Queen Celestia rolled around in her bed that was too big for her alone, whispering in her unsteady sleep. Sweat stood on her forehead, and her eyes twitched behind their closed lids. At day, she was invulnerable, the ruler over all of Equestria. But as soon as she lay down to rest she entered a realm that she had no power over.
An abandoned road lay before her, its edge overgrown by hostile black roots that were covered with thorns. A rustle went through them as she passed by, and they started winding like snakes, reaching after her, trying to grasp her. She started to run, head ducked, ears flattened.
She had been here before. The road was endless, and eventually, the roots would get her. She knew that. But she kept running still.
A cold and bitter wind blew into her face, and with it came clouds, much wilder than the ones in Equestria, which blackened the sky. Celestia could barely see a thing. Not that it would make a difference; her fate had been sealed with her coronation. The Oracle had warned her that there would be no turning back, and she had accepted it. At first she had carried her burden, thinking that she was prepared for it. But nothing could prepare her for the weight of centuries, her friends dying, her family, one after another. And now she was all alone.
Tears tickled on her cheeks, and she slowed down. There was no use in going forward. She couldn’t outrun eternity.
But as she turned around, the evil plants were gone, and she found herself on a clearing. The clouds pulled back, revealing the full moon. Looking around in wonder, she saw something lurking in the shadows, a figure darker than the night surrounding it.
Celestia cleared her dry throat. “H-Hello?”
A pair of eyes flashed up before her, soft eyes, their gaze as gentle as the light of the moon.
“Who are you?” Celestia asked.
“All alone,” the figure just said.
“Yes, me too.”
Queen Celestia sat down. She heard the shadow moving closer. A weight leaned against her side as it sat down next to her.
“You’re like me, aren’t you? Like a sister.” She closed her eyes. “Aren’t you?”
“Sister,” the shadow repeated. “I can be your sister. I can be your sister if you want to.”
Celestia nodded. “Please. Please stay with me.”
“I will stay with you,” her sister said.
Twilight gasped as she saw the large square stone appear between the trees, glowing in the light that seeped through the canopy of leaves like a spotlight. She sprinted forwards, her wings clenched fast to her body as she squeezed through the underbrush.
“The map was right!” she squeaked, stopping in front of the grave. It was a plain square plate, about six feet wide, that was let into the ground. Her gaze skipped over the runes that were engraved in it, leaving no doubt about the identity of the pony buried here.
“Neat,” Rainbow Dash said, following up behind her.
“Neat? This is more than just neat, Rainbow. This might be the most important archeological find of this century, or probably this millennium!”
Rainbow appeared next to her, adjusting her hat. It looked like Daring Do’s, matching the rest of her clothes, from the leather vest to the very buckle of the belt. Twilight had the growing suspicion that her friend only accompanied her on this expedition to show off her cosplay.
“Like I said,” Rainbow insisted, “neat. Now, shouldn’t we start digging up the treasures or something?”
Ignoring her, Twilight brushed her hoof over the smooth surface of the stone. It was free from moss and lichens, probably due to some sort of preservation spell – after all, the greatest magician in unicorn history was buried here. She almost felt bad at the thought of opening it. But Twilight was certain that Star Swirl would understand – he had been a pony of science, after all. She sent out a magical impulse to search for traps, but all she could detect was a deflective field, keeping the tomb safe from the forces of time and weather, spells, and, as she had already observed, wild plant growth.
She stepped back and grabbed the stone plate with her magic. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead under the weight of the tombstone, which moved to the side with a rumbling noise.
The two ponies remained quiet as they stepped forwards, careful, as if the dead magician would come back to life at a wrong move. An earthy smell rose up to their noses. The grave lay in front of them now, mere inches from their hooves, staring at them with blackness.
Twilight lit up her horn, casting a cone of light down the hole. The stone walls went straight down, forming a cubical shape. On the bottom, where she expected a coffin, stood a chair, and in the chair –
Twilight’s eyes grew wide. The unicorn sitting there was without a doubt Star Swirl the Bearded, his hooves, speckled with the marks of his age, folded in his lap. His eyes were open and stared straight forward, as if he was brooding over a particularly challenging magic problem and had stopped moving while he was trying to solve it.
Twilight tried to calm herself down, remembering the preservation spell. Still, her heart raced as if Star Swirl’s corpse was climbing out of the grave and chasing after her. This was the founder of Spacetime Dynamics! The first pony to ever solve the Eponean Enigma, the inventor of the Star Swirl Paradox, and intellectual father of magical science as a whole! How could she not flip out?
“What’s –” Rainbow Dash began, bending forwards to look down and see what she was staring at. “Eek!” She jumped back, trying to hide behind Twilight, which made her stumble forwards and trip.
Twilight scratched her wings against the stone walls as she flapped them, trying to recover, but it didn’t help. She crashed into the chair, knocking the dead body of her idol off. For a corpse, Star Swirl was in surprisingly good shape, she though. He wasn’t even stiff – his body must have been put under the spell as soon as the last breath had left him.
Twilight untangled his cold limbs from her own and got up, holding in a curse as a stinging pain bolted through her forehead. She lit up her horn again. There he lay, his limbs stretched out in an unnatural angle, like a hyper-realistic puppet.
“Twilight!” she heard Rainbow Dash shout in horror.
“I’m fine. Well, more or less.” She rubbed a hoof against her pounding head. She must have hit it during her crash landing.
Her magical light fell onto the chair. It was made out of heavy ash wood and as simplistic as the rest of the tomb. The only irregularity was a curved line in the seat. Suspicious. Holding her breath, Twilight reached out with a hoof and pressed it into the curve, which gently gave in to the touch, making the top of the seat spring open.
“I think I found something interesting,” Twilight called up to Rainbow Dash. “A sort of secret compartment.”
“That’s awesome! What’s in it? Gold, jewels? Some o.p. magic thingy?”
Twilight looked into the flat box that was hidden in the seat, and a grin spread on her face, as wide as if the Summer Sun Celebration had been moved to the date of her birthday.
“Better than that,” she answered. “It’s a book.”
A knock on her door made Princess Luna look up from the telescope lens that she was cleaning. She carefully set it down on a stack of paper towels. “Yes?”
Her door opened, and she was not surprised to see her sister. Celestia often stopped by at her room after she was done in court.
“How are you doing, little sister?” Celestia asked, coming over to give her a hug.
“Good,” Luna replied. “The preparations for the meteor shower are progressing adequately. I wanted to ask if you would like to watch it with me.”
Celestia beamed. “Absolutely.”
Twilight paced through the corridors of Canterlot Castle, which were like a second home to her. The guards securing the restricted section stepped back and saluted as she passed them.
Her former mentor already awaited Twilight in her study, looking up from a book with stoical patience as she burst through the door.
“I-I’m sorry, Princess,” Twilight stuttered, realizing that she hadn’t even bothered with knocking. “I didn’t meant to interrupt.“
“It’s quite alright, Twilight. I received your message through Spike and, frankly, I am anxious to hear what it is that you came flying all the way from Ponyville to talk about.”
Twilight hesitated. Thinking about it now, it felt a little silly. “You see, I found Star Swirl’s grave, and –”
Princess Celestia jumped up in alarm. “You did?”
“It’s in the Everfree Forest. I found the location on an old map.”
“That is an unforeseen discovery indeed. What did you find?”
“Him, first of all. I had to leave the body, but I’m certain that a lot of scientists will have interest in it once we send a team. Aside from that there’s only one thing, and that is the reason why I’m here. I found his diary, and … Why did he refer to you as Queen Celestia?”
Celestia laughed. “Oh, did he write that? It was a pet name he had for me. I have told you before that we were good friends, haven’t I?”
“That’s what I always thought. But, judging from what I’ve read, he didn’t seem to like you at all. And …” She hesitated for a moment as the thought sprung to her mind. “And if you were friends, how come you never knew the location of his grave?”
Celestia let out a deep sigh, rubbing her temples as she got up. She walked to the window, looking down at the big willow tree in her private garden.
“Every friendship has its highs and lows, Twilight. And Star Swirl, as brilliant of a pony as he was, could be difficult to deal with. At some point, he started to develop certain views that troubled me, and even though I didn’t want to lose him, I felt as if I had no choice but to turn away from him. I never told anypony about that period of his life, hoping to preserve the many amazing things that are his legacy.”
“I don’t know,” Twilight said, still not satisfied. “What he writes feels strange to me.”
Celestia turned her head back at her, and Twilight instantly regretted her lack of tact as she saw her face. Bringing this up had obviously torn open old wounds.
But Celestia didn’t seem to hold it against her. “Why don’t we read through it together?” she proposed. “Where is the book now?”
“Oh, I left it with Spike at my parents’ house. Do you want me to get it?”
“Please. It shall be an interesting experience to relive the whole conflict through his eyes.”
One flight through the streets of Canterlot later, she arrived back at her parents’ home. Even after she had moved out, her old room had always been an island of homeyness during her frequent visits. The tradition had faded away as she had gotten busier with both studying and maintaining her new friendships, but to this day, it was still always there for her to return to.
The first thing that Twilight noticed as she entered her room was the window, which stood wide open. That was odd. Maybe Spike wanted to let some fresh air in?
“Spike?”
No answer. The wind brushed cold over Twilight’s back, so she went over to the window and closed it. It was then that her gaze fell behind her bed and onto the form that was lying on the floor.
“Spike! Are you sleeping?” Twilight’s voice adopted a slightly higher pitch than usual. She prodded the baby dragon’s shoulder, which made him groan and turn around. He opened his eyes and stared at Twilight for a second before jumping up on his feet.
“Twilight! I don’t know what happened, I just … I was downstairs when I heard a noise from your room, so I went to check what it was. I think something hit me in the head when I came in.”
“Why?” Twilight asked. “Why would anyone do that?”
“I don’t know Twilight. Maybe they couldn’t handle my handsomeness?”
Twilight frowned, but she still ruffled through Spike’s scales.
He winced. “Ow! My head!”
“This is a serious issue. What could anypony want in my room? There’s nothing valuable here. Except –“ She gasped and stared at the empty spot on her bed. “Star Swirl’s diary!”
Queen Celestia stood beneath the branches of an old willow tree and looked up to the moon. She came here every night in her dreams, to wait for the darkness around her to move and twitch and condense into the form of a pony. Today was no different.
“My sister!” Celestia shouted out with joy, greeting the shadowy mare with a tight embrace. Even though her contours were still fuzzy, Celestia could feel her warmth against her chest.
The pony smiled at her with her gentle eyes. “Welcome back, sister.”
Twilight was getting desperate. She had tried every spell, every trick she knew, but she still couldn’t seem find out what happened to the diary. But she had to. The Princess had told her to bring it to her. This called for extreme measures.
“Extreme measures” yawned as he materialized on her bed, holding in his claws what looked like an unfinished sweater that he was knitting – except that it was too long, even for him, and had no legholes.
“Princess Twilight,” Discord said with a satirically devote bow, which he somehow managed to do despite his lying position. “How may my humble appearance assist you? I am sure that there must be an urgent reason if you summon me from my busy, busy life.”
Twilight tried to ignore the knitting needles, which hopped off into the room. “I’m missing a book.”
“And you are blaming me? Now, what kind of friend do you think I am?”
“I’m not blaming you, Discord, I – wait, did you steal it?”
A tiny halo popped up above of his head. “Have I ever done wrong?”
“I won’t answer that. But actually, I called you to ask for help.”
Discord sat up. “Well, if you are so utterly overchallenged with the situation, I suppose that, as your friend, I could spare some of my valuable time to help you out with your little problem. Which book did you say that was again?”
The pair of knitting needles came back from beneath the bed, chasing each other around Twilight’s legs. She waved a hoof to chase them away. “Star Swirl’s diary.”
Discord fell to the ground as the bed disappeared beneath him. “Really? Which mysterious circumstances.”
“I wouldn’t ask you of all – I mean, I wouldn’t disturb your time if I saw another way to find out what happened.”
“In that case, I think I will go and set the hounds on it.” A pink poodle jumped out from behind his antler and barked. “Anything else?”
“Just one thing. Did you know Star Swirl the Bearded?”
“Now, we weren’t buddies, mostly because he was so busy being Celestia’s pet, but, other than that? Who didn’t?”
Twilight’s ears perked up. “Her pet?”
“Her bestie, her homecolt, her stall pal, whatever it is you ponies say.”
“But they weren’t always friends, were they? At some point, they developed differences.”
“Oh, please. She held his hoof as he died. Didn’t you read that in the books?”
Twilight’s face went blank. Was that so? But Celestia wouldn’t just lie to her, would she? With all the improvements that he had made, Twilight was still hesitant to trust Discord, and Star Swirl’s diary was the best proof that he was wrong.
Then again, the history books were on his side. Being somepony who turned to a book when in doubt, this put Twilight in a serious quandary.
“Any more interrogations, or can I go?” Discord asked.
“Good luck. And thank you.”
He waved it off, snipping his talon to call the knitting needles back to him. Taking the poodle over one arm and the weird sweater over the other, he disappeared.
It took Twilight a moment to realize that her bed was still missing.
“Discord!”
By the time Luna had finished her work on the telescope, the evening had come, and so she raised the Moon and went to wish her sister goodnight.
She found Celestia sitting at the window, a lively fire crackling in the fireplace, painting flickering light on her white coat.
“My sister,” Celestia said, and Luna couldn’t tell whether she was sad or just tired.
“Is everything alright?”
“Yes. No need to worry.”
Luna stepped closer. “Are you certain?”
Celestia turned around to her. “I just, sometimes, remember all the millennia that passed. Do you understand what I mean?”
“I do. I was there with you, after all.”
A hesitant smile. “True. And I don’t know what I would do without you.”
In a whirlwind of feathers, Twilight tumbled to the ground, landing face-first in the mud.
“Oops,” Discord said and helped her up, brushing the dirt off her with a rag before closing the portal that he had pushed her through.
Twilight looked up. He had brought them to Star Swirl’s grave.
“I was so free to take a look at this,” Discord said, “and what can I say? This place feels ever so strange. Like something works different here than in the rest of Equestria – an anomaly, if you want.”
“What is it?”
“We will see about that, but first I have a question. Can you levitate Star Swirl’s body out of his grave?”
Twilight sent out her magic, but there was something in the way. She remembered. “The preservation field is blocking me.”
“Right. And it’s the same for me – this is no cheap trick, it’s powerful magic.”
“Star Swirl must have installed it himself,” Twilight mused.
“And you would agree that it could deflect the effect of any spell?” Discord asked further, winding his snake-like body around the tombstone.
Twilight wondered what he was trying to get to. He seemed very serious, nervous even. “Discord, I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but I don’t see how this is in any way related to –“
“Star Swirl’s book?” he finished the sentence for her. “Just wait. I want to try a little experiment – you are a mare of science, no?”
He pulled out a flask that Twilight knew all too well – it was the flashback potion, a magical brew that granted the one who drank it a view into the past.
“Where did you get this?” Twilight asked.
“I found it in the forest?”
“You will apologize to Zecora once we’re done! And it only shows events long in the past anyway, so there’s no way we’re going to see who stole the book.”
“I don’t need you to see who stole the book,” he replied. “Just activate and drink it while you’re in that cute little deflection field, would you?”
Twilight eyed the potion sceptically.
“Just trust me,” he added, which did not exactly make her feel better. But she knew that Discord, while he might be chaotic, was not unreasonable. There had to be something behind this. She grabbed the flask and tucked it under her wing, climbing down the walls of the tomb.
“Ow!” The headache that had plagued her during her first visit returned as soon as she dropped beneath the surface of the ground. So it hadn’t been due to a hit in the head, after all – it seemed as if the preservation spell somehow reacted to her magic.
She landed, this time on her four hooves, on the bottom of the tomb. Star Swirl’s body still lay there in the same position that she had left it in.
She sat down on the chair and set the flask on the ground. She had studied the potion after Zecora had first introduced it to her, but its working principles still were a mystery. The only thing she knew is that it needed to be powered up by alicorn magic in order to work, so she charged her horn and let a portion of her magic flow into the liquid. It was a little painful to do this inside of Star Swirl’s field, but she was successful: the potion turned white as sign of the successful reaction.
Twilight shot one last gaze up to Discord, who watched her from above, before unscrewing the flask and raising it up to her lips.
Queen Celestia stood in front of the Tree of Harmony and observed it in fascination. The legendary Elements of Harmony hung from the branches like ripe fruits, spreading a warm, colorful glow through the cave.
Her pet snake, who had been lying around her neck for the duration of the flight, slithered off of her and began inspecting their surroundings, taking in the unknown scents with her tongue.
“Be careful, Corda,” Celestia warned. “We don’t know whether this place is safe.”
Corda turned around to look at her mistress for a second, but continued towards the tree. Despite her worries, Celestia couldn’t help but chuckle. This one had always been a little cheeky.
She disregarded her pet for the moment, instead turning her focus back on the Elements. It was obvious that they were connected to the tree’s magical energy. She just hoped that removing them wouldn’t harm this place. There was no telling as to what the consequences would be for the land. But she had gone through all of this in her head countless times. It was the only way.
“Luna,” she whispered, “oh dearest sister. I shall soon welcome you to my world.”
The truth was a fragile thing, Twilight thought. Sometimes, it could be bent. But could it be broken?
Twilight approached the doors to Celestia’s study. It didn’t feel as if she’d been here just yesterday. The large wooden doors looked alien to her. The echo of her own steps in the hallway, alien.
Celestia seemed to be a stranger.
The Queen of Equestria was writing a letter when Twilight entered, looking up in surprise. “Twilight! I was worried when you didn’t come back yesterday. What happened?”
“I want to know the truth!” Twilight said firmly.
Something flickered in Celestia’s eye. She gently lay down her quill. “The truth about what?”
“About you. You said that ‘Queen’ was just a pet name, but that’s not true. I saw what it was really like.”
A long sigh left Celestia, but she smiled nonetheless. “My dear Twilight, I do not know how you uncovered this, but it was foolish to think that there was anything that you couldn’t find out if you wanted to. I was a Queen, that is the truth. However, the question I want to ask you is, does it make any difference?”
Twilight stared at her. She had hoped that Celestia would deny it. She was ready to argue with her. But this was too much. “The difference is that you lied to me!”
“I’m sorry.”
Twilight believed her when she said that, but it didn’t make it better. “Why? Why did you do this?”
“For Luna, of course. Me being a Queen would make my sister a Princess. But I didn’t want her to feel like anything less than my equal. Thus, it was necessary to step back from the title. It took a few generations until ponies forgot about it, but I had all the time in the world.”
“Right. So you manipulated the records.” She shot her former teacher a gaze of disappointment.
“Please understand,” Celestia pleaded. “I did it all for her.”
“What is Luna?”
“She’s my sister, my little sister whom I love unconditionally.”
“She is a lie.”
Celestia turned around until they stood eye to eye, and for a moment, Twilight was scared. She had faced dragons, changelings, and many evils beyond that, but never in her life had she been as scared as she was now. Her words seemed to still echo between them, the claim that, once spoken, could never be taken back.
“You are right,” Celestia simply said. Twilight stepped back, away from the monster that she had once trusted more than anypony in the world.
“How much do you know?” the beast asked.
“I know that she isn’t real. You didn’t have a sister when you found the Elements of Harmony, and you didn’t defeat Discord with them either.”
Celestia chuckled lightly, but it was a cold chuckle that made Twilight’s ears flatten against her neck. “Oh, I did use them to defeat Discord. You see, the seeds of chaos grew within him, and it was getting out of control. Granted, it was my own fault to begin with.”
Twilight’s eyebrows contracted when the realization came over her. “He was the snake!”
“Indeed. He was a she back then, by the way, and her name was ‘Corda’. Unfortunately, I had a habit of always carrying her around with me, otherwise she might have never eaten the seeds of the Chaos Roots that sprout beneath the Tree of Harmony.”
“But that’s not what you wanted to use the Elements for in the first place.”
“No. All I wanted was to have my sister by my side. A goal which became unreachable for a long time after I had to betray my pet and only friend, destroying my connection to the Elements.”
Twilight didn’t need to hear more than that. “The night of the Sun Summer Celebration, it wasn’t Nightmare Moon in the castle ruins, was it?”
Celestia shook her head.
“When you first saw me,” Twilight asked further, “did you know I was the Element of Magic?”
“My hopes were high. And indeed, you did become my best student, a Princess even, exceeding my keenest expectations.”
The compliment tasted bitter. Twilight stared at the ground, thinking about all the time she had thought that it meant something – that she meant something. But Nightmare Moon had never existed. She and her friends hadn’t freed Luna. They had completed a spell, a powerful spell that Celestia had invented for one purpose and one purpose only. It was a feedback loop, she thought, as the equations formed in her head. The basic nature of the Elements was to preserve the balance of harmony – and since the spell told them that Luna existed, they tried to wipe out any lack of consistency with that. That’s why Discord had false memories, and that’s why Twilight had seen Luna in the visions of Zecora’s potion when she had drunk it the first time.
“I want you to know, Twilight, that I never looked at you as just the Element of Friendship,” Celestia said. “I always appreciate your company, perhaps more than you think, and I do consider you a valuable friend. But I have known Luna for a long time. She had always been at my side in my dreams, and I couldn’t stand waking up without her. You don’t know what it’s like to be alone for that long. Maybe you will in a few millennia, or maybe never.”
Celestia’s words carried so much pain that, for a second, Twilight wanted to do nothing more than rush to her side and comfort her.
“I might not know what it’s like,” she said. “But I can’t believe that you expect me to just accept this and go on as if nothing had happened. You lied to everypony, to me, even to Luna. Or does she know that her memories aren’t real? That she’s an Equomunculus?”
Celestia remained silent.
“I didn’t think so,” Twilight said.
“Does all of this really matter, Twilight? Does it make her any less real? Does it make all the memories that we made in my dreams invalid?” Chains of light grasped Twilight’s fetlocks, locking her in place. She panicked, trying to teleport away, but she couldn’t access her magic.
“I don’t want to do this,” Celestia said. “But I cannot let you, or anypony, take my sister away from me.”
Celestia raised up the scroll that she had been writing on before Twilight had entered the room, the one which she had mistaken for a letter. Now she realized what it was.
Before Twilight could react, the memory spell hit her.
Luna was looking forward to the evening like a little filly. The telescopes were set up on the balcony of the highest tower, and she had personally made the flight to the weather bureau to ensure that there wouldn’t be a single bit of a cloud blocking the view over Canterlot.
She was going over her calculations for the meteors again when a movement in the corner of the room made her turn around.
“Discord! What are you doing here?”
“Excuse me,” he said. “I thought I’d just slither by.”
Only now Luna realized that he had taken the form of a giant snake, wearing a rather ugly knitted sweater that fit his form perfectly.
“What do you want?”
“Why so hostile? And here am I thinking we were past such things. Your gentle appearance must have deceived me.”
Luna had to hold herself back from raising her voice. She knew that it would be futile. “As you can see, I am busy.”
“Oh, yes, yes, the big show tonight. Enjoying it with your sister, I suppose? What was her name again?”
Luna gave up on trying to focus on her work and took a step towards him. “Discord, I swear by the Sun and the Moon and everything good in this world that if you ruin this –“
He raised the tip of his tail in defense. “I would never.”
Luna huffed.
Arching his long body upwards, Discord glided over her back, brushing up the feathers of her wings. “No, Luna, even I don’t have the heart for that. I am, however, glad to hear that you value so much what you and your sister have in each other. Eternity can be a long time if you’re all on your own. I would know.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.” The snake nodded its head. “That is all.”
With that, Discord curled up and disappeared, leaving Luna behind. That creature was getting stranger and stranger, she thought. However, she quickly recollected herself, hurrying to complete her last check of the formulas. It was getting late, and she had a sister who was waiting for her.