Chapter 7
Sunset knew she was in far more trouble than you’d normally expect from being in a principal’s office.
The two girls sat across from Celestia. Sunset sat with her legs and arms both crossed, tapping one elbow impatiently with a finger as she leaned back. Rainbow Dash was completely cowed by this extra-dimensional horror, sitting with her head bowed as she clutched her skirt.
“So.” Celestia rested her elbows on the table and her chin on the back of her hands. “Can you tell me your purpose for coming here?”
After briefly considering if there was any way to lie her way out of this, Sunset decided that she had no real hope of it at this point.
“I didn’t mean to come here,” said Sunset. “I wanted to leave where I was, but I didn’t really want to go anywhere in particular. If I knew about this place, I would have gone somewhere else.”
“How interesting!” Celestia smiled.
“I swear I didn’t know she was an intruder!” Dash only looked up with her eyes. “I’m not in trouble, am I?”
“Of course not. I can’t be angry at you. Here, why don’t you come sit next to me instead.” Celestia gave the spot next to her a pat.
Dash was more than eager to take the offer. She picked up her seat and ran to put it next to Celestia’s. Now the two were sitting side by side, Celestia putting a hand possessively on Dash’s head.
Now it felt like it was two on one again, but in Celestia’s favor. Dash looked relieved for that to be the case.
“I only called you here to help me explain things to Sunset Shimmer.” Celestia put her thumb on Dash’s forehead. “If you don’t mind me lifting the fog on your memories for a moment, I think it would help.”
“I’d do anything for you Celestia,” Dash quickly answered, but looked visibly afraid and unsure a moment later. “It’ll only be for a minute, right?”
“Of course. You know I love you.” Celestia put her free arm around Rainbow Dash.
“I love you too, Celestia!” Dash hugged her back.
Celestia pressed her thumb against Dash’s forehead. Instantly, Dash was clinging to Celestia like a scared child, clearly terrified of something. But she was too meek at the moment to speak for herself.
Seeing Celestia, any version of Celestia, tell someone that she loved them made Sunset’s blood boil. She clenched her fists, holding back anger for only a moment before it poured out.
Not for one second did Sunset buy this.
“Oh, please! You don’t really love her.” Sunset turned her head to the side. “You don’t love anyone. You just want to ‘eat’ or whatever.”
“Well of course I want to eat,” said Celestia. “I think that’s a fairly common and understandable goal. But I really do grow emotionally attached to those I feed off of. I sincerely want Rainbow Dash, and all of my students, to be as happy and comfortable as possible. When I look at her I feel nothing but love and the urge to protect her. I don’t like seeing her like this at all.”
“Your love for Rainbow Dash doesn’t stop you from feeding off of her,” Sunset pointed out. “Eating her memories or - or what is it you eat, exactly?”
“It’s a little more complicated than memories.” Celestia looked down at Rainbow Dash with a loving, but hungry smile. “I’d describe it more like eating your potential, your ability to grow. You see, I’m a being with no potential of my own, incapable of growth myself unless I take it from someone else.
“Teenagers are the type of human who grows the fastest and a school is a perfect place to develop new skills and knowledge - to grow.” Celestia stroked Dash’s hair. “The experiences, the knowledge, the skills they gain here are what I eat. None of them will ever grow any better, different or older, but they will fuel my own growth, make me more powerful with everything they offer to me.”
“Right,” said Sunset. “So then you trap people in this pocket dimension, cloud their memories, and make them mentally stagnant so they can never escape. But you ‘love’ them, huh?”
“So cynical! I think you’re projecting, dear,” said Celestia. “Just because you’re trapped here doesn’t mean everyone else is.”
Celestia gave Dash one last pat on the back. Dash finally let go of Celestia and faced forward, her eyes still full of tears. The normally energetic girl looked completely depressed and down now.
“It’s true.” Dash wiped away a tear. “I knew exactly what this place was, what Celestia is. Back on Earth, most people know about Celestia. She’s known as the 'Fair Lady' on Earth, but you’re kind of not supposed to talk about her. But even then, lots of people go looking for her. Lots and lots of people want to sacrifice themselves to Celestia! Knowing what she was, I went looking for Celestia. I asked her to eat my potential. I begged her to do this to me.”
“What? You actually agreed to this?!” Sunset asked.
“My life sucked!” Dash shot back. “I was never going to go anywhere anyway. You - you come from somewhere else, right? You have no idea how bad the world I came from has gotten. I couldn’t even finish ‘real’ high school because I had a mental breakdown and that’s hardly uncommon. It only gets worse when you leave school. Nearly everyone, everyone I know, they all end up breaking under it all and end up destitute or dead if they can’t immediately bounce back. I know so many people who killed themselves and no one seems to care anymore. I had to- to watch- my- all the other kids-”
Dash started to tremble and sob, unable to relive whatever suffering she was about to mention.
“There, there.” Celestia grabbed Dash again and went back to petting her head. “I think she gets the point. Thank you for being so brave.”
“Almost everyone wants to get in here,” said Dash as she clung to Celestia.
“You see?” Celestia asked. “I don’t need to trick or trap anyone. There’s plenty of people like Rainbow Dash who will flock to me and the comfort I offer them, whose potential would only have been snuffed out by the world anyway. There’s been more recently, but it’s always been this way. There have always been people marginalized and disenfranchised by an uncaring world whose potential would have simply rotted like perfectly good fruit thrown in the trash. There is a long line to me, and you seem to have cut ahead in it.”
“You don’t have to do this!” Sunset stood up and walked to the desk, putting her hands down on it to implore Dash. “You don’t have to settle for this manipulative bitch! Do you have any idea how many dimensions there are out there? I’m from one of them! They don’t all suck.”
“Oh? Were you happy in whatever dimension you came from?” Celestia asked.
Sunset couldn’t manage to say ‘yes’. She just bit her tongue while Celestia smiled softly.
“Look,” said Rainbow Dash, “Even if you come from a place where working sixty hours a week is enough to afford food and shelter, I still don’t want it. I don’t want a normal life. I want every day to be a perfect, fun adventure, surrounded by friends forever. Is that what your other dimension is like?”
“No. Not for me but -“
“You ran away from your world, didn’t you?! This isn’t any different! So don’t judge me!”
“Okay, fine!” Sunset relented. “If you want to stay here and be slowly digested by some eldritch abomination that’s fine, but I don’t want that! I want to leave! I don’t trust people like you and I don’t want anything to do with you!”
Celestia sighed. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and tapped her fingers together.
“There is a bit of a problem with that…”
“Can I go back to forgetting?” Dash tugged on her sleeve. “I can’t stop myself from thinking about the other kids.”
“Of course, dear.” Celestia put a finger on Dash’s head. “I’ll fix you when you wake up.”
Dash’s eyes rolled back into her head and she nearly collapsed, would have, if Celestia didn’t catch her and gently set her down.
“So what are you going to do to me?” Sunset cut to the chase.
“Yes, what can I do to you?” Celestia laughed like a joke had just gone over Sunset’s head. “I assume you’ve never heard of my kind. I’m a Fae and one of the large ones, a fairy princess. Or you could call me an elf princess if you find that less silly. My powers are immense, but they are also a bit fickle and particular.”
Celestia created a tea kettle and a mug for herself, stopping to pour herself a cup.
“Intruders like you are effectively parasites that lodge themselves inside of me like this. This entire place is me, in a sense.” Celestia sipped her tea. “Because you came here without my permission, I don’t have the same power over you as I would if you accepted an invitation to come here. Maybe you think that’s a good thing right now, but it also means I can’t simply throw you out. You’re stuck here and there’s little I can do about it. You see why intruders are such a problem for me?”
Sunset didn’t completely believe that, even if it might be true.
“And what do you normally do to intruders?” Sunset asked.
“It depends on a number of things,” said Celestia. “Sometimes they come here to make trouble and I really have no choice but to exile them somewhere in my home where they can’t bother me. If I don’t eat your ability to grow, then you grow old and die eventually, even here. Then some cut ahead of the line I mentioned. I either do the same to them or else accept them as students depending on whether they have enough unfulfilled potential to interest me.”
“Unfulfilled potential?” Sunset asked. “Let me guess, I have that and that’s why I’m not in the desert, right?”
“You are smart!” Celestia nodded approvingly. “Yes, I think you know exactly what I mean in your case. People who have the potential to become amazing, who could do great things but haven’t, those are the best types for me to feed off of. I can feel so much unfulfilled potential radiating off of you.”
Sunset did know exactly what Celestia meant. Sunset knew for a fact she was a genius who could excel at anything she felt like. She had the potential to become a powerful mage, to kill evil gods, to ascend into an alicorn, to rule over all of Equestria.
But she hadn’t done any of those things yet. And she wouldn’t, not as someone else’s tool.
“If I could eat your growth and make sure you never do anything with that brilliant potential, why you would be one of my most treasured students. It would help me immensely.” Celestia put her hand on Sunset’s shoulder and leaned in. “If you willingly feed me your potential, I’ll accept you as one of my students. You can have eternal life and eternal happiness in this place. I’ll take care of you forever.”
“No!” Sunset knocked her hand off. “I’m not so miserable that I’d agree to that! Why would I want to live in eternal stagnation?”
“Have you ever given it any serious thought?” Celestia asked. “They tell you progress is a good thing but is it? If you’re on the wrong road then regression is the real progress. If you’re already where you should be then stagnation is progress.”
“To my students, everything is wonderful and exciting just as it was the first time. Every trip to the beach, every day you spend with your friends, every time you hold a boy's hand or learn something new - it would all be like the very first time. Everything will always have that spark of wonder, a spark that growth would only ever dim until you become jaded and miserable. People who grow eventually grow old, withered, and dead. I’ll only be sharpening the knife of your life.”
“No,” said Sunset. “It’s not going to be that easy for you.”
“Alright.” Celestia stepped back to her desk. “I won’t force you to.”
“Wait hold up a second!” Sunset got up from her chair. “Before I accidentally make some verbal contract, is option B being stuck in a desert for the rest of my life? Or worse?”
“No. I won’t do anything like that to you.” Celestia sat down and smiled at Sunset. “I really do think your unfulfilled potential is beautiful. You’re like a work of art to me. I want you to be comfortable even if I can’t have you in my collection. If you want, I’ll let you keep taking magic classes from me. Your only option for leaving this place is to escape yourself. It would be exceptionally difficult but you can spend as long as you want trying.”
“Really?” Sunset raised her eyebrow. There was no way she was actually going to be this nice. “So, I can just do whatever?”
“Obviously there’s a limit,” said Celestia. “But if you don’t do anything unreasonable neither will I. I’ll even give you whatever small things you want. Or if you don’t want to be near this school, I could move you to an island until-“
“Yeah! Actually, there is something I want!” Sunset hit the desk with one hand and jabbed her finger at Celestia. “Stop pretending like you’re nice! Or that you’re telling me the truth, or that you care about anyone but yourself!”
Celestia merely tilted her head to rest it on the back of her hand, allowing Sunset to continue.
“I already fell for this!” Sunset threw her arms open. “I already met another version of you where I came from who tried the same act! When I was ten, Celestia saw the same ‘potential’ in me. She saw that I was the best. She acted like this merciful goddess who loved me too, but she lied!”
“Everything she fed me was a lie. All that crap about friendship was just her trying to get me to activate some superweapon to murder her stupid bitch sister with or something. She didn’t actually care about friendship at all! And you think I’m tempted by immortality? I already turned it down. From another you, even.”
Celestia wasn’t at all off-put by any of this so far. In fact, she sat up a bit, excited by that last part.
“Princess Celestia was planning to trick me into casting a spell that would turn me into an immortal alicorn - not even as a favor but in a desperate attempt to leave her stupid job and leave me with no choice but to take it. She told me I was there to study to be a mage too, but that was a lie. Secretly she was planning to veto my decision. Force me to be a princess, force me to risk my life without telling me that was what I was signing up for when I was ten and had no parents to tell her no!”
“She pretended to love me. She told me she loved me, but she was just using me, lying to my face, to the face of some poor orphan girl, just to get me to do her dirty work for her. And when I demanded she treat me like an equal if she wants me to do all of this for her, or at least not treat me like an idiot and actually tell me the truth, she says I’m the unreasonable one?! I’ll never trust someone like you again!”
Sunset stood there seething at Principal Celestia. She certainly went on longer with that rant than she’d intended to, but Celestia was patient and listened to the whole thing without interruption. Celestia waited a moment to make sure there weren’t any more grievances. For the record, there were. Sunset just didn’t want to say them now.
Sunset hardly considered herself a hero or anything like that. She didn’t typically care overly much about the suffering of all the idiots around her. But looking down at Rainbow Dash…
Hearing Celestia tell Dash she loved her when it was all just lies and manipulation, that was the same thing Sunset went through. How could she not get angry about that? How could she not hate this Celestia for doing the same thing the other Celestia did to her?
“Thank you for sharing all of that.” Celestia nodded calmly. “I think I understand you better now. And all this happened to you just a few days ago? Yes, it all makes perfect sense to me now. Most of my students have a terrible scar on their hearts and so do you, don’t you? Poor thing.”
“Don’t play psychiatrist with me.”
“I can’t answer for some alternate version of myself I’ve never met,” said Celestia. “But I will say I’ve been fairly upfront about everything, about eating potential and all that. If you want me to be as upfront as possible, then I do think there’s a chance you’ll choose to stay here as long as I’m not unkind to you. But that really is the extent of my schemes.”
“Or so you say.”
“True! I really can’t prove there isn’t anything I’m hiding, nor can I blame you for thinking there is. It’s a perfectly reasonable assumption. Of course, if you ever want me to help you heal your wounded heart-“
“Yeah! By ‘clouding my mind’ right?”
“That would be a quick, effective, and permanent solution, yes. Your anger would be far behind you and-“
“I’m not doing it!”
“I won’t force you to.” Celestia held her arms open. “You can do whatever you want.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Livid, Sunset got up and walked out of the room. She needed to do something! She couldn’t be the only person here with misgivings! She couldn’t be the only one who’d be skeptical about having her memories sealed off!
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Well damn. Now I wonder how this Celestia is going to react when Twilight shows up and uses her giant rainbow scrub brush?
Major spoilers for chapter 7.
For your own sake please don't read this comment unless you have read that.
Sooooooo...
She's not an AI, but a true Eldritch Horror?
But a benevolent one?
10548825
It is? I never got into that AU so maybe I missed the giant signposts
So what started as the Truman Show became Faeformers....
Yeah okay I can get behind this. XD 👌 I can't wait for more!
10550710
Benevolent? No, just as amoral as any fae but with a different approach to her prey. One who makes them actually want to stay rather than flee. Like an actually smart changeling Queen.
Look at Rainbow Dash, is she anything less damaged than when she entered? Faelestia keeps her wonds open so she remains pacified and hooked to her love drug.
"Happiness is the most insidious prison of all" ~ V for Vendetta
Well now, this is an interesting turn of events. Sunset's rant was obviously cathartic for her, having as close to a stand in for Celestia as she can get for her unresolved issues from days before. I'm curious where you'll go with this now as Sunset could go either way with this deal depending on how it unfolds. Unless there's a third option somewhere too... hmmm... Either way, I'm glad it was more AU for the setting mentioned before than previously thought.
Also, there's a paranormal club to prove supernatural things exist... when apparently most people already knew about the Fae? Or is it one of those "Fae are normal and natural, expected, but ghosts! Now you're just talking crazy" type situations? That'd be pretty hilarious. I suppose claiming our universe was one of logic and reason without magic before then explaining quantum mechanics to someone in a universe with said magic would get us an exasperated look.
A fae with an ant farm. I honestly wouldn't have thought of that. In terms of resourceful brilliance this is right up there with that necromancer pulling sacrificial energy off the interstate network.
Doesn't even need to be coercive, as noted she'll never lack for volunteers.
Stop me if you've heard this one before...
"Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvellous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror.
The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.
No one ever said elves are nice.
Elves are bad."
To quote Wreck It Ralph:
“What’s going on in this candy coated heart of darkness.
10550713
It was a not-unreasonable thing for SpectralFury to guess, but I think you can tell from the latest chapter that it isn't the case.
School is?
Ah, that is school allright
Celestial could still be an AI instead of an actual fae , she could have been using a metaphor... but a fae magic pocket universe would seem to be easier to get into via a portal than explaining how a portal dropped her into a virtual computer environment.
Also the word is excel, not accel.
I have to ask, how does Sunset know about all of Celestia's plans? Did the comics go that deep into the story? Or is this a new development for this story? Because when (and if) Twilight comes, I wouldn't be surprised if Sunset tells her all of this.
.....Nothing further, Your Honour.
Granted, Sunset is still very much trapped, at least as far as Celestia's concerned.
Oh joy, we're dealing with the fae. That always ends well.
Fascinating to see Sunset's take on the princess. It's a shame we can't see her interactions with that Celestia and see just how much of her assessment is her own biases coloring her perception. Still, it's certainly soured her on this one. Still, given what Dash has to say about the Earth she came from, I can hardly blame those clamoring to join this scholastic Never-Never Land. The question is whether any of the lost teens will willingly join Captain Sunhook's crew.
Still, I have to wonder why the mirror leads to this place, and whether any of the other known Equestrian intrusions still happened. I can't imagine the local Celestia would be at all happy with the sirens.
10550947
In the comics it goes down like this:
Celestia takes Sunset to the portal and asks her to look into it. Sunset see a vision of herself as an alicorn (which can be retroactively interpreted as her successor)
derpicdn.net/img/view/2018/6/18/1760504.jpeg
After this, Sunset repeatedly asks Celestia about the vision she had, but Celestia repeatedly tells her she's 'not ready' to know. Sunset becomes frustrated and starts snooping around to try and figure it out herself. Eventually she finds a bunch of books that Celestia seems to very much not want her to read. Sunset sneaks in and reads them anyway.
We don't know exactly what Sunset finds in said books, but afterward reading them she becomes enraged at Celestia. She knows that she's 'supposed' to become an alicorn now and demands Celestia make her an equal and turn her into an alicorn right now.
derpicdn.net/img/view/2018/6/18/1760507.jpeg
After ensuing fight she goes through the portal. I'd imagine Sunset didn't learn quiet as much as she does in this story and obviously Sunset told a version of the events that was highly sympathetic to herself, but this story does more or less take the extended canon into account. Mostly I'm taking the liberty that Sunset did, in fact, learn just about everything.
10550724
I've never heard of Faeformers. Is that basically the same concept as this only... it's Oberon Prime running the shcool?
10550710
>benevolent
I mean, you could make an argument either way IMHO.
10550844
Well A school, not school in general. Her school is much more geared to teaching and much less geared towards crushing you into a good worker than IRL schools.
10550804
That is more or less how the citizens of Earth thing. There's zero doubt Fae exist so you don't need to run around collecting blurry photographs of them.
10550761
Well, you catch more flies with honey.
10551091
I see, thank you! That clarifies a lot.
Now Celestia will become his mother to be closer to Sunset or will live with Sunset.
10551091
Yeah pretty much, but with transformers. XD trust me, the transformer fandom is weird, and we create weirder aus
10550844
10551091
It is kind of depressing if you think about it.
Fae!Celestia's school is ironically what public education SHOULD be: helping kids develop the skills they want and not shoving useless facts down their throats and killing their creativity.
And yet Fae!Celestia's school isn't actually designed for that purpose: it is designed to turn young people into an emotional food supply by giving them actual growth and taking it away. It speaks volumes that a somewhat manipulative fae can build a better school than people with teaching degrees.
10551091
As mentioned in my previous comment, that is hilarious and I love it. Excellent.
Well, now I know why this was added to the Optimalverse.
10551309
Don't get me wrong.
I'm loving this fic.
I still don't quite get why it was put there.
I mean I can see how this was inspired.
But the lore is so different, it might not actually fit into the club.
Then again, in my own AU FiO story, the lore is pretty off as well. But at least it's still about a virtual world.
At the same time, this is such an awesome fic, and I wouldn't have found it if it hadn't been added to that group. So I shouldn't complain, even if it is more loosely based on the original.
10551709
I guess it depends on how tangential 'tangentially related' is. It has a lot of similar concepts, at least, though I know it's a bit of a stretch. I guess if a lot of people have a problem with it I'll take it out.
10550804
Ah, Quantum Mechanics. I had a student who was very curious about the whys of it this term, and often times I had to say "Yeah, it doesn't make sense, but that's what the math says and it checks out."
10550710
Any sufficiently advanced AI is indistinguishable from an eldritch abomination. Could go either way.
10551747
Please don't.
As I sad, the lore may be off, but I'm loving this fic, and I'm sure there are plenty of other people who will find it only because of where it is located. If anything the group might do well to add an "Inspired by" folder.
But that is probably just my OCD bothering me (legit have that and like things to be neatly organized)
It's better to have this in a Place people can find it, even if it is only loosely inspired.
I'm really starting to wonder what the "adults" are.
Could they be other intruders, the particularly bad ones that meant harm to Celestia and her students?
Or are they just golems or echoes of Celestia?
What could they be!!!
10551750
I love Neil Degrasse Tyson's quote on this kind of thing: "The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you."
"Fair" is a neat homonym here. Is this a "fair" deal? Perhaps it is!
I suspect that those without potential are worthless to her, but what is the limit to her growth? If she has a line of people waiting to get in, and she'd get more powerful if she did, what's keeping her from doing so?
10552012
10551750
Meanwhile AU Neil Degrasse Tyson is like:
10552043
Her 'stomach' can only fit a certain number of people in it, though that number increases as she grows. I'd imagine no one has zero potential, but some people are significantly more valuable to her than others.
this is a fascinating concept, brings to mind star trek v mixed with an old comic i found once about eldritch monsters keeping humans as pets in a big hamster cage (i think it was in a longbox of the damned episode?).
also who is willing to bet that "Celestia" is actually responsible somehow for the dystopian conditions on earth? after all, heaven wouldn't be paradise if hell wasn't an option.
10551252
Kids don't vote. They can't want anything
10552073
The knapsack problem, but for spiriting people away.
Oh yes, very Coraline.
10552081
The nasty question being that nothing we've heard about the fic's 21st century is all that different than ours.
10550899
I seem to remember XANA on Code Lyoko trapping Aelita in a pocket dimension once. Celestia in this universe could have motivations similar to XANA’s.
10550819
(I acknowledge you as a being of culture! Also, always loved Terry Pratchett's take on elves.)
Great chapter!!