Babel

by BaeroRemedy

The Way Things Should Be

“How is Flurry Heart doing, Captain? We have not heard from Cadenza in quite some time.” Princess Luna raised a hoof to move some of her star-laden mane from her face as she looked up at the armored stallion across from her. The regent of the moon did her best to smile at the guard and motioned to a seat across from her. “Please, Shining Armor. We could use a little break as could you.”

Twilight Sparkle’s brother had escaped the Event relatively unscathed compared to other unicorns. He had no obvious deformities such as fangs or lengthened legs, nor was his horn as sharp as a spear. He still just looked like Shining Armor, one of the rare and lucky few.

“They’re doing okay.” Shining Armor took a moment to adjust his armor before sitting down in the seat on the other side of the alicorn’s desk. “I wish I could’ve gone with them, but you need me here.” The stallion’s voice quieted the longer the sentence went on, but it was juxtaposed by his back straightening and his chest puffing out a bit more. “She’s the princess of the Crystal Empire, that was always her destiny. I’m meant to be here—” He pointed a hoof to the floor. “—nowhere else.” The sadness in his eyes, the loneliness, betrayed his words wholeheartedly. “They’ll be okay.”

“And you?” Luna asked as she pushed the parchment she had been studying to the side. “It cannot be easy being away from your family so long in this environment. You must worry.” It was becoming easier to do this, talk to ponies so candidly. It was nice to just engage with another living being, who was fully awake, on this level.

“Yeah, of course I do.” Shining grumbled as he brought a hoof up to adjust his armor again.

In days gone by the purple and gold armor that was a family heirloom fit snugly on the unicorn’s body, now it hung loosely on his smaller frame. It didn’t quite matter if he was the captain of the royal guard or not, he only took his rations. His fair share. Luna admired his stubborn patriotism in that regard.

“Will you visit them?” The princess queried, trying her best to smile while hiding her fangs. “We assure you, We can arrange some time off for you to do so. Nopony should be away from their family for so long.” Being the only functional and involved princess in Equestria meant a couple of things; stress, not enough sleep, and much needed pony skills. Luna was still working on that last one and was trying to be as kind and accommodating as she possibly could be to anypony around her.

“Not while we’re having riots on the street outside, Your Majesty.” The prince rejected the offer with a shake of his head. “If things stabilize here, then maybe.” Neither pony could ignore that he said ‘if’ instead of ‘when’, but neither could address it. She would consider it a slip of the tongue for now. “Anyway…” Shining cleared his throat and slowly rose from his seat. “...the ambassador from Dragon Lord Ember is waiting outside. I should let you deal with that.”

“Is Spike with them?” Luna stood as he did. “If not, please make sure he is before I speak with this ambassador. I want someone who has history with these creatures on my side.” The last thing she wanted was to face a diplomat alone, that was more Tia’s specialty.

“No, I’m afraid he’s with Princess Celestia for the day.” He let the name hang in the air for a moment before continuing. “He’s helping her with that...project she’s been focused on. Do you want me to get him anyways?”

“No…” Luna slumped back in her chair with a sigh. “Let them waste time. We will handle this.” She rolled her eyes with a fraction of a sneer as Shining Armor turned his back. “Send this ambassador in and let Us get this over with.” The door closed and left her alone, for how long was anypony’s guess.

The long-absent princess brought a hoof to her face and let out another long sigh. She gave her tired and overworked eyes a rub and kept them closed for a minute. Being the only one in this room, this makeshift office, was not easy. A few months ago they had even moved Tia’s desk out because the elder alicorn refused to enter the room and use it. Now it was just Luna...and in that regard she understood her older sister a little bit more.

She hated it.

There was a knock on the door and it kicked a century’s worth of etiquette training into effect. Where before she had been slumped and limp in her chair, in an instant she was sitting upright with her back straight, chin high and chest out. The long protrusion on her head lit up in a soft blue light for a moment as it fixed the field of stars she called a mane around it.

“Enter.” She commanded, any hint of the small and frustrated pony that had just been occupying the same space as the mighty Princess Luna vanishing with that last flourish. She put a hoof onto her desk, her silver ornamentation eliciting a thud from the contact, as she idly gazed over the papers before her.

When the door cracked open, the princess flicked her eyes up briefly to catch sight of the creature coming to talk to her. It was a lanky reptile with scales the same shade as dirt, its underbelly a deep red. A pair of emerald eyes were narrowed and brimming with the same fire the creature held in its belly.

“Your Majesty.” The dragon’s voice was like sandpaper scraped against stone, but at the same time unmistakably feminine. It gave a small bow before taking the seat Shining Armor had occupied just a few minutes ago without prompting. “We need to talk about th—”

“—You forget yourself.” Luna raised a hoof and finally lifted her head to look upon the dragon fully. “You asked for Our time, you do not get to dictate what needs to be talked about. We will get to your issues once the prerequisites have been met.” Luna’s eyes narrowed, matching the dragon’s own. “Tell Us your name.”

“Caldera, and I’m here on behalf of Dragon Lord Ember.” The dragon did not stop and in fact the tempo of her speech picked up to prevent any cutoff from the alicorn across the desk. “The Dragon Lord has heard that you are meeting with the Changelings for a conference of some sort and she wants the dragons to be involved as well.”

“What business does the Dragon Lord have to insist on such a thing?” Luna huffed and shifted her weight a little, her nostrils flaring. “This is not a summit of some sort, this is a conversation between Us and King Thorax. The Dragon Lord was not invited because it does not involve her.”

“We know it’s some sort of reparations deal, pony!” Caldera raised from her seat, smoke billowing from her nostrils as she pointed a claw at Luna. “We are your neighbors too! We were affected by the Event just as much as they were and cutting us out won’t do anything to help you here.” The alicorn of the night had to turn her head so she could hide her face behind her mane for a moment. Frustration nearly bubbled over to anger in an instant, but she quelled it as soon as it appeared. “Like it or not, we’re on the same continent and we should be on the same team here. We get a spot at the table or else.”

Luna stood, her chair pushed backwards with enough force to hit the wall and shake one of the light fixtures overhead. She trotted around her desk slowly, her eyes never leaving the reptile who dared speak to her like that. Caldera was about half of her height, but Luna used every extra inch she had on the creature as she loomed over her.

“Are you threatening Us, Ambassador?” Luna practically growled out, her leathery wings twitching on her back as she glared down at Caldera. “We have business with the Changelings, business that we wish to conduct one on one. If the Dragon Lord would like to have a meeting as well, she can request one through proper diplomatic channels like civilized creatures do.”

“Oh.” That one word let Luna know she misspoke. She inwardly flinched at the faux pas and cursed silently as she took a step back from the dragon. “If that’s how it’s going to be, then I guess I might just stumble on down to the Zebrican embassy down the street and tell them about your little meeting. After all, how am I supposed to know whose embassy is whose? I’m just an uncivilized creature.” The dragon put a claw on her chest and feigned an offended look, knowing well that she had gained the advantage in this moment.

Luna could not grovel nor apologize. She could not show weakness even though both she and Caldera knew that the dragons now had the upper hand. Both creatures studied each other over a pregnant pause. Luna had said something she should not have, she should have deescalated the situation and worked something out with Caldera. This was foal’s play, to get tricked into losing your temper and saying something haphazardly.

This was Celestia’s’s specialty, not hers.

“We will send a correspondence to King Thorax. If he approves such an arrangement, then it will be done.” Luna bravely ran away from the confrontation, not eager at all to prolong it and stumble again. She nodded at Caldera then to the door. “You are dismissed.”

Caldera smirked and headed towards the ornate door that separated Luna from the rest of the world. The portal to the outside opened and the dragon left with a mocking wave to the alicorn. Then the door closed with a click.

“Luna, you are smarter than that.” She chided herself as the horn on her head came to life. Pure darkness poured forth from the spear poking through her mane, filling the room quickly and submerging the princess in silence and the comforting black of night. “You cannot keep giving into your emotions like that. You know that. What would Starswirl say?” She pondered her old mentor’s less-than-sunny disposition and the myriad of lessons he had passed on. “Be stronger than the beast known as instinct. Conquer emotion and topple want.” She repeated the words said so often to her by the old sorcerer. “Become a creature of necessity and logic.” She could repeat it all she wanted, try to absorb those words over and over again, but they would never sink in.

She was never a good student.

After a few deep breaths and some calming thoughts, the darkness in her mind and in the room receded gently. The alicorn looked around and sighed, taking in just how alone she was again. If Celestia had been here they could have handled that situation perfectly, with Celestia placating Caldera and Luna putting on the pressure. ‘Good Princess/Bad Princess’ didn’t work when only the bad princess was available.

Along with her temperament, that was something else she had been neglecting lately. Celestia. The elder alicorn had been held up in a room she had annexed on the top floor of the hotel-turned-castle for days now, working on some project she had deemed more important than running Equestria with her sister.

Perhaps it was time to check on her.

Princess Luna disappeared in a flash of blue light and reappeared a few floors higher, right outside a massive set of double doors. It was the entrance to an executive suite that spanned the entire top floor, it even had its own pool and hot tub. In better times, it was the crown jewel of almost all of Manehattan. Now, it was where one of the princesses of Equestria spent all of her time.

Luna pushed open the door without knocking, confident that if anypony was allowed such a privilege it would be her. However that confidence evaporated as she finally laid eyes on what exactly her sister’s project was. The room by itself was beautiful, heavily inspired by Canterlot aesthetics: white marble decorated in purple and gold...but the new decorations added by Celestia decidedly clashed with the native decor.

Canvases lay about the space, each adorned with the face of a different pony painted by an unpracticed hoof. The colors on the ponies’ faces ran like the paintings themselves were crying. The haze around their bodies were of rough hoofmarks and manic scrapes as the dark, almost black, backgrounds encroached on the faces of the ponies depicted. There were possibly one hundred of these paintings taking up every available space in the vast room and none of them were unicorns

Luna recognized a few, attendants from Canterlot castle and shopkeepers or nobles from Canterlot proper. Then there were some of the guards, including Celestia’s personal guard who was one of the diarch’s closest friends before Luna’s return.

“Portraits of the damned.” Luna muttered to herself as she touched one of the paintings lightly.

“Kind of.” Luna’s head turned to face the new voice, one of Twilight Sparkle’s assistant and adopted little brother. Spike sighed as he put a new portrait against a free space on the wall, one that Luna immediately recognized as Soarin, the second-in-command of the Wonderbolts. She immediately frowned at the portrait and furrowed her brow.

Luna remembered flying through the streets of Canterlot, chasing two pegasi clad in blue and gold and racing across the city. Luna remembered shooting a lance of magic at the two ponies and hitting one, the pale blue one...Soarin. He fell to the ground and Celestia chased after while Luna kept on the trail of the other. Luna remembered his scream as Celestia caught him.

“Portraits of the ponies she killed.” Luna mumbled and corrected herself.

“Yeah.” Spike confirmed with a sigh. “She’s eating and sleeping at least...but she’s usually painting. She doesn’t stop. I don’t even know if it’s helping.” The little dragon waddled over to Luna’s side and crossed his arms. “What do you think?”

“We think it is unhealthy to dwell on such things.” Luna scanned the paintings, identifying the ponies she could and internalizing just how much this was to do. “We would not be here if all We did was dwell on all of the ponies We hurt in the past. We would’ve never come down from the moon all of those years ago.”

“Because you would be too busy being sad?” Spike asked hopefully.

“Because We would be dead.” Luna answered with a frown. “We wish to speak with Our sister, can you direct Us to her and give us some time alone?” She rested a hoof on the dragon’s head and patted the ridge of spikes that gave the little beast his name.

“Yeah, of course Princess Luna.” Spike shot a weary smile towards the princess of the night then jerked his thumb towards the door he had come out of. “She’s in there, the bedroom. She never really leaves either...Twi or I have to bring her food.”

“Take some time to yourself, friend.” Luna smiled softly at Spike and gave him a pat on the back. “You have done well and deserve a little respite while We spend some time with her.” Spike nodded and slumped a little at the praise and temporary dismissal. “We saw some fresh gems being carted in downstairs. Please, go enjoy yourself.” That was all it took for Spike to jog briskly off towards his reward.

Luna steadied herself and walked towards her sister’s chambers. The door wasn’t closed, it was wide open and a light hum emanated from inside. The interior, much like the rest of the suite, was covered in paintings. The one big difference was the massive portrait, twice the height of Luna herself and much different than the rest of them.

The massive canvas featured what seemed to be a self-portrait of Celestia, but it wasn’t right. The entity that stared down at Luna was faceless and loomed over her like a hawk. Its ivory-white fur blotched with the splattering of red frantic strokes around the hooves and face. It drained into the black world behind it, its mane wisping away into the darkness like paint spilled in water. It looked at Luna and almost smiled with the blood dashed across its muzzle.

It looked nothing like the pony that sat before it and diligently worked on a brand new canvas. Celestia now had lost her mane that mirrored the morning sky and it was replaced with the colors of summer’s dusk: fierce oranges and vibrant purple and pinks. It was a mix of the fiery mane Celestia had while changed and the natural colors of the sky of her original form. The alicorn’s legs were longer than they had once been, longer and skinnier. If one were to listen closely they could hear a mouth full of sharp teeth clacking together in concentration.

“We see you are taking your new hobby quite seriously, sister.” Luna’s tone was soft and small as she trotted up to her elder sibling and sat beside her. “We did not know you had a talent for art.”

“Twilight told me I should try to express myself through art.” Celestia stated plainly as she sat her brush down and took a deep breath before she cast a critical gaze around the room at the paintings. “Do you think they remember me, Luna? Wherever they are, do you think they remember what I did?”

Luna remained silent, worried that she would once again say the wrong thing.

“I remember them.” Celestia continued. “I remember every single one of my little ponies...I’ll never forget them or what I did to them.”

Luna was going to ask if Celestia was okay, but that answer was as plain as day.

Comments

[Hotel_Chicken]

Ooooh, I see. News of Elytra's recovery has reached Luna's ears. And, by the looks of it, it seems like Ember is catching on too and wants to be with her friend.

I wonder how everything would break down if the truth was revealed. That it wasn't some god or demon that caused this mess, but a single pony, one unicorn who was able to ruin everything. Of course, the facts aren't that cut and dry, but who cares about facts when you can summarize it so quickly?

[Write Flyer]

Dang.

Looks like Celestia's in a very bad way after what she did, and Luna's barely holding on under the weight of responsibilities.
at least Cadance seems to be recovering well, if she's taking Flurry back up to the Crystal Empire, although maybe she just wants the space.

Still no sign of Twilight, though. Even if Spike's there this can't be a good time for her, having to look after a traumatized Celestia on top of everything that's already happened.

Also, Caldera sucks. She's like the anti-elytra

[Paradox_Az]

Alright, so... it's somehow even better and worse than I had hoped/feared for Celestia. Certainly alive, and, well, still going on... but going on in circles about what happened. And while Luna still have a good head on her shoulders, it's obvious she's laking some experience (like, a thousand years or so), and that all isn't quite well right now.

I can only imagine how it'll be later on. And I wish I could see it already

[Tech_Priest]

You know I just realized, given that Changelings don't "eat" regular food and Equestria is currently understaffed for most things, couldn't they hire temporary changeling workers who get paid in love to help in farming and supplies and other things? Given the sheer trauma that Equestria just went through the changelings will end up looking downright harmless.

[BaeroRemedy]

10999975
Wonder what Luna is going to talk with Thorax about

[Silver Starlight]

The portraits...damn. If there had only been a couple dozen or so, this might be a healthy exercise. Thousands though? By the time she's halfway done she'll have forgotten most of the rest, and that'll only send her deeper into guilt. And yet, what else can she do in such a broken state? It's just tragic.

On a less serious note, imagine somepony watching from Pony Heaven and being honored that they were the first to be painted...and then annoyed as time goes on and all those other portraits see the benefits of practice.

[assbutt2]

Hell yeah! Been waiting for this. :D

[FanaticLunarist]

This is where the emotionally distraught fun begins

[AortaHeartless]

Oh, dear. I'm kind of scared of how Cadence is dealing with all of this.

[Cold Spike]

I really shouldn't be reading this... ugh. Stupid morbid curiosity.

[Crio-Kitsune]

Don't blame yourself Celestia when you weren't in control. If anything, Bullion is to be blamed and is hopefully being tortured for his sins right now.

[Crio-Kitsune]

11335341
Ooh, got my first hate downvote.