There were few times where Celestia was allowed to relax and enjoy a single day without worrying about some political or economic situation. She wasn’t even allowed to relax on her birthday. However, when it came to her daughter, she wanted to be Mommy Celestia instead of Teacher Celestia.
She couldn’t even allow Sunset’s birthday to be some grand and extravagant event: just a quiet moment between the guards, servants, and professors to come together and enjoy a party for the most important filly in Celestia’s life. Everything had to be prepared in secret and done only by those within the castle walls. If any word got out about a birthday party at the castle, or any celebration for that matter, and the nobles would gather like sharks smelling blood. It wouldn’t be to wish Sunset Shimmer a happy birthday though. They would only come to brag about how they were personally invited to the castle and they were close with the princess.
It was one of many reasons why Celestia didn’t want her daughter to play in politics or interact with the nobility without her present. It would not be the first time they had tried to weasel one of her apprentices into their web. They had done so with her once sweet nephew, Prince Blueblood, and he had changed into such a prat that his own parents couldn’t deal with him. It was why she had sent Cadance to study abroad so she didn’t become ensnared in their clutches as well. However, neither he nor Cadence were as sought after as Sunset who was, despite her humble background, Celestia’s personal student.
She could still remember how so many noble unicorn families were outraged by the fact she took in an orphan with no last name as her apprentice instead of one of their “highly trained” sons or daughters. If only they knew that Sunset was more noble than all of them. She knew Sunset would eventually have to learn of her highborn status.
But that was all for another day. Today was a birthday to celebrate.
Hundreds of balloons and streamers could be seen around the throne room with tables full of food and parties games to be enjoyed. Some of her guards, or at least the ones not on duty, were playing pin the tail on the draconequus or bobbing for apples. The maids were dancing to the music of a DJ named Record Scratch, a long blue haired mare with shades. While Celestia personally preferred classical music, this new techno stuff was quite catchy. Celestia even felt her own rump shake a bit to the rhythm.
Mountains of presents were stacked on a table, all for Sunset who was busy trying to hit a piñata that was just right above her nose. Wielding the stick with her magic, she swung and managed to lay a solid hit on it, splitting it in half and making it spill all of its candy. The group that watched her clapped their hooves before a grinning Sunset started to share her candy.
“She’s grown up quite into a fine filly, Princess,” said Chainmail as he walked up behind her. “And you’ve changed as well.”
“How so?” asked Celestia, smiling at her daughter’s actions while she blew a big bubble of gum before it popped, splattering all over her face.
“I’ve never seen you smile so much.”
“I smile all the time, Captain,” said Celestia.
Chainmail chuckled as he shook his head. “That’s not smiling, Princess. What you put on most days is a mask, but when you're with...” he leaned closer and whispered, “your daughter, you smile like you mean it.”
Celestia didn’t deny nor confirm his captain’s words, she only stared at her happy daughter who was being given a piggy back ride by one the guards. “Is it wrong for me that I wish she wasn’t the chosen pony for the Element of Magic? That somepony else was instead of my little filly?”
“No, it’s not. My own filly wants to join me in the guard. I don’t want her too, I’d rather she was a gardener like her mother, but how can I deny her? I love her too much that I would do anything for her,” answered Chainmail, chuckling. “What you wish for is the wish that all parents want: their children to be safe. Nopony wants to fail the ones we love. We simply have to do our best.”
“All we can do is do our best, huh?” Celestia sighed and shook her head. “I failed somepony I loved once and I swore to never do it again. Failure is something I cannot afford.”
“You are too hard on yourself, but I understand,” said Chainmail as he walked away just as Sunset was running up to her teacher.
“Princess! Thank you so much for the party!” shouted Sunset, wrapping her hooves around her teacher’s neck and nuzzling her cheek. “This is the best party ever!”
“You said that last year as well, Sunset,” teased Celestia.
“W-well, that was fun, but this year I really really mean it!” shouted Sunset, blushing.
“Well, if you really are that excited, why don’t we finally have the cake?” asked Celestia, rubbing her daughter’s head playfully.
“You’ve been waiting to say that all night, right Princess Cakebutt?” teased back Sunset, earning a snort from Celestia.
Cakebutt? That’s a new one. Still, she’s not half wrong. I’ve wanted to bite into that cake since I saw it!
The cake was just as big as Sunset with mounds of white frosting, decorations, and a giant candle made to look like her cutie mark. Sunset’s name was below the words “Happy Birthday,” along with a small flag that read the number twelve on it. Sunset sat on a stool as everypony gathered around and started singing Happy Birthday.
As she sung, Celestia looked at the smile on her daughter's face and felt her heart leap with joy. In her mind, she saw all four years they had spent together. All the laughs, lessons, struggles, and love between them. She could remember every thank you, smile, and card for every holiday from her student. Including last year’s Mother’s Day card, which she had framed in her room.
And there would be more celebrations, more moments where they could be proud. She knew one day she would have to tell Sunet the truth of her birth, and it would not be an easy thing to go through. But she was confident that everything, for the first time in her life, would go smoothly.
When the song ended, Sunset took a deep breath and closed her eyes for her wish.
Just as she was about to blow, there was a bright light from the table of presents. For a nanosecond there was no sound, then a giant bang. Celestia felt her eyes close as she was thrown off her hooves and the sounds of screaming and pain erupted from all directions. Celestia’s brain barely had time to register an explosion had gone off before she slammed into the floor, slicing her forehead. The sounds of shattered glass echoed as she felt bits and pieces cut her side.
A second later all she heard was ringing, a horrible ringing that made her brain scream. She held her hooves to her ears as she struggled to open her eyes. Blury as her vision was, she saw the pale face of the DJ looking at her with dead eyes. A shard of glass had gone right through her neck and was lodged inside.
Her blood was now a pool that started to enter Celestia’s mouth.
Shaking her head, she got up, centuries old battle instincts coming into play as she heard less of the ringing and more of the sounds of crying and battle. The smoke from the explosion started to clear as she saw her guards, the ones not wounded, poured in with their spears and swords charging at each other. They were fighting one another, and she didn’t know why.
Sunset... where is my Little Sun!
Now mother instincts were at play as Celestia screamed, “Sunset! Where are you?!”
“Die, false princess!”
She turned around, knowing that phrase. It was the one the Nightmare Cult used so often. A guard was charging at her with his spear, screaming his war cry. The cult tried to kill her daughter.
They tried to murder my daughter...
Before the guard knew it, his spear was broken upon meeting Celestia’s hoof as she took the pointed end and jammed it straight into his face. Two more infiltrators tried to take her down, but Celestia teleported a sword. Not just any sword. It was a pure white diamond blade that shined even in shadows. A golden crossguard with the rubies in the center and actual living phoenix wings thanks to an advance forging spell on the side. Inscribed on the blade was the language of dragons: “Shio Malsvir Valignatic Ini Nomeno Cayosin”.
“All Evil Burns By This Blade.”
The blade’s name was Lightbringer. And it was the same sword that slayed the Dark Dragon Lord Mesong over a thousand years ago.
And it was about to taste blood for the first time since that day.
With a simple activated spell known only to Celestia, the blade of the sword glowed with the heat of the sun and cut through the two guards. They were barely able to choke out a grunt before their bodies turned to ash. More of the cults followed them, but with wraith and grace combined they were nothing more then ashes.
As she swung her blade, Celestia cried out the name of the one most precious to her. The one she prayed to every god of the past, present, and future, would not be in a pool of her own blood and limbs like so many caught up in the blast.
“Princess!” cried Sunset’s voice. Celestia turned around, blade ready, only to nearly drop it upon seeing who it was that held her daughter, covered in cuts and a black eye, with a sword against her throat. Chainmail looked at his princess with regret in his eyes as he drew blood from Sunset’s neck. Sunset whimpered as she whispered, tears dripping down her face, “Help me.”
“I’m sorry,” whispered Chainmail, loud enough so that Celestia could hear him. “They got my wife and daughter. I had to help them. I’m so sorry.”
“Chainmail... don’t do this... please...” begged Celestia, fighting down her emotions that urged her to just charge in. She was losing. “Don’t kill her. You don’t have to do this!”
“I have to... if I don’t kill her then they’ll kill my family,” whispered Chainmail, a tear dropping from his eye. He looked around as did Celestia, her remaining guards had either subdued or killed the infiltrators. “So many of my comrades dead... so many lives lost... the very people who trusted me.”
“You can make it right! Just give up! We can talk about this, and save your family!” shouted Celestia.
Chainmail shook his head. “I can’t be forgiven for this. Not by you, my family, or anypony.” He glared at the princess with cold eyes. “It’s either my daughter or yours, Celestia. We are both parents and we do what we must for our children. You do what you can to save your daughter... but I need to do what I can to save mine!”
“NOOO!” shouted Celestia as she fired a beam her horn.
Just as she did, Sunset lit her horn and teleported herself out of Chainmail’s embrace, much to his shock. He looked up just as the beam went straight through his forehead, leaving a perfect hole in place. He fell down in an instant just as Sunset reappeared across the room by a pile of dead bodies where she fell on her haunches.
Celestia sighed in relief upon seeing her daughter safe and sound, but a cry of horror erupted when one of the dead guard bodies reached out with the last of his magic. The cutting knife from the cake lifted up and made its way deep into Sunset’s side.
Celestia didn’t hear her daughter’s cry nor the thud of her daughter falling onto her side with a five inch blade in her ribs. She didn’t hear her own cries for a doctor as she poured all of her healing magic into Sunset’s body, fighting to keep dying daughter alive. All she could hear was the dying cultist shout out his final words before the real guards shot arrows into his face.
“Glory to Nightmare Moon! Death be to the Sun and her ill-conceived daughter!”
And Celestia chlorinates the gene pool.
Really, attacking the daughter of a Sun Goddess right in front of her has to rank up there on earning Darwin Awards. Poison would've been much better.
5528627
True, but let's face it. It sends a message. And the point of terrorism is to send a message.
5528635
That message seems to be "Please hunt us down and burn us to ashes with the fury of an angry mama sun bear."
Of course, it could always be a trap I suppose.
5528651
As a Historian focusing on Military History, I can say with absolute honesty that History proves you correct...
To the Cult I'd have to say this:
Every time a Terrorist Group overreached by attacking a target that angered their targets instead of instilling fear... that Terrorist Group got curb-stomped.
Ouch. That was dramatic.
Did it never occur to him that the Princess would have helped him against the cultists if he'd just asked? He had the perfect chance earlier, although Celestia would probably have had to act quickly and personally to avoid alerting the cultists. How did she not even notice she had cultists in her own guard? Were Applejack's parents involved in this plot?
That sword description just doesn't flow at all when you read it and there are some grammatical errors. In particular I'd advise changing 'was broken' to 'broke', 'shined' to 'shone', and 'slayed' to 'slew' or 'had slain'. Further, diamond is not white it's clear and reflective. At the right angle and the right time of the day it would shine quite brightly reflecting the sun's rays and probably blind the viewer. If it shines in the dark, it must be a magical property and not an intrinsic one belonging to the material the sword is made of. Additionally a blade made of diamond would have to be quite exceptional indeed to not break readily and would still not be quite as good as a high-quality steel blade in regards to it's performance in regular use. Like most crystalline structures, etc diamond has points of cleavage where it will break easily and uniformly. (http://www.galleries.com/diamond). Thus, if hit just right, the blade might simply come apart somewhere along it's length.
Frankly the whole description smacks of a external reference to something else that is quite impractical and there is no crossover tag. It would be ideal to find a way to weave some of the necessary information here into the story rather than implying a number of unmentioned things. The whole section about dragons/dragon language doesn't add much, especially when you consider that there is no story canon, at all, about dragons mentioned in the story. In addition 'Dark Dragon Lord' implies a title or type. Really unless it's one of those things it should be 'dark/evil Dragon Lord' assuming that dragons have lords at all. Or you could simply drop 'Dark' and leave us to assume that this Dragon Lord was particularly vile in thought/action. Unless you are casting all dragons as evil in general, but then it wouldn't be necessary to emphasize the evil/darkness. In such a case, you would want to emphasize the magnitude of evil/darkness that characterized Mesong.
No mention anywhere of this sort of magic. Did you mean 'advance', as in before forging, or 'advanced' as in detailed or complicated.
P.S.
Want to hear more. Write more words!
And then every last member of the Nightmare Cult was hunted down and nuked with the rage of a million supernovas.
Just as in The Assassination of Twilight, it never crosses the minds of our death-seeking terrorists that attacking those who Celestia holds dearest to her heart won't make her give in to their whims; but instead push her into full blown mama bear mode. It's like some bozo messing with a tiger by constantly pulling its tail while kicking its cubs; it's only a matter of time before he gets chomped.
I'm going to be honest. This isn't one of my favorite Rated Ponystar story. Not a bad story by any trivial means or nitpicks; it just isn't one of my favorites. Um... I mean, if that's okay with you...
5528892
That's fine. I don't mind
I have a fan theory here, hear me out.
See, the Scratch family is one of the oldest families out there, but their rise to prominence dates back to the rise of Washboard Scratch, who sent waves through the music industry with her innovations. Add in a few hundred years, and you have the height of the Scratch family: Record Scratch. She, as shown in the fic, died in the explosion, leaving her entire legacy to Vinyl Scratch. Unfortunately, Vinyl would be the last of the great Scratch musicians. Cassette Scratch did her best to live up to the hype of her ancestors, but was never able to truly make a name for herself: only being successful though her name alone.
Her daughter, CD Scratch nearly destroyed the entire family's fame with her... mutilation of what she considered music. Ponies everywhere literally died after hearing the noises that she created on her instruments. If that didn't cause an end to the musical legacy, then her daughter, iPod Scratch, definitely put the last nail on the coffin.
We don't talk about Laserdisk Scratch—bless her soul.
5528904
Dude make that a fic
i.imgur.com/lhjhbB9.gif
5528912 I would have no idea where to start! Hmm... maybe have a 2k word section on each Scratch? Told by the last of the Scratch line: Plot Scratch: a pony who sells butt-scratchers at baseball stadiums?
5528917
I have to wonder how the Cult operates if they are still producing murderous fanatics for almost a 1000 years running.
Here's hoping Celestia blasts them each into smithereens, and then blasts those smithereens into even smaller smithereens, for good measure.
5528771
"And the responsibility to accept the truth."
Oooooouch, that twist T_T Poor Chainmail
Can't wait till the next chapter!
Well, if you wanna harm ANY pony Celestia considers dear, you best be ready to face the wrath of a cake-loving sun goddess.
5529246
fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/050/3/b/angry_princess_celestia___animated_gif_by_nicoboss143-d5vi6u6.gif
5529255 8/8 would snuggle, m8!
Twilight- "Princess i your faithful student who graduated to princess status have returned with the magical artifact needed to protect kingdom."
Celestia- "That's nice, more importantly how's sunset shimmer?"
Gooooodbye nightmare cult.
Welp...the cat is certainly out of the bag now.
"her"
5529255
...Darnit. I was just going to post that pic.
Can't say I'm surprised, but... What?!
Noooooo! Those cultists better prepare their anuses. Celestia is about to rape em.
Equestria's KKK is in full swing. Oh, shit. *pulls up chair and grabs popcorn*
Well that escalated quickly.
For the record, I expect Sunset to have been traumatized by all that.
Da feels bro Da feels
Is that Vinyl Scratch's mom?
Oh my gosh! You killed Vinyl Scratch's mom!
What the heck language is that?
5945860 the language of the dragons duh it says so right there
Is the cult an allegory for groups like ISIS?
6869850
No thats traditional partisan tactics