Celestia's Pride And Regret

by MellowBrook

Chapter 1. Celestia's Regret

Author's Note:

This is my first attempt at writing any sort of story, and I hope y'all like it. If you see a problem please point it out as any help I can get to improve my writing is much appreciated.

Many thanks to my editor Zerxies.

She wandered around the halls of the royal palace, not caring where she ended up. The only thing she could bring herself to think about was that fateful day she lost one whom she considered a daughter. Lost because of Celestia’s own pride, she had believed that she could cheat the universe and make it possible for that one very special unicorn to live alongside her forever. The universe, apparently, had other plans in mind. Now, instead of having Twilight live alongside her forever, her life was cut short by those whom she loved with all of her heart. How those sweet ponies that were once Twilight’s friends were coping with their loss and guilt, Celestia had no idea.

Celestia thought that when she sent Starswirl’s unfinished spell to change one's destiny that, perhaps, Twilight might accomplish the impossible and become immortal herself. Instead, the elements that they had used many times to save Equestria had turned on her and made her into a pile of ashes. Celestia felt a tear slide down her face and onto her cheek, as she thought back to those poor ponies heart-broken faces.

Celestia could not help but feel responsible, for if she had not sent that book, then twilight would have never gained ascension. Perhaps, she would still be here today. No matter what anypony else told her, these were the thoughts that she kept slipping back to. She then thought about Twilight’s parents, and her oh-so-angry mother. The last time that they had spoken to each other was at the funeral of their daughter…

• • • • Funeral • • • •

A great many ponies gathered around, for Twilight was loved by many. The ubiquitous love for Twilight was not just because she was Celestia’s star pupil, but because of the love and compassion that she showed everypony else (and that whole business of her saving the world with her friends a few times.) So everypony was gathered in the palace gardens to say goodbye to one of the nicest ponies that had ever lived. In the center of the crowd, next to the urn that held their daughters ashes, sat Twilight Velvet and Night Light. Twilight Velvet was refusing to look at the urn as if to deny the fact that her daughter had died. She also refused to allow anyone to get near the urn, including Celestia. When she had first tried to approach, she walked up and tried to say she was sorry. As soon as the words started to come out of her mouth, Twilight Velvet blew up on her.

“Don’t you dare say you are sorry you monster! It is your fault our only daughter is dead!” Twilight Velvet said with hatred in her voice.

Celestia started to speak. “Do you think this is how I wanted this to end? All I wanted was to help Twilight; never would I have intentionally hurt your daughter,”

“You could have stopped this! I have already talked to Twilight’s friends and they told me of the unfinished spell that you sent our daughter. They told me of her working to fix her mistake, then trying to finish the spell. It is your fault, Princess.” Twilight’s mother said, with great emphasis on the word “princess.”

Celestia felt tears well up in her eyes, as she turned around and ran through the crowd back to the castle. The only thing she had seen as she glanced back at the crowd was Twilight Velvet’s contemptuous eyes fixed on her.

• • • • Present • • • •

She never was able to gain the forgiveness of Twilight’s parents. Actually, now that she thought about it, she was unsure of how Night Light felt at all. Twilight’s mother just sort of drowned him out every time he had opened his mouth. Maybe she should go and try and speak to him when he was alone. Seeing as how she had nothing better to do, she decided she might as well head on over to Twilight’s parents house. She was not worried at all, as she knew that Twilight Velvet worked all throughout the day and as such would not be home yet.

She chose to ignore the guards, as she set out from the palace and went on down to the busy streets of Canterlot. While she trotted through, a great many of the ponies looked at her with surprise, for the princess had not been seen outside the palace in weeks. It was for this very reason that Celestia chose to walk rather than fly. She decided that she needed to let her ponies know that she was doing just fine and that there was nothing to worry about.

As she closed the distance to the street that Twilight’s parents lived on, apprehension built up inside of her, until she almost decided to turn her back and retreat to the palace. As she went on many of her little ponies were giving her some rather odd looks. Celestia attributed this to her isolation from the world, and that perhaps they were surprised to see her. As these thoughts ran through her mind she noticed that she had arrived at the Sparkle residence.

Celestia stopped for a moment and tried to pull herself together, before confronting Night Light. Fate must have had other plans for Celestia, for not moments after arriving on the doorstep, the door opened and Night Light looked outwards at the princess.

“It is about time you showed up princess,” He said as he opened up the door the rest of the way.

“I had been expecting you for quite awhile now. That incident with my wife at the funeral was rather unfortunate, and it left me without an opportunity to speak with you about my thoughts on our daughter's death.”

“May I come in?” the princess asked softly.

“But of course. It is not my place to keep royalty standing outside. Whether I resented you or not, that would be downright rude. Anyways, please do make yourself at home; I think that we might be talking for awhile.” Night Light said politely.

“Thank you Night light.” the princess responded as she crossed the threshold, going into the house. She noticed, much to her surprise, that a picture of Twilight was nowhere to be found. As she sat there staring at the walls, she heard Night Light behind her start to speak and so she turned around.

“My wife did not take well to the news of our daughter's death. After we returned from the funeral, she tore down every picture of Twilight and turned the house upside down looking for anything that mentioned our daughter. She locked every single one of these things in a chest under our bed.”

“I am so sorry, I had never meant to hurt your daughter. I only did what I thought was the best for her and what I thought would further her in life. I only wanted to make her happy, but now she is gone forever,” Celestia’s voice slowly rose in volume.” The worst part is that the reason she had the spellbook in the first place was my fault, and it was all for a stupidly selfish reason. I wanted Twilight to be able to stand by my side forever; I did not wish to lose her just as I have lost everyone else. That book was Starswirls’s unfinished recipe for changing one's destiny. I had hoped that this would entail changing one of the constants in everypony's life, birth, and death. I had figured that since there are only two things certain in life, that changing her destiny would make her immortal by changing the fact that she would die. Instead, I served to hasten her death, and now I have come to understand that one must not try and cheat death. The largest problem is if I take a look at myself, my sister, and my niece, I see ponies who will never age- who will never grow old and die. We are proof that eluding death is possible, but we can't share this with other ponies,” Celestia finished all but shouting at Night Light.

Night Light then proceeded to say the one thing she had come here to hear, “I forgive you. I believe that what you did was meant for the best, and that does not even matter. What matters is the fact that you made her life enjoyable. You pushed her into going on adventures and making friends. I had never seen her more happy than when she was under your tutelage. In the end she died happy with her friends.”

“But your wife?”

My wife was driven to madness by pain and despair. Once she heard that Twilight obtained that cursed book from you, she stopped listening to Twilight’s friends. She proceeded to put all of the blame on you. When she left, I decided to wait and catch a later train, so that I could talk to Twilight’s friends some more about her last day. What they said made me respect you more than ever,” he said as a tear fell from his eye.

“What could they possibly have said that would have given you such a high opinion about me?” Celestia asked shocked to hear these words coming from the mouth of one whose daughter she all but murdered.

“It is not my place to say, maybe you should go and visit them sometime to get their opinions on the matter. One last thing- you had a serious logical flaw when thinking about that spell. Say that the spell only affected your death. Why could it not have moved your death closer to you, rather than further out? By your logic, it can kill just as easily as it can help. I am not trying to be harsh with you princess, but next time please think things through a little more carefully,” Night light responded.

“Thank you for being willing to speak to me of this matter,” Celestia said as she stood up to make her way out the door.

“One last thing” he said. “Don't worry about my wife, she will come around in time.”

Celestia decided once she was out the door that She would rather not make the trip back to the palace on hoof. Instead, she cast a teleportation spell to take her directly to her room. As she sat there staring down at her kingdom, though one of the many windows that lined the walls of her room, that maybe it was time for one last set of friendship reports.

Comments

[FluffyDude100]

I actually really like this story! At first I thought it was gonna be boring, but it was amazing!

[MellowBrook]

4259758
I am glad you thought so

[Unbridled Dolly]

This story was really nice, but it felt kind of shallow. Try slowing it down, and let the reader feel what the characters were feeling. Show, not tell. Just slow down and add details. There were also several punctuation and grammatical mistakes. This has great potential, but an idea doesn't make a story. The words also make it, and if the words can't convey the feeling, they cannot properly communicate the idea.

[MellowBrook]

4261481

Yeah going back throught it I know what you mean. I have a friend of mine who agreed to edit the story, I believe he said he was gonna work on it tomorrow.

Anyways thanks for the advice, and I will make sure to try and apply it and make the story better.

[Unbridled Dolly]

4261492 No problem.

[Sollace]

What's sad is that, if you think about it even if she had succeeded in making Twilight immortal, what then?

She would then have out lived all her friends and family. She'd have to watch as anypony she knew grew old and died all the while she remains unchanged. Even with the company of the princesses, is it really worth it?

--Sollace