Shadow Within

by Zontan

4: We Need To Talk

Twilight stared at the coffee pot as it percolated, forcing herself to keep her eyes open. She couldn’t avoid Luna forever, not when the alicorn of the night could step into her dreams whenever she wanted. But coffee would keep Luna at bay for a little while, at least, while she figured out what to do. As if she needed another problem she didn’t know how to solve.

The coffee maker beeped at her, and she pulled the pot out and poured a cup. It burned her mouth as she sipped at it, but she didn’t care. The sting could only help her stay awake, and she had research to do. The process that was changing her into an alicorn—into a monster—would follow the same principles as any other piece of magic. And anything you could do with magic, you could undo with magic. According to her theory classes, at least.

Her lab was well equipped to detect the magical forces running through her body, and she’d already made some progress in categorizing them. Before, her interest had been in charting her progress, recording her changes. She’d written off the spell itself as being too complex to be worth reverse engineering. But now, if she wanted to reverse it—really, if she wanted to change it at all—that was what she had to do.

She was nose deep in her notes when there was a knock at the door. It took her a moment to realize it was something she needed to pay attention to, but after the third knock, it became clear that wherever Spike was, he wasn’t answering it. “Coming!” she yelled, before scrambling up the stairs.

When she opened the door, Rarity was on her doorstep. She looked perfect, as always, not a hair out of place. And when the door opened, she gave Twilight a smile that made her heart flutter.

“Twilight, there you are. I was beginning to think you were avoiding me.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “I am,” she blurted, before her brain caught up. “I mean, I should be, I mean—you can’t be here, it’s not safe—”

Rarity’s expression cycled from surprise to hurt before it finally landed on confusion. “Twilight, what in the world are you talking about?” She took a hesitant step backwards, but didn’t leave the entryway. There was a firmness in her gaze that said she wasn’t going to back down entirely that easily.

“I’m dangerous,” Twilight managed, her voice desperate. “To you. Alicorns are—Luna came and told me—” She paused, if only because her words were getting ahead of her thoughts again and they were all jumbling together. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, trying to settle herself enough to follow only one train of thought at a time. “Alicorns feed on pony magic. Until I figure out how that works and how not to do it, you can’t be here. I could hurt you.”

Rarity considered that, looking thoughtful. “Well,” she finally said. “I daresay that’s one of the more unique reasons I’ve heard for avoiding somepony.”

Twilight blinked, and was still caught up trying to determine what part of her explanation hadn’t been clear when Rarity walked right past her into the house. By the time she thought to shut the door or stand in her way, it was too late. “Weren’t you listening?” she demanded. “I’m a life draining monster! I could kill you!”

Rarity didn’t respond immediately, instead taking her time to get settled on the couch, in a way that made it clear she was getting comfortable and had no intention of moving again anytime soon. “Darling, you’re an alicorn. A princess. Practically divine. If I was worried about your ability to kill me I wouldn’t have kissed you in the first place.”

“This isn’t a joke—”

“I am not treating it as such,” Rarity interrupted. “But I would think I could recognize an excuse when I see one. Are you really trying to push me away because you fear my imminent demise, or because you have been given a reason to avoid examining your feelings?”

Twilight hesitated. Finally, quietly, she replied, “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt any of my friends, but after everything that’s happened, I really don’t want to hurt you. I… I kinda blew up at Luna before she could tell me everything, but she said I was already feeding on you without even knowing it. I don’t know how long it will take for that to do real harm, so the safest thing would be—”

“For you to lock yourself in your library and see nopony?” Rarity asked, brow arched. “I think it is safe to assume that if you were going to hurt me just by standing nearby for a few minutes, Celestia and Luna wouldn’t have waited this long to tell you about it. Think about this logically, dear. If this is such a big secret that they haven’t told anypony—didn’t even tell you about it for a month—do you really think they’d risk letting it get out because you were leaving a trail of bodies wherever you went?”

Twilight shuddered. “You don’t have to be so grim, Rarity,” she whispered, suddenly feeling very small. “I—I told Luna I was done. That I didn’t want to be an alicorn anymore. I… I don’t want to be this thing they’ve turned me into. I can’t be a pony-killing monster. I can’t. You weren’t there, you didn’t hear the way Luna talked about ponies, like they didn’t matter. I don’t want to become that.”

Twilight stared down at the floor, shrinking down into herself like she could just disappear. She could acutely feel the weight of her wings on her back, a constant reminder that she couldn’t escape. She could brush her tongue against her teeth, and feel the jagged edges that Fluttershy had spotted and which she now knew the purpose of. She could see all those ponies in her dreams that screamed and ran when they saw her. What would happen if she stopped seeing them as her friends? What would happen if she started to believe that she was better than them? She didn’t think she’d be the same Twilight that made five new friends in time to defeat Nightmare Moon. That Twilight would be lost forever.

She felt a soft hoof wrap around her, and suddenly Rarity was pulling her against her chest. “You won’t,” she said, in that determined, no-nonsense voice that would brook no arguments. “You are the centerpiece of our friendship, Twilight. You are the most capable mare I know. You will get through this.”

“I’m scared, Rarity,” Twilight croaked, feeling her tears drip into Rarity’s fur. “I’m terrified of what I’m becoming. I don’t know if I can fix it.”

“You will. You can do anything you put your mind to, Twilight Sparkle. I have seen you in action often enough to know that.” Rarity’s hoof pulled her closer, running in small, comforting circles against her side. “And all your friends will be there by your side when you need us. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Twilight let out a choked laugh that was closer to a hiccup, burying her face in Rarity’s immaculate coat that she was rapidly ruining with tears. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, almost inaudibly. “I know this isn’t what you came here for. I… I’m not trying to hide from you, but I just… I can’t sort out what I feel about you in this mess. I shouldn’t even have kissed you, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Twilight, darling,” Rarity murmured. “I care about you very much, and you aren’t going to drive me away that easily. You’ve got all these things to deal with already, and I can wait until you’re ready.”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready,” Twilight whispered.

Twilight’s face was buried too deeply in Rarity’s fur to see the unicorn’s frown, and she was too distracted to notice the disappointment in her voice. “Well… we shall cross that bridge when we come to it. The first step is fixing this mess of yours, isn’t it?” She put on a smile. “If it means you can focus on me, then I suppose I must assist you in your research.”

Twilight laughed softly. “Thank you, Rarity.”

“Think nothing of it.”

---

Hours later, as the sun sank towards the horizon, Twilight and Rarity were still in the lab, doing research. Rarity had a basic understanding of magical principles, and was smarter than most ponies gave her credit for, but even still most of what Twilight was doing was well over her head. As a result, she spent most of the time standing where Twilight told her to stand and making sure the alicorn ate something. At the very least, her presence gave Twilight someone to bounce ideas off when she was stuck.

So when there was a knock on the door, Twilight barely looked up as Rarity announced that she would get it. She was deep in trying to identify the different pieces of her own magical signature, which had shifted drastically even from the last time she’d measured it, to say nothing of what it had looked like when she was still a unicorn. Not for the first time, she was glad she was so meticulous with her notes, and that she had readings from her old self to compare to at all.

“Twilight?” Rarity’s voice cut through her thoughts, a distinct edge to it. “I think you had best come up here.”

Twilight almost didn’t respond, but then she sighed and put down her tools. Rarity wouldn’t call her away without a good reason.

It didn’t take long for her to trot up to ground level, and find out what the reason was.

Celestia was standing in the doorway, a carefully neutral expression on her face. Rarity was standing nervously in front of her, her posture defensive. It was just defiant enough to be clear that she wasn’t letting the ruler of Equestria in, even though everyone in the room knew there was nothing she could really do to stop her.

“Twilight,” Celestia said, and the smile that usually accompanied her favorite student’s name was notably absent. “We need to talk.”

---

It had taken Twilight some doing to convince Rarity that yes, she was fine, and that she did want to talk to Celestia. But eventually Rarity had relented and gone home, and now here she was, sitting across from her mentor, wishing the room didn’t feel so cold.

“I have heard that you and Luna had a disagreement,” Celestia finally spoke up. She was still using that carefully neutral voice. The voice she used as a government official who wasn’t emotionally attached to any of the decrees she was making. Twilight had never liked that voice.

When Twilight didn’t respond, Celestia continued. “She is quite vexed with you, I must say. She was, after all, there at my behest.”

“Why?” Twilight whispered. “If what she said is true, and… and ponies wiped alicorns out… why is she still here?”

Celestia didn’t answer immediately. But eventually, she sighed. “Because she is still my sister, Twilight. She was misguided, like many of our kind. I begged her to reconsider, to accept that the old ways were over, and that something new was taking its place. But she could not accept it, and I could not watch her die. So I found an alternative.”

“But she hasn’t changed, has she?” Twilight demanded. “That’s why practically nopony has seen her in the last year. She still thinks alicorns are meant to be in charge, and ponies are just food.”

“It is not so simple as that,” Celestia replied, and now there was a hint of sadness peeking through her carefully cultivated exterior. “She is trying to adjust. But she has missed a thousand years of history, and in some ways, she is right. Alicorns still rule, and we still need ponies to survive.”

“But that’s different!” Twilight protested. “We asked you to rule us. You have everypony’s best interest at heart. Everypony loves you.”

Celestia nodded. “Perhaps. But would they still love me if they knew the truth? If I told them everything? I am not so sure.” She sighed, and in an instant, her mask broke. Sadness etched its way across her face, and her ears drooped and suddenly she looked her age. “That is why I waited so long to tell you everything. I was afraid I would lose your love. Your respect. I was afraid of what you would think of me. I should have known that in trying to avoid it, I instead caused it to come to pass.”

“No!” Twilight insisted. “That’s not true. You could never… I’ll always look up to you. No matter what. You… you were just doing what you thought was best. You stood up against injustice, and you had to deal with so much, and… I could never judge you.”

“That is… kind of you to say, Twilight. I have tried to do what I believe to be right, but… I am not the infallible, perfect being that so many have made me out to be. If you truly understood the mistakes I have made…” Celestia trailed off, and looked away. “But that is something I would rather not dwell on. Regardless… I do still hope that sparing Luna was not one of my mistakes.”

Silence stretched between them, Twilight looking down at the floor and Celestia apparently caught up in contemplation. Then, in a quiet voice, Twilight spoke. “I… I called Luna a monster, for treating ponies like… like things. But from what she said… you feed on ponies too. Prince Blueblood and his ancestors. Is that true?”

Celestia turned back to Twilight, her face once more a neutral mask. “Yes. His line has pledged their service to me in that regard for centuries. They keep our secret, and in return, they receive the status they so crave. It is a… mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“So…” Twilight said cautiously, “It’s consensual, then. You don’t hurt him.”

Celestia nodded. “There is… a toll on a pony, sustaining an alicorn. But with proper understanding of the process, and a strong enough source, the effects are not permanent. This is something Luna and I can teach you, so you do not cause undue harm.”

There was a pause. “Who does Luna feed on?”

Celestia blinked. “Pardon?”

“Who does Luna feed on?” Twilight repeated. “She doesn’t have your arrangement. It doesn’t sound like a single pony can sustain you both. What about Cadance? How many thralls do you need?”

Celestia’s face fell. “So you are angry with me, after all.”

Twilight threw up her hooves. “I don’t know! Maybe! I just want to know when it’s going to end. How many changes are going to crop up out of nowhere, how many secrets have you been keeping from me? Why didn’t you tell me any of this before you changed me? Didn’t I have a right to know?”

There it was. There was a moment where the words hung in the air between them, and Twilight realized she could never take them back. She hadn’t meant to say those things to Celestia, didn’t want to see that look on her mentor’s face. But those questions had been bubbling up inside her so much for the past week that they had just spilled out of her, and now it was too late.

“I understand why you would be angry, Twilight,” Celestia said, her voice subdued. She looked away, unable to meet Twilight’s gaze. “When I ascended Cadance, I did so because I believed Equestria needed her. I knew Luna would soon return, and I feared for my ability to make the right choices if I faced her alone. But I miscalculated. For all the love in her heart, she still could not wield the Elements. But… she took well to being an alicorn, and my ponies did not fear her. I had hope that I might not have to be alone any longer.

“Imagine my surprise when I encountered you. A filly with so much potential she hatched a dragon egg with no training. You were… younger than I had hoped, but I was desperate. I needed someone to face Luna, and so I had to send you, unprepared as you were. And yet you exceeded even my lofty expectations. I knew in that moment that you would be my next ascension.”

“Why didn’t you tell me then?” Twilight asked, but some of the fire had faded from her voice. Instead it was wounded, almost bitter. “You trusted me to solve your problems, but not keep your secrets?”

Celestia snapped her gaze back, her eyes wide. “Heavens no. I will always trust you, Twilight. I did not trust myself. I knew your ambitions, and you were not yet ready. If you even knew it was possible… I was afraid I would relent, and grant you ascension before the time was right, purely because I wanted so badly for you to understand, to join me in eternity. But you had more to learn, and I needed to be there for Luna. Granting you wings then would have done neither of you good.”

“Oh,” Twilight whispered, her emotions roiling in her gut. Righteous fury had been easy, once she had let it sweep her along. It was easy to be caught up in how she had been hurt, how so many others must have been hurt. Bitterness was comforting. It felt good to give voice to her wounds, to expose them to the air for Celestia to see. But now, those emotions were wrapped in guilt.

Celestia was lonely. All those years, and she’d never even considered that the most loved pony in all of Equestria could be lonely.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said, meekly. “I didn’t… I never realized…”

Celestia stood, and pulled Twilight into a soft hug, her wings fully enveloping the smaller alicorn. “I told you once before that you do not need to apologize to me. You did not have all the facts, and you cannot fault yourself for making the best of what you had.” She pulled back slightly, just enough that she could look Twilight in the eye. “And that aside, you are an alicorn and a Princess now. You must not question yourself. Your ponies will expect you to have all the answers, and you must not shatter that belief, no matter how incorrect it may be. Such apologies are beneath your station.”

Twilight swallowed, furrowing her brow. Hesitantly, she nodded, but there was no conviction behind it. She knew already that Celestia was right about what ponies would expect of her, but surely lying to them wasn’t the answer. But she didn’t know how to put that into words, not when objecting would shatter that loving smile on Celestia’s face. “I… I understand that most ponies will never know the real me,” she finally said. “But most of them I’ll never meet. Surely if I just talk to ponies, tell them I’m just me, and they don’t have to treat me like I’m special...”

Celestia shook her head, her eyes soft. “That will only go so far,” she said simply. “They will always see you as a Princess first. Most will not accept your insistence otherwise, and trying to convince them will backfire. Even those that do grow close to you will never fully understand what it means to be an alicorn, just as you did not before you ascended.”

Twilight took a step back, and Celestia pulled her wings away, removing the smaller alicorn from her embrace. “But… I could tell them,” she insisted bullishly. “Fluttershy realized I needed meat, and she didn’t reject me. I warned Rarity about draining her magic and she didn’t care—”

Celestia raised one wing to cut her off. “Your friends share a bond with you that runs deeper than most. That allows them to accept your differences, when many would not. But spreading such secrets is dangerous, Twilight. Should the knowledge of what alicorns really are become too widespread, there would be… unrest. You cannot know who would keep your secrets, and who would be a danger to the stability I have built. You understand, don’t you?”

Twilight felt a weight in her gut, and slowly she nodded. She could tell her friends the truth, and they would understand. That would have to be enough, for now. But the idea of keeping such a secret for the rest of her life… for the rest of her eternal life… “I understand,” she whispered. “But I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t want to be different from everypony else.”

I want to go back to being me.

“You can be strong,” Celestia murmured, her gaze softening further. “You will rise to the occasion, I am certain of it. You will make me proud.”

And how could she say no to that?

Comments

[Xalok]

And it was at this moment Twilight knew her life was going to get far harder

[Novelle Tale]

Twilight’s eyes widened. “I am,” she blurted, before her brain caught up. “I mean, I should be, I mean—you can’t be here, it’s not safe—”

Roasted

[Novelle Tale]

“I’m sorry,” she finally said, meekly. “I didn’t… I never realized…”

Oh man. This shit hurts.

Celestia's manipulations are so delicate and finely tuned that they scare me. Seriously, well-done.

[SigmasonicX]

Nice to see things calm down after that confrontation last chapter. Rarity was able to reason things out pretty quickly, making me wonder if Fluttershy already got her up to speed about Twilight going through changes. It was unclear before, but now it's confirmed that this story is going with the idea that Celestia cast a spell on Twilight to make her an alicorn, rather than Twilight's magic transforming on its own. It'll be interesting to see where this goes from here.

[Seer]

Ooooh very interesting. Was very much looking forward to the inevitable conversation between Celestia and Twilight and you deffo didn't disappoint mate. Really enjoyed Celestia's well-meaning, but ultimately out of touch approach. Her faith inevitably leads to pressure, her distance leads to dismissiveness and suddenly you have a cocktail of Twilight being torn from two sides.
Really enjoying the Twi and Rarity interactions too, you have nailed their dynamic perfectly and Rarity is a constant treat.
Great stuff mate!

[Prose Poem]

Why do I get the feeling that Celestia originally sided with ponykind as a survival mechanism? Maybe eventually she learned to sympathize with ponies, but it started out as needing to give them a reason not to kill her and Luna...