For the Good of Equestria: Shadows

by brokenimage321

2: Starswirl and Cadance

The Equestrian Alliance begins to fall apart. Before, things had been rough, but now, with Luna gone, her face burned into the moon, and Celestia unwilling to talk, ponies assume that Celestia murdered her to take her power. Though Luna hadn't really been a public figure for months, she was dearly beloved, and had personally brought a great deal of the Alliance into the fold; with her gone, there's nothing to keep them from leaving.

In the middle of the unraveling of her dream, Celestia retreats to her bedchambers--only to find a mysterious unicorn there. He wears a wide-brimmed hat low over his face, a dirty cloak covering most of his body, and sports a thick beard. He identifies himself as Starswirl, and says, cryptically, that he is a good friend of Luna's. Celestia wants him to go away, but Starswirl won't leave her alone. He constantly critiques her policy decisions, addresses her only as "Celestia," not "Princess," and is a general nuisance. Though Celestia begins to loathe him personally, she, eventually starts to see sense in his advice (though she still is reluctant to follow it).

During this time, Celestia basically adopts Cadance as her own daughter. After a rough start, they begin to bond, and "Caydee" and "Auntie" grow very close. The more Celestia hates Starswirl, the more she loves Cadance--though she is very, very careful to specify that she is not her mother, she is her aunt. However, that distinction doesn't seem to matter much to either of them.

Starswirl eventually begins to teach Celestia chess. In her time off, Celestia would rather take a long bath and a nap, but Starswirl insists she needs the instruction: chess will teach her how to more effectively rule. He explains the pieces to her: the pawns represent the "common" people, those with no particular skills, but who can be taught them. The Rooks, Bishops, and Knights represent her closest advisors, who each have different ways to tackle problems (he instructs her that she needs to figure out what those strengths are, and how to utilize them most effectively). And the King and Queen both represent Celestia herself: the king is her weaknesses, which she needs to be aware of and protect, while the Queen represents her limited, but still incredible, power to interfere directly. Celestia says, weakly, that she doesn't think the Queen will ever see much use, but Starswirl ignores her comment.

After a few months, Starswirl begins to pressure Celestia into throwing a festival. Celestia resists, but Starswirl insists that she needs to take control of her public image. She is seen by her people as capricious, vengeful, and frightened because she has given then nothing else to believe: if she wants to succeed as a monarch, she has to learn how to do PR. For this reason, Starswirl suggests she inaugurate the Summer Sun festival, to commemorate her yearly "refueling" of the sun. Such a festival would remind everyone of exactly how important she is in their lives, and imbue her with a little mysticism to boot. When she expresses reluctance, Starswirl points out that now might be a good time to find a "Pawn"--find someone who, with her help, could become great and powerful. The first thing she should do is give them a chance to prove themselves, by asking them to plan the Summer Sun festival. Celestia objects to the term "Pawn," to which Starswirl dismissively suggests the word "Student" instead.

Celestia's first Student is Firefly, the general she left in charge at the battle against the Crystal army. Firefly, with Celestia's help, establishes the EUP guard, and chooses the best fliers to become an elite performance squad.

The Festival is, of course, a hit, and, as soon as things die down a bit, Starswirl suggests she start planning a similar fall-time festival, for the anniversary of the banishment of Luna. This suggestion deeply offends Celestia, who is still very sore over the subject, but Starswirl says that she can't miss this opportunity to shape the narrative. If she turns Nightmare Moon into a cartoony villain rather than an actual, once-beloved public figure, then people will eventually forget her mistake entirely. This is doubly true of the children--all she needs to do is convince them, then wait. If she can raise them to believe that Nightmare Moon means candy and fun, rather than the end of all things, then, eventually, they will become the movers and shakers of the world, and teach their own children about the fun, not the horrors, of Nightmare Night. Eventually, no one will remember anything different. Starswirl, of course, is right, and Nightmare Night goes off without a hitch.

When Cadance is two or three, she asks Celestia, late one night, about her parents. Celestia, unsure of what to say, tells her that her father was mighty king, who loved his people very much. Cadance, pleased, asks about her mother. Celestia reluctantly tells her that her mother is the mare-in-the-moon; Cadance thinks she's joking, but Celestia quickly changes the subject.

Back in her bedroom, telling her story, Celestia's expression hardens. She tells her listeners that, next come the Changelings. One of the three listeners (Sill?) becomes excited, and says that he's always wanted to know more about Changelings--which enrages Celestia. She lays into him, saying, in no uncertain terms, that Changelings are monsters, violent and destructive, and are never to be trusted. They abduct ponies and eat them, taking their place to leach magic from their loved ones. And they would bring down all of Equestria, if they could.

(Celestia's hatred is admittedly extreme, and, though she's very insistent, one or two of the others may exchange looks--hinting that, though she sincerely believes what she's saying, it might not necessarily be the truth.)

Celestia calms down a bit, and explains further: despite what people think, Changelings are relatively rare. They live in small hives scattered across the map, with each hive having a different carapace color and distinguishing feature: some have wings, some have horns, but none have both ("Well... one did," she remarks cryptically). Changelings are largely vegetarian, but their Queens, who need protein to produce eggs, are carnivorous. Most often, Changelings hunt small prey to bring back to the Hive, but their preferred food is ponies. Agents from the various hives will occasionally strike out for a pony settlement, where they will capture a victim (of their same "type," i.e., horned changelings capture exclusively unicorns) and impersonate them. However, their disguises are not very good, and tend to be discovered within a few days or a week. As soon as the Changeling is discovered, a search needs to be mounted for the victim: they can usually be found relatively safe and sound, but oftentimes they will have already been dragged back to the Hive, or have died of thirst or hunger on the way. Again, despite popular opinion, Changelings don't "eat" love (at least not in the traditional sense), but it does appear to power their native magics.

Once that's cleared up, Celestia resumes her story:

When Cadance was three or four, a slick politician from the Sunset Republic arrived at the palace. The Sunset Republic, once the Desert Confederacy, was a nation composed of former Alliance territories, situated in the deserts to the west. They've been causing trouble, but nothing too bad; however, Celestia is still extremely wary (she views even the name itself as a threat--it's a "republic" [a democracy, in contrast to her own benevolent monarchy] that seeks Celestia's "sunset"). The politician stays in the Canterlot Palace for a day or two, and is generally slimy, but harmless.

Celestia wakes up in the middle of the night, feeling something is deeply wrong. She goes to check on Cadance--and finds her bed empty and the window open. Celestia sprints to the window, and sees the Sunset Politician, with a struggling bag thrown over his shoulder, making a beeline for the gates. Celestia, infuriated, rallies the Guard and goes after him.

The chase should have been over in fifteen minutes--but this guy is good. He continually jukes and dodges them, leading them ever westward. It becomes clear (perhaps via letter?) that the politician is a bit of a fanatic. He wants to raise Luna's daughter to try and challenge Celestia for the throne.

Eventually, the politician leads them to a thick jungle/forest--Changeling territory. Against her better judgment, Celestia and her guards go in after him... and, almost immediately, things go wrong. They stumble on the site of a great battle, with the broken corpse of the Politician in the center of the clearing, with blood, both pony and changeling, all around. They try to follow the trail of the retreating forces, but are set upon by Changelings taking the form of loved ones, dear friends, even other guards that have already been killed. Celestia's forces are decimated, and Celestia herself, following Cadance's screams, charges deeper into the jungle. When she loses the trail, she's surrounded by Changelings in the trees, mocking her cries and imitating Cadance. Celestia, angry and frightened, lights her horn and explodes.

When the dust clears, Celestia is standing in a fresh clearing, surrounded by piles of ash that used to be trees and brush. In the sudden silence, she calls out: "You have made an enemy."

Celestia, tired, injured, and broken, both physically and spiritually, returns home alone, already grieving for Cadance (who she believes to be dead). Almost as soon as she sets foot in the door, she is set upon by Starswirl, who begins to nitpick and harass her as he used to do. Celestia asks him to leave her alone--now is not the time--but he continues to needle her, even digging at her failure to rescue Cadance. At that, Celestia snaps.

Using her magic, she flings him across the room and bellows at him to leave her alone, to go away and never come back, and--

And she suddenly trails off.

Starswirl is now lying awkwardly on his back, allowing his robe to fall away. And, for the first time, Celestia sees his coat--his crystal coat. Starswirl is a white Crystal unicorn.

Celestia, awed, tries to help him up, but he refuses her help. He confirms that, yes, he is indeed a refugee from the Crystal Empire. He was Sombra's court magician, and actually served under him while Luna was there, which is how he came to know her. However, he saw the writing on the wall, and left the Empire before it vanished, finding a way to sever himself from the Crystal Heart. He has no idea what happened to the rest of the Empire, and, to his knowledge, only him and a very few others were able to escape (He knows the names of the other refugees, but he swore on his life he would never reveal them). This is why he's been so hard on Celestia, in fact--he wanted to keep her from making the same mistakes Sombra did.

And now, he says, her lessons are complete. Aside from everything else he was striving to teach her, he wanted her to learn, most of all, that, sometimes, rulers need to make the hard decisions. They need to be able to say what they want, clearly and forcefully enough for those around them to obey--and Celestia, afraid both of her own power and offending those around her, would not issue such commands. Though her most recent command came a little more force than he was hoping, she has now passed the test. He bows his head and, calling her "Princess," humbly takes leave of her as her mentor--and kindly asks if she would be willing to retain him as her advisor. Celestia, somewhat numbly, accepts.

As the years roll on, Celestia and Starswirl become good friends. They play chess together often, and Celestia actually starts to win a few games. Starswirl helps Celestia truly come into her role as Princess, and maybe even bring a few wayward provinces back to the Equestrian Alliance. With his help, Equestria constructs the prison of Tartarus in the caverns inside a high mountain, which they use to hold the various monsters that have been plaguing them. However, he is unable to stop the spread of dark magic within the forest that holds the Palace of the Two Sisters; whatever Luna had done had poisoned the land, and its stain was spreading. The forest, which rebelled against the natural order because of this magic, eventually comes to be known as the Everfree Forest.

Starswirl, to Celestia's consternation, suggests building a statuary garden and putting the statue of Discord inside it. He claims that would be the best way to hide such a potentially dangerous object--as a statue among statues, it would be much less conspicuous than if it was tucked away in a locked, guarded storage closet. Celestia reluctantly agrees.

Starswirl also studies Celestia's accounts of how she defeated Sombra, Discord, and Nightmare Moon, and (correctly) identifies what exactly happened: Sombra has been stripped of his physical body, but roams the snowy wastes as a wraith, and Discord and Nightmare Moon have been sealed away for (very roughly) 1000 years each. He advises her to prepare to deal with each of them again, though Celestia, still frightened by her last encounter with the Elements, is reluctant to find new Bearers.

As time goes on, Starswirl begins to throw himself into his magical research. It's clear to Celestia that he's desperately trying to find something, but he will never tell her what. Their relationship suffers, though Celestia still considers him a good friend--and, occasionally, she even fantasizes about inviting him up to her chambers...

Suddenly, Starswirl gets very sick, and it's clear he's about to die. Celestia visits his bedside, and, as his parting words to her, he begs her to remember that "It's not your fault. Sombra, the Empire, Luna, Cadance--me--none of it." He dies soon after, which devastates Celestia--she cries for days, more so than she has for anyone else, even Cadance. She tries to follow his advice to not blame herself, but she finds herself unable to do so.

Celestia eventually resolves to keep ponies at a distance. She wants to be a good person, but she does not trust herself to love again--not as the only immortal being in the entire world. She hates to think what would happen next time she loses someone (FORESHADOWING).

Author's Note:

One of my goals in this fic was to explain several apparently-odd decisions of Celestia in a way that would make sense in-universe; for example, the fact that Celestia leaves the prison of an elder chaos god out in the open in a public park is explained by Starswirl's insistence that the best way to protect it is to not draw attention to it. If you look carefully, you'll notice more of this sort of thing throughout the fic, especially several of Celestia's stranger decisions from Season 1 and 2.