• Published 9th Dec 2018
  • 5,268 Views, 117 Comments

The Princess is a Filly - Art Inspired



Celestia has reached the eldest age for an alicorn, and in order to continue ruling Equestria, she must once again transform herself back into a filly.

  • ...
14
 117
 5,268

Chapter Five: Meeting New Ponies

Luna trotted down the hall within the Canterlot palace. She was accompanied by three trusty guards surrounding her. They were acting as her personal security for the day, to make sure the paparazzi didn't give her Highness too much trouble.

The paparazzi was comprised mostly of fact collectors, and news ponies. One of them questioned her, "Can I ask something?"

"Yes," Luna said with a moderately welcoming tone. "But, enough inquiries of Celestia's current whereabouts. Nopony needs to know that right now. What's a filly to do with the title of Princess anyways? I don't want ponies bothering her, so put it in the papers that those were my exact words on the subject."

"Very well," the news pony agreed while jotting everything down on his notepad hastily. "Actually, my question was on her pet bird, Philomena."

Luna nodded. "Mmh, yes, and what about Philomena?"

"Is Celestia going to still care for her?"

"No," Luna said rather directly, and to the point. "At least, not for a good, long while. As I and Twilight have already stated, there's a ledger that accounts certain details of Equestria's overall history. Or, more specifically, it accounts our progression throughout these... transformations. This has been presumably going on for the last one hundred, thousand years or more. Every time Celestia was first introduced to Philomena in the past, she's consistently failed to make friends with it right away. I'll have to be the one to care for her phoenix, at least until she's older."

"Ohhh," the pony said.

Then, somepony else brought up the question, "What you're saying is, this whole fiasco with the sun and the moon princesses turning into fillies has been going on... how long again? Is it only you two sisters?"

"Possibly over one hundred, thousand years," Princess Luna said. "During these last ten thousand years, the knowledge was lost to everypony with time, and yes, it's only myself and Celestia that transform back into fillies. We had been testing out our magical capabilities, and managed to coronate other Princesses. The purpose of their existence is to simply preserve, and assist Celestia and myself whenever we must undertake the transformation yet again. Or, parent us, in other words... They also have other responsibilities, though. For example, Princess Cadance is and probably will always remain the ruler of the Crystal Empire."

Somepony questioned, "The whole foal alicorn being born in the Crystal Empire thing...? That was just an unexpected addition to all of this, eh?"

Luna nodded, and answered, "Yes. Flurry Heart being an alicorn wasn't exactly planned, although thinking about it now, we should have anticipated the possibilities of that happening. At any rate, what's done is done."

"Do you know... why it's like this? Like, the origin's of said ledger?"

Luna gulped, and revealed, "No. The ledger becomes cryptic after a certain point, and I'd rather not lead this discussion towards the ledger itself. You see, it simply serves as a sort of history book for me and Celestia. What we can take from it... Well, there's only so much in there that's legible. Some of it seems to be inconsistent, too, but that's why things are the way they are right now."

"What do you mean by... inconsistencies?"

Luna began to sweat, but chose to answer honestly. She took a deep breath upon reaching her room, and said, "Whenever Celestia has gone through her transformation in the past, and was turned into a filly again, the amount of magic she possesses at the start is always random. My magic is consistent every time, and after only a few days of training, I'm able to lift the moon quite easily. There's been instances for her, though... Apparently, there's been times where she's gone her whole life requiring my help to lift the sun each and every single day, and then the next time she transforms, she's just fine to lift the sun all on her own, and after only about two weeks had gone by, too. "

Everypony was taking notes, and they were all open mouthed. In time one of them asked, "Is there anything else, then, that you might like to add?"

Luna said firmly, "No. I've just been so caught up in today's business, and responding to inquiries that I haven't had the chance to relax one bit. If you ponies don't mind... you may wait outside, if you'd like, with my guards."

One of the guards gave a pretty nasty growl directed at the general crowd. "Uhh," one of the reporters said nervously while hiding his face beneath his hat. "We'll be right down the hall!"

Luna nodded at all of them coyly. With all of her loyal guards keeping the door well protected, Luna proceeded into her quarters. Closing the door, she thought to herself, "Actually, if anything, this is the one thing that I had wanted to accomplish earlier. I just got so caught up in dealing with everything else that I completely forgot..."

She grabbed a note, and a quill, and began writing down her message. With it all written out, she signed the parchment, and then held onto it for a good second before realizing, "Celestia never did write down how in the world I'm supposed to send this to Spike with my magic. She's always just... told me how to do it. I don't..."

She grabbed hold of her poor, overworked head, and said sadly with pity, "I don't remember how to do it!" She then made a pained face, and sighed, "I suppose... I could try and do it off of memory muscle, but then, nopony should just leap into an experiment knowing they'll probably fail."

She looked back down at the letter she had completed only moments earlier, and said, "I have no choice. It's either this, or I'll have to fly all the way to Ponyville, and I am not flying all that distance just to deliver a stupid letter."

She flared her horn, and without another moment of consideration, she sent it on its way.


Meanwhile, at Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie Pie was hard at work baking cupcakes for all of her customers that were rolling in that day. Beads of sweat dropped from her head despite the temperature being turned down. She commented for a second to Ms. Cake while cooling herself off with a rag, "Is it just me, or am I burning up?"

Ms. Cake simply nodded, and said, "Yes, dear. You certainly seem to be hotter than usual all of the sudden!"

Pinkie huffed, and backed away from the counter while her cheeks became blistering red. "Oh," Pinkie hiccuped. "What's going on? I feel like I'm about to-"

All of the sudden, Pinkie belched intensely, spewing pink flames out and towards the roof where some of the customers were being served. She coughed while breathing sharply. "What the?! D-did anypony else see-"

She burped again, this time the flames being a bit smaller, but what came out were the remnants of Luna's message. It was completely ruined and charred by the ashes, and unreadable. "That?" Pinkie moaned, and then, she shouted aloud, "What the hay, Celestia?! Be careful where you send those things! Had it been anypony else..." She cringed for a second before continuing, "Luckily for me, I just so happen to eat a lot of spicy food."


Luna gasped, and huffed to herself over what she had just done. "Okay, then," She said, trying to calm herself down. Then, with vigor, she realized something. "Oh! Wait a minute... What was it that Celestia said? It's been a long time..." She thought for a second, and then asked herself, "Was it...? Oh, now I remember. I need to focus not on a place, but a pony."

She closed her eyes keenly, and concentrated. A few seconds went by, and then, she reopened her eyes again. "I've got him," Luna said with a sneer. Looking down, and around to deliver the message once more, she gasped. Then, she said, "I have to rewrite it all over again! You've gotta be kidding me..."


In due time, Luna would have her letter sent to the right being. Spike coughed it up, and reading it over, Twilight found herself unsure what to make of it. She also had Celestia directly in her sights at the time, and the sunset was right behind the filly. It disappeared slowly, and beyond the window, but Twilight hadn't yet figured it out; that it was actually Celestia controlling the sun, and not Luna. She connected the dots upon getting that letter just then, and seeing Celestia's horn lightly glowing. The rays of light had merely been making it that much harder for Twilight to see it happening.

She placed the note down on the map, and just breathed. Words escaped her lips without her even realizing it right away. "She's... already that powerful?"

She gasped, and became silent, but Celestia seemed to be far too preoccupied with Spike's drawing of their home to pay any attention to Twilight. "I guess," Twilight thought. "Celestia has an interesting future to look forward to."

She left shortly there after, knowing the two would respectively go to bed eventually. It still baffled Twilight, though, to see a filly doing something like that, even if it was Princess Celestia. The next day, Twilight would have plans to venture forth, and find out just how powerful Celestia really was. Those plans, however, would be dashed by Pinkie Pie and her suggestion to introduce Celestia to everypony. The reports of what had recently happened had finally reached Ponyville's very own news stands that day, and Pinkie Pie made sure to not to waste any of her time after reading about it in the paper.

All Celestia remembered from that morning was a huge cake being wheeled in by two steeds. The cake was mostly made of pink frosting, and on its side spelled out in big, bold letters was Celestia's name followed by three exclamation mark.

After they left, from the top of it launched out none other than Pinkie Pie herself, who started singing her "welcome to Ponyville" song. At the end of it, confetti even shot out from the back of Pinkie Pie which helped in waking up Twilight. By the time Pinkie would have a chance to ask if Celestia wanted to meet everypony else around Ponyville, Twilight had reached the bottom of the stairs.

"So?" Pinkie asked excitedly while panting.

Celestia just stared with her mouth hanging open. "Wow," she said. "I've never seen so much pink before."

Pinkie giggled, and said, "I made it myself! Try it!"

Celestia breathed calmly while leaving her window, and coming up to the humongous thing, she asked, "What is it? Also, I was talking about your mane."

"It's cake, silly, and thank you. It's tricky getting the swirls just right!"

"Oh," Celestia said enthusiastically. "So this is cake!" Then, she scooped a hoof full right into her mouth, and went limp for a second as she savored the delicious, and highly sweet taste. It wasn't just the taste that she thoroughly enjoyed, though. It was also the vibrant color. It inspired her a little bit, and gave her a crazy idea to ask Twilight about later on. For now, however, Pinkie seemed to be getting ready to ask her a particular question.

"So, Celestia? Would you care to meet the others?"

Celestia nodded her head, and of course, Twilight stepped in, asking, "Pinkie Pie?! What're you doing here? Why is there a humongous cake in my castle?!"

Pinkie had this strange charisma over Twilight that Celestia picked up on right away. Celestia watched closely as she talked Twilight into believing this was the best thing for her.

"No worries, silly willy! It's for Celestia mostly, obviously, but chances are that Spike will definitely be helping her finish it."

That's when the dragon came down as if he were summoned by a magic word. "CAKE!" he yelled in excitement.

All of the ponies laughed as he immediately began enjoyed a slice.

Then, Twilight hoofed at Pinkie, asking, "No, but seriously, what're you doing here?"

"Oh, Twilight! Relax, will ya? I just wanted to show Celestia around, and introduce her to all of our friends."

Twilight seemed agitated at first, but failed to put up much of a fight. "Well, what could it hurt? But, seriously Pinkie Pie, once we're done with the tour, I want to bring Celestia right back here for some studying."

After that, for Celestia, time seemed to speed up as the grown ups began talking about grown up stuff. They went out the door shortly after, and for most of the morning following her bringing up the sun, they walked through the town while Pinkie pointed out several landmarks for Celestia to check out. She also introduced Celestia to Rarity while she had the chance.

From the moment they entered, Rarity had a confused expression on her face. "Err, welcome! To the, uhm, Carousel... Twilight? What's going on with Celestia, and why is she a filly?"

Throughout Celestia's day, that question came up more times than she would've liked. Although she did a fantastic job of keeping in her temper, it was actually turning into a great annoyance for her that this question had come up so often throughout her day. "Haven't ponies read the news yet?" She thought to herself as they passed by the very stands that told the whole story.

Fluttershy happened to be home, and her cottage was very welcoming, and Applejack's farm was vast to say the least. Celestia could tell that she would have fun exploring the town, and would be visiting the apple orchard often. Finally, Rainbow Dash showed off a little bit for Celestia, demonstrating how great of a flyer she was. "I'll have to show you some of my best moves sometime!" Rainbow Dash said before leaving to clear the day of its clouds.

All in all, Celestia enjoyed visiting everypony, and getting to know more about them. She still wanted to do more sight seeing, but Twilight was beginning to recommend them heading home after so much walking around. Pinkie admitted defeat, and hugged Celestia goodbye upon them reaching the castle once more.

Celestia and Twilight headed inside, and Twilight yawned. Celestia, being the filly that she was, asked innocently, "Are you getting tired again already?"

Twilight nodded, and walked into the throne room only to end up sitting down at Fluttershy's spot. Then, she fell asleep once more rather quickly. As for Celestia, she came wandering into the room, and did something a bit different. For a long time, she examined the shelves of books before finally taking one with her magic. She opened it, and found that she was able to somehow read it with great ease. Celestia then quietly pulled up next to her window while looking back to the category she had chosen it from.

"Fiction?" she asked aloud before continuing to read. "Huh..."