Her Own Sky

by Ice Star

Prologue: Neutron Star

When Princess Celestia had dreams that she could remember, it was a rare thing. For those dreams to be anything more than the dull bleeding of her day trickling back at her was rarer still. The rarest occasion of all was less likely than blue moons, for it was when her mind was presented with all the surreal trappings of prophecy. Foredreams were always cursed with such creativity, and there was nothing that managed to get on the nerves of Princess Celestia quite like puzzles and mystic matters. Dreams were best with all the coziness and familiarity of doldrums, where every bit of magic was drained from them.

There was nothing more satisfying than waking up in a place not sure, unlike the one she had left. When her dreams let her see long-dead friends and all the sights fitting for a mare who loathed stepping out of castle and crown as she did, there was no sense of home lost. Never would she have to think of all the evils in the world that her ponies wouldn’t ever know, all the evils that slept more deeply than she ever would. A folk saying among mortals was that sleep was death’s younger sister, but Princess Celestia could only do and know one of those things. The other would always be alien and unattainable.

No, if sleep were kin to anything it was innocence. To sleep was to be submerged in the fuzzy, delightful haze of ignorance. That was sleep’s gift to Princess Celestia.

Nopony worried in their sleep.

Until one night, Celestia did.

She had a dream cursed with vividness, with far too much feeling. She knew it could not be her own. If she had ever been able to dream lucidly, Princess Celestia would have roused herself right then and there. Nothing was worse than to be fed the cryptic stream of future-puzzles sealed up in foredreams. Princess Celestia was a good mare who believed that good things happened to those who did good in turn. And why did she believe that? To her, destiny was a real hard force, one that gripped life more than air or the mortal need for food. Destiny was good, always.

That so many of the foredreams held anything but good and kind things was a cause for alarm. She didn’t want this, these dreams that spelled out a world where uncertainty was just as likely as happiness. Where apathy could exist.

She never wanted this. Not since she last had to step into the ruins of the Everfree Forest’s castle to pull what could be salvaged from its dark, ruined womb. It was there that she had to face that she had banished her better half — and that the sister she hung in the sky would never come home, though there was no longer a castle to come home to.

Not until this dream on this particular night. It was not on an inherently peculiar date, exactly five hundred and eighty-eight years before Princess Celestia would ever meet the last Faithful Student she would ever need. In this dream, she saw the shop of a fortune-teller in Canterlot, one that was rendered with such anxiety-inducing lucidity that she knew the place was real.

Princess Celestia knew that she needed to go there too; the foredream told her so, and it did more clearly than most of her other dreams had.

Were she to go there, Princess Celestia would no longer have to live every day like she was a neutron star. And exactly two hundred and seventy-six years later, Princess Celestia would actually consider the words spoken within those walls.

Author's Note:

Welcome to the 2020 version of this story! It's been revised and expanded for the print version, with feedback from the various comments and contest review (exchanged via GDocs) that I got. Most importantly, it's been updated to reflect the canon of further series installments, particularly Distance Beyond Any Measure and Atychiphobia. You don't need to read either to delve into this story.

As of 10/23/2020: If you're reading this and you're like "what the fuck Ice Star why did you update this" it's because this is one of the two new chapters. There will be a chapter four dropping when I get written as of me typing this. However, because the story is already complete you can just stick this in tracking if you want to wait. Hopefully that covers it!

Comments

[Meowofy]

Ooh! Nice prologue, can’t wait for Chapter Four! (At least, I think that’s whats happening?)

[Ice Star]

10498502
Yeah, chapter four will drop when I have the chance to finish it. Until then, all the current chapters have been revised and expanded. They can still be enjoyed without it.