Great Mares Are Not Always Wise
Words are strange things. Luna had always found that words were more powerful than could be explained, and less useful than anypony could ever hope. Words changed the world, not by altering the material circumstances so much as by altering the way in which the mere material stuff of existence was seen.
And, to be honest, sometimes they did alter the material. Or seemed to.
Cadance’s voice whispered like the wind in the void that she floated. It was not the wind, for all was still. Here she had no need of breathing. Truth be told, she never had. Celestia had needs she did not, but she had strengths that Luna would never understand.
So the problem of difference remained. The tyranny of distance, as it had been put to her so long ago. Even in the trifles, the distance ached. Luna did not know what it was like to suffocate. Morbid, yes. She did not know what it was like to hold her breath and feel the clawing need for air. She did breath, of course. It was habit now. Not breathing felt strange, for she had been breathing all along, but she did not desperately need air, only crave it.
Which might perhaps seem trivial, but it was not, for few things ever are. Every instance of distance, of difference, served as a painful reminder of separation.
Perhaps that was the problem.
No, it wasn’t that. It was something else. Mere difference could not account for the way her stomach churned, or for the dagger-like anxiety that stabbed up her spine. It worried, yes. But that alone could not possibly begin to encapsulate the madness that had driven her to this point.
“What are you afraid of, really? Because you say you fear betrayal, but you defend Twilight as being your friend, you insist that she is your friend even as you worry over her future evil.”
Yes, ‘twas the question. It was the problem. It was the mystery.
Truth be told, she had an inkling. One cannot spend so much energy on mysteries as she had and not have some answers. But she did not like the answer. She would ask Twilight. Twilight would tell her the truth, and perhaps that answer would be the one she needed and sought, one that was better.
“At some point… I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound rude. It’s just that at some point you simply must trust somepony, Aunt. Even if it means trusting yourself. Not blindly. Never blindly. You have to know yourself.”
Which was, of course, impossible.
No. No more Cadance, young, timid, brave. No more Celestia, watching, hoping, comforting. Only Luna and only Twilight now. Only one more dream, one more grasping, and then…
And then the Audience.
The question was, of course, what nature of dream?
A bad one, that was the obvious answer. A terrible one. Traumatic, fearsome, horrible. Except… no, she needed something perfect. Something that might wash away all doubts and prove Twilight Sparkle the mare the world hoped she was. “Bad” would not cut it. “Bad” meant merely bad, merely unpleasant. Many mares had triumphed over the unpleasant and the difficult and been craven and corrupted in the end. It could not be merely a test of will or of strength, for many powerful ponies were also vile.
What would prove Twilight Sparkle incorruptible? And was “incorruptible” something could exist in the guise of a pony beyond even the shadow of night’s doubting?
She shifted gears and left the void. The myriad dreams returned, shining brightly, shining with life. Luna swam among them, brow furrowed in deepest, loneliest thought.
What if the answer was not to batter her with troubles? What if that all along had been the wrong idea? Trouble, sorrow, adversity… these things tested souls, yes, but also refined them. Strengthened them, often. Crushed them, certainly. But not as often did they tempt except in the weakest of wills. No, she saw it now.
After all, it had not been her isolation that had driven her to…
To what happened. Had it? It had been the memory of when things had been diffeent. A foal who has never heard of cake eats bread and is content, she reasoned, but one who has seen into the bakery and seen what could be possible is no longer able to return to his stale crust in the same way. Now he is changed. Now he is in despair.
Despair was an old friend.
What was it?
Exile can mean a lot of things. It means death, sometimes, to some ponies. Prison. Loneliness. To one who had dreamed and not dreamed, bound within the lunar aether itself, Luna thought it meant Time. Exile meant time to think, and with that time she had tried many hypotheses. There had been many such trains of thought, a dozen at once, all of them Luna but none of them guided by her, her mind blindly working along.
She had wondered which was more fitting—that despair was more properly understood as the exclusion of anything beyond the self, or if it was the refusal to accept the self, or if there was any real difference. But she did know how it began.
It began with discrepancy. Inadequacy. It began with distance between what one was, or what the world was, and what wished to be—or how the world in fact was. Twilight had seen surprises before. She’d had failures, yes, and sorrows.
She knew what to do.
Luna found Twilight easily. In fact, her dreams came easily now, as if ready for her. Perhaps they were.
She touched the surface of the dream gently, so gently. As one might touch the cheek of a lover, so did she caress the surface of Twilight’s heart. Once, she had tried to describe to her sister the process by which she had swayed so many to her baleful cause. But, despite her efforts, the right words proved elusive. It was blind, but not in that she was ignorant of what she “touched”. She had some idea. Perhaps not the idea of the dreamer, the “touched”, but some idea.
She searched, or rather she stumbled about in the intense brightness of Twilight Sparkle’s soul looking for something she could take back into the comforting black of the Aether. Dreams, aspirations, preferences. She felt flashes of sensation, confused and confusing, tastes and smells and sounds and they were all one taste or sound or smell.
And she dug deeper. Something. Something that Twilight Sparkle valued above all things. No, not what she valued, what she hid. Luna kept digging.
She found something. Something which stung to the touch. Embarrassing. Half-forgotten. Not dealt with so much as discarded, thrown into a chest and kept in the attic. Secret, and moved on from, but also compromising. The chance of the old leaking into the new. She caught ahold of it, and felt—
There is a state that is equally horror and feverish joy. Rapture gets close, but Luna did not know what to call it. It was the best possible thread. It was the worst possible one. It was, in every way, very much the last argument. If there was ever something that would prove what kind of mare Twilight of Ponyville and late of Canterlot was, it was this, she was sure of it.
And if there was something that would prove what sort of mare she herself was, perhaps this was also it.
She hesitated. To her credit, she hesitated. The thread was secure in grip, and with a tug she could pull it free and plunge Twilight’s idyllic, formless light sleeping into something very, very different. She needn’t design it, needn’t build a thing. No lines, no parts to play, no setting, all action.
But, to her credit… to her credit, Luna was not completely clueless as regarded amity. This would hurt. Almost certainly.
She needed to know. She did not know what it was she needed to know.
Luna perhaps, most of all, needed to know if she would pull the thread.
And, after a pause… she did.
So much had changed!
Where to begin? She’d become a princess, for starters. That had been pretty big. She’d lost her home, but then gotten a palace. Adventures, here and there. New responsibilities, new challenges. Learning to fly had been weird. Even a new student!
Twilight chuckled to herself. “New” student. More like, first-and-only. She was more scatterbrained these days, but in a good way and for a good reason.
After all, what was more distracting than dating Princess Celestia herself?
That was the biggest change, and the best. It had been so… so perfect. It had been almost exactly as she had imagined it, as a filly. Correspondence and friendliness deepened into intimate trust. Twilight was soon in Canterlot almost every weekend, and work was merely an excuse. Sure, she had responsibilities now, and she of course loved to be helpful. Learning what being a princess meant was exhilarating and novel. But these things were excuses. Balls, concerts, meetings, all events became excuses to be in each other’s company.
At first, she’d simply enjoyed her former mentor’s presence. The old dreams of romance with the sun were just that, old dreams. She no longer aspired to such a station. Truth be told, she’d rarely felt attraction to mares besides Celestia as she grew up, or really to anyone. Romance had been a distraction from the pleasant mind-numbing hum or work and study. Rarity might gasp and protest, but Twilight was happy alone. She had her friends, and she had a world of discoveries waiting to be made, and these things made for a fulfilling existence.
And yet.
And yet, she found herself attracted all over again. Falling bit by bit back into her old fillyhood crush, only to find that it had grown with her. Celestia was not perfect. She was a pony. A pony of a peculiar and high caliber, yes, but a pony. She could be argued with and even loved. Every moment that Twilight saw her teacher without the mask of regality, her crush deepened.
And Twilight had been content. There was an aesthetic pleasure in the idea of romantic attraction, really. One could enjoy merely the surface, merely the feeling engendered in oneself. So she did enjoy it, expecting at any moment to wake and find it gone and replaced with the gentler sort of friendly affection.
And yet.
It was inexplicable. Twilight had not let love pass her by, and for the life of her she wasn’t sure what had happened. But she was so, so glad that whatever had changed in her had in fact changed.
She hummed, smiling at all the guards and maids and dignitaries. She saw them, but did not see them—there were bigger and brighter pastures to graze. Or fish to fry. Rainbow said that once. Pegasi were weird.
She giggled. Her, Twilight Sparkle, giggling like a lovestruck filly in the corridors of power. What a world! But it was such a good world.
She came to the doors that separated Celesta’s apartments from the more public areas. These were the doors that, as a filly, had been the gateways to all good adventure. It had once meant magic lessons. Philosophy, mathematics, science, art, all things which she had learned to love. She supposed, as she stood before them, it meant learning even still. It was just that the lessons she learned inside were very different, these days.
She smiled at the guards by the door. She knew them, in fact. Vigilance and Stout Heart. “Afternoon, gentlecolts. How goes the watch?”
Stout smiled back. “As always, miss.”
“Boring as can be,” finished Vigilance.
“Of course, less so now that you’ve arrived,” Stout said. “Princess wasn’t expecting you until later, but I’m sure she’ll be happy to see you. I think she’s in a meeting, actually.”
Twilight’s spirit wasn’t dampened. She shrugged. “I kind of expected that, being early and all. But I was looking forward to the weekend, and I was ahead of schedule on everything else. You know how it goes!”
“Can’t say I do,” Stout said as Vigilance looked on, quiet but smiling. “A guard’s life rarely involves being ahead of schedule.”
“Never early, always on time. I remember. Shiny used to talk about that all the time. Well,” she paused, enjoying the conversation but eager to get inside. “Well, if you fellows wouldn’t mind letting me in?”
Chuckling, Vigilance and Stout Heart stepped aside and pulled the grand doors open.
Twilight entered and found the comfortable reception room much as she remembered it. Little here had changed since her childhood. It was a comforting place—it was meant to be, as Celestia had explained. “The first thing, after a court appearance, that any visting dignitary sees is this room, Twilight. It is designed to make them feel at home. Why? Because productive conversation requires the right atmosphere as much as it does the right individuals.”
Celestia was full of wisdom like that. It must come from the long roll of years. Smiling, Twilight found the kettle stashed safely where it always was, and used her magic to brew some tea. Another affectation, another kernel of wisdom from the mare she loved: tea was the proper response to most anything.
It was quiet, not that she minded. Celestia enjoyed quiet, and Twilight found that she did as well. Her stomach was still full of butterflies, and she was still giddy, but that would pass. It was probably for the best.
Twilight stirred her tea. Two sugars, a little dash of milk, as she had since fillyhood.
Truth be told… she was trying to put away childish things. She had been able to do so long enough to confess to Celestia, but it was so hard to get out of the mindset of princess and pupil. Saying merely Celestia, and not Princess Celestia. But she was trying, and to her what mattered was in the heart. And her heart was far more interested in Mere Celestia, as the princess called herself with smiles soft and wise.
A sip. Another sip. Time rolled on.
Celestia seemed a little sad when she slipped, but they had talked about it, and she knew that Celestia knew where her heart was. Understanding was, all the books agreed, was the foundation of any relationship. She was glad they could talk frankly. More than that it was just… she felt so full about it, so happy that she could talk heart to heart with the mare who had been her mentor and teacher and who was now finally with her without barriers. Soul to soul, heart to heart. She had been happy before, but now she was…
Well. She would find a word for it. She—they, such a wonderful word!—had all the time in the world with each other.
So Twilight filled an hour, humming to herself, sipping tea, admiring the gentle painted landscapes of places she’d never been. She did not notice an urgent spirit in the walls. She did not feel that she was anything other than alone.
But she did grow restless eventually. Once again, as she always had, ever since she was small. Twilight Sparkle was not one for waiting.
So, still smiling, still eager to see Celestia, she got up and wandered the vast apartments.
The apartments were not just her rooms. They were, in a way, public property, belonging as much to the Principality as to the Princess who ruled and guarded it. Her private quarters—more butterflies just thinking about them!—were far removed. Reception areas, a few offices that were empty, which she found a bit odd. The balcony where Celestia and now some times Twilight took their breakfast overlooking the city. A small library and sitting room. Her private gallery… even the old practice room where Twilight herself had learned so much. She lingered at the door there for awhile, smiling still, seeing herself straining and Celestia standing watchful and proud.
She continued, until she was at the door to Celestia’s private chamber.
Just a drop of doubt. Just a drop. Wasn’t she in a meeting? Yet, Twilight had heard no conversation, and she’d seen no official or visitor. In fact, strangely, Celestia’s seneschal had been absent from her little office. It wasn’t even four yet. Celestia’s inner ring of staffers usually worked quietly but determinedly until four every day, weekends too unless the Princess herself shooed them out.
Oh. Of course. She rolled her eyes. “Meeting”, indeed. So far, their relationship had been secret, and of course she’d said she had some sort of prior engagement. She was talking about Twilight herself, obviously!
Twilight tugged open the door with magic, and opened her mouth to call out a bright, loud hello.
Time slowed to a halt.
Celestia was there. And she was, as always, a sight worth seeing. She was groaning in pleasure, as Twilight had heard her before, in a way she knew intimately and lovingly despite having only heard it thrice before. That was a part of her new normal.
The pegasus mare was new.
Celestia was on her back. Twilight couldn’t see her face because at present she was lying on her side and away from the door. But she could see the other pony as she turned, midway through some comment, face frozen between shock and bliss, face flushed with carnal knowledge and desire, eyes pinpricks, hair mussed from sex.
Twilight stood in the door as this other mare and Celestia separated with a burst of magic and twinned shouts of alarm. The mare she did not know ended up in a heap on the floor in a heap of hooves and feathers, scrambling to release herself from the tangled, luxurious sheets.
And Celestia? Celestia sat on the bed, trembling. Her face was flushed. Her wings were spread as if any moment she take off out the door. Her hair had returned to its soft pink, the soft pink Twilight had thought only she was blessed to see in the comfort of her lover’s chambers.
The rank-yet-oddly-sweet smell of sweat and lovemaking hit her before any words did.
“Twilight?”
She stared.
“Twilight? Twilight, I… I… I thought you were…”
Twilight sank back onto her haunches, still staring.
“I thought… you…”
The pegasus bolted out the open window, past the balcony where she had shared her first kiss with Celestia.
She tried to speak. She really did. She wanted… she didn’t know what she wanted. The world shook around her. The walls were coming apart. The floor cracked. Mount Canter exploded in fire and the skies were red. This was the end of the world.
But none of that happened. There was no apocalypse. Just her. Just Celestia. Just a messy bed and the scent of sex and her own heart stuttering in her chest.
“Why?” she asked. Her voice was faint. Almost uninterested. Distant. As if she weren’t asking what she was asking, as if she was barely there.
“I… She was so…” Celestia made to move, but Twilight retreated, and so they both stopped and stared again.
Celestia shielded her eyes. “Twilight… I was going to tell you I had met somepony. I was. I didn’t want you to find out like this.”
“Oh.”
Urgency. “You have to understand, she was always so natural with me. She never called me…”
Princess. Right.
“...and I just… Twilight, we couldn’t work. I was going to talk to you about that tonight.”
“Oh.”
“Our… I mean, you and I, we weren’t moving past teacher and student. Didn’t you see that? Surely you’ve had doubts about that. Twilight? Twilight, please… I never meant to…”
Twilight, detached, had no frame of reference. No world left to inhabit. She never had, really. It all made sense. It was easy. Math-easy. Hadn’t she been so good at it? Variables and the like. Hadn’t she been so good at figuring out what was missing? Ah, but everything was. Of course Celestia could not hold on to what little there was of the mare called Twilight Sparkle. Unworthy of being more than a passing fancy, a moth before a candle, soon forgotten. Of course. It really…
It really fit, didn’t it? Celestia was saying something. She didn’t hear it. All of her sense had come to a single point. There was hardly room for anything of Celestia in that point.
Of course. A mare like Celestia had lived so long, done so much. How could somepony like Twilight ever be enough for her? She was a novice in the art of love, at best. A laughable one. A shaky, inexperienced virgin with a mountain of insecurities who couldn’t stop her calling her by a title when she deserved to have a name. Of course.
Of course.
The dream fell apart as Twilight Sparkle wondered how lovely the palace would look like on fire, with herself as the kindling.
Luna awoke in her own chambers. She rose.
She hit the floor and stumbled.
No. No no no no. No. Her whole body shook. This was wrong. This was evil. She was wrong. She was evil. At once, she tried to rally: I didn’t know! How could I have foreseen? She made the dream, not I! I didn’t mean it! I didn’t choose that.
And, implacable, out of her own comforting darkness, out of the storm: You pulled the thread. You felt the wound. You needed to know just how far it was from the edge.
And now she did.
Luna did not breathe. She… waited. Surely, any moment now her sister would come like the sun in its wrath to burn down her door and chain her in bright, hot agony for the sin she had committed. Surely now, any moment Twilight would appear in a flash of magic, ready to put her down. The elements. The guard.
But there was nothing. Just herself. Not breathing. Just the room, silent. Just the softly beating heart of the night, and a single thought.
What have I done?
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7558642 Huh. I was actually thinking of Elihu! But I can see that.
Oh, Sweet Faust! Why isn't the next chapter ready yet?! WHY!?
I have no words, but animal desire to see what comes next, in terrible, terrible dread.
The way you put the final sentence of the final dream. The house of cards that came tumbling down. I could believe it could happen.
...oh boy...wonderful...now I'm stuck on the edge of my seat!! We now know just how far Luna will go...and she DID go there. As for poor Twilight...just wow...that poor thing. I can't begin to imagine how this would impact her, and moreover how Luna's actual talk with Twilight about all this will go. Frankly, for all of Luna's better traits and necessity...after this, I couldn't blame Twilight for any reaction she has. Luna...well if she was ever scared of herself, what she was capable of, we can now safely say that fear is not only justified, it's wise. Through all of this, through all of her musings, Luna still committed horrible acts against Twilight...and frankly the fact that not only she COULD, but DID, almost if not totally justifies Luna's own negative looks at herself. She SEES the better path, but in her own mind's torment, or thought process, hard to tell, she STILL goes against one she sees as dear to her.
...not like she didn't do something like that BEFORE with the Nightmare...
Honestly, while I like Luna, and usually root for her, in this fic? I can't get behind her anymore...she actually went there, and I just don't know what to do.
Well done, this chapter really got me, and I look forward to the final chapters!!
I'm with Isumo. Luna has gone too far, and if Twilight rejects her, she has every right. I hope she is the better pony, but she does.
What will hurt Luna the most? That Twilight will thank her. For making plain her inadequacies, for proving beyond doubt that what she dreamed is not possible, that it can not, will not, and should not be and never shall. Twilight will thank Luna, and mean it, and it will feel like impalement.
It finally dawns on me that Luna is basically torturing Twilight with crappy fanfic.
If this is something that Twilight hadn't thought about in a long time, surely it can't affect her in the waking world for longer than those doomsday scenarios did... right? Especially because Celestia would never actually do that?...
7578115 you'll see her reaction soon. Today, actually.
As to the rest--it depends. You can not think about something that can still influence your behavior and internal life. I mean, I don't think about being bullied as a kid, but looking back I can sort of see how it shaped me for better and for worse.
7578140 I'm sure it influences her in general- I just don't think this particular reminder should make her go Nightmare.
Twilight's final thought before the dream ended... "The dream fell apart as Twilight Sparkle wondered how lovely the palace would look like on fire, with herself as the kindling." when the sentence begins, it sounds destructive, and vengeful- her wanting to watch the palace burn, and then the second part of the sentence hits, and it hits hard, changing the whole context of the sentence. I almost wish the imagery wasn't that good, because my heart wouldn't twist as much as it is... but only almost. To see what happens next will bring me great joy.
Also, this sentence really grabbed my eyes: "She had wondered which was more fitting—that despair was more properly understood as the exclusion of anything beyond the self, or if it was the refusal to accept the self, or if there was any real difference. But she did know how it began". After The Night is Passing, any reference to despair makes me think of the heavily referenced sickness unto death, and seeing it reemerge here, in a different context, is powerful for a return reader.
7578511 I shied away from it but only barely.
They both go back to my more or less constant wrestling with Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death and The Concept of Anxiety which I HIGHLY encourage you to read. Hell, I'll reread alongside you. They are challenging but I think important.
7578590 You have told me twice now to read those works, and I would be a fool not to listen the second time. I will get copies and try to work on them in between my class work. The going will be slow, but it will get done, and with your recommendation, I know i will be better for it. I will of course be sure to share with you any thoughts I have.
7578603 if you can stand it, I guarantee you can find some PDFs!
7578608 I was a founding member of my previous college's philosophy club, which, while not guaranteeing that I can stand it, suggests I will. And yes, i will look for PDFs. If i work hard enough, I can finish my homework and labs for tonight and start reading. I will keep you posted ^-^
breathe
double heap.
you're missing the word 'might'.
Dammit, all i could think off from start to finish of this last dream was "Fuck you Luna, really really fuck you."
For the exchange with Celestia, the white spaces between Twilight's dialogue/thoughts and Celestia's response increased the tension and unsettling feeling. It really helped create a chilling atmosphere.
yikes yikes YIKES
This incredibly well written. I am really enjoying this.
I’ve read stories with character death that are less heart crushing than the end of this chapter.