Princess Celestia smiled down on her latest accomplishment, and her green-tinted reflection smiled back up at her.
With her sister back at last and the two newest alicorn princesses coming into their own, Equestria was enjoying its latest era of peace and prosperity. Magic flowed across the land from the Crystal Heart, the Tree of Harmony was free to spread its beneficent influence unhindered, and even monsters and evildoers that cast greedy eyes on the kingdom were beginning to think twice before troubling the little ponies.
Things were so sedate, in fact, that even the ever-industrious Princess of the Sun had a bit of free time to devote to her own projects.
Not that this particular project was entirely personal. If she had succeeded, this invention would aid her ponies for a very, very long time, ideally even longer than she would herself!
Celestia hadn’t broken much ground in magical research or enchanting since the passing of Star Swirl the Bearded. It was extremely gratifying to discover she hadn’t lost her talent during the centuries she’d devoted herself entirely to guiding and defending her subjects. The result of her labors was this enormous green gemstone, large enough for her to lie on, set into the floor beneath her hooves. Pale viridian light from the stone’s magical inner fire illuminated her weirdly from below.
The princess’s admiration of her work was interrupted by the shriek of hinges in dire need of oiling. She looked up to see the door at the far end of her workroom slowly fall open. The crowned head of her most faithful student and fellow princess peeked in through the crack in the door.
“Celestia, may I come in?” she asked.
Her mentor nodded. “Of course, Twilight! Please come in. I was just finishing up here.”
Groaning anew (she’d have to ask her chamberlain to get that fixed soon), the door opened all the way to admit not just Twilight Sparkle, but two members of the royal guard. The guardsponies loudly shut the door and stood flanking it at attention while Twilight approached. Though they stood proud and erect as ever, the guards’ barding was dull and ill-kept. She wouldn’t mention it herself, but the captain would certainly give them KP for at least a week if he found his stallions in such a state.
Celestia’s feeling of triumph at her creation changed to concern as she saw the look on Twilight’s face. The little pony was trying to hide it by keeping her nose buried in a dog-eared old notebook, but something was strained and worried underneath.
“Twilight, is something wrong?” Celestia asked softly.
The younger alicorn's eyes darted across the opened page of the notebook, found what they were looking for, then she laughed in a very unconvincing manner and came to a stop a few feet from Celestia and sat on the bare stone floor. “What? Wrong? ...No! No, everything's fine.”
“My dear friend, what’s the matter?” Celestia asked again, growing worried herself. It had been quite a while since one of Twilight’s spells had gone spectacularly wrong. Perhaps she was getting more skilled and careful, but still, the pony was due.
“It... it’s nothing,” Twilight finally managed, breaking eye contact as she said it. “I was just… no, I had a quick question. That’s all, then I’ll get back to all my important duties and stop bothering you.”
Celestia tilted her head and smiled fondly at her former student. “Bothering me?” she asked. “As if being with you is ever less than a delight!”
Twilight continued to fidget and avoid her gaze with the book. The little pony had always been a bit too nervous, but Celestia was sure her student had overcome her fear of her teacher long ago. What had caused this change in her attitude? Celestia tried to see what was written in the notebook, but Twilight kept angling it to keep it hidden from her view.
“Well, I’d love to help you. What did you want to know, Twilight?” Celestia asked, hiding her worry behind a sober expression and sitting down atop the great green gem.
The little alicorn gulped, as if fearing something awful would happen if she spoke the wrong word, and flipped a few pages in the notebook. “D-do you know about a creature called a hidebehind?
Celestia raised an eyebrow. “I do. Is one abroad in Equestria again? Luna and I thought we banished the last one to Tartarus ages ago.”
Twilight cringed before continuing. “It’s… it’s just something I heard about somewhere, and... I was curious.”
Celestia smiled reassuringly at her fellow princess. “Well, I do know a few things about them. Luna would know more, though. They’re nocturnal.”
“Ah, um, could you just tell me what you know? Then I’ll get out of your mane.” Twilight was now visibly sweating.
Celestia was mystified. What in Equestria could provoke this sort of reaction from her beloved Twilight Sparkle? For that matter, why was this conversation even happening? There was extensive documentation on the hidebehind available in the royal archives. Why would her bibliophilic fellow princess not just do the research if she were so reluctant to bother her mentor?
“All right,” Celestia replied slowly. “Well, foremost, they’re vicious pony-eating monsters. Hidebehinds have thick, dark hair and yellow eyes. They walk on their hind legs most of the time, but they can go on all fours or climb like squirrels when they must. Their best trick, though, is how they can contort themselves to hide behind any sort of cover, even little twisted trees or the backs of other animals, hence the name.”
Twilight nodded with more than a hint of impatience. She flipped near to the end of the notebook and jotted something down. “Yes, but how can you keep them away?”
Celestia took a hard look at Twilight. “They hate the smell of alcohol, particularly ethyl alcohol. Leave an open container of the chemical in places where hidebehinds are a problem, and be sure to splash some on your coat. That won’t drive them away permanently, though. Catching one requires a lot more preparation. Luna had to hang thousands of mirrors all over the forest! It was quite an undertaking.”
“Ethyl alcohol. Okay. Got it. Thank you,” Twilight said, hunting for another spot in the book before continuing. “I’ll just be leaving now. I’m sure you want to get to sleep. Sorry again for disturbing you,” she rapidly blurted as she stood, clapped the notebook shut, and turned to leave.
Get to sleep? What time was it? Had she gotten so caught up in her pet project she’d forgotten to lower the sun on time today? Celestia looked toward the workroom’s windows but the shutters were all closed, with no light leaking through. Had Luna begun the night already?
There would be time to figure that out later, she decided. For now, her unhappy little protégé was getting away.
“Wait, Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia commanded.
Twilight came to an instant halt, inhaling sharply and shaking with tension.
“Twilight, as your ex-teacher, your fellow princess, and your friend, I order you to sit down right here with me and tell me what’s really bothering you.”
The young alicorn turned halfway back to her, finally looking up from the notebook. “I—I can’t. Please don’t be offended, but I don’t want to do this again. Please let me go.”
Celestia lay down, raised one wing, and beckoned Twilight to her side, wearing an expression simultaneously welcoming and friendly, yet brooking no contradiction.
Dragging her hooves like a condemned criminal, The little lavender pony retraced her steps back to Celestia, but sat just beyond her reach. Disappointed, the Sun Princess re-folded her wing.
The two alicorns sat in silence for a moment.
“Well,” Celestia finally said, grinning sympathetically, “If you’re not going to tell me, I’ll just have to start guessing, and you know I’m a bad guesser. We could be here all night!”
Twilight was still not moved to speech, so Celestia looked the little princess up and down with an exaggeratedly critical eye.
“Ah!” she exclaimed, striking a hoof silently against the gem’s glassy surface. “You’ve had a growth spurt, haven’t you?”
“Ye-yes,” admitted the other pony, who had indeed grown taller, stronger, longer-horned and longer-faced than Celestia recalled. “I’m a little bigger.”
“You know,” the Sun Princess said, “I think you look regal and mighty.”
Twilight merely nodded, but seemed to relax the slightest bit.
“I bet you thought you were finished going through weird body changes a long time ago, weren’t you, my little pony?” Celestia asked with a chuckle.
“Ah, yeah,” Twilight agreed, finally smiling a little. “I keep catching my horn on doorframes. I can’t imagine what it was like for you.” Twilight’s eyes widened and she clamped her mouth shut, as if she’d said something wrong.
“What it was like for me getting the hang of being an alicorn?” Celestia said. “Well, I was always an alicorn. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you, learning to fly so late! You’ve been doing wonderfully, though.”
Twilight smiled and sighed. “Thanks. Thank you, Princess Celestia. You’ve really helped me. Goodni—”
Celestia waggled a hoof and grinned. “No-no-no! I can tell that wasn’t it.”
When Twilight’s face fell, Celestia’s did too. “Why are we so distant, my student?” Celestia asked. “Why are you afraid of troubling me? Everything is so peaceful in Equestria now, I’m actually beginning to have free time again. I’d love to use some of it to visit you and your friends. Can we be close again?”
The young princess's reaction baffled the elder. It was as if the question had reopened an old wound, or reminded her of an old sorrow.
Once again, Twilight Sparkle’s lip quivered. “We... we will. We’ll all be together again soon. I promise,” she said fervently. “We’ll have a huge party and everyone will be there and we’ll never be lonely or distant ever again.”
“I’m looking forward to it!” Celestia said. “That sounds wonderful. But please don’t ever worry about bothering me for any reason. See,” she tapped the flat surface of the enormous gem, “just look at what I have the time to make nowadays!”
Twilight cringed as if bracing for something. “You don’t have to tell me about that. I’ve... gotta go and plan that party now.”
Celestia shook her head. “Oh, but you’ll want to hear about this!” she insisted, beckoning the younger alicorn closer. “It’s new magic! You see this gem I’m sitting on?”
“Really, it’s okay,” Twilight pleaded. “Surprise me with it at the party!”
“No!” the elder princess said. “Twilight, this is important. I don’t understand why you’re acting this way. I don’t know why being around me has become so unpleasant for you, but for the good of our subjects, I want you to understand what this is and why I made it.”
It looked as if Twilight was about to protest again, but then she hunched her shoulders and resigned herself, tears filling her eyes. Celestia didn’t think she had ever wanted to hold a pony in her forelegs and comfort her as much as she did at this moment, but Twilight made no move to accept her invitation. What had happened between them? Why was she acting like this?
“Twilight,” she said, holding back tears of her own, “I made this gem into a library; a library of memories! I put a copy of everything I know in here; I filled every facet. If anything happens to me, I want to you to know how this works so my knowledge can keep helping the ponies of Equestria.” Celestia wiped her eyes and looked around the base of the gem. “It will be like I’m still here, and you can ask me anything! You won’t have to worry about wasting my time, either. I’ll show you, and then you can leave. It’s locked now, though. Where’s that key gem I made for it? It looks like this big one, but much smaller.” All of her other apparatus was there on the floor around her, but it was covered in a layer of dust. The key gem was nowhere to be seen.
The little pony sitting before her turned away guiltily and raised a foreleg to cover the jeweled collar of her royal regalia, but not quickly enough that Celestia failed to notice the flickering green light coming from the stone in its center. Sensing the game was up, Twilight lowered her leg and hung her head, hot tears rolling down her face.
“When the key gem is held over an alicorn pony’s heart,” Celestia said slowly, lowering her head to get a good look at the gilded gorget, “and brought near the memory gem, the holder can call up any of my memories.” She raised her eyes to Twilight’s. “Why… how is the key gem I made a few hours ago set in your collar?”
Twilight stood and backed away. “I’m sorry. Please don’t ask. Please don’t. I’ll go now.” she said.
“What? What are you sorry for?” Celestia cried, a feeling of intuitive dread closing about her heart. “What do you mean?”
The other princess continued to retreat. “I can’t lie to you!” Twilight forced out between sobs. “Don’t make me stay until you figure it out! I can’t do this to you anymore!”
Celestia rose and tried to follow, but an invisible force pressed against her when she tried to cross the edge of the memory gem. She raised a hoof to press against the unseen barrier, but the appendage grew insubstantial and transparent as it neared the edge of the light shining upward from the magic gemstone.
Celestia withdrew, gaping at her trembling hoof, then down at the gem, then back at Twilight, who was still backing away, guilt and regret written on her features.
“Oh no. Oh no. Please, no...” Celestia whispered.
“Don’t think about it. It’s just a bad dream,” her student lied. “Just close your eyes and forget and it’ll all go away again.”
I… I’m not her,” the tall alicorn said, speaking as if each word had to be forced from her lips. “I’m only her… I’m just the memories I—she put in here. I didn’t think it would be like... like this.”
Twilight gave up trying to leave the room and walked wearily back to the image standing above the gem. She sniffled and nodded.
“If you’re here… what happened to me? The real one?”
The little pony only shook her head. The look in her eyes told enough.
“You said I always figure it out. What does that mean? The last thing I did was make this gem, and then you came in.”
“The gem…” Twilight said. “It’s full. It’s closed. It can’t hold new memories; not permanent ones. I tried to make it better, but I only damaged it. Each time I have to leave, or if I stay too long… you forget. You forget everything. Then I come back and you find out again and it hurts you fresh every time. I wish I could just go away and never bother you again, but... something new happens and....”
Celestia gazed at her reflection in the glowing stone, breathing in shallow gasps. She felt a sense of vertigo as she stared down into the gem’s fiery heart; like she was falling, falling forever, never to land.
Twilight fell back into a sitting position and wiped her nose. “Please, let me destroy it,” she begged. “Thirty-two times, we’ve had this conversation. Every time, you get the truth out of me, every time I have to sit here and watch your heart break!” She fanned the pages of the notebook. “I tried to make a conversation tree. I tried to figure out what to say so you don’t suspect, but you’re too wise and I’m an awful actress.” Twilight slammed the book shut again and looked into the green, hazy eyes of the other princess. “Let me set you free! I can end this, but only if you’ll let me. Just say the word and we never have to go through this again.”
Celestia looked around the room again. All tables and shelves of magical tools were dusty and long-neglected. The shutters, on closer inspection, were nailed shut and the windows behind were bricked over.
She looked more closely at the two pegasi by the door. The guards’ barding were not merely lacking polish, they were dented and dirty, as if their wearers had just returned from battle. The one on the right wore a patch over one eye. The one on the left was not just short, he was also quite a bit younger than royal guards were normally allowed to enlist.
Also, judging from Twilight’s query, something had befallen Luna, as well as the royal archives, which were in the heart of Canterlot.
The echo of the Sun Princess closed her teary eyes and breathed deeply, not stirring the air of the chamber the slightest bit. “I wish I could. I truly wish I could. But if Equestria has needed my knowledge and memories thirty-two times before,” she sighed, “then it may need them again. I cannot desert my little ponies in their time of need.”
Twilight looked pleadingly into her eyes. “No, you’ve done enough. Why do you always, always say this!? You can rest! Please, just tell me to let you rest. Even now, I can’t disobey you.”
Celestia’s memory lowered her head, so that its insubstantial horn would have rested against Twilight’s own. “My beloved student, a princess does not fill a quota of helping her subjects and then say ‘no more, I am done,’ no matter how painful the task. Now, what did you come here to ask me?”
“I only wanted to know about the hidebehind. There’d been some sightings, and Tartarus... it isn’t as secure as we thought.”
“Very well. Foremost, they’re vicious pony-eating monsters. They have dark hair and yellow eyes—”
Twilight shook her head sorrowfully. “You, um, you already told me what I needed to know.”
The princess’s shadow smiled through her tears and raised a semi-transparent hoof to Twilight’s chin. “I’ll take your word for it. Go in peace, Twilight Sparkle, and do not hesitate to return whenever I can help you. Never forget that I love you, and all our little ponies.”
“Thank you, princess,” Twilight croaked hoarsely, “I love you too.” She had spoken a variation of this goodbye over two dozen times before.
As the living princess stood and retraced her path back to the door, Celestia wiped her eyes once more and returned to contemplation of the glowing gem beneath her hooves. Slowly, its light faded away to nothing, and she with it.
As Twilight reached the heavy wooden door at the far end of the room, the two pegasi jumped forward and pulled it open, releasing another earsplitting creak. Twilight flinched at the noise, and the gem in her gorget glowed anew, re-activated by a spark of magic she’d released by reflex. Twilight winced, and then looked ruefully back over her shoulder.
The alicorn across the room raised her head to look at her, smiling in mild surprise.
“Oh, Twilight! Please come in; I was just finishing up here.”
Their eyes met.
“Twilight, is something wrong?”
Celestia could only stare in confusion as her most faithful student fled the room in tears.