• Published 14th Oct 2013
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Alpha Centauri - StLeibowitz



Twilight is kidnapped by a sun and told she used to be one too. Rainbow Dash is fighting phantoms of past lives as she tries to rescue her. Powerful alien beings intend to exploit the chaos to further their own ends...

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Chapter 4: In the Starmaker's Court

Despite the presence of her wings, Twilight still shuddered and pulled away from the edge of the floor, a wave of nausea following the sense of vertigo that came from staring down an infinite wall into the depths of space. She and the alicorn were walking sedately down a long gallery, its left wall indented with alcoves containing perfect spheres of varicolored light, its right wall more a series of archways overlooking the stars of the night sky and an endless drop into the abyss. Twilight was balanced on the edge of wanting to jump out and try – ridiculously – to swim towards the stars and find a place for herself, and wanting to hug the opposite wall and stay well away from the impossible scene. The alicorn’s tower was filled with impossibilities – and she still wasn’t sure how they’d gotten to the gallery from the throne room. There hadn’t been a direct spatial connection, so far as she could tell.

It is good to see you again,” the alicorn murmured, smiling as Twilight leaned over the edge of the floor again, curiosity demanding she get another look and…maybe…take a…step off…nope. “Even if you deny who you are.

“I’m not denying who I am!” Twilight protested irritably, turning her attention back to the alicorn. “I am Twilight Sparkle, Bearer of the Element of Magic, and I need to get back home to Equestria!”

Celestia can manage by herself for a while, I think,” she said. “She did as much with less than you by her side for a millennium.” She paused; tilted her head. “Speaking of, how is Luna? She is not one of mine, but I enjoyed the meeting we had, and I hope she has been getting along well.

“She’s…fine, I think,” Twilight answered cautiously. “She’s still getting used to being back from the Moon. I helped her out on Nightmare Night this year, and we’ve been staying in contact with letters since then.”

She is well?

“About as well as you’d expect after a thousand years alone.”

The alicorn nodded. “Good, good…” Her voice trailed off as she stared off into space. Twilight had the impression that despite her apparent power and importance, she didn’t really have too much of an idea of what to say. “Your trip here was uneventful?

“Well, aside from starting out as a unicorn and arriving as some kind of giant, sticky pegasus, yes,” she replied, extending a wing for emphasis. She didn’t take into account the balance shift that it caused and stumbled to the right, nearly toppling over the edge until she flapped wildly to right herself. The alicorn chuckled.

You will get used to them again. You always did learn quickly,” she said. More uncertainly, “I am sorry if this is a delicate topic, but…how much do you remember, Alpha?

“I’m not Alpha Centauri!”

Twilight, then. How much can you remember?” She stopped in her tracks, blocked Twilight’s path with a foreleg, and locked eyes with her. “How much did Beta restore with her test?

“Nothing!” she lied, a brief flicker of memory crossing her mind’s eye; a reddish winged-kelpie being and her on a hill, laughing and watching a trio of kelpie fillies try to lure a squirrel into the lake they were swimming in.

You and I both know that isn’t true, Twilight,” the alicorn sighed. Her face fell. “Though, sadly, there remains the possibility that it is true, in a sense. I doubt much of note was restored. Can…can you remember my name?

Queen – “Nope! No, I can’t,” she answered hurriedly. The alicorn nodded sadly.

Perhaps it was too much to hope for. It has been nearly two thousand years, after all.” She stared out into space again. “How is Celestia? She has not been in touch with me since Luna was banished. Is she well?

“She’s okay. More than okay, now that Luna’s back,” Twilight said. Almost unconsciously, she started leaning over the side of the gallery to get another peek at infinity. “When I was a filly in the Palace, she almost never smiled except when we were goofing off after a lesson. Now, almost every time I see her, she’s smiling.”

It is good to have someone you care about return after a long absence,” the alicorn murmured sadly. Her next words were more neutral. “You seem to be quite interested in the side of my palace, Alph – Twilight.

“I’ve never seen anything nearly so enormous!” she exclaimed, looking back at her host. “And the architecture! I’ve only ever seen pictures of 14th-century Maredinan artwork! The arabesques around the arches are beautiful, and the ceiling tiles – it’s amazing!”

It is the view that most intrigues you, though.” The alicorn smiled. “I can tell. My stars always did enjoy the sight of their own patterns, even if participating in them was more fun.” Her smile turned mischievous. “Would you like to join them?

“Join them?” Twilight repeated, confused. “Join who? The stars out there?” She swept a foreleg towards the slowly drifting currents of stars in the distance.

Of course!” she laughed. “Who else?

“But – they’re so far away!” Twilight pointed out. “They’re light-years away, at least, megaparsecs and megaparsecs away! Even if we left now, just to reach the closest one, it’d take us…hold on…” She paused to do a few quick calculations in her head, then shook it and gave up. “An absurdly long time at normal pegasus flight speeds.”

There are two major flaws in your thinking,” the alicorn told her. “One – you assume that with me around, distance would be material, and two – you are thinking on the wrong scale.

“What?”

By way of answer, the alicorn shoved Twilight into the abyss.

------

It was a calm day above the Everfree, thankfully. It made the flight out to the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters much easier than it would have been if there’d been a wild storm turning the sky into an ash-grey maze of wind gusts, rain squalls, and lightning bolts – which, in Dash’s opinion, would still have been better than trying to slog through the fern-y morass that was the Everfree on the surface. Now, though, it felt almost like she was gliding above the Whitetail Woods, or somewhere similarly tamed.

She touched down lightly on a puffy wisp of cumulus above the semi-ruined fortress. In the daylight, it didn’t look nearly as threatening or ominous as it had back when they’d first met and taken on Nightmare Moon; if anything, it just looked kind of sad – a few hole-filled walls held together more by vines than mortar, a keep decorated with broken glass that had been stained in a multitude of colors once but now had been re-stained by time into brown, an overgrown network of courtyards and subsidiary structures; its glory was long passed. Not helping matters was that Discord had turned it into his own private retreat.

Am I really going to go in there? she asked herself. It looks creepy, and past that it’s probably filled with all sorts of weird monsters and stuff that he’s been working on…plus, it’s kind of filthy…

She shuddered. Get out of my head, you creepy unicorn!

For an instant, she thought she caught Cloud Ferry grinning at her, out of the corner of her eye, but when she turned to get a better look she wasn’t there. For some reason, she was surprised.

She’s not real anymore. Just a memory, she comforted herself. Just a weird memory. She gritted her teeth. If she ever got her hooves on that space-pony, the freak would deeply regret messing with her head like that.

I’m not crazy, she told herself, jumping off the cloud and letting the breeze wash over her pinions as she drifted towards the ground. It was a slow descent, and she reveled in it, forgetting for a moment the brown saddle bag filled with food that she wore. The moment she knew how to get to this ‘Queen Caelum’ fellow, she was off, and damn the consequences! Twilight was in trouble, and she was going to save her.

Instead of an impressive, high-velocity entrance, she landed softly on the grassy courtyard in front of the main doors – a pair of ancient oak slabs edged in iron and carved with long since faded inscriptions. They were almost five times her height, up close; she hesitated slightly before putting a hoof to one to push it open. Do I really have to go into this…place?

Get out!, she thought savagely, throwing the whole of her body weight into making the door move. It swung open surprisingly easily, gliding inwards with barely a squeak and dumping her onto a freezing, slick floor quickly enough that she started sliding forward too. Scrambling to get her legs back beneath her, she realized the floor was actually made of ice. Looking around, it seemed the entire entrance hall was coated in a thick layer of the stuff, from the double rows of columns to either side, to the quartet of ice skates hanging on a hook next to the door. There didn’t seem to be any discernible purpose for it, so she assumed it was just something Discord did.

She made her way – carefully – down the center of the hall, ignoring the darkened archways on the walls to the left and right and aiming instead for the largest one, directly across from the front doors. Sunlight was streaming across the floor on the other side, in colors sunlight didn’t normally come in, but when she passed through and saw what was causing it, it wasn’t chaos magic – it was just an intact stained glass window, in the style of the windows in Canterlot Palace. It looked new, as did the red carpet that ran from the window’s wall down the length of the long hallway.

What is that a picture of? she wondered, looking up at the window. It looked sort of like it depicted the defeat of Discord, but only on the bottom part. At the top of the window it showed what looked like five ponies seated around a table, smiling, with Discord coiled around them – smiling as well. I don’t think this happened when he got out…

“Here’s to old friendships, Rainbow Dash,” Discord declared from above Dash. Startled, she glanced up and spotted the draconequus raising a martini glass in a toast towards the window, sitting in a chair on the vaulted ceiling. Whatever was in the glass proceeded to splash down onto her, soaking her mane completely and stinging in her eyes.

“Hey!” she yelped, frantically rubbing the stuff off her face. “What the buck was that for?”

“It was a toast!” he answered matter-of-factly, dropping down next to her and piling up like toothpaste squeezed out of a tube before arching backwards and vanishing into the floor. He popped out of the ground on her other side and offered her a towel. “Isn’t that how those things are supposed to go? You fill up a bunch of wine glasses with fluids, tie them off, and hurl them at each other so they pop open and soak everypony?”

“No, you cretin!” she dried herself off on the towel and glared daggers at him. “You’re supposed to touch your glass to somepony else’s and then drink.

“And I suppose you’re going to tell me that you’re not supposed to drink out of water balloons, too?” he scoffed. “And I approve of the expansion in your vocabulary – you’ve done some preemptive learning, haven’t you?”

“What – no!” She sighed. “Look, can we just get this over with? Twilight’s in – “

“Yes, yes, yes, I get it,” he cut her off. He posed dramatically with a duplicate of Dash’s head held in one claw; his voice came out of the prop when he spoke again. “Twilight Sparkle is in terrible danger! Help me, Mister Discord, you’re my only hope to save her because I’m a tiny thick blue pegasus who doesn’t know magic and is too incredibly lazy to fly to Canterlot, before coming to you again, to warn the Princess that her beloved student is in a bind.” He gave her a withering look, matched by the head. “Honestly, Rainbow Dash, did it even occur to you to go pay them a visit in the interim? No, of course it didn’t, you’re the Element of Loyalty.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You have an incredibly single-tracked mind. Lulu was like you too when she wore the necklace.” He snorted and popped the head into his mouth. She tried not to cringe. “Well, you’re here, and I’d like to finish this up before Fluttershy comes by for her ice skating lessons. Follow me.”

“What are we going to – “ Discord vanished in a puff of smoke. “Great,” she grumbled.

Discord’s head popped out from an archway on the wall to the left of the window. “Well?”

She groaned irritably and galloped to catch up. She had the oddest feeling this was going to be a frustrating experience. When she reached the arch, she found herself staring down a second long hallway, lined with dozens upon dozens of potted plants that she’d never seen before in her life – flowers with blooms that looked like radishes, heads of neon orange lettuce, ferns made entirely out of butterflies; as she started down the hall, a few bushes with brown-and-white spotted leaves actually mooed at her.

“Do you like it?” Discord asked, his head popping out from behind the bushes. “A little bit of a side project I’ve been working on in my spare time. I doubt I’ll be able to outdo Poison Joke, but it gives me something to pass the time between menial tasks of international diplomacy and heroics.”

“What are they?” Rainbow Dash asked, pausing to examine a bulbous flower vine. She jumped back when the buds all along its length split open and started barking at her, and the whole plant started writhing in her direction.

“No! Heel, girls,” Discord ordered, calling an array of rolled-up newspapers into existence and whacking every bud simultaneously with them. The plant retreated, whining softly. “Not today.”

“So what are they?” she repeated, picking up her pace a bit.

“Oh, just a few botany experiments of mine. I always was a fan of Mendelian crossbreeding – but why stop with mere pea plants?” he chuckled. “Cows and bushes are an excellent match, in my opinion. Science has been lacking in vision since my absence, it seems.”

“Wait, you were doing this before you were frozen?” She reached the far archway and stepped into a winding stairwell. Discord appeared before her and started slithering up the central post. “Did you make those Zap Apples AJ grows? And the Poison Joke?”

“Both of those are Everfree Originals, I am afraid.” His head pushed through the bottom of the stairs above her and matched pace with her as she started to ascend. “It’s a bit of a game between the Forest and I, I suppose – it makes something, I try to make something better, inevitably fail, and then the Forest learns from what I did right and succeeds at improving upon it.”

“The Forest can think?” One more reason not to venture into the Everfree, she supposed.

“Perhaps. I created the cockatrice but had neither claw nor paw in the making of the manticore, so it can copy fairly well, at least.” He smiled and pulled his head back through the stairs. “Almost there, Rainbow Dash. I hope you came with your listening ears on – though I might have a spare pair lying around if you didn’t.”

At the top of the stairs was a round room, its center lower than the rim by two steps. One wall was entirely made of windows and offered a stunning view of the Everfree’s canopy, and the roof appeared to be congealed whipped cream. A hammock was suspended opposite the window, where Discord lazed comfortably with a pair of shades and a reflector. In the middle of the room, in the lowered area, there was some sort of weird pentacle design – an eight-rayed star encompassed by a circle, both made of a pale blue powder that glittered slightly in the sunlight and shone with violet iridescence that had an odd depth to it whenever the rays hit it at the right angle.

“I’m here,” she said, wriggling out of the saddlebag’s strap and letting it drop to the floor. “What do we have to do?”

“I suppose I might as well start with seeing how much you know, exactly. I can’t believe it will take long,” he began. He snapped his tail and the hammock was gone, replaced with a floating chalkboard; Discord wore a suit suited for a university lecturer and held a long wooden pointer, and stood next to the board. “Have you ever cast a spell, Rainbow Dash?”

She frowned at him. “Do I look like a unicorn to you?”

No, but you’ve got one living inside of –

Go away!

“What does that have to do with – ah, right. Times have changed,” he realized. “Nothing, then? Any spells? Cantrips? Cheap illusions? Mere tricks of legerdemaine?”

“No.”

“Hm. Well, this complicates matters.” A lesson plan appeared next to his head and burst into flames as he scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Not even any runic magic?”

“Do I look like a – “ she hesitated slightly before repeating herself. “An egghead to you? If that’s the only way to save Twilight, stop wasting my time and tell me how I can actually get to her!”

“Being a unicorn has very little to do with magic,” he eventually decided. “I do magic all the time, and have you ever seen any pointy bits on my head glowing when I do it?”

“No.”

“And, fortunately for you, what I had in mind requires very little in the way of skill, too,” he continued. With a pop, he teleported next to the circle in the center of the room. “The gist of it is that there are many forms of magic, and the one I’m about to teach you is as separate from unicorn magic as rocks are from ice cream. This lovely ring beside me here is what is commonly known as a ‘ritual circle’ amongst more advanced wizards – are you familiar with what a "circle" is, Rainbow Dash?”

“Can we hurry?”

“Fine, fine.” He sighed. “Youngsters are so unappreciative of the knowledge of their elders…” Dash rose in an impatient hover, and he continued. “Blah, blah, blah, anypony can make one if they have enough powdered phoenix beak on hoof. It lets you perform an astral projection, which is how you get to Caelum’s court. I literally cannot make it any more cursory than that, unless you want me to use baby talk while doing it.”

“So, what, I step into it and flap my wings?” she asked skeptically. The draconequus rolled his eyes.

“It’s a ritual. You meditate. You can do that on your own, I trust?”

“Yeah.”

“Good.” With another pop, he was back in his hammock, looking as apathetic as ever. “Ta-ta!”

Dash looked at the circle uneasily. “So…how much food should I bring?”

“None,” he answered dismissively. “Astral projections necessitate traveling light – no food, no clothes, no jewelry, no body…”

“No body?

“It will remain safely within the circle until your return, assuming you don’t do anything stupid.” He lifted his glasses and gave her a grave look. “Which brings me to my next major point: do not do anything stupid.

“Do you really think a pony as awesome as me would have that problem?” She smirked.

“Honestly, yes. Emphatically so,” Discord sighed. “And so, remember this one simple rule, please – this one, simple, incredibly important rule: do not, under any circumstances, break your astral tether back to your body. Do that, and you will never find your way back again, you'll be effectively dead, and Fluttershy would likely use my pelt as a warm rug.”

She swallowed. “Uh…how do you break it?”

“Maintaining it is a mental task that requires concentration for long periods of time. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t feel nervous about it breaking, but, well…” He shrugged and finished simply, “Try not to break it please.”

“Sure,” she said, trying to feel as cocky as she sounded. Now that there was a genuine risk to her life involved, some of her bravado was fading – none of her resolve, but the outward awesomeness she projected was wilting slightly. She stepped into the circle, fought back her doubts, and did her best to do what she hadn’t done really since her black belt in the Still Way.

She meditated.

------

Am I still falling? she asked herself after nearly a minute had passed. Of course I’m still falling, it was an infinite drop! You don’t just reach the bottom of an infinite drop!

And yet, when she opened her eyes fully again, she discovered that the starry backdrop didn’t appear to be moving. She couldn’t feel any physiological warning bells sounding and telling her that she plummeting through infinity endlessly. Even the gallery she’d been pushed out of hadn’t moved. For all intents and purposes, she was standing stationary in mid-air. To her further surprise, what she could see of herself had faded to a faint violet outline – when she examined herself more closely, she realized the most visible part of her was now a cheerfully glowing pinprick of light where her heart should have been.

“What’s happening?” she managed to ask through a rising tide of panic. It was just now hitting her, with an endless drop staring her in the face and what looked – absurdly – almost like a star sitting happily in her chest, how incredibly out of her depth she was. This wasn’t a silly haunted forest she was facing with friends. This wasn’t some minor errand Celestia had sent her off on. This – she didn’t even know what this was! There weren’t books on being kidnapped by aliens because you were supposedly a star! There weren’t study guides for how to make it through a day spent in a non-Euclidean palace with the Queen – I don’t know her! - with a strange alicorn!

Calm yourself, Alpha,” the alicorn chuckled, stepping off the edge of the gallery to join her. Where her body crossed the threshold, it vanished; Twilight gasped in surprise. “You are in no danger. Sometimes, the best way to learn something new is to throw yourself into it without reservations – or, to have someone push you into it.

“What do I do?” she demanded. She tried to move, but only succeeded in flailing her slightly more visible legs around uselessly. “What do I do what do I do what do I do?

Perhaps forgetting what you think will work would be a good start?” she suggested.

Twilight swallowed and nodded, noting that her head and neck became more visible when she thought about them. She dismissed the realization that she could see her throat become more solid as not something she wanted to consider for the moment, and focused on making the rest of her body visible again. It came into view quickly, but disconcertingly it felt like she was just trying to sculpt water – it wasn’t her body, and she was looking at it from the outside, and whenever she stopped focusing on one part, it would just dissolve back into nothingness. Frustrated, she focused every ounce of mental strength she had onto the task, and succeeded in remaking a body for herself. It was about half the size of the original, sure, but it would work!

And then she was falling again.

She screamed and closed her eyes as she felt the sensation of the floor dropping out from beneath her, the surprise jolting her body back into uncreation. The lack of eyes let her see again, and once more she was stationary.

Everything you thought you knew,” the alicorn reiterated, amused. “And perhaps you should do it soon, Alpha. You’ll embarrass yourself…

“So?” Twilight demanded. “I just want to go home! How do I move again?”

Silence answered her. She groaned in frustration.

“Great,” she muttered. “Now how will I find the way out?”

Disturbingly, the gallery had vanished. She found herself floating in the midst of emptiness, the night sky in every direction. Angrily, she stared off into the dark, trying to figure out how she could move in some other direction than down forever. The ghostly outlines of her body flickered purple around her, fading as her mind was consumed with its dual tasks of trying to discover how to move with no body and trying not to remember how to, despite the loose memories from Beta’s intrusion attempting to force themselves into her awareness.

I’m not going to use you, she thought, addressing the memories and feeling silly almost immediately. You’re not mine, no matter what these ponies say, and I’m going to figure out whose you are after I get back to Equestria, and then I’ll return you.

...dance…

She blinked. What – nope! Nope, not listening.

Curiously, she watched the stars in the distance slowly drift, the constellations twisting and turning as she watched – which was ridiculous, really, stars took eons to move enough for optical astronomers to observe, it was probably just a trick of the light. She maintained that reasoning right up to the point a star broke off from Orion and sedately floated in her direction. Watching it get closer, she suddenly realized that it wasn’t just it; all the stars seemed closer. Every one of them, she could see moving in relation to the black background.

That doesn’t make any sense! her rational mind protested. Stars are light-years away! They can’t – I can’t watch them – what in Tartarus is going on?

“Hello!”

Startled, Twilight looked to the star that had wandered close. Had it just spoken to her?

“Hi!” it repeated. “I haven’t seen you around this volume before. What are you?”

“I’m…Twilight Sparkle,” she answered warily. At least it hadn’t called her Alpha yet.

“That’s an interesting name for a star,” it said. Its voice was feminine. “I am Meissa, from the Constellation of Orion.”

“I thought Meissa was a double star system?” Twilight frowned, thinking back to the astronomy manuals and star catalogues she’d read in anticipation of Rainbow Dash’s party.

“Properly, I’m Meissa C,” she amended reluctantly. “But I have everyone else call me Meissa, since I’m the only one of us who gets out much. The others all think they’re too ‘important’ to break pattern, and I’m ‘just’ an F-type, so they have me go out for menial stuff like finding new partners. Want to come over?”

“Um…”

“I mean, if you’re already in a pattern, sorry to interfere,” she added quickly. “But you looked a bit lonely out here. Don’t you even have a planet to play with?” Twilight was about to answer, but Meissa continued. “You’re awfully still, aren’t you? I’ve never met a star who didn’t move, even lonely stars. I mean, we’ve all got to keep moving together to keep the Wheel intact. Oh, Caelum! Is that it? Are you one of those weird rogue stars that like to just sit out there in the black?”

“No,” Twilight answered, before Meissa could talk over her. “I…I’m stuck.”

“What?”

“I can’t move,” she admitted. “I’m still kind of new at this.”

“Oh.” Meissa sounded satisfied for an instant. Then, “Oh! New star! New star! Come on, I’ll help you along – you’re going to love this!”

“I’m fine right where – “ Twilight tried to say, but she felt the strange sensation of space around her folding, almost like it did when she was about to teleport, and she began to move rapidly through space behind the other star.

No you aren’t, a voice in the back of her head chuckled. You’re not fine right there.

Who are you and what are you doing in my head?

I think you might be able to guess, the voice said. And if you’d just let yourself remember, you could probably move by yourself. It’ll be useful in a bit.

Who are –

New stuff, the voice cut her off. New stuff, new things to learn that nopony knew before. Yes or no?

Grr. Fine. She felt a click, for lack of a better word – something she’d known once, and forgotten, that had been sitting stubbornly at the tip of her tongue for years, finally slotting back into place. It was almost like unicorn magic, she decided, as she carefully pried herself free of Meissa’s grip and matched velocities with the other star. It was like bending space for a teleportation, but without using magic to do it – a completely alien concept that seemed almost perfectly natural after a moment.

“You’re a quick learner!” Meissa commented happily. “Good job! I hope the others let you in.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we’re a major constellation!” she explained proudly. “We take on new stars sometimes, but only the really good ones are able to stick around. Rigel says it’s so we maintain a certain standard of quality, but I think it’s just because most new stars are G’s and M’s and O-stars can get pretty elitist.” She snorted. “Fat old gasballs. Don’t tell them I said that!”

They reached the constellation surprisingly quickly, and were in the midst of it even faster. Twilight noted with curiosity how none of the stars seemed to be in their proper places; they were scattered almost at random, minor stars flowing rapidly in patterns and swinging around each other wildly while what she thought were the primary stars moved in a much slower, looser, almost waltz-like dance. She startled as the space around her was filled with excited chatter from the stars, even a few of the brilliant blue giants swinging closer in to get a better look at her, the newcomer.

“Look what Meissa found!” one chuckled.

“It’s adorable!” another laughed.

“Yellow star! Meissa found a yellow star!”

“Look how small it is!”

“Have you brought us a star with skill this time, Meissa?” an immense star asked, swinging in close. Twilight felt herself start to drift slightly in its direction, pulled by impressive gravity; backpedaling with her own gravitational field (she assumed that was what she was manipulating now) failed to achieve anything. It only got worse as more stars started to swing in close, clustering around the giant curiously. “Or is this just another one of your typical finds?”

“She’s a fast learner!” Meissa answered. “She’s new, but I think she – “

“She’s new?” the giant rumbled, amused. “She’s not new, not by a long shot. If anything, she’s older than I.”

“She said she was new,” Meissa grumbled. “She couldn’t move when I found her, at least.”

“Really,” the giant snorted skeptically. “Newcomer, is this – “

His voice cut off abruptly as Twilight lost control and slipped too far into his gravity well. With a scream trailing behind her, she arced down towards the brilliant surface of the blue-white star, gravity accelerating her into a decaying orbit faster than she could slow herself. She was going to die! I’m going to dieeeeee!!!

Not like that, the voice scolded. Space around Twilight shifted, altering her orbit into a survivable – though still terrifyingly fast – ellipse. She swung around the star, flying past perihelion and shooting straight at a smaller red dwarf star that had had the misfortune to be in the right place at the wrong time. Frantically, she diverted space again, looping widely around the red dwarf and doing a figure-eight around a double star and using their gravity to slingshot herself towards a tight cluster of violet-white dwarfs. They screamed along with her, though for a completely different reason; they sounded terrified. After a blur of flickering black and white and sharp tugs on every side of her, Twilight traced out a gentle curve away from them, laughing with exhilaration.

Woo!” Meissa shouted. “That was amazing!”

“What in the heavens were you thinking?” the giant exclaimed, though he sounded as awed as he did angry. “What were – you – Caelum above, young star, did you just bend space itself?

“I see no issue in allowing her to join us,” another blue star said.

“Nor I,” a third agreed.

“Unfortunately, I do object.”

The alicorn’s voice cut through space like a knife, despite its kind – almost apologetic – tone. Twilight slowed herself to a halt as she realized the infinite wall had reappeared, and the alicorn herself stood visible on the edge of the gallery floor. She was smiling slightly.

Come, Twilight,” she said. “There are yet still matters to discuss.

The stars fell silent. After a few seconds, Meissa exclaimed in awe, “You know the Queen?”

Hesitantly, Twilight pushed herself over the threshold again and ignored the star, trying hard not to wish she’d had longer – that had barely been a taste of being in a constellation again, and she hadn’t even been doing it properly! There were rules to follow, and mathematical laws governing positioning, and vectors and angles and ellipses to calculate on the fly, and –

Her body appeared around her again like it was simply being revealed by the light inside the gallery, and the odd sense of calm she’d felt before hit her again. She noticed with some consternation that it wasn’t her normal unicorn form that came back, but the body Beta had saddled her with; whatever the star had done didn’t seem to have been affected by her spell of incorporeality, however brief. Even so, she allowed herself to shake her feathers back into alignment, since they seemed to have been knocked wild somehow.

Did you enjoy yourself?” the alicorn asked slyly.

“I…” Twilight sighed. “Yes, Caelum, that was fun. Probably more fun than I’ve had since I got to Ponyville outside of one of Pinkie’s parties. But that doesn’t mean I’m Alpha Centauri!”

“You remembered my name,” Caelum said softly. The harmonies in her voice settled together, and for the first time it sounded like she was speaking normally. Her voice was melodious yet commanding – even without the almost choral accompaniment. She grinned. “You remembered my name.”

“I – no! That’s Beta’s fault,” she protested. “I don’t know what memories she implanted in my head – “

“I find it unlikely one like yourself would remain ignorant on the topic of mental magic when she spent her whole life as a mage,” Caelum interrupted pointedly. “Can you recall the foremost rule of memory magic?”

“…it is impossible to make somepony remember something they haven’t already committed to memory with a spell,” Twilight muttered. “But that doesn’t change anything! A carefully crafted illusion, combined with a suppressive spell to make me forget they aren’t real, followed by an erasure spell and then a recall spell – “

“You do not believe this explanation yourself,” the alicorn observed. Frustrated, Twilight nodded. “Why, then, do you continue to deny the truth?”

“Because it doesn’t make any sense!” she shouted. More calmly, “It makes no sense! I’m Twilight Sparkle, Element of Magic and student of Princess Celestia, not Alpha Centauri, Queen of wherever – Domhan, or something like that! I was born in Canterlot! My parents have foal pictures of me! My dad took a picture of me the day I was born! There’s school records, and library fine receipts, and official portraits, and newspaper articles; it’s not like I just dropped out of the sky into Equestria one day!”

“I would guess that Inkwell Hooves had foal pictures as well,” Caelum pointed out. “Perhaps even Granny Willow. Portraits were certainly painted of Captain Honed Edge after the second battle of Canterlot.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Twilight demanded crossly.

“You are Twilight Sparkle, of Canterlot” Caelum explained. “And you are Inkwell Hooves, of Cloudsdale. And you are Granny Willow, of Everdell. And you are Honed Edge, of Equinox. And you are a dozen other ponies besides, for when a star dies, its soul is reincarnated as a mortal and lives a succession of new lives, accumulating experiences and magic until it is ready to take its place in my heavens once more. You are as much Alpha Centauri as you are Twilight Sparkle – and perhaps even more so.” She smiled. “I have noticed that, as a star gets closer and closer to returning, she begins to rediscover more and more of herself again.”

Twilight was quiet. “So what you're saying is that...I…I’ve been reincarnated.”

“Yes.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She glanced back into the space beyond the gallery. “I was one of those stars?”

“More accurately, you were one of the three stars of Centaurus,” Caelum corrected.

“Right. Centaurus is a triple star system,” Twilight murmured to herself. A fragment of memory flitted through her mind. “Where’s the third star? Proxima?”

“We do not speak of Proxima Centauri much,” Caelum answered quietly.

Twilight felt like she knew what the alicorn meant by that, somehow. Wordlessly, she nodded and continued watching the stars for a few minutes afterwards, processing what she’d learned. When she spoke again, it was to ask, “What about everypony back home? If I…will I get to see them anymore?”

“Beta managed to find time in a schedule designed for three but maintained by one to visit Equestria once a year, every year, for two millennia,” Caelum replied gently. “With both of you ruling Domhan, I imagine you will find plenty of break time. Beyond that, your friends are already on the cusp of starhood themselves; another lifetime, maybe two, they will have accrued enough power to be promoted and they will be able to join you.” She glanced out into space as well. “I have always thought a constellation was needed in the volume around Centaurus. Celestia is a stubborn loner, but perhaps if they were stars she already knew well…”

Twilight nodded. “I should probably apologize to Beta for the verbal abuse,” she resolved. “But she’s not entirely blameless just because she was maybe right! She kidnapped me from Equestria!”

“She was perhaps a bit premature,” Caelum conceded. “Though, after two thousand years of reigning alone, it is perhaps to be expected that she won’t take no for an answer.”

“Where is she?”

“Behind the pillar,” she answered with a smile. With a start, Twilight realized they’d moved – the gallery had become the endless maze of columns she’d first arrived in. It was uniform in all directions, almost claustrophobic after the immensity of space, and for the life of her she couldn’t figure out which way the vestibule she’d originally been teleported into was.

“How do you even navigate this place?” she muttered, trotting clockwise around the column with Caelum in close pursuit. “It’s worse than one of those mazes Discord likes to make outside the Library.”

I am the Queen of Stars, Alpha,” she replied. “Distance bends to my command. In truth, there are likely places within my palace that have been trodden by neither star nor mortal – nor myself.

Beta was sitting on the ground on the other side of the pillar. She was slumped over, defeated, her wings almost forming a cocoon around her as she stared listlessly off into the distance. Other stars faded in and out of the stardust mist, hovering uncertainly between approaching to comfort her and fleeing to spare her shame, but Alpha simply trotted right up. Beta was in one of her moods again. She rolled her eyes and cleared her throat noisily.

Beta leapt to her hooves and spun around, throwing herself at Alpha before she could react. “Alpha!” she squealed. Alpha blinked, startled, and the world shifted and Twilight smiled.

“So…I think I should offer you an apology,” she said. “Accusing you of mental illness was uncalled for. And running away may not have been my smartest move, either…” She chuckled self-consciously. “I found Caelum, in the end, though, and she’s explained the situation to me…”

Beta seemed to notice the Queen’s presence for the first time. Hastily, she pulled herself off of Twilight and dropped into a low bow to match the other stars nearby. Caelum sighed and shook her head, giving Twilight a look that asked, what can I do? Twilight snorted in amusement.

“So…are you ready to go home?” Beta asked, once she stood up again. “I need to get back as fast as possible before the safeties I have kick in, but I guess if you wanted you could stay here a while to recover your strength.”

“Safeties?” Twilight repeated, puzzled. Beta nodded.

“You don’t need to know about them yet!” she offered as an explanation. “And probably never will, since you’re back and they’re obsolete now, but I have to abide by them until you’re back on your throne. I kept it dusted, by the way, and your library’s still clean – “

“Maybe I can see them when we get back?”

Beta nodded again. “Right! Right, right, right. Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” she answered. She felt space fold around her again, and in an instant the swirling stardust filled in the hole where they’d been not a moment before.

Author's Note:

Same drill - thumbs-up if you liked it, feedback on stuff you want to feedback on!

07/10/14 - Edited for spacing betwixt paragraphs as later chapters have. Last chapter I've done tonight due to spotty interwebs. I'll get to reformatting the rest soon.