Courageous and Reckless
Hope and the Horizon
A My Little Pony fanfic by LysanderasD
Zipp Storm was finally out of the castle.
It was getting dark. The sun was mostly set and she figured her sister was probably pacing on her balcony or something, caught up in her own head like normal. And since there was no talking to Pipp once she got into one of her moods, that left the list of entertainment options that didn’t involve pulling something up on her phone pretty limited. And besides, she’d been inside all day, and by the heavens, she needed to stretch her wings.
The castle at the peak of Zephyr Heights was ancient, and like the castles in the old stories it was full of secret passages and hidden doors. Zipp had learned where most of them were; they made for convenient getaways when she got caught trying to fly in the hallways. Even better, like now, they made for excellent escape tools. A way out of the castle when, as far as anyone else was concerned, she’d already turned in for the night, and there was a lump under her covers just in case anypony thought to sneak a peek into the little princess’ room.
The streets of Zephyr Heights were awash in the glow of the streetlamps and the half-moon overhead. But the city never really slept, even though it was dark outside. Such was the energy of Equestria’s capital. She wasn’t alone on the streets, but she hadn’t expected to be. Pegasi trotted this way and that, still chatting, some prodding their phones with their wings. Here and there there were guards stationed, but Zipp knew their patterns and their routes and slipped around them and between them by using the traffic, and soon she was outside the city proper and nopony was the wiser.
Probably.
She’d been doing this for a long time. It was irresponsible, and part of her felt guilty for that. But from a young age she’d felt that there was something deep inside her that didn’t want to be contained, that hated the whitewashed walls of the castle, that felt so much more at home on the bright streets of the city itself… and beyond.
In the old days, it was said, when there was still magic in Equestria, Zephyr Heights had been swathed in powerful spells that kept the city temperate despite its elevation, and suppressed much of the noise of the wind from the outside, and the noise of the city from disrupting the tranquility of the mountain. Well, Zipp didn’t know much about magic; most of the ponies who did said that it was gone now, if it had ever existed in the first place, but there was definitely something about leaving the city that felt like crossing a threshold. You could round a small bend in one of the well-traveled mountain paths and the city would disappear behind the rock, and it was like it was never there; with the thinner atmosphere up here, there wasn’t enough air for the light from the city to get caught on, and so it was a matter of a few steps until all was quiet and calm and the only light came from the moon.
Zipp trotted off of the path and out toward the edge of the mountain, a sheer cliff for hundreds of feet before the shallower slope resumed. A long time ago, this had been the original railway up the mountain from the lowlands below, but that rail line had been shifted for safety reasons. There was a monument to the so-called Friendship Express somewhere along the trail, but that wasn’t what she was interested in. She came to the edge, sat, and closed her eyes. Then she spread her wings and felt.
Pegasi couldn’t fly. That was a fact. It had been true for as long as Zipp had been alive. There were some older ponies who remembered being able to lift off, once upon a time, but Zipp had never been able to really catch the wind beneath her wings for much more than a momentary glide, if that. The fact was that they were simply too heavy. Magic had been a big part of pegasus flight, but there was no magic any more. As far as Zipp was concerned, there never had been.
But when she felt the wind like this, she believed. This was it. This was what she lived for. There was something deep, primal, about the way the wind felt in her wings. She could see it, feel it, the way she’d dip and dive and slice through the air, making the very sky her plaything. She wanted it—desire for the sky burned deep inside her, had burned as long as she could remember. That great expanse, so huge, so impossibly vast—and yet there was a part of her that knew, that knew, she was destined to see it all.
To spread her wings here and leap off… well, as much as Zipp wanted to, it would have to be her last flight as well as her first. She could glide for a bit, sure. But gaining height? Out of the question. And there was no way she could last, gliding all the way to the ground.
But it didn’t stop her from wanting it.
Flurry Heart paced.
She was a pacer. She thought best while she was on her hooves. Back when the Crystal Empire was still something worth talking about, there was a rumor that she’d worn a groove in her personal chambers, a rumor she’d never done anything to quash.
She’d always been fidgety. Her parents had told her as much. Even when she was a baby she had a hard time sitting still. It had caused no small amount of trouble for Sunburst, himself something of a sedentary pony who would much rather Flurry have been a good student than a good athlete. But she couldn’t think when she was sitting still.
Mom had told her once that she, Cadance, had been born a pegasus. Flurry believed it, though that was mostly because she believed that Aunt Twilight had once been a unicorn. That much was obvious, with how she kept her head in the clouds and her nose in some book. That was a very unicorn thing. But her mother never struck her as particularly pegasus-ish, and, her father had told her once, that was because a lot of it seemed to have hopped a generation.
Pegasi were fidgety. Flighty. They were naturally competitive because they had so much energy built up that finding a way to let it out without causing thunderstorms had been a problem all the way back to ancient Pegasopolis. And Flurry definitely felt that way.
It had made her a poor princess. Both when she was a young, lowercase-p princess, more known as Princess Cadance’s daughter than her own pony; and when she was older, capital-P Princess, and had taken the throne. There was a certain gravitas expected of the role, a certain dignity. But Flurry didn’t care much for dignity. Her parents had thought it might have been a phase, but when she came into her own and took the throne of the Crystal Empire after her mother’s early retirement, well, let’s just say the Empire had a bit of a shakeup.
The Empire was not the seat of power for Equestria, true enough. But the Empire reflected, like the polished gems that composed it, the very fabric of Equestrian society, the values it embodied, the things it cherished. So when Equestria changed, the Empire reflected it; this in turn strengthened Equestria’s self-image, feeding into itself. Between Flurry in the Empire and Twilight in Canterlot, the later years of the Equestrian monarchy were tumultuous indeed.
And this was what it had all led to.
Around Flurry, there was a sea of stars, though they were not really stars; nor was the path she walked on really a path; nor was she, herself, even here, in the way that normal ponies might consider being. The others had taken to calling this place Elsewhere, because wherever and whenever it was, it wasn’t Equestria, and that was good enough for Flurry. It was an abstract thing, a place and time outside of place and time where alicorns gathered… or did not gather, as the case may be. For the moment, at least, it was merely her.
Beside her, like a projector screen, there was an image of the side of Mount Canter, darkened as the Sun set, and on the edge of the mountain sat a wistful pegasus filly.
As Flurry came to the end of the path, or at least the end of the part she was walking, she pivoted, and the image pivoted with her. She stared at it as her hooves automatically began taking her back along the same path she’d been traveling for…
Well. Time didn’t mean too much in a place like this. But for a while.
Flurry had found in Zipp something of a kindred soul. She was, after all, also something of a poor princess, maladjusted to the rigidity of the throne. Zipp, too, was a pony who found she had her best thoughts, her clearest head, with open sky above and the wind on her face, rather than in some room with no windows and too many suits. The only kind of looking down Zipp Storm wanted to do was from cloudtop, and Flurry Heart could relate to that all too well.
So she’d… arranged things. Retroactively she’d arranged things for quite awhile, helping Zipp get out of the castle when she needed to clear her head. That was the nice thing about Elsewhere; looking back was as easy as finding the right window back into the real world, where here and now still meant something. Or there and then, as the case may be.
Twilight inspiring Sunny had been, by all accounts, a fluke (though, as Luna was so often fond of reminding her, Harmony does not play dice). Aunt Luna had cheated a bit by using the Dreaming, and her mother had gone so far as to arrange for a letter to be sent from a pony that didn’t really exist. But as Luna had said—if doing what they were doing was cheating, then Harmony would have put a stop to it by now, especially with Flurry stepping back from the real now as much as she had.
There were limitations, of course. If there weren’t, none of them would need to have gone Elsewhere. But when you’re given a chance to play a part in saving the world, then Flurry didn’t see the sense in not stacking the deck as much as she could.
Not much was happening with Zipp, so Flurry pulled up a few other images—an orange earth pony, a lilac unicorn, and a pink pegasus. These three—the ones her mother and the others had already made a connection with.
Sunny Starscout. Now that pony was a believer. Flurry had earned her wings for her optimism—her Hope—and even she felt that Sunny had more room in her heart to hope for a better future than Flurry did. She was kind of sad that Twilight had gotten to her first.
Izzy Moonbow. What a dreamer. What a unicorn. She reminded Flurry of her mother, though—and Flurry meant no disrespect to her mother—Izzy at least had a tendency to get up and act on all the ideas she had rather than simply think about them forever. Of course Luna would find someone who could act on her dreams. An engineer—with both the will to create and the means to do it.
And Pipp Petals. Flurry stuck her tongue out a bit. If there was a pony she cared for the least out of this little cadre, it was the preening princess. She was everything Flurry didn’t like about being heir to the throne—up to and including her fair share of vanity. But she wasn’t wanting for confidence, sure enough.
Acceptable, all three of them. But shortsighted. These three were brave, sure, but were they brave enough?
She swept the other images aside and focused again on Zipp. Hope and confidence had their places, and Flurry knew more than a little about hope. But there was something to be said for courage as well.
Zipp opened her eyes again. The sun was all the way set and the moon was casting long shadows, almost passed over the far side of the mountain. She’d been out here later than she’d meant to. Carefully, she pulled herself away from the edge, folding her wings back up and starting to trot back toward the path back up to the city.
She wished she could come out here in the daytime. She never had time to herself when the sun was up. Something about the responsibility of royalty and the ways they were and were not allowed to interact with the common pony. Zipp didn’t really understand it; as far as she knew, the only thing separating her from the common pony was the fact that her mother was a queen, and being a queen was just a title.
Either way, there was only so much she could see out here even by the light of the moon. What she wouldn’t give to see it at dawn or midday. Looking down from the castle wasn’t the same. She wanted to see… how to put it? She wanted to see the world as it was, from within it, not separated by marble walls.
She hesitated as she stepped back onto the path. This part of the mountain had been green once, but not too many years ago there’d been a landslide and the whole area had turned rocky and unsteady. Zephyr Heights had rebuilt the path and opened it back up to the public, but this wasn’t the same pristine green that dominated the path below and above. Moss hadn’t even bothered to regrow over these stony spires.
It wasn’t a huge span of space. But it struck her as so wild—untamed and uncontrolled, unlike so much of her life. She would never be dumb enough to try to hop around it at night, though her heart burned with a desire to try it nonetheless. But… well, her mother had told her often enough. The line between courage and recklessness was as thin as the line of the horizon, one that pegasi of the past had often strode along with impossible swagger. But that was for the past. Now pegasi must strive for dignity and…
...and Zipp usually tuned out around that point.
Most of the mountain was dark now. She took a few steps further, into one of the remaining patches of moonlight, then stopped to look at herself, unfolding a wing and carefully examining it, stretching it, flexing it. The colored primaries caught her eye, standing out against the pale color of her coat.
Her jaw tightened and she grit her teeth. Wings weren’t fashion statements. And yet that was all pegasi used them for these days. Vanity. Preening. And all the while, the muscles that had once guided pegasi through the skies atrophied and faded, and the bravery and courage they were famed for in all the stories faded too.
We could be so much more, she thought. We should be so much more. And yet we just sit up here on our mountain and preen. What a waste, when there was so much world out there to see, so much sky to claim.
Zipp huffed, folding her wings back up and stepping into the shadow of the mountain as she trotted back up the path. Hopefully it would be easy to sneak back in, so she could get some sleep and prepare for another day of mediocrity.
Excellent. Flurry pumped a hoof in satisfaction. She’d planted the idea, and now all she needed to do was give Zipp time to think on it. She spun about, preparing to step off the path and leave Elsewhere, and ran snout-first into an impossibly soft, warm off-white coat.
She squeaked in surprise, wings spreading slightly, before she felt herself wrapped in the inexorable but gentle golden corona and carefully pushed back a short distance until she could look the much taller alicorn in the eye.
One of Celestia’s eyes was hidden behind her aurora mane, and the look on her face was one of stern, firm, but gentle disappointment. The one visible eyebrow arched, and Flurry flushed, looking down at the stars beneath her, wings shuffling nervously.
“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” said Celestia, in her Princess Voice, which was much quieter than the Royal Canterlot Voice but no less frightening in its intensity.
Flurry bit her lip.
“The astral plane,” Celestia continued, “is a place of observation and reflection. It is where we go to observe ourselves objectively and reflect on everything that has happened to Equestria in our absence.”
Flurry flicked her eyes up enough to look at Celestia, but still said nothing.
“It is not a tool to interfere with the passage of events.” Celestia’s voice never rose, but even here, in this place where temperature was more suggestion than fact, Flurry could feel the air begin to approach uncomfortably hot. “We, all of us, have left our thrones. Equestria is not ours to rule or direct any more. Our little ponies have chosen their own path, and it is not our right to interfere with wherever that path leads.” The visible eyebrow lowered, leaving her looking slightly angry. “Don’t you give me that sullen look, young mare. You know the rules as well as I do.”
Flurry started to laugh.
Celestia was clearly thrown off by this, taking a step back and opening her mouth slightly.
Flurry’s laughter intensified, and soon she raised a hoof to rub the tears from her eyes. “Rules!” she hooted. “You always were about your rules, weren’t you, Celestia? And how far did your rules take you?”
The Sun Princess opened her mouth, but Flurry was still speaking.
“A millennium of stagnation. Waiting for change to come to you rather than instigating that change yourself.” Flurry shook her head. “Your little ponies might have loved you for it, but I got to read the history books only after you and Aunt Luna abdicated, so my view of the Celestial Period is—let’s say—slightly more objective. Twilight did more in ten years than you did in a thousand!”
Flurry spread her wings and leaned forward in a pegasus-style threat display, calling up an entire plethora of images. The statue of the villainous triad, and the statue of the Elements ensconced at the heart of Canterlot. Griffons and changelings standing side by side and smiling. Luster Dawn and Sunset Shimmer, Starlight and Trixie—so many others, so many images, surrounding the two alicorns in a sphere of memory incarnate.
“See this? All of this?” Flurry spat. “Twilight did this. Twilight did all of this. You might have set her on the path, but she was the one who walked it, not you. So stop being a high horse about rules—your rules accomplished nothing compared to what Twilight and I did in a fraction of the time.”
Celestia’s horn glowed golden and she spread her own wings. The images faded as she seemed to loom over the smaller Princess. There was a look of imperious anger on her face for a moment—and then she let out a long breath through her nose, sitting back and folding her wings gently at her sides.
“While I do not appreciate your tone,” Celestia said with careful, brittle dispassion, “I understand the sentiment of what you are trying to say. Nevertheless, we all agreed that this was for the best and that we would let events play out as they would…”
“And it doesn’t take a prophet to figure out how that would all end,” said Flurry, not bothering to hide the coldness in her voice. “Ponies might have revered you once, but none of them ever thought to call you out on your greatest vice. You’re so apathetic. So willing to maintain stability that you aren’t willing to take risks. And if we’d all abided by the rules, Equestria would waste away to nothing.”
Celestia’s eyes narrowed.
“Twilight wrote a book, and sure, it’s a great book, full of happy memories.” Flurry tried to calm down, flicking her wings irritably as she stood and began to pace across the path, never letting her gaze leave Celestia’s. “And sure, it’s survived this long, and it’s found its way to a pony that could really use it. But this isn’t the thousandth year any more, Celestia. There’s no happy small town waiting for Sunny to drop in on; there’s no festival that’ll bring ponies together for one big dramatic event. Everything that worked last time won’t work again, and trying to manage Equestria like it’s a chess game from all the way out here is just asking for the board to go awry. Don’t you see?”
The Sun Princess rolled her shoulders, looking somewhere past Flurry rather than directly at her. “I do see.”
“Well, it’s about time,” Flurry said slowly, with a huff, and sat. The outburst had drained her, and her ears flicked in quiet irritation while she tried to think of what to say next.
There was a brief silence.
“You’ve wanted to say that for a while, haven’t you?” Celestia asked eventually. There was no anger in her voice. Actually, it was hard for Flurry to place exactly what Celestia was feeling.
The younger princess eventually gave a nod.
Celestia’s tone was thoughtful, and when she spoke again, it was slow, deliberate, carefully choosing her words. “I am… a pony of habit, true enough. And I am not used to change, certainly not change at so rapid a pace. Rather than continue to chase after a world that was outpacing me, I chose to accept that it would no longer need me. When we first went Elsewhere, I resolved only to look, and never to touch.”
“You do deserve some credit,” Flurry said, though she was still pouting slightly. “Twilight owes most of who she is to you. I don’t think either of you would admit it, but it’s true.”
“Perhaps,” said Celestia, dodging the admission. “Please, Flurry, understand. Neither Luna nor I wanted to be gods. Yet the circumstances of our rule, and our preternatural lifespans, led ponies to believe we were. I had to become what they saw I was. Do you see? I was dragged along by pony society more than I shaped it, though none of the history books will see it that way—but that does not absolve me of my desire to cling so tightly to stagnancy. I will take that blame.”
Flurry watched as Celestia’s gaze drifted again. The Sun Princess raised a hoof, pulling up an image of Canterlot from the oldest days, before Zephyr heights. “Discord had… scarred me. Scared me. Left me afraid of what I might do were I to really exercise the power they gave me. So I resolved to be gentle, to guide Equestria by the merest touch of my will rather than the raw strength preferred by my sister. This was… the first divide, and certainly not the last.” She took a deep breath. “And yet—to interfere as you have…”
“Not just me,” said Flurry. “Luna and Mama too.”
“I should have guessed as much,” Celestia admitted, and for the first time there was something like a smile on her face. “Neither Luna nor Cadance would be content to let things continue down this path. Nor would you. Only I was content to let Equestria slowly rot.” She clicked her tongue, then continued more quietly, as though to herself. “Stupid nag. What were all the friendship lessons for, then?”
Celestia stood, and Flurry stood with her. “I am sorry for… my attitude,” Celestia said gently.
“And I’m sorry for yelling at you,” Flurry replied, suddenly feeling sheepish.
The elder alicorn laughed. “It is certainly not a feeling I am used to. And it was an act that required no small amount of courage.” She nodded, and finally met Flurry’s eyes. “So. Since I seem to have arrived late to the plan, would you be so kind as to fill me in, Flurry Heart?”
Flurry grinned. “First I need to manage a little more mischief. And since it’s to be in broad daylight, maybe you’d like to get involved? Sun Princess?”
“Perhaps I would,” Celestia murmured. “Yes—I think I rather would like to get involved in some mischief.”
Zipp jerked awake when the sun brushed against her face. She groaned and rubbed at her eyes, sitting up in her too-large bed. “Thought I closed the window last night…”
She rolled out of bed and trotted over to the window. As she raised a hoof to adjust the blinds, something caught her eye, and she leaned a touch closer.
She’d never noticed, but she could see the path she took out of town from here. Was it really that close to the castle? Zipp was always so busy sneaking that she’d never considered how long it might take.
It was sunrise. Normally she slept in a little later than this, but…
Something danced at the edge of her consciousness. An idea. Her ear flicked as she pondered. Sunrise and sunset involved changing of the guard. That meant there was a small gap of time where nopony was looking.
She was a little shocked to even be considering something so mischievous.
But the line between courage and recklessness was as thin as the line of the horizon, and what kind of pegasus would she be if she didn’t strive to walk it?
She trotted to her door and carefully opened it. The hallway was empty. Zipp grinned a cocky sort of grin. Yes, she thought. Maybe today she’d go for a bit of rock climbing after all.
Also LikedSimilarAuthor
- LysanderasD · 4.4k words · 185 5 · 2.6k views
- LysanderasD · 4.5k words · 214 2 · 3.6k views
- LysanderasD · 4.2k words · 251 7 · 3.4k views
- LysanderasD · 2.9k words · 483 10 · 7.4k views
- The 24th Pegasus · 2.8k words · 229 5 · 4.3k views
- Quoterific · 2k words · 116 4 · 2.2k views
- Art Inspired · 1.2k words · 153 3 · 3.3k views
- Axolotl222 · 4.5k words · 95 3 · 2.5k views
Stats
Page generated in 0.166 seconds
Total duration
822 users online
642,042 hits today, 2,782,760 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.®
Celestia's record speaks for itself. Precious few states last a millennium and more - Twilight's and Flurry's seem to have collapsed in the span of a generation, with all the attendant effects on trade, productivity, interconnectedness, learning, and life expectancy that one would expect. More, actually - not content with contracting into a petty state like the earth ponies and pegasi, the unicorns have collapsed into being an outright non-state people. If Celestia's statesmareship had a fault, it was abdicating in favor of such manifest incompetents.
The charge of stagnancy doesn't stick either. The Pillars found the realm far from familiar.
I've never managed to get around to finishing the story where I delved more into it, but yes, Celestia represents stability and stagnation. I don't know if Discord scarred her as much as Luna's banishment did, but at any rate, bravo on this one.
10960423
Stagnation of what sort? Not social or technological or political - unless we are to suppose that Equestria had telephones (as in Manehattan) or hydroelectric power (as in Ponyville), or a comprehensive rail network a thousand years before Twilight's time (all of which seems unreasonable); or that it was always a unified society ruled by a single powerful empire (both of which we know for a fact are not true).
State longevity alone does not imply stagnation. Eastern Rome survived as a state for a millennium and its incarnation in 1400 would have been unrecognizable to someone from the fifth century. What it does imply is increased across-the-board quality of life for its citizens over non-state peoples, cultural exchange, and attendant developments in learning and technology - state collapse implies the opposite.
We know the realm of Equestria made things better across the board within its territory, the Pillars say as much in Shadow Play. So what's supposed to be the downside?
10960394 Amazing. Every word of what you said was wrong. One generation? You really think all this happened in, what, a hundred years or so? Two-hundred? Hell no. Equestria's founding was a tale told for well over a thousand years. An era doesn't get labeled "ancient" in only a century or two, and given the Equestria we saw in The Last Problem, the idea that that utopia, created by Twilight and her friends, only lasted a couple of centuries is obscenely stupid and hilarious in how dumb it is.
I love meeting people who pretend the show they claim to love didn't progress past season 1. It's so much fun being exposed to blatant ignorance.
Flurry puts it pretty well, but let's expand on this, shall we?
Yeah, if the Mane 6 and Spike had taken over back in Season 1, what you're saying would certainly be accurate. But that's why they were groomed for the role. Dragonshy is literally a diplomatic mission to talk down a threat before it becomes a real problem. Yes, it would've failed if Fluttershy wasn't really good at invoking empathy in others. That's because this was Season 1, where the characters were at their most flawed, least deep levels of characterization and nopony had, really, any experience dealing with other creatures, especially not dragons.
This failure is why Season 4 featured an arc about Twilight learning to lead more than just her friends, and why Season 5's Party Pooped was literally Diplomacy 101, and was all about another sapient species and their culture. Hell, most of the Map Missions can be summed up as diplomacy training! The entire idea behind diplomacy is friendship.
And once diplomacy is down and the kingdom's defenses are set, which Twilight, unlike Celestia, basically made it impossible to Checkmate Equestria with how many creatures would step up to save it, anything else was pitifully easy. Twilight is a smart pony who loves reading. This has been the single defining character trait of hers that has never, ever not been present in her personality. After only three seasons she became a princess because of how good at friendship she got.
But now for the really important thing.
What. In the hell. Could possibly make you think that, even if Twilight didn't already have at least a basic grasp of how running a kingdom works, that she wouldn't do her damn research and/or figure it out on the job?!? All she needed to do to be worthy of ruling Equestria after season 7 was get over her tendency to panic, a tendency that had been slowly getting better by that point anyway, and far more importantly, a flaw that, after Lesson Zero, her friends have never failed to help her calm down enough to start planning things properly, to say nothing of Cadance's breathing technique which helped her immensely, even if was used rather scarcely and slightly inconsistently.
tl;dr Twilight and her friends (you know, the five ponies and young dragon who took over Equestria with her) were ready to rule by the time they opened the School of Friendship, something that also helped them figure out how to rule the kingdom. Sure, Twilight and Spike have to consider the pros and cons of new and old laws, and figure out trade routes and stuff, but they already knew how to keep Equestria and it's neighbors friendly, happy, and safe.
Seriously, even without her five best friends and kid brother, Twilight was surrounded with friends and creatures willing to give her some time to figure out the whole "Ruler of Equestria" thing at her own pace, not to mention that Celestia and Luna left the kingdom in such a way that Twilight already had a strong foundation to work off of.
Give me five examples of Twilight and company being "manifest incompetence" that they repeated more than three times. If I can't refute them, then I might buy into your bullcrap.
10960427
The Pillars were also in Limbo for at least a few years before Luna was banished. We know nothing of Celestia's time as sole ruler, which is what she's being called out for in this fic and to a lesser degree Graymane Shadow's comment. The three tribes united, but aside from technological and magical advancement, that's all that really seems to have happened between banishing Nightmare Moon and then Luna getting saved. Maybe Griffons and Yaks had some degree of alliance with Equestria, but they clearly weren't as close as they became with Twilight and company helping out, and while I haven't seen the Movie I know enough to say the same likely applies to the Hippogriffs.
Meanwhile the Changelings and Dragons and Kirins have no notable placement in Equestrian society or history that we know of from the show. Ponies knew little to nothing about Dragons and Kirins before Twilight and Company helped them out, and we don't know jack about canon Changeling history in the show-- it's pretty safe, in my opinion, to say they might not have even been known to exist before the Canterlot invasion.
10960427
While I do not particularly enjoy encouraging conflicts in my comments section, I feel a need to elaborate here.
First, if there is evidence that Twilight’s reign fell apart within “a single generation,” I have yet to see it, so I will protest you clinging to this idea as fact.
Secondly...
Your reaction seems to be a misinterpretation--which, I admit, could entirely be my fault, as I fully admit to not always writing what I mean to say. You are suggesting that I proposed that Celestia accomplished nothing over her reign, which is untrue. As you say, there is plenty of evidence within the show itself that suggests otherwise. Nor do I mean to imply that Celestia was a bad ruler; Flurry Heart, as I present her, is short-tempered and does not always say what she means either.
Nevertheless, we do see that under Twilight Sparkle’s reign, Equestria achieves a multicultural prosperity that we did not see in the early seasons, when Celestia was still firmly in charge and we were seeing Equestria before any of the sweeping changes Twilight’s ascension brought about. Yes, it is true that Equestria is different now than it was in the era of the pillars, and this is not totally unlike a member of the Roman republic being abruptly transported to the waning days of the empire. Nevertheless, Equestria as presented by season one was, in relative terms, narrow-minded and close-bordered. Dragons were threats to be dealt with by heroes, not a people unto themselves with a culture of their own. Griffons and zebras were treated with suspicion and fear rather than curiosity. Even “everypony” can have hints of equine centrism.
Celestia was a flawed ruler. Not a bad ruler, but a flawed one. I had an extremely condensed space to explore that idea, and I apologize for failing to do it justice.
10960503
And suddenly I realize how aggressive I was. Although I feel it's noteworthy that Gilda didn't really seem to have any suspicion thrown her way by anypony but Pinkie until she snapped at the party, and even then, the ponies were upset that she left the way she did, including Pinkie. Actually, I think the only pony with any real problems with the griffons was Dash, who was mostly bitter about Gilda. I know Gilda roared at Fluttershy, so obviously Flutters wasn't her biggest fan, but I don't recall her expressing any kind of issue with griffons other than Gilda.
Your other points are valid though, and I stand by my own points, but...
10960394
I do apologize for my aggressiveness. I really shouldn't be letting myself get so peeved so easily, but much like Fluttershy's shyness, I keep learning and then backtracking. Like I said, I stand by my points, but I do wish I'd presented them more calmly and I don't mean to treat you as an idiot (though I probably came off both as calling you one and making myself look like one, or at least a prick).
I'd also like to add, both to my own points and the author's, that Twilight became the ruler she was because of Celestia's guidance. Celestia allowed things to stagnate for a while, at least based on what we know from the show, but she's also ultimately the reason Twilight and company were able to do what they did. Without Celestia's Equestria, the mane six never would've united as heroes, let alone united their world like they did.
Neither of us are saying that Celestia was bad, in fact the main idea in the show and that I at least am trying to make clear is that Twilight is a better ruler than Celestia, but she only got to be better because Celestia ruled as she did and guided her in the journey to becoming a better leader in her own right. (I think LysanderasD means the same thing, but I don't want to put words in another's mouth)
10960427
It goes back to the point that Flurry Heart raised: That she and Twilight achieved more in 10 years than Celestia did in 1,000. We can see this reflected out a bit just looking at Twilight and the rapidity of the world changing around her prior to and after her ascension, and especially once she began taking a more active role in governing Equestria. Before Twilight, non-ponies in Equestria were a novelty; afterwards, they were the norm.
Some of this may have been beyond Celestia's control, and maybe what really drives the progress of a society is external pressures (of which, we see, the rest of the world was either unwilling or unable to apply to Equestria). Or maybe, thinking her a paragon, ponies were unwilling to try anything they thought might displease her, and she never bothered to encourage them to try anyway.
Or maybe, just maybe, she was so convinced that Equestria would fall apart if she was anything other than completely sure and steady, she was herself unwilling to take the risks that come with progress. Who can say?
10960584
Thank you for returning to the story and commenting with a more level head; I appreciate that you came to this story’s defense, but I appreciate more that you realized your aggressive turn. That said, if I had written this piece to communicate my ideas better, I don’t think the issue would have come up, so I take responsibility for indirectly provoking you nonetheless.
I may have spoken out of turn with the griffon comment, so I will rescind that.
This story was not originally supposed to center on this conflict, but sometimes characters strike out in their own direction and all the author can do is follow along.
As to your final comment: Yes, this is essentially what I intended to say, and if I were a better writer I’d have spent more time on carefully conveying the idea rather than pushing toward the finish line. As I have said above, I perceive Celestia as flawed, but she is the one who laid the foundation for the entirety of the events of FiM, including and especially Twilight’s ascension.
In this sense, there is value in Celestia’s cautious prudence; it’s just that, given the contrast between Equestria as presented in s01e01 and s09e26 (and the gradual transition between them we observe over the series), I cannot help but see Celestia as worse by comparison. And one does not rule a country for over a thousand years without establishing some deeply ingrained habits--habits that she herself might not be aware of, and must have pointed out to her, as Flurry does here.
In short, I think perhaps my greatest missed opportunity in this story is that I failed to point out, as Greymane Shadow did, that Celestia represents both stability and stagnation, and that there are many good results of her rule as much as there are bad ones, up to and including Twilight and the other Elements.
10960604
This summarizes my thoughts quite well. Ultimately, the looks we get into Celestia’s character are finite, and we are given essentially nothing of her thought process over how she ruled Equestria in the interim between Luna’s banishment and return. As you say: Who can say?
I personally believe in a combination of all of these factors. Celestia, as I see her, received little pressure both internally (from the ponies she ruled, who demonstrably revere her as unimpeachable and, especially early on, borderline divine) and externally (from other nations, none of whom would want to mess with the pony in charge of the Sun). And while Celestia has enough self-awareness to not let this get to her head too much (i.e., she does not think of herself as invincible the way, say, Twilight does at the beginning of the series), she came to value the resulting stability more than she valued progress, and was unwilling to take risks without some balancing factor (i.e., Luna) to reign in her ideas and desires.
I do not wish to present Celestia’s attitude in this story as vanity. I don’t think of it that way. Rather the opposite: Celestia in this story is a result of her being terrified of vanity, and thus all too eager to absolve herself of responsibility when given the chance. But she, like all of us, is her own worst critic, and perceives herself as being much worse than she is.
Between that, and Flurry’s own flaring temper, I fear that the story I presented was not the one I wanted. The fact that all of this story’s comments so far focus on this conflict is proof enough of that. There may be some revisions to this text later on to better convey what I intended.
Edited to fix a mistake in episode numbering, fix a punctuation error, and slightly expand my thoughts in one place.
Preface: apology accepted @Damon Wolf Cub. I didn't take your words or your tone personally to begin with.
10960486
Ancientry is a feeling more than anything you can assign a concrete number to. We call the period prior to the first century AD "ancient" because it's what sixteenth-century historians called the period they felt preceded the period that directly preceded their own - the middle ages. If ancientry cannot in this case refer to the second-to-last period before one's own, because we know of no period intervening between Sunny's and Twilight's; in that case, Celestia's rule would be ancient to Sunny and her contemporaries.
If, however, ancientry is a concrete measure of temporal distance, then the about 1,500 years used by the sixteenth-century scholars is a decent measuring stick. From Twilight's time, that lands you about four hundred years before Celestia's reign. FiM (excluding The Last Problem) spanned about five years of Equestrian history, judging by the number of Hearths Warmings (Hearth's Warming Eve in Season 2, Hearthbreakers in Season 5, A Hearth's Warming Tale in Season 6, The Hearth's Warming Club in Season 8, and The Best Gift Ever between Seasons 8 and 9). The Last Problem skips about fifteen years into the future, judging by how not just the ponies but also Spike has aged (that is, he's still pretty young, while the ponies are middle-aged). So we don't see too far into Twilight's reign. Judging by this metric, Sunny's time is still about 1,500 years ahead of Twilight's.
But this isn't terribly plausible, because Sunny's contemporaries know what Twilight and her friends looked like well enough to craft accurate figurines of them. By contrast, early modern Europeans had no idea what, say, Jesus of Nazareth looked like at the time they were periodizing the ancient world, and depicted him however was convenient despite him being as central or more to their culture as Twilight and her friends would be to Sunny's. We know Twilight and her friends were depicted in contemporary (unpainted) statuary, but this wouldn't have told figurine-makers what their colors were. Also telling against much time having passed, Sunny's collection also includes a banner with Celestia's cutie mark on it; if Twilight's reign lasted a long time and ended only a few hundred years before Sunny's time, you'd expect Celestia's iconography to have been forgotten, but it wasn't. For both Celestia's reign and Twilight's to still be in historical memory, it makes more sense to me that Twilight's reign only lasted a few generations, maybe as few as one.
I would also caution strongly against seeing Twilight's regime as of The Last Problem as a utopia. Seeing Equestria as a utopia in the early seasons was a not uncommon take, but it was based solely on aesthetic presentation, which is also all we get from The Last Problem. And it remained a popular take though we learned in Season 1 that Equestria had subjugated one bovine race for agricultural labor and was in the process of colonizing another's land. And even though we knew about extreme class stratification in Equestrian society, with both aristocrats like Blueblood and haute-bourgeois like Filthy Rich very much in evidence (to say nothing of the absolute fucking monarchy).
Don't confuse credentialing or training with competence. To take one example, Rudy Giuliani is a barred attorney, but is also bad at lawyering. The proof of competence is in the pudding: we know for indisputable fact that the Equestrian state collapsed after Twilight took power. It is true that during her reign Equestria was more open to the outside world, but that is an ideological project that comes second to state survival; a state can't do ideological projects once it ceases to exist. There may or may not be a causal link between Twilight taking power and the Equestrian state collapsing; it would be a real shame if there was a causal link between Twilight adopting a more cosmopolitan policy and the Equestrian state collapsing, since it would send a very unfortunate message. Also an inaccurate one - the strongest and most resilient states have historically been those most willing to welcome outsiders.
It is also clear that very little of Equestria's change in policy was instigated or executed by Twilight herself. The map pointedly didn't send her to Griffonstone - for an idea why not, see A Royal Problem, where Twilight butting into a map mission she wasn't called for only caused disaster. It was down to Pinkie and Rainbow to actually befriend the griffons. Similarly, when Twilight and Rarity accompanied Spike to the Gauntlet of Fire, they remained hidden at almost all times and did as little as possible. The friendmaking was all done by Spike. Spike was also the one who reached out to Thorax, over Twilight's objections and physical attempts to shut him up. As for the yaks, Twilight's attempts at diplomacy were actually her stepping out of line. The summit wasn't supposed to begin until Celestia arrived, but Twilight took it upon herself to start early and prove herself to Celestia. This led to utter disaster, where Twilight's inability to listen to the yaks' demands for authenticity led to their declaring war on Equestria, and Pinkie had to pull Twilight's chestnuts out of the fire. Finally, Twilight derailed the -successful, and again Pinkie-led - attempt at diplomacy with Novo and the hippogriffs by attempting to steal the Pearl of Transformation. All of this was in the second half of the series, after Season 4. It was also all before Season 8 and Twilight's big decision to open her school to foreign students, so she didn't even come up with the idea. Twilight's contributions were either minimal or counterproductive, but she did get to take the credit.
10960604
To say again, first and foremost, the state must survive. This is not just a matter of international relations or political science theory either; the one and only affirmative duty laid on the princesses of Equestria is to protect the realm. Pursuing other policy ends is both less important than, and predicated upon, state survival. Celestia manifestly managed to avoid state collapse, which we know because she handed the reins to a successor after a 1,112-year reign. Twilight manifestly did not, which we know because Equestria no longer exists by Sunny's time. Accordingly, Celestia is the better statesmare and doesn't deserve criticism from ponies whose record at statesmareship is demonstrably worse than hers. Especially if they consciously placed other priorities above state survival, in dereliction of their duty.
Ok so flurry heart was keeping an eye on Zipp Storm and she can see a potential in her that she can help other ponies to bring back Harmony and this conversation between Celestia and Flurry was pretty intense but also pretty nice and it looks like Princess Celestia is also going to how about the situation and it looks like she's going for one more Pony and we all know who that last point is I wonder how this will work out guess we'll find out in the next chapter this was pretty good can't wait for the next one keep up the good work
Also they should put a tag name for Zipp Storm and Pipp Petals
10960796
That's fair, but it doesn't mean I have to like it.
While I do get where’s Flurry’s coming from I do feel she’s selling Celestia a bit short of what she actually accomplished in her rule. She forged a civilisation almost complete peace abs harmony that gave ponies the ability to become their best selves. She was somewhat of the perfect leader that Equestria needed, almost all her issues mainly came from personal problems.
While yes it became stagnant she’s selfless enough to know when to step down, which I do love that this story touched upon.
But enough of that, I love that Celestia and Flurry did actually apologised to each other. Shows how much great respect they hold for one another and the bond they’ve forged over the years.
Also loved all the little glimpses into Flurries childhood, how the Pegasi gene “skipped a generation”. That was both adorable and hilarious.
Overall another great story and can’t wait to see how Celestia handles hitch.
Normally I give my thoughts on this story, but this comment sums them up for me:
10961512
Anyways, I really like this series. So far you've done great job with the whole "passing the torch" theme. Looking forward to Sun-butt and Hitch.
10960796
I’m going to inject myself into the conversation one last time, because it didn’t feel right for me to not address your arguments, well-presented as they are.
I appreciate your thoughts. In fact, I admire the amount you were willing to put down in this comment section. You read as someone who is highly educated and knows quite a bit about the finer points of sociopolitical... everything. Certainly you know more than I do, and have a firmer grasp of what “being a princess” means for Equestria (or for a political body in general), the responsibilities thereof, the ramifications of acting or not acting and, overall, the objective measure of success of a monarch.
I do not intend to argue with you. Objectively, much of what you proposed is correct, and I am not nearly as educated in this subject as I would need to be to attempt to debate with you. But subjectively, as the person who wrote this work, it appears to me that you have missed the point I was trying to make--which, lest I be accused of pointing fingers, is not necessarily your fault.
To expand, there is an underlying philosophy I have held throughout the writing of all of these stories. It has been present to some extent in every piece, though I have never expressly verbalized it within the text. The philosophy, in its simplest form, is this:
The survival of Equestria as a sociopolitcal body is secondary to the survival of Harmony.
This is to say that, while your astute observations on the objective success or failure of Celestia, Twilight, or Flurry as monarchs within the bounds of their political spheres are correct, they are not what I intended to comment on, and the emotional climax of the story was meant to be the fact that Flurry and Celestia apologize to each other, rather than debate success or failure. Mutual understanding is the foundation for the most powerful force in the setting, and such a force is not bound or constrained by the borders of a country as defined by a map.
While I would strongly hesitate to ascribe the trappings of religion to the setting of MLP, the fact remains that there is, by all accounts, an objectively benevolent fundamental force which guides the world. Harmony--that is, Friendship--is a real, tangible force in this setting; the Tree of Harmony expresses an identity and a will, and within the context of FiM, the world undergoes periods of chaos (whether Discord is overtly involved or no) and then periods of harmony; this is to say that the world itself follows a sort of narrative arc. It is subject to, subservient to, the nature of storytelling, because Harmony strives ever for happily ever after. And Twilight and the other princesses are aware of this; they bow to it. That was one of the core ideas of Your Faithful Disciple.
To wit, while the survival of the state is paramount, within the context of the setting of MLP generations 4 and 5, there is another perfectly valid and objective measure of success, which is the ability of Harmony to exist and propagate itself; this, by its nature, leads to prosperity and cooperation on a grand scale. Equestria as a state is irrelevant to Harmony; at best, it is merely a vehicle. Utopia is not a thing presided over only by pony princesses.
The way the history books observe the princesses and the way society as a whole observes them are thus, by definition, deeply distinct, and a failure by one measure is not a failure by the other necessarily. More specifically, the collapse of Equestria as a state some time following Twilight’s assumption of the throne may not be an objective failure by both measures. This, itself, is an important detail; this is not the same thing as saying the collapse of Equestria is Twilight’s fault (after all, “Twilight will not outlive her friends”; we have no idea what happened).
Stability is a valuable thing, and Equestia owes much of its prosperity to Celestia’s willingness to be stable. But willingness toward stability is, over a large enough timescale, the same thing as advocating for stagnation; this is the double-edged sword of Celestia’s philosophy, because an unchanging perfection (or something that tends toward unchanging perfection) is not harmonious nor beautiful. It is uncanny. Harmony thrives in controlled change (or, in a word, progress), and sometimes we find the best decisions we make are the ones that involve taking a risk.
I intend to explore this idea more explicitly in the concluding chapter of this series.
10962163
And this would be a perfectly valid position for any character who isn't a political leader to hold. A more valid position, even, than "survival of the state is paramount," because it is, as you say, a religious tenet in a world where that religion is objectively true. I'm of the opinion that one of FiM's major missteps was to attempt to apply interpersonal friendship lessons to statecraft and international relations, along with giving the main cast political power. "State collapse is an acceptable outcome of liberalizing reform" is far from the only weird conclusion to follow from this decision.
Coverart sauce: https://twitter.com/Swaybat/status/1426188435014881282 (SFW)
10962625
I appreciate that, though a link should already be available--I put the source in on the story details page. Because of the resolution of the image, the “source” link only appears if you extend the description.
10962629 Oh! My apologies. The link only appears when you click "more info". I had mouse-overed the image first, but it didn't appear.
Nice choice in art, btw. Swaybat does great stuff.
10962631
It was my second choice, but I’ve grown to like it a fair bit more than my initial choice.
Thank you for double-checking; I have no desire to be a thief, but ensuring the source is available is helpful.
Dear [PERSON],
I, Posh, have written a comprehensive review of this story’s themes, ideas, and stench. You may read this review by following this link. Hope to see you there!
-Posh
Does this mean that Mr. Trailblazer gets to be tutored by Princess Celestia, or maybe Spike, or perhaps that he won't get a story at all?
10982603
Mr. Trailblazer will indeed get tutored by Princess Celestia! I just have to get that wrapped up, hopefully before the movie drops.
Real life has thrashed me for a while, but I do still intend to publish it as soon as I can.
10982918
Tick Tock.
Howdy, hi!
I gotta say not so sure that Flurry isn't more like her mother than she thinks. Both have proven to be rather gremlin-like in their habits as of these stories. Regardless, really great work. I love the talk between Celestia and Flurry. It's a really interesting interpretation of Celestia's reign that I quite enjoy. Flurry is also so interesting in how she's the "mature rebel", someone who still has that riotous spirit, but the maturity to know when best to use it.
Anyways, fantastic as always.
Zipp definitely took a bit of a backseat here, but that's hardly something to mind given what the story was able to focus on. her meditations on the changes to Canterlot, and the arbitrariness of her royal status in contrast with the alicorns' was great, as was the worldbuilding bit of magic gradually declining over the years, with the older pegasi remembering something at least a bit closer to it.
andi am loving this interaction between Celestia and Flurry! the contrast between the oldest and youngest alicorns, pointing out Celestia's conservatism, and the reasons for it, all of it is great stuff!
Ohhh, this is another great one. Zipp gets a little less focus in comparison, but she arguably needed it the least, and I like what you did with what was there anyway. Also, I just love the mirror between her musings on royalty and risk with Flurry and Celestia's conversation. Initially I was like "Oh heck yeah get her ass Flurry!" but then also as it went on, I could understand Celestia's perspective just as well. I'm really loving this series, and both excited for the final entry yet saddened by it being the end. Though of course, there is the movie itself to look forward to after this; while I'm not expecting it to have the same level of depth that you've accomplished here, I'm hopeful to at least see the ideas here reflected in it to some extent or another
But I digress. Point is, story good!
A shame that you didn't delve more into how Zipp Storm connects with Flurry and/or Celestia but the conversation between the first and last Alicorn from G4 was great as well!