I've come upon a desire to write a shipfic about Zecora and Celestia, and I'm hoping I might be able to get some help stirring up ideas for how to go about doing it.

I'm going to start by listing off a few similarities and contrasts between the two of them. If you have any thoughts, go ahead and post them below.

Similarities: both looked to as sources of wisdom/mother-figures, neither's background is entirely clear or fleshed out, the face of unflappable calm, interesting to note that Zecora lives fairly close to the ruined castle that was once home to Celestia and her sister pre-Nightmare Moon.

Differences: One lives in a palace, the other lives in a hut in the woods. Celestia protects the realm from the monsters Zecora lives alongside of in the Everfree. One is the matriarch of Equestria, the other is an immigrant to it (what is Zecora's citizenship status within Equestria, I wonder?).

Celestia invents an aphrodisiac by grinding pony hooves into dust. Zecora finds it.

Sex.

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Hmm, I think safe to assume that that one HASN'T been done before in any sort of pic/fic.

Anyway, here's an idea for how to start up: Celestia decides to meet up with the zebra who's helped her faithful student so much (will leave it to you if she decides to willingly to venture into Everfree Forest, compared to when she just sorta showed up, I believe at the end of episode of S1E2, or if meets her in Ponyville by a pre-sent letter, before the story begins, and if it happens before or after her ascension). After spending some time together, Celestia starts to eventually find herself drawn toward the rhyme-speaking zebra cause of how similar they are, even if she herself never did any rhyming in her youth, and maybe Zecora does as well, since she sorta lives around ponies that aren't her kind and probably looks up to Celestia as well (I mean, her cutie mark is ALSO a sun, even though it's a different kind than Celestia's, supposedly a spiraled sun according to in a story I read that described her cutie mark in detail, as it's a first-person POV of a human's experiences in Equestria mostly). I dunno, not really the most interesting idea, but it's... something, kinda.

Or maybe another idea just came up with: Celestia sorta falls ill with something mysterious, and with the doctors of Canterlot knowing little about what she has, she or Luna sends a letter for Twilight requesting Zecora's assistance, figuring she might know what ailment plagues her. After spending some time of Zecora nursing Celestia back to health or however you wish to go about it (and possibly learning some stuff about each other, again about similarities), they start to find themselves drawn towards one another. Of course, this one may be a bit generic but I'm not feeling very creative right now for an idea for someone else's pairing, sorry. But even though this one sounds a bit sad/dark, think it would make for a more interesting story, possibly.

Does Celestia even know of Zecora's existence? I don't recall them ever meeting each other...

And because of that, you should write a story where Celestia finds information there's a Zebra living in the Everfree, that unlike all the other zebras in Equestria is not a slave, serving under the higher race known as ponies. Since this is strongly against the Equestrian law, Celestia has no other choice but arrest Zecora and execute her in fear other zebra's might take her example and rebel.

She tries to send in troops but, since every guard in Canterlot is being a complete pussy and is afraid of the Everfree, she decides to take of it herself...

And from this point on, anything could happen: Stockholm syndrome... Reverse Stockholm syndrome... Zebra Seduction...:

You name it!

747887 I think Twilight has written to Celestia about her at least once, but they definitely have never met face-to-face in the show.

...but that idea.

What are you doing out of your cage? What are the children supposed to throw peanuts at?

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Yes!

Or,
On Celestia's birthday, Luna decides to give her sister a very special gift! Her own personal Zebra slave!
(Just so happens Luna find on lying around in the Everfree forest, what do you know?)
Anyways, since Celestia knows that the Zebra oppression ended hundreds of years ago, she decides to decline her sister's generous gift.

But once she lays her royal eyes on the Zebra, she suddenly forgot what she was going to say...
Oh, right!
She was going to decline her gift, but...
Not wanting to show any kind of ungratefulness to her dear sister, obviously she must accept her gift!
She can always just set it free later and explain the new slave laws to her sister...
Yes!
That's what she'll do! She'll set it free!
First thing tomorrow morning!

...

In a week!