Several years ago, Celestia had fought and defeated a vile witch who had wanted to manipulate others with her magic.
Tragically she had been too late to save the life of a brave pink filly who had attempted to stop her, and Celestia personally oversaw a memorial service to that poor girl after she had saved everyone else from the witch.
It was the aftermath of this battle, and the resulting search through the witch's dark tomes for clues as to where she had obtained them and ways to research a way to limit their future use, that Celestia discovered a rather....tempting spell.
.....
Sunset Shimmer was a brilliant student. Her mind was sharper than virtually everyone else alive, her magic skills were of the highest caliber, and she could retain information as if her mind had no limit.
She was also......quite aware of those facts and saw herself as better than others for them. A rather.....unsettling combination truth be told.
Intelligence and the realization that one could make quite a valid claim of being better than others for it never mixed well. It was in a way that a belief that you are superior to others, and a lack of intelligence was less unsettling: at least the arrogant idiots of Canterlot nobility didn't have the brains to be nearly as clever as they thought they were.
You just kept them away from any ominous looking buttons and everything was perfectly fine.
But when you were intelligent and believed yourself above the limits of ordinary people.....that was how bad things happened to countries, villages, and species.
Celestia honestly didn't know where she might as went wrong with her: in fact if she thought about it a bit she actually had made progress with the young Unicorn. After all, before she had taught her she didn't have the ability to use her intelligence to look far ahead.
She wasn't going to be playing anypony 10 turns ahead in Chess anytime soon, but she had improved there. And if all else failed, Celestia liked to think she saved the Filly's bank account from lack of short-term foresight if nothing else.
Still.....the arrogance was a ever-growing concern of Celestia.
With the attitude that Sunset had, Celestia felt it would end rather badly if she took Sunset any farther magically. But if she started skirting the subject, she had no illusion that Sunset would start chafing under her wing, and that could lead to one of those long term mishandlings Celestia worried about with the red-haired Unicorn.
After all, she never could keep all her locked up cursed objects sealed off to every possible work-around (the incidents with the mouse, the bat, and the janitor proved that), and unlike them Sunset could look at the problem logically and not with a misplaced limb.
But why was Sunset that way? Celestia liked to think that no one was ever truly born bad. Every bad person had to be a product of their environment.
If Sombra became who he was because of a maddening revelation, there had to be a reason why Sunset was the way she was.
....
One impromptu spy mission later, and the sole Alicorn in all of Equestria found herself seething in her personal quarters.
What.....what kind of home did Sunset Shimmer freakin' come from?! No wonder she was socially abrasive and wanting more power....
Really, why did some Ponies even choose to have kids in the first place when they just.......
GAH!
Here Celestia was, not able to have any kids because she found seeing her good friends and colleagues wasting away before her very eyes she didn't want to imagine seeing her own flesh and blood do the same because species interference was random and capable of resurfacing generations later, and she had to see Ponies waste their privilege to do so!
Honestly, she could have raised Sunset far better.......
A dark thought crossed Celestia's mind......a spell she had found in the works of that witch. A spell that could change the very fabric of reality itself, creating a new past and memories for all affected.
No, no.....the white Alicorn shook her head, absolutely not. Retconning yourself into being Sunset Shimmer's mother was not an option. For one thing, it was immoral and frankly rather creepy.
Plus, the idea of her having a child with Sunset's bum of a father was frankly nauseating. While she had a few liaisons in her time and wouldn't consider it a ruined first time, she had standards.
'But, do you really want to wait until your student does another Nightmare Moon? Do you want to banish another one you're close to to the moon?' those dark thoughts asked her 'Plus, imagine it. If you raised Sunset from foalhood as your daughter....she'll never die and she'll be so much better for it. You'll never be alone again'.
A sudden warm feeling encompassed the Princess, as f the emptiness left her very mind and soul, but she quickly shook off the happy thoughts.
She was not going to do it.
.....
"Sunset Shimmer, you are not ready!"
"Yes I am!"
How unfortunate that these arguments had gotten more and more frequent. Truly Celestia should be feeling angry about them, but it only made her feel disappointed.
At her student, and at herself for not preventing them.
For this was yet another argument over the pace of learning.
"Why won't you teach me those spells? How am I not ready?! I passed all your lessons with flying colors, I've defeated Wizards, Minotaurs, and monsters not even your guard could handle, I've done everything you've ever asked of me! Why don't you believe in me?!"
That last line actually was a bit painful, honestly.
"Sunset....I know it seems like you're ready, but there are so many things you need to learn that aren't about magic spells before we get to those spells. Believe me, I know what's best for you...."
"You don't know that, you can't say that! Your not my mother!"
That last line, said in easily the harshest verbal slap Sunset had ever given her.....made Celestia angry.
It also made her act impulsively.
"Oh, but I can be" Celestia stated seriously, her horn glowing.
Then she blasted Sunset Shimmer with a magic she had never before cast, as reality itself shook.
....
In the end, it could have been a lot worse.
When, in this new timeline, Sunset no longer Shimmer had been born a Alicorn and raised by the Princess herself, it was as if her rough edges had found themselves sand papered.
Sunset still had pride, arrogance, and a bit of an superiority complex, but it had been greatly reduced. She even saw others as less of a bother than before, though Celestia would hesitate to say that she was a social butterfly.
Celestia didn't even have to realize she had spent a night with Sunset's previous father in this new reality. But.....
In anger, Celestia had rewrote time and space itself, and basically stolen Sunset for herself. At times her morals screamed at her to unretcon everything.
Of course....these times always seemed to happen just before Princess Sunset did something that made a maternal Celestia's heart soar higher than she had ever placed the sun, that horrible loneliness finally gone after hundreds of years.
Plus if she did de-retcon reality, she would just recreate the potential threat that was the old Sunset, and would make her childhood miserable.
Celestia just didn't have it in her to make her live that again.
She'd just have to live with her actions. After all, as long as she didn't do it again.....
Yeah, if she never did it again everything would be fine. Sunset was happier, a crisis was averted, and Celestia would never be alone again.
Everything was perfectly fine.
....
The crying of a young Filly had stopped Celestia's casual flight around Equestria's cloud regions.
Sunset had been begging her for some time again for a day to handle the sun, and Celestia had finally given in. She seemed to be doing a pretty good job, though she did think it was leaning a little to the left.
The crying, however, had made the Alicorn pause.
Landing in front of it's source, Celestia found a gangly looking yellow and pink filly crying to herself all alone. In the distance, Celestia could hear the distant laughter of young fliers at flight camp.
"What's troubling you little one?" Celestia asked the Pegasus gently, years of experience showing her how to talk to the little Pegasus.
The little pony looked up at her, with tears in her eyes, before stuttering something about not being able to fly and being pathetic.
Pathetic. Not a word a child should be using of themselves.....
Kneeling beside the little Filly, Celestia offered her a wing and let her vent it out to a understanding ear. The Princess didn't even know if the little pony had realized who she was yet.
And the more she heard, the more she felt like giving the Camp Staff a piece of her mind.
How could they let this sort of behavior slide!
....
She was then promptly reminded of how Darwinist Pegasi could be.
Being a weak flier, was not cause for 'encouraging strong-willed encouragement'! How could they be treat their children that way!
She had thought she had told them off centuries ago about that nonsense....or at least the part about abandoning weak fliers on the surface to be eaten by Timberwolves, Giant Worms, and Ursa Majors.
....How sad that was progress.
And to think that Fluttershy's parents had sent her to this.....this.......
Oh how she was so tempted to give them a piece of her mind. She could do a much better job of raising Fluttershy....
As the first thought came to her mind to do just that, Celestia immediately shook them away.
She was not going to retcon another couple's child to be hers.
Even if the couple was probably not worthy of having children.......
No, no, no.....she was not going to break reality again. She did it once already, and she could only use it to retcon parentage, not something more morally straight like madness a la Luna or Discord. She was not going to use it again.....
".....Your so nice....." the filly she now knew was named Fluttershy nuzzled into her flank subconsciously "Your the nicest anypony has every been to me, except maybe Rainbow Dash....."
Oh the.....
This was a special case. She would do it....that bit was too honest to be a exaggeration. If 2 hours of mothering was the nicest somepony had ever been to this filly, then leaving her as she was would be a crime.
In fact, it might even a crime to....
No Celestia, no. Friendship does not require Retcon-Adoption.
.....
A reality alteration later, and Celestia honestly was surprised about how Sunset took to being an older sister to Fluttershy.
Even if Sunset tried to pretend she wasn't nearly as kind to the Alicorn of Nature as she actually as. But then again, Celestia saw everything.
It was at this time that she took notice of a Purple Unicorn, a child prodigy named Twilight Sparkle.
Every bit of a genius as Sunset, but with a loving family and brother. For all that Sunset Shimmer had been arrogant, Twlight Sparkle was self-detriment. Where Sunset had rejected friendship as pointless, Twilight just seemed socially awkward more in a way that was a part of her.
With a little intervention Celestia had the Unicorn given a full scholarship to her special school for talented Unicorns, and intended to take her on as her personal student afterwards, and only that.
Twilight was not like Sunset and Fluttershy. Her parents and brother were loving individuals who could afford to keep Twilight happy and healthy, she would not take Twilight for herself. There was no reason to.
.....
....During a devastating drought and crop failure across Equestria caused by some idiot Earth Ponies who wanted to fermant revolution and social unrest for some damn reason, being able to be keep a foal healthy and happy was no longer so simple for Earth Pony farmers.
Especially Rock Farmers.
Waking along the side of the farming roads and noting suffering that she tried to alleviate where she could (Sun movement, soil enhancing, throwing cakes to needing families), she passed by a Rock Farm....and overheard some arguments.
"You wasteful little.....!" a Stallion's voice tore through the air as a tearful foals voice replied.
"But you said you weren't happy, that no one was. I was just trying to help....."
"With a damn party! Do you know how much of your time you wasted setting that damn thing up! How much of our time you wasted trying to get us to attend it! Do you want us to starve!?"
"No! I just wanted to make you smile again, like those photos Grandma showed me. She said she wished you'd smile more....."
"Smiles don't put food on your plate, Pinkamena Diane Pie!"
How heartless. A father was yelling at a foal for trying to make him happy, instead of working? What sort of meaningful work could a foal even do on a rock farm anyway.
Why, he didn't deserve......
No, no.....this was just an argument. It was not going to go anywhere. The Foal would cry, the father would feel bad, they'd forgive each other. She should just walk away....
"......You got a cutie mark, for partying! Go to your room young Mare, and no supper!"
"But father, I didn't eat anything yesterday. None of us did!"
"...Maybe you should have thought of that, before you wasted all your energy setting up a wasteful party" the father's voice was quiet, yet painful even from what little Celestia heard of it.
.....Oh buck it. If she didn't do this she was going to have nightmares for weeks, the family would be better off without an additional mouth to feed, which she could easily afford, and the Grand Galloping Borefest could use some fresh ideas.
And so, she teleported into the Rock Farm.
"What the...."
"Retcon!" Celestia shouted unnecessarily, pointing her horn at the tear-eyed pink foal.
......
And that's how caffeine was no longer allowed inside castle walls. The Soldiers had to move their coffee stores off site.
And in this new reality, with her guards distracted trying to keep up with the youngest Princess, Pinkie of Happiness, while the Princess of Knowledge kept trying to figure out how she seemed to sense things before they happened, Celestia decided to clear her ever darkening conscience by bringing some aid personally to a struggling Apple Farm.
She had heard that a young orphaned foal was being raised by a aged grandma and her two older siblings, and Celestia was determined to prove to herself she wouldn't just take the foal out of some impulsive desire to help.
All the foal food she brought with her would surely be enough to keep the foal alive......
That, however, turned out to be the easy part.
....
"Why, thank you your majesty" the green elder of the farm thanked the Princess, a bundle with red hair rocking a cradle next to her.
"Why of course" Celestia smiled, glad the compulsion to turn the baby into her own child was completely absent. "I hope that things improve for you soon, I also brought the latest farming equipment and fertilizers to try and help your crop yields".
The matriarch just sighed in a tired voice "Unless they can resurrect the dead, I'm afraid they won't be much use".
Ressurect the......
Celestia's eyes went wide with the realization of why there were so many leafless trees on the farm.
"I asked our well to do Manehatten kin if they could take in my grandaughters...but apparently food is too expensive for high society folk to help" the last line was said in a bitter sarcasm that Celestia knew the root of. High food costs had not stopped High Society in Manehatten, it just gave them an unnecessary excuse to avoid taxes. "Well, I suppose I've weathered worse...I can always eat another few trees. Though I do worry for my grandkids...."
That last one was said to herself, as Celestia's empathy came roaring to full throttle. She had to ensure this family could feed itself.....without making it so others starved in the process.
Damn it all.
'Well, if they only had three mouths to feed' a greedy voice told her.
Well......that was technically true. While she did know her spell wasn't supposed to be used on Infants (well, it probably shouldn't be used on anyone, but Celestia had been using it for only good reasons), this Granny Smith did have a Grandson and Grandaughter, and the Grandson probably would be able to work more......
But she probably should have a son at some point....
The granddaughter was younger though......
A moral dilemma promptly waged in the Alicorn's head for a good twenty minutes of whom was best for this farm to retcon from its very history.
In the end, the Alicorn of Agriculture Applejack managed to alleviate the drought with her honest tears of sadness saving many from starvation and hardship, and everyone lived happily ever after!
....
Several years passed, and Celestia liked to think she had gotten over her compulsions.
After all, she had 4 lovely daughters, and had not made Twilight Sparkle into one of them. Surely that meant she didn't have a problem, and that was good news!
She could do without being trapped in an underground tunnel filled with Diamond Dogs though.
It was.....not dangerous. It was more bothersome really.
ZAP!
They made annoying sounds when blasted, and kept coming at her. They also smelled.
"Hold it right there Princess!"
Stopping mid flight, the Princess landed and turned around to face the short, lead Diamond Dog "And why should I? You've imprisoned a sovereign leader, I could easily escape and send an army after you if I wasn't so concerned you'd grab somepony else to replace me in your prisons, which I have since destroyed".
"Not all" the lead dog barked.
Celestia's eyes snapped wide open when the dog stepped aside, revealing a white Unicorn filly locked in a cage, looking rather terrified. A diamond cutie mark adorned her flank.
"This little pony can find gems. Lots and lots of wonderful gems! Give us more like her, or else!"
"Or else what?" Celestia questioned as the Dog grinned nastily.
"Or we remove unnecessary parts of this little girl.....and don't try and blast me. If you do....." the cage surrounding the foal promptly sparked with electricity, startling the already frightened girl into hysterics "Well.....then bad things happen. Trust me 'Princess', you can't stop me".
"Oh yes I can" Celestia said, automatically going to a certain spell "I can make it so that you never got hold of this Foal in the first place".
After all, if her parents let her get taken by Diamond Dogs, they couldn't be good parents.
"What?"
"Retcon!"
.....
"Mommy!"
The crying voice of Fluttershy echoed her chambers late at night as she barged into her quarters and buried her tearful face into her flank. With a maternal smile, Celestia silently pressed what had upset her.
Did that big, bad bunny come back?
"Is it true? Is Rainbow Dash really going to die one day?"
Oh....She realized that? It took her and Luna decades to figure that out, and she doubted any her siblings, from Sunset to Rarity, Princess of the Earth had figured that out yet.
Celestia was torn between if that early awareness was good or bad. However.....
"Don't worry...." Celestia soothed the horrified Alicorn, even as the horrors of life engulfed her in an unexpected hurry "I can make sure that never happens....."
"Never ever?" Fluttershy sniffled as Celestia grinned at the thought of Fluttershy the Alicorn having the same friend as Fluttershy the Pegasus. Perhaps some friendships transcended lifetimes.....
And sometimes, friendship could become kinship.
.....
She had saved a foal's life, and ensured that her second eldest would always be happy. Sure, she'd have to once again rearrange the family tree, but all was well for her, and her now 6 daughters with Rainbow the Princess of the Sky......
"Oh Princess Celestia, I love you so much!" her student interrupted her thoughts after another study session "I love you so much, I wish I could stay with you forever!"
....
....
...
Well, she did just give her permission.....