For the Star Swan

by Odd_Sarge

Who Speaks to the Stars

The engineers called the chamber ‘the Oracle’.

Princess Celestia rather preferred it just be ‘my office’.

She peered up now at the ceiling overhead. The vaults leading up to the rotund dome were painted in gold trim, leaving the walls of the room to soft hues of lavender and pinpricks of cornflower blue. The same could be said of the furniture down below, but those had nowhere near the permanence as the ceiling built into the rock of the mountain she resided in. At a moment’s notice, she could press a control on her desk to send the room running off. The ceiling moved about as much as she did.

Although she had a personal living space set just to the side of the chamber, for all intents and purposes, the Oracle—her office—was where she would continue to reside, likely through several more lifetimes.

The reason lay in the practically tiny hole at the center of the dome.

She looked at it with an intensive stare, as if expecting it to be gone. But while the option was there—once again in thanks to her over-engineered desk—she never sealed it; it was better that she not forget one of her last few purposes in this time.

The Age of Science and Magic was prosperous indeed, but magic needed time to seed in the distant colonies, while technology did not.

One day, technology would surpass magic in use.

She idly wondered if they might replace her then.

Celestia was seated gracefully on her modern throne: a simple, but plush, crimson cushion. It was easy to clean, and that was something she performed regularly with the vast swaths of magic that pooled in the interior of Canterlot Mountain. The cleaning was a necessity as well, for she’d done away with almost all interactions with her servants as the engineers had asked her to move further and further into the mountain. The walk was too great, and her needs not worth the exponential suffering.

In truth, she hadn’t had to move her office in forty years, and they hadn’t proposed any changes as of late. It appeared as though she was finally free.

She sipped at her tea to hide her frown. She knew better than that.

Today, the passing of time reinforced the weariness of her lifetimes with one more gesture. Perhaps cruel, but to many, a blessing of good health.

On cue, the desk buzzed. The furnishing was a blend of wood and steel, though it’d been given more form in the latter as the functions available increased.

She answered the buzz and green indicator light with a press of her gold-shoed hoof.

“Good morning, Your Highness. The Canterhorn guidance system has been primed for the realignment.”

“Thank you, my little pony.”

The young voiced stallion’s smile could be felt through the vibrant speakers of Celestia’s office. “And let me be the first to wish you happy birthday.”

She tittered politely, nodded as if the pony was there, and loosed the button. The speakers snapped off, and the pager’s light flicked back to darkness.

These days had long since lost their appeal.

Alone once more, Celestia’s hoof roamed to the next corner of the desk. She gently pried the protective cover off of the button, and pushed softly. The rubber fought back against her shoed hoof, but eventually relented: it depressed with a snappy click.

The room began to move.

Furniture bolted to platforms slid along the magnetic tracks well-buried into the carpet of the Oracle. The electric lamps along the walls recessed into their ports. The loose pieces of furniture were snagged in telekinetic runes to drag them away in perfect stasis. Out of the corner of her eye, Celestia spotted her lukewarm cup of tea tilted far enough to spill, but the magic kept it perfectly still.

Still seated calmly at her desk, Celestia watched it pull away from her, leaving just her, and her cushion.

Then, her ascent began.

The first ring of the massive dais reached nearly to the rooms edges. Sectioned off pieces of the circular carpet ‘split’ apart in their predefined patterns, stopping only when they’d reached several hooves off the ground. Ring after ring, Celestia grew higher and higher, until finally, she came to a stop.

She smiled at the blinking red button that had appeared beside the hole in the ceiling of the dome. She’d never backed out of the realignment process, and she intended on doing her part to serve Equestria. And to a greater extent, for all of ponykind.

Standing from her cushion, she had to duck to avoid scraping the dome with her horn. The edges of the dais were tight around her, but she maneuvered herself into position with nary a thought.

Her long horn slid right into the alignment mechanism.

Celestia closed her eyes, and loosed her wings. Her great white wingspan touched to the surface of the dome on either side. A slow warmth trickled down from above, though it was hardly hot yet.

There was an eerie hum from far above, but Celestia didn’t fret.

She lit her horn, and the sensations of the world numbed out.

Her mind began to drift. She tethered herself to Equestria before she could travel too far. In the gray world behind her eyes, and in the expanse beyond both the skies of Equestria and the greater planet, she imagined she could see the sun. The sun was a long-time friend, though they hadn’t always had the pleasure. But the sun was still a friend. And usually, the only friend she had on any given day of the year.

But today was slightly special, and they would have their time together.

With the lessons of her late student in mind, Celestia toiled with her magical might to push the sun to a fresher periapsis.

It had cost lifetimes from her little ponies, and dozens to hundreds of intertwining destinies to forge the Canterhorn into the tool of a star-befriending princess. And it cost her nothing.

But for another year, the beacon was relit, and Equestria’s reflection shone in the eyes of distant stars. Stars that fostered the planets that would each forge their own Equestria. The stars that were only just beginning to develop their own magic.

Celestia hoped they would not need her as Equestria’s sun needed her.

Comments

[Frazikar]

Someone needs some time off-the-clock, badly ...

[Bicyclette]

Celestia was seated gracefully on her modern throne: a simple, but plush, crimson cushion. It was easy to clean, and that was something she performed regularly with the vast swaths of magic that pooled in the interior of Canterlot Mountain. The cleaning was a necessity as well, for she’d done away with almost all interactions with her servants as the engineers had asked her to move further and further into the mountain. The walk was too great, and her needs not worth the exponential suffering.

love how much this introduction captures: the self-sacrificing nature of Celestia’s reign, her position as the protector and guide to her little ponies in one age, and facing the coming of the next. 

“Thank you, my little pony.”

love it every time

It had cost lifetimes from her little ponies, and dozens to hundreds of intertwining destinies to forge the Canterhorn into the tool of a star-befriending princess. And it cost her nothing.

great sentence

[redmar]

Celestia needs to ensure that other worlds actually have magic it seems. Certainly not something I've seen before.