Luna Pier was a small town, but still just big enough to get lost in. When we wound up in the town square for the fifth time, we both broke down and agreed to take a look at the map set up there. Spending a night wandering about town was only fun if you weren’t wandering about the same part of town over and over and over.
“Okay, what is with that part of town?” muttered Aegis. “Just look at it.” He jabbed a hoof at the southwest corner of Luna Pier.
I took a look for myself and immediately saw what he was talking about. It was a confusing maze of streets that dead-ended, stopped and started, curved around on themselves, and generally made faces at common sense. “I dunno,” I said. “Where the town started, maybe?”
“How come?”
“Well, I don’t know why Luna Pier was founded, but if there was something here — let’s just say it was on a trade route — then it’d start with just a few buildings built where it was convenient. Maybe there was a well there. And then as it grows in importance, more and more buildings start springing up, but at first, there isn’t much organization, ‘cause there isn’t much need for it. Then someone goes, ‘Sweet Celestia, this place is confusing’ and they start planning it out more and more, but the early bits’re still there and just as confusing. And we’re left with that.” I poked the relevant corner of the map.
Aegis frowned at the maze, tapping his hoof against the ground as he thought. “You know what, yeah, that’s probably it.” He glanced at the statue of Luna in the middle of the town square. “Wonder if it says anything about the founding on that plaque.”
The square wasn’t that big, as far as town squares went, but Luna Pier wasn’t that large a town to begin with. There were a few ponies milling about, none of them paying much attention to us. In the center stood a slightly-larger-than-life-size stone statue of Luna. It looked old, worn and chipped, but I could tell just how old. A plaque was affixed to one side of the statue’s pedestal. Neither of us had read it, but we both guessed that Luna was involved in the town’s founding in some way, given the statue’s location.
“I’ll go check,” I said. I trotted up to the plaque and polished it a bit with a forehoof. Aegis followed me and looked over my shoulder as I began reading it. “To our most illustrious Princess Luna,” I read, “who solidified our town’s future by opening trade with the diamond dogs of the Badlands.” I looked at the date. “Wow. Two hundred years before Nightmare Moon.”
Aegis whistled and looked around himself. “Never thought it’d be that old. Looks like some of the buildings had to be rebuilt.” He glanced briefly at me. “Not as strong as yours then, hmm?”
“Guess not.” I took a few steps back and looked up at the statue. I didn’t know how old it was, but it was probably younger than the town as a whole. Too centralized, especially in comparison to the mess of early Luna Pier. But it was too old to have been put up since Luna’s return. “What do you think the townspeople felt when their princess went crazy?” I asked Aegis.
“Dunno. Probably scared and sad, but…” He thwacked the pedestal with a hoof. “This is still here. Maybe they thought Nightmare Moon and Luna were two different ponies?”
“If you believe the royal line about Luna getting taken over by something, they are.”
“Yeah, but how many ponies back then would believe that? It sounds like a weak attempt for the Court to save face, doesn’t it?”
“Uh-huh.” I put on a deep, stupid-sounding voice. “Oh, no, that wasn’t Luna, an evil force totally took over her mind. No, we couldn’t save her. Yes, blasting her to the moon was absolutely the best option.”
“Heh.”
“Still, they probably believed something about that. Or maybe they just wanted to honor the Luna that had been, rather than the Nightmare Moon that was.”
“I’m guessing honoring the memory. I mean, Luna did play a big part in the town’s founding, if this is to be believed, so it’s kinda hard to just sweep her under the rug.”
“Hmm.”
I kept looking at the statue. As I did, it brought back something from our talk at dinner. Something that’d been nagging at me this whole time. I’d never thought about it before tonight, but now, I just couldn’t ignore it. “You know,” I said, “you’re related to Blueblood.”
“Yeah.”
“And Blueblood’s a unicorn, but he’s nominally Celestia’s nephew through adoption.”
“Right,” Aegis said with a nod.
“And so is Cadance.”
“What’re you getting at?”
“Well, it’s, they’re adopted, but…” I turned to one side, embarrassed, and batted at an ear with one of my hooves. This was a stupid thought, but I wanted to get it out anyway. “Do you think Celestia and Luna have ever had any biological kids? They had to come from somewhere, right? So, what if, what if there were other alicorns where they came from and they, you know, had foals?”
Aegis frowned and scratched his head. “I… I never really thought about that,” he said. “I don’t think they have. We’d hear about them, right? What reason with Celestia and Luna have for keeping them secret?”
“I wonder if they even can have foals anymore. Yeah, they’re immortal, but that’s, um, that’s not the only thing involved in babies. Do you know if the, um, if the…” I coughed. This was even worse than before. “…if the, y’know, the tubes are still working?”
It took him a little while to get it, but once he did, Aegis blinked and slid back a little from me. “Are… are you asking me if Celestia and Luna have menopause?”
“Well, think about it,” I said, waving my hooves. I decided to just keep going. Might as well. “They look fine, but the two of them are at least a thousand years old. Do you really think all of their body is perfectly preserved?”
Aegis coughed and glanced away from me. “I don’t see why they wouldn’t be. Look, can w-”
In hindsight, the signs were obvious, and I still feel stupid for missing them. But I didn’t notice them then, so I kept talking. “But if those bits are working, why don’t they have any kids? I mean, Luna I can understand, but Celestia, I mean, a whole millennium without doing it a few times? And she could have whoever she wanted, be-”
Aegis snapped his head towards me, breathing deeply and his face turning red. “Heheh, uh, look,” he mumbled, “c-can we not talk about the, the possible sex life of the Princesses? Pretty please?” He grinned that cute, nervous grin he has when he’s flustered. “It’s just that, it’s, I just, it’s really weirding me out. Like really really weirding me out.”
I moved my foreleg over my mouth so he couldn’t see me grin and hid it with a cough. “Alright, fine,” I said. “Let’s just assume they can’t have kids. For whatever reason. I don’t know, alicorns are weird. Do you think maybe Cadance and Twilight are kid substitutes or something?”
“Well, I, I, I don’t know,” mumbled Aegis, rubbing the back of his neck. Now that we’d steered away from the previous topic, he was slightly less nervous. Slightly. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean just that. Substitutes for the children Celestia and Luna never had. They’re both alicorns, aren’t they? And they both started out as unicorns, but Celes-”
Aegis frowned. “Wait, wasn’t Cadance born a pegasus?”
“I always thought she was a unicorn.”
“Pretty sure she was a pegasus.”
I waved a hoof. “Fine. Let’s go with pegasus. The important thing is that she didn’t start out an alicorn, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay. But she was turned into an alicorn by Celestia, right? And so was Twilight.”
“Pretty sure Cadance was, but I’m not sure about Twilight.” Aegis looked up at the sky and started drumming his hooves lightly on the ground. “I think it had something to do with the Elements of Harmony and discovering her destiny or something hokey like that. I know Celestia had a hoof in it, but I’m not sure if she initiated it.”
“Well, wait, hang on,” I said. I tried to rack my own memory for stuff about Cadance. Not much came up. “Did Celestia initiate Cadance’s transformation as well? Now that I think about it, it might’ve been in response to something else.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Something about a love spell.”
I sighed. “So forget the substitute kid theory. Celestia turned the two of them into alicorns after something else happened.” So much for that. It was fun while it lasted.
“Guess so.” Aegis pulled back and frowned. “You think Cadance and Twilight are ‘true’ alicorns? Immortal and all that?”
“Why wouldn’t they be?” I said with a shrug.
“Because the odds that they’re the only ponies to be, I don’t know, ascended or whatever, are pretty slim. Let’s just say they’re immortal. But then that would imply all other ascended alicorns are also immortal. So how come they’re the only alicorns around? Discounting Celestia and Luna, obviously,” he added as he waved a hoof. “I mean, over a thousand years, you’d think at least one other pony would do something good enough for Celestia to make them an alicorn. But if she did, they’d still be around, ‘cause they’re immortal, too. So where are all the other alicorns?”
“That’s… huh.” I looked down at the plaque again. “Cadance and Twilight could be the only ascended alicorns, but I agree with you, that, that’s unlikely. And Celestia and Luna are still quiet about where they came from, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So whatever made them could be different from what makes a normal pony an alicorn.” I twitched and looked up. “All alicorns now are princesses. Do you know of any princesses in the past? My history’s kinda foggy.”
Aegis shook his head. “No, sorry. History was never my strong suit.”
“Oh, come on!” I protested. “You know math, psychology, and physics when they’re just interesting tidbits, but when I actually want to know history, you draw a blank?”
“I am a terrible pony!” Aegis said in an overly-whiny voice, then made a face far too sad to be taken seriously. I giggled a little at that. Then he shook his head and, serious again, “Sorry, I really don’t. I could never pay attention in history class.”
“Hmm. And Cadance and Twilight don’t have that, y’know, flowy, sparkly mane or tail, either.”
“But does that indicate anything? It might just be a pretty mane.”
“Celestia and Luna’re the only ones who have it. It’s gotta mean something.”
“What, though? It might just mean they’re extra powerful and have nothing to do with alicornhood. Didn’t King Whatsisface have a flowy mane? The Crystal Empire guy, I can’t remember his name.”
“Me neither. Sombro? Sombra?”
“That second one, yeah,” Aegis said, nodding. “I think he might’ve had a flowy mane, and if he could control the Crystal Empire on his own-”
“Was he the only one controlling the Crystal Empire?”
“The crystal ponies sure act like he was. And he was the only one who came back after a thousand years.”
“Right, yeah. Yeah, he was probably alone in that.”
“So he was probably extra powerful, too. And he was just a unicorn, but he also had dark magic. Maybe it’s got something to do with how much magic you have. Like, I don’t know…” Aegis shrugged helplessly. “You’ve got so much magic it bubbles out your hair follicles and makes your mane ethereal?”
I was about to laugh at that, but the more I thought about it, the more it weirdly made sense. Hair was always growing, after all, so excess magic might come out of that as grew. Celestia’s and Luna’s manes were literally infused with their magic, right down to their core. Plus, if that was true, that wouldn’t be the only thing magic followed. “Maybe,” I said thoughtfully. “And that would also explain their, y’know, their aura.”
“That feeling of lightness around them?”
“Yeah. It’s not just in their mane, it’s in their coats, too. You ever noticed how they always seem to stand out in a crowd? And not just because they’re several times larger than everypony else, the way your eyes are drawn to them, even if you’re not looking at them.”
“You’re saying that’s because of magic?”
“I don’t see why it can’t be.”
“It might just be because of their… regality,” Aegis said, tilting his head. “Like a placebo or whatever it’s called. They don’t really have anything special, you just think they do because of their position.”
“Hnng. Maybe. But then why haven’t I felt that when I’ve seen Cadance or Twilight? They’re princesses.”
“Probably ‘cause you’ve known Celestia is a princess your whole life. She’s been there the whole time. Cadance has been out of the public eye a lot, and Twilight hasn’t even been a princess a year. Why you also see it in Luna…” Aegis frowned. “Okay, yeah, you might have a point there. In the context of your life, she’s been a princess for less than Cadance has.”
“So let’s say the flowy mane and tail and stuff is indicative of a lot of magic. Maybe Cadance and Twilight are going to get it when they’re older.”
“But are they going to get that much older, or are they just going to get old and die like normal ponies?”
I shot a Look at Aegis. “Didn’t you just say that they probably aren’t immortal a few minutes ago?”
He clapped a hoof to his face. “…Right,” he muttered.
“But how much does their power grow when they’re an alicorn? Does their power even grow, or do they just get some extra limbs?”
“I dunno.”
“Me neither.”
Silence.
“Alicorns are weird,” I said.
“Eeyup.”