//------------------------------//
// Out of all the Stars, You Pick the Bright Burning Dayball 
// Story: There Are Many Stars, but Only One Sun 
// by Hipster Pony Raven Horn 
//------------------------------//

	Celestia skidded down the hallway, her hooves finding trouble getting grip as she frantically pursued her former student before the latter did something drastic.  Best case scenario, she’d tell her friends first and they talk her out of it.  Worse case scenario she went straight to the press.  If the press got a hold of the information… Not a good time to think about that now.

Celestia was certain that if she simply refused Twilight, the princess would invoke a relic law left over from Discord’s rule.  It allowed any royalty to marry whomever they wanted without contest.  Celestia and Luna thought that it didn’t need to be removed as they didn’t think at the time there would be any royalty other than themselves.  Even when honorary royalty was introduced to normalise things, they weren’t granted the same privileges as the princesses were.

But then Cadance was elevated to the state of Princess, achieving alicornhood.  This opened a whole can of worms regarding the old law, but Celestia made a decision that Cadance, knowing the importance of true love, wouldn’t abuse it to marry the first stallion she fell in love with.  Then when Twilight became a princess, Celestia was just as confident that her former student wouldn’t abuse her power.  Now the possibility of her being wrong, and the idea that she’d be forced to marry against her will spurred her on.

Celestia slid around the corner, finally catching a glimpse of her former student.  She was almost to the front door.

"Twilight!"  Celestia called out, a slight crack in her voice.

Twilight looked around, her eyes wide with worry.  "Is something wrong Princess?"

Celestia slid just short of Twilight, breathing deeply as she looked at her student.  "Twilight.  Sparkle,"  Celestia said as she finally caught her breath.  "Don’t you think that you’re rushing into this a little bit?"

"No," Twilight responded, looking a bit confused.  "I’ve known you for most of my life, and I’ve used charts and graphs to show that you and I are statistically perfect within a margin of an error of 4%, and I consider a 96% statistical chance that we are perfect for each other to be a good thing."

"But Twilight, haven’t you ever thought of anypony else?" Celestia said, grasping at straws.  "Haven’t you ever been on a date?"

"No," Twilight said, furrowing her brow a bit, "And I suppose having you marry me without going through at least a few of the motions might seem a bit strange.  So sure, I’ll go on a date with you Celestia!"  Twilight smiled.  Celestia’s face hardened slightly in further panic.  This wasn’t what she needed.  "Just name the time and place and I’ll be there!"

Date?  Celestia hadn’t expected her to take it that way.  Think.  Twilight was a smart mare.  Intelligent.  Intuitive.  Not likely to be fooled by a no-show.  That would be a dead end; she couldn’t skip out on the date.  Replacement?  No, that could almost be worse.  It might mean that Twilight would think that Celestia was inviting more ponies in the marriage.  Celestia wasn’t sure if the royal marriage law only worked once, but she’d rather not take the risk.  Stupid law, why had she ever let it just sit there anyway? Why hadn’t she eliminated it during her thousand year solo reign?  Oh yeah, because she thought it would only be her, forever.  Forever didn’t last as long as it should have.

Wait, Twilight was intelligent, intuitive, inquisitive.  Celestia’s heart skipped a beat in excitement.  She found the solution.  "Twilight, I really don’t think I can take you on a date just yet."  Celestia said, causing Twilight to frown slightly.  "I mean how can you be 100% certain that I am the one for you?"

"I already did all the calculations, Celestia…" Twilight said, though that hint of uncertainty was just the saving grace that Celestia was wanting to hear.

"Well Twilight, do most scientists just stop with doing the calculations?" Celestia said with a kind smile appearing on her face.  Her chest started to feel less hollow as her nerves began to return in full.  "So what do you think you need to do?"

"I need to gather more data." Twilight said, "Will you help me with that, Celestia?"  Twilight looked into Celestia’s eyes.  A mix of emotions filled Celestia.  While she did want to help Twilight, she didn’t want to give the princess any wrong ideas.  But the longer the looked, the more Celestia started to break down.

Finally she said, "Alright, alright I’ll help you.  I can set up some dates for you if you’d like.”

Twilight shook her head.  “I don’t need help gathering test subjects; I can do that on my own.  No, I need a control group.”  Celestia’s face twitched slightly as she heard those words.  “I want you to be my control group.  I’ll alternate between the test subjects and you, so that I can get an idea of what dating you is like compared to my subjects!”

Celestia was trapped, but in a different predicament.  At the very least she could use this as a stalling technique while she fixed the whole situation.  “Alright, tomorrow evening at the Colta Cobana de Canterlot?”

“That sounds lovely Pri- I mean Celestia.  I’ll see you there.” Twilight said, a smile on her face.  “I think I’ll catch a train back to Ponyville now.  I’d like to get some arrangements set up for any absences that I may need to take for my research.”  Celestia simply nodded as Twilight continued her way out of the palace.





Celestia made her way to Luna’s room, fully aware that she would likely not receive the warmest of welcomes.  Her sister was mostly nocturnal, but every so often would stay up for longer periods of time.  And even on normal days, Celestia might see Luna up to nearly noon playing games, studying up on lost history, or continuing her bizarre rivalry with Fancy Pants.  But after today’s events, Luna had said that she wanted to head to bed early.  Luna’s parting words to her sister were very clear.  “After being forcibly taken by plants, forcibly held by said plants, then having to be rescued from said plants, all leading up to having to still lower the moon and look regal?  I’m going to bed, and so help me if any plants appear in my dreams.”

Still, Celestia opened the door to Luna’s bed chamber knocking and calling out.  “Luna, are you there?  I need to speak with you.”

Muffled protests came the reply, but Celestia ignored them and called slightly louder.  “Luna, this is important.  I need to talk to you now.”  Her reply this time was a pillow to the face.  At least her sister was awake enough to throw things at her.

“Luna, do you remember the laws that were in play when we took over but only really applied to us so we didn’t really modify them that much because we knew we’d never actually abuse them?”  Celestia’s sentence came in a single breath.  A muffled reply came again; Celestia took it as a yes.  “I’m specifically talking about the Royal Marriage Law.”

Luna finally sat up, rubbing her eyes.  Her starry mane seemed to be tousled and knotted despite it’s otherwise ethereal nature.  “Tia, what is this about?  Are you thinking about invoking the law?”

“No, Twilight is.” Celestia said, a small grimace on her face.

“Twilight…” Luna trailed off, blinking a bit.  “Alright, I wish her and whomever she’s chosen to marry luck; hopefully they like each other.  Now good day.”  Luna flopped back onto the bed.

“Luna wait—!” Celestia attempted a protest but was met by another pillow in the face.

“I said good day Tia, whatever you needed can wait until I’ve slept.”

“Luna I—” Celestia stopped as she watched her sister slowly rise.

“Good.  Day.”  Luna said, her eyes flashing a bit.  Celestia backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.  Her fight here was lost, but her problem hasn’t been solved.  As Celestia headed back to her room, another thought struck her.  She rushed down to the throne room, opening the door in the back.

“Raven, are you here?”  Celestia called.  Her scribe turned around so quickly that her glasses nearly flew off.

“Celestia, is something the matter?”  Raven trotted towards the princess, her already wide eyes magnified slightly by her glasses.

“Raven,  I don’t know many ponies who have the same extent of law knowledge as you.  You are not only my trusted scribe, but also a valuable adviser and a dear friend.” Raven smiled as Celestia continued.  “So I need your help with something of urgent matter.”

“I am ready and willing to serve my princess whenever she may need me.”  Raven said with a bow.

“You are familiar with law passage, revocation, and laws from the pre-Diarchy reigns, correct?” Celestia said, smiling wide with large expectant eyes on her scribe.

“Yes on all three, but wouldn’t Princess Luna be better for knowing the ancient laws?  I’m only mostly familiar with ancient laws that have kept relevance.” Raven said, backing off slightly as Celestia waved a hoof around.

“Not so important, how long would it take to remove one of those laws and how would we be able to do that?” Celestia said, her voice starting to waver in pitch with occasional cracks from panic.

“Not long if it wasn’t relevant.” Raven said, shuffling through a few papers before pulling one out.  “Yes, here we go.  I was just looking at this as I was sorting proposed bills.  It just needs a majority vote from both the Court of Nobles and Court of Commons after a short hearing as to why to expunge the law, or a supermajority of either court as well as as supermajority from the ruling class.”  Raven levitated the paper over to Celestia.

Reading greedily over the proceedings, Celestia started to relax.  This could all be solved tomorrow; all she would have to do is bring it before her representatives.  It wouldn’t be hard to remove the law.  Then this whole mess could be behind her.  “Raven, put this on the agenda for tomorrow’s high court.  ‘The expunging of the Royal Marriage Law.’”

Celestia turned, ready to enjoy the rest of her day.  “I’m sorry Princess, but I’m afraid I can’t do that.”  Celestia stopped mid-step.  Her head turned to face Raven, eyes wide and mouth slightly agape.  “It’s just…” Raven said, shifting uncomfortably under Celestia’s gaze.  “The high court is on their annual ‘Summer Sun Celebration Sabbatical.’  They won’t be able to be called together for the next six weeks.”

Celestia nodded slowly, grinning as she wordlessly looked away from Raven and slowly walked away.  “Princess?”  Raven called after her, but Celestia gave no reply.  The princess almost couldn’t reply.  She felt so stupid, how could she have forgotten about this?  Of course high court would be on their annual break.  It started today, and would last for the next six weeks.  It shouldn’t matter much though, right?  She just had to stall Twilight for six weeks.  As the princess opened her study door returning to her pillow, she only could hope that Twilight’s love for thoroughness would allow for a large enough sample size.