The Responsibilities of Equestrian Royalty

by PaperOctavia

Prologue - Questions

Twilight briskly trotted through the halls of Canterlot Castle, just barely paying attention to where she was going. The scenery around her was quite nostalgic, and she found herself pleasantly recounting the many times she had taken this exact route when she lived in the castle. She was on her way to Celestia's chambers, and just as she had back then, she found herself repeatedly checking every clock she passed, constantly reassuring herself that time still flowed at its normal pace. This would be her first encounter with her old mentor since the coronation ceremony and she was taking extra precaution to arrive early. She shuddered to think what Celestia would do if her faithful student, the newly crowned fourth princess of Equestria, decided that her first act as royalty would be to arrive tardy. Just thinking about it made her quicken her pace.

It surprised Twilight that, even after all her time away, she could still navigate the many twists and turns of the castle without a second thought, and she was quite thankful for that; with all the thoughts and questions that were running through her head, she would have easily gotten lost had it not been for the amazing muscle memory her legs were operating on. And besides, there was simply too much bouncing around in Twilight's head right now to focus on something as silly as not getting lost. Her thoughts jumped between all the questions she wanted to ask Celestia, and looking back at everything that had happened in the last week.

"What do I do now? Is there a book on being a princess I should read?" Twilight had asked, and she had meant it. Once the festivities had died down after her coronation, she had immediately dived into her books to try and prepare herself for whatever being a princess entailed. Unfortunately, she encountered many more difficulties in this task than she had initially anticipated; for some reason, she couldn't find any writings that detailed the tasks taken on by Equestrian royalty. After searching through more than a fair amount of books, she had sent Celestia several letters asking if she knew why these details were strangely absent, but she never got the answer she was looking for, and eventually had to settle with waiting until she could personally meet with Celestia to try and piece together what her new life would entail.

That still didn't stop Twilight from rummaging through every nook and cranny of her library, as well as several wings of the Canterlot Archives, to try and find some answers. Eventually she turned to reading historical accounts of other nations, but there was only so much she could learn from that. She obviously couldn't learn anything from the Changeling Kingdom, not only was pony knowledge of it incredibly scarce, but running a nation with the benefit of a hive mind meant that there would be practically no similarities in political conduct. She had a bit more luck when reading up on Diamond Dog society, but their once unified empire fell apart many hundreds of years ago and it was hard to find detailed accounts of anything other than how many gems they could dig up and process in a given amount of time. Most of Twilight's time had been spent spent digging through Griffonia's history, which she wasn't surprised about; Griffon society is incredibly similar to Equestrian society, even if they do tend to be a bit more aggressive in their foreign policies.

As Twilight went over what she knew about the various griffon leaders she'd read about, she suddenly found herself standing in front of Celestia's chambers. Having no idea how long she had been standing there, she nervously checked a nearby clock and thankfully found that she was still a few minutes early. Lightly tapping on the door, she started running through a list of all the questions she hoped Celestia would answer. What would she be responsible for as a princess? Why was information on the topic strangely absent? What was that strange place Celestia had taken her to? The questions continued to rattle around her head until her thought process was interrupted by the doors in front of her opening.

Twilight jumped a bit, the movement had jerked her out of her own mental trance and pulled her back to reality. She glanced up at Celestia, and although she had expected a flood of questions to come pouring out, she found herself without anything to say. After everything that had happened, it was strangely comforting to see that her trusted mentor was still there for her, just as calm as she would be on any other day. Twilight caught herself staring at her host, who was gesturing her into the chamber.

"Oh, s-sorry!" Twilight stammered as she accepted Celestia's invitation. "I suppose I've got a lot on my mind."

"You really do need to learn to take a break every once in a while." Celestia mentioned, shutting the chamber door behind her. "I'd like to say that I was surprised when your letters came in, but I suppose it's natural to be curious about everything you've gone through recently"

"With all due respect Princess, this is more than just curiosity, this is my life! I've always known where I was going, always had a plan, but for the last week I've gone to bed each night having no idea what my future is! I can't help but feel like my old life is slipping away from me, little by little, and I worry that I won't be able to get it back..." Twilight paused, her initial frustration giving way to all the doubts she had tried to push out of her mind in the last few days. "If nothing else, going through our history has given me a way to pass the time. I almost went to the market yesterday, but all I could think was 'Is that something princesses do? Go to the market?'"

Celestia found herself chuckling at Twilight's anecdote. "I go to the market every now and again, but I also live in the capital. It's quite a different story when you live in a town as small as Ponyville."

"I suppose you're right as always, Princess. I guess I'll have to get over the fact that living in Ponyville means I'm going to be pretty exposed." Twilight commented, followed by a long sigh. Talking with Celestia like this was making her feel a lot better.

"And another thing, Twilight. There's really no need to call me Princess anymore, you're a princess too, remember? You can just call me Celestia now, and the same goes for Luna and Cadance." Celestia smiled to herself at this remark. She never viewed herself as being above anypony else, but it was still refreshing to be able to speak with someone that, politically speaking, was her equal. She spent most of her conversations subtlety aware that everypony around her was slightly on edge, never quite used to being in the presence of royalty. The opposite was currently happening with Twilight, thankfully. After just a few minutes of talking she already looked ten times better, and Celestia was glad she was helping. Not quite wanting to touch the more serious topics just yet, she decided to continue the small talk, at least for a little while longer. "Now, tell me, have you been able to get used to your new wings yet?"

In response, Twilight found herself spreading her wings, almost as if she were reminding herself that they were still there, "To be honest, Prin- Er... I mean, Celestia, I keep forgetting I have them; I don't think it's odd to say that I'm not quite used to magically growing new limbs. Rainbow Dash keeps popping by the library trying to convince me to go flying with her, and at the very least it's nice to be reminded that I actually have wings. Still, if I have to listen to her lecture me on the dangers of wing atrophy again I might just lose my mind"

"I wouldn't expect anything less of her, she's quite an impressive athlete. Still, she speaks the truth, make sure you listen to her." Celestia smiled gently. Glancing out the window and checking the position of the sun, she sighed to herself. She knew that she should start answering some of Twilight's questions, but a part of her hoped she would never have to. It wasn't often that the two of them had time to just relax and talk, and Celestia hated to have to break the casual atmosphere with talk of responsibilities and politics. Still, it had to be done, and she knew that there would be a lot to cover tonight, so she might as well get started. "Now, I'm sure you have a lot of questions for me, and I'm going to do my best to help you make sense of everything. So tell me - what's on your mind?"

Despite being the exact reason she had visited Celestia, she was slightly taken aback by the question. Twilight was having such a pleasant time catching up that, when confronted, she suddenly forgot every question she had thought of the last couple days. She gave herself a few minutes to think back on the events of the last week. As much as she wanted to ask what she would be doing as a princess, she knew that there were other things that she would rather hear about now. Maybe she could ask about Starswirl the Bearded's unfinished spell? She understood what happened when she cast it, but she was still perplexed as to why Starswirl would attempt to make a spell that switched cutie marks around. And it was somehow connected to the Elements of Harmony? As far as she knew, no one other than her friends, Celestia, and Luna had ever utilized the Elements before. She had dozens of questions about King Sombra too, most of them about the dark magic she had used in his castle. As she mentally flipped through everything she didn't know, something stuck out. It was a little surprising that she didn't think of it sooner.

"Well, I think there's definitely one thing that has me the most confused. I've seen a lot of crazy things these last couple of years, Discord, the changeling invasion, even the sudden reappearance of the Crystal Empire, but I feel like I've always had context for all these crazy happenings. I understand the laws of reality, so it's not that difficult to imagine that a being like Discord could operate on laws that work inversely when compared to our own. I've never heard of a spell like the one Sombra cast over the Crystal Empire, but I understand magic well enough to know that with enough skill or power such a feat would certainly be possible. But when I completed Starswirl the Bearded's spell, and the Elements of Harmony transported me to that... place, I was at a complete loss for words. I was definitely standing on something, but I couldn't quite see what. You seemingly appeared out of nowhere, but it didn't look like you were teleporting; In fact, it didn't look like you were using magic at all, which means it couldn't have been you that was showcasing all the images of my life that were floating around us. And I could feel that wherever we were was saturated with incredible amounts of magic, which I'm pretty sure is how creating wings for me was even possible. Where were we?"

Celestia wasn't surprised to hear this, after all, her protege was right. Taking on corrupted unicorn overlords was one thing, but nopony ever expects to be suddenly transported to a different plane of reality. Twilight had managed to ask the one thing that would end up answering most, if not all, of her questions. Celestia almost chuckled to herself; had this been a test, Twilight would have most certainly passed with flying colors.

Unknown to Twilight, however, this was the one question that Celestia had been preparing to answer for years, the one question that she secretly hoped no one would have ever asked her. She took a few minutes to collect her thoughts, knowing that the next few hours were going to necessitate that she revisit her most haunting memories.

"I had a feeling you would ask that" Celestia mumbled, almost inaudibly. She found that she was having trouble finding the words to say what she wanted to, something she was not used to experiencing. "The answer, I'm afraid, is worthless without proper context, and the only way to give that to you is to recount my own personal experience with that place. I only ask one thing of you Twilight; please keep in mind that everything I'm about to tell you happened a very long time ago, and that I was a different pony when I made my choices. You've always been my most faithful student, but you've also been a very close friend, and I hope that you don't look at me any differently after today than you have in the past."

Twilight, now starting to get a feel for what was in store for her, looked confidently at Celestia. "I wouldn't dream of it. We all make mistakes, and we all have things we're ashamed of, but our choices in life shape who we become, and whatever choices you made led you to become the Princess that's sitting with me today. I couldn't ask for anything more from you."

And with those words, Celestia knew that she was ready to tell Twilight everything. Ready to reveal the truth behind the alternate plane of existence she had taken Twilight to, to explain the magic that drives it. Ready to explain the temptation she had given into, how the desire to create a utopia had driven her further and further down a path that she almost didn't return from. Ready to tell the story of how she lost touch with reality, and how in her most desperate hour she made choices that almost resulted in the death of her sister.

It was going to be a long night.

Author's Note:

Well, it's a start. For being my first submission to the site, I'm feeling pretty good about it. I realize not much has happened, but I'm at a great point to jump into the meat of the story in the next chapter. I do want to test the waters though, so I'm throwing out this introduction/prologue to see how people react, both to the story concept and my writing style. Hopefully I catch at least a few readers attention. I gladly welcome any comments anyone might have, I love hearing feedback about my work!

Comments

[Hazy Answer]

Well written, I'll favourite this for now to see where it goes. I don't really have anything more to say until you add to it though.

[ForceUser]

Shows potential and I didn't spot any glaring errors with regards to formatting or grammar.

Good luck.

[DarkParable]

I rather like the fact that you touched on the whole Astral plane thing, couldn't help wondering if that question will be answered in cannon sometime in season four. Can't wait for more of this