Father's Day Special: The King Father
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Equestria, Canterlot, several days ahead
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"And that's the last time I got to see my mother up close. I left after the exchange so the humans could finish their clean up."
Junior continued, having spent the last half hour getting used to seeing his memories projecting onto a screen through alicorn magic. Celestia nodded in return, still eyeing the enchanted window tied to the kaiju's memories. Had she stepped into the Tree of Harmony's realm, she likely could have had him open up his entire history like she did with Twilight. Outside of it however, one panel was the limit but thankfully was enough for the series.
Both looked at the image of Azusa from the then 100 meter tall Junior's perspective with different labels. Seeing his mother again in any form, let alone smiling up at him was a welcome sight to the kaiju king who returned the gesture in stride. He saw his sole remaining parent. Celestia saw a catalyst. Great power can easily corrupt. She'd grown up with multiple guides, one in particular, who helped her stay a more moral course.
-Looks like some things stay constant across time and space..-
It had been a long time since she'd seen a human, though this one wasn't quite as colorful as the ones she recalled. The glow slowly wisped away from the alicorn's horn, the ethereal memory vanishing along with it. Celestia gathered up her thoughts and nodded.
"Well, some goriness aside on that last part, I can certainly see a proud parent smiling at her child. Now, are you sure you're alright with some of this history becoming public knowledge?"
"If it's a bit much just tone down the fights, but the more folks know about me the less they'll fear I hope, assuming these methods of your's work. If they know where I came from and who brought me up, we'll probably hear less wild mass guessing on the radio... That was a good choice to ask me to recall some of my memories with mum."
The oversized unicorn picked himself up from his seat and chuckled, shaking his head slightly.
"I suppose some of them are my happiest."
"It should likely help, many find it hard to call something a monster if it has someone like that for family."
Celestia noted as she wrote down some details on a scroll. It was fairly quiet in the Solar wing, with no one in the office room aside from Celestia herself and Luna's bodyguard. Late afternoon had arrived, the sun having already begun ticking down across the sky when Junior was called in to one of the most bizarre interviews he'd ever heard of. However what got Celestia to glance out the window wasn't something in the ordinary. Somehow the sky had already blackened, a dark quilt of stars and a silvery moon stretched across it. Celestia raised an eyebrow and looked at a nearby clock.
-Strange.. Nightfall isn't due for another two hours now. Luna's early-
The solar diarch looked out another window in the direction of the neighboring tower jutting out of the Lunar wing.
-She's usually always very precise about the start and stop points-
By chance she happened to catch a glimpse of blue coat and flowing mane departing from the tower. Luna flapped her broad wings with an owl's silence as she started to hover and glide her way down towards the gardens. Celestia watched with curious eyes. Even at a distance, she could see the stress in her sibling's body language. Despite her handling the situation of alien monsters and resurrected then de-ressurected tyrants in stride, something was very wrong.
Princess Celestia didn't take her eyes off the window as she spoke quietly in a half calm and half commanding tone.
"Godzilla."
"Yes?"
"Have you noticed Luna at unease lately?"
"Possibly, something didn't smell right but I thought it polite to not dig my nose in where it might not belong."
"Can you tell when it started?"
Junior combed through his memories. Shifting from being awake when he didn't feel tired to being away afternoon to morning had been a tad frustrating over the past few days. He hadn't had the best of dreams either. His mind wasn't always a nice place to be.
"Well, she started seeming a tad.. off.. two days ago."
"Did you have any dreams on that day?"
The question was odd, and despite memory giving him an answer he really would rather not think about, the answer was true. Though nightmarish flashback would be a much more accurate description.
"Yes, it was of my father.... I'm just glad it shifted away from it."
Celestia's heart started to sink. She didn't know the details about her guest's other parent, he specifically asked to not view that part of his memory and she respected it. But his slightly darkened tone and mentioning his father in past tense told her whatever happened to the aforementioned Senior wasn't something either of them would fancy seeing. And if Junior was dreaming of that and the dream suddenly shifted away from it, that means someone might have altered it. Someone who'd seen the dream. A dream about a lost father figure.
Celestia took in a slow breath and sighed, shaking her head slowly.
-I wondered when you'd stop running away Luna...-
By this point Junior had advanced up to Celestia and tracked her point of vision out the window. He looked forth just in time to glimpse and instantly recognizable shape floating down between tree limbs.
"What's wrong with her?"
He muttered, still tracking the moving outline through the canopy. She seemed to be heading for a back area to the gardens, set near the mountain itself and far isolated from any beaten trail he'd noticed.
"I sense it's a... family issue."
"Well,-"
Junior glanced up at Celestia out of the corner of his eyes; cocking an eyebrow as he spoke.
"-shouldn't you follow her down and help then?"
Before she could say yes, memory said no. Distant echoes of Luna's voice from ages long since past echoed out, memories from the worst time in Celestia's life clawed at her mind.
-"YOU were always the favorite! The favorite leader! The favorite symbol! The favorite pupil! The favorite chi-!"-
She forcefully cut the memory off, wincing slightly. She had her answer, as much as it stung.
"I fear that for now, and for this problem with her.. I'm not well suited for it."
"Well then, maybe she's best left alone to sort this out then?"
Celestia sighed, wanting to say no outright. Luna never was very good at sorting out emotions alone. She puzzled. Junior meanwhile could now see two distressed alicorns. One going off to parts unknown, the other forcing herself to look away from the window and walk back to her desk. Celestia extended and flapped her enormous wings before resting them against her sides.
"... If you could, I'd like you to follow her."
"....You certain of that?"
Celestia held her ground and kept her back to Junior. Still, her drooping slightly didn't go unnoticed.
"Yes, just go down and trail her... Make sure no one pesters her if she tries to get it out."
"Get what out?"
The princess tilted her head to the side and glanced back at Junior with a slight frown, before looking out the window.
"... You'll know it when you see it... And Godzilla, if she starts breaking, whatever you do; do not leave her alone..."
There was a silence for the life of dozen seconds as Godzilla Junior looked at Celestia, then back out the window. Taking in a shrug, he backed away.
"Alright, want me to throw myself out that window to catch up or take the stairs?"
"Stairs please."
A half a kilometer away a large form silently touched her hooves to the ground. Princess Luna retracted her wings and stood still amongst the darkened forest, rays of moonlight streaming through the breaks in the leaves above and crisscrossing both her and the understory. Any other instance she'd have admired how beautiful it all looked, this isolated wood that nestled itself behind the capital that built itself across an overhang of mountain. But this was an unusual instance. She was about to do something she'd been dreading, something that had been eating at her mind for the past few days. It was now or never.
She took a step forward, then another, and then another one by one as she very slowly made her way between the trees without so much as crinkling a dry leaf. The edge of the forest slowly began to clear out, oak and spruce leaves giving way to open sky and a downpour of moonlight. Moon and stars were doubled in view, reflected in the still water of a pond that encircled a small peninsula. The clearing was devoid of trees aside from a single, perfectly straight cypress rooted into the peninsula's tip. The landmark's extremely advanced age was evident by its wide trunk. It had been planted for an occasion over centuries ago.
Luna began to shake as she crept up the peninsula on jittering hooves until finally stopping two thirds to the end. Jutting from the ground a few feet from the tree trunk was a simple, half oval shaped slab of stone. Had the protection hexes Luna smelt coming off it not been maintaining it, it's likely the stone would have been far too heavily worn from age to be legible. But, when Luna saw the inscription, she started feeling tremors creeping up her spine. The dark alicorn sat herself down and bowed her head.
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Equestria, Canterlot, around 1,000 years before present
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Star Swirl, the arch mage of the fledgling Equestrian union, puzzled as he jotted down several notes on some graphs. He'd been toiling away at this project for days, and even then he could tell he'd only just barely scratched the surface. Star Swirl grumbled, looking over numerous charts and graphs he himself had wrote down and only half understood. This confounded cutiemark study was going to make his beard fall out one day.
Solitude was interrupted by a familiar face. A young adult unicorn mare with a two toned green mane practically kicked the front door open so hard it caused her mentor's hat to pop up and spin. Star Swirl grabbed his cap and whirled around to see a clearly frantic looking Clover the Clever huffing for breath at his doorstep.
"Clover! Not so loud, you'll startle my heart out one of these days!"
Clover inhaled a deep breath to calm her pulse enough to breathe.
"T-eacher, two fillies have been foun-d in the Everfree!"
Star Swirl paused and tilted his head slightly. While yes he'd be glad to help with a missing children's case, hardly seemed like something to urgently come to him with. Certainly there were more qualified souls out there.
"And, whyyyy does it look like you've sprinted all the way from the forest to tell me this? Is something wrong with the two little ones that's magic related?"
Clover held her breath while trembling, managing to catch her wind while brushing her bangs aside. Her tone was still obviously hyper, both frantic and ecstatic about something."
"W-Well, they're not exactly... normal."
"Spit it out then, what's wrong or abnormal with them? Are they hexed and need me for a counter spell?"
"N-No.. it's not something that's abnormal is with them.. they are abnormal."
Star Swirl took off his reading glasses and walked over to his old apprentice while magically adjusting his hat.
"What, do they look funny or something?"
Clover didn't speak, instead she just raised a hoof and pointed out the door and directly at Canterlot's Castle. An iconic flag hanging from the main doorway swayed slowly in the wind. Star Swirl followed the mare's pointing and looked at the castle for a few moments before noticing the flag. That was then he noticed two creatures that didn't exist stenciled onto the tapestry. He fell silent, eyes slowly widening.
After nearly half a minute, Star Swirl finally managed to speak in a hushed tone that masked shock.
"And this is not just some jest..."
Clover didn't budge, just shaking her head. Star Swirl's whisper began to tremble, understanding why she'd come to him with this.
"Where are they now?"
"They're in the main castle now, Commander Hurricane and Smart Cookie escorted them in. They, Bullion and Platinum requested your presence for the inspection."
Star Swirl slowly exhaled a drawn out shrug, settling his nerves.
"Well then, let's not keep them waiting."
He muttered before walking forward. He restrained himself from teleporting, both due to age and Clover not having yet mastered that spell to keep up. Besides, given this situation he just might want to conserve as much magic as he could should he need it. Clover the Clever turned herself around and trotted after and alongside him.
"Who found them and how far into the forest were they, the fringes?"
Star Swirl muttered, eyes still glued to the castle as they drew close.
"No, deep in its heart. It was a survey party who found them near some sort of tree."
"A tree? That's an odd thing to note in particular for being in a forest full of them."
They walked through the opening front doors and towards the main hall. All around there were lines of ponies from all three branches, layering the fringes of the chamber and giving the center a wide girth. Even from out of the room Star Swirl could hear muttering from every emotion imaginable. Clover's ears drooped as they turned the corner.
"Um... let's just say the leaders wanted you to look at the tree as well. According to the report it's... not exactly normal either."
She whispered before hushing herself upon reaching the crowd. Numerous ponies fell silent as the arch mage advanced out from their ranks and towards the center of the chamber. The council stood in a semicircle ahead of the crowd, Hurricane, Pansy, Bullion, Platinum, Smart Cookie, and Puddinghead all looking forward and down in silence. Star Swirl stopped, looking up at a banner that stretched across the interior of the hall. A much more ornate version of the national flag hung above him.
The image of two alicorns, one dark blue and the other white, circled each other across the seams. It was symbol they'd all agreed upon. A fictional, ideal unity of all three races to embody their new cohesion. Star Swirl looked down and saw the image defictionalized.
Two alicorns, carbon copies of the image above abet much younger, looked up at Star Swirl. The larger of the two was sitting on her rump and holding her sibling. She was a white foal with a pink mane and appeared about half a year old or so. The second, a much smaller blue foal was a baby who looked barely a month old, was half snuggling and half hiding in her sibling's hooves. Despite their early age, a conical horn and set of wings were clear as crystal on both of them.
Star Swirl loomed over the duo as the chamber collectively held its breath. The youngest alicorn blinked as few times as she looked up at the stallion. After some time in silence, she partially wiggled out of her larger counterparts protective hold and reached up to Star Swirl, giggling and pawing at the tip of his beard like a curious kitten. Soon enough, a smile stretched across the older alicorn's face before she too reached up to the mage with a little hoof. Star Swirl sighed in relief, making no effort to stop the littlest one from playing in his hair as he nodded to the white alicorn who returned the gesture.
-Well, this is a good omen-
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Six Months Later
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Star Swirl growled enough to rattle his beard, busy scouring high and low for a missing toddler. The siblings thankfully had proved to be as benign as they had hoped, but their growing magical prowess and rapid physical growth had certainly kept many on their hooves. In just a few months after being found, Celestia had started aging at a rapid rate enough that she'd breached the toddler line and now seemed somewhere in the realm of a four or five year old. Luna hadn't quite caught up to her sibling and only recently had hit the accelerant point, her maturity currently around the ballpark of a nine or ten month old. Or least that was Star Swirl's best guess about the ages of two foals that didn't grow like foals at all. However it was their magic potential that was causing them to be more than a hoofful.
A typical young unicorn might have bursts of magic, namely telekinesis, on and off for several months as they mature; and pegasi frequently exhibit constant urges to fly about fueled by the instinct to get airborne. The alicorns had both while being super charged on earth pony stamina and had more frequent instances due to an accelerated growth. Normal foals might have an instance every couple of days. In the past few months Star Swirl was lucky if either sister hadn't had one every few hours.
And as a premiere authority on magic of multiple types, it wouldn't take a genius to find who'd been commissioned as the two's primary over watch. Star Swirl could tear his hairs out one by one based on how much he regretted saying yes. Sometimes studying a new species just wasn't worth it.
The old mage grit his teeth as he followed the trail of familiar magic around a corner.
-At least Celestia is old enough to start studying. The library book I assigned her should keep her occupied long enough... Now where did Luna run off to?!-
His thought was answered by a hint of baby blue up on the staircase railing. Across the hall and near the stairwell, an infantile Luna was giggling as she slid down the concave rail like a slide. Star Swirl grimaced and rushed forward with magic igniting across it. Luna was too busy squealing happily from her slide to notice she'd been thrown off the tip. Instinct took over as soon as she was airbourne, the little foal spreading her wings and gliding forth, barreling at her caretaker. Between her small size, high speed, and Star Swirl's own panic; his magic born hand of telekinesis failed to catch her before the tiny alicorn crashed into his face.
Star Swirl doubled over onto his back, half knocked silly. When he first tried to open his eyes, the world didn't stop spiraling and there were stars everywhere. He closed his eyes and held his head, shaking it to get off the merry-go-round and pray he didn't get a concussion. When he did finally come too, he felt a weight on his collar and his beard was looking at him. Or, rather the foal tangled and curled up inside the mass of white was looking at him with beady eyes.
Sadly despite not being dizzied, little Luna did get one bad side effect of the sudden jolt. It had spooked her. Her little horn instantly glimmered and then she hiccuped. The moment she flinched was the moment she vanished in a flash of white light, ripping off half of Star Swirl's beard with her.
It took a moment for the pain to hit him, but it came alright. Star Swirl lurched up while clenching his jaw shut as much as he could to muffle the yelping groan of pain.
"HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"
"STAR SWIRL!"
The pained mage managed to stop groaning quick enough to flop to his side and look at who was coming now. It took a moment for him to recognize the frantic mess of dough and flower as Vice Chancellor Smart Cookie. He only needed a glance at her to figure out what had happened. Star Swirl held his breath as his eyebrow twitched.
"Oh don't tell me Celestia got in there AGAIN?!"
"Got in?! She pillaged the pantry while I was busy and teleported out before I could stop her. I thought you were watching her!"
"Watch her?! I've had my hooves full with just tracking down the little one! Oyyyye!"
Star Swirl barked, throwing his hooves up before sinking back down and rubbing his horn. Smart Cookie shrugged, wiping some excess flour off her muzzle. There was a pause of silence for both to catch their breath and wit.
"... What.. did Celestia take this time?"
"What do you think? Mostly grains and sweets. There isn't a single pound cake left! And-"
-Hmm.. High energy foods. Yep, that accelerated growth definitely boosted metabolism-
"Star Swirl... Hey Star Swirl!"
The mage snapped out of his mental musing when Smart Cookie waved her hoof in front of him.
"What?!"
Smart Cookie gave him a perplexed look, eyes trailing up and down Star Swirl's face.
"What happened to your beard?"
The archmage's eyes narrowed considerably, not liking being reminded half his namesake had been torn off.
"My pupil happened."
He grunted with a growl, walking past and around Smart Cookie. Now he had two alicorns to worry with, again. Now he had to be on the lookout for a sugar high juvenile in addition to a randomly teleporting infant. Smart Cookie shrugged, chuckling slightly under her breath.
"Druthers of parenthood Swirly."
A long, drawn out snarl slithered out of Star Swirl's throat as he walked out of the chamber and left Smart Cookie behind.
"I'm their tutor and mentor, not their babysitter. The alicorns are unique entities that need instruction, they're not children."
Smart Cookie rolled her eyes with a smirk, calling out to the hallway as Star Swirl went down it.
"'Till the cards are down, 'Till the cards are down~..."
All she could hear in response was a low muttering as Star Swirl's voice echoed out of the hall; speaking in a growling grumble all the way.
"Sonofrana maernifrink freanum nirtrnraga..."
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Meanwhile in the Library, near Star Swirl's study
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A pink and white blur sped through the library so quick the air hissed with every pass. With every rush, half the section morphed. Stacks of books rapidly shifted to and fro, another sweet set onto a makeshift table made out of dictionaries vanished; and there was giggling all around.
-Okay! Reorganized de east wing! Alphabetized de west wing! And read through to get the good books from both! Got Memoirs of Shadowfax, Life and Methods of Masked Tornado, aaaaaaaaand EEEE! Ebony Beauty’s hex tome! TookMe5MinutesToFindAllThis! I am SET!-
The blur raced over to the table, plopping down a stack of tomes about everything from comedy acts to shield magic; and gobbling up a cupcake. Celestia's horn dimmed, the golden aura stretching across her form dissipating. Having figured out a telekinesis spell from Star Swirl a few weeks prior, it only took some experimentation for her to find out how much faster she could fly by literally lifting and throwing herself around with magic as much as she did by wing. And given she'd just wolfed down at least a hundred grams worth of sugar in the past five minutes and was jittering constantly, she wasn't slowing down.
She had just started reading when a flash of light shot out from above the table. Luna plopped down a few inches, landing on Celestia's book rump first.
"Dwoof!"
The youngest alicorn looked around at her surroundings before spotting her sister. Luna let out a tiny, happy gasp and waved her hooves, saying the only word she knew that everyone besides her sister could understand.
"Cewwie!"
Celestia grinned ear to ear, still bouncing up and down a few millimeters at a time.
"OhHiLulu! Cupcake?"
She squealed, holding out a little treat for her little sister. Luna nodded happily, reaching out and taking the snack. She'd just started happily gumming the frosting when another hiccup hit her. This time Luna, the cupcake, the entire table and everything on it disappeared.
Celestia froze up for the first time in half an hour. Moments came and went as she looked at everything she'd collected vanish right before her. All the passages she'd been working on memorizing, all the dictionaries put to use; and all the reading fuel she'd been stocking up. All gone and stolen away in an instant. Slowly, her eyes changed. First widening, then narrowing and twitching. Flickers of light came from her pupils as her entire body began to shake like a steam kettle. The fringes of her mane began to stand up on end and glow.
Celestia jumped up as he entire mane and tail ignited as she flew out of the library, letting out a roar that rattled the entire castle.
"LUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
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Star Swirl's ears were still ringing from earlier, having the unfortunate case of being near the library at the time of the alicorn air horn when Celestia smashed through the door, when he managed to finally track down the magic surge and find the sisters. And when he saw them, he wasn't sure if he should be disappointed or annoyed. The two alicorns, the only ones of their kind, who's appearance had been heralded as a cause for celebration after the inspection, the two fillies with the highest magical potential the archmage had ever seen; were throwing a tantrum at each other.
Luna, held up by her own magic in a midst of a power surge, floated and slowly spun through the air like someone had switched off the gravity as a still on-fire Celestia flew after her in the airspace. The room, having once been a now barely recognizable guest quarters, looked like a hurricane had gone off in it. Books and pastries were flying around in every direction from the out of control alicorns while being chased by bickering one would expect between politicians or at least preschoolers. Insults were being thrown around as much as projectiles.
"Abgabu Cewwie!"
"It dwopped in where?!"
"Gaba!"
"Hey I like the pink!"
"Anaka nanqui!"
"Rainbows would not look better!"
"Kaka abububububub!"
Celestia dodged an airborne cupcake that hit Star Swirl's hat before smearing down its height. Still ignorant to the adult's arrival, she lunged at Luna while barking.
"It would nwot! GRR!"
Managing to grab her sibling, both alicorns dropped onto the burnt, tossed remains of a bed and wrestled, rolling about. Star Swirl stoically took a deep breath and wiped his hat and face clean of apple frosting. He looked at the two with a deadpan expression.
-The future protectors and symbols of Equestria fillies and gentlecoats...-
His vision shifted upwards while sitting on his haunches and holding his forehooves up in a flabbergasted motion towards any deity watching him.
-Why must you confound and torment us?...-
His patience wore thin both from lack of response and the two's audible squabbling. And eventually said patience snapped just like his voice did. Magical auras grabbed both alicorns by the horn and forced them a few feet apart as Star Swirl stomped on the ground with a pulse of magic behind it to add force.
"EE-NOUGH! I will NOT stand for any more insolence from my pupils!"
Instantly, both Celestia and Luna looked to him and both on conscious and instinct, cowered despite the mage's magical hold over them dissipating. Star Swirl paid it no mind, refusing to drop his voice beyond a stressed snarl.
"YOU are going to help clean all of this, the library, and the pantry up! I am putting a sealing lock on your bedroom within the hour!"
He roared, glaring at Celestia who sat back quivering. Star Swirl's wrath shifted targets. It didn't matter if he wasn't quite sure if Luna could understand him or not at this point, he was shouting his thoughts to himself as much as he was them.
"And YOU are getting an inhibitor ring until you can control your magic and have supervisor at ALL TIMES! No more going off on your own and certainly no star gazing tonight!"
If Luna couldn't understand his words, she could understand the tone. The little one quivered and shook, crawling over to her sister and hiding behind Celestia's tail while sniffling. All three in the room were too angered or frightened to notice dust seeping down from above.
Star Swirl didn't notice the ceiling beam, previously weakened in foundation by all the commotion and Star Swirl's stomping, tear itself out of the roof until he head the splinting hiss of breaking wood. Two chunks of hardwood fell free from above and rained down on either side of the room. Star Swirl felt time slow down as he looked to the fillies. Conscious mind and emotion blacked out to instinct. His horn glowed, magic grabbing and altering one of the beam's trajectories and forcing it away from the two and against the wall. It was only then he had time to see the shadow of at least twenty kilograms of hardwood cast over him. He braced, trying to refocus his magic to save himself.
But, as the milliseconds ticked by, he found himself not needing to.
A half bubble of golden hued magic arched over top of him, blocking the timbers' fall. A ripple-like wave seeped across the shield after the beam hit it like a gong, bouncing up slightly in time for a bolt of white hex to hit the wood and knock it aside.
The fallen beam crashed into the back wall as Star Swirl's breath left him. Perception still slowed to a crawl, he looked up in time to see an oncoming Celestia and Luna running across the bed and onto the floor with their horns glows still dissipating. Time only resumed its course when both came up and clung to his legs, still quivering.
Star Swirl's breath left him and he huffed to try and steal it back. He finally came to when they spoke. Through the shivers and crying, Celestia clung to Star Swirl's leg and spoke in muffled cries; Luna imitating her as best she could as the littlest alicorn hugged Star Swirl's shoulder.
"W-e're t'owwy M-m-mister Star Swirl! I-'ll cleanup everyting amb stuy hawder and never eawt and-"
"-Andaba baub bubububu bowwy bowwy bowy!"
Star Swirl looked down at the quivering filly and foal, and sighed. He recalled his words and beliefs from earlier in every definition of the term. He'd been focusing too much on certain aspects. Their uniqueness. Their uncanny resemblance to a symbol. And, perhaps most importantly, their magical ability. These months past he hadn't been seeing two ponies, just two beings the world had never seen before. Beings he secretly feared could be consumed by their own growing power had they not had instruction. They'd been another case study for him, however a frantic one.
Looking down, he didn't see two unknowns, two variables; or two equations to be solved. Just a pair of scared little ponies. His expression morphed. The mix of shock, stern anger; and fright shifted to mellow blankness. And then a tiny smile. He lifted a hoof and patted Celestia's head before giving Luna a soft nuzzle. He kept quiet until they stopped crying.
Star Swirl chuckled, sitting up and holding Celestia against him as little Luna perched on his shoulder.
"The damage can be repaired and apologies can be made, I'll teach you how. But, seems like you two just have too much energy to be cooped up inside all this time. How about we do some clean up and then have a walk in the back gardens?"
The two sisters' moods lifted at his words, Celestia whispering as she looked up at the old mage.
"C-Can we go by the pond and fweed the birdies?"
"Of course."
Star Swirl said with a chuckle, earning an affectionate nuzzle against his cheek by a very happy Luna as Celestia hugged his midsection. He usually hated his theories being wrong. But, as he held the two close; Star Swirl could relent that this time was the exception.
-Kids will be kids...-
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A decade and a half later, Everfree Forest
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Star Swirl the Bearded was undergoing enough stress that he might end up being known as 'Star Swirl the Bald' by the time the night was up. Not like he particularly cared, he was far too terrified. The old unicorn grunted, clenching his teeth to bite back the pain as he teleported himself dozens of yards ahead again and again. The strain was rapidly catching up to him from the distance he'd traveled. Ever since the Crystal Empire vanished, he'd been investigating the north. His search for survivors so far had been fruitless. All the old settlements and outposts of the crystalline nation vanished with its capital, the only crystal ponies remaining being the ones who had happened to be in foreign countries at the time. Still, there had been a trail he'd been sniffing. It was old, not much younger than the time the empire went dark after Sombra took over. But the trail of three toed paw prints and residual crystal magic was clear enough. Someone had possibly gotten away.
But he'd abandoned the pursuit in the instant a feeling engulfed him. He'd been consumed by a craven dread, one unlike anything he'd felt since Discord's takeover. There was something horribly wrong with the sisters. Thus, he turned tail and ran, teleported, and trudged cross country as fast as possible back to the castle. Now about two kilometers away from the Castle of the Two Sisters, his worst fears were confirmed. The air went cold despite it being a summer night and a terrifying stench hit him like a tsunami. Dark magic, more raw dark magic pouring out of the castle than near anything he'd ever experienced. Nerves screamed at him to run, mind roared at him to charge in despite the journey having drained him.
He looked through the canopy while grunting as he jumped a trench. Flares of light and beams of energy crisscrossed the night sky. Black and white beams were firing out of and, judging from the distant roar of falling rubble, through the castle walls in increasing frequency. Golden rays, Celestia's signature, were occasionally shooting out as well but in diminishing capacity. Every animal in the forest from marmots to manticores was running past Star Swirl and ducking for cover after a few beams impacted the ground and hit several trees with so much concussive force they exploded into nothing but showers of splinters. Star Swirl shielded his eyes from the raining debris as he forced himself along and up to the castle's back entrance. The chill of dark magic was ever stronger, fear stabbing through him with every step like each advance was met by a walking nightmare.
But he was a stubborn old fool of a stallion and kept forward despite the immense strain. Star Swirl blasted open the doorway and charged through it. He could sense both Celestia and Luna's signatures, they were close and fighting something! They needed his help! He mustn't be too late! He followed the flow of magic towards one of the upper chambers, the one where the Elements of Harmony were stored.
-They're trying to use the Elements again! It must be serious!-
Through the door he bolted towards, he could hear the cackle of shattering glass and a sharp cry of pain. He'd just managed to get the door open when there was a explosion of brilliance. Star Swirl was simultaneously blinded and thrown back by the expanding blast wave of pure light and energy. He flew back and hit his head on the wall hard enough to black out.
He didn't know how long he'd been knocked out when the world slowly returned. So much was gone. The explosive flash, half the windows, and all decorations in the hallway were all gone or thrown about from the wave. Vision fading in and out of blackness as the old mage got to his feet, Star Swirl managed to stumble back into the element chamber by the time his consciousness returned. The room was damaged just as much as the exterior, with only the elements' mounting being close to intact.
Celestia lay on the floor, partially sitting and limply slumping against the mounting's base. The element gemstones themselves lay scattered across the floor around her, occasionally pulsing in ever dwindling glows. Celestia herself was far from in good shape, riddled with bruises, cuts, and a large burn stitched across her left wing. But most distinct of all was her mane. The dawn pink Star Swirl had seen on her since the day she was found was joined by a barrage of new colors to form a rainbow.
If her wounds or new hair color gave her any heed she didn't show it, more focused on struggling to get onto her hooves and drowning her eyes in her sobbing. She managed to half crawl and half drag herself with weak limbs towards the broken window as moonlight streamed through it.
"L-Luna! N-NOO!"
She choked out as Star Swirl limped over towards her. In en route, he followed her line of sight and looked out the window. The moon, full and bright, shined through the broken glass. The image of a dark alicorn was stenciled onto its surface. Star Swirl could sense the dark magic's residue fading in the direction of the celestial. He was starting to figure out what had happened...
Celestia was either too focused or had her peripheral vision too clouded by tears to notice him. She scrambled across the floor despite dragging her back left leg from a bad limp, grabbing the red gemstone. The Element of Loyalty, one of Luna's.
"Br-bring her back! Give her ba-a-ack!"
She screamed with a gag, her hooves trembling as the glow from the element started to die away. She clenched the element closer to her as she sat up and grabbed one of hers, the Element of Magic. It too had a dying glow. The typically warmth, welcoming sensation she used to feel around both elements were gone. Bearer had used element against bearer. Her connection had been severed. It felt as terrifying as it did mortifying.
Star Swirl bowed his head as he limped forward, having put the last piece together of what never should have happened. Why there was a mare in the moon, where the dark magic had departed, why was Celestia injured... why Luna was gone. He had been too late...
The arch mage walked up to the mare he helped raise with a sullen expression. Memories played back before his eyes against his will. Bouncing fillies, joyful young alicorns running into this chamber eagerly in years past, long nights of instruction. Each vision constricted his core harder and harder. When Celestia called out in desperate panic, he could feel a knife between his ribs stab in and twist.
"I-I'll do anything! Take anything! Just b-ring her back! She's my baby sister BRING HER BACK!"
The glow finally vanished when Star Swirl sat down beside her. Celestia dropped the depowered gemstones as stony squares grew over it, as dull and lifeless as the stone floor. Celestia lost her will to sit up, slumping against Star Swirl as her crying blotted out her voice. Star Swirl did his best to help hold her up, slowly patting her back as he looked at Equestria's sole remaining alicorn. After some time, he looked to the moon. A trail of tears drained out of his eyes and glimmered in the moonlight as the blank face of a dark alicorn looked back at him.
============================================
Canterlot Night, half an hour after Luna's departure
============================================
Luna sat still before the stone, water dripping onto the grass below her. She really wished it was raining. She couldn't say anything to him, half choked on her own tongue.
There was a crinkle of grass blades behind her. The alicorn flinched, but didn't move from her place. Despite her distraught mood, her tone had a razor blade's edge behind its growl when she tilted her head to the side and glared back.
"How long.. have you been there.."
A pair of amber eyes encircled by red gleamed in the low light of the tree line. Junior took slow steps forward, surprisingly silent aside from his hoofsteps despite still being in most of his plate armor. He kept his tone neutral.
"A minute, I followed the hoofprints."
Luna glided her head back to its original position, keeping it hung low. She didn't want anyone to notice the glimmering lines below her eyes. Sh sneered with a flared nose and furrowed brow.
"..Leave..."
A moment passed before Junior resumed his approach.
"You know me better than that."
Luna shrugged, letting her wings droop slightly against her sides.
"You're stubborn..."
Coming up beside the alicorn, he sat himself down, reaching up and removing his helmet and setting it aside.
"I take after my parents."
He muttered with sigh, not making any motion towards his audience as he sat in silence. It was only when he'd gotten close enough the former kaiju noticed the stone and the writing scrawled across it. Literacy was still something he never had much chance to practice. He was more than a tad rusty, only memorizing some Kana or Roman English script from experience. It was something Captain Frost had him working to improve upon during his downtime here. Still, the words were few enough that he could make out some of it despite the heavy wear on what he recognized as an aged gravestone
-Star..swirl 'The Beard-ed' In-can-us... 52 B.A. to 145 A.A. -
Star Swirl, he'd heard that name before. Luna had mentioned it during that night back when he was still recovering from the gyaos battle.
-"A wizard named Star Swirl helped raise us among others."-
He didn't know the full situation or his history well, but some meaning behind what was going on found itself in his grasp.
-So, she did lie when she said she didn't have any parents...-
Junior glanced over, noticing Luna craning her head to the side and away from him out of the corner of his eye. It was all the confirmation he needed.
-Maybe even lied to herself...-
"My father died when I was two years old, barely a teenager... I black out one hour, come to the next, and he's gone."
Luna listened despite it all. She could practically curse herself for being curious. When she first sensed his distress she should have shut the nightmare of meltdowns and falling kings instantly. Instead she'd looked. She looked and was reminded of her own failures to her family. Not just to her sister but her... she stopped at the word, doubting her worth for it.
It took a few minutes of both of them sitting perfectly still for her to speak.
"I wasn't there when it happened... Celestia was... The citizens were... Bu-t, I had to turn into that THING... I wasn't there when he-"
She snapped and grunted, stomping her hoof against the ground. At this point her ethereal mane was beginning to sag. She loathed appearing weak, but she hated running away even more. Junior stayed still, looking down at the headstone and rereading the title over and over again.
"You don't need to finish that, I can guess..."
He said under his breath. After a moment, Luna began to chuckle and gag through mild choking to try and dry her eyes.
"N-ot like he probably even wanted me around when it happened... Celestia was always better for him. Better stu-dent, better leader; better successor.. He got to see her thrive for over a hundred and ten years, I was only looming around for twenty... He probably just remembered me as another failure or monster Celestia had to deal with like Chrysalis..."
Junior closed his eyes and shook his head a few times.
"Brief time can mean a lot... I lived with my mother for eight months, my father for a year and a half before he died. My mother is the only family I have left still alive, and I have grown so I can never be around her safely again. I'll probably outlive her by decades or centuries assuming someone doesn't put me down in the never ending struggle I call life.... But, time doesn't matter."
He whispered, before tilting his head over towards her. Junior glanced at the alicorn in the edge of his vision.
"Do you remember him?"
Slowly, the silent princess nodded.
"Remember anything he taught you?"
Luna swallowed and inhaled slowly to catch her breath. She shut her eyes and combed through memory before reciting it in a whisper.
"Don't get drunk off power... magic requires will and concentration... Don't forget or abuse those without your gifts."
Junior did the same, recalling experiences more than words but the lessons stayed the same. Star Swirl wasn't the only good teacher, Junior had two.
"Do the best you can at the thing you are best at. Don't let others force your way. A fulfilled life or action brings peace to others. Stand up for those weaker than yourself.... If you remember what one taught you, by word or by example, they never leave you."
Luna slowly shifted her head back forward and back at the stone with a sullen expression.
"..Sometimes I doubt I was worth it.."
She felt a gentle nudge against her shoulder.
"Listen. Remember when you told me once, how you thought my father would have been proud of how his 'prince' turned out? I believed you... Well, given your track record I'm pretty certain the wise old wizard would be amazed at how the princess he helped shape grew up. Best thing you can do now is honor his life and memories... Not just anyone who's willing to take me on in a fistfight. He'd have to have taught you something good to have knocked my lights out."
Princess Luna exhaled to reign in her pulse, before shifting her head slightly in his direction to glance over to her stubborn company.
"You flatter..."
Junior smirked and sat back somewhat, rolling his eyes.
"Actually I'm told I'm a very bad liar, so Lele advised me to not even bother trying most of the time."
A tiny smile slipped across Luna muzzle before she wiped her damp eye and cheek. She picked her head up to Junior's level and looked down at the gravestone, and then to the night sky. Maybe, she could keep this company after all...
High above, a constructed constellation, one Luna had aligned over a millennium ago, twinkled. The outline of a bearded unicorn smiled down at the sleeping Equestria, watching over his daughters. Across space, a long haired woman looked down at a small, twenty one year old portrait in her lap as she sat on her porch. She let her fingers trail across the image of a sleeping saurian, snuggling up against a younger her as she laughed; before looking up at the night sky. Azusa smiled. Either be instinct or by wish, she knew her son was still alive.
Children are shaped by the figures they'd call parents, be it parents by blood or circumstance. Behind every heroine or hero is a predecessor to guide them.
Happy Mother's Day and Happy Father's Day
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It's 40 minutes after 12 am in my timezome XD
Best chapter yet.
Every day is Father and Mother's day.
This was posted at 2:10 in the morning but it was worth reading.
Such feels.
As one who lost his father at the age of six and his mother a decade and a half ago, I cannot help but agree totally.
For those who still have your parents, charish the time you have with them. Let them know how much you love them. And know you are loved in return.
Good job on bringing out my feels, Tarb.
I wish my biological dad would've been a better person, were he still alive, but things happen.
DAAAAWWWWW *Falls over from cuteness overload*
DAAAWWWWW!! LOL *Falls over due to cuteness and laughter*
Starswirl's day is FUBAR.
I would love to see Shadowfax's memoirs, he probably has quite a few comments on Gandalf being a stupid human and not thinking like a horse. Plus, I bet he was evaluating how to rip the Fell Beast apart when the Witch Kind confronted Gandalf.
For entertainment, duh!
Hmm, is Luna referring to the recent Changeling invasion or an incident from before she was banished????
I think my heart feels meter just broke
This is a nice little tribute to Father's Day.
Always fun to read about little Celly and Woona!
Great job, Tarbtano!
This chapter was beautiful. It's nice to see Junior bonding with Luna and interacting with Celestia. The image by Faith was adorable and beautiful. Lastly, watching Celestia and Luna as foals being raised by Starswirl was adorable. Thanks for the chapter.
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*pounds chest twice and flashes the peace sign* good chapter it is true for so many
my ur love for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic never die and ur family love u just as much as ur love the show
So I take it Celestia and Luna were created by the Tree of Harmony itself.
this was good
Yup...brought a tear to my eye and remembering my young days with my dad. Nice job man. Nice Job.
This is a very good chapter.
An excellent tribute to Father's Day, and it's true. We're all shaped to whom we are by those before us. This chapter, though short, captures that feeling and lesson very well. The feels that I felt (especially with Luna's Banishment) were something that truly tugged at my heartstrings.
Way to go Tarbtano. :)
This is a great chapter.
I know it's past Father's Day, but this video is just cute
A beautiful chapter. Well done.
Wow. This was a great emotional chapter! By Tanaka, I LOVED IT! Great work!
This is a great chapter.
Thank you for making this chapter. That's twice I almost cried, keep up the good work. Also can't wait to see the baby raid of ponyville.
*throws another like at the page*
Why can't I like this more than once!? WHY!?
Tarb I'll say this is easily better than the Mother's Day Special and, quite frankly, one of the better chapters- considering I'm in the belief that most of the chapters are very good, that says a lot. I like that this focuses more on Celestia and Luna's relationship towards Starswirl, with Junior complimenting it by explaining his small relationship with his own father, balances this out very well.
So now the question is: which holiday special will we get next?
Independence Day
Labor Day
Grandparents' Day
Columbus Day
Halloween
Veterans' Day
Thanksgiving
Chanukah
Christmas Eve/Day?
I'd actually like to see all of these made into specials. Can anyone imagine the Kaiju having to go through Halloween, Thanksgiving, and/or Christmas!?
6127156
Rainbow Dash and Zilla Jr. end up in the EG realm and need to stop a plot that could spoil the city fireworks celebration.
Anguirus, kaiju who's been sleeping for seventy millennium, helps teach overactive Twilight the importance of taking a break.
Xenilla get wrapped into staying with Nightlight and Twilight Velvet as they visit the empire when Cadance goes into labor.
Raiga gets sucked into Equestria and finds a sailor lost at sea and under attack.
After learning the holiday is centered around frights, Destroyah goes a tad overboard with the CMC being fully onboard with her.
Junior accompanies Captain Frost as she and Shining Armor visit their predecessor, while at a ceremony at the national cemetery.
Applejack and Rodan investigate the oddity of turkeys being a symbol of a feasting holiday for a herbivorous species.
Part 1: Anguirus joins the Pie family for their annual holiday while the rest of cast is off during Hearth's Warming Eve
Part 2 to above mentioned Part 1. Thanks to a time anomaly, Irys, Gigan, and Megalon find themselves flung a full year into the EG realm's time while looking for X. Lost, they end up staying several days in the realm waiting for a Zenith portal to reopen as Sunset Shimmer attempts to help.
6127331 Give me the Halloween and Christmas/Chanukah!!! Actually the only ones I don't fully "approve" are Independence Day and Columbus Day.
EVERYONE ELSE!!! Give ideas!
6127364 Independence Day:
Rainbow and Junior must go into the thick of 1983 to stop the Communists from winning WW3, and along the way become AMERICAN SUPER-SOLDIERS who fight for FREEDOM and LIBERTY against the filthy COMMUNISTS.
6127779
pinkie.mylittlefacewhen.com/media/f/rsz/mlfw8608_small.jpg
6127784 Communism is the very definition of failure, my friend, as we all know. After all, democracy is non-negotiable.
6127331
Love these ideas of your Tarb. Will these be in future chapters or in the sequel?
Not since Fist of the North Star have I shed such manly tears. Amazing job, 11/10. Beautiful.
6115519
Not rushing you man, don't worry. I keep forgetting you have your university stuff.
Another heart warming chapter. I feel that Junior may end up writing a friendship report to Celestia before the story is finished, if his comforting Luna is any indication.
What does B.F. and A.F. stand for?
6129873
B.efore F.ounding and A.fter F.ounding
Couldn't find any timescales in-series so I made up best guess I could.
6129979 Thanks.
Can't relate, never met dad, only timed phone calls.
6131143
The moral is less you must 'absolutely have a father or mother' and more its who you consider your parents or guides that's important. Yes, I grew up with a good ma and pa, but not everyone else has. It was less Star Swirl was called the siblings' father and more he was their guide growing up. In that sense a 'parent' isn't always your legal guardian or biological parent. If someone has helped give you your morals and helped you grow up in some form or another, they could be your parent.
6131187 Never really had any other father figures, just my my mum and sister, only other was my grandpa, but he wasn't around often.
6131486
Again, less emphasis on defined mothers and father, and more about who was with you all this time. For instance, yes Junior had a mother and father figure, but not both at the same time due to how he was raised. At any point in his life, he only had one parent active.
I'm not trying to pretend I can understand anyone's situation, I can't. But I did try to acknowledge them
6127331 Are these plans for chapters that will occur or are you doing your duty as a trolling creator like the TVTROPES page says?
6131522
I am a descendent of Grendel, I deny no troll genes at work. These aren't a promise, just ideas I whipped up off the top of my head. To be fair though if I did do these holidays I'd stagger them around a lot because otherwise I fear half the chapters this year would be holiday specials.
6131517 Yeah, mate I get it, but again, no father figures.
A very sweet and nice special... was hoping Celestia and Luna got to learn more about Junior's father a bit and him remembering the good times with him.
I really like this origin story for Celestia and Luna and as an explanation for the flag continuity question. Equestria gets founded, they decide on a flag, and then the Tree provides matching alicorns. I also really like Star Swirl as a father figure for them, was fun to read about. Well, except the sad bits, those were less fun but still meaningful.
6145086
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Thanks, I like to know who are the contributors are
6144938
To an extent yes. They are pretty much biological machines hardwired to 'obey master, wreck everything in sight'
I would like to thank you.
Thanks to the video link in the author's notes for this special chapter, the Evil Song From Hades is no longer stuck in my head.
Admitidly, it's replacement is a haunting melody and soulful song that can bring even this old cynic to tears, but is still very much an improvement.
Well, I don't rightly know much about fathers, but I did just read Tarb's latest penwork, so let me review that instead.
Check it out! I've got a theme song!
The immediate feeling I get from this short work is a much different vibe from the other chapters. It doesn't advance the main plot, and that's okay. But rather than being a side adventure, it's a stop on memory lane, and like I said, a far more somber tone than the others.
I also think that this is Tarb's best written chapter yet, as far as descriptive language and prose go. Not my favorite of his work, but I recognize the skill of an excellently written piece.
Like with the Mother's day chapter, it doesn't give me the feels, or do anything special for me, but it is a nice addition to the world that Tarb is building in his story.
I'm impressed by Tarb's catch of the plot-hole in the Equestria Flag chronology, and kudos to working it in so well to his headcanon. I've never been particularly excited about Starswirl (
) but here he sorta reminds me of Merlin from Disney's 'The Sword in the Stone'. I like him, and among the wackyness of all that tends to transpire in the MLP world, he's a pretty grounded character.
I get the feeling that Tarb was also still in the mood to write dialog for babies. I'm sure there's a thousand different fan versions of the genesis of Celestia and Luna, which totally the fault of the canon for leaving it unresolved. The concept the Alicorns being manifested avatars is an interesting one, not entirely because of the particular instance of Celestia and Luna, but because of the implications such a miraculous thing would mean for their world. It strikes me as a very clever tip of the hat to some of the gods of antiquity, Mithra is the one who comes to mind, I'm sure coincidentally. Mithra, an old Persian god of light, contracts, and friendship, emerged into the world through a mysterious, fantastic way. And if Celestia isn't Deus Sol Invictus, no-one is. The subsequent odyssey Celestia and Luna engage on, traveling around and overthrowing tyrants and terrible beasts, straight out of Classical mythology. So it would appear then here, that the sisters are legit demigods, though in a reverse order to the typical process of apotheosis.
This leaves us the GIGANTIC question of the mechanism by which they were created and put on the world. Is the ethereal magic so powerful, that it literally coalesced into the avatars created to symbolize the union of the different pony breeds? Or is there a higher entity that decided to create them, perhaps as means by which the rest of creation could be saved and protected. Is Harmony that deity?
Another implication that I find, is that Luna seems to be starting to see Godzilla as more of an equal than before. Probably because she knows that he's not a normal pony, and that it's his good graces that have kept Canterlot from erupting into chaos and war. Since she knows that Jr. isn't truly one of her citizens, it's much easier for her not to view him as one of the many 'below' her, but rather as a colleague, a ruler from another kingdom. Not discounting her own apparent attraction, Luna allowing him to get so close personally is revealing in just how different their relationship is.
A factor to that, is that Godzilla is pretty much the epitome of a strong, alpha male. The type that even alpha females (and demigoddesses) will feel compelled to enjoin themselves to, even submit themselves to. Granted this Godzilla doesn't have all the, shall we say, 'side-effects' that typically comes with being an an alpha male, which leaves him vulnerable to being kind of a Gary Stu in some contexts.
But to comment on some things that Tarb actually DID write, I thought the concept of Star Swirl trying to raise two rambunctious, magically gifted children was cute, and the realization that they were children, needing all the same things that normal pony foals need like guidance, compassion, and even love, was bank. I also very much enjoyed the agitated, even a bit frantic state that Celestia was in after banishing Luna to the moon. This leads me to think that she didn't know what the effects of using the Elements would be, and realizing what had happened, immediately regretted the decision. It also implies that the Elements are a power unto themselves, like the Infinity Stones, wielding a power that no earthly pony, not even a demigod, can control or predict.
The Magnificent Machine is pleased with this chapter, and after retrieving memory files of his Simeon creators, has decided that he will not destroy you with finger missiles and belly lasers.... today.
I was incorrect to associate Godzilla with Western concepts of Alpha masculinity from the get. It's not where he comes from, and any parallels he has to western ideals, are just that, parallels.
And it does seem that we are having a disconnect as to what constitutes an alpha male. I would say that in my initial reaction to the content, I reverted to my default of western standards, and analyzed him from an inappropriate point of view. Godzilla lacks the faults of a Western AM, because he's not one. His character is Eastern, and much more aptly compared to a Ronin.
But I'm still calling him an Alpha Male, I'm not letting that one go.