There was nothing. No gasps of shock, cries of ‘what’ or even the sound of breathing. Opening her eyes, Celestia saw that Twilight was as still as a statue. Her eyes as wide as they could go and her mouth wide open in shock. Whatever weariness Twilight had was long gone now. For a long time, neither of them spoke as the biggest secret Celestia had ever spilled continued to ring in both their ears. It was like a sense of relief for the elder alicorn, to say those words to somepony else after so long. It was if she had been freed from a caged prison and could fly free once more.
At last, Twilight found her voice as she jumped into the air, screaming, “What?!” Celestia was grateful that she had prepared the soundproofing spell ahead of time as she watched Twilight pace around, her mouth going at rapid speed. “You can’t be serious?! Your daughter?! That makes Sunset Shimmer a princess like me, but by blood! She’s actually the first royal born pony from your womb in nearly a thousand years! All this time I was fighting against my mentor’s daughter, and I never knew! Why didn’t you tell me?! Or anypony for that matter?! How could this have been hidden for so long?! I mean she had the word sun in her name!”
Celestia shook her head in amusement at her student’s typical way of handling such knowledge. I expect nothing less from her.
“Your daughter?! This is unbelievable! This is history! You haven’t taken a husband, much less a lover, since a thousand years ago! I asked you one time and you told me you just didn’t have the time to start falling in love again! Well, now I know why and it’s because Luna was banished, thus leaving you with twice the workload. So how could Sunset Shimmer be your daughter unless...” Twilight stopped and turned around, facing her teacher. “It was a secret love?” Celestia slowly nodded. “But... who is the father?”
Another pang of combined guilt and sorrow pierced Celestia’s heart as she remembered the face of the last pony she had once called “her special somepony”. The only one to break her efforts to not fall in love again after her sister’s banishment. She could still remember his smile, the last gleaming sparks of life in his eyes as she held him in his final hour. To this day, she still couldn’t find herself to visit his grave after all these years. “His name I will not tell you,” muttered Celestia, shaking her head. “It doesn’t matter now since he is no longer of this world, and even saying it will give me more grief than I can stand at the moment. Only know this... He was a great stallion, and I will always hold him in my heart like all the others I loved before him. I only pray he forgives me in the afterlife of what I have done to our child.”
Twilight looked like she was going to press on the subject, but soon shut her mouth and nodded. Her ears perked up as she rubbed the floor with her hoof. “Does... does Sunset Shimmer know she is your daughter?”
“Perhaps I should tell you the full story,” muttered Celestia as she summoned two cushions on her bed for them to sit on.
Getting comfortable, Celestia thought back to the past years she had with her last lover before his unfortunate end. But from that death came a joy. A joy named Sunset Shimmer. It all seems like it was yesterday.
“After my lover died, I found myself pregnant with his foal. Naturally, I was afraid of what to do. If the public, much less the nobility, learned that I was having a baby my enemies could use her against me, or try to manipulate my daughter like they had done with my nephew, Blueblood. I also was in fear of her safety. At the time there was a cult that supported Nightmare Moon. They were awaiting her return, hoping to weaken Equestria so that she could take it over easily. I couldn’t risk my daughter by having her turned into a pawn like Blueblood or have her killed by my enemies,” explained Celestia.
“Why didn’t we face such a cult before? During the Summer Sun Celebration?” asked Twilight, tilting her head.
“I will explain why, eventually. So to hide my pregnancy, I pretended to fall ill by saying it was a disease that only alicorns could get. This convinced the public, and the nobles didn’t mind. It was a chance to use their influence to control Equestria while I was unwell. Thankfully, they didn’t do anything too damaging to our nation that I couldn’t fix,” muttered Celestia, wishing more noble houses like the Twilight’s and Fancy’s. “Soon, I bore my daughter into the world...”
***
Celestia was starting to remember why she hadn’t had any foals for a thousand years. It bucking hurt. Celestia let out another scream, one she sure would have even pierced through the soundproof wards they had put around her room. The doctors, wet nurses, and few guards she could trust, including her Captain of the Guard, Chainmail, were encouraging her to stay strong. Easy for them to say! They’re not the ones giving birth!
“Come on, your Majesty!” encouraged the head doctor, hidden between Celestia’s rear legs. “One more push and that should do it!”
With one last scream, Celestia finally felt her foal leave her at last and gasped in relief. It was finally over, and she knew it had all be worth it when she heard the foal’s cries for the first time. The nurses quickly began to clean the new princess up before the head doctor walked up to her. He took off his mask, and gave a congratulatory smile towards her. “Congratulations, Princess Celestia. It’s a healthy filly.”
“Unicorn or alicorn?” asked Chainmail.
“Unicorn, but I think that works best for the plan, if I’m right?” replied the doctor as he went over to the nurses.
Celestia nodded, taking deep breaths as her maids began to wipe the sweat all over her face. It was a good thing her newborn daughter was a unicorn, or else their plan to protect her would have been all a waste. It was still unknown, even to her, if an alicorn could be born from a non-alicorn parent. All of her previous children shared the same race as their fathers. A small part of her hated it though, knowing she would outlive her child. But the memories that she had with all of those she brought into this world were part of what kept her sane all these years.
And now, one more would be added to the mix.
Any energy that she lost during the birth was soon revitalized the moment Celestia saw her daughter for the first time. The nurse holding her in a pink blanket handed the new princesses into Celestia hooves as she quickly took her precious filly and smiled. A tear fell from her eye. “She’s beautiful...”
“She looks a lot like him your, Majesty,” said Chainmail, noticing the color of her coat, but then he saw the speck of color in the newborn's mane and frowned. “Except her mane and eyes. They look like yours.”
Celestia frowned. “Yes. It seems we’ll have to alter her appearance permanently with the spells we found. You should make her mane red, just like her father’s, but with a yellow stripe. It will be in the colors of the sun I raise.”
“Very well, I’ll do so before I make for the orphanage,” said Chainmail. “I’ll go see that the preparations are set.”
Celestia didn’t hear him, nor did she bother to see him leave. She was too busy looking at the now sleeping foal who was only born on this day. To be held in Celestia’s hooves and never again afterwards. It filled her heart with grief knowing that this would be the last time either of them saw each other, but she had to remind herself that this was for the best. Ignoring the political ramifications, Celestia would not see her daughter used as a tool by the corrupted nobles like they had already started to do to her once sweet nephew. And with the threat of the Nightmare Cult still a grim reality, the idea of her daughter as a target was unthinkable.
I wonder, my little daughter, will you hate me? Curse me for this? Will you grow up stronger, or will this moment shatter you? I will always love you no matter what, and pray you will live a good life, vowed Celestia as she kissed her daughter’s forehead.
Nopony interrupted the brief moment they had together as Celestia forced herself to memorize every moment she had with her daughter in the precious few minutes they had. She nuzzled, kissed, and even sang to her daughter a song that she had once learned from her own mother in a time long ago:
Oh little sun, so quiet yet bright
Hiding in the shadows, afraid of the night
Come to your mother who lies in the sky
Waiting for you as time marches by
When you come up, and bring about the day
Your mother shall kiss you and together we will play
When Celestia finished the song, she looked out her window where the sun was stuck in set, the pregnancy having temporarily haunted her ability to move the celestial objects. Thankfully, she would just chalk it up to her ‘disease’ and cease any worry. Staring at it, she came with a name for her foal. “Sunset Shimmer. That will be your name, my little sun.”
Her foal opened her eyes, stared into Celestia’s own purple pools, and giggled. For the first time, in a very, very long time, Celestia showed a true smile on her face. A smile she had not worn since banishing her sister to the moon. This tiny pony, in a single moment, was all the happiness in the world for Celestia. However, it had to come to an end as Celestia’s smile soon faded when she saw Chainmail return, dressed in a cloak and levitating a basket.
“It’s time,” said Chainmail, standing beside his princess. “Please, give her to me, Princess Celestia.”
Celestia looked down at her smiling daughter, and at that moment wanted to say no. To cancel the plan and announce to the world the birth of her lovely daughter. She wanted to make Sunset Shimmer a princess and teach her magic. To see her grow up, have friends, marry, have foals of her own, and die of old age. To live a long and great life, loved by her mother and those closest to her. Every motherly instinct that Celestia had buried deep inside her was instantly revived and was ordering her to keep her little sun. Her Sunset Shimmer.
However, there was too much at stake. Had things been different, she would let herself keep her daughter. Now she was doing the one sin that no mother should ever do: give up her foal.
With great reluctance, Celestia did her best to hold back the tears as she kissed her daughter one last time and placed her in the basket. A simple sleeping spell put the filly into a blissful slumber as Chainmail bowed and made his exit. Celestia never stopped staring at him and her retreating daughter until he was out of the room.
There in the silence, those left in the room waited. Nopony said a word, but their eyes showed the sympathy they held for the mother. Closing her eyes, Celestia ordered them to leave her be until she called for them. It was only when the last of them left did Celestia weep out loud, crying her daughter’s name in the lonely room of her bed-chamber.
Meanwhile, a newborn filly, with only only a blanket, a basket, and a note with her name, was found at the footsteps of an orphanage after the owner had heard knocking, only to find nopony there. Nopony, but Sunset Shimmer, the newest orphan in his establishment.