Starscape
Celestia studied the stars with tired eyes, and suppressed the urge to heave a sigh for the umpteenth time that night.
“Once more. This time,” she muttered, magic gathering around her horn. Overhead, against the velvety blackness and amidst the twinkling crowd of drifting, unattached stars, the constellations were misbehaving themselves. Again.
Orion’s belt had slipped. The stars making up the twin constellations of the Great Hydra and the Little Hydra had drifted apart, the coils of their necks stretching outwards and unravelling. Draco’s two red eyes had shifted in such a way as to leave him slightly cross-eyed. The Tortoise and the Archer had wandered closer together, and now each seemed to be mauling the other. Celestia unconsciously stuck her tongue out one side of her mouth as she tried to fix the first of these. But as the belt of stars slowly shifted up into position, some flicker of excess force sent Orion’s withers drifting off on adventures of their own, and that in turn sent ripples cascading outwards.
She drew breath, rushed to correct that and pull them back in, and a mass of unattached stars bumbled in to fill the void. Raggedy patches of blackness, shorn of light, marked where they’d formerly been. Off to one side, the Hydras continued to fall apart. Draco was making a spirited effort to stare up his own snout. Whatever the Tortoise and the Archer were now doing beggared description.
“This time,” Celestia hissed, her magic groping back out into the vastness. Tether the bits that looked right — Draco’s spine, the linked tails of the Hydras, Orion’s belt at last — make them stay put, and spread her focus far. Hook every straying star, and pull them back into place en-masse. But as her attention expanded, her original tethers strayed out of place, out of mind, and the strays were tugged in towards parent patterns that had drifted apart.
Celestia stopped, took stock, and finally let herself heave a sigh. From where she stood, on the newly-built balcony atop Canterlot Palace, she had an unenviable view of it all. Rivers of stars, bright and multicoloured against the black. The constellations themselves, or what a generous and squinting onlooker might call constellations. And in the middle of them all, the moon itself. Stark and white and brilliant.
And across its surface, a new addition which she was still reluctant to look directly at, the dark and cratered outline of a mare’s head.
There was the sound of a door opening behind her, and she turned. A lean, gaunt unicorn mare in servant’s livery trotted towards her, the very image of prim propriety if not for the snarled scar spreading across one half of her face. She bore a tray in her silvery magic grasp, sporting Celestia’s usual. A pot of tea, steeped to paint-stripping strength. A china cup. And a glass of brandy, full to the rim.
“Thank you, Sterling Silver,” Celestia said, motioning to a small table by her side. “Just there, if you would.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” she replied in rasping tones from a throat once seared by spellfire, setting it down smoothly, and then settled back into the stiff, poised stance of an ex-guardspony. Celestia looked back up towards the starscape, and she was aware of Sterling doing the same.
After a while, Sterling spoke. “The Tortoise looks in much better form tonight, Your Majesty. More… ah, collected.”
“Thank you, Sterling. I’d feel much better about that if it wasn’t trying to do … whatever it’s doing with the Archer. Whose bow seems to be coming apart.” Celestia reached up and tweaked the arch of stars that made up the Archer’s bow, trying for incremental motions. Shift this one just so, dim that one a fraction, little changes at a time, so, so little...
Sterling deigned not to comment, and Celestia spoke first in the gulf of silence, letting out a brief and bitter laugh. “Would you believe that my sister always felt this set had all the easy ones within it?”
“From where I stand, Your Majesty, it all seems very complex.”
“Complex.” A weary smile found its way onto Celestia's face. “She had those as well, ones even she had to concentrate on. Constellation patterns she’d made herself or borrowed from the designs of the old unicorn monarchs. Shooting stars, coming down in waves and stages. Auroras, tapestries of stardust, clusters and whorls in slow and constant motion. She’d look up the pegasi's schedules for cloud cover, so parts of it all could be revealed at just the right moment, and she’d … she’d ...”
Celestia broke off, circled her forehoof, and lifted up her brandy to take a generous sip. She raised her head and studied the sky once more.
Sterling spoke again. “Nothing ever came without practise, Your Majesty.”
“She was a natural. Better, even, she was a natural who pushed herself. And too few saw that.” Celestia chased the sip down with a more generous gulp, shivering as fire chased down her throat. Fire, and soothing coolness. A moment later, she absently lifted the teapot and poured a measure into the cup. She could work long hours, but something to keep her awake would never go amiss. Sleep wasn’t as enticing as it had once been.
The brandy remained in her grasp, though, and she swished the liquid in the glass to and fro. “The sun, and even the moon as well, they’re not demanding. Not too much. A little push in their orbits every now and again, a little nudge to keep them on the right path. But all these, all the little paths and forces, all the details, and all them turned over to me...”
Celestia fell silent, and studied the bottom of her brandy glass for a while. Finally she turned towards Sterling. “You were there. The last night there was a proper starscape. That night, and for all the strife that followed.”
She nodded, the spellfire scars on her face twisting. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Truth to power, Sterling. If I’d paid her more heed, paid that little more attention to her troubles and worries, if I’d just told her more often just how appreciated her work was, how invaluable she was … could it have all been averted? If she was on the brink, teetering on it, how, how little would I have had to pull her back by? If I’d just made the margin between her and the thing that took her a little wider...”
“With respect, Your Majesty,” said Sterling tersely, carefully, in one of the pauses Celestia took, as if every word of hers was picked with care, “I believe you already have an answer in mind. And I truly don’t think any good can come from looking at what could have been. Every decision was made with good reason at the time.” She hesitated before the next sentence. “It’s what comes next that deserves our care. Your care, Your Majesty.”
Celestia regarded her flatly, before snorting and turning to one side. “I asked for truth to power, Sterling. Not sense.”
“Apologies, Your Majesty,” she said dryly, bowing. “I can’t claim to be the most competent of valets.”
“Hmm. You’ve grasped some of the fundamentals, at least.” A wry smile passed across Celestia’s features and she shook her head. “Retire for the night, Sterling. There’s not much more I need done here tonight.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.” She hesitated. “I may linger in the grounds a while yet. Watch your workings.”
“Really? I never took you for a glutton for punishment, Sterling.”
The unicorn’s grey eyes creased at the edges. “As you say, Your Majesty.” She turned and left, and Celestia listened to her receding hoofsteps. The alicorn looked back out over the balcony, to where Equestria rolled on under shadow.
“I’d be somewhat more piqued about that,” she muttered, “if I hadn’t explicitly ordered those close in my confidence to head off all unhelpful self-recrimination at the pass. Equestria doesn’t need my self-flagellation getting in the way. If I falter...”
She took another drink, a deep and prolonged one, and when she set the glass to one side, there the mare in the moon still sat, unblinking and dark in the middle of her field of vision.
“I hope you’re able to listen,” she said softly. “From where you are, and past the Nightmare that’s taken you. Otherwise, this does amount to me talking to thin air, which is never a healthy habit. But if you can, then I hope that helps you. I’m not down and out, despite everything, and there’s sensible ponies around me. With any luck, everything shouldn’t have gone to pot by the time you’re back. By the time we can force that monster out. And that night...”
“...that night,” she managed, rallying, “I should have scraped together some base skill for star-weaving. A thousand years should hopefully suffice. And this—” She gestured with a forehoof, encompassing the whole of the night sky, the clouds of glittering stars, the moon, the misshapen constellations, and every little twinkling point of white and red, blue and orange. “This won’t have been forgotten, nor neglected. Ponies’ll be able to stop toiling through my day and sleeping through your night. And they’ll see every pattern you wrought, however I can hash them up, and when you’re back...”
She closed her eyes, and listened.
“...you’ll remind ponykind all how beautiful they once were.”
And as she listened, there came back an echoing silence. The silence of the night sky, alive with distant stars.
“One of these nights,” Celestia said softly. She opened her eyes, looking straight at the mare in the moon. And then she lifted her head and looked up, towards the thousand points of starlight, glittering from horizon to horizon.
Golden magic flared up around her horn to fix Draco’s squint, and was reflected in Celestia’s eyes. She picked up her teacup and sipped, her iron-hard gaze skywards all the while.
Once more. This time. And if not, the next.
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I wonder where I've seen that art before?
I'll admit, my first thought when I saw that picture was "Oh, look. A giant stellar crab."
And my second thought was "Rarity's going to go sparse."
A beautiful, quiet tragedy. One that we know has an a happy ending, but that doesn't help Celestia.
(And now I find myself reminded of one of my old unrealized ideas, wherein shortly after Luna's return—and Celestia no longer having to keep the night sky in a holding pattern—the head of the Royal Astronomers' Guild storms in demanding to know who's been messing with his sky. Said head happens to be Night Light. Twilight has to bail her father out of prison at one point.)
In any case, truly lovely work. Thank you for it.
Awesome. Have a fave.
8381659
AIn't it pretty.
8381665
8381669
Glad you like it! And that sounds like a marvellous story premise, affa worth realising.
8381699
Thank you!
She sews her regrets into the night sky
As an apology a thousand years old
And repeated many more times that.
The patterns in the sky dapple and spin.
Beautiful like the tears of sadness
Over a regret,
But paling to the beauty that was the traces
Of trails of past stories
Yet still she tries,
Building the path for two
In hopes of redemption and atonement
For the sins of the sisters of the sky.
8381712
Verse is always a nice thing to get in a comments section. Thank you for this.
8381711
Indeed! It was so pretty I used it for a story about a year or two ago! :P
8381665
I'm seeing a giant space whale off to the left, myself. The thumbnail doesn't really do this artwork justice.
Lovely fic, Carabas. I am a fan of your Celestia, she's such an intensely practical creature. There's too many stories where she wallows rather uselessly in self-recrimination and maudlin grief. Here she's hurting badly, but she knocks back a shot of booze and gets on with rebuilding the world and sky, one star at a time.
8381742
Great minds think alike! Or... some sort of minds, at any rate.
8381753
Glad you like it, and my rendition of Celestia. She's a pony who'd likely love nothing more than to indulge in nice, prolonged self-recrimination and grief... but she knows she can't, not while there's a country that needs her and there's work to be done.
8381728
I feel as though I should just team up with you whenever you write a story. I seem to be writing poems for you most often.
8381787
A couple of years or so after Luna's banishment, and after a bit of resultant strife in Equestria.
8381794
It's an excellent habit you have there, though I may be biased in that opinion.
8381782
Lets go with 'great', shall we?
Well done!
8381835
If anyone asks, we'll pretend there's no other possible adjective that could apply.
8381851
Thank you!
Wouldn't unenviable mean that nobody envied her view, meaning it is not desirable at all?
8381869
If you get the thesaurus, I'll get the knife.
8381871
Yep. She's not liking the night sky as it currently stands.
8381877
Knife? Tsk, you're the merciful type. I would have gone for fire, myself.
Evocative (if short) character piece. What it does, it does well. I particularly liked the tragic-comedic aspects, such as the descriptions of how badly Celestia mangles the constellations. Drives home how far out of her depth she is.
Still, I wouldn't say no to a full fic on Celestia rebuilding after the nightmare incident, as this is crying out for substantial expansion.
8381897
Hmm. That works too.
8381669 beat me to the "truly lovely work. Thank you for it", and so all I can offer is a "what he said."
8381921
Glad you like it, especially the tragi-comic bits. You can't (or, well, I can't) have some buggered-up constellations without going into unflattering detail of how exactly they've been buggered up.
I have actually been considering a longer piece about Celestia getting herself back together after the Nightmare incident, set between this piece and The White Horse. I've got the vague outline of a plot, a villain, and a way for Celestia to be forced to confront her gnawing inner wrath, despair, and Daybreaker, which would be fun to realise. Alas, what I've got so far would also probably call for Dark and Gore and suchlike tags, but it'd be fun to have a whirl at.
8381934
Yep. Gives you something toasty to warm your hands on as well.
8381941
He's nae bad at encapsulating sentiments, that FanOfMostEverything. Glad you liked it as well!
8381953
Marshmallows though, yay or nay?
"onto Celestia face"
"Celestia's"?
"look up the pegasi schedules"
"pegasus" or "pegasi's"?
"She rose her head and studied"
"raised"?
8381953
Ah yes, the good old British pastime of detailing how precisely smug to feel over someone else's cockups. One likes to see the good ol' traditions upheld.
I hope you get around to writing that post-traumatic Celestia story; between the psychological angle and the historical context, the thing could practically write itself. Lord knows what monstrosity you'd foist upon the world, but I for one would be fascinated to find out. And to act as eye-witness, should the occasion arise.
8381989
Oh, definitely yay. Burning words gives them a subtle piquance, as well.
8382000
Fixed, and thank you!
8382009
Glad to have a vote of future approval! There'd certainly be wonderful story potential in it, even if I end up being too cack-handed to tap into it.
8382024
Celebratory s'mores seem like a requirement now...
8382024
You're quite welcome. :)
A nice little insight into the mind of Celestia and her feelings just after the Nightmare Wars and Luna's banishment. It is clear that she still feels guilty about not realizing Luna's descend into nightmaredom. At least Celestia has come to the conclusion that she must stop her self-flagellation if she is to lead Equestria, though she still blames herself sometimes. Celestia trying to fix the night sky seems to me to be one of the ways that she is trying to make up for banishing Luna to the moon. I wouldn't mind if you wrote more stories set in the past. It could offer you opportunities to expand upon the past and how it affected the present of the Palaververse.
I look forward to the next chapter of Wedding March when it comes out. I need something to fill in the gap left behind when I finally finish Fallout Equestria Project Horizons after what will total out to be an entire week of reading that thing.
8381953 8382009 I also offer my vote of future approval to "that post-traumatic Celestia story". Goodness knows I'd read it, especially if Carabas wrote it.
So, what's Sterling's story? Because I know she has one. After all, how many scarred battle-axes do you see serving tea and brandy to a princess?
(Even if the answer to that question is "A lot, actually," there's still a story in that.)
8382957
Glad you like it! Stories set in the past are always great fun, and I'll be sure to write more. There's so much untapped potential there for fics, especially those that want to root around in the psyche of the Princesses.
Best of luck with Project Horizons. Every time I so much as contemplate getting properly stuck into it, the sheer size is enough to send me nope-ing away in terror.
8383136
I'll see about hammering its premise and plot in better shape, then, and maybe something worthwhile'll pop out eventually.
A vote of confidence is always a nice thing to have.
8383554
Long and exciting.
A loyalist veteran of the Nightmare Wars that erupted after Luna's banishment. When stuff like the background events of The White Horse were unfolding, she was in the thick of things, and distinguished herself to come to Celestia's attention when peacetime finally rolled back around and she found herself looking for employment with a marginally-reduced risk of stabbing.
8383563
8383621
Neat. Thanks!
That was excellent.
8384569
Thank you!
It's always been my head canon that the first night of Luna's return, she's absolutely horrified by the mess Sunbutt's made of the night sky, and she spends the better part of an hour yelling at Celestia for basically ruining all the hard work she'd put into it. It takes her several nights of hard work to fix everything, and by the time she's done there are astronomers, astrologers, sailors, and occultists all complaining to Celestia because the stars aren't where they're suppose to be.
But on the night where it's all fixed Luna puts on a display that makes Celestia's very best night sky look like a low-res 16 bit badly pixelated gif, and everypony shuts up in awe.
EDIT: Either form of continuation would be loved. This is a great read.
8385432
Glad you like this. 
Hah, I like that headcanon! It'd make for a lovely short story.
8381953
I've always wanted to see more of the White Horse, both before and after.
Because your Celestia when she is truly twisting the strings and striking down enemies - one way or another - is extremely fascinating.
In a way that's one of the mildly vexing bits about Wedding March. After it ends - well, some sort of post-story about her quite conclusively demonstrating that even when a threat is too powerful for her to physically smash one on one, she has webs within webs within webs to in particular silence the schemes of a certain Crown & Corvid and perhaps a Sheep as well...would be most fun.
8387667
If I ever got around around to writing that post-traumatic Celestia story, I reckon The White Horse, it, and Starscape would end up forming their own mini-trilogy of sorts, with the former and latter showing off the book-ends of Celestia's character just after dealing with Luna's descent into Nightmaredom. And rest assured that the middle one of these would involve Celestia pitting herself, body and soul, against some other foe of Equestria. Pitting herself hard.
Wedding March's denouement chapter should also evince some of her schemes to stymie the Crown and Cormaer and others ... though the show may have already spoiled them.
8387895
You know, that last bit in paragraph one has me going from 'Awesome serious fic' to 'Seducing the Emperor of foreign nation and preventing a war via exhausting the enemy leadership so hard they either ally or die of blissful exhaustion.'
8387969
The Catherine the Great approach to internal and external threats. It's one way for a stressed Celestia to unwind, certainly.
8389577
I suppose it is that as well, too!
A lovely, lovely little piece, Carabas. Wonderful as always!
Alas, the rest of the audience here has already beat me to the praise-heaping, so there’s not much I can add. Still, add a good helping of the same to the pile! Looking forward to whatever come next.
8381669
Oh, please do reconsider that idea! I would love to see a scene where Nightlight is going off to Celestia about that, as Luna sits nearby growing absolutely pissed at what’s being said. And it wouldn’t be Twi bailing her dad out, but more having to save him from an upset, recently-returned demigoddess.
8390860
And I second the motion for FanOfMostEverything to revisit that idea. It could make for an excellent wee story.
Affa glad you like this one as well.
I like the way you write, and I particularly like the way you write Celestia.
That said, this story falls flat for me. If not for the particularly delicious prose, I'd have written it off as "just another guilt-ridden Celestia misses Luna" fic.
I'm glad I saw in the comments that you've written more Celestia stories, because otherwise I'd have risked not reading more of your writing. Do you have a story you recommend?
8411887
Glad you like my Celestia, though it's fair enough it fell flat regardless. 'Guilt-ridden Celestia misses Luna' is a crowded marketplace to barge into, and I suspect making this as short as it is was my way of trying not to frustrate folk too much on that account - "Sure, it's another one of those stories, but think about how little of your precious mortality it'll take up!"
If you're looking for something else featuring Celestia, though, see if Second Sun floats your boat. It's a wee bit old and unedited around the edges, but hopefully it'll satisfy.
8412381
I'll check that out, thanks!
Full review here, but in brief: a really nice character study of Tia at this particular point in her life. Nice to see her not represented as just mopey. Faved.
8682231
Mopey Celestia isn't anywhere near as fun an entity to write about as Trying-to-do-things-about-it Celestia, and I'm happy I avoided the former.
Glad you liked it, and much obliged for a full review in a place!
What other genre tag do you reckon it deserved, out of interest?