Your Porcelain Face

by Ice Star

Words Failed Her

The good thing about having a secretary was that you told them what you wanted your voice to be, and they gave it to you. That was the relationship of Princess Celestia and Raven. Any time something generally unimportant was to be written, Celestia no longer needed to even dictate what it was. Raven would draft up a reply, type-written and clean. Princess Celestia would give it a once-over to ensure it was what she wanted ‘her’ words to be, and then add a royal signature and her Eternal Crown seal. After everything was finished, magic would whisk away the letters.

Faithful Students and a few others and occasions aside, Princess Celestia used this assembly line of letter-writing for many centuries. It pared away enough of who she never wanted to be and let her craft a costume of tone and scarf of diction fit for every occasion. Most importantly, it saved her time and was a blessing to the all-important schedule. Without such a process, her life would not have a vitally mechanical element.

Writing to Sunset Shimmer was not something that could be done with that method. There was nothing about that which didn’t frustrate the princess terribly. She wanted this to be easy and manageable. She always wanted things to be that way and for clocks to run backward to give her enough time to try and figure out something about tweens that made sense. If that were possible, then Princess Celestia would strip life of dreams and nightmares so that calm reality could take its place. There would be no sorcery problems, mirror-worlds, unreachable moon-prisons, and nopony would ever have to hurt again.

Especially Sunset Shimmer. Goodness, if she could have spared herself the hurt of losing her constant, her Faithful Student, no matter the difficulty brought by Sunset’s… colorful personality.

Princess Celestia flipped open her book with the delicacy and revulsion of somepony trying brain surgery on a dear friend. She still smelled the staleness of the dust that clung to it, and the unpolished state of her cutie mark upon the cover was a silent reminder of the times when she had scribbled various orders, curriculum-related and otherwise for her Faithful Student. Most had been about all the things that Celestia couldn’t do: how she could not forgo court for personal lectures she never gave past Faithful Students when their textbooks were just what they needed, why curfew was important for growing fillies, and the importance of holiday event attendance by the nation’s princess.

Each of those lines was still there, their ink long since dried and the hornwriting as immaculate as ever. The sight of them only made a fissure of regret tug at Princess Celestia’s throat, demanding she takes a swallow more fitting for somepony on the verge of sobbing. How was she to address a mare who was all-grown-up in a world neither of them had any understanding of? What is the proper way to talk to someone who one can't find and doesn't want to be found? When it came to the factor of Sunset having possibly lost or thrown away her half of the communication journal, what was Princess Celestia supposed to consider the most likely option? That Sunset still retained the item she had once seen as both a magical marvel and annoying hobble of an agenda?

She thought of everything she wanted to say to Sunset Shimmer and pressed her quill to the page.

She was ready to write.

All she had to do was think of how to say a tiny watered-down fraction of everything she had dealt with in the years since Sunset left. That would be a good start.

What came out were dribbles of ink, and nothing more.

Comments

[the dobermans]

Instantly added to my reading list.

[Violetmoon15]

Hello

[Pony4Koma]

I'm at a loss for words as to what I just read...

I just want to give Celestia a hug and her help out in this difficult moment.

[Ice Star]

10287632
Thank you! That effect was intentional.

[the dobermans]

It's very difficult to impress me, but this one did the trick. Astounding work.

[Ice Star]

10305615
Thank you so much! I'm glad to see you poking around more of my stories.

I have happy ones too, y'know.

[the dobermans]

10305620

Thought about it a bit. It's going on my user page. Atychiphobia will probably join it when you finish it.

[Ice Star]

10305638
ohmigosh

[the dobermans]

10305646

And one more thing: you write Celestia as well as anyone on the site. I mean, dang.

[Ice Star]

10305650
Oh gosh, thank you so much. I've been told some people really like my Sombra and Cadance in particular. Same goes for Luna. This is pretty new. Thank you so much for all the praise, and I hope I can keep delivering. ❤

[PixelatedPerson]

This broke my heart to read. Not only did I not get closure but I got attached to the fact that Sunny saw Celestia as her mom. That was what broke me, not to mention how we dont get any closure. This was amazing and you did a great job.

[Ice Star]

10461232
10461229
Thank you for reading regardless. I’m afraid that most of my stories that have the tragedy tag aren’t going to have any kind of closure. But I’m glad people still like them since work so hard on them.

[PixelatedPerson]

10461615
No problem chief, still great job nevertheless.

[PixelatedPerson]

10568389
Tragedy tag do be hittin the wrong types of different.

[TamiyaGuy]

I must say that you consistently surprised me with this one - you took the story in quite a different direction from what I anticipated from Atychiphobia, and it forms a tale not of emotions expressed, but of emotions repressed.

From the author of the first letter through to the ending, I was having brief moments of "Huh, I was not expecting that, but it somehow hits even harder". It feels like a subtler tragedy than the 'obvious' choice of Celestia reading the journal - instead of a story of tears and reminiscence, it's the slow burn of memories intentionally forgotten. There's no catharsis or drama, and wrapping it up in Raven's faux-optimistic, some-things-are-better-left-unsaid "Just think of this as a little spring cleaning!" was a really quite painful touch.

The reader, much like both Celestia and Sunset (pre-Forgotten Friendship reconciliation, at least), get no closure, and it tugs at those long-faded memories in the back of my mind, of friendships and relationships past that are just... no longer.

On that note, Your Porcelain Face feels like a story that needs the context of its predecessor to really 'get it'. To understand the weight of what Celestia is throwing away with naught but a glance at its front cover, the outpouring of emotion contained within that will never even be acknowledged, let alone understood. In retrospect, 'Tragedy' feels like a very apt tag - I can only agree with PixelatedPerson's comment and I mean that as praise.

A brilliant continuation for all the wrong reasons. Perfectly encapsulated by the very final sentence, Your Porcelain Face is quiet, unsatisfying, and unrelentingly melancholic.

And that's how it really is sometimes.

[Ice Star]

11250063
I've been so busy lately that I hadn't seen this comment when it was initially posted. Thank you very much; you always leave some of the best comments. Reading and rereading comments like this lets me know that my work hits as intended, and can often go beyond that, which means a lot for when I eventually climb back in the saddle for writing.

[SunsetSparkle23]

11250063
“To understand the weight of what Celestia is throwing away with naught but a glance at its front cover, the outpouring of emotion contained within that will never even be acknowledged, let alone understood.”

This one sentence alone perfectly captures why I lost all respect for Celestia. She truly doesn’t care for anyone that isn’t immortal like her if it’s this easy to simply erase the memories of a pony who saw her as their whole world. All because it’s an inconvenience for her to deal with.
She doesn’t own up, doesn’t self-reflect, and Sunset is left with a myriad of childhood issues.
Fuck Celestia.

[Ice Star]

11534925

it’s this easy to simply erase the memories of a pony who saw her as their whole world. All because it’s an inconvenience for her to deal with.

There aren't any memories being magically erased here.

[SunsetSparkle23]

11535107
I meant Celestia tossing out Sunset’s diary, along with all of her other belongings in her old room.

[Ice Star]

11535132
Magic horse stories make it hard to tell what way words are being used sometimes.