And Fretting in Hedges
Summer turned Castle Canterlot’s palace gardens into a riot of colors and scents, filled with buzzing insects and flitting hummingbirds. Flowers of so many varieties came into bloom that one poet famously called it “Elysium for bees and Tartarus for the allergic.”
For Princess Luna, it was her sister writ across a landscape: Bright, warm, vibrant, and far too extravagant for her own tastes. But she knew there was a point to Celestia inviting her on a walk through the garden, far more so than the simple pleasant excursion her sister had claimed. After all, such was also Celestia’s way. Ponies rarely questioned her when she buried her true intentions, much as bees did not suspect why flowers lured them in with nectar.
Walking at Luna's side, Celestia grinned and said, “You have that face going.”
Luna put on the most neutral expression she could. “What face?”
“When you try to puzzle out my deeper motives, you get this little wrinkle across your muzzle.” Celestia gestured to her own with a wing.
The same iron will that guided the moon and smote nightmares kept Luna from crossing her eyes to try to see her own snout. “The fact that I have developed this alleged wrinkle often enough for you to notice says more about you than me, Sister.”
“I suppose,” said Celestia, as close to an admission of fault as she’d likely come. She turned into the garden hedge maze so abruptly, Luna had to flare out her wings to keep from stumbling as she tried to match the turn.
Silence reigned for a few turns into the maze. “I have never seen the point in this curiosity. Even those ponies who could not fly over it could force their way through the walls with little difficulty.” Luna leaned close to a hedge and gave it a quick sniff. “Perhaps even eat their way through were they desperate enough.”
“The point is the same as any labyrinth,” Celestia said, moving at the same casual gait as before. “Solving the maze isn’t why you go through it. It’s to meditate on the twists and turns of a greater puzzle.”
“And so we come to the purpose of our little gadabout. What puzzles you so, Sister, and how may I assist?”
Celestia looked up into the dimming sky, horn glowing as she set the sun. “I’ve been thinking a lot about Twilight lately.”
“Ah.” Luna smirked as she got the moon into positon. “I believe our niece may be better suited in these matters, but I will do my best in her stead.”
A white wing gently batted her about the head, like a love tap from an affectionate swan. “Not like that.”
“All the better. Young Twilight has not dreamt of you in such a capacity in moons.” Luna’s grin widened. “Though I will not say how many.”
Celestia sighed. “This is serious, Luna,” she said in the sort of voice she usually used for lecturing disappointing students.
That got an eyeroll. “Were it truly serious, we would be discussing it in the throne room, not indulging in your habit of theatrical parables.” Luna spread both wings to take in the horticultural metaphor. “I get enough of those from ponies’ slumbering thoughts as it is.”
“This decision will affect the rest of my life, Sister. If I go through with it, I cannot possibly go back. So I turn to every aid I can to help me finalize my decision, whatever form they may take.”
“And I am glad you count me among them, truly. But I would be greater help if you had simply told me what so weighed on your mind from the start.”
Celestia shook her head. “The palace has ears. And many, many gossiping mouths. We needed to discuss this somewhere where I could be as sure as I could that we would not be overheard.”
“I see.” Luna looked up and considered the hedges writhing about overhead, forming impossible snarls of vegetation and negative space, more than a few resembling pony eyes and faces. “That would explain why you invited me into your dreams.”
After a few blinks, Celestia looked around the winding maze as it grew around them in all senses. “Oh. Yes. So I did.”
No will was strong enough to keep Luna from facehoofing. “You forgot.”
“We’re not all born lucid dreamers, Luna.” Celestia turned back onto the path with a toss of her mane. “And we’re getting off-topic.”
Luna followed. “So we are. Very well, enough beating around the hedges.”
“Bush.”
“Both.” She successfully kept this smirk internal. “What troubles you so, especially in regards to Twilight Sparkle?”
Celestia’s forehead creased. Her lips pressed against one another for a short time, as though struggling to form the words. Finally, as they came to a six-way intersection, she said, “I’m thinking about abdicating.”
Luna came to a stop. For a moment, so did the dream, all motion halting as triangular shards of the imagined reality flipped to opposing colors. She corrected the flaws with a thought once she’d collected herself.
“What.”
Mostly collected herself.
Celestia nodded, her mane still a stiff plank jutting out a ponylength from her head until Luna set it moving again. “And this is why I wanted to ease you into it more.”
“You. Abdicate.” Luna kept going, more to get her mind around the idea than gain further clarity. “Give up the throne we paid for in magic and blood and the crude ink of a dozen treaties that united the grasping warlords who tried to take Discord’s place. Abandon your immortal life’s work. Pass the crown to a mare who still has nightmares of wearing socks to her final exam.”
“In a word, yes.”
“In a word, why?”
Celestia sighed and slumped, though her legs kept dragging her uphill. “I’m tired, Luna. I’m tired and it’s impacting my ability to rule the nation effectively.”
“Surely you don’t mean those mutters about how Twilight and the other Bearers’ activities somehow reflect poorly on you?” Luna snorted. “As though regularly saving the world were something to be ashamed of.”
“It is when so many of the things they’re saving us from were my fault to begin with.” Discord’s laughter briefly echoed through the hedges. “How many evils did I seal for a time, only for them to address them permanently and positively? How many threats attacked from my blind spot, only for their ingenuity to strike them down?”
“How many times did your guidance prove pivotal in their winning the day, even if you weren’t able to aid them directly?” said Luna.
That coaxed a smile from her sister. “Oh I’m very proud of the legacy I’ll leave. Not just with Twilight, but with her friends, her students, my other students…” The sun rose behind them. Celestia smiled up at the sky again, her horn unlit. “Even Sunset Shimmer is becoming the mare I knew she could be. I’ve done a great deal of good in this world.”
“And you can yet do more.”
“I agree. But I don’t think it will be from a throne.”
“And if this is merely a coincidence?” Luna’s wings flapped away some of the shadows lingering around Celestia, the black smoke hissing in the light of dawn like oil on a skillet. “A spate of interesting times that will pass by, seeming interminable only because we know not when it will end? Surely you have had dark times in your reign before now.”
“I did, yes. But none where my direct efforts have proven so worthless time and time again. None where I feel I am holding us back more than guiding us forward.” Celestia still looked skyward. Stars yet twinkled where she looked, despite the sun’s rapid ascent. “Did I ever tell you I had a prophetic dream the night after I first met Twilight Sparkle?”
“You mentioned it shortly after the Crystal Empire’s return, while we contemplated whether to send her Star Swirl’s unfinished spell. Though you divulged few of the details.”
“At first, I wondered if I was seeing myself. She sits on the throne confident, wise, loving—”
“Enormous?” Celestia finally looked back at Luna, who shrugged her wings and pointed at the throne in the middle of the clearing they'd entered. The maze had returned largely to normal, and they found themselves at its heart, with what appeared to be a purple-dyed copy of the elder sister. “I can certainly see how you mistook her for yourself.”
“She does seem to grow into the position,” Celestia allowed.
The grown Twilight raised an eyebrow in a way so eerily close to Celestia’s that Luna fought back a shudder.
The three alicorns traded nods of respect before Celestia led Luna back into the winding hedges. “Beyond that…” Celestia opened her mouth a few times before shaking her head. “I can't adequately describe all that I saw. Suffice to say, it is a paradise. A world brought together through friendship and harmony that I have no idea how to bring about myself.” Phantom creatures of all kinds frolicked at their hooves for a few steps, some of which even Luna didn’t recognize. “I tried to temper my expectations of her, especially as she slipped more and more into antisocial seclusion, but she has more than proven herself since going to Ponyville. As I wane, she waxes.”
“There was that incident with Queen Novo and the Pearl of Transmutation.”
Celestia delivered the exact same eyebrow raise as Twilight's figment. “You mean the incident where the two of us had both been petrified, and Twilight was acting on my last desperate gambit rather than her own initiative?”
Luna dipped her head in acquiescence. “Fair. But do you truly have so little faith in yourself?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t hesitate as much as I am.” They paused at another intersection for a moment before pressing on to the left. “I have faith in Twilight, but I fear that dropping the whole nation on her withers will still break her. She has grown so much since she left for Ponyville, but has she grown enough?”
Luna snorted as her old memories trotted about her hooves, far more grim than anything from Celestia's vision. “Had we, when we took up the reins of a fledgling kingdom?”
Celestia sighed. “Those first years were hard, yes. I’d like to spare her that.”
“Those first years taught us some of our most important lessons. And we didn’t have ponies who actually knew what they were doing a dragon’s breath away.”
“There is that. But if she relies on us too much, it will be as if we never left. And if I do return to the throne, I'll never be able to leave. Ponies will see Twilight as a failed experiment, as proof that nopony but I could or should ever rule Equestria, no matter how badly I botch things up in the future. She must stand on her own four hooves.” Celestia’s tail lashed as she chewed her lip. “It’s just a matter of knowing if she can.”
Luna gave her sister a flat look. “As if there were some measurement one could take to tell? Some set of calipers for rulership, an alchemical test for confidence? I would say that at some point, she would need to be thrown out of the proverbial nest and challenged to fly, but circumstance has done so time and time again. And she has soared, Sister. Done loop-the-loops, even.” A purple shockwave burst across the sky, almost but not quite a rainboom.
Celestia tilted her head. “I thought you were against this.”
“I am against you throwing away everything you worked and strove for solely because of the whim of a moment. But you have thought through this, and I should have expected nothing less from you.” Luna nudged her sister with a wing. “Your student comes by her tendency to overthink all possibilities honestly.”
“She does, doesn’t she?” Celestia said with a rueful grin. They came to the entrance and exit of the maze. A few steps beyond it, the carefully maintained lawn of the palace grounds gave way to impenetrable fog. She stared out into the pale distance. “I suppose we’ve decided then.”
“Indeed.” Luna grinned. “So, did you have somewhere in mind for our residence, or shall we see how long we can squat in the castle until somepony dares tell us to leave?”
Celestia boggled at her vacantly for a few moments. “What?”
“You didn’t think I would let you go on your own, did you? Not after letting you toil on the throne by your lonesome for a thousand years.”
“But you haven’t even had a decade to reign since your return.”
“Bah.” Luna brushed aside the objection with a wave of a wing. “I am a mare out of time and everypony knows it. One need only look at that Starlight Glimmer mark-switching fiasco to see how little impact I have on the country’s waking hours, and how little I truly wish to.”
“You can learn, Luna.” Celestia pointed at the exit. “But if you follow me out the door, I doubt they’ll keep your crown warm for you.”
“So be it.” Luna flicked the crown off her head with a bare hoof, sending it flying into the depths of the maze. “I am better suited to forging a nation from chaos-scarred savagery, for I am not far removed from my days as a chaos-scarred savage. I have not had your time to mellow into herding bureaucrats and smiling for cameras, nor do I wish to. Besides, the same issues arise if I stay as if you were to return.”
After a few moments, Celestia smirked and said, “You were looking for an excuse.”
“I would perform my duty to the end, Sister, and without hesitation. But I will take this opportunity when it presents itself.” Luna swept a foreleg over whatever awaited them in the mist. “We go together into that great unknown, as we always have.”
“I was planning on a charming little manor in a Bittish Columbia kelping village. It’s hardly the untamed wilderness.”
“With you at my side, Sister, I would charge into the mouth of banality itself.” Luna grinned, pawed at the ground, and snorted out a beige cloud.
Celestia laughed. Not the courtly titter that so rarely punctuated royal court, but the deep belly laugh only a mare of her size could produce, something Luna had hardly ever heard since her return. “So be it then. I can only imagine Twilight’s reaction.”
“Thrilled, I am sure. After all the times she has fixed our mistakes, I have no doubt she has a dozen different checklists already prepared for the transition.”
And together, they walked into the dream’s end.
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- FanOfMostEverything · 1.9k words · 111 3 · 2.3k views
- Coronet the lesser · 4k words · 40 0 · 860 views
- FanOfMostEverything · 3.2k words · 161 5 · 2.2k views
- Closer-To-The-Sun · 14k words · 24 0 · 396 views
- FanOfMostEverything · 9.6k words · 78 4 · 2.5k views
- Silent Whisper · 1.7k words · 217 3 · 2k views
- FanOfMostEverything · 36k words · 67 3 · 1.2k views
- Masterweaver · 1.5k words · 24 2 · 887 views
Stats
Page generated in 0.176 seconds
Total duration
995 users online
170,468 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Here's my question. What was Celestia hoping would happen? That Novo would agree to help, or at the most hoof over the Pearl? Putting her people at risk and risk losing the Pearl altogether? Knowing what it does and what evil could do with it?
Yeah. I'm not seeing whatever horseapple excuse Celestia is trying to spew here. I blame the Movie more than anything else though.
Good work, and thanks for entering the Iron Author contest this year.
It's as good a justification as any, I guess. And Celestia does deserve her rest after all this time.
Personally, I see Celestia's reason for retiring as more, "I am old, Luna. I feel sort of... thin and stretched, like too little frosting spread over too much cake." But this makes sense, too.
I have to say, though, this characterization of Luna's retirement is fantastic. The effects of her thousand-year disappearance didn't just vanish after Luna Eclipsed; she's still the warrior princess she was before Nightmare Moon, but Equestria doesn't need a warrior princess anymore. She's still displaced in time, even after her return.
My main complaint with this (and with Season 9, tbh) is that it misses one of the most important facts about Twilight's coronation; she's an Equestrian princess. Every source that I can remember describes Celestia and Luna as something from outside of Equestria, almost a deus ex machina that delivered them from Discord. Twilight doesn't just represent the next princess, she represents Equestria's coming of age, its growth beyond the trellis the Two Sisters provided it. Celestia and Luna kept Equestria alive; Twilight will help it flourish. She is the evolution of Equestria, the herald of a new age, not simply somepony who can take over from a retiring ruler. She is a qualitative change from Celestia, not simply a quantitative changing of the guard.
(Also, I'm more partial to Celestia and Luna going to alicorn Valinor after retiring, but to each their own.)
IIRC Celestia and Luna end up in Silver Shoals which is apparently a beach resort town roughly the Equestrian equivalent of Miami or Honolulu.
An odd decision if you think about it. I don’t think either of them would enjoy the possibility of becoming de facto attractions in a place that is already regularly flooded with tourists.
Although maybe that’s the point. Anywhere they go is suddenly going to get a lot of visitors and gawkers. Might as well be somewhere the locals are already used to that sort of thing and won’t be inconvenienced any more than they already are.
After almost twenty years since I first saw it, I'm finally playing Tactics Ogre to it's completion. This quote, together with Raleigh's The Tower Of The Fallen Star, inspire me to write a story about a chaos-scarred savage forging a nation.
Sing of a time long past, a time when ponies answered to power alone. Ruled by steel, steeped in darkness. Sing of an age called Xytegenia~
If this ever happens I blame you and I dearly hope I can measure up to it
Ah, okay, *this* was the one that I honorable mention’d! Should have known it was you.
I’m a sucker for best princess sisters, so it was very nearly my favorite of the round even if other judges disagreed. But there was also some really sharp dialogue here and solid characters, and the idea of threshold as retirement was one of the few really creative angles I saw to the prompts, even if the others were played more straight.
Awesome as expected
Snrk. Lewd.
lovely little story here
10943915
who knows, the Pearl may have just been to unpetrify them. Maybe the magic used to turn them to stone was tricky or something. More complicated than Cockatrice stares at least
10943965
The common thought is that the costal fishing village looking place we saw in "PPOV" (Pony Point of View) is Silver Shoals...which is so low-key, I consider it true. It certainly fits the "Bittish Columbia kelping village" design...
YMMV, of course...
I'm glad you put words and actions to that huge glaring plot hole the series writers created in S9...
This story makes it believable...
WELL DONE, SON!! VERY WELL DONE!!!
Still wished they actually discussed this with Twilight in advance instead of just dropping Equestria on her like handing over a bag of chips. That was probably the biggest gripe the pro-abdication side had with this whole affair when S9 premiered.
10944627
My take on the opening to Season 9 was:
That setup was so bizarre and illogical even within the context of the world that the whole episode, if not the season, got off on the wrong foot with me even before the opening credits.
Still think the whole retirement thing was dumb [1] (and the show made the Princesses dumb), but at least this story gives it a vague veneer of plausibility while showing some respect for Best Sisters.
[1] I don't mind the notion of Twilight becoming Celestia's successor - in another century or two!
10943915
Hence the desperate part of "desperate gambit." If we have seen one thing about her, it's that Celestia is not the best at improvising. It really isn't clear what she was thinking at the time beyond panicked screaming and scrambling for possibilities.
(But yeah, it's one of the movie's more glaring contrivances.)
10943930
"I told you to leave that horn ring in the cave, but did you listen?"
Definitely an interesting view of the deeper ramifications of the transfer of power. It's not clear where Discord fits into the narrative of "Founders light the Fire of Friendship, Star Swirl trains the sisters, Celestia raises the sun when the unicorns are all burnt out, Luna quietly simmers," and he wouldn't have it any other way. (Heck, it's not clear where the Pillars going into Limbo fits in there either.) Still, your point about them being miraculous saviors definitely holds, whether it's from chaos or heavenly stasis. Twilight definitely has new and innovative solutions for both.
10943965 10944620
After double-checking, the village I was thinking of from "P.P.O.V." was Seaward Shoals. Meanwhile, the retirement community in "The Point of No Return" was Silver Stable. Silver Shoals was only mentioned as a potential vacation option by Luna in "The Beginning of the End" without further context. It's actually not at all clear where Maretime Manor is meant to be, though it's presumably coastal (and possibly the future site of Maretime Bay come G5.)
I'm sticking with my headcanon even if I've contradicted it, because I've yet to hear a better answer.
10943971
And in time, she became a princess by her own hoof. But that is a story for another day...
Wait, sorry, wrong franchise. Here's hoping the crossover goes well.
10944190
Glad you liked it enough to give it your HM!
I figured interpreting "threshold" as "seven or more cards in your graveyard" would be a bit of a giveaway regarding the author's identity.
10944627 10944709 10944713 10944888
I work with what I'm given, and the show didn't give me much here. Call it further proof that Celestia was right about needing to retire, even if she was jumping the gun a bit.
(Luna, meanwhile, has much more faith in Twilight than Twilight herself would ever be comfortable with. Between the Nightmare and the Tantabus, who can blame her?)
I love little looks like this at things you know happened but took place off-screen. This was a conversation that had to happen between the sisters, and this take feels.. right? Natural? It suits their minds well.
Also,
That is such a wonderful line.
10944949
I apologize if I came across as blaming you, that wasn't my intent at all. You did a great job creating a motive for Celestia and Luna's decision! As opposed to the show's explanation of [null]. My gripe was purely with how the show handled it.
10944946
I can go with this Maretime Manor idea...it has Andy Price's illustration on it...
I'm assuming this is an IDW comic story? Which issue?
10944713
I didn't much like it, either. Deliberative Celestia just throwing it on Twilight's back and walking off?
Nuh-uh...
Amd poor Luna playing tagalong to Celestia? Let's just reinforce the "Little Sister" trope even more...
I would have appreciated a Luna/Twilight diarchy for a time...
I think the season nine retirement arc was badly written enough that no single fic could ever make total sense of it, but I'll give you this, FOME; you certainly made a valiant effort of it.
10945271
Issue 98.
10945510
TYVM. I'll hunt it down...
Totally thought I commented...apparently I didn't so heres a comment instead.
Ps. Liked it. The only thing I wished for more stuff would be more description writing. Like just the whole maze deal could of aided that wee bit of mystery...but...I understand if that was not your intention. Though from summary it was what I was hoping for a touch.
Cheer's!
It's probably the best that can be done in keeping with canon. I have to say I really love your "off-stage" personalities for Celestia and Luna. The beige snort was a gem!
This was great. Definitely the kind of off-screen conversation I could see between the sisters before they came to their retirement decision. It did seem really spur-of-the-moment. And nice use of those prompts.
By the way, I'm curious—
Did you mean 'left for Ponyville,' or am I forgetting something? Because I could very possibly be having a major brain fart.
10946073
You'll want to go here.
Aha, twas curious what you wrote, and now I know~
10943915
I thought Celestia assumed Novo would turn a bunch of ponies and/or hippogryphs into dragons and send them north to wipe out the Storm King's forces.
Aren't they the least bit concerned about how long Twilight has to actually live? If she's not around thousands of moons from now, the tribes could well drift apart and the magic go away.
10948085
And so the wind whispered through the leaves, "G5"
10948206
People are always talking about how Twilight messed up as if she's still around by then. She's mythology to Sunny for a reason: she didn't live forever.
10948237
Or she disappeared into seclusion, disillusioned by ponies ignoring or twisting her teachings...
Either way, I was agreeing with you.
10948334
I'd figured. Hmmm. My guess is that towards the time they get ready to crank out Gen 6, Twilight and the others will wind up being living relics like Starswirl's group is.
You know, as good as this story is, it does bring what I feel is one of the final season's biggest problems into sharp focus. Because, while I do feel Celestia's decision to be questionable, to say the very least, I honestly think that what happened and what the characters did was far less of a problem than how those events and actions were framed.
They were framed, for the most part, as a full-on, unabashed happy ending, even with the bumps in the road getting there. And... I'm sorry, but they just aren't. I'm not saying it's a tragedy or anything, but the fact that the show seemed so eager to gloss over the more melancholy aspects of it only served to make them glare out all the more and cause the narrative to seem forced and in-denial. Maybe that's just me, it's possible that feeling seemed way more prominent to me than it really was, but it's how I saw it.
Regardless of that, though... yeah, it is pretty sad. Regardless of the reasoning - whether because Celestia thinks she has to abdicate, because she feels Twilight is simply better or because she's hated ruling for a long time and is finally casting it off - she's still stepping away from the role she's filled for over a millennium. If there is a way to portray that without some sorrow somewhere, I can't see it. And that's not even getting into how Twilight feels, whether she even wanted the job and how much the appointment was a gift or an imposition. And the main reason I'm not considering that is because it barely feels like the show did.
But, again, that's just how it seems to me and I'm not going to pretend my view of things is even credible, never mind absolute. Regardless, it's a really good story. Just one that makes me feel... extremely ambivalent. Which, to be fair, in this case seems like a sign it's doing something very right.
This was a cute little story. I always did feel that the premise of Season 9 felt a tad rushed, and this did a good job of exploring how Celestia would have gotten to the point where she would be willing to let it happen.
Neat little headcanon, and one that matches my own. For Celestia to abruptly retire because she is feeling left behind and unable to meet the challenges of the day (all for the good of the Realm) is probably one of the most sensible explanations out there.