Second (or Third) Chances

by HypernovaBolts11


Act I - Lied

Celestia's head spun as the book's cover choked the blinding light of the memory, and her stomach was busy tying itself into knots. She covered her mouth with a hoof, and swallowed down whatever it was that had decided to escape her stomach.

"Are you alright, your highness?" the voice asked.

She didn't answer at first, though, if her host could see anything, her face was answer enough.

A plastic garbage bin, appropriately colored green, floated towards the princess, who grabbed it between her forehooves just in time.

The voice was silent for the duration of her retching spell, and busied itself with locating the next memory of relevance to the solar monarch. The book took its place at the edge of her desk, and then just sat there while Celestia emptied her stomach.

After a while, the princess gathered herself, and sat up, anxiously running a hoof through her ethereal mane to straighten it. She glanced at the next book, and asked, "Will this one make me ill?"

"You tell me. After all, you've been such an accurate judge of your stomach's metal."

Celestia sighed, and said, "I believe I owe you an apology. You did warn me."

After a few seconds of listening to the princess's heavy breathing, the voice said, "That's not an apology, your highness."

Celestia narrowed her eyes, and wrinkled her nose. "How's this? I've kept you long enough from your lover's bed. You are free to go." Her horn glowed, and the library dissolved around her, leaving nothing but a soft whiteness, which soon enough faded away.

She watched as the pony in front of her throne blinked, gradually coming to as the princess dismissed the spell connecting their minds.

Radiant Blade bowed, and turned to take his leave, when the princess opened her mouth to speak. He paused, looking over his shoulder at her, curiously tilting his head.

Celestia waved the thought away with her hoof, and said, "It can wait 'till morning. Bring Firefly with you tomorrow. This concerns her."

He nodded, and the sound of his hooves on the polished stone floor echoed throughout the castle as he left.


The grey stallion marched through the gates of Canterlot Castle, holding up in his mouth a signed copy of the letter Celestia had sent him so the guards would let him through. His brown eyes boiled with rage, the kind of rage that can only be born of a despair and confusion no pony should have to experience.

He stormed into the throne room, his eyes fixed on Celestia, who sat calmly in her throne, signing papers from a large stack with a magic quill, and so caught up was she in her work, that none of the guards bothered to announce her guest's arrival.

Too late did they realize their mistake.

Radiant Blade launched himself at the princess, tackling her to the ground with all his might, eliciting a startled yell from the monarch. His eyes locked on hers as his hoof moved to the front of her horn, snuffing out her magic before a spell could be called to her mind.

All that mattered to him was the truth now, and Celestia, he knew, had it.

Guards from all over the room ran towards them, but not before the ireful bat pony could snarl under his breath, "Care to explain why I just woke up with a changeling in my bed, who swears on her life that she is Firefly, who can answer me questions that only Firefly would know, who can't stop crying from the sudden shock of realizing that she is a changeling?"

Celestia held up her hoof to stop the guards, and sighed heavily as a knowing look crossed her face.

This only made him all the more angry. He hated that look. He hated the princess. He hated the lies she'd planted in his brain where a life should have been, and now how she took this information as though it was old news to her. He pressed his nose against hers, eyes narrowed, wings stiff at his sides, and shouted, "I don't care if you're the princess, and I don't care if I lose my head! I couldn't care less about your status! You're not sacrosanct until you tell me the damn truth! All of it!"

Celestia blinked, and found herself staring into a very different, and terrifyingly familiar pair of blood red eyes, the corners of which were giving off faint trails of purple smoke. His curved horn was spotted with red circles around the tip, intensifying the resemblance to his father all the more. She opened her mouth to speak, but the pony above her vanished, replaced by a cloud of black smoke. It poured over her, clumping around her horn, and she screamed.

After a minute, the stallion was being held down by a pair of guards, and Celestia was prodding her horn with a hoof, feeling over the dark grey crystals that had protruded from its keratin surface. Her expression was sober, calm even, not a trace of fear or confusion to be found.

The restrained stallion spoke in a rough, ghostly voice that seemed to come from three people at once, "As little as I've enjoyed this boring game, I must thank you for aiding my escape."

Celestia closed her eyes, then wheeled around to face the mass of violent, undiluted rage that she had tried so hard to keep under wraps. Her lips curled back in a snarl as she faced the monster in front of her. "You're a damned foal, Blade. If you hadn't reacted so aggressively, he wouldn't be in control," she growled at him.

He threw his head back, and laughed a laugh so thick it may have actually dimmed the room a bit. "You little twit, you don't understand. It's your fault he's been feeding me so well. Where do you think all of his rage is being directed? Why, do you think, he's simply letting me have my body back, like the little wimp you made him?" he asked Celestia, grinning widely.

Celestia's glare faltered a bit, and she looked away as his intended meaning hit her like a fully loaded carriage.

"It's all because of you," he continued, "It's all thanks to you that I have such a compliant host. It's your fault he's not gonna lift a useless wing to stop me from ripping that tail off your sorry plot. It's your fault he doesn't give a flying flank about what happens to you, or your sister, or your damn plaything of a student."

Celestia's eyes snapped open at that, and she snarled at him again, returning to her previous position. "Twilight," she growled, "is..." She bit her lip, and turned around, taking a deep breath.

"Ah," he said at length. "Now this is a game I can play. It's easy, sometimes, but it's the sore loser I play with that makes it all worthwhile in the end."

Celestia didn't move, though her eyes shot from side to side as she tried to think of a way out of this.

"Your move," the stallion challenged, and squinted. His ears perked up as a low, feminine voice bounced off the walls, though his shock was short lived, and a smile formed on the left corner of his lips, his eyes narrowing as he thought to himself about how all too perfect this was.

Celestia glanced over the stallion's shoulder, and, waving away the guards pursuing her, said, "She is needed at this moment."

Firefly froze dead in her tracks at that, and looked over her shoulder. Realizing that the princess was referring to her, and that she had effectively just been told to approach, continued on her way towards the back of the throne room. She bowed to Celestia when she was but a meter away, and glanced at the grey form of who she had thought to be Radiant Blade.

"No need for such formalities," Celestia told the yellow mare with a wave of her hoof. "I'd like to apologize for the whole... mess you've found yourself in." After a few seconds of avoiding Firefly's look of skepticism, she reiterated, "That I helped arrange..."

Firefly glanced at the restrained stallion to her right, then back at Celestia, who sighed and held her head low as she finished weighing what limited options she had.

The princess groaned, and said, "No, he's not someone you would know. I guess Radiant Blade didn't explain this to you, but I'm backed into a corner, so I have no choice. This is Penumbra, a particularly... malicious individual. He takes after his father, a former dictator I defeated a thousand years ago."

Firefly blinked, and, again, cast a glance in the direction of the aforementioned male.

Celestia moved to return to her throne, and continued, "He is an umbra, a creature of shadows and ego. They feed on hatred and anger, the ultimate example of the expression: 'don't feed the troll.' He was one too few apples away from a bushel when I overthrew his father, and his mother and I collaborated to construct a series of false memories and personal history. When she disappeared, I implanted those memories into a new mind that I'd layer atop the old one."

"And... That was Radiant Blade?" Firefly asked.

Celestia nodded slowly, rubbing her forehead in circles with each of her front hooves. "That he was," she sighed, her voice, and indeed, her whole being weighed down by thoughts of the mare's potential reactions. She hoped, at least, that Firefly would be sympathetic.

Penumbra had been eyeing Firefly's behind for the duration of this conversation, and, deciding that he liked what he saw, said, "Nice flanks, darling. I'll give Blade this much: he has good taste."

Firefly glared at him over her shoulder, and said flatly, "Yup, that's not Blade."

He grinned, half at Celestia, half at Firefly. "Oh c'mon. The camera ought to turn away from the cheap mannequin. The jacket looks so much better on the original model," he sneered, slowly licking his lips.

Celestia's only response was rather restrained: simply giving the brash prince a look of disgust.

Firefly, on the other hoof, spun around, and struck the stallion across the face with the front side of her hoof. She stood for a moment, hoof raised slightly from the floor as she watched the stallion recoil from the blow. After that moment had passed, she exclaimed, "That felt good." She didn't know exactly why. The metaphor had been misogynistic, yes, but she'd tolerated worse comments from her boss and customers.

At the exact moment she spoke, Penumbra made a particularly chilling face at her, and said, "Harder, pretty please."

Firefly's blood seemed to freeze. Something about that reaction felt sorely out of place in the world, especially in the presence of the reigning monarch, and wouldn't even have felt appropriate to her in the bedroom. She could only shudder.

His smile seemed to be widening with each moment that passed, even more so as Firefly's hoof rose of its own volition.

Celestia tapped Firefly on the shoulder, and said, "Remember, the more you express resentment in his presence, the more easily he feeds on your anger."

Firefly slowly lowered her hoof, and stepped to the side. Taking a seat two meters away from Penumbra, she gently massaged the hoof she'd struck him with, and said to Celestia, "So... are..." She gulped. "Are all of my memories of hi-I mean Blade... synthetic?"

The alicorn sat down again, and said, "Many of them, but not all. It's safe to say that no memory after your breakup is synthetic. That night did happen as you remember it. And everything that transpired afterwards is real."

"My parents," the mare muttered.

"They quit too late in the project for me to alter your memories of them into a new pair of suitable guardians," Celestia said, frowning. "I am sorry."

Penumbra pitched in with a scoff.

The princess sighed and said, "As for your origins; you-" She turned to Firefly, and held her gaze for a few long, nearly uncomfortable seconds. "-were an orphaned, abandoned changeling. I found a changeling wandering the Everfree, crippled, beaten, and frightened. I took her in, and, when she said that she wanted to start over, I offered her one such chance. She thought about it for a long time, and didn't change her mind at the many opportunities to do so that I provided."

Firefly looked down at the floor, and muttered, "So... I'm just as fake as Blade is?"

Penumbra cast a smug look at Celestia and said, "Doesn't it hurt, knowing that everything you thought you were is a lie? Everything you know your parents told you never happened. They never even cared about you. They left you because they weren't satisfied with the money carrying your weight brought them."

Firefly just stared at the floor, eyes glassy, ears pinned back, mouth half open.

"If only Blade had never been so damn curious about this whole thing. You'd never have learned. You'd still be a content, helpless mare, with your beloved knight in shining armor. Well, perhaps beloved is a strong word. I've actually had real sex before, whereas that one time you remember is just as fake as you."

Celestia winced, looking down. "Firefly, don't listen to hi-"

She slowly lifted her head, letting her soft wings go limp at her sides. "I-I don't know who else I can listen to. Certainly not you," she told the princess.

The restrained stallion made a mock expression of sympathy towards the princess, and recoiled as he said, "Ouch."

"Shut it," Firefly snapped at him, not looking away from the princess.

"But this conversation is so beautifully juicy," he protested. After a moment of smiling, his expression went flat when the mare he'd answered turned to him. "Yes, ma'am." He looked away, which was unlike him enough that Celestia raised an eyebrow.

"How do I even know if what you claim to be the story of how I came to be is true? What reason do I have to believe a word you say?" the mare continued. "I... I might as well be a stallion. You may as well tell me the sun isn't real, or that the sky is orange. I'd have just as much reason to trust you."

Celestia sighed, and hung her head, aware that Firefly had little reason to trust her, and that her resistance to doing so was understandable. "Well, and you may have noticed this, your changeling form isn't unambiguously female," she said, trying to collect her thoughts into something comprehensive to say.

Penumbra shuddered.

Firefly folded her wings at her sides, stammering, "Th-that's not an answer."

Celestia said, "I would show you my memories of this changeling, but..." She looked up at her horn and the crystals jutting out of it. "I can't exactly use magic at the moment."

Both mares turned to Penumbra, who was already looking at the ceiling with intense fascination, and whistling. When a guard elbowed him, he simply said, "No."

A smile slowly emerged from Firefly's facial features. "I'll hit you again if you do it," she offered.

He narrowed his eyes at Firefly, and said, "And then she'll smite us both. Neither of us have any family, friends, or attentive coworkers. The only reason she wouldn't kill me is because you'd miss Blade, get angry, and start telling people that the princess murdered someone. The same thing for Blade. But now we're both in the same place, and no one would notice our absence. Do you really think she has a reason to not wipe us off the face of the planet?"

That made too much sense to Firefly, enough that she stood up, and began to slowly back away from the princess.

Celestia shook her head, no longer quite so composed. "I wouldn't do such a thing," she said, holding one hoof up and the other over her chest.

"Circumventing the judicial system to execute someone is exactly what you did to my father," Penumbra said.

Celestia leaned forward and said, "That was self defense. That was war. Different rules apply in war. You both are citizens of Equestria, and thus are guaranteed the right to a fair trial. But I have no reason to suspect that you have committed a crime."

"What war exactly are we talking about?" Firefly asked, now standing, but no longer making an exit.

"One that I..." Celestia began, and then gulped as she realized what a rhetorical corner she'd been backed into. "...erased from the historical records."

Penumbra smiled at this and said to Firefly, "The princess who lied to the whole world about something that cost the lives of your own soldiers and citizens. What a headline that would be. If only you hadn't been so rash, Celestia, to resist transparency. I believe my people had a word for that sort of ruler."

"What's that?" Firefly inquired aloud.

"An authoritarian dictator."

"Like your father was any better to his subjects, your mother, or even you," the princess fired back, throwing herself head first into another flurry of rhetorical swings of the sword.

"Ow," Penumbra said, throwing his head back in mock despair. "Oh, right in the sense of familial connection that I don't have. I distinctly recall that it was you who banished them beneath the ice. It was you who left my mother without a home. It was you who acted rashly. My father was a better king than your Princess Amore ever was a princess. He got stuff done. He united the people and the workforce-"

Celestia said, "Through mind control and slavery, respectively."

"As if your manipulation of my and Firefly's memories is any less oppressive and barbaric," he answered.

"It's hard to take ethical criticism from a creature who attempted to murder his own mother," she said, parrying his oratorical strike expertly.

"She was weak," he declared. A blunt and cowardly defense, he knew, a simple wooden shield thrown up in a time of desperation.

"You mean she never fed you hatred, because she loved you too much," the princess answered, metaphorically driving her saber through his shield, piercing his armor. She didn't know quite where she'd struck him, but knew that even he had vulnerabilities.

Penumbra growled, and looked away, muttering as he pinned his ears back, "She sure loved me. I can tell because she gave me to you."

"She never let me have custody of you while she breathed. She left me as your guardian in her will. She parted with you, literally, over her dead body," Celestia snarled, effectively twisting her blade by the hilt. She stood up, and the crystals on her horn began to fade, as though they never existed.

He winced and blinked. When his eyes opened and he looked up, his irises were brown, his horn had vanished, and his eyes were tearing up. He sniffled, and wrapped his leathery wings around himself. "H-Hope... My mother's name is Hope."

Celestia leaned down, and lifted his chin up with a hoof so she could look into his eyes. "Radiant Hope. She chose your name. She made your memories. All I did was adapt them to fit the modern world."

"B-but why did she..." Blade asked and screwed his eyes shut.

"She wanted you to be happy, something that Penumbra never was," she said, and dismissed the guards who had been holding him still with a nod.

Firefly placed a hoof on his shoulder, and then slowly wrapped her forelegs around his chest. "I'm happier with this you," she murmured, nuzzling his cheek.

He nodded, and wiped his nose with the back of his hoof. "I remember her. I remember the palace. I remember the mines..." he trailed off, and leaned back into Firefly's embrace. "My father isn't dead," he realized.

Firefly blinked, and asked, "And that's..."

Blade gulped audibly, "Bad. Very very bad." He turned to Celestia. "How long ago did the empire fall?"