• Published 6th Sep 2016
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Becoming Aunty Celestia - Skywriter



It is a well-known fact that motherhood changes a mare. In Cadance's case, it seems to be changing her into Princess Celestia.

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Part the Fourth

"Shining Armor!" said Twilight Sparkle, cheerily. "How was the Everfree Forest?"

"Taxing," he said, dragging his now fully-petrified leg behind him.

"You look a little stoned."

"I feel a little stoned," he replied, even as Twilight's horn began to twinkle. In a bright flash of magenta, Shining's leg was healed, his saddlebags were spiffed up and cleaned of stomach acid, and the whole of his person suddenly began smelling faintly of lavender.

"Scene Break's Status Quo!" she exclaimed, pleased. "Good for straightening manes, drying clothes and removing stains that are no longer relevant to your ongoing personal narrative or life goals."

"Oh," said Shining. "Oh! Uh, thanks! Can you teach that to Cadance? It might come in handy for spiffing up after fussy baby nights."

"Sadly, your daughter is too important to your narrative," said Twilight, turning back to her book. "It's an unpredictable spell that way! If we try it on Rainbow Dash's wing breaks, pfft, nothing. But if we get our manes wet, it dries them right off! Just so long as we're not too humiliated or ashamed by them being wet."

"So it only fixes... unimportant things."

"Yep! But I'm sure you didn't come here for me to bore you with obscure magical theory, amazing though it may be. So! What can I help you with?"

Shining Armor clenched his teeth. There was a right way to do this. A moral way. The actual, literal truth. He took a deep breath.

"Okay," he said. "First thing when I got back from the Everfree, I spoke with Cadance. She's still really into that ant farm, by the way. I think she was trying to figure out how to send them on quests or something. Anyway, I explained what I'd seen and what Luna's been telling me, and she eventually agreed with me about the whole situation."

"Situation...?"

"Twiley, your sister-in-law is becoming her Aunt Celestia."

"What's the situation? Does she need help with it? I don't know if I'm qualified to advise her on how best to do it, but—"

"We want to stop it."

Twilight stared blankly at Shining Armor. He could almost hear the hamster-wheel turning in her brain.

"Why?" she eventually asked.

Shining winced, inwardly. "Because... she's much too special! It would be a shame to have more than one Celestia, right?" Shining still felt on solid hoofing. For certain definitions of "special" and "shame," that all was literally true, right?

"Oh." Hamster hamster hamster. "So, we're... preserving the specialness of Princess Celestia?"

"Yes."

Twilight nodded, much to Shining's relief. "I can get behind that. How are we going about it?"

Aaand here came the hard sell. Shining lifted the scroll containing Starswirl's Second Unfinished Spell from his saddlebags. "We need your help giving destiny a little nudge."

Twilight's eyes narrowed. "No."

"Twiley, just—"

"No! I tinkered with destiny before, and it nearly destroyed Ponyville! Apparently, twenty-four hours without my friends on the job results in widespread social unrest and destruction! How much worse would it be if I pony around with the Protector of the Crystal Empire?" Twilight crossed the room, turning her back on Shining Armor. "Sorry, B.B.B.F.F. It isn't happening."

Shining Armor bit his lip. Luna had warned him it might come down to this. "Okay. I understand." Then he levitated the scroll back behind his haunches and brought it around the other side.

"Ooh, look! Look at this!" he said. "What do I have here?"

Twilight's eyes widened. "What do you have there?"

"It's something Princess Luna gave me!" True. "I don't totally understand it!" True. "It's a kind of magical spell that she said only you could figure out how to cast!" Close enough to true as to make no difference.

Twilight's eyes went wide and sparkly. "Ooh!" she said, rearing up and pressing her hooves to her cheeks. "Can I see? What is it? What is it? What kind of spell?" Twilight practically snatched the scroll out of Shining's telekinetic field. "I don't recognize it! I better cast it to see what it does!"

"Uh, Twiley—"

"No time! I need to find out the function, purpose and eventual end effect of this spell by immediately invoking it!" Twilight's horn ignited and the spiral whorls were instantly surrounded by complicated architectures of magical current, intricate cornices of light that seemed to suck in the rest of the room's illumination.

"Twiley—"

"Just a minute!" Twilight cried, singsong. The earth began to shake. Small flecks of crystal began falling from the ceiling.

"Twiley—"

"I said a minute!" shouted Twilight, over the rumbling of the earth. Spinning clock-faces of force sprang up about her hooves. The air began to taste of metal. Gashes opened in reality itself, revealing great patches of inky void not so much lit by stars as feebly punctuated by them. Something that was not quite sound and not quite color radiated from the ground zero that was Twilight Sparkle, resonating and reflecting against the unyielding walls and ceiling. There was a sickening lurch, a quick sensation of movement, and Shining felt the entire universe fray out like yarn fibers and then re-twist itself widdershins into something, well, basically similar to the naked eye, but fundamentally different in structure.

There was a sharp "twang" and the room snapped back to normal.

Twilight blinked.

"Huh," she said. "Guess it didn't do anything! Oh well, off to bed. Help yourself to anything in the refrigerator, Shiny. The odds of you being sucked through the tiny space/time pinhole to the Frozen North I'm using as a refrigeration device are quite small!"

Yawning, the Princess of All Friendship and All Magic trotted off toward her bedchambers.

Shining Armor shook his head. Alicorns, he thought. What are you gonna do? And then, more soberly, What can any of us possibly, possibly do?

And finally...

Well, at least she's not Princess Celestia.