how often this happens, but when it does there is always a sudden list of things going on around the castle.” Luna explained, attempting to push all of her supplies into one satchel. “First thing to happen is that most of the guards are relocated to the outer perimeter of the castle, and all the elite guards congregate near Celestia’s tower door. Second, everypony else that lives here in the castle is told to stay home, and not come anywhere near the section of the castle we’re located in. Third, Celestia retreats into her room and doesn’t come out for anything. Anypony wishing to visit is to be escorted in.”
“But why today?” Twilight asked, looking towards her mentor. “Why on this specific date, this month, this year?”
“I don’t know.” Luna shrugged, slinging the satchel over her shoulder. “I can only assume it’s all part of the agreement she’d made with herself. But I don’ think that it’s of her own free will that she chooses this date. It always seems to be on this particular day that she decides to drop her guard. I suppose that it’s the necessity of secrecy, since today is Armistice Day. The one day that all wars are to cease for a full twenty-four hours all over the world. War cannot be declared today, otherwise all nations turn on that nation by the Pact of Armistice. The whole holiday is a long story, but it’s the safest day for everypony, especially her.”
“So she chooses today because committing an act of violence is taboo?”
“Yes.” Luna explained, heading towards the stairs. “And I must admit… it takes some getting used to, the way that this Celestia acts. She is almost… how to put it… endearing. So make sure you have an open mind.”
‘So this is it. Celestia’s Id.” Twilight told herself. She could hardly believe it, that she’d be seeing it within the century. Let alone the day after both her and Luna became free mares. Rainbow Dash was sleeping on the couch when they passed her, Spike in the chair over by the writing desk. Knowing that the two would do fine with each other, and Rainbow Dash was the lightest/heaviest sleeper she knew, she decided to leave them to sleep. It seemed that Rainbow just knew when she needed to wake up. If it wasn’t necessary, she was immovable. But just at the right time it always seemed she knew just where she was needed.
Twilight snuck out of the tower with Luna, a feeling of exploration and mystery sitting like a hot coal in her chest. This was going to be the most interesting thing she did in a long, long time.
When the two showed up at Celestia’s tower they were astounded by the security. Twilight knew that she didn’t want intrusions, but this seemed over the top. There were bars on the stained-glass windows in the massive rotunda leading to the doors into her tower. The guards were posted at every entrance to the rotunda, leaving no sightline unchecked. There were even a few pegasus archers up in the rafters of the vaulted ceiling, their keen eyes staring at them the moment they turned the corner of the hallway to the entranceway. There was even a few guards that had battle armor on, as well as a small wall with sharp pins sticking out of it, like an anti-riot barrier. Twilight saw the glances they gave her. The guards themselves were scared here, as they had about as much knowledge of what was going on as Twilight had the night before last.
The guards parted at Luna’s appearance, leaving a very clear path through the purposeful debris. The princess nodded to them, as if everything was okay. They all relaxed visibly. They had thought that maybe there was some disaster, or assassin that they had to ward off. Seeing Luna helped assure them that nothing was wrong, and that perhaps it wasn’t for such serious reasons. Maybe a drill for a large-scale invasion. They didn’t want a repeat of the Wedding Night, after all. Luna made her way towards the large doors before a particularly large guard stepped in front of her.
“I’m sorry milady, but Miss Twilight Sparkle isn’t to be allowed in. Celestia requested it specifically. She told me that she might be a hazard if the correct parameters were met around her.”
“She is to be allowed in.” Luna said, smiling up at the guard. “As you know, me and Cadence together have the ability to override any order she gives with a majority vote. If you’d be so daft as to actually seek her council so she can give the obvious positive answer. But instead of wasting my time, as well as your own and possibly Princess Cadence’s, you could really just let me through.”
The guard, looking quite off-put by her use of the word ‘daft’ to describe him, made a croaking noise in his throat, making sounds but unable to put them into words. After a moment of this quite humorous croaking, and with a cold-sweat breaking out on his forehead, he stepped aside and opened the door for them, gesturing that they were free to enter, still red-faced. Deciding that leaving the door open would be a mistake, he stepped back outside the moment they were inside the tower, shaking his head. Luna smiled at Twilight, as if she’d just taught her a very important skill that she would have to use for the rest of her life.
The two set off up the stairs, bounding up them two at a time, expecting the tower to be of the same layout as Luna’s. To their later displeasure, they figured out that it wasn’t. Firstly, the first floor of the tower was a large pool, with monolithic windows opening up to the night sky. Although the princess was slightly annoyed at her sister’s apparent need to make things for no real reason, Luna just rolled her eyes and continued up the stairs. They passed many other oddities on their way to the top, including a massive sand pit, an extremely large greenhouse floor that had vines crawling all over it, all of which seemed to move at their own accord, a strange room built mostly out of black granite, marble, obsidian and onyx, and finally, as if to top off the sundae of strange rooms, there was one room that had nothing but safes, all of them covered in symbols from many magical, runic languages, labeled in some sort of code that only Celestia understood. Luna almost stopped at that floor, and had a hard time tearing her eyes away from it. She seemed to have an inkling of what was in those many safes, but after repeated requests from Twilight, the princess rejoined her on her ascent to the top.
At long last, with their abdomens and legs burning from the massive effort of climbing stairs, the two arrived at the top floor, which had a single ornate, stained-sanguine Oakwood door leading into the eldest alicorn’s room. The two stopped there for a moment, catching their breath. That had been more exercise that either of them had gotten in a long time. They couldn’t help but wonder if that was why Celestia always seemed to be so in shape, with her toned legs and chest. Because the climb to her bedroom was enough to make most pass out on the way up. Once the two were presentable they looked at each other and nodded, nodding in order to assure that this was the right thing to do. Taking a deep breath and holding it, Luna knocked on the door.
There was the sound of rustling and of things being locked in a trunk before they heard the unchaining, unbolting, unlatching and the disarmament of hundreds of locks, before they heard a small, slightly higher-pitched version of Celestia’s voice come to them through the door.
“Who is it? I’m warning you, if you don’t tell me I’ll turn you into slug and send you to the moon! Go on, tell me! I won’t hesitate to hurt you!”
“Celi, it’s us.” Luna said, rolling her eyes with a growing smile.
Twilight was still puzzling over the pet name ‘Celi’ as she heard the last lock being undone. The door opened to reveal a version of Celestia that Twilight had a hard time looking at, let alone believing had been acting as her mentor all those years. The Celestia that was in front of her was about Luna’s height, just slightly taller than her younger sibling, and possessed a wine-red/mauve mane, one that nearly struck Twilight speechless. Her usual style was so flowing, extravagant. But this mare was one that induced awe merely by how natural she appeared. She looked very plain, with nothing in particular on her person, nor did she wear any jewelry. Her typical three-foot long horn was now about a foot, and her eyes were the strangest colors. In her left eye the iris was a bright blue with traces of green, and in the other it was completely red, with a minute peppering of black. Twilight had to catch her own breath just looking at her former mentor as she truly was, how borderline supernaturally sculpted her body seemed. Not like an athlete, but more in the sort of a gymnast.
The way this version of Twilight moved was in no way akin the usual high posture of royalty. Her movements were long-limbed and liquid, as if her whole body was corded steel wrapped in skin and muscle. She had a power that wasn’t even in the same league as the one that the other version of her commanded. This power was in her body itself, not in her superior intellect. The way that she strode over to the trunk she was just at reminded of her the way Rainbow Dash moved, but also of Zecora, being a survivalist. The sheer unjustified power of a speed-flier with the strange, instinctual awareness of her surroundings that only came from years of experience with avoiding danger. It was like watching a tiger or a lion move while it was stalking its prey. It wasn’t anything that could be described. One just had to look at her and observe to know that she acted like nothing that could ever exist in the world naturally.
“I almost thought that the guards wouldn’t let you in for a moment, Twilight.” Celestia sighed, picking up a tray of tea and a few sandwiches from her nightstand and setting it down in front of them on the coffee table. She had laid out a large area rug and had conjured rather comfortable looking chairs for her company. “I wanted to see you even though She forbade it. She doesn’t like you very much.”
“What do you mean, She? The other you?”
“Yes.” Celestia said, lowering her voice, almost as if she was hoping her Id wouldn’t hear her. “She thinks you’re a threat to everypony, and her. So She is making me stay away from you. I think that She’s-” The mare stopped suddenly, her eyes flicking from the tea to the door. “She’s telling me not to talk about it…” She confessed, then moved to go and relock her door.
Luna looked at Twilight, concern in her eyes. In all of her years with having these meetings with the anti-Celestia she had never once had the more dominant side of her sister interfere. She half-wondered, half knew that it was Twilight who was antagonizing the other, more aggressive side. She probably felt threatened by her presence, making it so that she was exercising much more control over the pliable, compliant side of the eldest princess. She felt bad, since she was sure that that her sister’s Id would give her grief about breaking the rules of engagement. Celestia meekly walked over and sat down, smiling at them and nodding for them to do the same. Once they were all seated she began to talk, as if she’d recited her speech well.
“I had to tell you guys that… if I don’t make sure that my language is approved by Her, she told me she would make sure that we wouldn’t be able to see each other like this for a very long time.” She began, looking at Luna with a yearning. It reminded Twilight of a caged bird. “Then she told me to tell you both that you are not welcome here so long as you are a mutual distraction to each other.”
“Well hear this.” Luna said, increasingly annoyed at her sister’s Id forcing her to censor herself. “I want to hear from the sister that I grew up with. Not you, this awful thing that you made her into. If you don’t let her talk freely I will make sure that we hand off power to parliament and you can be banished to the far side of oblivion where you belong. You’re just lucky we need you. But you’re not needed right now. So go, before you overstay your welcome.”
“She told me that if you threaten her again she’ll make sure my life is miserable.”
Luna blanched. Her stoic, tough hide fell apart at the idea that this delicate, fragile Celestia being subjected to whatever cruel whimsy her darker half had in mind. She couldn’t do it, not after knowing what had happened to her when Nightmare Moon had taken over. She knew that this wasn’t right, letting herself be blackmailed, but when the hostage was her sister she had no choice. She dropped her hooves into her lap and sighed a very long, agonized exhale of pure loathing.
“Fine.” Luna said, pinching the bridge of her nose with her hoof. “I want her censor set to a minimum, though. I want to talk to her, still. Not a script you have her read to us like she’s an actor or a pawn for you to use. She is my sister.”
“She says that it’s fine.” Celestia said, smiling again. “Okay, where do you want to start?”
“Let’s start with this.” Twilight asked, confused beyond reason. “Why is Celestia’s Id necessary? I thought that your Id was everything that you hated and loathed, all the things you refused to do throughout your mortal life. Why is yours any different?”
“Well, I guess it’s because she has the skills that I lack.” Celestia shrugged, avoiding her gaze shyly, ashamed at her incompetence. “She has the brains that I don’t, the kind that are able to multitask well and make hard decisions on the fly. And she is vicious, something that I’m pretty incapable of being all on my own. You see, her mind operates sort of like a computer. She deals with constants and variables, risk and reward. It’s the only language she speaks and it’s all she can understand. True, she can register emotions, but most of them are negative, and any that aren’t hers are usually considered minute factors in her analytic brain. She knows that negative and positive emotions can be used to her advantage and she is skilled in psychological games. But she doesn’t ever experience any true emotions herself other than annoyance or this smug sort of pleasure she gets from knowing she’s immortal.”
“So… I’ve never gotten to know the real you?” Twilight asked, thinking for moment that all of those years as her student had possibly been a farce.
“No. She lets me out when real emotion is needed. She’s sociopathic, and can’t form any sort of connection with anypony. Whenever she needs empathy or sadness, or happiness, she lets me take control of her body briefly. She let me teach you for a long time… those were some of the happiest days of my life. Then she stuffs me in the corner again with my dunce cap, content to never let me make any real decisions for myself…”
Luna looked over at Twilight, signaling with her eyes that it was just best she didn’t bring Her up again. Celestia was obviously repressing a lot of trauma from being so unable to control her own life, judging by the hidden pain behind her voice and rapid blinking, like she was trying to restrain a great amount of grief by not showing it to them. Luna was also noticing this, and decided that it wasn’t worth it to start trouble when they were in the same room with Her. Instead she changed topics, skillfully slipping in a small, almost trivial question.
“So I heard that She tried to get Twilight’s Id to take control from a certain little dragon. Is this true? And if so what was the results? Is she competent in the eyes of our resident despot?”
Celestia froze for a second, then in a stiff, almost emotionless voice she replied. “At the moment she seems quite capable, but she wants more conclusive tests that can only take place with time.”
“Okay then.” Luna shrugged. “Can I ask if you’d like to do anything while you’re here?”
“With me?” Celestia said, gesturing to her current state of self with her hoof. “You mean with me, the version of me that can’t do anything useful?”
“No, the other you standing over there.” Luna rolled her eyes, smiling sarcastically. “I was wondering whether you’d like to go for a walk or maybe go and see Cadence. Go and see Twilight’s friend Rainbow Dash, perhaps?”
Once again Celestia stiffened and shook, shivering like she was in a cold room. Then, in an extremely haughty, contemptuous voice that they all recognized as the Id’s, she replied. “I will have you know that we have very fair, appropriate rules of engagement for all contexts and situations. In the seven-hundred and twenty-seventh she agreed that she would never leave this tower or another secured, concealed area in this state. She is never to be revealed to any public area so that nopony can look at her and question the stability or resoluteness of Equestria’s ruler.” The anti-Celestia said, like it was something that she had said a million times before. It had been delivered in an extremely dull monotone, making it sound even more irritated and rehearsed.
Luna bit her bottom lip, feeling it split open and blood spill down her lip and drip off her chin. She didn’t even seem to notice as the wound sealed itself, apparently too irked with Celestia’s Id to care. She wanted so badly to disobey the other Celestia. It was so tempting, so easy for her to just reach out and pull her down the stairs, dragging her away from the place where she was imprisoned. She’d wished somepony had done that while she had been under Nightmare Moon’s sway.
“I am not going to tolerate any more interruptions from you.” Luna said directly to Her. “I don’t care what you say, if you don’t let her talk with what little time she has with us I am going to use every resource I have at my disposal to banish you. If you don’t think that I can’t, try me. The Elements worked on me, and I’m more than certain they could work on you as well.”
“You wouldn’t dare. I am the only reason Equestria is still standing.”
“I would if it meant liberating my sister from a tyrant. Now I will repeat my request one last time in case you didn’t catch it. Leave her be, or I will bring the hammer down on your little bouts of fun you get from exploiting others for your own sick amusement.”
“This is only fair. I sacrifice my time to care for Equestria.” Anti-Celestia said, sounding irritated, with a slight, almost imperceptible drop of uncertainty.
“While my real sister does what? Sits in the back of her own head while you do everything for her and make personal decisions for her? Tell me, if you can, did you even let Celestia make the decision when she slept with that mare, one-hundred and ninety-four years ago? Or was it you? Did she get a choice, or did you for once show some emotion in the form of attraction? Riddle me that? Are you truly as emotionless as your portray yourself, giving in to primal urges like a lesser mortal?”
The air in the room suddenly became so thick it was impossible to breathe. Luna had stepped so far over the line that it wasn’t even on the horizon from her perspective. She had blown Celestia’s mind right out of her ears, dropping that massive bomb right in the middle of the argument. Luna smiled as she watched Celestia’s mouth open and shut, struggling to formulate anything, any possible answer to that without showing, glimpsing at weakness that her Id considered so dangerous. She continued like this, her expression growing gradually more feral, a vicious snarl curling over her teeth like a wildcat ready to sink it’s fangs into the princess’ neck. Luna was fully aware that she had found a very painful old scar for her Id, one that hadn’t healed after all those years. There was no control left in the darker side of Celestia, only rage and a red mist that was hazing over everything it saw.
Celestia leapt out of her chair so fast Twilight didn’t see her move, like there wasn’t even a frame per second between her sitting down and her standing at her full height, holding Luna’s neck to the couch with her hoof, pushing with the force that would have broken any mortal pony’s neck like a dry twig. Luna gave her a look that spoke a thousand words in one glance. She was saying to her sister’s dark half ‘What do you have to hurt me with? Oh yes, nothing. Your mind can’t even begin to wrap around my needs, thus you can’t possibly cut me off from them. You can’t kill me, obviously. You’re still Celestia, so nothing, no matter how hard you might try, will make you break my neck right now. And finally, you know the answer to that question I just asked you. You know very well you’re not as in control of Celestia as you’d thought. She overpowered you that night, that one night. And you can’t bear to admit that. Your faults. Your shortcomings.’ She said, all with a single glance into the eldest alicorn’s eyes.
Celestia stood again, once more her full royal attitude, her voice flushed with hate and contempt. “I recommend you both leave. Now. Before I get the sudden urge to brutally maim one of you. As if I haven’t already had that impulse run through my mind already.”
Twilight fell asleep that night with a feeling of unease over her, like something about that meeting had been off. And something was just bound to go wrong at any point. The air seemed cursed, like anything that could go terribly wrong would absolutely do so. She was so uncomfortable that she got up in the middle of the night and moved to Luna’s bed, waking her up long enough for them to get comfortable. When she voiced her concerns to the princess she told her student that everything would be okay, and wrapped her wings around her comfortingly. She had ended the evening with a light kiss on the cheek and a mutter of good day to her mentor, already dozing off, feeling much safer in the arms of her guardian. Twilight had no idea that the worst thing she could have possibly done was go to sleep. In doing so she made the second -worst mistake of her life.