Happy Anniversary
The bedroom was mercilessly white. Gauzy white curtains with glimmering gold fringes framed the late afternoon sun. The wallpaper was a dappled white, the furniture white with gold trim. There were barely enough shadows to give it a third dimension. There was a snow-white bed and canopy, and two white mares, an alicorn and a unicorn.
Celestia, the alicorn, stood before the window, and her pelt was as white as the noonday sun. She kept a few paces back from the bed, as if she were afraid of burning its occupant, or being burnt. Rarity, the unicorn, lay in the bed breathing shallowly, and her pelt was as white as the caps on the bottles hidden discreetly in the bathroom cabinets.
“Oh, Celly!” Rarity gasped. “It’s perfect! I shall never take it off!”
The perfection at hoof was a small jade pendant. It had frills around its edges resembling the waves Rarity had until recently worn in her mane. The pendant would eventually end up in one of Rarity’s bureau drawers, which were full of other items also judged perfect and timeless at one time or another. But both ponies had read “Ode to a Frisian Urn”, and understood that Rarity did not like to tarnish the beautiful with the merely literal. Rarity cooed over the pendant a few more times before she did the clasp up and let the pendant fall around her neck.
“I know it’s not your usual color,” Celestia said, “and you’ve changed your manestyle since the carver began it…”
“Changed? Certainly not. I was merely airing out the roots. Now, it’s your turn. But for your present, we must go out on the balcony. Would you be a dear?”
“Gladly,” Celestia said. She wrapped Rarity in a cloak of magic and lifted the old unicorn carefully from the bed. Carrying Rarity before her, she walked between stone columns and out onto the balcony.
The weather, of course, was also perfect. They could hear the counterpoint between four stringed instruments and the voices of at least as many well-watered ponies, which still streamed from the open windows of the grand ballroom down below. There had been a great cake covered in white icing, with forty-three candles in its center and two ribbons of frosting braided together along its edges, one in all the colors of Celestia’s mane, the other Rarity’s indigo. Many of the party-goers were still unaware that the guests of honor had already retired to their chambers above.
Celestia set Rarity down gently on the red silk cushion of the divan that waited there, then turned her head to sniff curiously at an enormous oak table arranged alongside it. The table was covered with pictures of Rarity. Photos, portraits, even multiple copies of clipped newspaper articles.
“Oh, Spike!” Rarity called.
Spike’s great head rose above the balcony’s horizon like a second moon, and he stretched his neck over the balustrade, his body standing somewhere on the courtyard below.
“They’re all here?” she asked. “Every last one?”
“Every one we could find,” Spike rumbled. “Even the copies.”
“I don’t understand,” Celestia said.
“Oh, but I think you do,” Rarity said. “We both know you must already be trying to choose a picture of me. My present to you, dear, is that I will choose.”
Celestia took a step back from the table and stamped a rear hoof. “A picture?”
“For your room. Oh, stop pretending. The room.”
Rarity had discovered the room some forty years before, when their liaison had still been occasionally considered newsworthy. It was the only room in the palace Celestia had left locked against Rarity’s magic. Rarity was the only pony in the palace who could tell, from a watery sheen to Celestia’s eyes and a nearly-imperceptible stoop in her shoulders, when she had visited it.
The room was not locked to the keys of the Chamberlain. He was loyal, but overly trusting, and, in any case, a stallion. It proved to be a small room with one small window, its walls covered with paintings of ponies, and drawers filled with dozens more. Some were frightfully old.
In the bottom drawer she found a mosaic of a brown piebald. A stallion, she guessed from the roguish gleam in his eyes. It had been carefully chipped from a stucco wall. Rarity was just holding it up to the light for a better look when the door opened behind her and Celestia trotted in, then came to an abrupt stop.
Rarity dropped the mosaic in surprise. It shattered on the floor, its bright tiles rolling in a hundred directions.
“No!” Celestia cried.
“Oh!” Rarity said. “I didn’t mean…”
"You've killed him!"
Celestia had pushed past her and bent over the clods of dust and color, gathering the tiles, pushing them around, trying and failing to reassemble them. Then she’d let them drop on the floor and hung her head until her horn rested on the ground.
The pictures, Celestia had eventually told her, were of the ponies she had known. Emphasis Celestia’s.
Rarity picked a photo off the table. It showed a young mare, shining with vigor, her indigo mane in its signature curls. Rarity had seldom let her picture be taken since she’d started using concealer. She sighed, then set the photo back down.
“Spike, if you would. That favor we spoke about.”
Spike’s head loomed over Rarity and the table. He looked at Rarity. He looked at the table.
“I can’t,” he said.
“Please, Spike. Be a dear.”
Spike turned his head away.
“Oh, don’t be like that, Spikey-Wikey.”
Rarity was still admiring the emerald crenelations on the back of Spike’s head, and wondering if you called it a comb or if that was just with chickens, when there was a tremor and a rushing wind. Rarity felt a shock of ancient, instinctive terror rise up her spine before she realized it was exactly what she had asked for. It was the sound of an adult dragon taking a deep breath.
Spike turned his head back towards her, and with a terrible roar, a great flame rolled past her, not the friendly green magic flame but white hot balefire, and consumed portraits, photographs, and table in an instant.
Celestia stared at the ashes in horror. “You… you were going to choose one.”
“I was going to choose,” Rarity said. “I choose none. My anniversary gift, to you, dear.”
Celestia looked, for once, bewildered.
“I’ve been very happy,” Rarity said. “It’s enough. You don’t need to remember me forever. Live.”
But Celestia only bent down to wrap Rarity’s frail body in her forelegs, hide her face in the white fur, and weep.
“It’s for your own good, dear. Spike, tell her it was for her own good.”
Spike frowned and said nothing. Far below them, in a cave under the mountain, hidden in the pages of an old book, was one remaining photograph.
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Vote this comment up if you think Rarity did the right thing.
Vote it down if you think she did the wrong thing.
7244653
What if I reply to it and nothing more?
I'm with Spike. It is no sin to remember.
7246370 Then what she did was of no consequence.
7244653
I kind of think she did the wrong thing for all the right reasons.
7246385
Then I think that means you need to create an alt and vote opposite of whatever you vote on your main.
Vote this up if Spike should have burned the last picture.
Vote it down if he should have kept it.
7246382
This is a beautiful argument, but what about when you obsess over that remembrance, as it seems is the case here? That's when black and white turns to a whole lot of grey.
Holding on to memories past for too long can be detrimental.
It's best to look to the future.
7246385 This.
Also, as happy as I am that someone posted Rarilestia...
Whyyyyyy does it have to be sad?
A good one, that deals with important issues in a relationship such as this... but still.
It's strange, how rarely we think of Celestia in a shipping context. Outside of Twilestia and the occasional princest clop, she's probably the closest pony to the elusive Unshippable. The closest common thing to non-Twilight ships are Molestia jokes, and even those are usually only made about Twilight.
I, for one, do hereby brand myself a Rarilestia shipper.
I don't think there is a right or a wrong here.
Wrong would have been burning Celestia's photo collection.
Essentially Rarity is saying that she would prefer Celestia not dwell upon her past her time. There are some people in real life who really want a gaudy tombstone, and others who do not.
It is hard on Spike here because Rarity is also asking Spike to burn away things that are also cherished to him. That picture is as much if not more Spikes than potentially Celestia's.
Thing is though, while Rarity has made her decision, Celestia need not follow it regardless of if a picture exists. I am sure there are ponies out there who could paint a portrait of Rarity after her death that would suffice in this regard.
A lot of this is a lack of understanding on Rarity's part. When your life spans aeons, it becomes very difficult to hold onto the memories of those one knew long ago. Eventually they become compressed to the details, then the details are eventually forgotten. Celestia essentially is using those pictures as an external memory, a way to jog and maintain some semblance of what was so she can still retain the lessons learned.
7246393 You're right. I'm not sure if I can feel 100% comfortable saying that she's obsessed, though. It's a brief look--I'm certainly invited to think that, but I could also see that room being no different from the ski goggles I have of my grandfather's given their high honors in my room at home. No one touches them, they are strangely sacred, and yet I am not consumed. Of course, at the same time, we can hold on to people to the point of destruction. I started smoking because my very long term girlfriend did and her house smelled of smoke and so I even tried to get the same menthols.
The way that Rarity acts makes me think Celestia does tend to obsess. Spike seems to suggest that she's wrong. I'm inclined to accept my reading of Spike, honestly, because I'm sorta reading this as if it were tied with Celerity but also because Rarity is a little theatric and the whole thing comes across as a little.... high handed? Sudden. I'm not sure, even if she is right, that it was the best action. It's a great scene.
This feels wrong to me because it's Rarity deciding something for Celestia. Rarity is imposing on Celestia's right to choose on something that's very important and personal for Celestia. For an act done out of love, it feels like a very selfish kind of love.
This is exactly why sensible couples have long, drawn-out arguments for days/weeks/months/years before they start destroying each other's precious stuff.
Well shit.
I can almost see Rarity's point of view, though. It's clear that Celestia isn't just remembering her past lovers, but rather she's suffering because of them. Every time she stands in the room she remembers--or thinks she remembers, it seems implied that she's forgetful and it isn't clear how much she really remembers of the ponies in the pictures--she feels pain. Pain that'll never end. Conversely, by destroying all the pictures and making it so she can't be remembered, Rarity won't cause Celestia for centuries to come.
That said, I think more had to be done in the story for this point to really be made, its just too short for the subject matter.
7246428
I think I've only seen this ship one other place, in Myths and Birthrights.
ship it if you want, but it's hella rare.
Good thing Celestia had all those stained-glass windows made.
What happens? You've stopped right when the conceit of the story is established, leaving a big conflict between literally every combination of characters present but doing nothing about it.
-Rarity's hurt Celestia terribly, and has just learned it did not help.
-Spike has betrayed Rarity's trust while also betraying Celestia's.
-Spike is concealing a secret from Celestia of grave importance.
And Rarity's clearly trying to make Celestia 'rise above' these connections because if she does… Rarity's breaking of the mosaic doesn't matter, and that is a wound she cannot ever, ever heal.
Unless I miss my guess, you don't intend to continue this further. Why on earth not? You've left a very obvious 'out'. Should they discover Spike's secret cache of picture, the most direct answer is for Rarity to acknowledge that she hasn't the power to free Celestia of her limitations, permit Celestia to keep that one precious last picture, and then perhaps expire dramatically but gratefully upon a couch.
That would give Rarity an arc: forming an intention, testing it, having to re-appraise her values and abandoning her wish for Celestia to be super-mortal and leave behind her connection to the mortal ponies. In so doing she must admit the harm she's done Celestia by breaking that mosaic.
Then you cap it off with Celestia in turn responding by bearing the picture away and placing it, not in a drawer, but in a central place above the window or some such position of supreme honor: and boom, you have the Rarity arc of learning to give Celestia her connection to mortals and memory, and Celestia turning around and counting Rarity as greatest of all mortals and most worthy of being remembered (underscoring the value of what she's been doing) and thematically you'd have it all sorted out in a bittersweet way.
I suppose a Bad Horse mustn't sound mawkish notes. Very well, you can have all the pictures held up with glue made of their own hooves if such things please you. I bet Rarity hoof glue would be the finest in all the land
7246388 Hmm, not quite sure about the title or what it means. Are you referring to the River Lethe, the underworld river of Greek mythology, that makes people forget their past lives so that they can be reborn cleanly and not burdened with their past failings?
7246524 Yes. The River Lethe is called the River Lethe because "lethe" means forgetfulness or oblivion.
7244653
Right? Wrong? Ah, would that it were simple.
In virtue ethics she acted admirably: she displayed absolute selflessness and as much generosity as it is possible to have. Rarity has never been accused of any great lack of self-regard, to put it diplomatically, but here she chooses the fate of Akhenaten for the love of another.
But...
Axiologically, depending on your rules, she likely acted wrongly. Likely not all of those photographs were hers, after all. And, being less pedantic-petty for a moment, she usurped the right to choose from another. You don't get to make decisions for other people just because you are dying.
But...
Through the lens of utilitarian ethics, her act is confusing, conflicting. If we take a Benthamite view, she's (likely) reduced the sum total of anguish[1] and that's surely good.
But...
"I will not say: do not weep, for not all tears are an evil." Say you find someone bent double with grief over the lost of someone they loved, and say you offer them a magic pill that will simply erase their grief. Henceforth if they remember the person they lost, they'll do so with emotional equanimity, not sorry they are gone forever at all. Say you want to force the pill on this person.
You are getting stabbed.
So. Preference utilitarianism, then? Doesn't work. I mean, yeah, sure, if you look at it right now then Celestia's preference ought to win: being immortal, she's a bit of an utility monster. But what if she's mistaken and her true preference is to not remember so destructively[2]. It's not so strange an approach: Say, you are very, very, very drunk. Your current preference is for another scotch but the sober you would vastly prefer if you weren't given one. Or say you are depressed and think that a painless demise might be the best possible thing, but a hypothetical not-depressed you would very much like to continue living.
Basically, if we were CELEST-AI and had to decide how to best satisfy everyone's preferences using friendship and ponies and we had to pick either option A or option B: what would we do? Well we'd model Celestia and see what her revealed preferences in all possible future scenarios were, hold a vote among all the never-weres and meanwhiles, and pick the least worst option.
Lacking semi-infinite processing power of a rapidly hegemonizing swarm that's turning all available matter into computronium we can't.
Damn.
We should really do something about that 'singularity' stuff. Makes debates so much easier. And faster. Exponentially so, in fact.
So? Where to now?
A sort of heuristic morality (compromise axiology? best-of-a-bad-lot deontology? approximate ethics?) might say that, aside from a few situations where one's mental acuity is utterly compromised, the ability to choose can never be taken away from those conscious agents we see as our equals. Celestia's mistakes (if they are mistakes) are hers to make. Note that this applies even if Celestia's better off not remembering—the heuristic proposed above says that, under those circumstances, Celestia's better off not remembering, but only if she chooses to destroy/seal/ignore the pictures.
But that's unsatisfying. It produces something akin to consensus morality when you factor in the edge cases and yes-buts and only-ifs, but it is merely descriptive of consensus morality, it is barely predictive at all. And it tells us very little about underlying meta-ethics.
[1] Provided her interpretation of Celestia's actions is correct. Which may or may not be the case. But that's a different kettle of fish.
[2] Provided Rarity didn't make a terrible, terrible mistake.
7246514 This is something of a lady-and-the-tiger. I'd rather leave the readers to figure out what they think than provide an answer, and I think the many comments above justify my having done so. I worry more about what 7246467 said: that it might need more details for some readers to form an opinion.
7246569 Then you've not written a story, you've written a question.
Go you, I suppose, but you had a perfectly decent shot at a story. You could also get many comments by setting your tail on fire and galloping through town, but the usefulness of that would not interest anyone but hairdressers.
Would you put out a call for 'reader outcomes', or do you just want people to sit there fretting?
Wait, silly question. Of course you do! The evil league of evil has some standards after all
Please God, make me a stone.
So that I can feel the water wash over me
And so that I can become part of the stream,
Instead of an island begging to drown.
Erase my skin from my bones
So that I can more easily blend with the foam
Of a thousand undying dreams
That sprang from a lake I cannot see
Take my eyes and numb my nerves
So that I no longer need to see or to feel
Keep my heart, if you must
But let it beat with the rush of the current
Let me rest
Peacefully, blissfully, under the
Thrashing torrent of beauty and fear.
Let me pass unknown to the
Flame and the sky
Slowly eroding until I am claimed
By nothing.
—Deirdre Keane
What, she can't just drink a bottle of whiskey every day like a responsible adult?
This just... kind of feels like you stopped trying.
I feel that Rarity's actions were well-meaning but ultimately futile, if not actively harmful. After all, this doesn't change the contents of the room... unless Rarity has been very presumptuous indeed. Still, while ponies didn't make a big deal out of her contribution towards saving the world, the history books likely remember her, including her appearance. Unless Rarity managed to wipe out a bit of Equestria's recorded history, her face will still be available for Celestia's perusal and recollection. Secondary sources, yes, but still valid ones. And that's assuming Spike didn't "accidentally" let any more escape.
Of course, the symbolism of the act is what should matter... and yet I can't help but think of all of the ways it can be subverted.
In all, while I'm glad to see this on Fimfiction, I feel like the removal of the length constraint brings to light certain wrinkles that I had been able to gloss over in the Writeoff.
7246623
Not to mention several stained glass windows in Celestia's castle... But let's not let canon ruin a great fic.
7246428
I think you mean Celerity.
Come on, it has to be the pun name. It is practically criminal otherwise.
Anyway, I remember reading this story some time ago. I forget if it was in a writeoff, or if you just showed it to me privately. It is an interesting story. I find it a bit odd that you posted two stories on back-to-back days, but then, I've never been good at holding stuff back either.
You had me at
and given my exam upon the works of Keats tomorrow,
This, and the title itself, made me feel a mix of 'Oh, good reference,' and 'ohshi- exam!'
Overall, it was good old Rarity with some 'To-be-Cruel-to-be-kind' actions. Very selfless and agreeable of her, really drove home her generosity, in a strange way. A very pleasing read.
7246894
... because you told me posting stories close together was a good idea.
7246966
...you know, I really only have myself to blame.
To be fair, all your new followers now have another new story to read! Huzzah.
And it isn't like the usual suspects didn't end up reading this one as well anyway...
So maybe I should just trust myself.
Masterful. Good one, my good horse
7244653 I wish I could vote both ways on this. On the one hoof, I can see her reasoning. Tia is ageless and needs to be able to move on from the shackles of grief, not constantly reminded of it. On the other, Tia is ageless and has more than earned the right to remember those she has loved. What a great story! I truly wish there were more Rarlestia (?) fics. They make a wonderful pair.
Why would images of loved ones who were held and lost over at least 1000 years be an obsession? She had the strength to move on, and to love again, time after time. Unless she had the most stunningly perfect photographic memory, she would very likely want to occasionally see and remember someone who shared happiness with her over that long haul.
Rarity is one of the sweetest-natured ponies on the show, but my feeling is that even with generosity at the heart of her decision, she was wrong to choose for Celestia. In a way it was a very selfish decision that almost looks more like an act of sadness and remorse than of pure generosity. I also wonder if in her old age and gained wisdom she really would have made that choice for someone who was already, clearly living in the present and simply choosing to remember the gifts of her past loves.
Upvoted for "the right thing," but just barely. I'm torn. I think Rarity did the right thing for her, in the kindest spirit possible, but not the right thing for Celestia. It's obvious Celestia keeps memorabilia and treasures her memories dearly, but the shattering of the little statue didn't upturn her entire world. Celestia's not stuck in the past, so there's no need to confound her tradition.
Which, come to think of it, Rarity just botched what may be one of the most consistent rituals in Celestia's long life. Kinda want to change my vote now. If novelty is the butter of long life, consistency is the bread.
Mean move making Spike fry the photos, though. I'm sure a bit of wood and a match would have done just as well.
Ah, that was nice. An interesting read. A lot shorter than what I expected from the blog prefacing it...
I like how it went. Rarity's generousity is in the giving away of things she has, and she's chosen to give away what she has left - her place in Celestia's life. She's seen that Celestia hangs on and it brings pain, and so she handles it in a very Rarity way - fully presumptuous, very determined, "but dah-ling of course this is how it's meant to be". I mean, I won't deny that Rarity in this case is taking control, but that is her, isn't it? Especially compared to canon Celestia who's content to let the new alicorns and their students handle problems of the day, ayy.
I like the irony? of it being that her "giving away" is actually a "taking away" from Celestia, a sneaky touch that gives a lot of plumbing room. Not much opinion on Spike's perspective, seeing as he's a big ol' dragon who seems mature enough to respect decisions (again, unlike Rarity, who makes them, and contrasted somewhat to Celestia who doesn't respect circumstances).
Then again, I'm really good with rolling with the punches when it comes to stuff I read.
You summed up Rarity's action when you told about the pendent. How she says she will treasure it forever, yet it will end up in a drawer with many of its kin. Rarity and Celestia both knew what Rarity meant when she says that. What then will a picture be but something to treasure forever, yet ends up in a small room with so many of its like. By not being there is to not remind one of the ravages of time. I would agree it may be selfish on Rarity's part to have done so.
Fantastic story!
I think Rarity was wrong, but with the best of intentions, the most interesting way to create a conflict. Spike should have known better than to agree, but thats in keeping with his character. He's clearly still holding a candle for Rarity. What would the right thing for him to do be at this point? Honour his agreement and Rarity's intentions? He has already broken that by keeping the picture. Give the picture to Celestia? That might be compounding the crime. I can see him letting that be a source of indecision, allowing him to keep it himself. Maybe this should have been tagged Tragedy. Though I would have been less likely to read it in that case, and that would have been a shame.
Is it the deceased's right to decide how they should be remembered? Or does their agency die with them?
I think Rarity doesn't want to be a trinket "tossed into a drawer." If she deserved the attention she got while alive, then the feelings she created within Celestia will never die. Rarity being Rarity, she has the confidence to back that up. That's her motivation, maybe.
Less clear is the benifit to Celestia. She might agonise over the choice in the present, but her actions in the story don't appear to be stemming from a mare trapped in the past. She's clearly affected by the destruction of the mosiac, but she isn't shattered by its shattering. Rarity deciding for Celestia is pushy, to say the least.
But Rarity isn't setting Celestia's memories of her aflame, just her portraits. Hmm.
Of course, Rarity isn't exactly a shadowy paramour. There's a stained glass window of her in the throne room right now! Kinda sucks the wind out of this story's sails.
7247889
Oh yes she is
in the story, Celestia is entirely dependent upon these pictures to remember, something she's not compelled to do but wishes to do with all of her heart.
I still think Rarity's actions are driven by her 'crime' of breaking the mosaic: if she can invalidate Celestia's whole process of this memory-keeping, then she's not done anything so wrong by accidentally shattering something irreplacable. There's also an overtone of 'well, I SHALL be unique to you, I am the one who set you free!' which is nothing if not presumptious in such a Rarity way.
These are interesting, murky depths, even if I find them worthy of exploration. It is so very much not just a 'question' reduced to an abstraction, for all that it's 1206 words marked 'complete'. I beg to differ: never saw anything so clearly meant to resolve.
I'll agree with Applejinx that this is more a question than a story.
I don't know the answer, though. There's too much missing information. Either way, it feels like something they should have discussed, and the final decision should have been Celestia's (she is the one who'll live with it).
I think a more interesting moral question arises if we assume Rarity is right, but Celestia is unwilling to accept it: is it alright to make a decision for someone else that they would be thankful for later, but opposes now? Surely putting your addicted friend in rehab is the right thing, but where does one draw the line?
7248359 if Celestia required those images to remeber, wouldn't she have forgotten the mosiac stallion the moment he shattered? Her actions only make sense if the emotions she felt towards him remain.
Those emotions are the important bits, anyways.
7248563 In that case, the fascinating thing is how Celestia refuses to generalize her feelings to all ponykind like a proper immortal deity, and Rarity is right for completely perverse reasons (she's totally mixed up about where Celestia is with all this, and is probably overcompensating for her own guilt about the mosaic).
And rather than Rarity needing to take a level of insight to understand that Celestia truly loves all ponies and tries to remember the ones closest to her, it's Celestia needing to take a level of insight and realize that her doubtless very sexy actions with subject ponies are an expression of the boundless love she has for ALL ponies, without exception. And we'll know when she makes that breakthrough not when she cries but when she stops crying (and remains every bit as attentive to her mortal amours, mind you).
Heh, two entirely satisfying but incompatible resolutions. I wonder if there are more?
7248886
One might almost think you were enjoying the open-ended nature of the story.
"Now be careful with that neuralyzer, Pinkie."
*FLASH* "Wodjer say, Brain?"
"I said be careful with that neuralyzer, Pinkie."
*FLASH* "Wodjer say, Brain?"
"I said..."
--MiB (Mice in Black)
7249008
You mean 'question', yes?
7249024 You tell me.
I reviewed this story as part of Read It Now Reviews #80.
You can find my review here.
Yeah, that's Rarity alright: the grand gesture, the selfless act of self-dramatization.
Not content to be just another picture in the gallery, she has Spike burn a Rarity-shaped hole in the wall. Who could ever forget that?
And I would argue that this is as much a Sparity story as a Celerity story: it says a lot about the nature and depth of Spike and Rarity's relationship, with Celestia as the foil:
You, the mistress of your chair
I, the sergeant of your hair -- you blind me
You turn me on like light
A silver liquid light
That emanates inside of you, decorates the room around you
Just before the curtains part for dawn
And everything's gone...
And to answer your question: yes, she did the right thing. She did the Rarity thing. Because that's what Celestia wanted from her. Bur Celestia did not imagine the form it would take--or did she?