“So what was it you wanted to show me?” Twilight leafed through the bookshelves of Celestia’s study, silently nodding along with choices she agreed with and giving a periodic frown at those she quite clearly did not. “Some kind of new artifact? A surprise?” A dark thought came to Twilight, and she suddenly wheeled around. “Discord isn’t involved in this, is he?” The scholar cast shifty glances to either side, biting her lower lip.
“No, dear.” Celestia waved a hoof and chuckled. “I promise nothing so dire. This is something more...intimate.” Celestia made an effort to look at Twilight with genuine emotion, her face forcing itself out of the eternally reassuring smile. Celestia’s cautious optimism fought its way through walls of false serenity. She even managed to blush a little, despite herself. “I’ve been meaning to show you for a while.”
“Intimate?” Twilight turned towards Celestia, her previous line of inquiry discarded in favour of another. “What kind of ‘intimate’?”
“Perhaps it would be better to show you.” Celestia lit her horn, walking towards her vanity. “It is not often I show ponies what I am about to show you, Twilight.” She gave a wary sigh. “After all, you know how I like my privacy.”
“What have you got for me this time?” Twilight trotted up to her mentor’s side, eyes wide and shining.
“What if, Twilight, I was to tell you this was not my room?”
The unicorn nodded, giving Celestia a quiet smile. “Go on.”
The teacher carried on at the learner’s prompting. “I don’t often show others my proper room for reasons that should become obvious in a brief moment.” A spell washed over Twilight from the other side of the portal. She recognized it as a ward. And not a light ward, either. This was a ward stronger than she had ever known before, and was, of all things, a ward against heat, not magic, force or light. “This is where I sleep,” Another ward, this one against pressure, “where I think,” and a last against radiation, “and where I breathe. Some of my most treasured possessions are in this room, and I would be very grateful if you did not touch them. At least, not without permission.”
“Absolutely.” Twilight smiled.
“I suppose for most ponies this would not have quite so much ceremony. For you, though, this will be quite the experience. Shall we?”
“Please.”
“Very well,” Celestia’s smile mirrored Twilight’s own this time. A flash of gold rose along her horn, and the vanity rippled away to reveal a large portal. “Welcome to my room.”
Twilight stepped out of her own world, and into a world of the truly alien.
The little alicorn’s jaw dropped, her eyes bulging at the wonder in front of her. The word that first struck Twilight’s mind was “otherworldly”, but it was quickly replaced with the word “beautiful”.
Arches of fire danced all around the room, rising up from the sea of molten plasma that served as the room’s floor and rising up directly over the heads of the two ponies. Bursts of liquid hydrogen trailed like molten sparks in lazy patterns towards the sky. All of it was framed by a pure silver metal that Twilight could not identify, as well as magic that sent dazzles of light in intricate patterns spinning and wheeling across the walls (or, what she presumed were walls) of the room.
“Where’s Equestria?” Twilight asked, knowing exactly where she was and yet needing the confirmation nonetheless. Her eyes searched the skies, and it was little surprise to her when Celestia pointed a hoof at a tiny twinkle in the distance. “I...wow.”
She looked down at the floor, only to remember that there was none. To her surprise, however, a yoga mat lay beside the bed, of all things. “Part of how I keep thin.” Celestia said sheepishly.
“Well, thin-ish.” Twilight smirked. A wingtip smacked her over the withers for her trouble.
“I take you to my most private abode and what do I get? Fat jokes. It doesn’t matter if we’re in the depths of Canterlot’s mines or on the surface of my very own sun. Fat jokes. My sister sees me get second helpings? Fat jokes. Cadance reads a story about one cake I scarfed in private? Fat jokes.” Celestia sighed a long-suffering sigh.
Twilight snickered. “What does an egghead like me know, anyway? So what are we on right now? This is solid magic, yes? And the glimmer,” She pointed to specs of light that were chasing each other in intricate circles around the floor, “and dim effects are just added visuals?”
“Quite right, my dear. I didn’t want the light blinding my guests, naturally, so I made sure the light looked more like a slow burn than the blinding . I, of course, have no such problems. And I imagine that, with time, you won’t either. In the meantime, we can see some of the products of my work. Most of it comes from times when I was younger and skinnier.”
“And not half as good-looking for it.” Twilight smirked again. This time, rather than exasperation, she was met with an honest-to-goodness blush from her old mentor.
“I...flatterer. You made me lose my train of thought, you devious unicorn.” Twilight looked around, searching for what Celestia might have been thinking on.
“You were going to say something about adapting to the stars.” There were all about the star that streched from one side to the other. “I harvested some of the products of the star to make what you see here. The room itself is aluminum. Most of the furnishings--the bed, the mirror, and, of course, the many, many bookshelves--were gifts from friends and family. If I am cold, I cast a basic counterspell to drop the wards by a minute degree. If I am tired, I can dim the light magic to total darkness.”
“That’s so…” Twilight looked around the room, “I mean…” She continued to work her jaw, thoughts bubbling up and being quashed under the magnitude of what she was processing.
“Twiligh--” Celestia was cut off by a purple torpedo hitting against her lips. She fought and failed to keep her balance, toppling backwards against the soft walls of her domain of pure magic.
“You made all this?! You, with nothing but spells, made all this?!” Twilight looked back around, then kissed Celestia again, this time with the slightest hint more restraint. She pulled back at last.
“Air, Twilight, I need air…”
“You’re an alicorn, you’re fine. Look at all this! I--I love you! I empirically, unequivocally love you! I mean, wow! You’re so--wow!”
“Ready for one last wow?” Celestia paused for a moment. “Hopefully one that will not dislocate my jaw in the process?”
“I only hope my poor heart can take it.” Twilight’s eyes glistened with her raw amazement, emotion soaring through her entire body.
“I empirically, unequivocably love you, too, Twilight. Which is why this isn’t my room any more.” Celestia dusted herself off. “It’s ours. I showed you the spell to get here, and I know you were watching well enough to learn how. Welcome to our room, Twilight. And, I hope, a new part--”
“Of our relationship.” Twilight gazed around at the stars. “Of our--wow.”
Celestia draped a wing around Twilight, watching fire lace itself in delicate streams along the surface of the sun. “Yes, dear. Of our wow.”