Friends
"Twilight Sparkle!" Luna greeted as the older alicorn entered the private room. "A pleasure as always. May I ask what brings you to Canterlot this time?"
"Good evening P-er, Luna. I just had a question. Well, several questions, but most of them could be condensed to a single question, I believe."
Luna sat on a cushion, pouring herself a cup of tea while gesturing for Twilight to continue.
"Well you see, Luna it has to do with, well, you're familiarity with them."
"This is a private room that has been cleared, Twilight. You may speak openly."
Twilight fluttered her wings nervously.
"It's about the, the people living in the Everfree. Every time I see you with them, you're always very relaxed. Familiar, possibly even friendly. Actually I believe friendly is the best way to describe it.
Luna nodded, pausing to add some honey to her drink.
"I suppose it is true. As you are aware, many of the individuals there are quite powerful. Some have helped Tia throughout the years, be it a changeling queen allowing her to rest or several of their spellcasters and a queen working in tandem to keep the country from realizing Celestia was ill. Queen Chell, and yes her name is a joke on the word shell, even told me that she once ended up giving you a few of your lessons while Tia was sick with some terrible virus that left her unable to move. It was a very powerful illness, one that only dragons were immune to. Seeing as they could care for her without worry, several of the dragons there were left to take care of her for a few weeks."
"As for myself, well, if Tia is willing to trust her own health to these people, what do you believe she will do when her own sister returns to a world so different from what she knew? Not only was I confused, but I was also weak and alone.
"It was not a good time for me, Twilight. Everyone I knew from before my banishment had long died. Ponies did not enjoy these peaceful relationships with the griffons, or the dragons. We did not know of the changelings from anything more than horror stories of ponies disappearing without a trace in the middle of the night. I had no friends aside from my sister, so she had me spend a few months there during my early days of recovery."
Luna's smile became wistful.
"It was a terrifying experience at first. Many were more powerful than myself at the time, and many more were of races that were hostile towards ponies in my day. The first time I ran into Verdant I actually wet myself. A large green drake standing in the hallway, cutting off my path? I was certain I was to die.
"Solar Storm was my guardian in those times. If I had any questions, I would ask her. If I was troubled, I talked to her. If something confused me...you understand, I'm sure. She was always kind but she was also respectful, knowing both that I was her elder and having experienced such an alienation herself.
"There was a second reason they chose Storm to watch me during my stay, however. When an alicorn is weakened, their recovery is usually quite expedient. As such they wanted not only a mare who I would be comfortable around, but one who could...contain me."
Luna turned to face her when Twilight let out a sudden gasp, a sly smile on the older alicorn's face.
"Come now, Twilight. If you learned nothing else from them it should be that they are cautious. They also knew more about alicorn recovery processes than even myself. As such when I experienced my first resurgence, a part of our recovery where an alicorn regains a large portion of their old power capacity, Storm approached me with a limiter.
"The mare said that it was not for my safety but for the safety of others. That from what they had seen, it would be dangerous for others to be near me. When I was weak, I merely lost control of my bladder. With my magic, what havoc would I wreak?"
"I declined, naturally. I wouldn't allow myself to be weak when dragons and griffons were wandering around me. And Storm pointed out that it was for that exact reason they needed me to wear the limiter. I saw griffons and dragons as enemies. As beings who would attempt to kill me. They were understanding, or as understanding as they could be. Nobody there had seen a dragon swallow a stallion whole; they had not come across a griffon camp with a pony corpse over the fire, not come across another species eating one of your own like a simple meal."
Twilight winced as the cup in Luna's grip cracked, dripping tea onto the floor. The blue alicorn sighed, using a quick spell to repair it.
"I do not hate any of the beings I meet these days, Twilight. Sometimes though, I remember. I remember a time when this peace did not exist. For Tia, that was a long time ago. For myself...not so much."
"Anyhow, Solar Storm had predicted my refusal and offered a test. If I passed the test, I would be allowed to continue without the limiter. If I failed, the limiter would be applied with or without my consent. I agreed, so certain of myself I was at the time. I had no idea what sort of test they had in mind. I followed her to the guard section of the city and into the containment block and was told to wait for my tester. I expected a unicorn or even another alicorn."
"They sent a draconequus into the chamber."
"I screamed when I saw it, it resembled Discord and my last experience with him was horrible. The years of torment, the loss of so much, and here he was, back from whatever prison we'd sealed him in. The next thing I knew I was being held down by four alicorns and two queens, both queens having bitten me in order to incapacitate me. Solar herself was limping for the next two days due to an injury I'd delivered to her in my fear and rage."
"I...I accepted the limiter without a fight the next morn. I was devastated by the loss of control I'd experienced, having put most of those incidents out of my mind. It also opened up a unique opportunity for me. I was able to vent. To speak of old fears and injuries. To speak of the horrors I'd witnessed in the past. Not many could relate, but some could. Crash, an older earth pony that retired from the Lightning Guard, was in the military of his old country. He saw things, did things. He shared them with me, we mourned dead comrades, we spoke to each other of war...and both of us swore we would do it all again if given the choice."
"So yes Twilight. I have made friends there. Some are closer than others, but they are friends none the less. I also find some of them more entertaining company than the ponies here, individuals who share my experience of loss. Who know what it is like to be misplaced in time. That is also why my door is always open to them. They stopped me from falling into a very dark place. And for that I can never repay them."
Twilight had brought a quill and paper to record the information but had stopped writing halfway through the explanation. It had been too personal. Too private for her to want to write it down. The fact that Luna had shared this at all was astounding.
"I, uh. Thank you princess."
"It is no problem, Twilight. Storm was the first friend I made in this new age."
Seeing Twilight's frown, Luna only chuckled.
"I would like to consider you and your friends as friends of my own, but I did not truly meet you until Nightmare Night."
"Oh, I suppose that would make sense," Twilight said, feeling a little put off by the revelation. She'd not really thought about it but it was true.
"And Flint? He was already familiar with Solar Storm and the others."
"Flint came later. I was eventually allowed home after i'd recovered and began to adapt to the new times. I still had, I shall refer to them as relapses. Nightmare Night was one such event. It was the first major event I was attending in a royal capacity, so I fell back on old habits. Habits that happened to be millennia out of date. Solar tracked me down after the Tantabus incident."
"I thought that was kept quiet?" Twilight said. "I never really heard anything about it afterwards."
"Yes, well Solar somehow heard about it. She showed up a few days afterwards and began dragging me by my ear towards a private room where she proceeded to tear into me for my stupidity for the next ten minutes. I likely would have been furious with the treatment except for the fact that she began crying while yelling at me."
"Solar knew another who injured themselves as I did. The difference was that the mare who did so was not as resilient as I am. She was also much more thorough."
"Oh no, she didn't-"
"The mare died of her self-inflicted injuries. Storm was the one who found the body while visiting to check on her. They were supposed to see a movie that night."
"Solar swore that if I ever did something like that again, that if I ever sought to inflict pain on myself again, that she would never forgive me. Hearing that from my first friend in so long, it was enough to do more than simply make me feel bad that my form of self-punishment had inflicted harm on others. It forced me to realize that I was not harming only myself. It was also hurting Solar. She may have been younger than I in most ways, Twilight, but there are some ways in which Solar is much older than many of us."
Twilight nodded, trying to mentally align this information with what she knew. Solar Storm was one of the joyful mares she knew. Not as happy as Pinkie Pie, but then again Pinkie set the bar pretty high. The alicorn mare was always looking to help, always smiling, always willing to talk. To hear she'd given Luna an earful was antithetical to what Twilight knew of her.
"I do not dislike her for doing so. It was both a sore spot for her and a bad time for myself. We have kept in touch since, with promises to come to the other if things become too difficult. I cannot express to you how that feels, Twilight. To have someone I may speak with of my worries after so long being one of two rulers of a land. While I would not give up my crown for anything, the knowledge that I have a friend willing to travel that distance for my sake is more comforting than a thousand guards standing watch."
"Talk to Storm next time you are there. Ask if there is another of similar age or situation to yourself. Being able to relate not only in experience but power as well is a boon Tia and I did not have in our early years."
"You think there's a person over there who's as powerful as I am, and as young?" the purple alicorn asked skeptically.
"Storm was seventeen when she found herself in Equestria with the power of an alicorn. You were already older than her when you ascended, as well as having the added boon of previous magical training. I doubt you will have any trouble finding someone to commiserate with."
"Was there anything else?"
"No princess, thank you for your time."
"It was my pleasure, Twilight Sparkle. Now if you will excuse me, I believe I need to send a message. All of this talk of the past has left me..."
Luna walked out the door and Twilight hurried to follow. She caught the door as it closed and looked down the hall, seeing Luna already half-way down the hall with a small gem floating before her.
"Yes, I know it's short notice, Zenna. I promise, I shall make it up to you. How about those Saddle Arabian candies you love so much? No, I am not above using your weakness. Yes, just one night. Thank you, and let Solar know I will be stopping by."
Twilight winced. It seemed the talk was more painful than Luna had let on. She was taking the day off.
'How often did I take advantage of such a trivial thing? How often did I stay in bed sick, or schedule vacations? How long was it before Princess Celestia was able to take a vacation of her own?'
Looking at her fetlock and the new enchanted gemstone bracelet she'd picked up from Stewtopia, she took note of the time using it's hidden clock-function. It was still early in the evening so Celestia should still be awake. Perhaps she could get the answer to that last question as well before she went home?
<-(0)->
"When was my first vacation?"
Twilight nodded, not even bothering with the quill and paper at this point. Most of these questions were either going to be receiving very personal answers or answers that were secrets. She needed to look into getting a safe or a secured room at the castle to keep such things in. After all, it wouldn't be right to leave important papers just lying around. Not as a princess anyway.
"I...do not recall. I think it was sometime around four hundred years ago. It was a new concept at the time, as ponies didn't really have time for vacations at earlier periods. There was so much to do all of the time.
"I decided I wanted to go to the beach. Ponies always talked about it, how wonderful the warm sand was, the relaxing sounds of the waters. And it is truly a breathtaking sight. I would suggest you find time to see one, even if for a few days."
The white mare smiled at the memory before turning more somber.
"I had decided on a week. Not too long and not too short. I set everything up beforehoof as well. Emergency procedures, how to contact me if I was needed, things such as that. I went to a nice little beach just outside of Mareland. It was nice, only a few nobles tracking me down to bother me and it was good weather. The issues only became frustrating when I returned."
"While I was gone a few nobles made a grab for wealth. They persuaded the rest of the nobles to vote down a few rules I had put in place to prevent such things, then made moves to empower themselves and fill their pockets from Equestria's coffers. I have never seen the noble houses move votes through so quickly in all my years. There was no lobbying, no wasting time. It was fast, well planned, and by the time I returned Equestria nearly bankrupt while the nobles involved had declared themselves independent."
"I was not kind to them. I recovered the funds through various means, not all of them I am proud of. But after that I realized I could not afford a vacation.
"Move forward almost two hundred years from then and I was stressed as always. Then a stallion came to me with a solution. I had already known him for nearly fifty years at that point, but Recon offered to take my place for a few days. I could spend the time in the Everfree, my aid and close guards would know the truth and the nobles would not be emboldened by my absence."
"I still raised the sun and moon of course, and I was constantly checking my aid's correspondence for any issue but none arrived. In fact the worst thing that occurred was Recon starting a rumor confusing the certainty of my gender."
"He what?!"
"Oh, it wasn't so bad. There was a stallion that was attempting to sneak into my baths. Recon detected him and altered himself a bit so that instead of the treasure that intruder sought he caught sight of something no princess should possess."
Celestia giggled at the memory.
"I was upset at first, but then my scribe told me Recon found the stallion later on. The changeling approached him, still under my guise, and offered him a place as the Royal Consort. Sub, of course."
"Oh, I'd never heard of a pony turning themselves in to the guard so fast. Anything to avoid his perceived fate."
Seeing Twilight gurgling with disbelief, Celestia grinned.
"Oh come now, Twilight. It isn't that bad."
"It's not that, princess, it's the fact that some-, some of those rumors persist to this day. I also remember hearing of a spell that could alter a mare or stallion and make them appear to be the other gender. Something about Ackbar's Illusion."
The white mare burst into laughter once more, this bout much more forceful.
"Oh, oh my goodness they actually, haha, they actually- oh that's wonderful. I shall need to tell Luna about that one."
"Um, princess? What-"
"Tell me, Twilight. Have you ever seen a mare that upon closer inspection turned out to be a stallion?"
<-(0)->
Sitting in her favorite room of her castle, Twilight looked over her list. Her list of all the things she'd been able to attribute to the people in the Everfree influencing. Sunscreen, doorknobs, trains, chariots, coffee mugs, it seemed like the list was getting longer every day. When she'd pulled the list out in front of Celestia and added the gender-confusion spell, Celestia had actually started laughing before adding several items herself. Who knew the harp was a human thing?
"Though now that I think about it, the strings are a bit precise for pony hooves. I've only ever seen unicorns play them."
She was still staring off into the distance when there was a sudden gust of wind, her list disappearing in a polychromatic blur.
"Coffee mugs, doorknobs, sunscreen, stuff from hoomans...Twi, have you been hanging out with Lyra?"
"No Rainbow. And what have I told you about taking my things? I'm a princess now, and sometimes I have to work on things that are not meant for others to see."
"You, you mean you get to see top-secret spy stuff?" Rainbow Dash said, flabbergasted. "You? The nerdy egg-head librarian?"
"Of course!" Twilight shot back, frowning. "The other Princesses trust me. But that means that sometimes I will be working on things you can't get involved in."
"Right, like this hooman thing," the pegasus drolled. "I have a hard time believing you haven't talked to Lyra. She has most of these things noted somewhere are well."
Twilight took the list back with her magic, looking over the top-most items and the ones Dash was likely to have read.
"You saw something similar in Lyra's house?"
"Oh yea, pictures of these weird alien things, news clippings, lists like this, she's got it all. Don't get me wrong, the mare's good with her namesake, but she's a bit kooky."
The purple alicorn let her eyes wander over her list once more. Perhaps she should pay a visit to the other mare. If nothing else, she'd find out if they were speaking of the same species.
Stats
Page generated in 0.017 seconds
Total duration
1,004 users online
120,061 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Does Lyra know...or is Stewtopia and the rulers of equestria keeping her out of the loop? also...does Cadence know of Stewtopia?
8467637
Fun non-canon alteration. Celestia didn't know Cadance had been replaced because she thought Cadance had asked a queen for a vacation.
Finally a good reason for Celestia's reaction during the wedding invasion...
Ackbars-Illusion?
8467654
I also find it more fun this way than "Luna sat in a hospital bed then went to a few royal tutors for x months." Brings some life to that blank.
YES TO EVERYTHING IN THIS CHAPTER AND THE ONES BEFORE IT!!!
it seems odd you have difficulty getting inspiration for this story, it seems right up your exact alley, or is that the problem? Do you have to keep filtering out ideas and event scenes from your muse in order to figure out which ones would fit with your intended pacing and story tone?
Of course, some of use would say yes.
Ackbar's Illusion? *claps* I legitimately burst out laughing at that one, good lord.
8468199
Dunno what you're talking about. This one isn't half as old as my others and it's more satire than anything. A little world building sure, but all of my stories do that. The biggest thing is inserting Stewyopia's presence without drastically altering the timelines.
8468418
i let myself confuse me, ty for your understanding response
8468814eh, it happens. I did it on another story(though I'm sticking to the idea that the author deleted the authors note that kind of ruined it).
Yes, I'm looking at you, Regarding: Gary Stu.
8468833
8468418
btw, it feels in all your writing as if the worldbuilding alone is the addictive core, while the narrative is what makes it palatable for general reader, or did you intend it to be the other way around?
Man after amending fences, reading stories where twilight have no clue of or probably never spoke to lyra just seems off putting due to their canon history :/
Its like watching that one episode from spongebob where Larry the lobster asked spongebob if he knew him even though they had several episodes before and one of them had spongebob put him in a hospital. As you can tell this bothered me because of how late in the series they made that joke.
8469213 I actually had originally written it so that Twilight was asking who Lyra was, but remembered that bit and changed it up a bit. As it stands, Twilight just doesn't know the latest interests Lyra has, or had for that matter. I don't know how well Twilight knew the minty unicorn, but I specifically avoided the "who's Lyra?" line because of that.
8468360
"They're a Trap!"
:D
There is or at least WAS a story on this site about Flash Sentry having a day off from guard duty and went to a bar I think it was on Valentines Day and all the stallions were hitting on him. Apparently, with longish mane and out of armor he looked female.
Hehehehe. Only Twilight would let the guard arrest her.
This if very fun to read and imagine being part of.
Me: WEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZ!!! HAHAHA!!