//------------------------------// // Celestia's plan, Sunset's convinience // Story: Confusing Reality // by CrossRedstone //------------------------------// Sunset was woken up by one of the castle maids the next morning. Groggily she rose her head, to see just who interrupted her sleep and found said maid looking at her fearfully. "Wazzup?" she asked in a sleep drunk state. "E-excuse me your highness, b-but I w-was instructed t-t-to wake you up." "Huh...?" Sunset yawned and looked over to her nightstand, only to be reminded that she wasn't in her apartment anymore, where normally her electronic clock was. "What time is it?" "It's 11 'o' clock, your highness." "What?!" The alicorn now fully awake, threw the blankets of her body and stumbled out of her bed. "Why didn't you wake me up earlier?" she asked the mare, who winced in return. "I-I'm sorry, your highness. T-the princess, Princess Celestia I mean, asked us to let you and your sister sleep in a little, after your late night study session." "Oh." Sunset calmed down, letting out another yawn. "Oh mare, sorry. Well, thanks for waking me up. Probably would have slept until tomorrow otherwise." Sunset chuckled heading towards the bathroom, preparing herself for the day. When she came out, she surprisingly found out that the maid already made her bed. Must be normal to be woken up by a maid. At least for a princess. Walking outside, the alicorn found herself with a problem: she didn't remember where the dining room was in this maze of hallways. She ended up wandering around for a bit, until she accidentally bumped into Twilight. "Ow. Oh sorry Twi, wasn't looking where I was going." "Morning Sunset. It's alright. Wait, where are you going? I thought you were already with mom at breakfast." Twilight titled her head. "Oh...uh...that! I was, yeah, I wanted to get you. See if you were alright. It was...exciting yesterday after all." Sunset stammered. Twilight seemed satisfied with this answer. "Excited. I guess that's one way of putting it. Who'd have thought our aunt is the mare in the moon?" she asked, looking with worry at her older sister. Sunset felt the urge to do something and wrapped her leg around her younger sister's neck. "It'll be alright. Knowing Celestia she already has a plan. Most likely she didn't plan on telling us until "the time was right" or something like that." she couldn't help, but roll her eyes. Twilight giggled at this. "Yeah, that sounds like mom alright." Twilight replied. The two walked down the hallway, Sunset making sure Twilight was "leading" them. "Still, it's so annoying that she always does that. What if one of her plans go wrong and we don't have all the information we need?" I didn't know Twilight was annoyed about this too. She sounded almost too loyal to Celestia last time I spoke to her. But then again, "here" they are...WE are family. "Which is why we're going to talk to her now." the older sibling said out loud. "By the way, where's Spike?" "Already awake. I think I saw him outside, reading a comic. He said we were "overreacting" and "over-analyzing" things." the lavender alicorn flared her nostrils a little. 2 minutes later the two arrived at the dining hall. Celestia was already waiting for them, sitting in the middle of the table. "Ah, good morning my daughters. Did you two sleep well?" the oldest princess asked. "Just fine." Twilight replied. "Had a weird dream, where Twilight chased me around and then hypnotized me with some weird rainbow magic into "joining the herd" or something. Must have eaten something wrong yesterday." Celestia shook her head at that. Her daughters took place on each side of her, not knowing how to start up the conversation. They both simply started with their breakfast, glancing at each other every now and then. To their surprise, it was eventually Celestia who broke the silence. "I assume you have questions regarding your aunt, don't you?" Twilight choked on her breakfast, while Sunset took a spit take. "You were spying on us?!" the older sibling accused her mother. "I happened to pass by in the royal gardens and overheard your conversation. I'm sorry." Immediately after hearing this, Sunset looked down, realizing she overreacted. Celestia wrapped her wings around her and Twilight. "It's alright. I do owe you two an explanation." She took in a deep breath. "You see, as you two already found out, the story about Nightmare Moon is all true. 1000 years ago I...I banished my own sister to the moon." Although Twilight knew this already, hearing this straight from the source was another thing altogether. She wrapped her fore legs and wings around Celestia. Sunset copied her sister, after seeing her doing this. The alicorn of the sun pulled her daughters in front of her, looking them straight in the eyes. "I...I was a fool. I should have noticed what Luna was going through, yet at this time I wasn't as experienced as I am today. I waved her off, when she looked for aid by me, claiming to be too busy running the country. Now it didn't happen over night, but gradually Luna would become more and more distant. Being the ignorant fool I was at the time, I thought everything with Luna had been cleared up." "But it wasn't, was it?" Sunset asked. "One night, she refused to lower the moon. I learned an important lesson that night: nothing is more important than family. Luna's emotions had overwhelmed and corrupted her, turning her into Nightmare Moon. Surprised and desperate, I used the Elements of Harmony in order to clean her of her own corruption. But you see, when the two of us first found the elements, three of them were bound to me and the other three were bound to her. I wasn't...let's call it in sync with them, resulting in Luna being banished to the moon." She hugged her daughters tighter. "Afterwards the elements abandoned me. To this day they don't see me worthy of bearing them. Originally I planned on finding the new element bearers and have them cure my sister." "Originally?" Twilight asked. Celestia nodded grimly. "I realized that I simply can't risk the lives of our subject because I was a bad sister. No, when Luna returns...I will be facing her." "WHAT?!" Twilight and Sunset exclaimed. Seeing the upcoming protests, Celestia hold their mouths shut with her magic. "Please, I had 1000 years to prepare for this day. I have become significantly stronger this millennium. I will subdue Luna and cure her without the elements if I have to. I know you two are worried and I know what you're thinking, but no. You won't be participating in this fight." "MMMPHHMPPHMMHMMM!" The two younger alicorns protested. "No." Celestia stated firmly. "I won't risk your lives as well. You're no match for a thousand year old alicorn, no matter how outdated her knowledge around spells might be." She released her daughters from the spell, which kept them quiet, more or less. Sunset and Twilight took in a deep breath. "But, there's got to be a way er can help!" both exclaimed at the same time. Looking at each other the two couldn't help but giggle. The good mood dropped as soon as it came though. "Last time you used the Elements of Harmony." Sunset argued. "If they don't listen to you, we might be able to find someone else who can use them." "No." Celestia didn't hesitate a second. "I will NOT bring any innocent into immediate danger. Actually what you can do is keeping the population calm, while I fight Nightmare Moon over the Everfree Forest. Once I secured and sedated her, we'll bring her to Canterlot and THEN we can look for potential Element Bearers." Celestia's voice was one of authority. Clearly she was not accepting a "no" as an answer. Sunset was torn between raising an objection and simply letting go. This was not the Celestia she remembered. The Celestia she remembered would have waved everything off, probably made something up about inventing the legend herself and arranged something so they both would end up in Ponyville for the Summer Sun Celebration. Looking over, Sunset found that Twilight was thinking along the same lines. Of course she didn't know who the Element Bearers were. In the end, Sunset sighed. "If you end up on the sun, I'm gonna eat your entire cake stash." Celestia smiled again. "I'll keep that in mind." She looked over to Twilight, who still seemed to struggle with her own thoughts. But in the end, she sunk her head and nodded. Celestia pulled both of her daughters into a hug again. "Thank you. I know this is not easy for you two, but I promise everything will be fine." "Can you tell us about her? About our aunt, I mean." Twilight asked. Celestia sighed. "Not now, sadly. It has to be in the evening. I decided to prepare everything for the Summer Sun Celebration today, so I can use the rest of the days until then to prepare...for her return." Celestia took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Oh, alright." Twilight sounded pretty disappointed. "Now then, Sunset, I managed to get you an appointment with the manager of Canterlot's best renovation/restoration companies. He's waiting for you in the court waiting lobby. Twilight, I actually want you to help me prepare the Celebration. I had some documents about Ponyville brought into your room." "Why would you hold the celebration in Ponyville?" Twilight asked. "Oh, incidentally, a hundred years ago...I think, my memory is a little fuzzy on that one, Ponyville was founded. It is a little promise I made with the families back then. Also, the Everfree Forest is closer to Ponyville. As I said,I want you to keep the citizens of Ponyville calm-" "Now hold on a minute." Sunset spoke up. "Earlier you said we should keep the civilians calm and now you're saying the citizens of Ponyville? Isn't at least one of us staying in Canterlot?" "Oh don't worry. I've thought about this already. Now I need to go. I see you two in the evening." Celestia hugged her daughters one last time (because she felt she didn't do this enough in their entire lifetime) and left for the Royal Court. Once she was outside, Sunset stomped with her hoof on the ground. "Bullshit!" "Sunset?!" Said mare was walking up and down in the middle of the dining hall. "That's never gonna work out! We need the Elements and she knows it!" Twilight just watched her sister letting out some steam for the next minute, until the older sibling finally calmed down. The younger sibling approached Sunset and nuzzled her gently on the neck. "Hey, it's gonna be alright. I mean it's mom we're talking about. When was the last time one of her plans didn't work?" Sunset breathed in and out. "I know, it's just....urgh. I'm just worried, you know?" "I know. I'm worried too, but we have to have faith in mom." Twilight smiled reassuringly. "Yeah, guess you're right." Sunset nodded. "Still...I think we should find out as much as possible about the Elements of Harmony, just to be on the safe side." "Hmm... I guess it can't hurt to look into it." Twilight acknowledged. "I guess the two of us better get going then. The sooner we're finished, the sooner we can find out about the Elements." "Yeah, agreed. Uh...could you point me to the direction of the waiting lobby? My memory is still a tad unreliable about the castle." Sunset said sheepishly, causing Twilight to frown. "It's down the hall, to the right and then straight ahead. You know, if your memories don't come back the next couple of days, we should probably have you checked over with the doctors." The pony Sunset met up was an older brown stallion, with yellow eyes and a measuring tape as a cutie mark. His darker brown mane and tale were a mess. His cutie mark was a measuring tape. "Ah, princess." The stallion bowed. "I'm Straight Measure, a pleasure to meet you." "Likewise." Sunset replied. "So, your company is supposed to restore the orphanage. Have you already taken a look at things." The stallion shook his head. "I'm sorry your highness, but the order came in yesterday evening. I didn't have the time to take a look at things." "Well, what are we waiting for then? Let's get going." Sunset walked ahead, not even looking if the stallion was following her. About twenty minutes later (of walking and ignoring onlookers) they arrived in front of the orphanage. "Well, I say, it certainly can use some paint." The stallion said, looking at the building from the outside. "Looks like it's at least 40 or so years old." "Let's get inside. I'll get the manager and then we can look around." Walking inside, Sunset immediately walked down towards Caring Heart's office. Sunset knocked at the door for three times, before Caring from the inside called: "Enter." "Princess? Ah, are you here with the construction pony?" "How'd you know?" Sunset titled her head. "Princess Celestia told me you'd come today. Where is the pony, by the way?" Caring stepped away from her desk. "Just down the hall." She nodded with her head. "Should we go?" "Yes, let's." Caring agreed. Caring Heart noted that the stallion looked at things the same way the princess did last time. And like the princess he took notes and probably noticed a few more things than the princess. The foals and fillies luckily were all at school, so they could look around without being interrupted. It took them one and a half hours until the stallion was satisfied with his observations. They were now back in Caring Heart's office, drinking tea, while the stallion explained his findings. "Welp, it's not as bad as I thought it would be, so I guess that is a plus." The stallion chuckled lamely. "The minus however, well, where's no minus is the question? I'll be honest, I'm very close to just bring down the entire building and build a new one on top of it." "That's out of the question." Caring Heart spoke up immediately. "The other orphanages just don't have the space to hold so many foals for such a long time." The stallion shrugged and looked at his notes again. "Well, luckily none of the walls have water damage or anything similar, though we would have to replace the pipes, I recommend new kitchen equipment, the floors, we need to close off one of the staircases...it would be a lot cheaper to just build a new building." "Money is not the problem." Sunset interjected. Although with the way I spent it, I'll be broke pretty soon if I'm not careful. I better take a look at my account data later. "How long would it take to renovate the entire building?" "A couple of months, at least. However..." the stallion thought for a bit. "If you could relocate the children temporarily, I'm confident we can do it in a month, a month and two weeks at most." Sunset raised an eyebrow at that. She knew that ponies were far dedicated in their work than humans and doing a trashy job for the princess would not look good for their company. "Hmm, well Celestia said you are the best company in Canterlot. That still leaves us with the problem on where to with the kids." Caring and Sunset frowned. Where to indeed? Sunset thought about bringing them to the castle, but who knew what kind of trouble that idea would bring with it? Sunset's vision trailed around the room, until it landed on the desk, where a bunch of unopened letters and flyers were located. Looks like Caring Heart didn't have the chance to look through her mail as of yet. One of the flyers picked her curiosity, so she levitated it over and read the content. "Summer Camp in the White Tail Woods. Eh....hmmm.......huh? Fillies and foals with have a chance to witness the Summer Sun Celebration in Ponyville!" Well, isn't that convenient? Either fate is screwing with me or I seriously should consider starting to gamble.