i
Celestia awoke.
Again.
Over the course of her slumber, her coat had become drenched by freshly fallen snow promptly melted by the nearby fire, and it felt as though she were wearing a soggy rag on her back. She rose with a mighty and prehistoric yawn, and then shook vigorously in a futile attempt to dry herself off.
The moment she was on her hooves, she instantly regretted it. A night on the cold marble floor of a library had hardly done wonders for her sore limbs, and while her mind felt refreshed, her exhaustion was greater than ever.
She blinked as she adapted to the light of the sunless and moonless sky looming above her from the skylight overhead. Oddly, the sky was a dimly glowing greyish yellow, and the constellations that were normally etched across the night sky were nowhere to be seen.
As her reality focused and her mind caught up with her surroundings, a smile creased across her lips as realization sunk in.
She was no longer waking to brick walls and harsh synthetic lights gazing down upon her. The air no longer tasted like the inside of a hospital. There were no blaring alarms telling her that she was neglecting her one sole purpose.
If there would have been a mirror in the library, Celestia would have smiled at the mare looking back at her. Because she truly felt happy. Not the faux-happiness she plastered on her face to try to convince herself that she was anymore than a pathetic and purposeless relic, but instead a genuine, sly, slightly playful smile.
It did not take long for Celestia to realize that she had awoken much earlier than the sun, and indeed she hadn’t woken on her own accord at all. Instead, it was the distant muttering of Twilight Sparkle that had grasped her unconscious attention.
Creeping on the tips of her hooves so as not to give away her presence, Celestia creeped towards the source of the unicorn’s voice. She sounded upset about something, or perhaps towards somepony.
For a brief moment a flutter of fear coursed through Celestia. Had she been wrong in blindly trusting a mare she had just met?
“…of course, of course!” Twilight was saying. “Oh, it’s so obvious! I knew something was up!”
The more Celestia listened, the more it became clear to her that Twilight did not know that she was speaking aloud. Clearly, she was not used to having company, instead automatically reverting to a sort of eternally-alone mentality.
Celestia found Twilight in an office that in another age must have belonged to the librarian. The entranceway wall was a large window, through which Celestia had a clear view of the torchlit room within. The office had since been converted into what looked like Twilight’s private study, with several broken typewriters in a corner—and one functional one atop a desk—and plenty of bookshelves lining the window-wall. The floor was an ocean of paper, and nearly every surface of all three walls were covered with cork boards, dozens of newspaper clippings and numerical calculations pinned to them.
It didn’t seem like ‘organization’ was amongst Twilight Sparkle’s extensive vocabulary.
“...thirteen…thirteen hundred?!” Twilight shrilled to some question she had posed in her mind, ripping a clipping off a nearby cork board, chuckling, and pinning it back on another. “I knew it, I knew—”
She stopped abruptly and whipped around in shock as Celestia announced her presence with a gentle knock on the open door. “Good morning, Twilight.”
“Oh! Your Majesty!” she said in a panic. Evidently, she had forgotten upon waking that Celestia had come to her, perhaps passing it off as an odd dream in her hazy waking mind.
“Just Celestia will suffice, please,” the princess said. She cast a gaze backwards at the moon framed in the skylight. “Are you up extremely early, or am I rising atrociously late?”
“It’s… ah… it’s 3:30 AM,” Twilight replied, blushing sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I must’ve woken you up.”
“No matter. Think nothing of it. Although I’m quite curious what has you so frazzled.”
“Sorry. Was I talking aloud?” Twilight’s blush had increased to a fiery crimson, and she had taken to playing with her shaggy mane and analyzing the paper floor. “I just thought of something that seemed strange about Ponyville’s Energy Plant and decided to look into it.”
“At 3:30 in the morning,” Celestia deadpanned.
“Heh. Well, I guess I got a little excited.”
“Just a little,” Celestia said with a chuckle.
Finally taking her gaze from the floor and back up to Celestia, Twilight cleared her throat and did her best to compose herself before the princess.
“So… how do you feel?” she stuttered out.
“Like an elephant’s welcome mat,” Celestia grumbled. “Although the fire was quite nice. Thank you for letting me stay, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Well, I can’t exactly turn down a princess, right?” Twilight replied. She attempted a laugh, although the sound came out as more of an awkward avian squawk.
“I’m not a princess anymore,” Celestia pointed out, motioning at her baren skull as if to prove it. She had left her crown and regalia behind when she had fled, knowing they would do nothing but weigh her down during the crucial moments of her escape. Now, she would not be surprised if she saw the things being auctioned off to some rich noble.
As if the pain from her limbs had decided a migration was in order, Celestia grimaced as a sudden painful throb shot through her chest as well, reminding her that it had been several days since she had last eaten.
“I do not wish to be a further bother to you,” Celestia said, hating herself for sounding like some prideless beggar, especially to a mare like Twilight Sparkle who was practically living in unprivileged squalor herself. “But do you have… ah… anything to eat?”
“Uh…” Twilight began hunting frantically around her study, whispering a quiet expletive whilst doing so. “I think I made myself a bowl of instant noodles if you want those.”
Celestia said she did, although she had half a mind to reverse her decision when she took one bite of the cold and sludgy food. Nevertheless, she forced the rest of the bowl into her stomach and thanked Twilight Sparkle for offering it to her. Then, she made her way back to the smoldering ashes of the fire and laid back down, closing her eye in a futile attempt to return to sleep.
Even after several more apologies and her assurance that she would keep her thoughts silent, Celestia could hear Twilight working fervently for many hours towards the coming dawn. Celestia lapsed in and out of sleep, until the time finally came to raise the sun and she rose to her hooves proper.
Celestia could see Twilight peeking from her study as magic sprung to life from Celestia’s horn. Finding the sun’s tug through Twilight’s enchantments and the glass ceiling overhead, Celestia raised the sun into the smoggy skies. Equestria would soon be flooded in her sun’s light as it struggled to creep through the unnatural clouds.
The moment the sun was sent on its way and her magic had vanished once more, Twilight began making her way from Celestia’s peripheral as she cautiously approached the alicorn standing in the middle of the freshly lit library, the skylight directly above surrounding her in a circle of morning light.
“You really are her,” Twilight breathed.
Celestia would have given the mare a playful chuckle in response, but one look at her expression told her that it would have been a disrespectful response. Instead, Celestia nodded solemnly, trading her mischevious smile for a patient one. There was nothing comedic about Twilight’s reaction, and the more Celestia thought of the implications of her doubt, the more she felt incredibly thankful she had caught the lingering details in Twilight’s expression.
To her surprise, Twilight suddenly descended in a dignified bow, blushing considerably the whole while. Celestia blinked at the abrupt action, slowly trodding up to her, and then using one of her bony, almost skeletal wings to gently lift the unicorn’s head so that their eyes met. The unicorn shuddered from the contact, but obeyed all the same.
“Twilight. There is no need to bow. I’d much prefer to be your friend than your superior.”
“Fr…friend?” Twilight looked away. “Why would a princess ever want to be friends with a lunatic like me?”
“I am sorry you feel that way about yourself,” Celestia said, once more using her wing to bring Twilight’s head up from its shameful bow. “It is not true.”
“Yes it is,” Twilight replied, surprising Celestia with her sudden sharpness. “Wait until you see what everybody thinks of me.”
“I do not care what everybody thinks of you. In the short time I have known you, you have been nothing but a helpful and intelligent mare.”
Twilight sighed, neither confirming nor denying Celestia’s judgement. Instead, she brought her gaze back down to her hooves, still somewhat bent in a bowing position before Celestia.
“Twilight,” Celestia said again, her voice an odd blend of stern and calm. “Look at me.”
The unicorn obeyed in an instant.
“I need help. I am… pathetically alone, against the same world you have been fighting to expose the truth behind—”
“I’d hardly call what I do fighting—” Twilight interjected, but was silenced by Celestia’s raised hoof.
“Please don’t undermine what you do, Twilight. You’re trying to speak the truth in a world that denies it. And you’re doing so no matter what reputation it gains you. You are brave and you are doing what is right.”
“I'm just a nutcase journalist.”
“Stop it,” Celestia's response was stern. Despite their good intentions, her words were firm and cold, providing no indication that they were to be contradicted. “Again. I need your help. Can I count on your providing it?”
“Yes, of course,” Twilight looked a little shell-shocked by Celestia's sudden irritation, and her answer came as a panicked blurt. Instantly, Celestia felt guilty for scaring the poor mare, doing her best to quell her fright with a weary smile.
Twilight swallowed, composed herself, and spoke again. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
This time, it was Celestia's turn for a panicked fit of uncertainty, although she did so internally and without breaking her serene smile. Her answer to Twilight's query was a safe question instead of a proper response.
“Did you have any plans of going into town, today?”
“Uh… I guess I need to pick up some food.”
If all you have here is instant noodles, I would certainly think so, Celestia came close to saying aloud. Instead, she nodded. “Then I must request that you purchase me a pair of glasses while you are out,” Celestia said, scratching an ear sheepishly.
It was a simple request, but Twilight's eyes shot open wide in terror and uncertainty all the same.
“G…Glasses?” she repeated in a wavering shrill. “Do you need a specific type? Or size? Or frame? Do you have a preference on colour? Are they—”
“Yes, no, no, no, and no,” Celestia replied. “Whatever you deem fit. You are the one doing a favour for me, and I am in no position to judge the means by which you do so. Truly, I would be happy to accompany you, but I am not quite ready to… ah…”
“Blow your cover?”
“Yes, indeed,” Celestia nodded. It wasn’t her first choice of words, but it suited the situation all the same.
“So… glasses. Alright. But what are you planning on doing about… uh, Equestria?”
“I think it would be better if we handled this one step at a time,” Celestia's reply was spoken with practiced calm, even if it was a foil for the truth that she wasn't ready to tell Twilight.
For Celestia truly did not know what she was going to do about Equestria.
ii
Glasses.
It was a thought that needed repeating in Twilight’s mind as the situation fully stated its absurdity to her.
Glasses for Princess Celestia.
She cast a glance at the frames she had chosen as she tiptoed back into the marketplace. The oddity of the conversation was still echoing in the shaking unicorn’s mind as she exited the shop and returned to the cobblestone streets outside.
“Do you have an appointment?” The cheerful mare had asked.
“N…no. I need a pair of eyeglasses.”
“Ah. You’re picking up a prescription?”
“No,” she’d said again, starting to blush, scratching her mane awkwardly. “I just need glasses.”
The mare had simply stared, and Twilight felt her face reddening in an embarrassed blush.
“They’re not for me,” she’d offered pathetically. “They’re for a… a friend.”
Friend.
It was almost enough to bring a smile to Twilight’s face as she began putting as much distance between herself and the optometrist as she could—it was yet another place in Old Canterlot that she could never show her face in, not after embarrassing herself once already.
Friend. Not only was it an absurd phrase to escape the lips of a reclusive loner conspiracy journalist living in a condemned library, but it felt strange to use it as a lie to refer to the Princess of the Sun.
Although, the more Twilight connected those points together, the more it became clear that weirdness was more or less synonymous with the past few hours of her life.
The Princess of the Sun was living in her library.
For more than ten years, she and the rest of Equestria had assumed that Princess Celestia was dead. She even had a memorial in the Everfree to prove it, and it was treated largely as a tourist exhibition in which unresearched details of Celestia’s life were presented by boisterous couriers. Twilight herself had been kicked out of the exhibition for calling the courier a “brainwashed liar” and presenting blatantly contradictory information that proved him as such.
In only a decade, Princess Celestia had become somewhat of a notorious legend. Some admired her, others despised her autonomous rule and what surely must have been false kindness.
Twilight found herself somewhere between the two. She admired the princess ever since she had seen her as a filly at the Summer Sun Celebration, and yet she found herself frustrated by what Celestia had left behind her when she had passed; an Equestria doomed to a slow death, after being spared from so many other quick ends.
But now, Princess Celestia was back. And living in Twilight’s library.
And she had just purchased groceries and glasses for her.
Twilight came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the marketplace. She was aware of pony’s sideways glances in her direction, she could only imagine what remarks they were making amongst themselves about her. But for once, Twilight’s mind was elsewhere, and there was a different source for the fear fluttering wildly in her stomach.
Her eyes blinked wildly, darting between sights every time they opened again. She looked in the direction of the library, in the direction of her bursting saddlebags… and in the direction of the gates out of Old Canterlot.
Twilight was hardly content with herself. She looked to her hooves whenever confronted with a mirror, she knew better than to speak to any stranger without having to, for down that route only lay embarrassment. Yet as much as Twilight did not like the mare she was, the life she had built was at least something she was somewhat happy with. She enjoyed writing and reading, and her hatred towards Flim and Flam’s infernal corporation was at least somewhat quelled by the words her clacking typewriter violently transcribed.
At the very least, Twilight could rest her head at day’s end knowing that, despite whatever she and Equestria thought of her life, she was not complacent in Equestria’s gradual end. She was not a simple mare in the masses, although that hardly made her a hero.
But now, Celestia had come out of nowhere and asked her to be just that.
And she had said yes.
Every glance in the library’s direction intensified the fear in her stomach, and every glance in the direction of the gate out of Canterlot sent an itching into her hooves that were begging for action.
“She doesn’t need me,” Twilight breathed, uncaring of who heard her talking to herself. “She’ll be fine. And I didn’t ask for her to show up anyways. I don’t owe her anything.”
She took a step forwards. Then, with thoughts of the alicorn waiting for her back home, she took another, and another, until her walk had sped to a trot and then a canter, as she weaved her way in between the staring crowds and beggars with outstretched hooves, tearing her way towards whatever direction took her as far from Celestia as possible. She tripped once, picked up her fallen saddlebags, and kept on running, doing her best to disguise her sudden embarrassed blush.
Her fear had only just begun dripping into determination when she made the terrible mistake of glancing behind her.
The sight that greeted her had always been there, yet she skidded to her hooves all the same as she took in the towering smokestacks killing the skies above. She watched for all of a moment, and then just as some beggar made his way towards her warily, she turned tail and tore back up the path she had just come from, hating herself the whole while.
Hero? Not her. But Celestia, perhaps.
She had allowed too many hypothetical conversations with the Princess of the Sun to play out in her mind to turn her back to the real mare, especially when that mare had outstretched her hoof to Twilight for help.
iii
Twilight would have liked to take her time returning to the library, but the streets of Old Canterlot were hardly a place she felt comfortable wandering aimlessly about. As she usually did, Twilight hurried back to her refuge of solitude at a decently brisk pace.
Celestia was nowhere to be seen when she entered the library. For a brief moment, Twilight felt a flurry of relief—perhaps the princess had simply left on her own. While Twilight was slightly irritated that she had wasted her dwindling bits on a pair of eyeglasses for her, she would have been happy if it were the case anyways.
But her enchantments said otherwise; a subtle tickling sensation briefly flared in her horn to let her know that she was not alone in the library. Heaving a sigh, Twilight unclasped her saddlebags and let them hit the floor, and then started up the metal spiral staircase towards the second-floor of the three-story library.
She found Celestia humming to herself in some dark corner by a musty, uncleaned window, reading a plain looking hardcover book by the light of her horn. Twilight had hardly made an effort to keep her presence hidden, but the moment she stepped into Celestia’s line of sight the alicorn started a little all the same.
“Oh my.” Celestia let the book fall a bit in her magic. “Hello, Twilight. That was quick. Is everything alright?”
Twilight’s mind was reeling. Alright? Did Celestia know that she had tried to flee? It was likely, she was nothing if not an enigmatic and wise mare, able to extract entire truths through a glint of fear in a pony’s eyes.
Surely she would be furious.
Trapped in a corner, Twilight simply gulped and nodded.
“Are you quite sure?” Celestia rose an eyebrow. Her book dropped completely. She rose to her hooves and began advancing closer, her tall form looming above.
“You look troubled about something.”
“I’m… I’m fine,” Twilight spurted out, shivering in Celestia’s shadow. “I found… I got your glasses.”
Celestia frowned a little, as if she were somewhat disappointed by something Twilight had said in her brief and stuttering speech. The frown was a mere fleeting flicker, one that she was quick to twist into a kind smile.
“I greatly appreciate it, Twilight Sparkle. I will pay you for them the moment I have bits in order to do so.”
For a moment, Twilight was confused by Celestia’s statement. Have bits? Why would Princess Celestia be short of bits?
An entire morning of frantic thought and considering her present circumstances, and Twilight still had not fully reconciled history’s renditions of Celestia with the alicorn before her. The truth was difficult to fully fathom; that there were three variations of the solar princess that she would have to sift through. There was the variation Flim and Flam preached about, there was the variation that the history books protested in response, and then there was the weak pony before her now. And oddly, the strangest and most unlikely one of all was the only one that was true to her now.
“Twilight?” Celestia’s voice jerked her back to attention.
“Yes, Your Majesty!” Twilight shrilled, realizing she’d been staring rudely at Princess Celestia. "Sorry, Your Majesty!”
“It’s… quite alright,” Celestia said after a pregnant pause. The same disappointed frown from earlier had returned, but now Celestia was making no move to disguise it. Instead, she sadly brushed past Twilight and started back down the steps.
Twilight stood staring straight ahead for several moments, simply listening to the sound of Celestia’s hooves ringing against the metal staircase. The princess had left her stack of books on the floor, and Twilight warily crept forwards to examine them closer.
She found history books, both old and new, as though Celestia had been comparing them, as well as gleaning information that she had missed in her years cut off from Equestria. There were also accounts of the last years of her life, most of which were hardly flattering and hardly factual.
Also amongst the books was what looked like some sort of grimoire, the likes of which a pony would imagine seeing in some shady curio shop. What business Celestia had with a book like that, Twilight could only imagine.
When Twilight finally followed Celestia's path back to the first floor, she found the princess already rifling through her discarded saddlebags, her new horn-rimmed glasses already on her snout. To Twilight's horror, a small crack had formed on one of the lenses of the glasses, undoubtedly from when she had tripped and fallen to the cobblestone streets. And yet if Celestia had noticed, she did not so much as mention it nor telegraph her irritation.
She did, however, glance up when Twilight approached. Twilight tensed a little, but Celestia's gaze was merely enough to acknowledge her, and she quickly returned her attention to the groceries Twilight had purchased. Evidently, she was fascinated by some of the products, for she was taking time to analyze every single one.
“Memories of Butter,” Celestia read aloud, withdrawing a container from the saddlebag. “Now that’s just depressing.”
“It's margarine,” Twilight explained, drooping an ear and blushing. “Butter is expensive.”
“Interesting,” Celestia breathed as she withdrew a bundle of apples, apparently not hearing Twilight. “These are the most perfect looking apples that I believe I have ever seen. And yet it is the middle of January.”
Twilight flared a nostril smugly and nodded. “Yeah. They load them with all kinds of stuff so they grow better and don't go bad.”
“Interesting,” Celestia mused again, more to herself than to Twilight. “I would like to speak with an apple farmer, now. I wonder if Granny Smith still owns her plot by Ponyville.”
Twilight said nothing in response. Celestia might have well have been speaking a different language, with her abrupt mentions of places Twilight had never visited and ponies she had never met. At best, all she could do was stand back and offer her brief explanations that she was not even quite sure Celestia was listening to or cared about.
As if reading Twilight's demoralized thoughts, Celestia next spoke with an added level of volume and clear direction.
“What is this object?”
“That… is a film cartridge.”
“I… do not understand,” Celestia admitted.
“It's for my video camera,” Twilight explained. Her explanation earned only another blank stare from Celestia, so she elaborated further. “It's like a picture camera, but it takes video and sound instead of just still images.”
“Takes video…” Celestia repeated, the word sounding strange coming from her tongue. “And… does what with it?”
“…what?” Twilight blinked. “No, it doesn't take… I mean, it… records video—”
She broke off when Celestia started laughing.
“I understand that, Twilight. I'm asking for what purpose you use such a device. We had moving pictures a decade ago, you know.”
Twilight was blushing in an instant. Even if Celestia did not seem offended, Twilight had blatantly treated her like a fool, even if it had been an accident on her part.
“Sorry. It's… ah… helpful for journalism,” she explained sheepishly. “Gives me a sort of reference that I can come back to.”
“Interesting,” Celestia said for the third time. “I never would have imagined such a device would have become so universally owned.”
“They really aren't,” Twilight said. “I kinda spent a mini fortune on mine. But it's been useful.”
Celestia simply gave an enigmatic nod. It looked to Twilight as though she was in the middle of some elaborate scheme. It was an expression that looked foreign on the princess' face, but the look did not last for long, disappearing with a single blink as Celestia once more returned her focus to Twilight.
“Thank you for the glasses, Twilight Sparkle," she said, rising to her hooves once again. "I believe I will go continue my reading now that I can actually make out the words."
Twilight nodded, watching silently as Celestia began making her way back up the spiral staircase and disappearing from view.
Then, she let out a long exhale of relief now that she was once again alone.
iv
Celestia stood vigilant as she watched over Equestria sprawled around her. A staircase on the third floor had led her to the roof of the library, and the feeling of cool air had been too beautiful to resist after spending an entire day surrounded by mouldy books. Most of Equestria had fallen asleep anyways, partly thanks to her lowering the sun a full three hours earlier than she should have.
She sat like a gargoyle on the roof of the library, both wings outstretched to catch the cool breeze. A light drizzling rain was falling, as it so often did in the city in the clouds, and she did her best not to consider how it was only late January.
The streets of Canterlot below her were familiar, but deserted, and so they did not keep her attention for very long.
What did grasp her attention was the other city that she could see poking out from beyond the mountain clouds. Tall buildings soared into the grey and brooding sky, and a small spiderweb network of lights that were not natural gleamed up at her like the starry sky had been inverted and sprawled across the earth.
Running through Celestia’s head were a million phrases that she was terrified to consider would soon be heard all across Equestria. After all, the very first impression she made on her return would be the one that clung to her the longest.
Hello, Equestria. It is I, Your Princess of the—
Grimacing and shaking her head, Celestia dismissed the thought before it was allowed to fully form. No way she was going to announce herself as “theirs.” According to the history books, she’d been doing that with delusions of entitlement concealed by a mask of kindness, like some exaggerated tyrant in a moving picture.
Equestria had moved beyond the apparently insane notion that she genuinely cared about her subjects and wished only the best for them, without having any personal ulterior motives.
Hello, Equestria! I realize that there have been some reports concerning my death. I assure you that those are… largely fictitious.
She grinned at that, although it felt as though it was something she was stealing from somepony else.
Letting that thought fade, too, Celestia looked aimlessly forwards in the direction of what she presumed was New Canterlot—she had yet to learn if that was its actual name.
Her thoughts were abruptly and rudely interrupted by another spike of pain in her abdomen, as though she had been stabbed by a dagger dipped in alcohol.
There it was again. It had been bothering her since the forest. The sunlight had been nice, but Celestia knew better than to think all its benefits would be pleasant to take in.
She also knew better than to assume that all its heat and warmth would be providing her would be beneficial.
A glance upwards confirmed what she had presumed, and she smiled at the barren and featureless full moon peeking up at her through a gap in the clouds overhead.
“I know, Luna,” Celestia sighed, grimacing again as another dagger-like-pain reared its ferocious teeth. “Do what you feel is necessary. I deserve it, after all.”
She removed her glasses and rubbed the sleep from her eye, and then delighting in the blurred pattern the city coupled with her pathetic eyesight formed, she did not immediately return them to her snout.
She’d noticed one of the lenses had been shattered earlier, but Twilight’s attitude hardly allowed her to feel comfortable pointing it out even as a joking remark.
The poor mare was terrified of her.
There was no discernible reason for it, and Celestia knew Twilight meant no harm. She was a princess (in principle, anyways) and Twilight’s own self-image was hardly a flattering one. To the young unicorn, Celestia was as unapproachable as the stars or the moon.
With this thought dancing in her mind as her unfocused eye watched the patterned light below, it was with a violent start that she responded to a sudden rustling behind her.
“Sorry!” Twilight Sparkle squeaked, cowering back down the stairwell a ways as Celestia jumped in surprise. “I didn’t mean to startle you!”
“Twilight,” Celestia sighed, folding her wings and turning to face her. No sense leaving her thoughts unexpressed now. “I do wish you would realize that I mean no harm towards you.”
“I… I know that…”
“Yet you act terrified of me. I understand why, but I assure you that you have no need to be,” Celestia said softly. She shuffled a little, outstretched her left wing, and gave her an inviting smile. “Why don’t you come sit next to me, Twilight? I would very much like somepony to keep me company up here.”
“S…sure,” Twilight managed. She navigated her way towards Celestia’s opposite wing still folded against her fur, and sat a solid three feet beside the solar princess.
“I read some of your articles,” Celestia said, staring forwards at the twinkling lights of New Canterlot. “You have a very good grasp of words, Twilight Sparkle.”
“Me? Nah. I just… write what comes to my mind.”
“Well, what comes to your mind is good,” Celestia replied. Internally, she noted with frustration that Twilight Sparkle was almost impossible to compliment. The poor mare saw fit to disprove every positive virtue Celestia presented.
“I was actually considering how I should announce my return,” Celestia said. “And I thought perhaps you could assist me.”
“But… you’re Princess Celestia! Surely that sort of thing comes naturally to you!”
“Oh, it did, but keep in mind I used to have an entire country at my back and ponies who loved me as much as I loved them. Now, I only have you.”
“So, nothing,” Twilight translated grimly.
“So an intelligent young mare with plenty of promise,” Celestia narrowed her eye and trained her stern glare at Twilight. The unicorn blushed and looked down at the deserted streets of Canterlot below.
“What about using the radio?” Twilight’s idea was expressed as a whispered suggestion towards the empty alley beneath.
Celestia was silent for a while. Yet another new word. She was growing quite tired of having to relearn the world like a feeble filly, and she felt guilty that Twilight could not speak for more than a few sentences without having to offer up some dictionary definition.
“What is a radio?”
“Right, sorry,” Twilight smacked her face with a hoof. “The radio is… a means of sending information, sort of. It sends special waves from towers, and ponies with the right equipment can pick up those waves and listen to somepony from all the way across Equestria.”
“I see. And they are common?”
“Most ponies have radios in their houses. I can show you mine later, if you like.”
“I would be very fascinated to see it,” Celestia nodded feverishly. “And so, I could communicate my return with my own voice, for all of Equestria to hear?”
“In principle, yeah.”
Celestia grinned and nodded again. “That is a wonderful idea! Although it is… rather ironic.”
“How so?”
“Princess Celestia, the Mother of Arcane Traditionalism, announcing her return on the newest technology of the future?”
To Celestia’s delight, the remark earned a placid chuckle from Twilight. “I guess it would be weird. Plus we’d have to find a station willing to host you.”
“We will figure it out in due time,” Celestia waved a hoof. “I have some matters to attend to before I announce my return anyways.”
“Oh?”
“You seem to be a very learned pony, so tell me, Twilight Sparkle… do you know what the Sunstone is?”
Twilight’s expression grew blank.
“Presumably not,” Celestia said. “No matter, I suppose it is obscure ancient history. The Sunstone is a magical gem that was… rather helpful when I first began raising the sun.”
“Began?” Twilight repeated. “You mean after Discord?”
“Actually, during Discord’s rule,” Celestia corrected. “I ascended as a filly. I had wings and a horn before a cutie mark.”
“Really?!”
“Most ponies don’t know that, hmm?” Celestia smiled. “Yes. I had other plans, actually. Originally, I just wanted to flee Equestria. But I got swept away with a group of ponies who wished to usurp Discord’s chaotic rule.”
“I didn’t know… I always just assumed you and your sister were the only…”
The rest of Twilight’s sentence resounded as if it were coming from a tunnel. Celestia felt like her whole world was caving in.
She became aware of Twilight breaking off, and saw her lean forwards with a look of concern. Celestia kept her gaze locked straight forwards and her expression stoic, but she knew that even with her lips forming the same weak smile that Twilight would have seen in her every depiction and from every glance at her in the flesh, Celestia could not hide the distant melancholy that had crept into her eye.
With a blink, the look was banished.
Where had she been?
She and Luna had been the only ponies against Discord. Right.
When Celestia next spoke, her voice was as firm, strong, and kind as ever.
“Most ponies assume that, Twilight,” Celestia cleared her throat and continued her recount as if nothing had happened. “But the fact of the matter is I most certainly had help. The Sunstone is an example of such help. It is an enchanted gemstone that, true to its name, could bridge the gap between a pony and the very sun itself, provided the pony wielding it had the particular talent.”
Celestia motioned to her cutie mark with a wing.
“Naturally, the arrogant young mare with the sun on her flank seemed like the right pick. While several ponies could grasp the sun with the stone, they damn near killed themselves in the process. And that was when Discord wished to humour them with the very opportunity.”
“But… but you?”
“Oh, I could raise and lower the sun, but hardly with ease. Better than most ponies, but hardly at a level that could be called impressive,” Celestia said, grimacing from some gruelling magical experience many centuries prior. “But then, when Discord tried to grasp the sun at the same time as I tried to raise it… I had the wild idea of fighting back. Tug of war, with the sun, in essence.”
“And you won?!”
“To immense surprise on my part, yes. I did,” Celestia said. “Thanks to the Sunstone, largely.”
“So wait… the… the Sunstone is still around?!”
“Of course it is. I kept it as a contingency plan.”
Twilight looked bewildered. “Against?”
“Myself,” Celestia replied grimly, shuffling from one seating position into another. “I did not know what my future entailed. All I knew was that I did not want Equestria to suffer under a sun that some arrogant old mad mare with a sun on her flank refused to lower.”
“Wow,” Twilight breathed. “Princess Celestia… does anypony know about this? How can they even call you a tyrant when you’ve done things like that?!”
“Because it’s a rather pathetic indicator that I’m not,” Celestia replied. “But to answer your question directly, yes, anypony with the drive to find out could learn about the Sunstone from any history book or wise old unicorn.”
“Weren’t you afraid ponies would… uh… overthrow you?”
“A little,” Celestia admitted. “But it happened even without the Sunstone.”
Neither mare spoke for some time. Off in the distance Celestia heard a trash can fall as if knocked over by some pestersome animal, and two beacons of light joined the other constellations as some spotlight was lit in New Canterlot, weaving patterns into the late January sky.
Celestia grimaced as another throb cut through her abdomen. The moon was poking out from the clouds again. Thankfully, Twilight’s attention was elsewhere, and she did not notice Celestia’s sudden painful scowl. Princess Celestia breathed a sigh of relief and took in a heavy sip of air to fill the impossible gap in her insides.
“That all being said,” Celestia confessed. “I admit I want the Sunstone back.”
Twilight looked up to Celestia in surprise. Celestia smiled sheepishly in response.
“Contingency plan,” Celestia said cryptically, returning her glasses to her snout and rising to her hooves. The moon was back behind the clouds, but when she glanced upwards she saw that they were gradually dissipating to make way for unsullied sky.
Not wanting to be on the roof when it happened, Celestia made her way back towards the stairs and descended into the library.