If Chaos prevails...

by The Marshmallow

Interlude 6 - The sun will rise again (part 2)

The tingling echo of a bouncing ball resounded in the depth of the cave, reaching Celestia and Twilight Velvet much sooner than the sight of the room it came from. In it, besides a few couches and a table, there were only two ponies. The smallest of the two was an amber coloured filly, with a yellow and crimson mane from which a small horn emerged. The aforementioned ball was tightly held in her greenish magical aura, then freed by throwing it towards the floor so that it would bounce on the nearby wall, and finally caught again. It was clear, just by seeing her vacant-looking eyes, how the same gestures had been repeated time and again bringing her no joy.

A large, yellow stallion with a bright red mane and an apple cutie mark was looking over the filly with a contrite expression, uncertain, even unable, to intervene in any way or to even say anything. The stalemate broke right afterwards, as he noticed the entry of the two mares. He was then quick to lower his head, almost kneeling in front of her princess. "Good evening, your majesty." His light southern accent did in no way prevent the understanding of his words, and the filly could hear them clearly. The way she reacted took all the other by surprise. She immediately stopped the ball, holding it perfectly still in the air (quite the feat for such a young filly, Celestia noted), then quickly turned towards the newly arrived ponies giving them a hateful, venomous stare. The kind of stare a little filly should never see, let alone show. As soon as she noticed who she was actually looking at, her expression softened considerably and revealed a hint of embarrassment as she -imitating the stallion- kneeled as well, her muzzle almost brushing the ground.

Celestia sighed, not blind to what had just unfolded in front of her. A veil of sadness fell on her, but she still tried not to show it too much. "Please, you can raise your head" Bright Mac was just like that, Celestia thought, he would never really drop the formalities. Not a problem, usually, but it could give the wrong idea. She certainly didn't want to think the resistance was more hierarchical than it was. Or of what she wanted it to be "I understand you expected to see someone else?" While the stallion had straightened his back and raised his head almost immediately, the filly took much longer; what worried Celestia was that she still wouldn't look at her directly, let alone talk. So she tried again, with her most soothing voice "Could you at least tell me your name, my little pony?"

Bright Mac bit his lips and lowered his eyes, making Celestia raise and eyebrow. Looking at the mare beside her, the reaction of Velvet was in fact quite similar, but she managed to explain her reasons "Princess, she..." She swallowed, looking first at the little unicorn and then at the alicorn "doesn't really speak..."

The trauma she underwent made her silence understandable, justifiable even. And yet... "S-Sunset Shimmer" Both Velvet's and Bright Mac's eyes widened considerably as those two words came out of the filly's mouth. The princess had managed within moments to do with ease what they couldn't succeed with. And they tried. "What's your name...?" Timidly, she even started raising her eyes, although her gaze was still going no higher than the alicorn's neck.

Since the filly was overcoming something much greater, the Alicorn found in herself to smile despite the melancholy that had invaded her. A warm, reassuring smile which perfectly matched the tone of her voice "I am Celestia." And to complete the picture, she slowly lowered her head bringing it in the field of vision of the filly, so to be able to look at her in the eyes. Sunset didn't try to look away, luckily.

"Celestia" she repeated slowly, in a clear effort to memorize it. She was smart, full of potential. If only such a tragedy hadn't hit her... "Aren't you... A princess?" The alicorn nodded gently, noting how (despite her young age) she was familiar with the legends of Equestria, only written in old history books and yet repeated from pony to pony for 30 generations or more. "Shouldn't you, or the princess of love, be the... Princess princess?"

That was a legitimate guess. Funny and cute, sure, but given the situation Celestia had no intention to laugh, to make her feel belittled "I was. A long, long time ago. My sister and I defeated Discord and ruled over all of Equestria..." The filly was still looking at her, listening to the story with interest. Defeating Discord, a creature capable of unleashing seemingly unlimited chaos. She was having a hard time wrapping her head around it. But in her eyes there was now a glimmer of hope. "Then the two of us fought, and he took advantage of the disharmony to take back the kingdom..." Sunset gasped, worried, but said nothing else. She wanted to hear how the story end. "He cursed me and took away the only weapon that could defeat him. And now he has been ruling for almost a thousand years."

The conclusion was sad, hopeless even. And those feelings were only partially reflected in the filly, and certainly much less than before hearing the story. For a few moments she seemed lost in thought, before asking Celestia one question. The most important one. "Were you... A good princess?"

This caught Celestia off guard. Not in a bad way, though; she appreciated the poignant question very much. "I hope I was." Despite all her mistakes, all her regrets, there was one thing she was proud of: "I considered all the ponies in the kingdom my own children." And everything she did, even the hardest decisions, she did with them in mind. "And I still do."

Sunset was, for a few moments, speechless. Many conflicting emotions, most of which she had until then suppressed, were alternating on her face. There was bottomless admiration for the mare in front of her, there was finally hope, but there were also doubt, uncertainty, sadness. Finally, she settled on anger. "It's not fair!", she screamed, in an understandable tantrum.

It was perfectly natural for her to be overwhelmed, distressed, even in despair. Letting those feelings out instead of bottling them was probably the healthiest thing, now. With a little gesture, quickly understood, Celestia even dissuaded her two comrades from intervening. She just stayed there, watching her close, ready to lend a shoulder to cry on.

"Why can't you be the princess princess?" Tears started to pile up in her eyes, and the magic surrounding the still floating ball started to become unstable. "You wouldn't hurt your ponies" Her magic was affected by her emotions, that was normal, and it was only natural that it would waver and inevitably fade. "You..." What was not expected was for the amount of magic to greatly increase and become denser, deforming the ball slightly "You wouldn't k-kill good ponies!", she finally screamed, as the ball exploded in a loud bang and the tears started to flow freely.

Despite her surprise, Celestia managed to stay impassible and quickly hugged the filly, letting her wet muzzle dry on her soft fur, as the tears dampened it. "No, I wouldn't", She said decidedly. "Me being the princess again..." She paused for a moment, looking at Velvet and Mac. They were looking at the pieces of the ball with their mouth hanging open. It was a ball in a hard, thick rubber; even most adults would not be able to break like that. And yet she, an untrained filly, did it seemingly with ease. "That's what we are trying to do"

For a little while, nopony really moved. Not the crying filly, not Celestia holding her and certainly not the two astonished comrades. Sunset was the first one to talk, between sobs at first and then more and more clearly and decidedly: "I want to help you!"

The grey mare and the yellow stallion looked at each other for a moment. She had talent, in a few years she could be valuable to the team. But at the same time, she was still way too young. Joining the resistance meant hard work, sacrifices and danger. And it was for most a life-long endeavour, due to the sheer loyalty the princess inspired. Just as Velvet had come back to the first line after giving birth to her second daughter, Bright Mac was certain that her pregnant wife would soon do the same after the birth of their third. It was a job he did gladly, as he wanted to protect as many ponies as possible... But thinking that his wife would do the same thing terrified him. And so did thinking his own children would one day want to follow in their hoofsteps... Seeing a child orphaned because of the chaos certainly helped him put things in perspective.

Still, the decision wasn't theirs to make. "We don't want to destroy, nor to hurt anypony." Celestia spoke calmly, measuring each and every word carefully. "We want to mend all the damage Discord did, and bring harmony back" A pause, as the filly slightly distanced herself from the princess body, nodding at her words "Prove me your worth by fixing the ball with your magic" The filly was baffled, it was clear she had never tried anything like that. She didn't know, and honestly didn't think, she could do something like that. But id that wasn't enough, the tone of voice of the Princess became somehow sterner, as she told the final condition for her test. "If you can't, you should just be back in a few years."

Mac wondered why Celestia would give her such an impossible task. Was that her way to dismiss her? Velvet knew better, being subject to a fairly similar test many years prior (although she was much older than Sunset was). The subject matter was very different, but the idea behind was clearly identical: observing how she would deal with failure.

After wiping away her tears with a foreleg, Sunset nodded decidedly, her gaze filled with determination. She took a deep breath, and then picked up all the different pieces within her aura, making them all levitate and then bringing them closer together and defining with them more or less the shape of a ball. Then... She just didn't know what to do. Imagining the ball as it was before, even doing so very intensely, yielded no tangible result, except increasing her frustration. Even trying to have the pieces bump with one another, or stretching them a bit, or any other mechanical movements she could elicit had no result.

Celestia was still observing her, expressionless, while in many ways the other two ponies were showing how bad they felt for her struggle. But right when it looked like she was going to start crying again, she stopped moving those pieces meaninglessly and drew a deep breath. Instead of succumbing to anger, or crying, or anything else... She decided to try and calm herself down, to think about it logically. The mental strength she was showing despite her situation surprised everypony, and even Celestia couldn't be indifferent. She smiled, and nodded supportively, as the filly started to think about the situation analytically.

Magic always came kind of natural to Sunset. When she wanted something to move, it moved. When she wanted a slice of apple, the apple split. If she wanted to make something cold warm up, it warmed up. Once, when she was angry, she had even cast a magic bolt. It was easy to assume that magic was just this very simple process of wanting something and seeing it happen, but it clearly wasn't the case. And although she couldn't even conceive of magical matrices or runes or the many small variations that one could put in the wavelength of his magic, she figured out that there were probably different... Ways to use magic. And then she realized that whatever "way" would allow her to just transfigure a broken ball into a whole one, she just didn't know it.

But she didn't need to!

Her eyes started to shine as she finally had a revelation: instead of doing the whole big difficult spell, she could do many easier ones! Instead of fixing the ball in one go, she could probably staple each piece of rubber to the next. And so she did. Sure, 'easy' was in fact the wrong word. She still needed to have the pieces of rubber all floating in her grasp, then to stretch the hard rubber enough to better show the margin of each piece to properly find the one to staple it with, as if it was a puzzle. And then she had to use even more magic to have the pieces stick together. Slowly, the ball started to take shape...

She was close, but not quite, Celestia thought. Not that the process was necessarily wrong, the problem was that the magic she was using to have the pieces stick together was not at all a good one. It was just like levitation: as soon as she focused her magic elsewhere, it just fell apart. And as much as she tried to pick back the pieces, again and again, there were just too many to be able to make the ball whole once again.

The same frustration was starting to come back, but the filly was showing a surprising amount of focus for her own age and seemed to have no intention to surrender. As far as Celestia was concerned, she had already passed her test. She could certainly stay and train together with the others. there weren't ponies her age training, but putting her under the guidance of velvet, she would probably be able to close the gap with colts and fillies three or four years her senior in a matter of months. Still, she didn't want to interrupt the test yet, as seeing her actual limits could certainly be useful.

In the meantime, Sunset had fully realized that the method she was using was not viable. The pieces didn't stick to each other as they should have. She had hit a metaphorical wall, and once more she didn't know what to do. And yet she felt so close to the final solution. Trying to find a completely new approach was a long walk around the walk, and she was not sure to even come this close ever again. She had to find some small change that would give her the edge to jump over it, nothing more. So she started once more to try all the different things she could think of. Trying to improve her 'glue-like' spell? That didn't work. heating the rubber to soften it? It required way to much magic as she didn't know an efficient spell to do so. And in the same way, many other ideas simply failed. Until one worked. Two pieces of rubber were now one, and she couldn't even fully explain how. She could only remember the general feeling, and that it required actually a lot of magic. So she tried it again, and again, and again, under the flabbergasted eyes of Mac and Velvet. The latter even thought that if any of her foals would prove to be half as talented, she would be an accomplished mare.

the filly didn't even realize it, but what she was doing was teleporting the fragments of the ball into one another, having their very structure merge. Sure, they were small objects, she was moving them just by a few millimetres, and was doing that quite inefficiently... But that was still very advanced magic. They then looked at their Princess, wondering what her reaction could be. There was surprise in her eyes, a little bit at least, but most of all she seemed just so proud. "She might be the one", she whispered to them, pointing at the filly's flank. It was shining slightly, as a yellow and red sun was taking form on it. Celestial bodies were a telling sign of great magical potential.

She didn't notice immediately, as she was focused on the ball, which was soon completed. It wasn't perfect, it was uneven and there were some holes here and there... But it was most certainly a ball. "As you have seen, my little pony..." Celestia started speaking then, her hoof gently touching the other ponies shoulder "Mending something is much harder than breaking it. But with the right effort, although not in its exact original shape, it is always possible." She hugged her, making it clear how proud she was of her, before continuing "And shall be the first of our lessons."

It took a moment for the filly to fully understand what the Alicorn was actually saying. "The first?" That implied there would a second, maybe a third, maybe many more. "You mean... You will teach me?" There was a little bit of excitement in her words. It was not an everyday thing to become the student of a princess, after all.

"Yes, I would want to make you my personal student" Not only accepting her in the resistance as she originally thought, but in fact keeping her much closer to her, and personally teach her everything she could need. "If you want me to." That was very important to her. She did not want to force her to do anything; she wanted the filly to be able to make decisions for herself at every step. "I can't use magic due to my curse, but I used to be quite good with it." And to make an informed decision, she felt she should give her the whole picture "But having lived well past one thousand, I think few ponies in Equestria have had more students than I did... Or more experience." Velvet could confirm and shuddered imagining what could happen by pairing such a talent with such a teacher.

"I want to!" the answer came immediately, barely giving Celestia the time to complete her phrase. Sunset was just so happy. Heart-warmingly so, and even Velvet and Mac found themself smiling just as well.

"I believe we should celebrate then." The Alicorn was smiling too, and felt like it was time to have her noticed in full what had just happened to her "For my new student, and for her new cutie mark!", she said, pointing in the direction of the filly's flank.

Sunset blinked a few times, before turning back her head and finally realizing the existence of that small but oh-so-important symbol that had manifested only moments ago. She would have wanted to show it to her parents, to see them proud, but she immediately realized that was no longer an option. But she didn't want to go back to crying now, she wanted to be strong, to be strong and make them proud. What she had to do was to follow her new teacher, learn everything she could, and eventually have her sit once again on the throne of Equestria. It was her destiny, she thought, noticing as the shape was so similar to that of the Alicorn.

And although in slightly different terms, The princess was thinking of destiny too. The terrible fate that had befallen on the filly, and the luck that had made the two of them meet. And she was grateful, for finally she felt the pieces were coming together.

Author's Note:

I'm pretty satisfied with this one. I think is the first time I wrote a chapter mostly from Celestia point of view... So besides the backstory, there should also be a little bit of insight

With Love,
The Marshmallow

P.S. I have my partial exams coming soon, so there will probably be some more delay. Sorry!