Teatime - A Novel Of Twilight & Celestia

by bigbear

Chapter 1 - The Letter

“Spike, I miss Princess Celestia.”

Twilight Sparkle slumped in her favorite big chair, before a broad oaken desk. Floor to ceiling bookcases flanked the desk. Plum colored floors, cobalt walls, and organic sapphire pillars cast her castle office in cool tones.

Spike threw Twilight a quizzical look. “But, you saw Princess Celestia just last week, and the week before that.”

“Those meetings were for work.” Twilight rustled her wings and fidgeted to try and get comfortable in the chair. “Last week was to deliver my plans for next year’s Young Leaders Summit. And the week before that was an emergency meeting with her and Princess Luna about the return of the Tantabus.

“What I mean is, I miss my old relationship with Princess Celestia.”

Twilight lit her horn and levitated a thick manuscript onto the desk. “This is the first draft of my graduate thesis for Celestia’s School For Gifted Unicorns. I found it while looking through my old academic work.”

Spike hopped up on a stool next to the desk. Though someday he’d be a massive dragon, for now, the top of his head only just came to the bottom of Twilight’s chin. He picked up the thick document in his claws and flipped through it. The thesis was written in Twilight’s precise horn writing. But the margins of page after page were crowded with red notes in Princess Celestia’s ornate script. “There’s a lot of red here.”

Twilight put her forehooves behind her head and leaned back in her chair. “That’s what got me thinking. If my proposal for the Young Leaders Summit came back with that much red from the Princess, I would’ve freaked out, positive I’d disappointed her.”

“I don’t remember any massive freak outs during your thesis writing,” Spike said. “Lots of all-nighters, but not that.”

Twilight cast her eyes up as she reminisced. “Before we came to Ponyville, I saw the Princess nearly every day. I’d been her personal student for years and was comfortable when she challenged me.” Twilight gestured to her thesis. “Her notes aren’t criticisms; they’re suggestions for making my thesis sharper, more inclusive. They were her way of pushing me to improve. I took her notes in that spirit, and they made they my final thesis better.”

Spike rested a claw lightly on Twilight’s side and looked up at her. She felt his touch and returned his gaze.

“What changed?” he asked.

“I think it was when Princess Celestia sent us to Ponyville.” Twilight put a hoof atop Spike’s claw and held it dearly. She liked the touch. “Befriending the girls and all the ponies here have been the best times in my life.

“But daily talks with Celestia became weekly letters. Sometimes not even that.” Twilight pulled Spike up onto her chair and hugged him close. “I gained a lot coming to Ponyville, but I lost something too.” Twilight looked resigned. “I’m just not as confident in my relationship with Princess Celestia anymore.”

Spike shot her a doubting look. “Just, ‘not as confident’?”

Twilight smiled weakly at him. “OK, it’s worse than that. Hence my concern about ‘freaking out’.” Twilight sighed. “But she’s, ‘The Princess’.”

“Well, you’re a princess…”

“Yes, I’m a princess too. Doesn’t that mean it’s even more important to not disappoint her?”

Spike leaned in and hugged Twilight back. “Maybe it means it’s important for you two to have a good relationship.”

Twilight snuggled Spike, just once. Her grin widened. “When did you get so smart about these things?”

Spike returned the grin. “I hang out with the ‘Princess of Friendship’ a lot. It rubs off.”

When they mutually released the hug, Spike looked up at Twilight. “So, whatcha gonna do about it?”

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked. “We’re not moving back to Canterlot; we’ve got our friends and a whole castle to take care of here in Ponyville.”

Spike hopped down from the chair, waddled over to the window, and threw it open. In the distance, perched on the side of a mountain, the city of Canterlot and the towers of the Royal Castle there were visible. “It’s not like Canterlot is on the moon. You can fly there in what, twenty minutes?”

“Eighteen on my last trip,” Twilight said. “Flight training with Rainbow Dash has helped my speed and endurance a lot.”

“When we first got to Ponyville, it took you longer than that to walk to Sweet Apple Acres,” Spike said. “And that never stopped you from going to see Applejack.”

Twilight gazed out the window. The golden minarets of Canterlot sparkled in the distance. “For so long I had to arrange a chariot or take a train to get to Canterlot. I got used to thinking of it as far away.”

“And…” Spike prompted.

Twilight sat up straight, her wings folded neatly at her sides. “And Spike, take a letter.”

Spike grinned and whipped out a quill and parchment.

“Dear Princess Celestia…”

---

Twilight stood on the high balcony of her castle and looked at Canterlot in the distance. She was off to try and rekindle one of the most important relationships in her life. It was time to fly to Canterlot and have tea with Princess Celestia.

She’d composed a letter, actually, she’d composed and discarded it eleven different times before finally sending it, asking if she could come to Canterlot Castle and chat sometime over tea. Not because she was delivering an assignment. Not because there was a looming apocalypse. Just because she wanted to spend time talking with the Princess.

And Celestia had accepted!

“Sorry about all the false starts with the letter, Spike.”

Twilight sighed. She felt the wind in her face from the north and ruffled her feathers. “You’re stalling,” her inner voice scolded her. She dropped her head in momentary distress, then raised it resolutely.

Twilight scanned her surroundings, to be sure the path was clear. She extended her wings to catch any updraft from the castle. Then Twilight bunched her hind legs and leaped into the sky, wings pumping to gain altitude.

Flying from Ponyville to Canterlot was still relatively new to Twilight, so she took it step by step. After takeoff, she watched for other flyers around Ponyville, especially Derpy the Mailmare. She and Derpy both had reputations for occasionally crashing into things. “That part of my reputation doesn’t seem quite fair anymore,” Twilight thought. “I haven’t hit anything harder than a cloud for almost a year.”

Even with her improved safety record, flying was not completely natural for Twilight. She had to methodically search the skies to catalog the updrafts and downdrafts that were the terrain of flight. Pegasi who’d been flying since they were foals would do so unconsciously. Twilight thought when Scootaloo finally took to the skies, her late start could lead to trouble with this as well.

Twilight gained altitude and settled into flying at her cruising speed. Her destination was visible in the distance, so orienting her flight was no problem. Below her, the fields around Ponyville dwindled until the land below her was carpeted with forests. There were few flyers this far from town. To the west, Twilight could see the city of Cloudsdale above her, but it wasn’t in her flight path, so she’d be avoiding its busy skies.

Once Twilight had surveyed her surroundings, she settled into the business of flying. The afternoon sun was warm on her wings, but the spring air at this altitude still had a bite to it. Twilight found the mechanical task of flying soothing, and with nothing else to concentrate on for the moment, her thoughts focused on the upcoming meeting.

“I know why I’m doing this,” Twilight thought. “But what do I actually want to happen? What’s the best I can hope for?”

When she was a student, Twilight often shared teatime with Celestia. It was one of the only times she could be sure Celestia didn’t have royal duties on her schedule. Celestia always had teatime in the afternoon before dinner. She was a creature of ancient habits and routine was important to her.

When skies were clear, Celestia normally took her tea in the castle garden near the willow tree. If there were light showers, she would take it under the gazebo. If it rained hard, Celestia would have tea in the Sun Room, where the great picture windows looked out onto the garden. The eaves over the windows were cleverly designed to keep the rain away, even in a downpour, and Celestia would open the windows, and let the sound and smell of the rain fill the room.

Teatime with Celestia had its own seemingly eternal patterns. Twilight would come, on time as always. Celestia would be seated next to the tea set with the brew not yet started and greet her ‘faithful student’. Twilight would acknowledge the greeting with a nuzzle and sit across from her. Celestia would begin brewing the tea and ask a seemingly innocuous question, then poke at some part of Twilight’s hyper-detailed response. This would spin them off into a deep, meandering conversation that could span any and all subjects of their mutual interest.

In retrospect, Twilight realized she’d learned as much at teatime as she had at the School For Gifted Unicorns, or the Canterlot Archives. In the later places, she’d learned about history, magic, and science. At teatime, she’d learned to be a good and well-rounded pony.

“That’s what I want,” Twilight decided. “I want to get back to the way things were with Celestia.”

After moving to Ponyville, Twilight didn’t see Celestia as often. And when she did it was always about business. Without constant contact, Twilight’s confidence in the relationship had suffered.

“I know I can be a nervous pony,” Twilight continued to herself. “But sometimes, I have good reason to be.”

Her inner voice listed some of the reasons, “After the move to Ponyville you messed up with the Gala, Discord, the ‘Want It, Need It' spell, the Wedding, and so many other times.” Twilight got a lump in her throat just thinking about all of the times she’d failed Celestia. Whatever successes Twilight achieved, whether helping ponies or saving Equestria, it never seemed to make up for the mistakes.

Whenever Twilight saw Celestia in those days, she would rush forward and greet her with a friendly nuzzle. The touch made her feel like the bonds of their relationship were still intact. Celestia would call Twilight her ‘faithful student’ and say how proud she was. But the feeling never lasted.

“Then I got my wings,” Twilight thought. Celestia had sent her Star Swirl's unfinished spell, to give her a chance to become an alicorn. “I messed that up too and almost ruined all my friend’s lives.” But the girls had helped her put things right. She’d completed the spell. And because she’d created new magic based on friendship, the Elements of Harmony transformed her into a princess.

“Everything changed,” her inner voice said. “Your body; your home; your responsibilities. And especially your relationship with Celestia.” Twilight was no longer Celestia’s student, but supposedly, though not really, her equal. Rushing forward and nuzzling seemed awkward, against propriety, so these days, Twilight mostly held back.

“No more,” Twilight said out loud. “If I want to get back what I had with Celestia, no more holding back.” The lump in her throat was gone. Deciding what to do was always the hard part. Actually doing things was something Twilight was good at.

She scanned the skies and noted an increasing number of flyers nearby. Twilight realized she was almost at Canterlot. As she’d been taught, Twilight checked for guards protecting the airspace above the castle.

Two Royal Guard pegasi, with gleaming white coats and golden armor, were winging their way toward Twilight to check her out, just as they would with any potential intruder. When they got close, the guards recognized her and saluted. Twilight nodded in acknowledgement. The guards took up positions above and behind Twilight to escort her. The three of them banked right, past a great waterfall that fell beside the city, and headed for Canterlot Castle.

Author's Note:

“Teatime - A Novel Of Twilight & Celestia” is set between Season 6 and Season 7.

Comments

[RoyalBardofCanterlot]

Intriguing beginning.

[JamesBlackWolfe]

I've read this once before but will enjoy rereading it again