Twilight seized ahold of a piece of charcoal and began to drawn on the marble floor, feeling like her head was about to implode. Limba, Luna and her own thoughts crowded into her mind, each one giving her instructions as she struggled to keep up with their commands, rattling off instructions and flashing symbols in front of her as she wrote them down. Her and Luna were circling the room, drawing as fast as they could. It wouldn’t be long until Celestia eliminated their alternate hiding places off her list, leaving only the tower suite they were preparing as a trap. It wasn’t difficult for Twilight, but it her heart was telling her otherwise, the unbearable stress from knowing she was in mortal danger forcing her adrenaline to skyrocket. It wasn’t long until it was almost all she heard, her heart beating in her ears like war drums, growing louder, ever closer until they overtook her.
“Try to relax.” Luna said out loud, on the other side of the tower from her, scratching her own runes onto the marble. “It’ll all be fine. I promise she won’t hurt you.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about.” Twilight said. “It’s you. I don’t think she’ll give you a second chance after this. Spike… if she finds him, I can’t even imagine how terrible I’ll feel.”
They continued in silence, feeling the weight of their lives on their shoulders. Luna had sent Spike off. She didn’t want his location to be known to Celestia if she tortured Twilight. The princess of the night knew well that her sister wouldn’t take the time to extract any information from her. It would be as swift as Discord’s petrification. Then she’d turn to Twilight, and it would be up to her student when she failed. She would have to survive, with the same guilt and pain that she felt every day. In her head she knew that not everypony could bear to live with that, but that was the consequences of failure in this situation. Even then, she knew that Twilight wasn’t on par with her level of mental durability. In the back of her head she knew if this failed the mare across the room from her would never be able to consider her existence life. It would be sickness to her, torture just to keep breathing and wake up every morning. Luna’s one joy in life, her student’s attachments to her, might be the thing to tear the infatuated young mare apart if this ended badly.
“Stop thinking like that.” Twilight said. “This will work. It’s both of us against her.”
Luna cursed herself, having forgotten that she was still occupying the same mental space as her student. She couldn’t muster the will to keep talking, so she lapsed into silence as she continued her work. It wasn’t like she had much to say, in the wake of impending doom. They had a total of a few seconds before Celestia burst in anyways.
“I’m finished.” Luna said, throwing her piece of charcoal.
“What do we do now?” Twilight asked.
Shortly after the words parted her lips Twilight felt the temperature in the room rise. The water in a bowl on the desk began to boil, leaving it empty in a matter of seconds. There was a sound akin to glass being run across steel, and Celestia stepped into the room. She seemed to be completely calm, regarding the runes on the floor around her like they were the scribblings of children on a chalkboard. The bed behind her caught fire, her tail, composed of green flames, lashing across the oaken poster and curtain to accelerate the process. It was stiflingly hot in the room, and humidity was causing dew to form on their coats and manes. Celestia took another step towards them, activating their trap.
In the span of a second, the lights went out in the room. Twilight cast a spell as fast as she could, her horn flashing in the pitch black. There was an outraged curse, and when the lights resumed shining Celestia was surrounded in a large cage of diamond. She gazed at them hatefully, unable to teleport out of her makeshift cell.
“Oh, so you’ve been busy.” The eldest alicorn said, her voice dull and unimpressed. “Okay, I’ll give you this. Taking the gems in my drawers and multiplying them to make this trifle is a nice trick. I must commend you. So here’s your prize.”
The princess sat down and clapped her hooves, every unamused clop of her hooves echoing on the walls, causing Twilight to wince every time her two perfectly formed hooves met. The look she was shooting towards them was so sarcastic, so full of venom and sardonic amusement that a cold chill fell over them in the middle of the inferno. She was caged, at their mercy, and she was giving them a round of applause for their efforts.
“Now what?” Celestia asked, smiling at them. “Whatever will you do? Tell me, since you’ve proved to be just so full of brilliant ideas so far. I can’t escape, you can’t get near me, and due to the almost stupidly phrased spell written on the floor there, neither of us can cast magic towards one another. So… what? Do I just sit in here forever, or are we going to stare at each other until one of us submits? I’m very good at waiting, Luna. I waited so long for you to crack, to let Nightmare Moon out. Any reason to crush the individuality out of you, to seize your will and crush it under my hoof. I can’t wait to do it again.”
“Actually, we had a better idea.” Luna said, looking back towards the stairs. “A little bird told us that there was a reason that you wiped out Spike’s race to long ago.”
Celestia’s face contorted into pure hate. “You violated the sanctity of my own mind, you filth! I felt your Id slip into my head, Twilight! I felt her exchange information with my pathetic weaker half and run away like a coward. I was so occupied with my task that I missed my chance to crush her while I could… So what is your brilliant plan? What could you possibly do to me?”
Spike walked upstairs, holding the Pen of Id in his hand. Since he wasn’t an alicorn it had no effect on him, and he didn’t even wince at the heat. He’d felt the burn of lava before, this was like a hot shower to him. Celestia blanched at the sight of the artifact; the one thing she hadn’t considered because she had thought herself to be so above it. She had believed herself invincible, and far above any petty piece of silver that her failed suitor Discord had left her. Then she turned her attention to the bearer of the Pen, her upper lip curling back in a snarl.
“I knew my useless other half was playing at something when she suggested giving that dragon egg away… the foresight she must have had. Well, good luck getting close enough to touch me with that thing.” She commented, putting up an unfazed masque to hide the fact that she was beginning to panic. She was rapidly running out of options.
“Spike, I do believe that I went over the plan with you.” Luna told the young dragon, nodding towards her older sister. “You can go ahead whenever you’d like.”
Spike gave a dutiful nod, switching the Pen around in his hand so that he was holding the sharp brass tip of it, the handle protruding from his palm. He began to walk towards Celestia, ignoring the massive increase in heat as he stepped over the runes on the floor. It was scathingly hot the moment he crossed the threshold ten steps away, and five more was pushing his own limits. The air was rippling around him like it was liquid, and he swore he saw it respond to his movements like it was water. The eldest alicorn blinked and pushed every ounce of her bottomless pool of energy into superheating the air around her, bead of sweat rolling off of her. She wasn’t overheating; she was concentrating on keeping him away from her. With the temperature directly around her cage reaching about the surface of the sun, Spike was forced to take a step back and retreat to the edge of the room. He swore he could feel the skin beneath his scales begin to blister. Once he was beside Twilight and Luna again he shook his head, unable to tell them he’d failed.
“It’s not your fault.” Twilight said to her assistant, leaning down to face him. “Nopony could have gotten that far anyways, you did the best out of all of us.”
She leaned close and gave him a light kiss on the cheek, ushering a blush from him. She smiled and looked back to Celestia, who was allowing the temperature in her cage to return to normal so they could talk. They regarded each other like two wild wolves, waiting for the other to show weakness. Neither of them could back down. Time began to drag on, and it slowly returned to a normal room temperature, revealing that everything in the room was now burnt to a crisp. Minutes passed until one of them finally spoke. It was actually Limba, in Twilight’s head that was speaking.
‘Don’t think this around Celestia, as your thoughts aren’t guarded.’ Limba whispered to her. ‘But I have an idea. And I think that I should do nicely.’
Twilight’s expression went from concentration to shock as her darker half began to whisper an idea into her ear. It was genius, like she’d been planning it all out while she’d been running for her life. Luna, through her mental link, heard the idea as well. It was maddened, and might not even work, but in theory it would give them the upper hand, albeit the fact that it would bruise their sense of righteousness. It felt like a dirty trick, but they had very little options in this scenario. So, with almost as much hesitation as she could muster, Luna walked over to the dresser, looking at herself in the mirror, at the scene behind her. She pulled the drawer open and pulled out one of Celestia’s favorite crown jewels, a flawless amethyst. The eldest alicorn mouthed to her through the mirror, three very toxic words.
‘I hate you.’ She lipped, her eyes spitting fury at her younger sister.
“I don’t hate you.” Luna replied, turning around and walking back to stand beside Twilight. “I hate the you that’s disguising the real Celestia. And I know that you, being the sadistic egotist you are, have her locked up so far in the back of her own head she can’t even see us right now. So we’re going to bring her out, and she’s going to help us to banish you.”
Luna held up the stone, her horn beginning to glow like a torch of blue flame in the half-darkened room. With the sun setting in the background the amethyst in her grip began to flow a faint red in the center. Celestia’s eyes shrunk to pinpoints as she pieced together what she was doing. She planned on using the one memory, the one boundary she’d crossed with the real Celestia to bring her back out again. The younger princess was also putting in a few other memories too, like Limba telling her about wanting to torture Twilight the same way, and Spike begging her to destroy the stone, terrified that he’d be caught by guards and sentenced to life in prison. She grinned a large, ear to ear grin that hit her older sister like a blow to the face. It absolutely reeked of triumph, a sense of victory. If there was any one thing in the world that the darker side of Celestia hated more than anything else, it was losing. To anyone, or anything.
“You wouldn’t dare curse me with that again, after we both worked so hard to forget it.” Celestia said, her tone not quite hiding the insecurity shaking her to the core. She wasn’t sure she could keep them away from her with the real side of her working to overthrow her. “You’re supposed to be the good one there, the one that never stoops to lows like this.”
“Don’t be so cliché.” The night princess scoffed. “We would do anything short of killing you to get the real Celestia out here, and you shoved into limbo out the back of her skull, doomed to wander for thousands of years in her subconscious with no company. Nopony you can hurt. Just like you banished me to the moon.”
With her point made, Luna deftly tossed the amethyst underhoof, sending it floating through the air and then landing with a crack, sliding across the floor until it lightly touched the edge of the diamond cage. The memory acted like a leech, sensing a suitable host, it moved into the diamond and began its work. Celestia stood for a moment, biting her bottom lip in frustration. Then, after ten long, stressful seconds where nopony dared to breathe, the eldest alicorn stood and began pacing around the inside of her enclosure.
“Yes, that was a long time ago.” She began to talk to herself. “I know that it’s not right, and you wanted it out of your head in the first place, but I’m telling you that she was a danger and that this has to be remembered. She is…” She paused, seemingly listening to something only she could hear. “What do you mean there were other memories, ones that weren’t mine? Whose viewpoint was the memory from?”
Celestia’s head swung around and fixed them in a stare full of pure hatred, wishing she could erase them from the face of existence, shortly after she skinned them alive.
“No, Celestia.” She said, resuming her pacing. “I’m not lying to you; I don’t know where these memories came from.” She paused for a very long moment, then her hoof began to tap uncontrollably, like a nervous tic that they’d never seen before. She was sweating, focusing as hard as she could in order to maintain control. “Be reasonable I haven’t done anything wrong.” She lied.
“This isn’t going to be pretty.” Luna said, shaking her head. “And I don’t think that my sister can even do it alone. Do you think that maybe-”
“I’m all over it.” Limba said, in control of Twilight. “I think that it’s high time that I became directly involved with the Id of Control.”
With that Limba walked her hostess over to the cage, looking at Celestia like she was some sort of exotic circus animal on display. She blinked at her teasingly, crossing her front hooves in order to infuriate the already irate alicorn. The eldest princess flew over to the edge of the cage on winged hooves and seized ahold of her mane with her long, immensely powerful forearm. Limba just smiled at her, showing that she wasn’t even remotely impressed with her. Celestia’ horn began to glow.
Nopony really knew what happened then, all that could be seen was a flash of light and the sound of an extremely high-pitched scream. None of them could see for several seconds, but when they all regained their senses Twilight was standing a few feet away from the cage, looking like she was recovering from the worst migraine she’d ever had. Celestia was standing in the middle of her cage, her eyes fixed on the floor beneath her. Her eyes were flown wide open, and her pupils were microscopic pinpricks of black in a sea of green. The elder alicorn’s breathing was shallow, like she was having trouble taking it air. Her wings were flung out to her sides, and her horn was sparking brightly, scattering embers of pure energy all around her.
Luna shook her head as she struggled to comprehend what just happened. Limba had done something, but she didn’t know what until a few minutes had passed, and Celestia ceased breathing altogether. Then, a scowl, a scowl like she’d never seen on any living creature, spread over her sister’s face, and she bit her tongue so hard it bled through her teeth.
“Get. Out.” Was all Celestia could say, barely able to stay in control of herself.
Like a lightswitch in her head, the answer to what Limba had done became clear. Luna was astounded by how risky this was, but it had been a great approach. The darker side of Twilight, being Impulse and Depravity, was the polar opposite of Celestia’s Id, being Control and Composure. So, in order to truly pull up her control by the roots, Limba had transferred herself into the head of the older alicorn, aiding her true self in breaking out. Twilight herself began to piece it together, and as she did a look of exhilaration spread over her face. This was one of the last things that any sane pony would do, but it was the most effective way that they could help Celestia. For once her urge to do things that nopony would ever think to do was paying off.
At least she thought that, until Celestia’s Id began to spit blood from her mouth, the tip of her tongue falling to the floor. Twilight’s expression went from happiness to horror in a split second, the gravity of the battle being waged inside Celestia’s head suddenly put into full view. The alicorn in control limped over to the edge of the cage at an agonizingly slow pace, slamming her hoof against the diamond bars in pain. Luna was watching with grim resignation, knowing that this was awful to watch, but necessary. Celestia looked up at them, her eyes full of fire and tears of spite. She was crying from the pain, and the realization that her fate was sealed. She’d made her bed, and now she was going to be put in it, whether she liked it or not. For a moment the elder alicorn locked eyes with her younger sister. She mouthed the three venomous words to her once again, before she leaned as close as she could to the bars for support.
“I-if I can’t rule.” Celestia had to stop to spit a large amount of blood and spit from her mouth, a small trickle left to run down her lip. “T-th-then she can’t either. I’d sooner s-see this kingdom burn.”
The eldest alicorn placed her long horn in between the bars, then leaned to her left until it was being pinned from two different directions. She was using the bars for leverage, as a fulcrum for her final act of hatred. She locked eyes with Twilight, and in that brief instant she saw what Celestia’s Id truly was. She was the alpha, the one that had to rule, no other was worthy of the throne. She was god in her own eyes, and the only one with the true entitlement to decide a pony’s fate. She decided who lived and died, she chose the weather, the rising and setting of the sun, what was allowed to exist and what wasn’t. If she wasn’t the one who was making that decision, then she would see everything burn rather than walk in the kingdom he used to own, and cripple her successor as much as she could on the way out. With a final scream, she cracked her horn in two between the bars.
Twilight gasped and clutched her hooves over her mouth, the separated piece of her horn skittering across the floor to settle by Luna’s feet. Just before she lost consciousness from the pain Celestia laughed. A cruel, high-pitched, maddened laugh. The laugh of a condemned mare, knowing that this was the end of her. Her head fell to the floor with a loud, climactic crack, out cold. Luna shook her head again, sighing. She hadn’t known that it would be this severe, but she knew that this was the price of her sister’s freedom.
“If you can hear me Limba, then it’s time to return to Twilight. Let Celestia do as she wishes with her own body now.” Luna said solemnly, holding the Pen of Id in her hoof. “I need some… private time with my sister now that she’s back. She has to use the Pen, and I have to graft the horn back onto her head so it can heal… which will probably be in about fifty years. I have my work cut out for me, and only so long to do it before everypony starts to ask questions. What happened here isn’t to be spoken of.”
Twilight began to stalk out of the room, but before she was gone she saw Celestia’s mane and tail turn from her Id’s tri-colored stripes to a solid, ultra-light pink that reminded her of the sky shortly before the sun came up over the horizon. She opened her eyes, sitting up in the cage, looking around and feeling her tongue already healing in her mouth. Celestia looked over to Luna and smiled a saddened, but triumphant smile. She’d paid the price, and now she could enjoy her life again. She saw Twilight and nodded to her, tears in her eyes. They weren’t the tears of her other half, they were real, genuine tears of thanks that she let flow freely. She wasn’t afraid to show her emotions anymore, now that she was free again.
Luna gestured for her to leave, and Twilight left the room with the feeling of Limba yet again nestled into the far corner of her mind like a sleeping lioness. She would wake and give her grief one day. But this wasn’t that day. She passed Spike and smiled at him, signaling to him that it was finally over. Spike ran over to her and hugged her, glad he could finally show his face in public again. With the fall of Celestia’s Id, so did the rules surrounding their social exile.
Twilight stood in front of every royal family in the castle, on a third throne between Luna and Celestia. There was a new stained-glass window in the throne room now, detailing her struggle to power. Celestia wasn’t present, but Luna was at her left, nodding encouragingly. The youngest princess had a crown on her head, and a pair of horseshoes made of an outer shell of steel, stained purple and polished to a gleam. The royals below her all gawked in awe, some literally unable to accept her as reality and fainting. Unable to express their shock in words. For them it was like she’d just come out of nowhere, and it wasn’t often that something happened without them knowing through their vines of influence. The mare that sat on the throne was something that was previously impossible to them, in imagination and in reality.
Twilight wanted to talk to them, to say encouraging words to them and say that she was just as good a ruler as Luna or Celestia. But she couldn’t, so she did something that made them all gasp. She took off her crown on and kicked her horseshoes off to the side, sending them down the stairs leading to her throne. She shook her head, sighing.
“I’m not going to pretend like I’m a good princess. Or that I know about politics. I am a scholar, a student who this just… happened to. I’m not going to lie to you all. Luna, Celestia, they are both amazing rulers in their own ways, but I am not a commander. I will never tell you what to do when it is all your business. I’m not a mare that feels the need to control, or influence. I’m a pony who has a good sense of justice, and morals that have been tested so much this past month that I doubt anything could shake them. If something is wrong, I will stomp it out. But it is up to you all to make sure you’re not doing wrong in the first place. I will react, but I won’t set up rules to discourage you from breaking the rules. The demarcation between right and wrong won’t be guarded, or layered, or blurred by other rules. What is wrong is wrong, period. Though there are scenarios that this doesn’t apply, I know for a fact that most of the time that, once we have the full, complete story, told from every side, there are no shades of right or wrong. There’s only forgivable and unforgivable. That is all I know in a political sense, and so I’ll leave you with that. Otherwise, I am just a normal mare that somehow, via some divine intervention, gained wings. Goodnight.”
With that, Twilight left the throne room. Celestia watched her proudly from the doorway on the other side of the room, hidden from view in the shadows of the curtains. Words couldn’t describe how far her student had come in the short month she’d been in the castle. What made her even prouder was how far her young muse had to go, and how she would be there for every step of it.